If you are reading this you have survived the Great Solar Eclipse of 2017. The world has (probably) not ended, civilization has not (yet) collapsed, and various Rapture-like disappearances have (likely) not come to pass. If you have also survived the Great Mayan Apocalypse of 2012, not to mention Y2K, I salute you: 2017 needs more people of your caliber.

Even though nobody’s asked for my thoughts regarding Confederate monuments, I will provide them anyway, because I’m generous. Keep in mind that I’m white, Jewish, a Yankee, and my family came to the United States after the Civil War, so those of you who find identity politics important may freely disregard anything I say about this or any other subject. In any event, it’s ludicrous that anyone of conscience can tolerate the endlessly-outraged mob destroying Confederate statues across the U.S. This is a local issue and should be handled locally, through the legal process. You don’t want General Robert E. Lee memorialized in the town square? Put his monument’s removal to a vote and let the people who have to see it every day decide. If such monuments have been erected on federal land, then those of us outraged by their presence should raise the funds to have them moved to more suitable venues, like battlefields and museums. Otherwise, they stay.

Despite arguments to the contrary, the issue of slavery was always at the root of the Civil War, and the men who went to war for the Confederacy wanted to uphold it as an institution. As horrible as that war was, we fought it, the right side won, and the United States, as a country, has overcome this original sin of slavery to become a moral beacon for the world to admire. None of the destructive maniacs bent on erasing this history through violence will ever do anything as great as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Ulysses S. Grant, or Abraham Lincoln. Hell, they’ll never achieve anything more admirable than successfully dropping frozen potatoes into a fryolator.

This need to morally preen, to burnish one’s ethical bona-fides at the expense of history, has been in practice for some time. The removal of Lovecraft’s bust from the World Fantasy Award is a prime example. It’s not going to stop with Confederate generals. The Framers of the Constitution are next.

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We finished watching seasons 1 and 2 of the television show Broadchurch. It’s a crime drama set in a small seaside town where an 11-year-old boy was murdered and a new detective inspector (David Tennant) is brought in to solve the crime. It’s my understanding that Tennant starred in Doctor Who as the titular Doctor, but as I haven’t watched the show since the late 1980’s, I don’t have much experience with it. Broadchurch is entertaining, if a bit draggy in parts, with an unnecessary second season (and, it turns out, an even more unnecessary third season). If you’re a fan of those slow-moving English crime programs, you’ll love Broadchurch. It was kind of a take it or leave it show for me.

(I watch about 90 minutes of television a day: one cooking program and one narrative-style program. Is that a lot?)

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Even though I like to cook food for my family, as it’s healthier and tastier overall than the vast majority of restaurants one might go to, we do occasionally indulge in a fast food dinner. With that in mind, here is my ironclad list of Top 5 Fast Food Restaurants:

• 5: Subway – Appalling choice of spokesman notwithstanding, they make tasty sandwiches on the cheap. What’s not to like?
• 4: Five Guys – My appreciation for this burger joint deserves a post all its own, even though it’s number 4 on the list.
• 3: Smashburger – The quality of the food is better than Five Guys. Also, real ice cream in the shakes. And smashfries.
• 2: Tropical Smoothie Cafe – On a video shoot far from home I ate a Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wrap and a Peanut Butter Cup smoothie every day for a week and a half and didn’t get the least bit tired of it. Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, either.
• 1: Chick-fil-a – Aside from the food being quite nice, I like being able to tell people that my favorite fast food chicken is seasoned with hate.

You could argue with this list, but you’d be wrong. I didn’t include pizza joints because pizza is its own form of sustenance that transcends mere fast food.

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Another week, another Hollywood divorce that’s none of our business and yet has become so. Let’s take a look at this quote from Joss Whedon himself, according to his ex-wife:

When I was running ‘Buffy,’ I was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women. It felt like I had a disease, like something from a Greek myth. Suddenly I am a powerful producer and the world is laid out at my feet and I can’t touch it.

Well, apparently he did touch it. He touched it a lot. Interesting how he characterized the women who worked for him: “beautiful, needy, aggressive.” What we’ve seen for decades is that Hollywood marriages tend to break up quite a bit, and in spectacular fashion to boot. What we’ve also seen for at least as long is how these Hollywood panjandrums hold themselves up as moral exemplars, preaching ethics to us backwards, cousin-humping hicks in flyover country with every utterance. Maybe it’s long past time that we stopped looking to them to teach us anything except how not to act. Is contributing to the debauched lifestyles of these garbage people the best way to spend your entertainment dollars?