It would appear that Tucker Carlson’s surprise “trout fishing vacation” happened when he learned about the new lawsuit against Fox, in which he appears as a member of the supporting cast.
I admit, I haven’t watched much of Carlson, ever, but, when I have, it’s always triggered a fountain of philosophical speculation, e.g.: “how can someone who interrupts other people so much be concerned with free speech?” This is a guy who tries to completely dominate every discussion that he is in, and he hasn’t realized that talking over top of someone is a form of “de-platforming”?
Why did they photoshop my eyes closer together?
The prurient details of the lawsuit are mostly regarding another Fox host, Ed Henry, who got out the door with his millions and reputation intact. Or, who thought he did. [ap] Carlson’s role in the lawsuit appears to be as a douchebro who participated in retaliating against a co-worker who was being sexually harassed in a particularly disgusting way. Fox’ boys club senior talent appear to be getting their Harvey Weinstein on, bigly. But – retaliating – isn’t that perilously close to “cancel culture” in the workplace? You know: a co-worker’s freedom of speech is not being respected because when they exercised their freedom of speech to say “I don’t want to have sex with you”, they were silenced and hounded out of the organization.
That’s a stretch, I know, but it’s not much more of a stretch than is being made by the various “anti-PC” pundits (formerly known as: stale comedians) who want to complain that bad sexualized humor should be supported even if it’s tedious and un-funny. I doubt Carlson is going to trot out the “I was just kidding” defense, because he’s just way too busy tying those trout flies, don’t you know?
As I said, it’s a stretch, but it illustrates the problem political conservatives have when they try to wrap themselves in the banner of “free speech” – because the speech they are forced to defend is usually deplorable, sexist, racist, or stupid. It’s not a good look because it forces them to eventually have to answer questions like, “why did you support that?” Note that none of this has anything to do with “free speech” and everything to do with “speech has consequences” – i.e.: we respected you enough (even Tucker!) to listen carefully to what you had to say; then we concluded you’re a disgusting jerk who’s not worth listening to. Ricky Gervais take note: throwing ancient sexist tropes around doesn’t make you “edgy” it means you’re “lazy” and “you suck.”
Frankly, I am surprised that Carlson is still “a thing” after the devastating public hamstringing he invited when he was still the bowtie-wearing friendly face of sociopathy on Crossfire. In case you have never seen this, it’s already going down in history as one of the great moments in media criticism:
I don’t agree with Stewart’s cheap shot about Carlson wearing a bowtie at his age, but that’s probably because my father always wore a bowtie and it seems normal to me. Or, as normal as wrapping any kind of restrictive lead-rope around your own neck can be.
Shortly after Stewart unassed Carlson on his own show, Crossfire was canceled. Personally, I’ve always wondered why CNN did not suffer more negative impact for hosting such a rotten show. But, they eventually corrected the problem. Score: cancel culture 1, Carlson 0.
Carlson will probably survive this and will probably enjoy his well-timed “fishing trip” and Fox news will continue to exist; the performers will just have to a bit more careful with their public personas. Cancel me a river.
Carlson is right about one thing — Bowties. Bowties are cool.
“I admit, I haven’t watched much of Carlson, ever, but, when I have, it’s always triggered a fountain of philosophical speculation, e.g.: “how can someone who interrupts other people so much be concerned with free speech?” This is a guy who tries to completely dominate every discussion that he is in, and he hasn’t realized that talking over top of someone is a form of “de-platforming”?”
That was always what I thought when I used to watch Charlie Rose on PBS. Funny, that.
I once turned on a TV in a hotel, and it came on to Tucker Carlson ranting about something at max volume. Then the remote immediately stopped working, couldn’t turn it off, change the channel, mute, or even turn the volume down.
I quickly resorted to unplugging the TV. couldn’t get it working after that, but I haven’t really tried to use a TV in over a decade, so probably user error/ignorance…
I can’t stand that asshole, he seems to be stuck on a spectrum that consists solely of Confusion and Anger.
I remember a post over on PZ’s (I think?) where Carlson was complaining about the metric system, how it was “creepy” and assorted other nonsense. Quick, without a calculator, how many inches are in a mile, Tucker? Despite growing up in ‘Murrica, and being more intuitively familiar with Imperial units, the metric system just makes so much more sense. Bumping a decimal point around is so much easier than what ever traditional nonsense the Imperial system is built on…
lochaber@#3:
Quick, without a calculator, how many inches are in a mile, Tucker? Despite growing up in ‘Murrica, and being more intuitively familiar with Imperial units, the metric system just makes so much more sense. Bumping a decimal point around is so much easier than what ever traditional nonsense the Imperial system is built on…
I remember when I was a kid and they first tried to get us to change. My grandfather, who was a carpenter and violin-maker, tried to explain to me that the imperial system was better because it was easier to find the center of things, by dividing by 2. I.e: 12″ -> 6″, 8′ -> 4′ etc. It took me a while to realize that it just made sense to him because he was used to it. Dividing 3″ in half is not exactly clean. And 10cm divides in half nicely.
That whole thing was odd. I remember in school they told us that we were switching over and I didn’t care and learned how to use metric. But the change never came so I stick with imperial measures. After all, then your car’s speedometer is imperial, and you’re buying lumber in imperial units, the change never seems to come.
huh.
I never really thought finding the center was that difficult, even without a measure, at least on linear objects (and if they aren’t linear, you could sub in a string or something…)
Just mark where you think the center is, along with something else (easy if it’s multiple 2x4s, otherwise, you can just use the ground, and but it up against a rock or something), flip it over, and mark the spot you think is the center betwixt the previous marks. Two or three iterations of that should get close enough for most purposes, and a couple more should get you closer than what you can what you can define with your marking tool, or be lost in the kerf…
The only way I could really see that being easier is if you are dealing with something made in Imperial units, but than later converted to metric. (At work, we have some things that are supposed to be 101.6mm. Not because they care about that .1mm, but because it used to be a flat four inches, and somebody just threw it into a converter when it came time to change the method to metric…)
A few weeks after Jon Stewart was on “Crossfire,” Triumph the Insult Comic Dog went on “Crossfire.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2004/11/02/and-your-mama-has-fleas/2d510495-b2b9-47c9-8eec-18e2b4baf5b1/