I am Monk! No, I am Monk!


Posted On: Tuesday - December 27th 2022 8:27PM MST
In Topics: 
  TV, aka Gov't Media  Humor  Kung Flu Stupidity

This is another post based on a bit of TV show watching. Between some time at a friend's house alone with his 1000's of streaming thingies (such as The Marksman) and some time behind the airliner seat-back screen, I pulled up that old show Monk produced from '02 to '09.

This show, one of my Dad's favorites, starred Lebanese descendant American Tony Shalhoub, the guy who played taxi driver Antonio Scarpacci in the decade earlier Wings TV show (from back when I did watch the tube regularly).



The image above is perfect, after our recent post on bowling, and I do like the short-haired blond assistant he had better than the voluptuous one that was on either before or after. The detective Monk character had some major idiosyncrasies, the biggest being his obsession with cleanliness.

Watching two or three of the episodes recently reminded me that... basically, I'm an idiot and missed an excellent opportunity for ridicule of the Kung Flu PanicFest Covidiocy. I could kick myself, but it's better late than never, and I do have more to report from today.

There is still mask wearing going on here and there, and the healthcare field has the most, as one might expect. I had to go in to follow up on something (turned out OK, as far as I know), and this time the receptionist insisted I wear a mask. Being a cheap piece of China-made Crap, the first one broke at one of the loop-"welds" within a minute. She provided another. Once I got into an exam room, however, I saw that the Doctor and his assistant had not donned these things. "Nah, you can throw that out. I don't care either", the Doc replied. I jammed it into my pocket (for throwing into the fireplace later - Covid~Zero, bitchez!) and did not don it on the way out. It's good to be King the Doctor!

I think back to all the packages of wipes the cute assistants would carry around for Detective Monk on this TV show. He was freaked out by anything dirty and germs in general. This was a big part of the show. Did anybody at all bring this show up during the height of the PanicFest, as the wipe industry went into high gear, with dispensers of disinfectant installed everywhere to the Four Corners of the Earth? The fanatical obsession of this TV character was a perfect caricature of the behavior of millions of panicky Americans for most of a year!

"I am Monk! No, I am Monk! No, I am Monk!"





PS: I've gotta add something else I thought about while watching these episodes recently: The show Monk was set in San Fransisco. One would see him step around a slight mess in the street and that sort of thing. From what I've read about that city recently, as nasty as it is, Adrian Monk would have panicked and died before even stepping out of the station house!

Comments:
Adam Smith
Saturday - December 31st 2022 6:18PM MST
PS: Greetings, Messrs. Hail and Moderator,

Many thanks for the good wishes! Mrs. Smith is getting better, but it will take a while. Doctor says she'll be in the sling for 6-8 weeks. Today was day 17.

There certainly could be a Letters to Editor section of The Daily Stupid, Mr. Hail.

Happy New Year!

Hail
Friday - December 30th 2022 5:16AM MST
PS

Get well soon, Mrs Adam Smith and shoulder

Let us know if there is a (brief) Letters to Editor section of The Daily Stupid
Moderator
Thursday - December 29th 2022 7:13PM MST
PS: "I'm old enough to remember when Mariah Carey was White." I'm old enough to remember when there was no Mariah Carey (as far as everyone knew), but there was Linda Ronstadt instead.

I sure hope Mrs. Smith gets to feeling better soon.

I'm checking out your links, and I am pretty disgusted so far. Will it get better? That Guardian "manifesto" could be fodder for a dozen posts here!

Have a good evening, Adam.
Adam Smith
Thursday - December 29th 2022 11:50AM MST
PS: Greetings, Achmed,

I am (and have been) planning on putting together some Daily Stupids for a while. (So much material to work with!) I haven't done so partly because of laziness, partly because of busyness and partly because Mrs. Smith's shoulder surgery has us both off our game a bit. [Lots of appointments with doctors, MRIs and such, extra work for me while she's out of commission (she can't do anything with her right arm so I've been doing all the cooking, all the shopping, all the chores, etc.), loss of sleep for the first few days (shoulder surgery is not for the faint of heart), that sort of thing.] She is getting better though, but it's slow going. I do look forward to making some new ones soon. (Gotta wash the cars first. I'm going to do that when I get back from the store. I guess work can wait today.)

"How official is this (The People's CDC) crowd, Mr. Hail?"

They have a website...
https://peoplescdc.org/

And according to this article*...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-activism/the-case-for-wearing-masks-forever

They have a manifesto (of sorts)...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/03/peoples-cdc-covid-guidelines

They even have something called the "Urgency of Equity Toolkit"...
https://peoplescdc.org/2022/09/06/urgency-of-equity-toolkit/
http://urgencyofequity.org/

This is the first graphic in the .pdf of their Urgency of Equity Toolkit...

https://i.ibb.co/nDskZjg/Urgency-Of-Equity-Toolkit-Page-4.jpg

I'm surprised that they used all white kids in that photo. Looks like they're exhibiting some unconscious White Supremacy. (They probably wouldn't like being called out for being White Supremacists.)

*Mindy Thompson Fullilove, the first character introduced to us in the New Yorker article, identifies as 𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠, but her mom is white. I don't know why she doesn't embrace her mulatto heritage or her whiteness.**

**Kinda off topic, but I'm old enough to remember when Mariah Carey was White.
(or when everyone thought she was White)

Cheers, Achmed! I'm off to the store...

Moderator
Thursday - December 29th 2022 10:24AM MST
PS: Funny stuff, Adam. (I liked the video too.) I hope you would consider putting out another front page of "The Daily Stupid".
The Daily Stupid
Thursday - December 29th 2022 9:22AM MST
PS: The Most Important News From Around The World

• Southwest's Work From Home Policy Under Scrutiny
• Post Office Releases Jan 6 Commemorative Stamps
• Not Masking is an Insidious Form of White Supremacy
• Red Umbrella Added to the Alphabet Flag to Honor Sex Workers
• Disney's Hall of Presidents Showcases Biden's ‘Leg Hair’ Speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJaq4ymoXoY

Moderator
Thursday - December 29th 2022 6:40AM MST
PS: "It is my sad duty to report that group of loyalist-Panickers have now united to form "The People's CDC." A main aim of this new group is to normalize the wearing of anti-virus masks forever and everywhere. There are flu viruses out there, and we need a regime of Permanent-and-Mandatory Abundance of Caution-ism (they say)."

How official is this crowd, Mr. Hail? I see people who still like the masks, but I have not been bothered until the Dr.'s office. One guy ringing me up at the big box store had one on, and I just couldn't help it. "Why are you wearing that thing? They aren't still making you, are they?" I don't know what his answer was because it was muffled as all hell.

I have refused to talk to masked people who start a conversation when it really is muffled, or even if it's not, when I'm in a bad mood. "Look, ya gotta take the mask off, so we can talk." They usually do, but not always. Is this because I sub-consciously use lip-reading? My hearing if fine. Then again, we lived in a Tower of Babel before the masking...
Moderator
Thursday - December 29th 2022 6:33AM MST
PS: Mr. Hail, yes that part of a month-ago post of mine was from both a talk with a SW Captain and my knowledge of what went on at the time (the peak of the vaccine push). In that same post, I also added:

"At about that same time, BTW, there were some Jacksonville Air Route Center controllers from one sector who did something similar. They shut down a piece of airspace over central-southern Georgia for part of one afternoon." I know this from personal experience.

So, the right was right (well, then, anti-vax was not always along a left/right divide), back then.

I will try to find out more, Mr. Hail. I read an article (linked to by Instapundit) that was fairly non-stupid about the details. Along with the terrible Chicago weather - Midway airport being one of their big hubs* - so many pilots/flight attendants were out of position. Things can really cascade. Airlines even have the pilots versus flight attendants not sticking together for trips, the software being able to work all this out magically... till a meltdown. This factor makes things worse when there is a meltdown, and it was mentioned in the article.

What the article got wrong was putting the problems on "dispatching" rather than crew scheduling, which are 2 different jobs. Dispatchers plan the flights as far as route, fuel burn, and all that.

No, the right-wing speculation you mentioned does not really fit this current story at all - the long run regarding AA is a different thing.

It COULD actually apply to this aspect of it, Mr. Hail: Crew schedulers don't get paid a lot - it could be considered clerical type work, along with customer service - the CS being the serving of often pissed-off crew members. However, those people can save tens of thousands of dollars and lots of good will with one smart move.

What happens when you don't reward these crew schedulers for great work? The good ones keep leaving, and you've got recent hires who aren't up to speed (or AA who may NEVER be up to speed). It's a very important function, and it sounds like this was a big part of what happened However, I'll try to find out more for you in a few days.

Sorry, but I don't have that article pulled up - it was from yesterday or the day before, but Glenn Reynolds and crew post a LOT.


* No, they don't quite do hub-and-spoke operations in the way that Delta, United, and American do, but they do (amazingly, for the place) many flights in and out of Midway.
Hail
Thursday - December 29th 2022 6:17AM MST
PS

(correction to below): it doesn't seem the Jewish journalist Emma Green is actually directly evangelizing for The People's CDC. She does, though, give neutral publicity to their extremist claims, akin to front-page articles weighing the merits of Flat-Earth theory. She claims to be a neutral outside observer, but this is classic Framing.

"The People's CDC believes America has left its most vulnerable citizens behind. They believe people should be avoiding indoor dining, moving gatherings outside, testing before events, etc." / "Not masking is a form of white supremacy." / "The Biden administration has made its decisions at the command of big business." / "The CDC is eugenicist." / "The People's CDC uses science to make moral arguments. In their view, science proves their worldview."
Hail
Thursday - December 29th 2022 6:10AM MST
PS

"The fanatical obsession of this TV character was a perfect caricature of the behavior of millions of panicky Americans for most of a year!"

The fastidiousness of the character Monk was perhaps meant as a parody of Jewish attitudes by the show's producers and writers. White-Christians would look on and just see an eccentric, but it's something more specifically in-group satirical going on for them. Seinfeld is a similar double-track, based in a neurotic cartoon pseudo-reality.

.

Related(?):

It is my sad duty to report that group of loyalist-Panickers have now united to form "The People's CDC." A main aim of this new group is to normalize the wearing of anti-virus masks forever and everywhere. There are flu viruses out there, and we need a regime of Permanent-and-Mandatory Abundance of Caution-ism (they say).

A recent addition to The People's CDC is the Jewish journalist Emma Green (The New Yorker). She is now on the evangelizing circuit for Masks Today, Masks Tomorrow, Masks Forever platform. (Search: "The case for wearing masks forever").
Hail
Thursday - December 29th 2022 5:32AM MST
PS

"behind the airliner seat-back screen, I pulled up that old show Monk..."

RE; recent air travel

Have you done any air-travel since the latest and by-far-worst-yet Southwest Airline "meltdown"? As a frequent flier do you have any insight into the meltdown?

It's reported now there has been around one week of mostly canceled flights from Southwest. I am not hearing good reasons why. Certain right-wing talkers have predictably suggested it's because of vaccine mandate and diversity quotas, but why would those things specifically cause the collapse of ONE specific airline and not others? The delays and cancellations were more limited with other airlines. Left-wing talkers give other reasons.

What's behind this latest blow to the legitimacy of the "greatest country in the world" claim, still often heard?

.

The following appeared here one month ago (Peak-Stupid #2446):

"About a year ago, there was a news story about a big "meltdown" - as the airlines call it - with Southwest cancelling many hundreds of flights one weekend or maybe a few days longer than the weekend. "It wasn't the weather...***" Even outside there, he didn't want to really talk plainly. A bunch of their pilots, as I'd heard then, did an unofficial work stoppage, I suppose by calling in sick or fatigued. /// ***: A series of bad weather days at a hub - fog (very low visibility/ceiling) or a pattern of thunderstorms, ice storms, or blizzards - can do this to an airline. However, Southwest doesn't have quite the same hub-and-spoke system as the other major airlines. It'd be harder for weather to shut them down so hard."

The 2021 problems, as I recall, were not only limited to Southwest and did not approach this new one (Dec. 2022) in scope.
Moderator
Wednesday - December 28th 2022 2:28PM MST
PS: UsNThem, sorry.

I did have this post, with an images of a case of Corona cheap Mexican Lager though, and a bikini babe:

"Goodbye to Rosie, the Queen of Corona"

https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=1359
Moderator
Wednesday - December 28th 2022 2:23PM MST
PS: UsNThen, I was in the process looking up the original, "My Sharona" sometime that Spring of '20 in order to write lyrics to "My Corona", when I saw someone had already made a video. "Damn!"

Ya' got lucky, kid!

usNthem
Wednesday - December 28th 2022 1:43PM MST
PS
Whatever you do, please don't include the Knack video of My Sharona. TBH, I'm kinda surprised you didn't, lol.
Moderator
Wednesday - December 28th 2022 7:42AM MST
PS: Does this explain Steve Sailer's rising black murder rate, Alarmist? Detective Monk has been out of commission since early '20 due to the PanicFest, so the black teens can get away with anything now. There's no fear of this guy putting his arms up to frame the scene, spinning around, thinking really autistically, and then "Captain, it's GOT to be that guy we talked to outside the Opera House. He said something about he was at violin lessons at the time of the murder. No black people take violin lessons, Captain."

(Natalie gets pretty impressed but still not enough to want to date him...)

I'm no screenwriter though....

Yeah, maybe Natalie v Sharona is one of those Ginger v Mary Ann things.

I've got to look up the character you mentioned. I think I didn't see that movie.
The Alarmist
Tuesday - December 27th 2022 9:13PM MST
PS

Yes, a Monk reboot in 2022 San Fran would be a hoot.

I too found the winsome Natalie more appealing and a better counterpart for Monk than the buxom Sharona.

My fave OCD character would have to be the Author Melvin Udall, played by Jack Nicholson, in As Good as it Gets.
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