Diggapedia

  The stories to watch, or avoid watching, in 2014: 1)       Polls Polls Polls: 2016 projections, generic congressional ballots, and finally the mid term elections. Once again we will get inundated with Quinnipiac, CBS/NYT, NBC/WJ, Gallup, Rasmussen, etc. numbers and margins of error. One thing is for certain, Congressional approval ratings won’t improve. 2)       Elections: After all the pomposity and malarkey the Democrats will retain the Senate and the Republicans will hold the House, guaranteeing two more years inaction except when it comes to naming post offices. 3)       Pundits will remind us that Obama is a drain on Democrats, Obamacare is a failure, Americans are tired of war, there is a civil war in the Republican party, and Clinton and Christie will be the nominees for 2016. 4)         Sunday Talk shows will again feature more Republicans than Democ...

1)       My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit.   To understand the soul of Israel, its duality, its hope and its condemnation you should read this book.   Here is Tom Friedman’s review and one of the most telling excerpts from the book. Tom Friedman's Review   “Bottom line, I think Zionism was about regenerating Jewish vitality.   The Israel tale is the tale of vitality against odds.   So the duality is mind-boggling.   We are the most prosaic and prickly people one can imagine.   We cannot stand puritanism or sentimentality.   We do not trust high words or lofty concepts.   And yet we take part daily in a phenomenal historical vision.   We participate in an event far greater than ourselves.   We are a ragtag cast in an epic motion picture whose plot we do not understand and cannot grasp.   The scriptwriter went mad.   The director ran away.   The produ...

  1)       Hearts Like Ours by The Naked and Famous Hearts Like Ours Video 2)       Break the Walls by Fitz and the Tantrums 3)       Bleeding Out by The Lone Bellow 4)       Rumble and Sway by Jamie N Commons 5)       Hell and Back by The Airborne Toxic Event 6)       San Francisco by The Mowglis 7)       Pompeii by Bastille 8)       The War Within by Churchill 9)       21 st Century Blues by Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duchesses) 10)    Mystic Highway by John Fogerty 11)    Red Hands by Walk Off the Earth 12)    Believer by American Authors 13)    Shake by The Head and the Heart 14)    Sirens by Pearl Jam 15)    Stompa by Serena Ryder 16) ...

1)       The fall of 60 Minutes accelerated 2)       Fareed Zakaria GPS became the only watchable Sunday Talk Show 3)       Al Jazeera America emerged, for now, as a viable alternative to profit seeking corporate network and cable news. 4)       Republican obstruction crossed the line forcing Democrats to limit the power of the filibuster threat 5)       George Zimmerman got away with murder, but Jodi Arias didn’t 6)       The war on women’s reproductive health was waged in Republican controlled states 7)       The NRA proved it has lawmakers by the balls 8)       America told regional powers and the Arab League to get their shit together 9)       China openly started flexing its regional powers 10)    Lance Armstrong finally ...

  1)       Banshee (Cinemax)…sex, murder, mayhem…where the good guys are morally ambiguous and the bad guys sociopathic…oh did I mention the sex, murder, and mayhem?   Oh and Ivana Milicevic is hot, no I mean really hot. 2)       Bates Motel (A&E)…Prequel to Psycho with Vera Farmiga’s brilliant portrayal of Norma Bates, part caretaker, all parts crazy.   Brilliant over the top performance. 3)       Getting On (HBO)…Only three episodes in, this show about the staff at a hospital rehab center is dark and witty.   What I wish Nurse Jackie could be at times, a tremendous ensemble cast featuring Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash, Laurie Metcalf, and Mel Rodriguez. 4)       House of Cards (Netflix)…Granted I am a latecomer to this series, but if there was ever a role made for Kevin Spacey, this is it.   Full disclosure, being a political geek, I am likely bi...

As part of Festivus, it is now time to air the grievances: 1)       To the media.   I am not if there was a precise moment when journalism died, but watching and listening to local news anchors who do not know the difference between Liberia and Libya, ABC News affiliate in San Francisco get punked about the names of the Asiana Airlines (honestly Sum Ting Wong?), the beltway media stuck in their DC bubble and thinking they ARE the story, the failure of Lara Logan and 60 Minutes on the third rate Benghazi story, and the partisan coverage that now rages on the 24 news cycle, I am convinced we have reached the Walking Dead moment of journalism.   Heck, even HBO’s Newsroom sucked in season two.   That being said, there were some bright spots: Al Jazeera America was a breath of fresh air in simple non-politicized news reporting, PBS Frontline for the quality of its investigative journalism, and The Financial Times for its balanced reporting. 2) ...

1)       Do people who leave their shopping carts loosely in the parking lot know they’re douche nozzles? 2)       If Jesus was white he would have stuck out like a sore thumb in Judea of 2,000 years ago. 3)       To assume Jesus was white is pure arrogance by Caucasian historical revisionists. 4)       Gotta love the Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn’s story.   Just 8 years ago he was coaching in high school and now he is coaching in the national championship game. 5)         Major League Baseball wants to ban home plate collisions.   What’s next a ban on sliding? 6)       The inability for our nation’s leaders to make any progress on gun violence in the year since Sandy Hook, is a national disgrace. 7)       If Megyn Kelly was making a joke, like she claims, then she should...

On December 14, 2012 20 year old Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT where in a matter of minutes he killed twenty young children and six staffers before taking his own life.   One year later we know Lanza acted alone but still do not know why.   One year later the same gun advocacy v. gun control battle lines are in place, legislation is stalled, and another tragedy has become fodder of politicians.   We declare war on nations, terror, drugs, poverty, but not on gun violence.   Is it because we don’t think we can win or is it because we are afraid to try? Columbine was going to be the turning point.   The same was said about Virginia Tech, Tucson, and Aurora.   Mass shootings are so frequent we forget about Mark Orrin Barton, Jeffrey Weise, Robert Hawkins, Jiverly Wong, Scott Evans Dekkrai, and countless others.   Gun control advocates call for action, and gun rights advocates call...

Lots of opinions on the deal struck in Geneva with Iran, and predictably those on the right oppose the deal and those in the center and left support it.   So what’s one more opinion. The crippling sanctions have nearly shattered the Iranian economy, the pain on Iranian Main St. is real, but has it really stopped the nuclear program?   The numbers say no.   In 2003 Iran had 164 operational; today it has 19,000 centrifuges.   Did the sanctions bring Iran to the negotiating table?   Probably.   President Rouhani’s pledge to improve the economy in the wake of the Ahmadinejad failure could only happen with a relaxation of the sanctions.   But no one should once think this means Iranian citizens have given up on their nuclear aspirations.   The question is in what form these aspirations develop. I had to laugh at Conservative Pundit Bill Kristol today on This Week when he said our allies oppose this deal.   Keep in mind, this is the same ma...