Tag: Trump

Finny’s (Not so) Brief 1/6/17–A book deal, a TV deal and a big deal.

Posted on by ryanfinfrock in Uncategorized

These posts take a lot of time, much longer than I thought they would. I’ve quickly learned that if I start writing earlier in the day, it makes the writing better and I have more time to focus on each topic. I feel like it really shows in today’s topics. It goes some places. It is also my longest post since I started doing this.. so buckle up!

Take away a man’s voice and you make his words matter even more

Mark Twain made a living off of controversy. The more his novel were disputed, the more they sold. His books ended up being American classics. The controversy kept those books in the national eye, even to this day. The more the books are disputed and banned, the more people want to read them. Now, before I get into this first story I need to make perfectly clear that I am not equating Mark Twain and this person that I am about to talk about.

You’ve probably heard of Milo Yiannopoulos.

milo

Milo is currently employed by Breitbart.com and made his fame by being a notorious internet troll. In fact, he is one of only a couple people who have been banned from Twitter due to his actions after the Leslie Jones incident. Although Milo’s direct connection to the attacks against Jones can be disputed due to the sheer number of tweet that Jones received in a short amount of time, it is hard to argue that Milo used Twitter to personally attack others or to put it simply, cyberbully. Many claim that he instigated his Twitter followers to attack Jones, which may have prompted the ban.

Many have dubbed Milo the poster-boy of the alt-right movement. He has taken firm stances against immigration, feminism, political correctness and pretty much anything that challenges tradition western thought. Needless to say, there are many out there who don’t really like this guy.

Well… Milo got himself a book deal.

Simon and Schuster signed Milo to a $250,000 book deal that, as you would guess, riled a few feathers. Many, including Leslie Jones, took to Twitter and other mediums to rip Simon and Schuster for signing the controversial figure to a book deal. Simon and Schuster defended their deal in a statement:

“At Simon & Schuster we have always published books by a wide range of authors with greatly varying, and frequently controversial opinions, and appealing to many different audiences of readers. While we are cognizant that many may disagree vehemently with the books we publish we note that the opinions expressed therein belong to our authors, and do not reflect either a corporate viewpoint or the views of our employees.”

Leslie Jones responded with this tweet:

Here’s the thing about all of this: it just brings more attention to the book and inevitably will sell more books because of it. It’s the Mark Twain effect (again, not equating the two.) You may disagree with the author (and possibly for good reason) but it fails to do anything about the problem. In fact, you make his words matter that much more, especially for a troll such as Milo. The more negative attention he gets, especially from Hollywood and media outlets, the more notoriety he gets from his following. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t put some of those negative quote in his book in some way. That’s the way the guy works… and it’s a pretty good business model if we are being honest. If you are Simon and Schuster, how do you not cash in on that?

Also, do not pretend like ‘the left’ are the only people who are boycotting stuff like this. Remember the very vocal group of people on social media who wanted to boycott Rogue One because of it’s ‘anti-Trump, pro-feminist’ agenda? The problem goes both ways.

Drawing some lines…

Writing about this made me think of another topic, a topic that needs to be addressed in 2017 if Twitter wants to survive long-term. Twitter needs to establish a good set of rules to combat cyberbullying, death threats and terrorism. I personally see, on a daily basis, numerous tweets that call for the death of certain people. Terrorists have also used the medium to help spread their hate. Cyberbullying… well… I don’t think I need to tell you how widespread that is.

Twitter is a very powerful tool. I use Twitter every day to help stay on top of breaking news, see what the PEOTUS is tweeting next and what various talking heads are arguing about. It’s great for stuff like that. However, I know that people use Twitter differently. Unfortunately, it is not all good. Jack Dorsey and his team at Twitter need to address the concerns of those who face abuse on a daily basis. Draw some lines as to what you can and cannot say on Twitter. Remember, Twitter is its own company, it can ban users for whatever reason it wants… freedom of speech rules do not really apply. It can remain an open forum but it can restrict whatever it wants to restrict.

Twitter can continue to grow and become an even more powerful tool but the lack of security tools are really holding it back. I really want a reason to delete my Facebook account but I am not quite there yet.

Ok, that ends that little rant.

Kelly on a new journey and Fox News at a crossroads

2017 is a year of new beginnings for a lot of people. It is for me and maybe you, the person reading this. It is also a new beginning for many faces that had quite the 2016. This doesn’t ring true any truer for anyone more than Megyn Kelly.

Megyn Kelly quickly jumped (more) into the mainstream after the first Republican Primary debate where she asked this question:

After this Trump went on the offensive saying that Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever.” An allusion most said was to her menstrual cycle.

Then came the accusations against Roger Ailes, the former head honcho at Fox News. Ailes was accused by multiple women at Fox News, including Kelly, of sexual harassment.

Then it seemed like Kelly was being attacked by the male commentators at Fox News including Sean Hannity and Bill O’ Reilly. All of this led to one obvious conclusion: Megyn Kelly was probably not going to stay at Fox News much longer.

Well, she isn’t.

Megyn Kelly will now be moving to NBC News where she will host a Sunday night News magazine (much like 60 Minutes), a daytime news show and a key role in breaking news events. This is a big investment in a field that seems to be downsizing and going more web based. NBC is putting a lot on the line for this deal.

The most interesting part of this deal, at least for me, is the Sunday night news magazine. If this leads into Sunday Night Football, Kelly has a huge opportunity here. Sunday Night Football (which is only on 5 months of the year) is a ratings superstar during football season. NBC would be wise to cash in on that with its new news program leading into it.

Kelly has turned a lot of negatives and head-butting in 2016 in a new opportunity in 2017. It will be interesting to see how she handles all of this when she takes over at NBC this summer when her Fox News contract is up. Here is her signing off her last “Kelly File” on Tuesday Night:

She handled the situation with a lot of class and I have a newfound respect for her as a journalist. Consider me a fan of Megyn Kelly.

So where does Fox News go from here? Well, it named Tucker Carlson, who took over for Greta van Susteren when she left last year (and is now at MSNBC of all places.) Does Fox News officially become the megaphone for Donald Trump in 2017? It was leaning that way during the general election season. Sean Hannity had Trump on on almost a nightly basis (for what he called ‘exclusive’ interviews) and Trump also got preferential treatment on the network. Fox News is truly at a crossroads as a network. What kind of network does it want to be? I’m not saying become more “fair and balanced” because well… you know that won’t happen. I’m talking about challenging the soon-to-be-President and not getting on their knees over everything he does or doesn’t do. It’ll be one of the big media stories to watch in 2017.

Quick tidbit: Donald Trump will hold his first press conference in almost 170 days next Wednesday. Hillary Clinton, depending on what source you read, went roughly 244 days without a presser.

That ends today’s brief (a name of which I am still looking for.) I had a lot more that I wanted to talk about… including my review of the Apple Watch but this post went on longer than I thought it would.. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll have that review up some time this weekend as a little bonus post. Until then, enjoy the weekend, folks! Keep in touch with me on Twitter @ryanfinfrock. Tell me what you like and don’t like about these posts. What do you want to see? let me know!

Also, I have a new game review up on Brashgames.com. I reviewed Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel which is just as anime as the title suggests. Give it a read! I’m not a fan of anime… mainly because I think it’s bizarre. So I was the perfect guy to review this game!

Finny’s *Not so Daily* Brief 12/20/16— Hey, white guys! Happy Holidays!

Posted on by ryanfinfrock in Uncategorized

I’m back! Again! Things have gotten a little interesting over the last couple days that forced me to take a couple days off of the blog. I’m back writing in games media! I’m a writer for Brashgames.com. I’ll be reviewing video games, writing news stories and eventually starting a podcast. You can read my review of Super Mario Run there now. Give it a read and tell me what you think. I start writing again and all of a sudden the writing just grows ten fold. It’s awesome but also extremely time consuming.

Anyway… back to the matter at hand. Boy do I have a doozy of a story to start off with.

MTV just told us why Trump won the election

MTV really put into 2016 into perspective today. When I say ‘perspective,’ I really mean “Boy, they really blame one group of people for the shit storm that was 2016.”

Before I go on.. it is important you know what I’m talking about:

MTV decided to take it upon themselves to blame white guys for 2016 and all of its atrocities. Yep… where do I even begin on this?

I know this is hard territory for a white guy such as myself to talk about because I’m ‘one of them’ but hear me out here: THIS CRAP IS WHY DONALD TRUMP GOT ELECTED AND WHY YOU PROBABLY MADE THIS VIDEO IN THE FIRST PLACE! Think back to the campaign season. There were people out there who lumped Trump voters into what someone referred to as a “basket of deplorables.” Yes, she (Hillary Clinton) said that it was only half of Trump supporters but people were quick to jump on it and wear the badge with honor. People continued to call most Trump supporters racists, misogynist, Nazis etc. I think it goes without saying that a lot of Trump supporters do not fit that bill. There are Trump supporters who think that he will bring jumps back to rural areas and stimulate the economy. Also, let me say that yes… there are a lot of real shitty Trump supporters out there too. The name calling fueled people to get out the vote and Trump won. Negative labels on groups of people never work and do more harm than good.

Making a video like this automatically alienates an entire group of people… a group of people that you would want to talk to in order to have a productive conversation about where our country is and where we can improve it. Yes, this video may want to think it is doing this but it is doing the opposite. Ad hominem attacks by essentially saying “you don’t know what I’m going through because you’re a white guy” is not a good start to a conversation.

All white guys are responsible for Brock Turner? What?

It also doesn’t seem to care about its own message by cracking a joke about Kanye West not being black. Beyonce can talk about black issues but Kanye can’t? In what world does that make sense? “You know what you did, Kanye.” What, meet with President-elect Trump? Is that grounds for losing your ‘black card?’

I also audibly laughed when the “some of you are fine” line was thrown in there at the end…as if it actually meant anything at that point.

I was equal parts infuriated and hysterical while I watched this. Constructive conversations need to happen in our country to bring us closer together in these divided times. Also, people replying to this tweet with death threats and racist language… no words can describe how hypocritical you are being. I know, the internet will forever be… well, the internet.

Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas– A battle not worth fighting

Ok… I say Happy Holidays a lot. Why? I know people who do not celebrate Christmas. It is that simple. Some people have a hard time wrapping their head around that.

I have family members who are ‘Merry Christmas’ folk all the way. When I say Happy Holidays to them (mostly just to trigger a response) it’s immediately met with “IT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Is it though? Hanukkah actually starts on Christmas Eve this year… so what would you say to your Jewish family and friends? “Hey, screw you guys! It’s Christmas! Just bad luck for you guys to have your thing start on the eve of ours.”

Maybe I’m too PC (trust me, I’m really not) buy Happy Holidays shouldn’t trigger the people the way it does. You have Trump telling large groups of people that we are going to say “Merry Christmas again.” Again? When did it ever leave? You can celebrate Christmas and say Merry Christmas to whomever you want but when someone says “I actually celebrate Hanukkah” what would your response be?

That’s all I really wanted to say on that topic… just something that was really irking me recently. It baffles me how many people get worked up over this.

That ends the brief for today. I’ll hopefully be back tomorrow with more stuff that I’m fired up about in the world. In the mean time, let me know what you think of today’s stories? What do you think of MTV’s actions? You a Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas kind of person? Let me know!

I’ll end this with a (Christmas themed) YouTube video released last night that had me laughing pretty hard. There’s a pretty great “Hamilton” parody in there.

 

Finny’s Daily Brief 12/12/16– What’d I Miss?

Posted on by ryanfinfrock in Uncategorized

Ok… let me start off by saying that I apologize if there are one two many “Hamilton” references in today’s brief.

Actually, scratch that. You’re welcome.

I was out running this morning and was thinking of a way to give a  little “extra something” to my first brief and my first time talking about current events in this format in some time. “Hamilton” has kind of dominated my free time for the past few months (and excellent running music if you want to give it a try) so it only seems right to give the first brief a little “Hamilton” flavor.

It’s been a long time. So What’d I miss?

What? You’ve never listened to Hamilton before? Are you human?

daveed

It must be nice… it must be nice… to have Vladimir on your side.

Putin must really like all of the coverage he is getting here in the United States. Thanks to Donald Trump, the U.S. relationship with Russia has taken center stage.

You know… kinda like Lafayette and Hamilton but with less of the actual friendship, more of the backstabbing, less of the French… I’m trying to make it work.

Most recently, in what may be the best act of bipartisanship we may see in the next four years, members of the House and Senate have come out and said that there needs to be a thorough investigation into Russian hacking of the election. Many believe that the hacking had a profound impact on the election (which is extremely hard to prove… even if there was proof of hacking.) After the hack of DNC emails, many thought that hacking of the election results is just as likely… because of reasons that people are not very clear on.

I won’t sit here and pretend that I know all of the stuff that is involved with investigating what goes into a possible hack of ballot boxes or ballot machines but I will say that it is worth an investigation but if people are wanting this to have a profound impact on the election.. even to the point where the Clinton camp is saying that the Electoral College should be briefed on this before voting next week… is about as crazy as crazy gets.

That’s not where the Russia stuff ends though.

Trump’s leading candidate for Secretary of State is raising Russian red flags all over the place.

Key Speakers At Ceraweek 2012

Rex Tillerson is the current CEO of Exxon-Mobil (which pisses people off to begin with) but also has a good relationship with Russia. He even received a friendship award from Russia. I’m serious. That’s about as close to a participation trophy as you can get in politics.

“Hey Tillerson, you’re a good guy!”

“Hey, Putin! Thanks, Man! I appreciate it.”

“Here’s this friendship award just to say ‘thank you for being a friend.'”

That’s the extent of Tillerson’s foreign policy experience. It’s more than Trump’s, to his credit (whatever that may be worth.) The race for State seems to be between Tillerson and Mitt Romney, who lambasted Trump earlier this year during the Primary. During his dinner interview with Trump it spawned the best photo of the year.

trump-romney-tw

What was on the menu that night? Romney’s dignity.

“Dignity is a dish best served cold.” Ok.. Two captions of that photo are enough but I’ll be damned if this isn’t a good representation of Aaron Burr and Hamilton.

Finally, turning back to Russia, it makes sense why so many people are worried about our relationship with Russia. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but Russia has a really sketchy record on a lot of things (invading countries, LGBT rights, media restrictions, killing journalists, etc.) People have a right to be worried about our Russian dealings.

Dear James Comey, what to say to you…

The election 0f 2016 was wrapped up a little over a month ago. Donald Trump won fair and square. I was surprised that I was surprised at the amount of finger pointing that was going on around the Democratic Party in the days (and now month) following the election.

Harry Reid said today that James Comey, head of the FBI, cost Hillary Clinton the election. Reid is not the first person to say this but is (or was) the highest ranking person in Congress to publicly call out Comey.

Don’t remember what happened?  James Comey reopened the case against Hillary Clinton and her private use of an email server when new emails were discovered when investigators were looking at Anthony Weiner’s case (Would it be inappropriate to say “Rise up?” in keeping with the ‘Hamilton’ theme?) The thing that made this a bigger deal than normal was that it was reopened just a few days before people were heading to the polls on Election Day.

Harry Reid is retiring so he really has nothing to lose by coming out and calling out James Comey for this. Does he have a point? Is there a correlation between Comey and the Election results? It’s hard to say. However, the gap between Trump and Clinton was tightening before this news came out so it is hard to pinpoint where it went wrong. Also, when you hardly campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin because you feel like you have it in the bag… don’t be surprised when you lose those states.

I could go on and on about the election because I never had a chance to talk about it in depth… but that ship has sail. I just find it very humorous when the losing side plays the blame game so quickly and denies the facts of what happened.

Hillary should have gone door to door, seem more approachable, seem like people could grab a beer with her. (These Hamilton references are really stretching it, aren’t they?

Hopefully for one last time: deflategate

Yeah.. yeah… I stretched the reference there a little bit there too. That’s about as far as I can take the ‘Hamilton’ reference.

Fox Sports reported yesterday that the New York Giants are going to the NFL with reports that the Pittsburgh Steelers improperly deflated footballs to gain an advantage.

Yep… here we go again.

Let me preface by saying as a Bengals fan, I loved seeing the Steelers involved in a controversy. As a football fan, let me say that ‘deflategate’ needs to die and the NFL needs to focus all of their attention on things that matter. That’s why I bring this up… mainly as a springboard to talk a little bit about what in the hell is wrong with the NFL right now.

  • A guy gets a longer suspension for using marijuana than another guy does for beating his girlfriend.
  • Many retired football players cannot remember family members

These are the two biggest issues the NFL has right now. When the first ‘deflategate’ controversy came to be, it was all anyone could talk about. I would even go as far as to believe that it was all part of Roger Goodell’s plan: turn the focus away from actual issues and turn it to this thing that will probably yield zero results. We weren’t talking about concussions and we weren’t talking about domestic abuse issues in the NFL (at least not to the magnitude of ‘deflategate.’)

This was the point where I started feeling guilty watching NFL games on Sunday. Now, in the back of my head I will always be thinking about the background issues facing the NFL (albeit the concussion issue hits me harder than most.) The NFL has a lot of problems to figure out and another ‘deflategate’ controversy will do nothing but make the other problems worse.

I can only wish the NFL could teach them how to say goodbye to ‘deflategate.’ (Ok, that’s the last one.)

That ends the brief for today. It’s a definite work in progress. I’m still figuring out a few kinks and getting a definite format down and trying to be, well, brief.

I’ll be back tomorrow, with less Hamilton references (no promises) and more stories and hopefully a better idea of what to do with this idea.