Stories have weight...

Believe it or not, I'm far from in love with every conservative tv icon. I can only listen to the intrusion of Hannity's immense ego into two minutes of my life before finding the remote becomes a life-or-death crisis. Not far behind is the former Governor of Arkansas.  If I see him play the bass guitar one more time with a close-to-dead rock star, I am going to have somebody write JavaScript code to develop custom filters for my brighthouse feed. I'll do it, man. I swear I will do it.  His core ideology - of a smaller government and less intrusion into our lives is something I will be writing a lot about I am sure. Right now I want to talk about the Brits. Anyway, setting my imaginary and as-yet-to-be-developed custom BrightHouse filter aside for the moment, I was watching The Huckster tonight, and listening out of the corner of my multi-tasking brain to Merryl Streep on the Huck's show. She was talking about the challenges she faced playing the role of Margaret Thatcher.  The brilliance of the women, and her ability to power-play with the best of them before women were "allowed" to, had always made her one of my favorite characters in modern history. I am an Anglophile by heart, my standing romance with all things British having started with stories told me by my aunty's boyfriend who told a nine year old stories about the trenches of  Versailles. He spent nine months in a British hospital recovering from the mustard gas that seared his then-young lungs. I grew from that enthralled kid into a didactic. I can't read enough, and at sixty feel I better read fast. I expect to live at least to that ripe number 89. A dream I've had since I was about the same (9) age puts me at least at that ripe old age, and laughing about something. One of these days I will find out. When I do, clocks won't matter now, will they? So here I am, eating my wife's incredible gourmet-everyday cooking (she would buy the Food Channel if she was the one won that $118 million last week) and listening to Streep. I could not wait to hear what she thought of Thatcher. She started out by saying being from New Jersey made her uniquely unqualified to play a British conservative. Tying the words conservative together with the word British was interesting to me. Hollywood doesn't produce many people who don't use the word conservative with a bit of a sneer. The same sneer I can imagine on the face of the New York Times' writer who, last week, referred to the mixed-race man who shot that teenager a "white" Hispanic. As opposed to what? An appropriately brown Latino? It seems that the darker the victim, the more likable and financially-valuable he, she, or it (in the case of the richly-colored American Red Snapper now under the protective gold of the Environmental Defense Fund and PEW) appear to be to the left. Then came the lie from Streep's mouth, and the dull-eyed shaking head of the host as the words spewed from hollywood's mouth: "Margaret knew how to talk to other people like the Soviets. She was very intelligent. It was a hard role to play." It must have been, Ms. Streep. Because you were playing somebody other than Thatcher. In case you were trying out for a role at the time, Merryl, she and Ronald did it with metal, fear, and American know-how. It was called Star Wars by you and your friends, dear. We spent more money than the socialist/Marxist Utopia you and your ilk dream of could have spent in ten thousand years of oppressing free enterprise in the former Soviet Union. That and the power of Freedom, Streep. Go back to Hollywood, actor. And put on a mask again. You look so much better with that mouth shut and hidden from public. Unless you are making believe. That you happen to be quite good at. I will go see the movie, so you can afford the parties in the Hamptons. And the next time you want to be an activist, end the money to a Tea Party group. Look around. You will find one. And Governor. The nest time one of your guests spews lies, give this a try: challenge them. Then pick up your bass guitar and thrill us yet again. Zzzzzzzz