Happy New Year, everyone! It's 2014 and I am glad to be writing again, after a long hibernation. A grizzly bear woke me up, so it's time to write again. Hope you are all fine. Here are the Sage Street blog recognition for 2013, as I provide my best and worst categories....
BEST TV SHOWS TO WATCH--"Castle," "Major Crimes," "Longmire," and (because it can get depressing, be sure to have a big bowl of ice cream afterward in order to upswing your mood) "The Walking Dead."
BEST TV NEWS SEGMENTS--CBS Sunday Morning feature stories, CBS "On the Road" segments with Steve Hartman, PBS NewsHour segments, PBS Frontline reports, PBS American Experience programs, Morgan Spurlock's CNN program about guns, and Sanjay Gupta's CNN program about marijuana called "Weed." Honorable mentions: Melissa Harris-Perry Show segments, Ed Schultz Show segments, Rachel Maddow Show segments, 60 Minutes segments particularly featuring Scott Pelley, Fareed Zaharia's GPS show, Anderson Cooper 360 program and later night group discussions, numerous other MSNBC programs, CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, ABC Weekend News with David Muir, NBC Evening News with Lester Holt, and the McLaughlin Group.
DISAPPOINTMENTS: Reality shows (just a continuously awful TV genre), History Channel for too much reality stuff, chatty morning "news" shows that are really about pop culture, and Sunday morning news programs with dull talk by anchors, hacks and pundits, such as Meet the Press, (with the exception of CBS Sunday Morning show and the Melissa Harris-Perry Show). And please no more Wall Street movies with the usual greedy characters, the cynical anti-hero TV shows, anything Star Wars or Hobbit, Fox News, nutty gun culture, anything that has to be "set up" in order to be enjoyed (and that means technological stuff), the informational or promotional crap at the bottom of the TV screen that prevents viewers from seeing the entire picture of what's going on, inane social media, and any more girl singers who think they have to do a Madonna and draw attention through stunts rather than just rely on their talents.
BEST MOVIES: "42" about Jackie Robinson, "Lincoln," "The Impossible," "Jack the Giant Slayer," "World War Z," "Life of Pi," "Argo," and "The Way, Way Back."
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES TO WATCH--Sandra Bullock, Stana Katic, Nathan Fillion, Sam Rockwell, James Franco, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Claire Danes, Andrew Lincoln, Melissa McBride, and Garrett Hedlund.
BEST DOCUMENTARIES: "Blackfish," "Conscientious Objector," "My Flesh and Blood," "A Place at the Table," "The Power of Forgiveness; The Karla Tucker Story," Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars" about use of drones, and "Bridegroom."
BEST BOOKS: Wyoming Almanac (sixth edition), "A Life of Barbara Stanwyck" by Victoria Wilson, "David and Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell, "Dinner with the Smileys" by Sarah Smiley, "The Bully Pulpit" by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and "Defending Jacob" by William Landay.
PEOPLE TO REMEMBER (who died in 2013): Helen Thomas, Julie Harris, Jean Stapleton, Nelson Mandela, and Peter O'Toole (especially in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips").
PEOPLE OF THE YEAR nominees: Elizabeth Warren (for real progressive leadership), Robert Reich (for progressive insights), Bill de Blasio (for showing liberals how to win on issues), Michael Bloomberg (for his effort in organizing mayors against guns), Pope Francis (for showing churches and politicians that populism and caring about the poor garners popular support), Edward Snowden (for whistleblowing and showing the over-reach and waste of agencies like the NSA and CIA), Jeremy Scahill and Glen Greenwald (for their investigative journalism work), Barack Obama and Joe Biden (when they stay to the progressive left as their voters wanted), Malala Yousafzai (for her courage), Nelson Mandela (for showing leaders how to set "George Washington" leadership examples for democracies, a lesson that Morsi of Egypt failed to understand), Tina Fey (always clever and funny), Dolly Parton (for her gifts of books to children), Malcolm Gladwell (for his interesting insights), Mark Udall (for his progressive stances), and Ralph Nader (for his ongoing progressive stances).
"PERSON OF THE YEAR" winner for 2013: Elizabeth Warren, for giving hope to the middle class and poor with her populist, progressive leadership.
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