Blog Betty (Thomas Friedman is a Great Man was an online novel): Aretha Franklin's SPARKLE

Wednesday, March 09, 2022

Aretha Franklin's SPARKLE

SPARKLE was Whitney Houston's final movie and I think she did a good job but I prefer the original film made in the 70s.

I think everyone did a wonderful job -- especially Irene Cara.

But, that said, I think SPARKLE the album was better than the songs in the film.

In a break with tradition, the soundtrack was not released as a soundtrack. Instead, Aretha Franklin went into the studio with Curtis Mayfield and recorded every song in the movie. Aretha and Curtis really cooked up something excellent.

"Giving Him Something He Can Feel" we all know -- even if it's just from En Vouge's version in the 90s. But Aretha really set the standard with her 70s recording. Same is true with "Hooked On A Feeling." In fact, let me put those two in this post.

"Giving Him Something He Can Feel"

and "Hooked On A Feeling" are good in the film SPARKLE but they are good in different ways.

Aretha recording the songs gave it a cohesion. She and Curtis crafted it in a way that didn't require that you see the movie, their recordings worked all on their own.

SPARKLE is one of Aretha's great albums and I was thinking of that when I heard another favorite song from that album today "Jump."

Here is my top ten for favorite Aretha albums.

1) YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK
2) WHO'S ZOOMING WHO
3) LADY SOUL
4) A ROSE IS STILL A ROSE
5) HEY NOW HEY THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY (and "Sister From Texas" is really amazing)
6) ARETHA NOW
7) ARETHA FRANKLIN SINGS THE GREAT DIVA CLASSICS
8) I NEVER LOVED A MAN THE WAY THAT I LOVE YOU
9) LOVE ALL THE HURT AWAY
10) ARETHA IN PARIS

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, March 9, 2022. And the wars drag on, yeah, the wars drag on.

The US government continues to persecute Julian Assange. Don't tell John Nichols. He's got another useless column. Russia! Russia! Russia! Does he think he looks smart or brave? Only to the deeply stupid. He's a craven whore who pushed for Bull Boy Bush to be impeached - even wrote a book on impeachment and was promoting it but then Nancy Pelosi announced that impeachment was off the tble and like a good whore John Nichols dropped the topic -- enraging the publishing house tht had put out his book. When he had a world of US government officials to call out for the Iraq War, John Nichols zoomed in on the most 'dangerous' of all . . . Barbra Streisand. He's a coward and a whore. Today he wants you to know that Russia is crqcking down on media. Just Rissia, you understand. Any unbiased outlet has already told you that both Russia and Ukraine are cracking down on their media. But whore's got whore, right, John?

Which is why he's outside pointing the finger again instead of directing it t his own country. Joe Biden's crcking down on media. He's gotten a lot of help from the media itself. They knew Tra Reade was probably telling the truth but like some 'feminists' they insisted it didn't matter, they were still supporting Joe. There's been no bigger buffoon in the White House in the last 100 years yet the press has gone so easy on liar Joe who most recently lied about how many times he'd been to Iraq and Afghanistan claiming 40 when it's only been 21 -- a lie he made during the campaign and got slammed for and a lie he continues to make. It's not smart to lie in a Statue of the Union address.

Joe was unable to do whatever one before him in 'modern times' has done, deliver the speech in January. But his lying about basic facts? The SOUA is a mandated speech, mandated in the Constitution.

He can't stop lying. He lies about the big stuff, he lies about the small stuff. He is forever inflating his own miniscule record. Remember when he was telling us he was arrested while visitng South Africa as a US senator?

Despite the very easy ride that Joe's gotten from the US press, the White House is still miserable, is still attacking reporters, has asked THE NEW YORK TIMES to reassign one reporter (if the reporter's learning of it here, check iwth your editor, you'll be informed then). He's a petty man who can't deliver for the American people because he's too busy having tantrums over how he is being portrayed in the press in the here and now. Joe's an old man and he's going to die soon. But he's not concerned about how history will receive him because he's too obsessed with the here and now.

The whores of journalism like to pretend they're doing something of value but they're forgotten near instantly and history is a little more harsh. Jeh Johnson. He got a lot of good press. Some called him out -- a few -- for his role in Barack Obama's inhumane response to immigration. Some of us knew it would come back to bite him in the ass. He didn't get it. He thought he could manage it and the press was all that mattered and . . .

Poor little Jeh, dopped as a speaker to Vassar.

How humiliating for him.

How fitting.

The press may have gone easy on him in real time but that didn't mean a damn thing. Truth will out -- always. And Jeh better get used to the fact that this is just the beginning. He might want to drop to his knees and publicly beg forgiveness for the vile and disgusting things he'd done.

Some might forgive him if he did that.

I'm not the Pope. I'm not granting him forgiveness. I'll stand with the epople whose lives he destroyed.

Again, congratulations on being ruled unfit to speak before a college -- being ruled that by We The People. Not the press. Not his hero Barack. By We The People and, in a democracy, we are always the final voice.

Julian Assange is persecuted for attempting to tellt he truth and for supporting an informed citizenry. He shined a light into the shadows and so Joe Biden is determined to destroy him. A) It's about revenge. B) It's about making an example of Julian, trying to put the fear into the press.

But, by all means, John Nichols, waste all of our time with another useless column.

Ueseless hsi whole life.

We'll note this Tweet:

Seems accurate

7:30 AM · Mar 8, 2022

Richard Medhurt speaks with Jeffrey Sterling about the presuction of Julian Assange and other issues.

Julian tried to inform. The US media lives to distract and to deny reality. CJ Hopkins (DISSIDENT VOICE) takes a humorous look at how the media is currently conducting itself:

And they’re back! It’s like one of those 1960s Hammer Film Productions horror-movie series with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee … Return of the Putin-Nazis! Revenge of the Putin-Nazis! Return of the Revenge of the Bride of the Putin-Nazis! And this time they are not horsing around with stealing elections from Hillary Clinton with anti-masturbation Facebook ads. They are going straight for “Democracy’s” jugular!

Yes, that’s right, folks, Vladimir Putin, leader of the Putin-Nazis and official “Evil Dictator of the Day,” has launched a Kamikazi attack on the United Forces of Goodness (and Freedom) to provoke us into losing our temper and waging a global thermonuclear war that will wipe out the entire human species and most other forms of life on earth!

I’m referring, of course, to Putin’s inexplicable and totally unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, a totally peaceful, Nazi-free country which was just sitting there minding its non-Nazi business, singing Kumbaya, and so on, and not in any way collaborating with or being cynically used by GloboCap to menace and eventually destabilize Russia so that the GloboCap boys can get back in there and resume the Caligulan orgy of “privatization” they enjoyed throughout the 1990’s.

No, clearly, Putin has just lost his mind, and has no strategic objective whatsoever (other than the total extermination of humanity), and is just running around the Kremlin shouting “DROP THE BOMBS! EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES!” all crazy-eyed and with his face painted green like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now … because what other explanation is there?

Caitlin Johnstone observes:

Just your regular reminder that the US empire (A) had solid intelligence that this war was coming, (B) knew they could prevent it by making very reasonable, low-cost concessions like promising not to add a nation to NATO that they didn’t want to add anyway, and (C) chose not to.

❖

It’s 2022 and people still believe the US is pouring weapons into a foreign country to protect freedom and democracy. That’s like being 57 and still believing in the Tooth Fairy.

❖

The US empire has had a standing policy of preventing the rise of any rival superpowers since the USSR collapsed, by which I mean that policy was explicitly laid out in writing within months of the Soviet Union’s dissolution. Both Moscow and Beijing have refused to kiss the imperial ring, and crippling Russia is an essential part of hamstringing China’s rise. This was all planned years ago.

Gilbert Doctorow described back in 2017 how Moscow and Beijing have formed a mutually beneficial “tandem” based on their respective strengths; Russia as a major military force who is willing to confront the US empire, and China as a rising economic superpower. Empire managers had previously expected that Moscow would be forced to pivot to Washington and become a member state of the empire. The fact that it chose Beijing instead to retain its sovereignty is what set all this in motion.

This was all planned years in advance. It’s no coincidence that we were hammered with narratives originating from US intelligence agencies which inflamed hysteria about Russia in the years leading up to this, most of which had nothing to do with Ukraine. I mean for Christ’s sake, even the one narrative that did involve Ukraine occurred because a CIA officer (ridiculously labeled a “whistleblower” by the mass media) just so happened to be in the right place at the right time to get it rolling.

So we’re all going to suffer financially and live under the risk of total obliteration via nuclear war in a long-planned confrontation geared toward obtaining total planetary domination, just because a few manipulators in the US government decided that would be a good thing.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Never did. There’s no good reason why nations can’t just get along and work together for the common good of all. The only reason that’s not happening is because of this insane desire to dominate and control instead of collaborate and thrive.

Where's the coverage of Iraq in the US media? It had to vanish. What the US government did is a crime. Iraq has been torn apart by the US government. The suffering has not gone away. But they can't champaion another war, the media, while providing reality about what happened and continues to happen in Iraq.

It's a tragedy. Iraqis have to live with it but the US government inflicted it.

And the US media rushes to run from it.

UN Women Iraq Tweets:

UN staff in Erbil gathered to celebrate International Women’s Day and reflect on the progress and achievements made on women’s rights as well as to recognize the importance of achieving gender equality for a sustainable future free from violence against women and girls
@UNHCRIraq