Politics… politics… and more

Beware…!

Hard to avoid the topic today as the Government is just hours away from a shutdown. There have been shutdowns before, all of which hurt Republicans who, for the most part, initiated them against Democratic Presidents.

Interestingly, this time around we have a Republican House, Senate, and Presidency and yet here we go again.  The last time such a thing happened with a party in control of all parts of the Government?  Jimmy Carter back in the 1970’s.

He wound up being a one term president.

Unlike other government shutdowns, the scariest thing about this one is that President (Gods how hard it is to address this… individual… with that title!) Trump either doesn’t care or doesn’t think a shutdown is a big thing.  Worse still, he is so fickle regarding what he wants to get done -changing his opinion on what he wants done sometimes within seconds- that many in Congress and the Senate have little idea what to do to solve the problem at hand.

What’s most amusing is the politics of the whole thing, and the fact that Trump and the Republicans are trying to blame their regular boogey-man, the Democrats, for any potential shutdown.

Yeah, blame the party that is in the minority on everything and can’t get anything they want done for your own failures.

Makes about as much sense as everything else we’ve seen going on in Washington this year.

****

The other still fairly big news out there involves sexual harassment.  It’s truly harrowing to read about Larry Nassar, for example, the one time USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor who, its been revealed, abused for years the girls in the Gymnastics programs he was involved in and, incredibly, had the huevos to complain that facing the people he abused in court is hard for him to do and, I suppose, it was somehow becoming abuse to him.

The judge in the case shot that one down nicely, calling him “delusional” for thinking that way considering the lives he ruined.

But what intrigues me is the fact that all this seems to be catching up with actor/director Woody Allen.

I will admit here and now that there are some works/movies he’s done that I’ve loved.  Some of his early comedies were hilarious and some of the more “serious” films he did after that first wave of comedies are quite good.

But when Mr. Allen had his breakup with Mia Farrow and the stories involved in that (and his subsequent marriage), things certainly turned… icky.

Later still he was accused of sexual abuse by Dylan Farrow, Mia’s daughter, and while for years it appeared people were unsure whether to believe her or Woody Allen, the tide appears to have finally turned.

Yesterday, Dylan Farrow gave a tearful and, quite frankly, chilling interview regarding her one time step father…

Today, word today came that Colin Firth has announced he will no longer work with Woody Allen.  He follows in the footsteps of several other actors who once worked with Mr. Allen and have announced they will no longer do so.

Good.

Being a clever, even brilliant artist doesn’t make you immune to being a creep (or worse) and if the accusations are to be believed, and I do, then Mr. Allen’s day of reckoning appears to have finally come.