Before I post below I want to add that I LOVE Rachel Maddow. I think she is the next Edward R. Murrow but even MORE brilliant. She is a scholar and it shows. Having said that for the first time I took issue with one small particular segment at the end which she sometimes does. It does not have the gravity of nuclear war but still I decided to write her the following:
Cocktail Anyone? There probably is NO ONE in television cable or otherwise who could make mixing a drink an interesting story. Rachel did. I am about as interested in drinking as I am in someone washing port-o-potties but at the end of the interview watching the two young woman from the Angostura Bitters Co. explain the alarming shortage of bottles making Angostura bitters impossible to get I thought why am I interested in this story? Who cares? It really shows the saturated-with-talent of Rachel Maddow who could make an utterly irrelevant story interesting.
Still, my first criticism of her: I am not wild about the real cocktail moments i.e. the ones that concentrate on REALLY mixing a drink. Why make drinking seem so, well, sheik and fun. It would almost be like your having someone on roll a very expensive tobacco or cigar from Cuba and making it look just dandy. Sure, most people (I think but what do I know about the subject) drink prudently but drinking really is responsible for a LOT of ruined lives not to mention death on the highways. Why give it a forum which makes it look oh so inviting? I admit, if the liquor industry depended on me for their profits they would go bankrupt. I really think though, Rachel, you can do without that particular segment.
How about doing or repeating a "Cocktail Moment" segment with a really comedic segment by someone like the one John Stewart did of a complete satire on Glen Beck. It was the greatest comedy segment I have ever seen since the 1950's. It stands with the greats like Sid Caesar's "This is Your Life Uncle Guppe," or Carol Burnett's Gone with the Wind parody her plantation staircase descent dressed in a curtain which was HILARIOUS!
Something, anything would be, in my opinion, better than mixing a drink on TV where millions could be at that moment convinced drinking is oh so kool, go out and buy the ingredients, get drunk, get behind a wheel and kill themselves or somebody else. Whiskey or tobacco is not advertised on TV for a reason.
Just my opinion but we STILL will ALWAYS watch and love Rachel although if Angostura Bitters went out of business tomorrow it would be a who cares moment for me!!!
