Tuesday, September 8
· Headlines – Wildfire started by a gender-reveal party, George Washington University professor admits to lying about race, protests over Daniel Prude’s death, Jelly Belly CEO to give away factory in “golden ticket” contest
o I loved Trevor’s response to the fact that this isn’t even the first gender-reveal party that’s started a wildfire – “At this point, gender-reveal parties are one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations!”
o Trevor remarked on how noteworthy it is that Jessica Krug “canceled herself” in admitting that she was a white person posing as a PoC – “In a way, she’s making history. I can’t wait to celebrate it during Not-Actually-Black History month!”
o Great commentary on the Daniel Prude protests – “I think sometimes in a society, people get more focused on the symptoms than the cause. Because right now, everyone’s talking about what’s the right way to protest? What is the right way to protest? I think the real question people should be asking is, why does there need to be a protest in the first place?”
o Trevor didn’t think Jelly Belly should be imitating Willy Wonka, doing a nice riff on how grim that movie is – “To kill people in increasingly-elaborate ways, but because he did it while singing show tunes, everyone was like, ‘Wow, this guy’s whimsical!’ ‘Where’s that kid from Germany?’ “I don’t know – this song is so catchy!’”
· Pandemic News – Outbreaks at colleges, Trump floats “October surprise” vaccine, drug makers vow to follow safety regulations in making a vaccine, Russian vaccine
o I laughed really hard at Trevor speculating that a vaccine presided over by Trump would be administered as a quid pro quo, featuring Trevor’s always-great Trump impression – “I’ll give you one shot for one piece of dirt on Joe Biden.”
o Spot-on reaction to the vow from drug companies – “That’s how bad Trump is. He’s turned Big Pharma into the good guys!”
o I liked the fake ad for Russia’s vaccine – some great lines, especially, “Are you afraid COVID-19 will kill you before Putin has chance to?” and (re: their testing process,) “The vaccine did not kill any of the ones who survived!”
· Interview – Author/podcast host Malcolm Gladwell
o Trevor asked Gladwell about what “unthought thoughts” we should be considering about the Black Lives Matter protests, and Gladwell offered this – while we’ve been thinking a lot about how policing needs reform, we also need to consider “what are the kinds of things we can do, non-police officers can do, to make the job of policing easier in this country?” (The specifics he went into aligned with a lot of defunding beliefs, like funding mental-health resources and shifting the response to those types of issues away from police and toward the appropriate channels.)
o Interesting insight from Trevor – “I think to myself, protest, in many ways, is defined by your standing in life. You know, so the more you have, the less of a tolerance you’ll have for protests.”
o I loved this question Trevor asked – “Is it the peaceful protest that works or is it the fact that the peaceful protest is seen as peaceful relative to another protest?” As he was saying it, my mind flashed on Colin Kapernick, and that’s exactly what Trevor brought up next as an example, someone who was demonized for his peaceful protest but would probably be considered more palatable now in comparison to protests that have involved some vandalism and looting.
· Interview – Actor Lamorne Morris
o After Trevor complimented his silk outfit, Morris said, “Let this be the takeaway, if you learn nothing from today other than, ‘Damn, he looks fresh, all while solving racism!’”
o In discussing Morris’s new show Woke, Trevor commented, “One of the major signifiers or one of the major experiences of being a Black person is that, even if you choose not to engage in the conversations around how Black people are treated, at some point, you will be treated like a Black person.”
o Morris emphasized that the show leans into that idea, that “it’s not just for the people who don’t know” but also for Black people who maybe don’t feel like they fit in because they don’t conform to certain stereotypes or who don’t want to associate themselves with Blackness.
Wednesday, September 9
· Headlines – California wildfires, Astra Zeneca vaccine trial put on hold, new gathering restrictions in the U.K., trick-or-treating preemptively canceled in LA, forthcoming diversity requirements for Best Picture Oscar nominees
o Re: the wildfires, Trevor said that, if we’re not willing to do what we need to do about climate change, “humans have to evolve our bitch-ass skin into something that’s a lot more fireproof.”
o So, so true – “Let’s move on from some bad news to… some bad news. It’s 2020, people, this is all we’ve got.”
o I laughed at Trevor’s remarks on the U.K.’s gathering restrictions – “Six. That’s a very specific number. It makes me think Boris Johnson has a seventh friend that he’s trying to kick out of his circle of friends.”
o I loved, “Oh, shit! From now on, movies can only be nominated for Best Picture if they meet certain diversity thresholds? Wherever Martin Scorsese is right now, he is shitting himself.”
· Main Story – Today’s Trump scandals
o Yes, that’s plural. First up was the DOJ taking over Trump’s defense in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him.
o Great line – “But hey, conservatives wanted someone to run the country like a business, and what’s more corporate than a CEO using company resources to shut down sexual abuse accusations? You did it, guys!”
o We also covered the released audio clips from Bob Woodward’s interviews with Trump, including his admission of intentionally playing down the threat of COVID-19 in public and his acknowledgement that the U.S. has system racism.
o I loved, “Since when is Donald J. Trump concerned about creating a panic? That is literally his favorite thing! ‘Cities are burning!’ ‘Suburbs are collapsing!’ ‘Caravans of antifa Mexicans are committing Muslim voter fraud!’ His campaign slogan is basically ‘Look Out Behind You!’”
o Good analogy, comparing Trump’s coronavirus response to a pilot during a plane crash – the pilot tells people to remain calm but also instructs them in safety measures to help protect them (awesome impression of what Trump would be like in that situation – I laughed at “seatbelts are for snowflakes.”)
· Correspondent Piece (Desi) – Interview with the creator of gender-reveal parties
o Given how the ante has been upped in the intervening years, Desi was disappointed that the first gender-reveal party just involved a cake with colored frosting inside – “Did you have a stripper pop out of the cake and start a wildfire?”
o Even apart from the dangerous stunts, this woman has had a change of heart on gender-reveal parties, citing both the cisnormative narrative it promotes (equating a baby’s anatomy with their gender, which may not end up aligning) and the gender roles it perpetuates (blue vs. pink, trucks vs. tutus.)
· Interview – Actress/activist Jane Fonda
o Fonda was there to discuss her new book on her climate activism – Trevor shared an insight from the book that I liked, with Fonda comparing activism to different types of races over the course of her life (first a sprint, then a marathon, then a relay race from generation to generation.)
o I liked what Fonda had to say about the young climate activists who inspired her to get into the fight – “They’re carrying grief, they’re mourning about what’s been lost and what will be lost, even if we start doing everything right.”
o I appreciated that she acknowledged her privilege in the work she does, that she, as a famous white woman, will get treated better by police in response to her civil disobedience than others would.
Thursday, September 11
· Main Story – Trump & Fox News defend him intentionally downplaying the coronavirus
o In response to Trump’s claim of being America’s “cheerleader” (hence, why he said everything was fine instead of warning people about COVID-19 or taking substantive action to combat its spread,) Trevor exclaimed, “You’re not a cheerleader, you’re the coach!!”
o The heart of the matter – “As crazy as it may seem, lots of people in America actually believe the things that Trump says, so when Trump comes out and declares that the deep state made up corona to ruin his birthday, they listen.”
o I loved Trevor’s response to Fox News hosts slimily pointing out that, if a doctor finds a spot on your X-ray, they don’t run in screaming that you’re going to die, yet another example of Trump’s defenders failing to understand that the only options aren’t “flail around in panic” and “become the ‘everything is fine’ meme” – “They don’t tell you, ‘You’ve got a spot on your X-ray, but don’t worry, one day it’s going to disappear just like a miracle.’”
· Correspondent Piece (Ronny) – Controversy over a professor’s use of a Chinese word that sounds like the N-word
o Great back-and-forth between Trevor and Ronny on this subject – I loved, “Wait, the Chinese invented the N-word?” “No, you idiot, racists invented the N-word!”
o Since “néi ge,” which means “that,” is used as a filler word in China like “um” or “uh,” Ronny said that, to him, “most rappers just sound like they’re really unsure of themselves.”
o Good point about how racists often steal words and symbols from other cultures, with Ronny arguing that those words/symbols shouldn’t be condemned when used in their proper context.
· Interview – Former FBI agent Peter Strzok
o In addition to discussing Strzok’s new book on the intelligence risk posed by Trump and (of course) the scandal he was involved in over the public’s ability to trust the FBI’s neutrality, Trevor asked Strzok about whether protesters today should worry about being monitored by the FBI, given similar actions during the ‘60s and ‘70s – Strzok felt secure in the FBI, which he said had gained extensive regulations on that sort of thing since then, but he was more concerned about the Department of Homeland Security, which has been put into a domestic role that it hasn’t typically held and may not have the same civil liberty protections in place.
o Trevor asked Strzok about what he wished he’d done differently in hindsight, and besides wishing he “hadn’t sent the damn texts,” he said he wished they’d looked more at the power of social media – while they understood its effectiveness in radicalizing ISIS recruits, they didn’t realize how Russia could use it to sow misinformation and interfere with the election.
· Interview – Actor Samuel L. Jackson
o Samuel L. Jackson’s new docuseries is on the search for slave ships that were lost at sea on the Middle Passage, as well as his exploration of his own ancestral heritage.
o I liked what Trevor said about Black American friends talking to him about being descendants of slaves – “Being stolen from your cultural identity is such a- there’s a piece that you don’t even realize is missing, and just the story that you tell yourself about yourself.”
o I loved the discussion of Jackson’s personal history of growing up in “basically American apartheid” in the Jim Crow South, experiencing the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, and expanding his understanding at an HBCU – meeting different students at Morehouse, including SCLC and SNCC members, young Vietnam vets, and international students from South Africa, he realized, “We’re brothers in arms, and everybody’s trying to get free from these shackles that everybody’s got on us that try to keep us down.”
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