A 'supply crunch' is not a shortage? Plus: Cruise has won acting awards? And, Liz, round-the-clock
By Gary Abernathy
Rod Serling would conclude this stuff is just weird
For his sake, it’s probably a good thing Rod Serling is not alive to see the things that are happening in society today. “The Twilight Zone” creator would probably scratch his head and give up, concluding, “I can’t make a show any weirder than real life.”
Today’s examples of weirdness…
A ‘supply crunch’ is different than a shortage?
Biden administration Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the weirdest thing Tuesday. Noting that North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and southern Virginia “are most affected by the shutdown of Colonial Pipeline’s fuel artery following the (cyber) attack,” she added, according to MarketWatch, “It’s not that we have a gasoline shortage. It’s that we have this supply crunch…”
So, a “supply crunch” is different from a “shortage” how, exactly? I saw no evidence that any reporter pressed her on this. Maybe I missed it.
Tom Cruise has won acting awards?
In response to learning (shocked! shocked!) that the makeup of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – which presents the Golden Globe Awards – is apparently devoid of much in the way of diversity, Tom Cruise announced he had returned his three Golden Globe awards. This is encouraging, and hopefully leads to Cruise returning any other acting awards he has won – the weirdness in this case being that he has won acting awards in the first place.
CNN reports, “Tom Cruise has returned his Golden Globe Awards to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a source close to the actor told CNN on Monday.” This raises the question, how did he do that so quickly? Does he live next door to the HFPA office? Did he rush to his fireplace mantle, grab the awards, all while dialing FedEx to meet him at the door? Is there a drop box on every Hollywood corner for actors to return their awards when controversies arise?
Granted, the Los Angeles Times did a story on this in February, but it didn’t really hit the fan until a week ago when the organization announced reforms that apparently didn’t go far enough for some people, especially publicists. As The Wrap reported, “A group of more than 100 Hollywood publicists have pledged to continue boycotting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association despite the recent proposed reforms to revamp the embattled organization.” As we all know, once you’ve lost the publicists, well, you’ve lost the world.
Get ready for Liz Cheney round-the-clock
The irony of the weirdness of Republicans ousting Liz Cheney from her House leadership position is that rather than silence her, we’ll be hearing from her non-stop on all the broadcast and cable networks. The left-leaning networks will especially salivate at having her on to criticize her own party, let alone Donald Trump, since finding Republicans to turn on their own is what CNN and MSNBC (and all three commercial broadcast networks) love most.
Here’s what Cheney said Wednesday before the vote, according to the Washington Post: “If you want leaders who will enable and spread (Trump’s) destructive lies, I’m not your person, you have plenty of others to choose from. That will be their legacy.”
It really will.
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