On Spotlight and Journo Twitter

The Academy Awards are over, and amidst all the social commentary and the good Chris Rock jokes and the director who actually managed to talk the music down when they tried to chase him off (because his comments had drifted towards humanitarian remarks), some awards were given out.

A couple of those awards, including Best Picture, went to Spotlight, a film dramatizing the Boston Globe's investigation of Catholic priests in Boston suspected of sexually assaulting boys, which began to blow the top off a more widespread theme of corruption and sodomy throughout the Church. Candidly, like most of the films nominated for awards this year (or to be honest, most films period), I didn't see it, but I will assume by the near-universal acclaim it garnered that it was, in fact, a very good movie.

But there was another group who rode a wave of pride spurred by Spotlight's win. It's something I should have seen coming, and yet I only realized what was about to happen when I read this first retweet from a local sports journalist I follow.

Recommendations: if you enjoyed Spotlight, you might also enjoy subscribing to a God damn newspaper.#Oscars

— Tabatha Southey (@TabathaSouthey) February 29, 2016

The journos were coming.

Yes, Journo Twitter had arrived. Much like a pleasant happy-hour establishment that turns into an unpleasantly kinky pseudo-strip club at night (I watched too much Taffer again yesterday), journalists that generally use Twitter for fun or informative purposes turned into platitude-spouting company men/women after Spotlight took home its first award of the evening. And it continued.

You should see Spotlight,
and then buy a newspaper,
you ungrateful fools.#oscars #JournalismMatters

— Sara Cress (@saracress) February 29, 2016

I picked a great day to re-watch Spotlight. Now go buy a newspaper!

— Meghan Hurley (@meghan_hurley) February 29, 2016

After years of being beaten down by shrinking budgets and news aggregators that dwarf traditional newspapers in revenue (despite the fact of that most of those sites would be quite screwed if traditional journalism vanished), the old guard of print journalism was ready to hold up Spotlight the way most normal people act when they get on the local news or see their name in the local paper. "Look, see? It's me! It's us!"

If you liked two-hour Hollywood movie Spotlight, you'll love subscribing for a year to a daily print newspaper in your town.

— Jacob Boon (@RWJBoon) February 29, 2016

You ADD-stricken ingrates will watch a massive screen for two hours, but won't plunk down good money to get a daily dose of "School board meeting ends in impasse" flung at your door five minutes after you leave for work, guaranteeing that any story that bore even a slight influence on your life will be quite outdated by the time you return. You dumb millennials and your Dumb Phones and your dumbness. So dumb.

Spotlight's first Oscar of the night is the reason you be buying a newspaper tomorrow morning or starting a subscription.

— Allen Panzeri (@allenpanzeri2) February 29, 2016

Spotlight love!!! So proud of my newspaper people.

— Hannah Sampson (@hannahbsampson) February 29, 2016

Yeah! You guys are journalists, like me, and you did it, which is by extension a feather in my cap, too! In a way, this movie depicting journalists in another city who put forth a Herculean effort to find one of the biggest scandals of the century is much like the review I just did of the new Sea World exhibit. That Shamu is just so playful!

If you're happy that Spotlight won an Oscar, make sure to subscribe to your local newspaper. #Oscars

— Bryan Lowry (@BryanLowry3) February 29, 2016

If you enjoyed #Spotlight you might also enjoy subscribing to an actual newspaper. #Oscars

— Danny Hajjar (@DannyGHajjar) February 29, 2016

So everyone who's excited about "Spotlight" winning will subscribe to a local newspaper now, right?

— Gerry Smith (@gerryfsmith) February 29, 2016

It sure is weird that all these wordsmiths and defenders of the printed page came up with the exact same joke about Spotlight and nobody liking newspapers anymore.

If Mad Max is going to lose to anything, let it be to a movie about newspapers

— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) February 29, 2016

You mean like Shattered Glass?

Movie about newspapers takes first #Oscar2016 Take that, you newspaper haters! :) #Spotlight

— Rod Mickleburgh (@rodmickleburgh) February 29, 2016

Who are...what? Are you even a human being?

Listen, though I'm not a professional journalist, I do fancy a career in media and wrote for a (college) publication for a few years. I like newspapers. I like reading the news. I don't have a newspaper subscription in part for the reasons I've mentioned. Maybe I'll try again; newspapers so royally screwed the pooch over 20 years ago when the Internet became a thing that they still haven't figured out how to reliably monetize web content, so I'd like to "support the cause" or whatever.

But Journo Twitter taking fraternal pride in Spotlight winning an Academy Award is hilarious because a. they treat the success of The Boston Globe, one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious major-metropolis newspapers in our country's history, as a reason to go out and grab a copy of the Daily Dink tomorrow morning, and b. anecdotally, journos are exactly the type of people who complain about how movies based on true stories compress and distort the facts in a way that warps the tale's truth.

You know who is allowed to take pride in the movie's critical acclaim? The actual friggin' journalists who unearthed the scandal in the first place.

Investigative reporting is in crisis right now. Journalism is in crisis. The movie lets people know why what we do is so important.

Now there's someone I'm inclined to listen to.

On the Oscars

Sly got robbed.

On Presidents, Ranked

I'm a sports fan, which means I like ranking things. Best quarterbacks of all time. Best NBA big men. Best places to watch a Browns game (in an empty bar, preferably face down). And I particularly like categorizing those rankings: sure, Tom Brady might be the best overall quarterback ever, but no doubt Michael Vick was the best scrambler, or that Randall Cunningham had the best leg.

So let's apply that to presidents. If we were to rank all the...oh, huh, well, how about this?

The above Wikipedia page showing a number of different rankings of US presidents was a lot of fun to go through. While there are certainly empirical ways of determining a leader's success - did the economy grow? did the country acquire new territory or win/lose any wars? did he have sex with that woman? - it's hard to judge a president until they've been out of office for several years, so that any long-term effects of the prior leader(s) can be fully realized. (Just ask Martin Van Buren or Barack Obama) Plus, not everyone considers winning a war or passing a new healthcare bill to be a rousing success; it's a subjective matter. In short, it would be a fool's errand to try to rank every U.S. president in any sort of fair and accurate way.

But let's do it anyway! Some highlights from these lists:

1. James Buchanan was the only president ever from my home state of Pennsylvania, so naturally, he's almost universally considered the worst president in U.S. history. Of course, when you basically say "d'owell!" to the prospect of half the country seceding, people are going to remember that. He was basically Neville Chamberlain Lite. But also, he was a lifelong bachelor, so...niiiiiiiiice.
   
2. Not coincidentally, Lincoln is a near unanimous choice for best president ever across different polls and different time periods. This could've been you, James!
   
3. A 1982 survey of historians showed that liberals and conservatives had nearly identical Top Five's (some combination of Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Jefferson, and Ted Roosevelt) I'd love to hear a debate moderator ask the GOP nominees this year if they thought FDR was one of the five best presidents of all time. It'd be like asking a room full of Beyonce fans what they thought about the new queen of pop music, Ariana Grande.
   
4. I am genuinely surprised that George W. Bush isn't ranked lower. Granted, his term ended less than eight years ago, but considering conservatives hated his economic policies and liberals/most everyone else basically consider him a war criminal, the fact that the "Notable Scholar Surveys" section aggregates him at only 34 out of 43 presidents is a bit shocking - though the fact that nearly every president ranked lower than him are there because they didn't prevent the Civil War from happening should tell you something.
   
5. Siena College also ranked each president by individual categories (handling of economy, foreign policy accomplishments, integrity), which is great because there's a category for "Intelligence." Jefferson ranked No. 1. Dead last was....not Dubya! It was Warren Harding, possibly because he didn't know that all this was against the law.

That's all. I thought this was pretty cool - hope you do too.

On Valentine's Day and Social Media

Sunday was Valentine’s Day, which meant it was time for lots of Facebook posts and tweets about How To Celebrate Valentine’s Day.

You see, Valentine’s Day is generally considered a celebration of relationships, because couples are likely to buy each other stuff, and a holiday celebrating couples buying each other stuff is a great way to encourage that behavior. But because the commercial focus of Valentine’s Day is on couples buying each other stuff, it means talking about relationships, which is a touchy subject.

There are couples who take Valentine’s Day seriously and couples who are self-aware or nonchalant about Valentine’s Day. There are singles folks who get bitter about Valentine’s Day, get annoyed with Valentine’s Day and the people who celebrate it, who act desperate for a valentine, who don’t care about Valentine’s Day or who use Valentine’s Day as a way to celebrate bro love or gal love or family love or hamster love or whatever tickles your fancy.

All of them celebrate or at least acknowledge Valentine’s Day, and a remarkable number of them share this on Facebook, for better or worse. That’s fine. I’m happy to see couples post photos of their V-Day escapades, or friends who get together to celebrate. The folks who frustrate me are those who set up rules for celebrating in a way that is respectful for all, the folks who don’t want you to trample the emotions of the poor, unfortunate single people combined with the folks who want you to happily boast of your love. This is impossible.

Look back to the third paragraph: I rattled off six or seven different types of people with regard to V-Day, and there are obviously many more. There is absolutely no way you can make a statement about Valentine’s Day that will make you happy while simultaneously making everyone else happy. It cannot happen.

There are obviously ways to minimize negative impacts – you can share photos of the flowers bae sent you at work without tagging a newly single friend in them, and you can tell everyone how much you enjoyed Galentine’s Day without torching all couples during the celebration.

In the larger scope of shaming and (in)sensitivity, though, happiness is not a zero sum game. A photo of you or your son/daughter tossing a graduation cap in the air is not an indictment on someone else who dropped out of school. Hanging your marathon bib in your living room does not mean someone who can’t – or doesn’t want to – run one is being slighted. And if a couple puts up an adorable picture of the two of them in a romantic locale a handful of times a year, it doesn’t need to be hurtful towards single folks – or if a guy at work brags about a bro’s night he and his bachelor buddies shared, it doesn’t mean he’s ridiculing the guy who took his better half to a luxurious spa instead.

In years past, I’ve spent Valentine’s Day hanging out with friends. That was fun. This year, as I have for the last three, I spent Valentine’s Day with Miss Kazblog. That was also fun. At no time (that I recall) did I feel like anyone who spent the day differently than me was out to personally slight me, rub it in my face or otherwise. The implication when someone talks about something good that happened to them doesn’t mean they’re trying to needle you; more often than not, they might just be happy enough to have to tell someone.

Just do what you want, guys. Live your life. Don’t go out of your way to hurt other people. On the flip side, remember not every comment, story or photograph has to be about you. Now, bring in the dancing lobsters.

On Antonin Scalia

I often joke that I can rattle off the backstory of 95 percent of Sonic the Hedgehog games, remember who led the Eagles in interceptions in 2011 (Kurt Coleman - and that was before he was "good") and tell you where CKY recorded Carver City (Mars), but somehow can't name more than like five Supreme Court justices - at least since they disbarred Judge Joe Brown.

One of the names I always remembered was Antonin Scalia, in large part because damn, was he there a long time. For the past 30 years, no matter what you did, Scalia was straight up there, man.

On Saturday, Scalia passed away, which is either cause for mourning, cause for celebration, cause for hunkering down for extended social media battles with your friends or some combination of the three. (The fact that he died in his hotel during a quail-hunting trip - by far the stodgiest, old white man-iest way to go - certainly doesn't help the perception of him amongst his detractors)

Justices' reactions ranged from polite condolences to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's heartfelt goodbye. Republicans naturally fawned over the conservative Scalia. Democrats' statements were unsurprisingly more mixed - Obama has seemingly done all the right things, while Hilary Clinton has been...well, a lot like Hilary Clinton. As someone of generally libertarian ideology, there are some Scalia positions on business and free speech to which I can give a hearty "Hell yeah," and others on the drug war and the Defense of Marriage Act that I can't (though this itty-bitty dissent he whipped up about DOMA and last June's dissent on Obamacare did lead to things like this)

I'm not here to absolve Scalia's positions on civil rights, even though just writing that sentence is a dog-whistle for people who think I'm about to absolve Scalia's position on civil rights. Instead, I'd like to point to two really good pieces on Scalia that I believe, as a whole, portray him - and the aftermath of his passing - fairly and comprehensively.

The first is an extended conversation he had with New York Magazine shortly after his (in)famous dissent on the Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which reminds you that there was a human being behind the decisions and the verbose opinions. It's really well done, in large part because Scalia is incredibly candid and makes for a great interview. It seems almost all of Scalia's decisions were rooted in a well-considered interpretation of the Constitution, which a. is his job, and b. doesn't necessarily jive with the critique that Scalia stuck with his conservative standpoint because he's a dick (even if, from a utilitarian perspective, the end result was the same)

The second is this Esquire column written shortly after his death on Saturday. Charlie Pierce is the man, and even when I disagree with his politics, I love his no-punches-pulled, historically-grounded writing. While conceding that anyone who spends 30 years in public service as Scalia did deserves some level of respect, Pierce firmly believes the country would have been better off without him on the Court; he also laments the inevitable rumble that has already begun between Dems and the GOP about who will fill his vacant seat, and when. (It's certainly telling that even the Republicans who intended to honor Scalia's legacy waited less than five hours to join Democrats in politicizing it - although, to be fair, what else are you supposed to do when one of the 15-20 most powerful public servants in the country dies?)

Scalia was probably more bad than good, but I'd rather have nine justices of any political persuasion who take their job as seriously as he did than replace any of them with Clarence Thomas, who hasn't woken up since about 2003. Nevertheless, when you stand so staunchly against civil rights issues that the public has turned in favor of, and act as bombastic and haughty as Scalia did whether he was on the winning or losing end of things, you don't leave a lot of room for nuanced opinions about your integrity. And in all likelihood, he'd be just fine with that.

On Love Songs

In no particular order, a list of some really good love songs.

For easy listening fans: "This Guy's in Love With You" - Herb Alpert

For tender, depressed lovers: "Lovesong" - The Cure

For tender, murderous lovers: "Wake Up" - Coheed and Cambria

For being in love with bachelorhood: "Better Off Without a Wife" - Tom Waits

For realistic/pessimistic summer flings: "Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart" - Against Me! feat. Tegan Quin

For oh yeah, girl: "I Wanna Know" by Joe

For making your feminist friends angry: "Video Games" by Lana Del Rey

For the first love song you ever learned on guitar: "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie

For being really in love: "Really in Love" by Andrew W.K.

For psychedelic weirdos: "Suck it and See" by Arctic Monkeys

For love through music: "We Can Get Together" by the Hold Steady

For alright fine sure: "Sweet Child 'O' Whatever" by Guns 'n' Something

For "Baby" by Justin Bieber: "Baby" by Justin Bieber

For true love: "Fly Eagles Fly" by God

On Milk, Which is Great

On night two of my Lenten soda stoppage, I decided to stop at Wawa for a sandwich on my way home from class (chicken steak with roasted pepper, spinach, olive oil, garlic and oregano, for those who were wondering) and chose to pair it with an 8 oz. bottle of milk. Just regular-ass 2 percent milk.

Later on the drive home, I was talking on the phone with Miss Kazblog, and the subject of my drink selection came up because I bring a lot to the table. When she found out I'd had milk with dinner, she said something along the lines of "'Oh yeah, I'm an adult,'" in an attempt to mock my choice. I can't remember exactly what she said, though, because the moment has been blurred by rage.

Forget the war on Christmas or the war on drugs or the war on Nickelback. There is a war on milk, and I must stand in milk's defense.

Seriously, look at this shit. It is downright remarkable how far the pendulum of public perception has swung the other way on milk.

A large majority of this can be considered backlash to the remarkably successful "Got Milk?" campaign that started in the mid-90's, making milk mustaches as popular as...well, I guess as popular as a creamy, white mustache can be. The campaign solidified milk's place in a healthy diet as a key supplier of calcium and protein.

Of course, as is often the case particularly in dietary science, new research indicates that not only does milk not provide nutrients to humans in a way that we can digest and absorb appropriately, but it could be BAD FOR YOU.

So let's take a look at most of the major arguments against milk:

It doesn't build strong bones. Calcium does not improve bone density, which was a major selling point of milk during its mustachioed heyday. Which, OK, sure. But what if it just, like, tastes good?

It's got a lot of sugar in it, and a lot of saturated fat. Both of these things, in excess, are bad for you, as are sodium, carbohydrates, and even "good" stuff like iron and fiber. However, the sugar in milk is naturally occurring, so maybe that's not as bad for you. Also, the scientific tide has begun to turn in favor of saturated fat again - though whether that's based on a push from the butter lobby (BIG BUTTER) is anybody's guess. Either way, there is no denying the fact that fat and sugar, while not great in large quantities, do make milk taste good.

Excessive consumption can cause cancer. This puts milk up there with literally everything. Remember when the World Health Organization allegedly said that red meat was on the same level as cigarettes in terms of its ability to cause cancer? Turns out that was slightly overblown. Like red meat, milk shouldn't be consumed by the trough or anything because - like damn near everything in life - too much of it is no good. It is tempting to consume too much milk, though, because it tastes so good.

Humans are the only mammals that drink milk after infancy/childhood. This one is incredibly popular on Facebook and a great way to get me good and mad early in the morning. We're also the only mammals with chins, so guess it's time to hack those cancer-causing anthropocentrism lumps right off! Based on my 20-second research, baleen whales are the only mammals with two blowholes - the hell do they need that second one for? They'd better cut that shit out, unless they're using the second blowhole to consume milk.
In any other area of the ecosystem, the "only animal that does X" is a natural wonder. When it's humans drinking milk, it's an indictment on the species.  Humans are also the only mammals to invent irrigation and the printing press, which we did with the extra brainpower we got from MILK, which tastes good.

Lots of people are lactose intolerant. So...those people probably shouldn't drink milk. The same way people who are allergic to shellfish shouldn't, you know, eat shellfish, or the way my lily white self shouldn't spend a ton of time in the sun. For those of us who are not lactose intolerant, though, this particular issue isn't a concern - if milk is consumed in moderation! - which is good on account of how good milk tastes.

Save the calves! Listen, if you have a moral or religious opposition to drinking milk, that's fine. I'm not here to argue on behalf of dairy farmers or questionable animal care practices. I will say that milk is most likely not the most egregious example of animal cruelty, though. I will also say that milk tastes pretty good, and if you decide to ignore your moral compass down the road, you won't be disappointed by milk.

Eliminating milk will make you feel better. Here's the thing: I don't doubt this at all. I'm sure if I stopped eating all milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream, I'd probably get sick less or lose 10 pounds, or both. Conversely, most of the time, I feel fine eating a cup of greek yogurt daily or having a small glass of milk with my Sunday breakfast, or cooking pancakes or other baked goods with milk.

Maybe I'd feel better if I didn't, but is it worth the trade off of not having milk anymore? My health would also probably improve if I completely eliminated alcohol, but that sure as hell ain't happening. There is a health benefit I don't reap by keeping milk and alcohol in my diet; on the other hand, someone who doesn't like milk and doesn't drink at all might love Doritos or Sweet Tarts, two items I have much less of a problem passing on. People who prefer to work out three times a day and eat nothing but tree bark probably get some sort of utility out of being a world-class beacon of health that I simply don't.

Maybe you're the type of person who feels stuffy all the time. Cutting dairy out of your diet could work wonders for you! On the other hand, someone like me might be better served health-wise by cutting down the soda or eating more spinach. It's entirely up to the individual person.

It makes sense, given how prominently milk was advertised as a health food, that the shock of these new anti-dairy scientific revelations has been interpreted as "NEVER DRINK MILK AGAIN EVER." I think it was Isaac Newton who once posited, "I'm too drunk to taste this chicken" "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." As with most debates, though, the answer lies somewhere in the boring middle: Don't drink a ton of milk, and you'll be OK.

In fact, you'll be better than OK, because you'll be drinking milk. And milk tastes damn good.

On Soda

I'm back from vacation - I promise I'll catch everyone up on all the shenanigans and tomfoolery from Mardi Gras, but suffice it to say, my rigorous schedule would not have allowed me to write anything worthwhile during my time in New Orleans.

In the meantime, it's Lent again, which means it's time for all good Catholics and masochists to dredge up all that spare guilt they've got lying around and decide on a sacrifice of some sort. Usually, this comes in the form of giving up a food, drink or activity for the duration of time between Ash Wednesday (where the black stuff on everyone's forehead comes from) and Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead so that Peeps could be free from sin.

Some suck-ups out there will instead add an extra activity to their day-to-day routine, like charity work or extra time to pray. Those people do not have Diet Dr. Pepper coursing through their veins like I do. This is why, for the third year in the past four, I am giving up soda for Lent.

There's no huge explanation here apart from the one that follows: I love Diet Dr. Pepper a lot, drink more of it than I should and spend more money on DDP annually than I do on pretty much all personal grooming goods combined. (Fortunately, there's a solution for that!) I consider it a valid test of my willpower and a boon to my health to rid myself of it for 40+ days.

I'm also not going to dissect the act of self-sacrifice or discuss Lenten promises through a theological or secular lens, though I will say that even nonreligious or non-Catholics could benefit from this annual personal trial.

Mostly, I'm just going to warn you that I'm going to be ornery. I will likely substitute my daily 3-6 DDP quota with some combination of coffee and seltzer water, not necessarily apart from each other depending on how desperate I am. It will not be the same. I also won't even start on the "only fish on Fridays" thing that I will almost certainly screw up by inadvertently not eating meat all week until Friday comes and I launch face first into a KFC Family Fill-Up because I am a stupid moron.

Lock up your daughter. Lock up your wife. Lock up your soda and run for your life.

On Desert Island Albums, Pt. 2

If you were forced to live on a desert island with only a record/CD player, what albums would you take with you? I've played this game a hundred times, both online and IRL. I think I have my list pretty well figured out at this point, but since we've got a whole year together on this here blog, I figure this will give me a little more space to explain my picks.

Coheed and Cambria put out a new album in October, The Color Before the Sun. It was the band's first album set in "reality," which was a change of pace from the previous seven that took place in Heaven's Fence, the setting of Claudio Sanchez's epic (or overblown, depending on your perspective) story called The Amory Wars. Not that there wasn't a touch of reality in each of Coheed's conceptual records, but it was obscured ever so slightly by grand tales of space combat and the love shared between two androids whose son is destined to save the universe.

I've gone deep on Coheed and Cambria before and could easily do it a dozen times over, but that's not the purpose of this post. The purpose is to explain why I'd bring certain albums with me on a desert island, and the reason I'm bringing Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (*takes deep breath*) is because of all Coheed and Cambria albums, this is the most Coheed and Cambria album.

Prior to Good Apollo I, one of the coolest things Coheed and Cambria did well was create huge-sounding records without a whole lot of extra atmosphere or background effects. The combination of Sanchez's high vocal register  and the band's impressive musical dexterity created the expansive universe they aimed for - all with the added mystery of whatever story could be interpreted from Sanchez's cryptic yet relatable emo poetry. When you can just add a whole bunch of guitar reverb and soaring vocal harmonies, who needs a whole bunch of synths and strings?

Hey wow cool, check out those synths and strings! And the OVERDRIVE!

C&C probably started overdoing it with the keyboards and effects and such on the two albums that followed this one (Good Apollo II: No World for Tomorrow and Year of the Black Rainbow), but on Good Apollo I, they hit the sweet spot of musicianship, production and songwriting. A string quartet opening gives way to a lovely, spare acoustic number, which in turn leads into...well...this. Nobody is going to confuse "Welcome Home" with a stripped-down, raw piece of garage rock, but it's also not overcrowded with stuff as it churns ahead in all its grandeur.

That trend continues throughout this musically diverse track list. "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)" creates tension through its winding guitar riffs and powerful chorus. Same for "Apollo I: The Writing Writer," which opens with an eerie synth-and-keys soundscape but mostly thrives on its knotty interplay between the guitars and rhythm section. "The Suffering" is a classic Coheed pop song with better production, as is the quintessential emo love ballad "Wake Up." The whole of the Willing Well suite is 28 minutes of excellent guitar work, catchy vocal stretches, creative drumming, and well-placed electronic flourishes, concluding in a desolate-sounding number that sounds like an apocalyptic Pink Floyd.

You have to be willing to take some steps backward in maturity to enjoy Coheed and Cambria, in particular this album. You're about to absorb a mass of music that sets the stage for the third chapter in an unabashedly geeky space opera that, essentially, is about the lead singer getting dumped. If you can accept this, or choose to ignore it, you'll be rewarded in spades with a fantastic set of songs that is all over the musical map, and one of the best guitar albums of the new millennium.

On Mike Huckabee

Your old set-in-his-ways uncle announced tonight that he won't be running for president anymore. This is like when Dario Saric said he wasn't coming over from Turkey to play for the Sixers this year, except for Sixers fans were actually upset by that news.

It's not that Mike Huckabee's brand of boogeyman fear-mongering and brazen bigotry is out of place in today's GOP, nor is his John Madden-esque strategy for dealing with ISIS. ("See, in order to defeat ISIS, we have to find them...and then kill them!") No, Mike's biggest problem is that everyone else is doing it better. Ted Cruz's foreign policies have all the subtlety of an 18-wheeler barreling through your living room, but he gives it that sparkly Ted Cruz Sheen(TM) that he glosses onto every point he makes. Marco Rubio makes hating foreigners seem cool and hip again; see, you can make hasty blanket statements about immigration while still having a professional quaff of hair. And in terms of loose-cannon xenophobia, it doesn't get much better than John Kasich. (Nah, just kidding, it's Trump)

So, peace, Mike Huckabee. The Republican party has no time for a dated set of principles coming from the mouth of a guy who's run for president a million times before. They'd rather hear it from some new guy instead.

#StandWithRand