Mess With Texas

Stephen continued with his promise to keep us updated on the Pope watch. We know that some things will remain, for example, monogrammed towels. Some things will be gone. Red shoes are out in favor of more modest brown loafers. I'm thinking of updating my shoe wardrobe, so this certainly gives me some fashion direction.

We all know Stephen is from South Carolina, but he did a pretty darn good representation of what it's like to be a Texas boy. I would love to see him in true Texas gear some day, maybe something like what these guys wear. But that's not important. What is important is that someone is trying to change Texas. And this is not about the people who want Texas to leave the United States. No, this is someone who wants to change the state from red to blue. I have been to Texas. That is going to be hard to do. You know that the Red River forms part of the northern boundary of Texas, right? So even the rivers that you would expect to be blue are actually red!

But anyway, the person who wants to change Texas from red to blue is Jeremy Bird, former National Field for Obama for America. And he has a plan to do it. He even showed up last night to talk with Stephen about the way that Texas is actually changing. Stephen was concerned that the natural order of things will be upset. The way to change Texas from Republican to Democrat is to engage all the people in Texas. Jeremy Bird said that only about 50% of the population turns out to vote which means that in Texas they have government by half the people for half the people. When Jeremy Bird threw out the "gerrymander" word, Stephen called him on it saying it is an ugly word, accurate, but ugly. The push will be to get people out to vote, fight for their voting rights and get them to the polls. In a classic case of putting your money where your mouth is, Stephen made a bet with him, a $100 bet. Jeremy said he was game. So, Stephen bet him that Bird could not get Barack Obama re-elected in 2016. Both men shook on it, so it's a legitimate bet. Come back in 2016, right after the election to see which man wins the $100.

Stephen talked about drones, you know those little planes that look like they are flying upside down. We were able to find out that use of drones can actually encourage the planting of trees.

Stephen doesn't usually name the segments when he sits down with his guest, but last night would have been a good time to have a name. I'm thinking "Scare the Pants Off Everyone" because that's what the guest was basically doing. Theoretical Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku showed up to talk about heavenly bodies, and I don't mean angels. He recently wrote the cover story, "Asteroid Apocalypse" for Newsweek magazine. The two started talking about meteors, asteroids and all things falling out of the sky onto our heads. Stephen brought up the not so recent Tunguska event. Fun times (not really!) Stuff comes out of the sky and hurls to Earth. It is probably to our advantage to try to stop this from happening. Dr. Kaku talked about lots of reasons to do the math and how we were lucky enough to dodge the bullet. Because in the past we had fishing villages rather than larger metropolises as we do today, asteroids and large meteors that decided to visit us could have easily fallen where there was no population centers.

Russia is on top of this and planning strategies to land on asteroids and urge them to change their ways and path and leave us alone. Bruce Willis might think it would be good to blow it up, but all that does is create a lot of baby asteroids still coming at us. We need to keep the asteroids intact and push them out of the way. Gee, this sort of  sounds like Star Trek.

Hollywood Directors Are a Dime a Dozen

Everyone on Fox News agrees with Stephen on how unimpressive Obama's Inaugural Speech was. According to them, it was all about big government or socialism. Here's the thing and Stephen explained it quite well. There's that show on TV, Downton Abbey. People just love that show about the rich people and how nice the rich people are and how well the rich people treat the poor people. Basically, according to Stephen, the popularity of Downton Abbey proves America loves rich guys just as the popularity of Breaking Bad proves America loves meth dealers. (I have always wondered if Downton Abbey was inspired by Downtown. I don't know, but I have wondered.)

You would have thought Stephen could have gotten Gerald Mander the Third on for the show since he talked about him quite a bit. Mr. Mander's legacy is Gerrymandering and it was the subject of The Word for January 22. Win, Lose, or Redraw. It's how the GOP is figuring to win elections. Doing what voters want just doesn't cut it any more. It is sad because the way it is now, the losing party never gets to pick the president. (Okay, just read that again and think about it.) Stephen had great commentary about all of this. He gets it. To find out more about Elections and  Gerrymandering, here's some links.

Fair Vote about Redistricting

Wikipedia about Gerrymandering

Neat YouTube about Gerrymandering featuring lions, buffaloes, jackalopes and weasels.

What it all boils down to is that instead of voters getting to pick their leaders, the leaders get to pick their voters. Not the way Democracy is supposed to work.

On to the great outdoors. Stephen started talking about our National Parks but he was interrupted. "Excuse me. We need to talk." Surprise - it was Dustin Hoffman, Stephen's guest for the show. Stephen plays a pivotal role in the movie Quintet. (He plays the spoons!) Bad news from Dustin. Stephen's parts were cut from the movie and the name was changed to "Quartet." So then Dustin Hoffman claimed Stephen was not a good actor and Stephen told him that Hollywood Directors are a dime a dozen. "Any Hollywood Directors in the audience????" asked Stephen. As luck would have it, Kathryn Bigelow was in the audience and agreed to be interviewed. So, Dustin was out and Kathryn was in as the replacement guest.

She is the director of a little movie called "Zero Dark Thirty." Stephen and Kathryn Bigelow had a brief discussion about this movie which might be considered controversial. Interestingly enough, the first commercial after the interview was for "Movie 43" which I think is quite a different type of movie. Anyway, when Stephen came back, he urged us to go see "Zero Dark Thirty" AND "Quartet." So even though he was cut from Dustin Hoffman's movie, he harbors no bad feelings. Looks like it's going to be a movie weekend for all of us.