Tucker Carlson: Expanding the envelope
Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 3:59 am
In the show Bojack Horseman, Keith Olbermann plays an over-the-top, self-righteous and vitriolic version of himself... as a whale.
In one show, he neatly pivots from reports about a popular TV star being a sex abuser to a report that Kanye West hates thin mints. You can bet we'll get to the bottom of this. This is the only thing I care about now!
So it's pretty easy to digest the diatribes of Tucker Carlson, as long as you watch social satire cartoons.
Let's go way back in history, to a time before Covid-19. If you saw someone wearing a protective mask, what did you think? If you're like me, not much. San Francisco's large Chinese community has a lot of residents who wore masks during cold and flu season. If I had to guess, it's because the population density of Chinese community necessitates stricter hygiene. You see a lot of people wearing masks on Public Transit.
I used to lead walking tours of Chinatown. One of the stops is Portsmouth Square, the backyard of Chinatown. It's a place for parents, children, and grandchildren. It was not uncommon in the winter to see kids playing while wearing masks. Again, just a proactive measure born in a culture with a lot of densely populated areas.
According to Tucker Carlson, if see a child playing while wearing a mask, you should call Child Protective Services and the Police.
This is hysteria. Hopefully the lawyers at Fox might point out that urging people to call police and Child Protective Services because Tucker Carlson feels something should be against the law is not the way the American legal system works. Never mind that there could be other reasons (immunodeficiencies, etc.) for a person to wear a mask, the outrage of a Fox viewer should be the final arbiter.
For years, we have watched the network become a cartoon parody of itself, both figuratively and literally. Carlson now wants to enlist the police and child protective services against parents who have their children wear masks. He's now to masks what William Jennings Bryant was to the gold standard:
You shall not crucify mankind upon a mask of cotton!
If I had to guess, Tucker might be asked to take a 'vacation', a la Bill O'Reilly, but then the network is in a bind, because...you know...Hannity. If Fox starts having standards, who knows where it could end up?
In one show, he neatly pivots from reports about a popular TV star being a sex abuser to a report that Kanye West hates thin mints. You can bet we'll get to the bottom of this. This is the only thing I care about now!
So it's pretty easy to digest the diatribes of Tucker Carlson, as long as you watch social satire cartoons.
Let's go way back in history, to a time before Covid-19. If you saw someone wearing a protective mask, what did you think? If you're like me, not much. San Francisco's large Chinese community has a lot of residents who wore masks during cold and flu season. If I had to guess, it's because the population density of Chinese community necessitates stricter hygiene. You see a lot of people wearing masks on Public Transit.
I used to lead walking tours of Chinatown. One of the stops is Portsmouth Square, the backyard of Chinatown. It's a place for parents, children, and grandchildren. It was not uncommon in the winter to see kids playing while wearing masks. Again, just a proactive measure born in a culture with a lot of densely populated areas.
According to Tucker Carlson, if see a child playing while wearing a mask, you should call Child Protective Services and the Police.
Having your child wear a mask is child abuse and the moral equivalent of beating your child.As for forcing children to wear masks outside, that should be illegal. Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart. Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What you're looking at is abuse, it's child abuse, and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.
This is hysteria. Hopefully the lawyers at Fox might point out that urging people to call police and Child Protective Services because Tucker Carlson feels something should be against the law is not the way the American legal system works. Never mind that there could be other reasons (immunodeficiencies, etc.) for a person to wear a mask, the outrage of a Fox viewer should be the final arbiter.
For years, we have watched the network become a cartoon parody of itself, both figuratively and literally. Carlson now wants to enlist the police and child protective services against parents who have their children wear masks. He's now to masks what William Jennings Bryant was to the gold standard:
You shall not crucify mankind upon a mask of cotton!
If I had to guess, Tucker might be asked to take a 'vacation', a la Bill O'Reilly, but then the network is in a bind, because...you know...Hannity. If Fox starts having standards, who knows where it could end up?