old talk shows and movies

 I used to love those Sunday political talk shows.  Back in the day they were mostly cynical reporters commenting on the news dryly and chuckling at the zany actions of the pols.  There were liberal and conservative commentators, but they weren't democrats or republicans.  They stood outside the parties, righties making fun of the reps and lefties making fun of the dems.  

Then Fox came along and they were yellers from the beginning, boasters and sneerers and an offense to gentlemen everywhere.  Then the Foxies began appearing in the gentlemanly intellectual shows and they continued to yell and interrupt and if you wanted to get a word in you had to act like them.  Now most everybody on those shows does that,  and the righties are card-carrying reps and spouting the party line, and the lefties are card-carrying dems also spouting the party line, and they caterwaul at each other like pols, and there is a lot heat and very little light.  I still watch them out of habit but my mind wanders.

Particularly I remember Sam Donaldson and George Will.  Sam Donaldson was a big guy, shaggy haired, given to waving his arms, always passionate about his point.  George Will was always prim and proper in his bowtie and neatly pressed suit, a dapper tabby to Sam's golden retriever.  

And I bring this all up to set the stage for a long ago Sunday morning and the subject was the mideast, back in the day when you talked about the mideast you meant Israel and the surrounding nations, not the vast sprawl of conflicts that it is today, and the subjects was talks between the two and Sam was waving his arms and and shaking his shaggy head, and was all for talks, as any reasonable person would be, and George had his hands folded in front of him and was looking out at the audience they way he did, like, can you believe how stupid this guy I am talking to is,  but politely, and I might add that that Sam Donaldson for all his waving and shaking was still being polite, because back in the days before Fox, everybody acted like a gentleman.

Anyway at one point Sam made the argument that at least if they were talking they weren't fighting, so didn't he agree that the talks were a good thing, and George looked up at him, the way a cat looks at those big apes with the gargantuan brains and said primly, "No."

It kind of stopped the show.  

Oh George want on later to say something about how there was really nothing to talk about, they were all going to do what they were going to do, so talks were just a sideshow, and on and on, that sort of thing.

I just wanted to tell that story.  But I have say I rather agree that they might as well have some kind of talks.  Putin would never invade while he was right there talking to Biden.  Or would he?

As I said earlier I have been listening to experts all day the past week, and I just don't know.  Normally I like to make fun of things, but thinking of the potential bloodbath I can't manage even a dry chuckle.

But a bloodbath on the streets of Ottawa I am all for it, have been for weeks and wondering, as the sultry blonde with the smoking gun told the hard boiled detective when he knocked on the door in that noir movie, "What took you so long?"