TDS/TCR (Froo, Froo, Froofy the Dog)

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The real news and this week’s guests as well as Tony Zinni’s 3 part web exclusive extended interview below.

Tony Zinni–

This week’s guests-

The Daily Show

• Wednesday 9/24: Tia Torres
• Thursday 9/25: Steven Johnson

The Colbert Report

• Wednesday 9/24: Bill Cosby
• Thursday 9/25: Walter Mischel

Tia Torres is the star of Pit Bulls & Parolees.  “The show’s main focus is the interaction between Tia, her dogs, and the parolees who work for her, during daily care and training duties, and pit bull rescue missions.”

Villalobos Rescue Center is now located in the 9th Ward of New Orleans after California law increased the licensing fees and quality standards of kennels which is, in the big picture, a good thing.

Not every business featured in a Discovery network reality show is a paragon of virtue.

Actually Bill Cosby is kind of an interesting guest given the recent debate over Child Abuse and parenting styles since so much of his comedy is based on (presumably) real life material from his family and his iconic status as America’s favorite Dad.

I listen to a lot of it now, especially his relationship with his father, Russell Sr., and I just cringe.

But Bill Cosby is now a very old guy (77 give or take) and certain things that were acceptable just aren’t any more.  Alas I fear Bill stopped evolving his attitudes at a certain point and if his current policy prescriptions sound like throwbacks to an earlier age, that’s because they are.  When I hear him talking about parenting or education I see Clint Eastwood rambling to an empty chair, a relic creaky, cranky, and covered in dust.

There is a new biography out, Cosby: His Life and Times by Mark Whitaker.  From the New York Times review-

Mr. Cosby didn’t work blue; he wasn’t cerebral or neurotic; he rarely spoke about race. He didn’t tell jokes so much as paddle down long stories as if they were streams. Some thought his avoidance of racial matters made him a deserter to the cause of black advancement. But Mr. Whitaker argues that Mr. Cosby could also be understood as a pure embodiment of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s integrationist dream.

Here was, the author writes, “a black comic in a Brooks Brothers blazer who could succeed without reference to his skin color, by making people of all races laugh at the things that they had in common, not the things that divided them.”

…

“Cosby: His Life and Times” doesn’t ignore what Mr. Whitaker calls its subject’s “hot side.” Mr. Cosby could be moody and arrogant.

He has been married for more than 50 years, yet was a womanizer before he was 40, this book suggests, and a frequent guest at the Playboy Mansion. Mr. Whitaker mentions Mr. Cosby’s roving eye, while providing few concrete details, except for an affair, long ago made public, with a woman whose daughter later tried to blackmail him. This book’s greatest omission, as others have pointed out, is its total avoidance of the sexual abuse allegations that have dogged Mr. Cosby.

This biography has other problems. Mr. Whitaker has little feel for pop culture and doesn’t always make fine distinctions between Mr. Cosby’s comedy and that of others. Clichés are hard to avoid entirely in a long book, but Mr. Whitaker delivers as many as four in a single paragraph: “pulled the plug,” “gone downhill,” “loved Bill Cosby like a son,” and “storm clouds gathering.” The real Bill Cosby seems to lie tantalizingly out of reach.