 |
| Jose Antonio Vargas, filmmaker, "Documented" |
by Catherine Giordano
It's Memorial Day weekend, a time set aside for Americans to
honor their war dead, so I have titled this review and recap of HBO's
"Real Time with Bill Maher," episode 319, which aired on 5/23/14 with
a nod to The Star Spangled Banner, "Jose Can You See."
Jose Antonio Vargas,
is a journalist, filmmaker, the founder of “Define American,” and
an undocumented American. His new documentary, Undocumented, is in theaters now.
When he first heard our nation’s anthem after his mother sent him
to the United States from the Philippines at the age of 12 to live with his
grandparents, he thought the song lyrics were “Jose can you see” and the song was
for him. In a way it is, as it is for all Americans.
Oh
say, can you see all the wrongs in our society that need to be made right? I’ll
discuss a few of them in this post.
We can all see that our immigration situation is a
mess. Maher did the interview this week
with Vargas calling him the face of “The
Dreamers.” (“Dreamers” refers to young people brought to
this country illegally as a child who feel as American as anyone else having
grown up here, and who want a path to citizenship.)
Vargas said this is not just a Mexican issue; there
are Central Americans, Europeans and over 1 million Asians. Maher pointed out that most undocumented
immigrants don’t come over the border; they come by plane as a visitor and just
don’t leave.
Vargas talked about family separations. There are 17
million “mixed status” families in this country. In many cases, American citizen
kids born here, have their parents deported. Vargas said that he had not seen
his mother in 17 years.
Vargas said “Get politics out of it. This is not a
Republican or Democratic issue. It’s about doing the right thing.”
 |
| Sarah Silverman |
She told a story about being on a picket line for choice where
a little girl told her she was going to Hell. Silverman’s response: “’I can’t
go to Hell. I don’t believe in Hell. Do you really think God hates me?’ Then I
told a doody joke and we were all good.”
Silverman said, “I love kids. I’ve never had an abortion.
But I would fight to the death for a woman’s right to choose.”
Of course, Silverman loves kids. She still looks and acts
like a kid, despite being 43-years old. Like kids everyone she finds jokes
about bodily functions related to elimination very funny. I think she is great. I loved her TV show.
Another topic discussed was capital
punishment.
Maher mentioned it in his monologue. “Tennessee
is reinstating the electric chair. They are firing up the grill. They really do
fry everything in the South. They don’t call it an execution; they call it ‘empowering
minorities.’”
It strikes a nerve because minorities are
disproportionately given the death penalty.
Maher said, “We are a very vengeful country, but we don’t want to be
seen so.” Of the industrialized countries only China, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi
Arabia still execute people. Not the best of company for our country.
To maintain the façade of being civilized, we try to
do executions “humanely,” as if an execution could ever be humane. Maher said, “We have assisted suicide, we
know how to kill people. Put them under [like when you are anesthetized for an
operation in the hospital,] then guillotine them, shoot them, whatever.”
My opinion: We can all see, if we take a moment to
understand the issues, that execution is morally wrong. (In my public speaking
career, I do a talk about this.) Read more on this topic at Bill Maher Rules.
One of the panelists, David Frum: senior editor at The Atlantic, political commentator, former George W. Bush speechwriter, and
author of several books, the most recent being a novel, Patriots,
said that executions were down in the United States. (A bit of hope, perhaps, that our country is
moving away from this barbaric practice.) No! Frum said “lower crime rates mean
fewer executions.”
Maher replied that the lower
crime rates were due to abortion. A lot of unwanted kids were not born and did
not grow up to become criminals. “Thank Sarah Silverman,” he concluded.
Maher brought up the VA Hospital scandal. “It’s Memorial Day,
and the big story is how bad we treat vets.”
Anna Devere Smith:
actress, playwright, and professor, currently featured in Showtime’s Nurse
Jackie was panelist on the show. She
said, ”We are so good at sending people to war, not so good at taking care of
them.”
Frum accurately
described the situation. “We took good care of WW II vets. Then we had an
influx of people from a different kind of war. We were not prepared for these
vets.”
Another panelist, David
Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic, political commentator, former George
W. Bush speechwriter, and author of several books, the most recent being a
novel, Patriots,
weighed in on the topic. “How are you going to fix it? Let the vets go to
private hospitals, private physicians, to lessen the burden on the VA.”
The third panelist, Michael
Smerconish, who is a political talk show host on Sirius radio and CNN, the
author of several non-fiction books and author of one non-fiction book, the
newly published novel about a talk show host, Talk:
A Novel, added,“It takes time to train people to treat traumatic brain
injury.” He also pointed out that the “VA used to treat only service related
injuries, not all of the veterans’ medical needs.”
The VA is under a lot of stress right now and Republicans
are blaming Obama, just as they blame him for everything. But Obama wanted to
increase the budget for the VA, and Republicans wouldn’t vote for it. There
ended up being budget cuts and hiring freezes. So the VA is left trying to do
more with less—no wonder there are problems.
The mid-show comedy
segment was really brief. There’s a hit song “Happy” that has inspired
people all over the world to create their own music video. Some kids in Iran
did one, and got stomped on by their government. So Maher did a spoof of a video
that would please the mullahs. It showed
people standing around looking glum.
This "Porn Again" bit from New Rules was a lot funnier. Evidently there
is a new trilogy about kinky sex, to rival Fifty Shades
of Gray. This one is He Watches Me:
The Seen Trilogy.
The titles of the three books are:
·
He Watches Me
·
He Touches Me
·
He Claims Me
Maher suggest three new titles:
·
He Borrows Money From Me
·
He Impregnates Me
·
He Leaves Me
The final New Rules
was titled “Politically Incorrect.” It was about how political correctness has
run amok. “The internet points to whoever says the wrong thing so we can all be
morally superior.”
Maher urged us to get over castigating people for every
stupid thing they say. “The culture wars are totally over and we won. In five
years, the NFL will be totally gay…. We can’t purge everyone who didn’t get
enlightened just when you did.”
“Don’t hound them out of their show. Just let them try to
find an interior designer who will work with them.”
Lots of issues to discuss. See what I mean.
Guests for May 23, 2014
Jose Antonio Vargas:
journalist, filmmaker, and the founder of “Define American” an
organization dedicated to immigration, is most famous for his New York Times article, “My Life as an
Undocumented Immigrant.” His new documentary, Documented is in
theaters now.
Sarah
Silverman: comedian, writer, and
actress, author of The Bedwetter:
Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee,
star of the former (very funny) TV series, The
Sarah Silverman Show. She is in a new movie titled A
Million Ways to Die in the West.
David Frum: senior
editor at The Atlantic, political commentator, former George
W. Bush speechwriter, and author of several books, the most recent being a
novel, Patriots
Michael Smerconish:
political talk show host on Sirius radio and CNN, and the author of several non-fiction
books. His most recent book is a novel about a talk show host, Talk:
A Novel
Anna Devere Smith:
actress, playwright, and professor, curently featured in Showtime’s Nurse
Jackie.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Do you agree? Do you have something to add? I'd love to hear your opinions, so please post a comment. Don't forget to click "Publish" just below the "Comment" window.