A Close-Up of Those 19 Georgia Mugs

The Defiant, The Delighted, The Dour. Also: a bomb hoax at my library & the AMPTP resorts to putting lipstick on a pig

I started typing “Mugshots of…” late last night, and, of course, Google knew precisely where I was headed.

It dutifully spit out “…the 19,” in reference to the one score-minus-one folks who are defendants in the Trump Georgia case.

For those who missed it, I wrote about one of the 19 on Wednesday, our Media-Manipulator-at-Large Trevian Kutti who was outwitted so thoroughly by Ruby Freeman:

`Crisis Is My Thing'

I was curious to see how Kutti posed for the camera, but then couldn’t resist checking out the mugs of all involved. Among other things, I was eager to see how many mimicked Donald Trump’s defiant-tough-guy-routine. By the way, he must’ve practiced that glare for minutes on end in front of the mirror, right?

It’s not “You’re fired!’ but `You want a piece of me?’

Vox did a good job crafting a thumbnail sketch for each of these characters. In reviewing the lineup, I would say they could mostly be lumped into three visual categories, based on their mouth-and-eyes combination:

The Defiant

None rivals Trump for over-the-top gunslinger schtick, staring you down in a darkened alley, but about one-third strike this pose.

Team captain: Ray Smith
Alternate: Rob Cheeley

Ray Smith offers his best `Not-a-Happy-Camper’

The Delighted

Team captain: Jenna Ellis
Alternate: Trevian “Crisis Is My Thing” Kutti

Jenna’s got me convinced: she must be innocent.

The Dour

If I were caught up with this gang, I’d wind up in Camp Dour. Neither defiant, nor delighted. Somewhere betwixt and between. I mean, this is pretty serious, isn’t it?

Team captain: Cathy Latham
Alternate: Kenneth Chesebro

Cathy Latham conveys a blend of dour and earnest, no?

A few more “by the numbers” tallies from the (Allegedly) Naughty Nineteen:

Of the 14 men, six wore ties, seven did not, and one (Illinois pastor Stephen Lee) wore a clerical collar. Of the five women, two wore necklaces (The Delighted duo) and three did not.

Don’t bomb places – and don’t make hoax threats, either.

In local news, a royal jerk issued such a threat via e-mail to my local library here in Oak Park, Illinois late Sunday. That prompted officials to close the main site and two branches on Monday.

As a former member of that library board and as a common-sense citizen, I understand the rationale behind the closure. While the chances of these threats being legitimate tend to be minuscule, who wants to roll the dice and be wrong?

Meantime, an entire day of cultural, intellectual and community enrichment for an untold number of people went down the tubes. To deter these kinds of shenanigans, authorities put hoax dopes away for years at a time.

Side note: in announcing the closure late Sunday, the library director cited an “abundance of caution.” After that phrase’s repeated usage throughout the various stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, has anyone else grown weary of it?

Consequently, I hereby solicit your input, via a comment below, to convey “profusion of risk avoidance.”

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

Well, get a load of this subhead on The Hollywood Reporter story yesterday about the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ (AMPTP) latest maneuver:

As talks with the Writers Guild of America stall, the studio trade association has retained D.C.-based firm The Levinson Group to pursue a fresh messaging strategy.

Hey, AMPTP, it’s not about “fresh messaging,” but “fair negotiation.”

You can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but it’s still a pig at the end of the day.¹

1. Full disclosure: my wife., Bridgett, works on a television show. So, while I may be biased, I am confident that history will not look kindly on the AMPTP’s tactics. What Bridgett wrote to colleagues last night on an industry Facebook page: “Just give the writers and actors what is fair and respectful and let’s move on. How about that as a strategy? Good grief.”