Let’s start with something completely trivial in order to ease into the new year. In a move that no one really asked for, Pixar and Walt Disney Pictures are set to release “Cars 3” this sum- mer. “Cars 2” is the only Pixar movie thus far to ever receive a “Rotten” score on movie-rating website Rotten Tomatoes, so it seems like a strange move. Perhaps it’s for the nostalgia factor? After all, children and young adults alike were excited for last summer’s “Finding Dory.” You’d think that, perhaps, visiting an old movie for the third time, the big shots at Disney and Pixar would know how to balance their new and old audiences, as they so masterfully did in “Toy Story 3.” But plot details released to Entertainment Weekly have revealed that “Cars 3” is going to be about entitled millennial cars. Yes. Millennial cars, according to Entertainment Weekly. So a dart to Pixar for giving us another reason not to see the sequel to the sequel that no one asked for.
Keeping in the entertainment sphere, let’s look at Twitter, which has been bubbling with excitement since the beginning of 2017. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” actor Diego Luna tweeted a heartfelt story about a father who was deeply moved that a Mexican was the star of a Star Wars movie. Twitter user Kale Salad started an account dedicated to retweeting memes from their original sources (instead of reposting them as most “famous” Twitter users do) and turned into an overnight Twitter hit. And, perhaps most importantly, the queen of Twitter herself, Kim Kardashian, has broken her social-media silence for the first time since her traumatic Paris robbery, posting a sweet family picture. So a laurel to Twitter for reminding us that there still is good in this world.
Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly announced she will leave the network for NBC News, where she will head her own show. Fans of Kelly support her decision, although close followers of Fox News are wishing her good riddance for leaving them to join the “liberal media.” Whatever your personal stance on Kelly’s move is, we can agree she has remained classy, con- trolled and professional amid intense criticism from both sides of the political spectrum and vulgar words from a certain president- elect, especially when she spoke up in the midst of the sexual- harassment scandal involving Fox News’ co-founder and former chairman Roger Ailes. Thus, we bestow a laurel to Kelly for her professionalism and for moving forward in her career.
And lastly, let’s end with something that’s not trivial. Earlier this week, House Republicans voted to severely diminish the Office of Congressional Ethics, which is made up of an outside board and has been called overzealous by both Democrats and Republicans alike, according to The New York Times. This office takes anonymous complaints from citizens, investigates them and then reports them to the House Ethics Committee if they find something incriminating. And because the office is independent and unaffiliated, it has no bias in reporting what it finds. We don’t know about you, dear reader, but we consider ethics, especially those of elected officials, to be pretty darn important, so the whole move to create a less zealous ethics committee that would be completely overseen by elected and affiliated officials seems a bit...Well, we’re giving a dart to whoever thought that was a good move. Although the movement has backed down some- what, there’s still tension in the House. But then again, when isn’t there?
