What Would Reagan Do

The animal world is full of spies. There are many documented cases of creatures of all kinds spying on one country or another. I find it somewhat hard to believe, but if Stephen reported it, then it must be true.

That of course leads right into the situation with Syria. Barack Obama is getting all kinds of negative press about his decision to do something about Syria or his decision to do nothing about Syria or his decision to do anything in between nothing and something. You know who would have done something? Ronald Reagan, that's who.

Conservatives like Stephen know what Reagan would have done. He would have stood up to Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Never mind that he did nothing to Saddam Hussein when Saddam gassed his own troops and his own people. That was the old Reagan. The new Super Reagan is the man everyone means now. He is truly SuperReagan! Stephen had a historic photo of Reagan bringing about the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. It was inspiring.

Stephen put on a little show, not exactly a puppet show but a show with action figures. He ended it by saying in the best impersonation of Ronald Reagan, "Mr Skeletor, tear down your face."

In Tip/Wag tonight, Stephen applauded Iowa's decision to grant gun permits to the blind. And he applauded bigger pants. I would love to know the story behind this, but it has something to do with the pants hanging in his closet this morning. He loves the fit. It's like losing weight without having to even try.

Billie Jean King, a Living Legend, was Stephen's guest tonight. Incredible! One Living Legend interviewing another Living Legend. For those who are too young to remember, she played tennis and played it pretty darn good. Go look here at just the first three paragraphs!

But what most people remember about her is the Battle of the Sexes. Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs played tennis. Billie Jean King won. She was an inspiration for lots of people.

Even if you don't remember that or are just too young, you are in luck. Tomorrow on PBS, you can watch American Masters Billie Jean King. It's coming up on 40 years since that famous tennis match-up and coming up on the 70th birthday of Billie Jean King.

It's on your local PBS station on September 10 at 8:00 p.m. but check your local listings so that you don't tune in too late if you are in a different time zone!

We Don't Have the Richest Guy?

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Straight men are more stressed out than gay or bisexual men. Stephen knew the reason for that - dealing with women. He quickly added how great he thinks women are. (Whew!) Anyway, that's according to a study done recently in Montreal (that's in Canada) about anxiety and sexual orientation. Go read it here, then come back because I have a few comments.

First of all, the study authors do admit that 87 people is a small sample from which to draw conclusions. And Montreal may not have the same results as say a place like Montana or Monaco. The second thing I want to point out (and this may change in that sometimes links on a page change and I have no control over that) is that there is a link to another study in the Los Angeles Times that says men are "more likely commit research fraud than women." I just wonder who did the research on that? Was it men or was it women? But I digress and that's a topic for a post some other day or year.

All this talk about stress had Stephen all stressed out and was probably the cause of him putting his foot in his mouth over and over. (Is it safe for me to say that? Does it have some meaning I'm not aware of? I hope not.) Anyway, it brought him to The Word - It Gets Worse. You may be aware of DOMA. If I read Stephen's take on Paul Clement's Take on DOMA, marriage between "Adam and Eve" is important because of unintended offspring. Okay..... um, what? I'm sure we'll hear more about this in the weeks to follow.

Colin Powell has said that there are some folks in the Republican Party that aren't exactly "with it" as far as the current state of race relations in America. He may be right because the Ku Klax Klan is pursuing new recruitment strategies in that they did a lit drop in the dead of night in many locations along the East Coast. People woke up to find flyers on their driveway urging them to join the KKK.

Stephen had many video clips for this segment about the folks in white flowing robes. One clip was of Boris Sanchez reporting that the Klan says they are not a hate group any more.

(Technical point for Boris. It is the Ku Klux Klan. That first part of their name is Ku. It does not sound the same as the word "clue." It does not have an "L" in it. The origin of the name is probably from the Greek word kuklos. I'm pretty sure I heard Boris say Klu and not Ku. So, Boris and everyone else who pronounces it wrong, get it right.)

Here's a little bit more information about the Klan. Southern Poverty Law Center has this about Ku Klux Klan. PBS has this and also has this.

Anyway, Stephen showed a video clip of a KKK member talking on his backyard deck about the KKK. Apparently, they are not a hate group any more. But then why does the guy feel the need to disguise himself by wearing the traditional white robe and hood? And speaking of the traditional white robe and hood, Stephen had an idea for an updated version of the disguise, I mean costume, I mean uniform. It would lend a more transparent ideal to the organization.

But then on to something completely different. Bill Gates was the guest last night. You may know him as the husband of friend of the show Melinda Gates. Stephen started their friendly conversation by asking Bill if he is still the richest guy in the world. Oh oh. The answer was No. Stephen was immediately upset. Not brought to tears upset, but still, upset. He queried his staff as to why they couldn't get the richest guy to be on the show. Stephen, being the professional that he is, went on with the show, successfully hiding his disappointment.

First of all, Stephen talked about the 2013 Annual Letter from Bill Gates. (Read it Now.) Stephen had it right there with him, all glossy and printed on paper. "You know about email, right?" I think Stephen was just pulling his leg with that little bit of humor. Speaking of legs and being able to walk, the news is good about Polio. One thing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing is trying to eradicate Polio and Malaria and other diseases. Last year there were only 250 cases of Polio in the entire world and hopefully in six years it will be down to zero cases. They talked about the importance of data as well as the importance of passion in accomplishing the goals of the Foundation. Bill Gates told Stephen that here in America, the main focus of the Foundation is on education.

Stephen asked if Bill missed the old days of staying up all night writing code. While it was exciting, Bill admitted he wasn't as young as he used to be. At that point, Stephen threw him a compliment and said he didn't look a day over 40!

Prohibition and Vacation

Well, no, I'm not actually going on vacation, but I will be super busy next week and I don't know if I will even be able to watch TV when Stephen is on. So, I may or may not have posts up for next week.

But don't despair. I think you can watch a lot of the video of the Prohibition film that Ken Burns did. You may remember I wrote about that previously. Anyway, go over to PBS and click on all the links to watch the Prohibition series. I did watch when it was on TV and it was more interesting than I expected. It's not just about people not being able to drink alcohol. There's a lot of insight into what the country was like at various times during that period. It touches on the economics, the politics, religion and changing roles of many groups of people.

It's definitely worth the time to watch. (I admit, I did not check out the links to see if the whole series was there, but it probably is.)

Oops Jew

It's Rosh Hashanah time again and you know what that means. That's right, it's time for the Atone Phone. And this year it was John Lithgow that called Stephen at 1-888-oops-jew. However, it was a mistake. John was actually calling 1-888-nors-lez.

Stephen mentioned some well-known celebrities tonight. Apparently they like to swim, but only the thin people actually went in the water. I didn't really get that part of the show.

But the really interesting part tonight was the interview. His guest was Ken Burns to talk about his upcoming three-part film about Prohibition. It premieres October 2, 3, and 4 at 8:00 p.m. on PBS (Check Local Listings)

The short discussion that Stephen and Ken had about Prohibition was very interesting. While most people say Prohibition didn't work, it had the support of nearly everyone when it started. It solved some problems, but it created new problems. There were many loopholes. It was strict to the point of being ridiculous in some instances. And lots of people drank anyway, including women.

From the PBS website comes this sentence that is applicable for today if you think about what's going on now: "But the enshrining of a faith-driven moral code in the Constitution paradoxically caused millions of Americans to rethink their definition of morality." Hmmm. I would think that along with history of Prohibition and commentary about it, we might expect to see parallels to today's political climate discussed. As Ken Burns quoted from Ecclesiastes 1:9, "There is nothing new under the sun."