Because of pressure from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), HBO abruptly cancelled “Luck,” a new series centered around the horse racing industry. The series stars Dustin Hoffman, who also is Luck’s producer, along with David Milch and Michael Mann. Fans of “Deadwood,” will recognize Milch as the creator of that amazing show. Mann of course was the mastermind behind “Miami Vice.”
Luck’s producers did not use stock racing footage for its horse racing scenes. The series used 50 horses, trained by Matt Chew at Santa Anita. PETA claims the series used past-their-prime, out-of-shape thoroughbreds and were reportedly running them twice a day during filming. Whether that was the cause of the three horse fatalities or is not really known (the death of the third appears to have been a freak accident), but PETA has been on Luck’s back since 5-year old Outlaw Yodeler died during filming last year.
Of course plenty of animals die to feed the cast and crew on the set of most movies and TV shows and PETA is nowhere to be found, as The Onion satirized so neatly back in 2004, in its “Many Animals Harmed In Catering of Film.”
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In an amusing exchange, Edmund Morris, probably best known to educated Americans as a biographer of Ronald Reagan, went nuts when braindead fourth-rate pundits Bob Schieffer and Arianna Huffington kept asking him idiotic questions about how various long-dead historical figures would feel about current events in America. Morris rightly thought the whole thing was stupid and said so, using the F word.
He then went on a diatribe about how Americans are lazy and obese:
Morris went on to criticize the American people, who he said “are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”
Knowing Morris, I highly doubt these comments stem from any kind of Menckenian individualism. Rather, I suspect that Morris is one of those war-crazed neocon types who thinks that various iron-fisted militarists like the British imperials and the Spartans should be emulated. Hence, the stuff about “discipline.”
So the whole exchange just helps to illustrate that shows like “Face the Nation” or “Meet the Press” are a complete waste of time. Who watches these shows? I mean, other than octogenarians?
But to answer the question posed to Morris: ““What would Teddy Roosevelt think of today’s politics, Edmund?””
I can channel ol’ Teddy for you right now and tell you what he would say were he to survey the political scene in America:
Wow, America has really gone down hill since I died. I can’t believe that you people let Negroes hold public office! For shame. Also, someone told me that you let the dusky races of Central America have nominal control over my great Panama Canal. The first think you should do is whip those coolies into shape and take that back. In fact, I hear there are Chinamen in warships patrolling those waters. If you’re not careful, Anglo-Saxons won’t rule the world. I shudder to think of such a world. And worse, I heard that eugenics has fallen out of favor in America. How are you supposed to wipe out the undesirables if you don’t forcibly sterilize all the weak and the Colored people?
Our friend Fester writes:
The other day a friend on Facebook commented on the show “Hoarders”. In this show they have a psychologist and a junk clean up crew come into a house and clean it up. She was upset because she did not feel as if the crew helped the people they cleaned up because they only spend about a week at the house and she didn’t feel like this was enough time to address the deep psychological issues these people have.
While I agree that these people probably have mental issues that are not being addressed by the show, if you watch the show you will notice that almost all of the people who ask to go on the show have a legal issue surrounding the hoarding. These people are being pursued by code enforcement officers, by child protective services, by fire marshals, etc. They may not be getting the psychological help they need, but they are getting a reprieve from the evil government officials who would kick these people out of their homes, or steal their children away from them, etc. It may only be temporary, but if it gives them another year of peace from the bureaucrats then the show is doing a good service to these people.
You can watch Hoarders on A&E.
