Thoughts on the morning after the Roseanne debacle.

I'm skeptical. Did ABC really cancel "Roseanne," or are we sucked into high-drama theater with more scenes to come? Is this like the Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un show, where it's on, then it's off, then it's on?

There's so much politics-and-showbiz going on, and I'm not going to sit passively in a comfy chair as a good little audience member. 

I predict Roseanne Barr will have more scenes to play, perhaps some slow rolling out of apologies as the new TV season approaches and new episodes are teased about how Roseanne Connor said something racist and kind of might actually be a racist or maybe Dan is a secret racist and Darlene comes to the rescue and the little he's-not-transgender boy shows us how to love again.

What soppy goo we slurp up every day! It's always something new. For example, right now, I'm seeing "Roseanne Barr blames sleep aid Ambien for racist tweet" (Reuters)...

“It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far & do not want it defended-it was egregious Indefensible,” she wrote. “I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but...don’t defend it please.”

What does "it was memorial day too" even mean? Roseanne has a disorderly mind — or speaks as though she does — but she's done a bang-up job of grabbing our attention and that draws into question how orderly our minds are. Step back. Get skeptical. You only have the hours and minutes in your life that you have. You must use that time as it happens in the now. Every second you pay attention to one thing, you lose a second that would have gone somewhere else.

How many seconds of human time can Roseanne or Donald Trump or Kim Jong-Un amass? Kudos to them for their unfolding victories in the game of paying attention.

IN THE COMMENTS: Eleanor said:

Personally, I think Roseanne saw some of next season's scripts, didn't like the way the story was going, and wanted out. She'll rehabilitate herself, maybe another network will pick her up, and she'll get more control of the show. If not, she can afford to enjoy her retirement, knowing she put liberal hypocrisy on grand display.

Leland said:

I think it is cancelled. She insulted the Obamas by insulting Valerie Jarrett. And the comment was definitely ugly, despite years of Chimpy McHitler. Fair enough, what she tweeted about VJ was not nearly as bad as dressing up as Hitler and pulling ginger bread men out of the oven. That latter joke didn't keep ABC from hiring her in the first place.

Yes, the problem of likening humans to apes, an interesting variation on the age-old resistance to the notion of evolution. We are primates, all of us, the same order as the apes. Bush was "Chimpy McHitler," and let's not forget that time Trump sued Bill Maher for joking that Trump was the son of an orangutan.

Oh! And I see that people have not forgotten. There's already: "Roseanne Supporters Are Calling For HBO To Fire Bill Maher For Calling Trump An Orangutan" (Hollywood Life).

Henry said:

I don't think Roseanne walks this one off -- at least not until she does a full Mel Gibson disappearance for a few years.

Pre-production on the next season was already underway. It wouldn't surprise me if Disney tries to reboot the show without Roseanne. Maybe she dies off-screen and Dan remarries Betty White.

Roseanne's next page is to go full Charlie Sheen. She's not getting her show back.

Yes, I thought that too. Do the show without "Roseanne." Before the reboot, the series had ended with Roseanne's husband dead. So come back with Roseanne dead. Was she really the without-which-none of the show? She's a bad actor compared to the others. John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf are at the complete opposite end of the scale — great actors. Sara Gilbert ("Darlene") seems to have been the brains of the reboot. She could become the central character. Build the new season around John Goodman, Laurie Metcalfe, and Sara Gilbert, and leave the dead weight of Roseanne behind.

Sal said:

My new script idea: Roseanne has an encounter with some black guy. He complains about her apes reference and she gives him ten bucks. His eyes light up!

LOL. (He's referring to this. I love comments that incorporate stuff from other posts.)

AND: daskol said:

Great actors are moons and need a planet. Great TV writers too, and even clever Sara Gilbert is merely a moon without a planet. Roseanne is a planet.

"Since marriage is a partnership, I’d like to know who I am and what I’m able to offer financially and how stable I am, before I’m committed legally to someone."

"My mom says I’m removing all the romance from the equation, but I know there’s more to marriage than just love. If it’s just love, I’m not sure it would work."

Says one millennial — a 24-year-old woman — quoted in "Put a Ring on It? Millennial Couples Are in No Hurry/Young adults not only marry and have children later than previous generations, they take more time to get to know each other before tying the knot" (NYT).

If it’s just love, I’m not sure it would work... But if it's also not just love, but includes all of those things you've consumed youthful years sorting out, you still won't be sure it will work. The question isn't how can I be sure...



... it's how sure do I need to be before I merge my fate, in these few short years I have on earth, with another human being? All of life is a leap into the unknown, and life sweeps by, leaping all around you, even if you stand back, unleaping. Everyone is getting older, and those who hold back, seeking security and hoping somehow eventually to find themselves, may find a lonely, inflexible self that never truly loved.

IN THE COMMENTS: Darrell said:

Luckily, you can run away at the first sign of trouble.

Mr. D said:

The only thing you can know is that your circumstances will change, so make sure the person you're with can adapt to the changes.

Is the incoherence intended as humor? As a sympathetic reader, I'll assume yes.
Darrell said:

Want to be sure? Find a beautiful 60-year-old then go back in time and grab her at twenty. That'll give you forty good years.

Eleanor said:

We're raising kids who are not allowed to take risks. Failure is not an option we give them. They've grown up risk-adverse. It should come as no surprise they're very cautious about getting married. Marriage is a leap of faith. Whether one makes lists and tallies up all the pros and cons, or just jumps off the cliff, it's a big risk. We've been married 45 years, and it was the best return on any investment either of us has ever made, but we didn't think about it that way at the time. We were just two kids who held hands and leaped.

If you're ever going to jump, you might want to jump young. Not jumping is taking a different risk.

Oh, come on. I'm sure it's possible. And now I feel challenged. The GOP tax bill is going to kill us all!

I'm reading the NYT headline: "You Cannot Be Too Cynical About the Republican Tax Bill."

The most cynical thing I actually think is that the GOP benefited itself by shifting a big burden onto taxpayers in the high-taxing blue states while channeling a generous new advantage to the taxpayers in red states.

The above-linked column (by Thomas Edsall) quotes an unnamed "tax expert" on this subject:

Restriction on state and C local tax deduction — consciously vindictive imposition of double taxation on citizens of certain Democratic states; corporations and pass through businesses, the darlings of the Republicans, still get to deduct those very same taxes in full.

I don't know what the "C" in "state and C local tax deduction" is supposed to mean. Some editing glitch, I'm guessing.

Anyway, I don't think it was so much "consciously vindictive" as it was consciously convenient. Why not burden people who weren't going to vote for you anyway? There was a tax benefit — the state and local deduction — that helped taxpayers in high-taxing/Democratic-voting states and was unavailable to people in lower-taxing/GOP-voting states. The people in the GOP-voting states were providing a higher proportion of the money that went to the federal government, even as these GOP-voting people tend to support less federal spending than the Democratic-voting people who were supplying less of the federal money. I can understand the GOP wanting to rebalance that out of a combination of fairness and their own political advantage.

I don't really see calling it "vindictive." That really is too cynical. And I'm saying that as someone who believes I will pay a lot more federal tax because of this change.

IN THE COMMENTS: Eleanor eloquently explains why it's fair and not vindictive:

What the tax package does is remove the "discount" feature of the relationship between federal and state and local taxes. We won't be able to vote to spend money locally with the idea the price will be discounted by a reduction in our federal taxes. If a local project is going to add $300 to a property tax bill, then it's going to cost the full $300. I don't see any unfairness in this at all. The rules are the same in all 50 states. If we want something, we should pay for it and not expect people outside the service area of the project to subsidize it. We all benefit from military bases and farm subsidies. Federal money going into states that provide national security or feed the nation is in everybody's self-interest. Why should someone in Nebraska subsidize bus service expansion in Boston?

"Badger Rock Middle School... opened in 2011 amid great enthusiasm for its emphasis on urban agriculture, environmental sustainability and project-based learning."

"Last month, though, it landed in the 'fails to meet expectations' category on the latest round of state-issued report cards...."

It is housed inside a state-of-the-art green building owned by the Center for Resilient Cities, a Madison nonprofit. The building has other tenants and also functions as a neighborhood center for the South Side community. Students have access to the entire site, including gardens, greenhouses and an industrial kitchen....

[Interim principal Hong] Tran said Badger Rock wants to “push the envelope” on what it means to be a successful school, measuring things beyond test scores, such as neighborhood impact. A free, monthly community meal, sometimes cooked by students, has been drawing 150 to 200 people....

The Madison School Board renewed the charter yesterday.

IN THE COMMENTS: Expat(ish) said:

My youngest went to a brand new "team learning" charter school based on "mindfulness" and "success habits" and a bunch of other stupid sounding patchouli stuff. However... teachers were clamoring to get into the school and the principal had stellar ratings from parents at their last school. It turned out to be a (somewhat chaotic) intensely focused education for him and was a great option.... Anyway, I wouldn't outright assume that because the charter sounds hokey that it doesn't work for the kids.

I said:

I don't. But I resist educators who want to reframe standards around charitable work when the math scores are bad. This school has... students from poorer families (the article says) and these kids deserve an education. It's nice to have the charitable angle, but it sounds as though the children are doing food service. Is that the career path?!

Eleanor said:

It depends. Is the food service a math project? Are the kids learning a lot of biology in the garden? Project-based learning can be highly effective for kids who need to know why they need or want to learn something. It often fails when schools and teachers find a project they want to do and then try to find learning standards to support it. It's most successful when schools use their learning standards to plan projects.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said:

First thing comes to mind is the Great Leap Forward, maybe Pol Pot. Children taken from school and sent to the fields to labor.