A Suggestion for Chris Rock Plus My Oscars Picks; Be Wary of the Gig Economy

Here’s a thought—while everyone expects Oscars telecast emcee Chris Rock to skewer the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with jokes highlighting the failure to nominate for a second straight year even a single black actor for an award, perhaps a more visible and enduring display of protest Sunday night would be for the entertainer to make his entrance on stage in whiteface. 

Daring? No doubt. Provocative? To be sure. Extreme? You betcha. In bad taste? No more so than the academy’s lily-white nomination list and its mostly white, elderly male membership roster.

Rock could still joke about the “benign” discrimination, but the image of him in whiteface would linger in everyone’s minds far longer than any amusing words he might utter. 

As for the awards, here are my choices for the top six categories:

Best leading actor—Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

Best leading actress—Brie Larson (Room)

Best supporting actor—Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies)

Best supporting actress—Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)

Best director—Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant)

Best picture—Bridge of Spies

The Gig Economy: In case you’ve never heard of this term, it’s a modern day euphemism for outsourcing. In other words, hiring freelancers, domestic or foreign, to do work on a job-by-job basis that formerly was done in-house by staff. 

Result? Fewer full-time workers and generally lower fees as freelancers compete for assignments. Lower overhead for companies, lower earnings for workers. For an example of the Gig Economy in practice, listen to Monday’s Marketplace Money Report on NPR: http://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/marketplace-morning-report-monday-february-22-2016

Net Net Result? While we in America bemoan the relocation of manufacturing jobs to lower wage overseas locales and hope to combat the drain of good/high paying jobs with training for technology-based work, the Gig Economy might undermine that effort. As explained in the Marketplace Money Report, Instapage paid a Vietnamese techie just $200 to design a logo, a fee that surely was equivalent to a prince’s ransom in Vietnam but wouldn’t fill a pauper’s purse in the United States. 

There’s no holding back the tide of technological advance and the globalization of the world’s economy. I’m fortunate to be retired. My mid-30’s children’s jobs probably won’t be affected, I hope. But my grandchildren? It is not a comforting thought to consider the range of employment opportunities in the year 2036 and beyond. 

Bird Talk: Looking out the kitchen window I can report birds enjoy chocolate babka cake, the remnants of which they devoured in short order since I filled the feeders. Previously they’ve savored shredded matzoh, bagels and assorted other flour-based ethnic delights.

Car Talk: Before buying a car three years ago, I pondered getting a Subaru Forester, even going so far as asking the salesman to commit to rearranging the letters of the car’s rear nameplate to Forseter. Alas, we wound up buying a Ford C-Max hybrid, instead.

End of story, until Ellie and Donny went car shopping after their recent move to Omaha. They chose a Forester but resisted my entreaties to ask the dealership to flip the first “e” and “s” in Forester.

My extended family has often contemplated how simpler our lives would have been had my parents, when Americanizing my father’s family name, chosen Forester instead of Forseter. Or even Forsetter with two “t’s.” At least half the time we’re addressed as Forester. One high school teacher of mine called me Fenster. 

Dad, though, wanted something closer to Feursetzer. So Forseter it became. You get to roll with the punches, so to speak, but I still think it would have been cool to drive around in a Forseter Subaru. 

Copy Talk: Three times (at least) in the last few weeks I’ve been reminded the hardest task for any writer is to proofread his own copy. I won’t resurrect my mistakes other than to suggest that sometimes even a faux pas can turn out to be a slick turn of phrase.

Back on January 21, in a piece titled “The Bride of Frankenstein Is Back,” I wrote “(Sarah) Palin gave birth to the no-nothing Tea Party which only wants to tear down government, or, in her case, find excuses for behavior and commentary beyond the pale.”  

I must admit, I meant to write “know nothing Tea Party.” However, when confronted by a friend with the actual text, I justified it by the Tea Party’s history of saying no to everything. 

Quick thinking on my part, but not very truthful. More like Stephen Colbert’s truthiness standard.

(P)Raising Arizona

Finally, something from Arizona I agree with (at least at first blush). Now, I don’t know all the intricacies of Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal, but on the surface it seems worthy of discussion.

Essentially, Gov. Brewer wants to impose a $50 annual fee on Medicaid recipients who are obese or smokers if they fail to follow their doctor’s regimens that presumably would help them lose weight or kick the habit. The fee would apply to non-disabled adults who are either childless or whose children are at least 19.

For sure the proposal would need refinement, so, for example, a person overweight because of a thyroid condition would not be hit with the fee. But as a practical matter, getting smokers and the obese to pay their fair share of the burgeoning health care cost is a plus. We’re all paying higher medical premiums because we are carrying some of the burden smokers and heavyweights impose on the medical system. Private enterprise has recognized this—insurance companies charge different rates if you’re a non-smoker. Some private employers carry a separate medical coverage option for non-smokers.

It’s no secret Gov. Brewer is not the most friendly person when it comes to entitlement programs. She’d prefer to do away completely with Medicaid. But if the $50 fee prompts people to stop smoking or lose weight, it might produce a positive outcome.

Of course, an objective look at her proposal might also raise an interesting question—since Republicans always trumpet the need to take government out of our personal lives, how could a GOP governor be in favor of imposing a fee based on personal behavior? I guess it’s not hypocritical when the GOP does it.

Just when I was about to give Arizona a favorable, though not passing grade, it reinforced the stereotype that its elected officials are just plain crazy. And back to their keep-government-out-of-our-lives mode. The Republican-controlled Arizona House has passed legislation allowing guns, even concealed guns, to be carried on university and college campuses, all in the name of providing a means of defense in the case of a shooting. The governor has not indicated whether she will sign the bill. I’m betting she will.

Making guns permissible on campus is catching on like wild fire across GOP territory. Similar legislation is being considered in Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Nebraska, Mississippi and Florida. Utah already permits it. Given the degree of drinking college students do, I am not thrilled with the mixture of alcohol and gunpowder. It’s a recipe for disaster, sooner or later.

It also gives parents another factor to consider when evaluating higher education options. Will the right to bear arms on campus be a positive or negative influence on their choice? There are some really good schools in those states. I’m glad I’m the father of college graduates and don’t have to confront this issue.


While we’re on the subject of guns, two groups, The Second Amendment Foundation and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, filed a federal lawsuit against New York City this week because they say the cost to own a firearm in Gotham is too high, an “arbitrary financial constraint” to gun ownership. It costs $340 for an application and $94.25 to obtain a fingerprint check.

The fees seem reasonable to me, but to be honest, I think Chris Rock has a better suggestion. To cut down on random shootings, Rock proposes that each bullet cost $5,000. Too bad he’s a comedian so his idea won’t be seriously considered.