Some Hanukkah Kvetching

1.       News anchors that hold iPads and stand in front of the camera to look hip and in touch.
2.       College football teams with 6-6 records making it to a bowl game.
3.       Debate formats that aren’t debates but beauty pageants; debates involve one on one intellectual competition.
4.       Calling Bradley Manning a victim
5.       Ignoring the fact that one man, Manning, was able to access and steal such delicate information
6.       Commercials that include bastardizing Christmas Carols (bad enough) with awful lyrics (Most wonderful sale of the year)
7.       Lazy people who can’t walk 20 feet to put their shopping cart into one of the many available receptacles in the parking lot
8.       Talk shows with more than four people in the roundtable. 
9.       News talk shows that don’t report anything new.  (Maddow is the exception)
10.   Weather reporters (can’t even call them meteorologists) who insist on telling us the temperature in every city and town within the viewing area.
11.   Waiters who ask me if I want ground pepper on my Caesar Salad before I’ve tasted it
12.   Those come to the Gulf advertisements sponsored by BP.  “Yeah we poisoned the area but c’mon no harm, no foul”
13.   Flight attendants that make Nurse Ratched look like Florence Nightingale. 
14.   Media outlets that give Donald Trump the time of day.
15.   A national culture that shuns individual responsibility, eschews compromise, embraces the zero sum game, and craves the need to place blame.
16.   Ill prepared political talk show hosts who don’t challenge guests when they either lie or refuse to answer the question asked.
17.   Professional Progressives who are disappointed in President Obama and say they won’t support him like they did in 2008.  That’s like Cubs fan suddenly becoming a White Sox fan.  Yes, I am talking to you Oprah Winfrey.
18.   National Presidential Polls that don’t mean anything thanks to the Electoral College.
19.   Pop music and the death of the long playing concept album.
20.   Liberals that can’t come to grips with spending cuts and conservatives who can’t accept tax increases
21.   Citizens United and Super Pacs; officially making elections a spending race.
22.   Mock outrage fueled by Fox News and MSNBC when an off-color comment is elevated to racism, sexism, etc.
23.   Solicitors standing outside supermarkets.
24.   Overt voter discrimination and suppression
25.   Claims of War on Christmas when Christmas music is being played in public as early as October.

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