The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I've never been much into TikTok, but the more my son insists on watching it, the more it grinds my gears, and while I'm not sure I agree with it being banned outright, part of me just wishes it would go away. First off, the parental controls get a 'C' grade, if that. My son just turned 6, and while I know it's naive to think he won't run into not-age-appropriate content of some nature or another here and there, I try to limit said interactions as much as I can. That's been easier said than done at times with TikTok. Also, while a lot of the content may not technically be age-inappropriate, I still don't care for it, and feel prompted to turn it off immediately. What both saddens and annoys me more than anything else about the site is the sheer desperation displayed in many of the videos. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the following: - "Hit like and subscribe if you love your parents. If you don't hit like and subscribe, it m...

Former  The Daily Show correspondent Michelle Wolf took to the stage as the guest speaker to this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner over the weekend. As is typical, she received her fair share of criticism, mostly pointed in the direction of her cracking jokes about Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders and also making a quip about abortion. As former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchors Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers used to say, "Really? Really? I mean, Really?!?" Look, I personally didn't find Ms. Wolf's abortion joke humorous, but often times comedy is more about pushing the envelope than stimulating laughter. Also, how can people really be THAT offended by a female comedian roasting this president? The criticisms have reached the point of Trump saying we should no longer have a White House Correspondents' Dinner. Again, really? Why is it that comedians are often times held to a higher standard than the President of the United States, D...

When walking to Air Force One, en route to Texas, which was ravaged by Hurricane Harvey, First Lady Melania Trump donned a pair of thin heels. When the First Lady and her husband landed, she walked out in a pair of sneakers. So what's the big story from many on the left? The image Ms. Trump wearing heels in such a situation projects - that she can't empathize with the victims of the storm, won't even try to empathize, takes money and possessions for granted, and cares more about her appearance than the livelihoods of the hurricane victims. Look, I for one have never been able to stand heels and, while I agree it may not have been the best of looks for the First Lady in such a situation, we have much more important things to criticize and worry about than her shoes. I may be in the minority here, but I care far more about a leader's words and actions than I do about his/her appearance. When then President Obama was criticized for wearing a tan suit, my immediate reacti...

Well, the Lord hath spoken, and it wasn't powerful, pretty, nor even pretty powerful. After Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump's racist comments regarding Mexican-American judge Gonzalo Curiel (he was born in Indiana), CNN commentator Jeffrey Lord decided to defend Trump by saying this: "Speaker Ryan is wrong and Speaker Ryan has apparently switched positions and is supporting identity politics, which is racist. I am astonished." He added: "I am accusing anybody who believes in identity politics, which he apparently does now, of playing the race card. The Republican establishment is playing this, Senator [Mitch McConnell] is playing this. These people have run and hid and borrowed the Democratic agenda of playing the race card. It's just wrong!" This is one of the major problems with the modern-day Republican Party - to put it bluntly, they don't know what in the hell they're talking about. ...

When it comes to Beyoncé, I've long wanted to say to the right, "Doth protest too much." There were Bill O'Reilly's comments in 2014: "She (Beyoncé) knows - this woman knows - that young girls are getting pregnant in the African American community. Now it's about 70 percent out of wedlock. She knows and doesn't seem to care. She should be smart enough to know that what's she doing now is harming some children." There was Mike Huckabee in 2015: "It was President Obama who said in an interview with 'Glamour' who said that some of the lyrics he won't listen to with his daughter because it embarrasses him. Well, here's my point. If it embarrasses you, then why would you possibly think it's wholesome for your children to put it into their heads?" He added: "They're great parents (the Obamas), they're careful about making sure that their kids get a lot of vegetables and eat right, that's te...

As many of my long time readers should know, I'm extremely nonpartisan when it comes to sports. While I have always loved both participating and spectating many sports, I'm not a homer for any one team. I enjoy sporting events like I enjoy movies. I appreciate good coaching/directing, solid execution/acting, can't seem to get enough twists and turns in the plots, and love a good, unexpected climax. Having said that, I similarly try not to hop on or off a player's bandwagon too quickly, which places me at odds with a majority of sportswriters/ESPN talking heads. This is especially the case with NFL quarterbacks, whom analysts seem to fall in and out of love with more quickly and more frequently than middle schoolers named Romeo and Juliet. When columnists fell in love with Andrew Luck and Colin Kaepernick of Indianapolis and San Francisco, respectively, I said, "Let's hold up just a minute. They certainly have potential, but let's wait a couple more years to...

Last week, I posted a blog where I criticized Timeout.com 's Oliver Keens for a review he wrote for British prog rock group Muse's latest album, Drones . I use the term review loosely because Keens didn't spend any time reviewing the actual music on the album. No, he decided to go on a rant about what he perceived the concept of the album to be, being mistaken on that front, and leaving many to wonder if he listened to the album at all. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't the only one who disapproved of this piece of writing, and felt the need to share people's criticism of this review's criticism. First off, here again is Oliver Keens' review of Drones , where he gave the album one out of a possible five stars:   "It's a shame that Matt Bellamy  (the band's singer and song writer)  has never been to North Waziristan. If he had, he'd know first-hand how this area of Pakistan is to drones what lamps are to moths. He'd have seen how the notion of a...

I just read an article entitled, "If You Don't Like Criticism, Don't Put Your Stuff Online" by Jody Thompson, and felt the need to respond. No, I'm not really going to go the ironic route and criticize her column about being prepared to take criticism when posting stuff online, but felt the need to elaborate a bit on what she wrote. First off, nobody likes criticism. When asking a group of people what they enjoy (more than anything), you're never going to hear these people say this: Chuck Denardo: "I enjoy rafting in baby-pools." Lucy Pickens: "I like disco dancing on the interstate by myself." Frank Buckets: "Every now and again, I can't help but like to skinny-dip in puddles after a big storm." Sophia Ruiz: "There's nothing I like more than being criticized." Sorry, not going to happen... Granted, criticism kind of comes with the territory of, well, being alive. If one is working, one leaves thems...

As long-time readers likely know by now, I'm not a fan of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. Not only do I find the quality of writing to be at about a high school of a C-student (that may be too generous), but the actual content of the writing I feel is degrading to women on multiple fronts. As studies have shown, the Fifty Shades of Grey series does a very poor job of depicting a consensual BDSM relationship. What it does do is depict an abusive relationship. Yes, there is a stark difference between the two and as many consenting BDSM partners have adamantly declared, it's appeared as though author E.L. James is unaware of that very difference. Given all this, it seems pretty safe to say I was thrilled to hear that the series was going to be hitting the big-screen, the first of which will be opening this Valentine's Day weekend! I know, what spells romance more than an abusive and controlling man? If I were a woman, I'd, as E.L. James may put it, bite my lip, raise my...

Recently, New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait released an article by the title of, "Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say," which dealt with the concept of "political correctness" and he's received his fair share of criticism in return. In the article, Chait criticized leftists (liberals) at length, in saying their PC-policing was slowly stripping our society of civilized debate, especially in the online world. Chait talked about a growing list of words which were off limits according to these leftists - if anyone uttered these words, they wouldn't hear the end of it. The article also made the claim that if leftists heard something from another they strongly disagreed with, they often times referred to that person as bigoted or his/her viewpoint as illegitimate. Yes, according to Jonathan Chait, "political correctness" is at the forefront of our social problems, and if we want to engage in civilized debate with a wide range of people, we must eliminate ...

The sports media cracks me up sometimes (not literally, thank goodness). Often times it seems that many members of the sports media are about as fickle as politicians during election season when it comes to how coaches and players interact with them. When players and coaches read directly from the book, entitled, "Sports Cliches 101," media personalities seem to yawn and not talk about these seemingly over-rehearsed comments. Then when some sports personalities, like San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich gets rather blunt with his responses, many in the media will almost say in unison, "It's nice to finally talk to someone who just tells it like it is." However, there are still other tell-it-like-it-is comments which seem to receive a great deal of backlash, where these same media talking heads simultaneously utter, "Whoa! He did not just say that! Can you believe that?" The latest such case revolves around Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Grif...

So, former Florida Governor and brother of former President Dubya, Jeb Bush, has decided to go on the attack with regard to President Obama's response to Ebola. When speaking to Vanderbilt University, Bush said: "It looked very incompetent to begin with, and that fueled fears that may not be justified. And now you have states that are legitimately acting on their concerns, creating a lot more confusion than is necessary." I find it funny that a politician with the last name of Bush would have it in him to criticize President Obama about "incompetence" and a "poor response." Deaths via a poor response to Hurricane Katrina from President Bush: 1,833 deaths Deaths via poor listening, research, and preparation to 9/11 under President Bush: 2,752 deaths Deaths via a "poor" response to Ebola from President Obama: 1 death Sorry to lump you in with Dubya, Jeb, but given your family background, it's probably not the wisest of decisio...

Is anyone else getting a little tired of ESPN obsessing about their made-up QBR statistic? While the passer rating is/was definitely flawed and most people had no idea how to calculate it, it's nowhere near as flawed as the QBR. The passer rating combined: Completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, and interception percentage, to form an imperfect yet somewhat effective formula to showcase how effective a quarterback was at passing the football. In other words, the final result of the formula was based on objective numbers. However, that's not fully the case with the QBR formula. According to the QBR statistic, each quarterback is graded on a scale of 0 to 100 to display how much they contribute to a win, with 50 being "average." The formula takes into account things such as: Overthrows, underthrows, yards after the catch, and clutch plays, among others. The underlying problem with many of these categories is a certain level of subjectivity. Thi...

Regardless of whether or not Michael Sam plays for the St. Louis Rams this year, I have to give kudos to Rams head coach Jeff Fisher for coming to Sam's defense in light of ESPN's ridiculous report about the rookie's showering habits. With regard to this report, Fisher said: "I'm extremely disappointed in her (Josina Anderson) piece. I think it's unethical. I think it's very, very unprofessional. Not only the piece itself, the content. The manner in which [Josina Anderson] did it." He added: "Obviously she [Josina Anderson] came in, in all likelihood to see if there was gonna be a roster move at the 75 cutdown as it relates to Mike Sam. That didn't happen. But she needed to do something, and it's my understanding that she manufactured this story. She was out of line because she went and contacted several players on their personal time. Misled them with questions and then put this piece together." I give Fisher a lot of credit ...

It seems that every time radio show host Rush Limbaugh opens his mouth, he further proves the title of Al Franken's book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot . This was yet again the case when the conservative talk show host spoke to listeners about the death of actor/comedian Robin Williams, saying the following: "What is the left's world view in general? If you had to attach, not a philosophy, but an attitude to a leftist world view. It's one of pessimism, and darkness, sadness. They're never happy, are they?" He added: "[Liberals] are animated in large part by the false promises of America, because the promises of America are not for everyone. He had it all, but he had nothing. Made everyone else laugh, but was miserable inside. It fits a certain picture or a certain image that the left has. [I'm] talking about low expectations and general unhappiness." Lastly, Limbaugh uttered the following: "Robin Williams felt guilty that he was...

Being born in Nebraska and having lived there for 26 of my 32 years, a large majority of the people I know still reside in the Cornhusker state and keep in touch with me via Facebook. Following the Seattle Seahawks' 23-17 win over the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game on Sunday night, I've been rather surprised by the number of Nebraska fans whom have harshly criticized Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman's post-game comments - going as far as to call him an a*shole, who is bound to be in a prison cell one day. While I'd be the first to admit that Sherman's comments were over-the-top, I also think the story has gotten completely blown out-of-proportion and I find it highly ironic that, Nebraska fans of all people, have the gall to say such things with regard to Sherman's post-game rant. Once again, here's what Sherman said: "I'm the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result...

After President Obama spoke about the Pope's criticism of capitalism, talk show host and man most likely to have been Humpty Dumpty in a former life - Rush Limbaugh - decided to make the following comments on his show: "This is the president citing the pope, his new best friend, because the pope is ripping America, the pope ripping capitalism. And Obama's having an orgasm. Jeremiah Wright is beside himself. Jeremiah Wright thought he was Obama's preacher, now pope somehow has co-opted Obama. This guy can't wait to rip this country apart, every day, whenever there's an opportunity to criticize this country, he's the first in line. And that is just an outright falsehood that the increasing inequality - income, wealth, whatever - is most pronounced in our country. And I tell you the way he means that, 'We've got too many rich people, we need more people who are poor and lower middle class, that's the only way we can have equality and fairness...