March 12
The airwaves and cyberspace were not teeming with news this week, Facebook Friends (for one thing, television suffered grievously from the absence of any Major Frozen Precipitation Events), but what stories there were gripped the nation. To wit:
1. Viewers gathered Sunday night for the series finale of public television’s hugely popular “Downton Abbey,” which ended after 347 seasons. It was the last episode of the landmark drama that will ever air, until next week, when reruns begin and continue until The End of Time. The most-watched show in the history of PBS, “Downton”’s final episode attracted an estimated 47 viewers nationwide, double the number for the network’s second-most-popular program of all time, “Inside the Bureau of Weights and Measures.” (By contrast, PBS’ “Washington Week,” the best analysis and commentary program on television, attracts a weekly audience comprising The Jourmudgeon and Gwen Ifill’s mother.) The Jourmudgeon apologizes for not offering his Facebook Friends a plot summary of the finale episode of “Downton.” Like every other hetero male in America, The Jourmudgeon pretty much lost interest after Lady Sybil beefed it in Season 143.
2. Meanwhile, everyone involved in “Downton Abbey” began scrambling to find new work. Creator and writer Julian Fellowes revealed he has been asked to produce a series of schlock-doc spinoffs. The first is tentatively titled “Great Wastes of Oxygen of the 19th and 20th Centuries: The British Aristocracy.” And in the latest manifestation of his inability to distinguish fact from fiction, Donald Trump asked the Dowager Countess of Grantham to be his running mate. He had previously been turned down by his first choice, Daenerys Targaryen. Sarah Palin was reported to be highly pissed off.
3. The trial began in Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against the website Gawker. The former professional wrestler is seeking $100 million after the site posted highlights of an explicit surveillance video showing Hogan having sex with the wife of a former friend. (Don’t bother. The video has since been taken down.) In a demonstration that the judicial system, typically, is dealing with class acts on both sides, the judge allowed Hogan to wear his trademark wannabe doo-rag in court. Then she promised the participants that the trial “is not going to be a carnival.” She also ordered the 61-year-old plaintiff to be referred to by his real name in court. Yes, Hulk Hogan, believe it or not, is not his real name. His real name is Bulk Hogan. In a related development, despite his recent call for laws that would make it easier to sue news media for libel, Trump called for Gawker to be allowed to post the sex video again. Trump said he was dying to see the size of Hogan’s hands.
4. For the 4,687th time since Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death four weeks ago, Senate Republicans said they would refuse to even meet with any potential successor nominated by President Obama, much less hold hearings on the appointee. On Monday, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas promised that anyone nominated by Obama “will bear some resemblance to a piñata.” That moved the New York Times to opine that “Mr. Cornyn’s repellent remarks were, in this sense, an accurate reflection of the Republican mind-set. Piñatas are, after all, attacked by blindfolded children. The children don’t care how much damage they inflict as long as they get the prize in the end.” http://www.nytimes.com/…/republican-threats-and-the-supreme… (The sound you just heard was The Hon. Mr. Cornyn getting whacked upside the head with the ol’ Eastern Liberal Media piñata bat. Ouch.)
5. In news from the primaries (sorry), Hillary Clinton’s staffers and supporters ceased exchanging high-fives and ordering Inaugural Ball gowns long enough to notice that Bernie Sanders had soundly thrashed her in Michigan. Sanders apparently adopted the mantra of the campaign guru of an obscure former politician named Bill Clinton, who managed to get himself elected president twice: “It’s the economy, stupid.” After the primary, pundits began explaining to the Clinton campaign that many people in Michigan had lost jobs when the auto industry, which apparently is fairly significant in Michigan, nearly folded in the Recession, and that a lot of them are now flipping burgers. Clinton’s staffers thanked the pundits, and said they wished they had known that before the primary. Republicans, meanwhile, looked forward to next week’s winner-take-all contests in Florida and Ohio, as well as primaries in Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri. Ted Cruz discovered, just in time to tell Florida voters, that his family apparently came from Cuba. That still wasn’t any reason for him to support immigration, of course. And everyone was very nice to each other for a change in a Republican debate in Miami on Thursday night. Trump apparently decided he no longer needed to carve up his opponents: He would leave it to the voters to do that on Tuesday. His supporters and campaign manager, meanwhile, contented themselves for the time being with roughing up reporters and sucker-punching protestors.
6. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan died. She was 94. She is survived, just barely, by the Republican Party, and by some of the people who didn’t just say no to drugs.
