Watch How Phyllis Schlafly Waged War on Women in "Mrs. America"

Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan debates Cate
Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly in Mrs. America

The FX/Hulu series Mrs. America is an eye-opening, skillfully produced and acted story of the women who advanced womens' rights in the 1970s, and the woman who took them down: Phyllis Schlafly.

I had thought Schlafly was just a wing-nut like the anti-gay Anita Bryant, with a single cause: the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. But in fact, she was a foreign policy expert whose influential book, A Choice Not an Echo is thought to have been instrumental in Barry Goldwater winning the California primary and Republican nomination for president in 1964. A shrewd political strategist, Schlafly parlayed her STOP ERA campaign into enough political power to swing the Republican party so far to the right that it embraced Ronald Reagan and his "Just Say No" wife Nancy and so much more, all the way up to Trump, whom Schlafly supported before she died in 2016.

Portrayed impeccably (as always) by Cate Blanchett, who co-produced the series, we watch Schlafly forming alliances with rabid anti-abortion, anti-gay hate groups whose drivers turn out to be KKK members; finding out that her eldest son is gay and lecturing him about controlling his impulses; crossing swords with fellow Republican Jill Ruckelshaus (Elizabeth Banks) and the ultra liberal Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman); and getting a pie thrown in her face just like Bryant did.

The Tommy Chong Bong Song, Johnny Cash, and Me

Hear the Tommy Chong Bong Song.

It was September 2003, and Tommy Chong was being sent to prison for selling bongs.

I'd written so many articles about people being caught up in our unconscionable war against a plant over the years, I just couldn't bring myself to write one more. There were so many injustices involved, including the fact that Chong was targeted because of the irreverent Cheech and Chong movies he'd made, in a country that is supposed to revere freedom of speech.


So I decided to write a song instead.

Because the "Operation Pipe Dreams" that took Chong down involved 1200 officers in raids of head shops and distributors across the country, leading to 55 arrests, the lyric began:

While the terrorists were knocking on our front door
Twelve hundred policemen didn't have much more
To do than round up 55 in their dragnet
For sellin' a giggle on the internet
We can't find Bin Laden and we're stuck in Iraq
But we've got Tommy Chong under key and lock 

Tommy Chong, Tommy Chong
Servin' nine months in prison for selling bongs
To you I sing this song 

Of Jean Seberg, and Jeanne d'Arc

I thought it was a little over the top that the opening scene of the Amazon film Seberg showed actress Jean Seberg being burned at the stake while playing Joan of Arc. But after watching the movie, starring Kristen Stewart in the title role, I realized it was perfectly appropriate.



Jean Seberg was a 17-year-old girl from a small town in Iowa when she was entered in an international talent search to find someone to play Joan of Arc. Director Otto Preminger cast Jean after reportedly testing 18,000 young women for the title role in the 1957 film St. Joan, with a screenplay by Graham Greene from the George Bernard Shaw play of the same name.

Seberg was badly burned filming the scene where Joan is put to death, but she later said the emotional scars she endured were worse. Those she got from the critics and from working with Preminger, who was notoriously abusive to his actresses. (Robert Mitchum once slapped Preminger on the set, after he demanded repeated takes of Mitchum slapping actress Jean Simmons.) Seberg went on to become a darling of the French avant garde cinema for her role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, and also starred in Hollywood pictures, like Paint Your Wagon and Airport.

Jean as Jeanne

Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) was also 17 when she announced her calling to fight the English invaders in France. Among the many accusations against her were that she danced as a child in Domrémy at a "fairy tree," "hanging on the boughs garlands of different herbs and flowers, made by her own hand." She rather admitted to that, but denied ever using or seeking out mandrake—a root that contains hallucinogenic alkaloids—although she said she had heard of it. 

The two saints who spoke to her were St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Margaret the Virgin. Some modern scholars think that the legend of Catherine was based on the life and murder of the Greek philosopher Hypatia, (with reversed roles of Christians and pagans). As Saint Marina, St. Margaret is associated with the sea, and possibly the goddess Aphrodite.

Like Jeanne before her, Jean stood up for causes she believed in, namely the Black Panther Party, which was funding schools and meal programs, as well as engaging in more militant rhetoric and activity. Dialog from Seberg about the violent mistreatment of blacks by police echo in protests of today over those ongoing abuses.

Something to Watch if You're "Bored to Death"

From the opening credits of "Bored to Death"

I was feeling a little, well, bored to death while sheltering at home, so it seemed like the kiss of Kismet when I noticed that Amazon Prime is running the 2009-2011 HBO Series Bored to Death through 5/21.

I knew I would like it right away when, in the cartoon-drawn opening credits, Ted Danson's character George hands a joint to Jason Schwartzman playing Jonathan, an insecure writer who tries his hand at being an "unlicensed" private detective after reading too many Raymond Chandler novels.

The show almost has social distancing
down (with Olivia Thirlby).

In the pilot episode Jonathan loses his girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby, from The Wackness) because he won't stop drinking and smoking pot. He cuts down to white wine, but smokes in almost every episode with his friends George, a womanizing magazine publisher, and Ray, an infantile cartoonist played by the always-funny Zach Galifianakis, who's probably most famous for lighting up a joint on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Jonathan hilariously captures his prey with kindness, acting more as a psychotherapist than a detective much of the time. But as the series evolves he finds his courage, as does Ray, whose spoofy cartoon character "Super Ray" gains his powers when his huge penis touches a subway rail. (Yes, we're in New York City.) Ray and George bond over some weed-fueled revelations while they wait for Jonathan on a stake out, leading to more madcap adventures.

Jonathan (Jason Schwartzman) and Stella (Jenny Slate) on a date. 

One of the girls gets to have her ganja fun when Jonathan meets the pro-pot Stella played by comedienne Jenny Slate. "She's beautiful, she's Jewish, and she's got a great vaporizer," he says after Stella invites him over to try her new Volcano vaporizer.

Mothering and Marijuana

UPDATE: Finn has responded to her critics in a second oped: "MY KIDS WATCH ME DRINK WINE. PRETTY OFTEN. IS THAT A PROBLEM?"

The website of a mother who objected to legal cannabis in the LA Times. (Accessed 4/13/20.)

While we're all homebound during the COVID crisis, the usual "Mommy Needs Her Wine" memes have proliferated, with lines like, "Can anyone recommend a good breakfast wine?" and the ominous prediction, "You think it's bad now? In 20 years our country will be run by kids who were home schooled by day drinkers." There's even a Facebook group, "Mommy Needs Vodka." But mothers who use cannabis haven't reached this level of acceptance, despite a new study finding that 16 percent of moms say they are using cannabis to cope with COVID, compared to 11 percent of fathers.

Meanwhile, the LA Times has seen fit to publish for 4/20 an op-ed from a mother irate about the presence of cannabis clubs and billboards around Los Angeles. The author Robin Finn, a “Writer/Coach/Inner Peace Enthusiast,” displayed at the top of her website (at the time) a picture of herself with a glass of wine in her hand with the headline, "Be right there. I'm working...." apparently shirking her parental duties to do some drinking. Finn, who has a public health degree, is addressing our current crisis with weighty articles like, “What is the proper footwear for a Global Pandemic?” “Why A Global Pandemic is not a Good Time to give up Your Anxiety Medication” and “This is Not About Coronavirus. It’s About Tits.”

Ms. Finn frets about her kids becoming drug addicts if they try marijuana, as I'm sure a lot of parents do. She mentions the movie Beautiful Boy, in which a father (played by Steve Carrell) admits to his drug-addicted son that he used drugs in his past, but fails to take the opportunity to discuss the important differences between hard drugs and marijuana, or the value of moderation.

Jennifer Connelly talking with her son (Nat Wolff) in "Stuck in Love"

This is strikingly different from movies like 9-5, Peace Love & Misunderstanding and Stuck in Love where mothers or grandmothers are able to talk to teens about these important distinctions.

Review: "Grass is Greener" from Netflix

The Netflix marijuana documentary “Grass is Greener” is a milestone in the form, told from the perspective of the African-American community that has been so hard hit by the War on Drugs.

Directed and narrated by Frederick Brathwaite, better known as “Fab 5 Freddie” who DJed a hip hop show on MTV, the film features interviews with Snoop Dog, Damian Marley, B Real, Killer Mike, and others, as well as women like Reggae artist Jah 9.

With awesome graphics, music, and archival materials throughout, it starts with the history of cannabis use and prohibition in the US, interviewing pioneer authors Larry "Ratso" Sloman and Steve Hagar, along with Criminal Justice Professor Baz Dreisinger.

The connection between marijuana and music is made right away, starting in New Orleans with the story of Louis Armstrong, and interviewing old-time musicians who have used cannabis for 60 or 70 years. Mezz Mezzrow, the Jewish jazz clarinetist who supplied Harlem with "reefers" back in the day is compared to the modern Mezz, a dealer named Branson who has been extolled in dozens of rap songs.

Everything from the 1944 Laguardia Report, to Nixon's burying of the 1972 Shafer Commission report and subsequent racist comments made by him and his aide John Ehrlichman, and Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign to the rise of pro-legalization Reggae artists Bob Marley and Peter Tosh are given their due.

These are familiar themes, but where "Grass is Greener" departs and breaks ground is where it goes from there, starting with examples of Hip Hop songs that warned against hard drug use, and Snoop's admission that, as a cocaine dealer, he grew distressed at watching the damage that drug caused. Weed, however,  was "fly" and he made it his mission to turn the world onto the better drug. Soon Cypress Hill was smoking weed on SNL, Dr. Dre released his CD "The Chronic," and there was no putting the ganja genie back in the bottle.