Who [Reads] Short Shorts?

1. Equal Time for Mel Gibson?

Mel Gibson has been insulted by a lot of people over the last few years, myself included. And hey, has it really been over ten years since Mel's initial racist ramblings made the news? (Yep, it has been!)

I was reading an article about Liam Neeson the other day, and I learned that although the main role in Schindler's List was eventually played by Neeson, other actors who'd been interested in playing the part were Warren Beatty, Kevin Costner, and... Mel Gibson.

Mel-freakin'-Gibson? This is the dude who said “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” innit?

Well, Mr. G blames his drinking problem for the words that came out of his mouth. And he did offer an apology to the Jewish people at the time, and roughly a year ago, in an interview with Variety, Mel said "Surely if I was really what they say I was, some kind of hater, there’d be evidence of actions somewhere. There never has been.”

In addition, there's this article, from earlier this year, which says that Gibson has been donating money to Holocaust survivors via  the Survivor Mitzvah Project.

So, what do you think? Has he paid his penance, as it were, or should we still consider him a bigoted s**thead whose Hollywood projects should be shunned?

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2. Seen on a Sign Outside of a Laundromat

"If a man says he'll fix something, he will. There's no need to remind him about it every six months."

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3. Every. Single. Time.

Remember what I said about Twitter not long ago? Well, the following is from a recent article on the Fox News site about Stephen King's little "war" with Donald Trump:

"Donald Trump blocked me on Twitter. I am hereby blocking him from seeing "It" or "Mr. Mercedes." No clowns for you, Donald. Go float yourself," King wrote.

 Follow

Stephen King 

✔@StephenKing

Donald Trump blocked me on Twitter. I am hereby blocking him from seeing IT or MR. MERCEDES. No clowns for you, Donald. Go float yourself.

9:55 PM - Aug 24, 2017

•  10,57110,571 Replies
 
•  154,159154,159 Retweets
 
•  483,358483,358 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

The film about children facing an evil clown opens in September.

See? I toldja! They repeat the tweet in its entirety, right after quoting it!

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4. Trump's North Korea Quote?

Speaking of Trump...

Recently, newspapers in America and all over the world were reporting that President Donald Trump had released a message after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan, saying "The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior." This was the statement released by the White House, which went on to say that "Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table."

Yeah, well, somebody at the White House wrote and released that message, that's for sure, but that is not the way President Trump speaks. Trump's statements are usually full of redundancies, and devoid of anything suggesting that the man has an extensive vocabulary. And whatever he is in favor of is usually "wonderful" or "terrific."

For example, not long ago, Trump said this about Kim Jong-un: “I respect the fact that I believe he is starting to respect us. I respect that fact very much.”

Trump to Ben Carson about the name "Harvey": "Sounds like such an innocent name, Ben, right? But it's not innocent. It's not innocent."

And talking about the clean-up during and after Harvey, he said “We won’t say congratulations. We don’t wanna congratulate. We’ll congratulate each other when it’s all finished, but you have been terrific.”

*sigh*

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5. So, What Are They Saying?

I was in a department store a couple of weeks ago and saw a man wearing a shirt that looked a lot like this:

There's a lot of talk here in the USA lately, debating the issue of whether or not depictions of the Confederate flag or items related to the Confederacy are only supported by racists. I must admit that my sentiments are kind of torn. I absolutely despise racism in all its forms, but on the other hand, I really, really want to believe in the sincerity of those proud Southerners who claim that the rebel flag stands for "heritage, not hatred."

And yet... and yet...

I see someone walking around wearing a shirt like that, or displaying the Confederate flag, and I have to wonder if he or she is a bigot...

Especially when shirts like the one shown above are being worn by someone in my home state of Massachusetts, as the one I saw the other day was.

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6.  A New Direction?

A few months ago I said that I was debating ending this blog. Well, I've finally been getting lots of ideas for it, so it definitely won't be discontinued anytime soon.

Having said that, I may be slightly changing my blog's focus. It seems that most -- but certainly not all -- of my current crop of readers are close to my own age (I'll turn sixty-one next November, believe it or not!), plus or minus a handful of years. So in recognition of that fact, I'll probably be gearing more posts toward people in their fifties and sixties. Different things I grew up with and the like. You'll see. It's just a minor transition, the kind of thing I've seen happen to other blogs. (For example, my friend Betsy's blog, My Five Men, used to contain quite a few acrostic poems for her weekly entries to the gone-but-not-forgotten "Theme Thursday" posts. Now it's eight or nine years later, and she showcases a lot of her own photos, reflecting the fact that she's become quite a good photographer.)

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7. A Grammar Nazi Tid-Bit

By the way, folks, the word is "intact," not "in tact." One word, got it? Unfortunately, I know of a blog written by a successful pro sitcom writer who does that. He also refers to the '50s as the 50's. Maybe it doesn't matter as much if your audience is hearing your words and not reading them?

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Thanks for your time!