Tag Archives: show

"The Good Wife" Is Back. We Have to Talk About It Right Now. Stop What You Are Doing.

by BerthaDigiovann Posted on October 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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The best show on network television finally returned last night, but is this Good Wife still the Good Wife we all know and love? Kalinda and Finn have joined Will in that great big green room in the sky and last night’s episode felt…different.

Let’s talk about it.

Alicia’s life sucks at the moment. She has no law firm. She has no male love interest. She has no friends. And where are her dumb kids anyway? She’s a pariah! “I’m a pariah,” she does not say as the episode begins, but she might as well have. She’s whiling away her days in Shooter McGavin’s bond court, fighting for pick-up cases with beleaguered unclean lawyers who probably went to a joke Ivy like Cornell unlike Alicia who went to Georgetown, which never pretended to be an Ivy in the first place. Poor good wife.

Governor Bad Husband promised his good wife last year that he wouldn’t run for president if she didn’t want him to and she didn’t want him to so he isn’t running for president. OK? Fine, Good. Whatever. But then the good wife changes her mind, because Peter running for president is going to be the plot line for this season—paralleling the plot line in America these days—so she needed to get with it. Peter’s chief of staff, the Russian computer hacker from GoldenEye, is very pleased with this development and he celebrates by wooing Margo Martindale, a top-flight campaign consultant, the meth-making matriarch from the second season of Justified.

But Margo Martindale doesn’t want to be just another campaign strategist. She wants to be the campaign manager and for reasons not entirely clear, Peter goes along with this and fires Alan Cummings. The good wife’s bad husband is also a bad boss.

Meanwhile the attractive young man who used to be Alicia’s rival before becoming her law partner before becoming superfluous to the main plot of the show is unhappy at the big fancy law firm that bears his name. Cary’s few scenes in this episode are dedicated to him trying to be popular with the first year associates who think he’s a stodgy old fart because he spends all of his time with his stodgy old fart partners in their stodgy old fart ivory tower.

Speaking of Cary’s aged old partners: Diane and the lawyer who makes the divorces happen are facing off against Alicia in probate court over some meaningless bullshit about a painting that is worth a lot of money. Who will get the deceased’s paining? No one cares. But this does provide a nice forum for the show to do what it does best: wink at the audience and acknowledge that the show isn’t really about the cases. The Good Wife, more than any other legal drama, doesn’t want you to care about the cases. The cases are just a thing for the characters to do. The marathon of random specialists testifying about post-it notes in this probate case are a great example of that. Not even the judge cares about what the post-it scientists have to say.

Anyway, Alicia covers for one of the bond court lawyers—because bond court lawyers stick together— and then the bond court lawyer covers for Alicia in the probate hearing for which she’s totally unprepared. Diane and Divorce Attorney are going to school her so hard but then—shocker!—the bond court lawyer is good at law and wins the case. Bond court lawyer is apparently supposed to be Alicia’s new friend.

Then Alicia hires Alan Cummings to be her chief of staff because the good wife is also a good friend. Alan Cummings tells Margo Martindale that he is going to destroy her.

Oh also Michael J Fox wants Alicia to work with him. And I think she sort of said yes at the end. (Or did she?) It wasn’t entirely clear.

What is this show about now? It used to be about Alicia finding the courage, through crosses and losses, to become the person she wanted to be. Is it still about that? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

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"The Good Wife" Is Back. We Have to Talk About It Right Now. Stop What You Are Doing.

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Parents Sure Are Keen on Their Kids Becoming Pro Athletes

by Allison05T Posted on September 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s a curiosity. According to a new poll, 26 percent of parents of high school athletes hope their kids will turn pro someday. This rises to 39 percent among parents who earn less than $50,000 per year. As Christopher Ingraham points out, this is pretty ridiculous. Fewer than 1 percent of high school athletes—way fewer than 1 percent—ever make it to the show.

And it’s actually even more ridiculous than that. If your kid isn’t already a star athlete by high school, the chances of going pro drop to basically zero. There’s no way that 39 percent of these folks are the parents of star athletes.

This makes me curious about what this poll really means. Do parents “hope” their kids become pro athletes the same way they hope to win the lottery someday? As in, it’s nice to dream about, but it’s probably not going to happen. Or do they hope in the same way they hope to buy a new car next year? As in, with a little luck and some hard work our dream could come true. These are two very different things.

If it’s mostly the former, no harm done. I’d like to win the lottery too. But if it’s mostly the latter, America must be chock full of really disappointed parents. Maybe that explains something.

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Parents Sure Are Keen on Their Kids Becoming Pro Athletes

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Watch John Oliver’s Epic Takedown of FIFA

by MollieUrquhart Posted on May 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of a soccer governing body!

FIFA, the terrible no good band of Europeans who keep forcing us to call soccer “football,” saw some of its senior most officials arrested in Switzerland today on American corruption charges.

Feel free to take a moment, look at an American flag, and get all teary eyed. (This is why the pilgrims crossed an ocean.)

Anyway, here is John Oliver’s epic takedown of FIFA from his show John Oliver’s Epic Takedowns.

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Watch John Oliver’s Epic Takedown of FIFA

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Watch John Oliver Travel to Moscow to Ask Edward Snowden About Your Dick Pics and the NSA

by ThorsteMetzler Posted on April 6, 2015

Mother Jones

In the latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver traveled to Moscow for an in-depth interview with Edward Snowden, or as Oliver introduced on his show as “the most famous hero and/or traitor in recent American history.”

The segment, which started out measuring how much the NSA whistleblower missed Hot Pockets, quickly delved into surprisingly tough questions aimed at Snowden and the arguable value over his massive surveillance leak. At one point, Oliver even challenged Snowden by asking how many of the leaked NSA documents he actually took the time to read.

“I do understand what I turned over,” Snowden responded.

“There’s a difference between understanding what’s in the documents and reading what’s in the documents, because when you’re handing over thousands of NSA documents the last thing you want to do is read them,” Oliver shot back.

Throughout the rest of the episode, which was pegged to the upcoming June 1st deadline for Congress to reauthorize or end the controversial Patriot Act, Oliver repeatedly reminds Snowden that Americans don’t seem to care very much about government surveillance. But when it comes to more intimate matters, that’s a different story.

“This is the most visible line in the sand for people: Can they see my dick?” Oliver said.

“Well, the good news is there’s no program named the ‘Dick Pic’ program,” Snowden explained. “The bad news is that they are still collecting everybody’s information—including your dick pics.”

Watch the full exchange below:

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Watch John Oliver Travel to Moscow to Ask Edward Snowden About Your Dick Pics and the NSA

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"The Americans" Is One Of The Best Shows On Television—And It Just Got Renewed For Another Season.

by LuisaDumaresq Posted on March 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Do you watch The Americans? You should watch The Americans! Why don’t you watch The Americans? Do you not watch it because it’s about Soviet spies who love each other and also work together to bring down America by wearing wigs and having sexxxxxxx? Well, guess what? That’s only sort of what it’s about. It’s really about a marriage. Are you married? If you’re married, you’ll relate to this show a lot.

You’ll watch it and be like “God, my wife and I just had a very similar fight about how to raise our daughter.” Just replace spying for the Soviets with whatever you do for a living. They’re so cute together, The Americans! They love each other so much, but they’re torn in different directions by competing loyalties, and they don’t know what to do! Bonus: I recently found out that The Americans are dating in real life, which is so cute OMG.

I love The Americans. I’m not nuts about the dumb kids, and some of the storylines are dumb, but the show is really great. The one thing I don’t like about the show is that The Americans are not actually Americans, they’re Soviets and I don’t like rooting for people who are trying to bring down America. I keep hoping they’re going to defect.

But I think they probably won’t. They seem to like communism a lot. But at the same time they also like living in America and enjoying the fruits of capitalism. Their minds are all messed up! You can see what a complicated situation they’re in. A lot of D-R-A-M-A.

Anyway, it’s maybe the second best show on television (after The Good Wife).

The problem is, not that many people watch it. :(((.

The ratings for season 3 are in the hole. A cloud of pessimism and fear has overshadowed the last few episodes; I figured it was unlikely to get renewed by FX for a fourth season. But, guess what? Good news! It’s coming back!

So start watching it please oh dear god I beg you please watch it, please! We can be best friends if you watch it.

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"The Americans" Is One Of The Best Shows On Television—And It Just Got Renewed For Another Season.

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Ringling Bros. Announces It’s Finally Ending Elephant Acts

by MarianaTrujillo Posted on March 5, 2015

Mother Jones

On Thursday, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey said it will end the use of elephant acts by 2018—a move that follows decades of mounting criticism and public concern over the show’s abusive treatment of the animals. Ringling’s parent company, Feld Entertainment, cited a “mood shift” experienced by circus-goers who have grown “uncomfortable with us touring with elephants” for the decision.

President Kenneth Feld also said local legislation barring certain circus practices, such as the use of bullhooks, made it increasingly difficult for the company to continue including elephants in its performances. “This decision was not easy, but it is in the best interest of our company, our elephants and our customers,” he said in a statement.

In 2011, Mother Jones published an explosive, yearlong investigation looking into Ringling’s treatment of elephants, including the regular employment of electric shocks and whippings to control them:

Several of the beatings targeted Nicole, a twentysomething elephant named after Kenneth Feld’s eldest daughter. Sweet-natured but clumsy, Nicole would frequently miss her cues to climb atop a tub and place her feet on the elephant next to her, Stechcon said in his videotaped statement. “I always rooted for her, ‘Come on, Nicole, get up,'” he said. “But we left the show, brought the animals back to their area, and…we took the headpieces off, and as I was hanging them up, I heard the most horrible noise, just whack, whack, whack. I mean, really hard. It’s hard to describe the noise. Like a baseball bat or something striking something not—not soft, and not hard…I turned around to look, and this guy was hitting her so fast and so hard with the ankus, and sometimes he would take both hands and just really knock her, and he was just doing that. And I was, like, I couldn’t believe it.”

The investigation also exposed that Feld Entertainment had spent millions of dollars on PR campaigns to hide such abuse from the public and fend off lawsuits:

It was part of a multimillion-dollar spy operation run out of Feld headquarters to thwart and besmirch animal rights groups and others on the company’s enemies list, according to a stunning Salon piece by Jeff Stein. Feld had even hired Clair George—the CIA’s head of covert operations under President Reagan until his conviction for perjury in the Iran-Contra scandal. (George, who died in August, received a pardon from President George H.W. Bush.)

Thursday’s announcement to phase out the elephants, which have been a staple for the Ringling brand for more than a century, has been met with praise from animal rights activists. Feld Entertainment said the elephants will be transitioned to the company’s elephant conservation center in Florida.

For more, read our in-depth investigation here.

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Ringling Bros. Announces It’s Finally Ending Elephant Acts

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Former CBS Colleagues Refute Bill O’Reilly’s "Combat" Reporting Claims

by ElisaACSGjwiumk Posted on February 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Sunday, a former CBS correspondent spoke to CNN’s Reliable Sources to refute Bill O’Reilly’s claims he reported in a “war zone” during the Falklands war–the subject of a Mother Jones investigation published last Thursday. CNN’s Brian Stelter also reported that he has talked to several other former CBS News journalists who disputed O’Reilly’s account.

“I don’t know of any American foreign correspondent who had a weapon pointed at him,” Engberg told Stelter. “I didn’t hear any gunfire. And not only did I not hear any gunfire, as I say, I didn’t hear any sirens.”

On the show, Stelter played a video of O’Reilly claiming he witnessed Argentine soldiers gunning down civilians at a protest he covered–a video that echoes footage that the Mother Jones article included. Yet Engberg and other correspondents who were in Buenos Aires and who covered the same protest say no such thing happened.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Engberg said the Fox New host largely fabricated his account of his stint in Argentina. “It was not a war zone or even close,” Engberg wrote. “It was an ‘expense account zone.'” O’Reilly has since slammed his ex-colleague, saying Engberg “never left the hotel.”

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Former CBS Colleagues Refute Bill O’Reilly’s "Combat" Reporting Claims

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Jon Stewart Talks to Atul Gawande About Death, Dying, and Ebola

by GarrettChampion Posted on October 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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Jon Stewart had Atul Gawande, the fabulously talented writer and surgeon, on his show yesterday to laugh in the face of death. Gawande’s new book, Being Mortal, is a must-read for anyone who doesn’t want to die in an ICU. It tackles the thorny subject of how the medical profession has failed badly when it comes to the needs of the dying, or, as Gawande put it to me a few hours before the Daily Show taping, “We have medicalized aging, and that experiment is failing us.” Let’s hope this book makes a difference when the time comes.

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Jon Stewart Talks to Atul Gawande About Death, Dying, and Ebola

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How Superbugs Hitch a Ride From Hog Farms Into Your Community

by MittieAvila Posted on September 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Factory-scale farms don’t just house hundreds of genetically similar animals in tight quarters over vast cesspools collecting their waste. They also house a variety of bacteria that live within those unfortunate beasts’ guts. And when you dose the animals daily with small amounts of antibiotics—a common practice—the bacteria strains in these vast germ reservoirs quite naturally develop the ability to withstand anti-bacterial treatments.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria leave these facilities in two main ways. The obvious one is meat: As Food and Drug Administration data show, the pork chops, chicken parts, and ground beef you find on supermarket shelves routinely carry resistant bacteria strains. But there’s another, more subtle way: through the people who work on these operations.

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How Superbugs Hitch a Ride From Hog Farms Into Your Community

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Robyn: Rökysopp’s New Album Is “Fucking Amazing”

by RoseannLascelle Posted on August 25, 2014

Mother Jones

Under the harsh fluorescent lights in the basement of a suburban DC concert venue, as they picked at a pre-show dinner of salmon and rice—I interrogated Swedish superstar Robyn and her Norwegian collaborators, the electro-pop duo Rökysopp, for details about their upcoming releases. The hugely popular Scandinavian acts are on a joint tour promoting Do It Again, their five-song, 35-minute, “mini-album” released in May.

Robyn got her start back in the ’90s as a teen-pop idol, only to leave that image behind in the mid-2000s, ditching her major label and transforming herself into an electro-pop superstar who has pumped out a string of club bangers with the sort of feminist messages seldom heard on the radio. Norwegian duo Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland formed Röyksopp in 1998, and since then have remained at the forefront of a worldwide boom in electronic music.

During our chat, Berge dropped the previously undisclosed title of their upcoming album: The Inevitable End is slated for release in November. “It’s fucking amazing!” Robyn chimed in. The duo’s last full-length album, 2010’s Senior, was a relatively downtempo affair, full of instrumental tracks that lacked the electro-pop dance sensibilities defining the band’s previous work. With The Inevitable End, Röyksopp will return to its roots, re-adding vocals, while still holding onto a bit of that introspective tone. “It’s got a dark energy,” Berge says. “And I think it’s very sincere in many ways. Well, all the music we make is hopefully sincere, but it sits with me.”

Berge and Brundtland said they might just have to steal Robyn’s description of their album: “It’s sad, but it’s not cold. It’s very warm.” If Röyksopp keeps its promise to fans, a new version of “Monument,” the opening track of their partnership with Robyn, will be on the tracklist.

Robyn has been working on a new album herself, a follow-up to her three-part Body Talk series, which spawned megahits like “Dancing On My Own” and “Call Your Girlfriend” (below).

She’s hoping to have the new one out by year’s end, co-produced with her longtime collaborator Christian Falk, who died of cancer just a few weeks ago. “I worked with him for the first time on my first album—when I was 16. So I’ve known him half of my life. We became good friends and we kept working in different ways,” she told me. “We’re finishing the album without him, which is a really strange experience, but also a really beautiful thing because we get to be around the memory of him and the music a little bit longer.”

She’s been testing out some of the new material onstage recently. The show I saw this past Thursday included three fresh songs, which blended in seamlessly alongside her old hits.

Once the Röyksopp tour wraps up, she and Markus Jägerstedt, a member of her touring band and key collaborator on her latest songs, plan to head into the studio to put the finishing touches on the album. “I think it’s maybe messier than what I usually do, because Christian was messy,” she says. “It’s a raw energy and it’s based on a club world. I think it’s going to be fantastic, I’m really happy about it.”

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Robyn: Rökysopp’s New Album Is “Fucking Amazing”

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