by Richard Cameron

Things we hate. Things that suck. Things that are annoying.

Things we like. Things we love.

I proposed to the writers on our staff to share with you things that they disliked or despised, things that they applauded and enjoyed for 2019 and things they already think stink for this year, expect to suck this year and things they have already embraced like that bear hug from your uncle.

Note that we excluded the direct topic of Donald Trump, because first of all, it is too easy and too obvious – sorry, Captain Obvious. He is a hot mess in the most extreme sense possible and if you have been following our publication for the last three plus years, you have seen that we consistently illustrate that fact, so we’re giving it the day off.

Let me start with Jennifer Keller Puebla’s list:

• Loved writing for National Compass. Being among both talented writers and intelligent readers.
• Loved the Gillette commercial that encouraged men to be real and also loved seeing the crazy toxic types get triggered by it.

• Loved watching the results of the Blue wave across the nation.
• Loving our new Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis. The first Dem Gov I’ve ever voted for. His policies are amazing. Fun seeing the snowflakes go insane because we now have a First Gentleman. The recall effort was hilarious!
• Loved seeing brave men and women put country and honor over party and money.
• Love seeing young people getting so active.
• Love women not backing down (see Nancy Pelosi standing up to a reckless president – and the women that Harvey Weinstein and his ilk, have abused, fighting back).
• Love men supporting women more than ever.
• Hated all things GOP and see no end to that soon if ever.
• Hate seeing “Christians” doubling down on their support of evil rather than repenting.
• Hate seeing our allies mistreated and even murdered.
• Hate whiny billionaires.
• Hate not knowing if our food, air and water is safe now that “burdensome environmental regulations” have been trashed by the Trump administration.

I should also take a moment to brag on Jennifer a little. She is participating in the knitting project – the Animal Rescue Craft Guild for animals that have been displaced and injured in the raging bushfires in Australia.

You may ship whatever items on this list you intend to donate, to:

RSPCA of South Wales
201 Rookwood Road
Yagoona, NSW, 2199

She also mentions as a peeve related to this, the centuries long resistance in America to incorporating the Metric system – the system of measurement that prevails elsewhere on the planet.  I got the impression that converting from Standard (U.S.) to Metric or vice versa, adds another wrinkle to the process of the knitting project. 

OK, that was ladies first and now I get my turn in the buffet line.

I loved and continue to love, “Mayhem” in his various guises as car thief, dog and cat.  I’m indifferent at best about Allstate, much less any insurance company, but the ad agency that put these together and the gentleman, (Dean Gerard Winters), who plays Mayhem, are brilliant! Adding Tiny Fey was a nice touch.

Also love Jeopardy host, Alex Trebek’s invitation to House Member John Lewis (D-GA) to join him in surviving pancreatic cancer in 2020.

Loved writer, producer and director Todd Phillips‘ film, “Joker”, and actor Joaquin Phoenix‘ performance in it, which I wrote a review of and which was released on DVD and Blue Ray this week.

Todd Phillips’ “Joker” Is Something To See, But No Laughing Matter

"Joker" was a difficult film - a thought grenade which was met with delight from some and anger from others. It was definitely not a subject of indifference. Subversive film-making at its best.

Loved Tobin Smith’s recently published book, “Foxocracy”, detailing his insights about a network, Fox News, that he worked at for over a decade.  It’s both an expose and a call to action.  You can get a copy of the book and help us at National Compass by following this link to Amazon and ordering it there:

Actually, anything you are planning to purchase anyway from Amazon, you can help us at the same time by using the above portal. Thank you in advance.

Loved the folks that came on board as contributors, Jennifer Puebla, Keith Mines, Shannon Hanson, Kseniya Kirillova and Teresa Hall – as well as our longtime curmudgeons, Tony Wyman and Lynda Bryant-Work.

Hate “Chevy Family” and Chevy commercials and GM commercials in general. 

Hate the dimmest and dumbest of the dumb in Congress – Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Debbie Lesko and their ilk. Special mention goes to Arizona Republican Paul Gosar, who not only has been repudiated by members of his own family, but has made statements that are notoriously ignorant and false.

Adding insult to injury, Gosar has, in the direct aftermath of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds military force – just tweeted a faked image that purports to show former president Barack Obama shaking hands with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani.

Bad photoshop, really bad. But Gosar doesn’t care and when confronted with the photo’s epic fail regarding authenticity, he not only doesn’t apologize, but doubles down on justifying it.  “The point remains to all but the dimmest: Obama coddled, appeased, nurtured and protected the worlds No. 1 sponsor of terror. The world is better without Obama as president. The world will be better off without Rouhani.”

While his remark about Rouhani has merit, the only problem is that Rouhani, unlike Soleimani, is still with us and still occupies the position of president of Iran. What a maroon!

I hate the constant barrage of what my son describes as “Pharma porn” – incessant commercial advertising of prescription drugs that possess a host of debilitating side effects, up to and including, death.  Oh, how I hate them. Let me count the ways.

They feature a unrelenting drumbeat of invitations to “ask your doctor” – meaning to schedule an appointment to harangue the doctor into agreeing to write a script for them – and, as we’ve seen with the opioid crisis, imprecations are not always necessary. 

The “detail” people – salesmen and saleswomen who rep these drugs are already pestering, cajoling – and dare we say it, bribing physicians to “carefully evaluate” whether their controlled substances are appropriate for his or her patient.

One aspect of them that I do ‘love’, is the obligatory moron statement, “Do not take Humira if you’re allergic to Humira or any of its ingredients.” What the fresh hell?

What would be even more ideal would be if they would advertise these drugs in their clinical names like Adilimumab. How much more tricky would it be to pester your Doc if you can’t pronounce the stuff, much less scratch down the name while the advertisement is running? 

Because I despise most of what passes for pop music in the odds and continuing into this decade – repetitive, unimaginative, devoid of anything resembling talent and produced in the same fashion as dog biscuits or door stops – I deeply appreciate the National Public Radio affiliates that demonstrate there actually are musicians out there plying their craft with proficiency and creativity – sadly in relative anonymity. 

A couple of my favorites are KEXP in Seattle and KCRW (Santa Monica College) in Santa Monica, California, which are part of the national network of partner stations with studios to host live performances. You can check them out on the stations’ websites or listen to them on Youtube.

I love and have always loved Linda Ronstadt. She’s been sidelined from singing, but has born her fight with Parkinson’s with dignity and courage. Linda recently received special recognition from not only the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, finally – but was included in 2019’s Kennedy Center Honors.

She is no shrinking violet when it comes to speaking truth to power and not only had a timely verbal grenade for one of the presenters at the ceremonies, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but outlined her sense of the parallels between the presidency of Donald Trump, the phenomenon of Trumpism and the emergence of the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler in the years leading up to World War II.  

While we’re on that subject, we actually have a report published, written by Shannon D. Hanson just this week on some historical notes of concern:

Making America Germany Again - Trump And The Fourth Reich

Hitler created an elite paramilitary force and ordered them to carry out horrific atrocities. Trump is using Hitler's playbook to foster a killing collation from among America's most resentful. The end result could be far worse than Hitler imagined.

We ran out of time and space for this segment of “Things We Love, Things We Hate” and there are other members of our staff who have their own lists, plus I found out I have at least twice as many items on my list – so, we will pick up with a part Deux of the feature.

Let me know if you enjoyed this feature and let me invite you to participate by sending your list of delights and peeves and we will publish some of them in the next series.

Our comments section is temporarily in maintenance mode, so please send your loves / hates list to me directly at:  
richardcameron@nationalcompass.net

Shannon D. Hanson also has some thoughts about what we saw in the last week, with Trump executing unilateral action without so much as calling an emergency meeting with the Speaker of the House or the Senate Minority Leader – Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, respectively:

Has congress abdicated war powers in the Middle East and given Trump Carte Blanche?

A few days after the terrorist acts on Sept 11, 2001, Congress passed Public law 107-40.  The law which passed almost unanimously was designed to give  President Bush the power to go after the people responsible for the attack.

As can be expected of any law crafted hastily and within the emotion ridden aftermath of such an event, the Authorization for Use of Military Force is problematic.  Although the law claims that nothing in it supersedes the War Powers Resolution, Sec 2 (a)  says:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons

Notice that the president is given full power to make such a determination?  Notice also that there is no end date specified?

It is believed that a number of the Sauds who carried out the attacks on 9/11 passed through Iran because Iran did not stamp Saudi passports. Is this enough to indict them and allow the assassination of its generals?  The president alone has been given full power to make that determination.

Even terrorist acts are no excuse for bad laws.  This one needs to be overturned.

–Shannon D. Hanson

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