Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Streisand

I'm not impressed with THE BROADWAY ALBUM.  That's for starters.  An e-mail came in and, apparently, being Black means I only know soul music.  I was told that I never write about Barbra Streisand "while you claim to love music."


I do love music.


Not a big Barbra fan.  


She's made three good  albums for me.  One in the sixties, two in the eighties.


THE SECOND BARBRA STREISAND ALBUM is the best thing she recorded in the 60s or 70s.  She sang bravely.  Not a wasted moment on that album.  "Down With Love" and "Gotta Move" and "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" are especially perfection.  

On that album, no one could touch her -- not even Whitney Houston at the height of her own powers.

After that really sad and flawed albums.

 

Until 1980's GUILTY.  Barry Gibb knew how to produce her.  Her voice never sounded so good.  Forget range or anything else and just note how each individual note sounds lovely.  Amazing.

 

I'm not into THE BROADWAY ALBUM.  I think it's actually an embarrassment.  It called for the unrestrained singing of THE SECOND BARBRA STREISAND ALBUM and instead we middle of the road medicrity.

 

The other great album of the 80s was YENTL.  That soundtrack was amazing -- the music, her vocals.  

Amazing.

 

She did a few strong singles after that but never another good album.  

 

"We're Not Making Love" is one of her best singles.  But pop radio was no longer playing her and she did one bad album after another.  HIGHER GROUND?  If you thought Jewish Barbra was the wrong artist for a Christmas album what her doing spirituals?  

She had a lot of talent.  She just did a lot of embarrassing vocals and sang a lot of mediocre songs.

 

She was not Diana Ross.  Diana ruled the pop market and the charts while Barbra was forever trying to figure out who she was -- from one single to the next.  Look! She's copying Laura Nyro!  ("Stoney End" -- Michael Douglas rightly pointed out it was a note-by-note steal.)  Or she's trying to be Mama Cass.  Or she's trying to be . . . 

 

For someone so sure of herself, she's one of the most erratic singers around.  And she often didn't deliver.  She had a fit that Diana Ross covered FUNNY GIRL for a full album with the Supremes -- Diana was using HER arranger and HER . . .


What really freaked her out was that Diana sang the songs better.  Diana had warmth and personality.  Two traits that Streisand has never been accused of possessing.

 

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, March 14, 2023.  CNN 'cleans up' history by omitting the role of the media in selling the Iraq War while Glenneth Greenwald makes clear that the greatest journalistic crime is not inviting him to appear on your program.


Maybe CNN deserves to  close shop?  If it can't serve the public, why does it need to exist?  To offer up garbage like this from Peter Bergen:

 

Two decades ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the US invasion of Iraq. Bush and senior administration officials had repeatedly told Americans that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction and that he was in league with al Qaeda.     

These claims resulted in most Americans believing that Saddam was involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks. A year after 9/11, two-thirds of Americans said that the Iraqi leader had helped the terrorists, according to Pew Research Center polling, even though there was not a shred of convincing evidence for this. Nor did he have the WMD alleged by US officials.   

Does the problem with that garbage float over everyone's head?



The press.  Working for CNN, Peter forgets to point the finger at the press.  How pathetic and shameful.  What a damn liar.  


BILL MOYERS JOURNAL documented the role of the press in the documentary BUYING THE WAR.  I'm not talking about anything hidden but lying whores like Bergen would prefer that it remain forgotten.


Here's the description of Moyers' BUYING THE WAR:


The story of how high officials misled the country has been told. But they couldn’t have done it on their own; they needed a compliant press, to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on. How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 go largely unreported? “What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored,” says Moyers. “How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?”

In 2004, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln wearing a flight suit and delivered a speech in front of a giant “Mission Accomplished” banner. He was hailed by media stars as a “breathtaking” example of presidential leadership in toppling Saddam Hussein. Despite profound questions over the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction and the increasing violence in Baghdad, many in the press confirmed the White House’s claim that the war was won. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews declared, “We’re all neo-cons now;” NPR’s Bob Edwards said, “The war in Iraq is essentially over;” and Fortune magazine’s Jeff Birnbaum said, “It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context.”

“Buying the War” includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of Meet the Press; Bob Simon of 60 Minutes; Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN; and John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers, which was acquired by The McClatchy Company in 2006.

In “Buying the War” Bill Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes document the reporting of Walcott, Landay and Strobel, the Knight Ridder team that burrowed deep into the intelligence agencies to try and determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration’s case for war. “Many of the things that were said about Iraq didn’t make sense,” says Walcott. “And that really prompts you to ask, ‘Wait a minute. Is this true? Does everyone agree that this is true? Does anyone think this is not true?’”

In the run-up to war, skepticism was a rarity among journalists inside the Beltway. Journalist Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in the Middle East, questioned the reporting he was seeing and reading. “I mean we knew things or suspected things that perhaps the Washington press corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda,” he tells Moyers. “Saddam…was a total control freak. To introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn’t believe it for an instant.”

The program analyzes the stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors to the mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would eventually prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs went virtually unchallenged by the media. The New York Times reported on Iraq’s “worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb,” but according to Landay, claims by the administration about the possibility of nuclear weapons were highly questionable. Yet, his story citing the “lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons” got little play. In fact, throughout the media landscape, stories challenging the official view were often pushed aside while the administration’s claims were given prominence. “From August 2002 until the war was launched in March of 2003 there were about 140 front page pieces in the Washington Post making the administration’s case for war,” says Howard Kurtz, the Post’s media critic. “But there was only a handful of stories that ran on the front page that made the opposite case. Or, if not making the opposite case, raised questions.”

“Buying the War” examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what’s changed? “More and more the media become, I think, common carriers of administration statements and critics of the administration,” says the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus. “We’ve sort of given up being independent on our own.”

 

The media didn't do their job -- their defined job.  That wasn't an accident.  They bullied people intentionally.  Fall in line or the press would mow you over.  It was widespread.  As someone speaking out against the Iraq War since the month before it started, I heard one story after another as I visited various cities.  Early on I was doing press but I gave up on that because reality didn't make it into the corporate media.  But after the interview, people would want to confess.  An entertainment reporter for a daily newspaper in one of the top ten (population wise) cities in the country would explain guilt felt over an attack on Sheryl Crow in print.  Why did you write it?  Because the editor said to.  Why was Crow attacked?  For the most meager stand against the war.  Artists were attacked, films were attacked, music was attacked, all due to the fear that the voices against the war might break through.  


There's not a paper in the country whose hands are clean, there's not a network.  


Was anyone held accountable in the press?


Judith Miller.  Apparently, Judy not only wrote and co-wrote bad journalism, she also ran the NYT editorial board, ran the editorial boards for all papers, anchored and produced every network and cable news program and commanded the op-ed pages of every newspaper.

Everyone else is going to keep their head down for fear being held accountable.


But now, an the 20th anniversary approaches, CNN wants to pretend the press didn't have a role?  Wants to pretend the press didn't silence voices objecting to the war?  Wants to pretend they didn't platform voices cheerleading war?  The voices that they would go on to reward and still do?


In 2020, at CJR, Maria Bustillos noted:


In February 2003—a matter of days before the start of the war in Iraq—MSNBC axed Donahue’s primetime show, citing poor ratings. (Though it lagged behind its competitors on other networks, Donahue was then MSNBC’s highest-rated show.) 

It had been only eighteen months since 9/11, and so Donahue’s vocal opposition to the war was often cited in media reports as the real reason for his firing. Evidence emerged to support this contention. An internal memo leaked to allyourscreens.com’s Rick Ellis expressed fears of MSNBC becoming “a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag.”

In the months after 9/11, NBC chief executive Bob Wright had “pointedly” told MSNBC news chief Neal Shapiro to challenge Fox from the right: “We have to be more conservative than they are.” Soon, “swirling graphics of the American flag” appeared on MSNBC alongside a new tagline, “America’s NewsChannel,” as Gabriel Sherman revealed years later in New York magazine.

“I was naive,” Donahue said when reached by phone recently. “I honestly thought I might survive because I was different. Nobody was knocking Don Rumsfeld except me, at the time.” MSNBC was then owned by General Electric, a huge defense contractor, and he suspects this was not an unrelated factor.



Here's Phil discussing it on DEMOCRACY NOW! in 2013.



JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Phil, I’d like to bring in another subject in terms of this whole issue, the—what happened to you, directly, as a host on MSNBC in the midst of the run-up to the war, and the responsibilities of the press in America and its—the mea culpas that have rarely been uttered by the pundits and by the journalists over what the American press did in the run-up to war.

PHIL DONAHUE: Well, I think what happened to me, the biggest lesson, I think, is the—how corporate media shapes our opinions and our coverage. This was a decision—my decision—the decision to release me came from far above. This was not an assistant program director who decided to separate me from MSNBC. They were terrified of the antiwar voice. And that is not an overstatement. Antiwar voices were not popular. And if you’re General Electric, you certainly don’t want an antiwar voice on a cable channel that you own; Donald Rumsfeld is your biggest customer. So, by the way, I had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I could have Richard Perle on alone, but I couldn’t have Dennis Kucinich on alone. I was considered two liberals. It really is funny almost, when you look back on how—how the management was just frozen by the antiwar voice. We were scolds. We weren’t patriotic. American people disagreed with us. And we weren’t good for business.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, I had this unusual experience, Phil, in July of 2006. It was the 10th anniversary of MSNBC, and I was invited on Hardball by Chris Matthews to celebrate the 10th anniversary. I think first Brian Williams was on the show, and then the Israeli ambassador, and then I was on the show. And we were standing outside 30 Rock. It was a big deal. All the execs were on the top floor of 30 Rock, and they were all about to have a big party. And we were just coming out of a commercial.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to congratulate you, Chris, on 10 years of MSNBC, but I wish standing with you was Phil Donahue. He shouldn’t have been fired for expressing an antiwar point of view on the eve of the election. His point of view and the people brought on were also important.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I don’t know what the reasons were, but I doubt it was that.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we have the MS—the NBC memo, that was a secret memo—

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Oh, OK, good.

AMY GOODMAN: —that came out, that said they didn’t want him to be the face of this network, an antiwar face, at a time when the other networks were waving the flag.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH: Could I answer the question? I’d love to answer that question.

AMY GOODMAN: Phil Donahue is a great patriot.

AMY GOODMAN: I said there, Phil, you were a great patriot. We did have the NBC memo, the secret memo that said they didn’t want their flagship show to be you, when the other networks were waving the American flag.

PHIL DONAHUE: That’s what it said. And, by the way, that memo was written by a Republican focus group, a Republican counseling group that took the focus group and that revealed that most of the people in the focus group didn’t like me. But I saw that, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, you were the most popular show.

PHIL DONAHUE: Well, often we led the night for the—nobody burned the town down on MSNBC, including me. Fox just ran away with the ratings and continues to enjoy that success.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you watching MSNBC that night?

PHIL DONAHUE: I did. I saw it. And I called the kids. I said, “Hey!” I’m not sure I did it soon enough. But I certainly was grateful for—I mean, I needed the pat on the back at the time.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Phil, the irony that MSNBC now is supposedly this liberal—

PHIL DONAHUE: It’s amazing, really.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —the liberal network now?

PHIL DONAHUE: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You wonder, though, if another—if another move to war came, how liberal it would remain.

PHIL DONAHUE: Well, you know, the coin of the realm is the size of the audience. It’s important to see this. When a broadcasting executive gets out of bed in the morning, before his foot hits the floor, his thoughts are ratings. “What are my ratings?” Not unlike Wall Street people, who get their—and CEOs, their first thought is the price of their stock. So, you know, what—and I was replaced by Michael Savage. So there was a desperate need to get numbers.


From the transcript to Bill Moyers' documentary:


WARREN STROBEL: The first rule of being an intelligence agent, or a journalist, and they're really not that different, is you're skeptical of defectors, because they have a reason to exaggerate. They want to increase their value to you. They probably want something from you. Doesn't mean they're lying, but you should be -- journalists are supposed to be skeptical, right? And I'm afraid the NEW YORK TIMES reporter in that case and a lot of other reporters were just not skeptical of what these defectors were saying. Nor was the Administration...

FOX NEWS ANCHOR (8/1/02): A former top Iraqi nuclear scientists tells congress Iraq could build three nuclear bombs by 2005.

CNN NEWS ANCHOR (12/21/01): Well, now another defector. A senior Iraqi intelligence official tells VANITY FAIR in an exclusive interview that Saddam Hussein has trained an elite fighting force in sabotage, urban warfare, hijacking and murder. David Rose wrote the story; he joins us now from London.

BILL MOYERS: IN VANITY FAIR'S DAVID ROSE, DEFECTORS FOUND ANOTHER EAGER BEAVER FOR THEIR CLAIMS. THE GLOSSY MAGAZINE, A FAVORITE OF MEDIA ELITES, GAVE HIM FOUR BIG SPREADS TO TELL DEFECTOR STORIES. THE TALK SHOWS LAPPED IT UP.

DAVID ROSE: (MSNBC 12/21/01) What the defector Al-Qurairy, a former brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service, told me is that these guys, there are twelve hundred in all and they've been trained to hijack trains, buses, ships and so forth...

JONATHAN LANDAY: As you track their stories, they become ever more fantastic, and they're the same people who are telling these stories, until you get to the most fantastic tales of all, which appeared in VANITY FAIR Magazine.

DAVID ROSE: The last training exercise was to blow up a full size mock up of a US destroyer in a lake in central Iraq.

JONATHAN LANDAY: Or, jumping into pits of fouled water and having to kill a dog with your bare teeth. I mean, and this was coming from people, who are appearing in all of these stories, and sometimes their rank would change.

LESLIE STAHL (60 MINUTES, CBS 3/3/02): Musawi told us that he has verified that this man was an officer in Iraq's ruthless intelligence service the Mukhabarat .

JONATHAN LANDAY: And, you're saying, "Wait a minute. There's something wrong here, because in this story he was a major, but in this story the guy's a colonel. And, in this story this was his function, but now he says in this story he was doing something else.

 

LESLIE STAHL: The defector is telling Musawi that in order to evade the UN inspectors Saddam Hussein put his biological weapons laboratories in trucks that the defector told us he personally bought from Renault.

LESLIE STAHL: Refrigerator trucks?

DEFECTOR: Yeah, yeah.

LESLIE STAHL: And how many?

DEFECTOR: Seven.

BILL MOYERS: LESLIE STAHL AND CBS RETRACTED THEIR STORY A YEAR AFTER THE INVASION WHEN NEARLY ALL THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED BY DEFECTORS PROVED TO BE FALSE.

VANITY FAIR'S ROSE LATER SAID HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS HAD CONFIRMED HIS STORIES. BUT THESE WERE THE VERY OFFICIALS WHO HAD BET ON CHALABI AS THEIR FAVORITE MAN O'WAR. TO THE KNIGHT RIDDER TEAM IT ALL SMELLED OF A CON GAME. 


It is dishonest, all these years later, for CNN to publish garbage like what Peter wrote.  The media was a willing partner in selling the illegal war.  Their lies destroyed their own credibility.  Their refusal, over 20 years later, to be honest about that continues to destroy their reputation.


A friend drew my attention to the great Glenneth Greenwald's put downs of Amy Goodman.  I'm not an Amy Goodman fan.  While Glenneth and others were whoring to get on DEMOCRACY NOW!, I was calling it out for refusing to cover Iraq.  Barack was now in the White House and they didn't care about Iraq.  At one point, in his first term, they brought on the idiot Raed Jarrar.  From Iraq, he'd long stopped paying attention and he gave an 'update' so wrong that Ava and I pointed out that news consumers would be better off without his commentary.  He was back on two weeks later because -- as Ava and I had pointed out -- things were heating up in Iraq even though he'd ignored them.  Now he tried to play catch up and made a fool of himself because he clearly didn't know what he was talking about.  

While a number of Green Party members who had their own sites online (longterm community members will know who I mean) stayed silent.  We called Amy out on her Green Party coverage.  She devoted a full week to the GOP convention and a full week to the Democratic Party's.  She gave a headline to the Green Party.  

We noted the influx of money into DN! and how it was corrupting.  We noted that PACIFICA needed to cancel their contract with Amy because no PACIFICA show was worth the millions PACIFICA was pumping into DEMOCRACY NOW!  And we noted that when PACIFICA paid the budget of a show, that show needed to belong to PACIFICA.  (Amy retains ownership of all episodes of DEMOCRACY NOW!)  Gal pal Leslie Cagan oversaw that robbery of PACIFICA RADIO.  

As those identified on the program as "oppressed" began contacting this site, Ava and I also took on Amy's misrepresentations of fact.  In one case, she had interviewed the mother of a child who had outlined what had happened.  What had happened was horrific enough but Amy had to 'improve' on it and toss aside all the woman had said in an interview.  Amy knew better than the mother what happened in this far from NYC story.  Or maybe Amy just thought she was better able to speak to racial violence than an African-American woman?  Maybe it was a bit of both?


Amy floated the lie -- with John Nichols -- that Hillary Clinton planned to overtake the 2004 DNC convention and steal the nomination.  That was 2004.  In 2008, she brought John Nichols on so he could lie about Hillary to pimp Barack.  AP had reported on Barack's advisor telling the Canadian government that Barack's talk about repealing NAFTA wasn't for real and he was just saying it for votes.  That was reality and truth.  And it was hurting Barack so Amy and John presented the lie that Barack didn't do that.  No, it was Hillary.  And John's story on this would be in THE NATION shortly.  The story never  ran because it never existed.  

Things get a little messy with Sally Jesse, Amy infamously once wrote.  Well they got to be flat out lies with Goody.  


Ava and I documented all of this.  Aaron Mate was part of the show then and never mentions it.  Glenn Greenwald was a regular guest and never covered it.  He kissed her ass while pretending he was independent.

I don't loathe Amy.  Maybe that's because I haven't whored?  There's nothing she's done wrong that I haven't called out.   Some are surprised that we've taken to posting her videos.  If Juan's in it and I know, it'll go up.  I knew Juan back in the day.  Which is why little boys just out of their nappies (Aaron and Max) better check themselves before they start trashing Juan.  Other than that, I'm not blindly posting any international story because she's become a war hawk.  That started with Libya -- and, again, Ava and I called her out in real time.  We mainly post her on domestic issues.  

But Glenneth thinks he proves something by posting Norman's whine.

That would ben White man Norman Finkelstein.  If you haven't already read it, Ava filled in for Trina last night with "Stacey Plaskett, the Norman Finkelstein of Congress" noting how Norman's pissing his panties over the fact that Amy Goodman prefers to have African-American voices speaking to African-American issues.  Norman made clear to Jared Ball on BLACK POWER MEDIA that Norman doesn't believe African-Americans are as smart as he is on the topic of what it is to be an African-American.

Yes, Norman is that pathetic.

Ava rightly noted that he was insulting to Angela Davis.  Apparently, her accomplishments don't matter.  All that matters was Norman wanted to have sex with her when he was a young man.

Thanks for . . . sharing?

So Glenneth grabs a section of Norman's book and informs you that the unnamed woman Norman's writing about is Amy Goodman.

I've told you forever and a day that Glenneth is a sexist.  

He proves it yet again.

Norman writes about how he was told he had harassed the woman.

"You look so young.  You could be one of Michael Jackson's playmates."

That's what Norman writes in the section Glenneth pimps.  That got Norman banned.

Good.

First off, we only have Norman's word for what he actually said and I've seen his interviews of late -- the mind is gone.  He can't get quotes right anymore -- even stuff he's quoted for years now gets mangled.

But think about the bravado when he was talking about Angela Davis and put it into the quote above and it's not as innocent as Norman wants to pretend.

Regardless, it offended a member of Amy's staff -- the woman who felt Norman was leering at her when he said it.  And she did feel he was leering at her.  I didn't have a lot of time this morning but I did make a phone call to confirm the incident took place -- the actual wording of the quote is in dispute but Norman clearly leered at her.

A creepy old man is leering at a young woman and making comments about "Michael Jackson's playmates."  I think she was right to be offended.  And Amy?  She was right to stick up for her staff.  I'm not afraid to call Amy out for anything.  If she deserved to be called out  over this, I'd be all over it -- and loving it.  

But she didn't do anything wrong.  An old man who thinks he's the White savior of a people who have never asked him to represent them has clearly begun serious mental decline.  (Ava's right that the voice is also going and Norman's aging at an accelerated rate -- exercise is important for all of us.)  


He wasn't just banned.  Amy Goodman told him he needed to apologize to her staff member that he had insulted.  I have done more talk show appearances in any given year than Norman's done his entire lifetime. There were three times I was informed I had hurt a staffer's feelings.  I was not threatened with expulsion.  But informed, I did go to the person (all men) and state I was sorry.  I didn't need to be threatened because I hadn't meant to hurt anyone's feelings and felt badly that someone had been hurt by me.  (The ones I intend to hurt never complain because they know I meant it.)  If Norman hadn't been harassing the woman, what was the harm in stating to her, "I'm so sorry about how that made you feel?"  

He was leering and stating that a woman was a "plaything."  He was offensive.  Just like his repeated use of the n-word -- over and over -- and his chuckling over it -- on BLACK POWER MEDIA was offensive.





That's the problem with the Normans -- they think they're cute and funny.  And, while young, maybe they are to some people.  But they age out of it.  And they age out of the modern world.  Norman's 69 and can't be bothered with keeping up with trends as recent as twenty years ago.  He's lost in this 'new' world.  It's his own damn fault.

I will call Amy out for many things.  I will never call her out for defending her staff.  That was an honorable position for her to take.  That Norman can't see that goes to the reality that he's aged out of present day.  For Glenneth not to see it goes to the fact that he's a sexist pig and always has been.  

Glenneth does neither himself nor Norman a favor by quoting Norman insisting that he "now fell into the same category as (Harvey) Weinstein and (Jeffrey) Epstein."  

How stupid are Greenwald and Finklestein?

They're not accused of harassment, Harvey and Jeffrey were accused of rape and assault.

The Glenneth and Norman don't grasp that difference goes to their injured male egos which are so butt hurt that they can't even see reality.  

Which would explain Glenneth describing her father as "rich" and referring to "all her siblings."  As I understand it, Amy has two brothers.  "All"?  Trina is one of eight siblings, I could see someone saying "all" with regards to them.  But to two?  Wouldn't the term be "both"?  As for rich, I understood she grew up in a well off family, not a rich one.  Maybe Glenneth is wearing wrong-side-of-the-track glasses as he envies others?  He's becoming a little more Bud Corliss with each passing year.  Someone tell David never to get a yacht with him (or go to the top of a tall building). 


Four years after Glenneth says he stopped getting invited on DEMOCRACY NOW!, he's willing to slam Amy.  What a 'truth teller,' how 'independent.'

Me?  I'll just keep singing Stevie Nicks, "Who in the world you think that you are fooling?  Well I've already done everything that you are doing."


Glenn, for those who forgot or never knew, was a cheerleader for the Iraq War.  Instead of getting honest about that, he uses his time to attack Amy Goodman not for what she said or did on air but because she doesn't invite him on as a guest anymore.  


The following sites updated:


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Monday, March 13, 2023

Drag

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "A Hooptie Ride Named Marjorie" went up last night.  


hooptie

Marjorie Taylor Greene is an American nightmare.  We all need to wake up.


Greg Owen (LGBTQ NATION) reports on the history of drag by noting 17 actors -- TV and film -- who donned drag for a role.  C.I. offered a historical overview back in December:


Can you believe it?  They like to, these hate merchants, insist that there's no history of this or that right that LGBTQ+ Americans have fought for.  Their hate is astounding.  But now, they're going after drag performers and that's rather amazing when you consider America's long history with drag. It predates the creation of the United States and goes all the way back to ancient Greece.  When William Shakespeare was alive, female characters in his plays were portrayed by women.  As for the US, WIKIPEDIA notes:

The first person known to describe himself as "the queen of drag" was William Dorsey Swann, born enslaved in Hancock, Maryland, who in the 1880s started hosting drag balls in Washington, DC attended by other men who were formerly enslaved, and often raided by the police, as documented in the newspapers.[62] In 1896, Swann was convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail on the false charge of "keeping a disorderly house" (euphemism for running a brothel) and requested a pardon from the president for holding a drag ball (the request was denied).[62]



That's a historical aspect that's not noted or recognized by many.  In the US, vaudeville was home to drag beginning in the late 1800s.  When vaudeville died out, drag performers appeared more and more in nightclubs.


They also appeared in TV shows and films.  Milton Berle was infamous for dressing up in drag on his 1950s TV program.  Jim Bailey was a night club performer whose drag act crossed over to TV.  Successful TV shows that he appeared on in drag included THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, THE TONIGHT SHOW SHOW WITH JOHNNY CARSON, THE CAROL BURNETTE SHOW, HERE'S LUCY (starring Lucille Ball, of course), and he performed as Barbra Streisand at the 1977 Super Bowl, and the 1984 Winter Olympics.  He also impersonated Judy Garland (who became a friend and who he impersonated onstage with her daughter Liza Minnelli for "The Judy and Liza Concert" that played in Vegas and London), Phyllis Diller (on the episode of HERE'S LUCY, when Phyllis can't make a charity event so Judy asks for Jim's help), 

1927 was when Mae West's play THE DRAG debuted.  Other well known representations in media?  VICTOR/VICTORIA -- yes, the Julie Andrews film; however, prior to that it was also made in 1933, 1935 and 1957 -- the 1935 film was entitled FIRST A GIRL and featured Anna Lee (known to millions for playing Lila Quatermaine on GENERAL HOSPITAL as well as such films as THE SOUND OF MUSIC and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?), SOME LIKE IT HOT (possibly the greatest comedy film of all time), Ed Woods' GLEN OR GLENDA, WHITE CHRISTMAS (yes, Bing Crosby did drag), THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS and HAIRSPRAY, TOOTSIE, NORBIT, the documentary PARIS IS BURNING, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY ITCH, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE, WHITE CHICKS, HURRICANE BIANCA, Bob Hope's THE PRINCESS AND THE PIRATE, Mike Nichols' THE BIRDCAGE . . .

We could go on and on.

So if the hate merchants in Tennessee have their way, what does that mean for film portrayals?  Will they ban the movies from theaters?  Will they block out broadcasts of the films?

It's beyond stupid. There are real issues to address.  Pouring hate on drag performers is neither a real issue nor a needed one.

Remember who they have chosen to stand against -- performers not attempting to harm anyone, performers following in the footsteps of Jim Bailey, Dustin Hoffman, Divine, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Nathan Lane, Bob Hope . . .  And what was good enough for the Olympics and the Super Bowl apparently isn't good enough for Tennessee lawmakers.

Where does it end?  Where does the hate end, where does this urge to purge end?  Will Tennessee next attempt to outlaw Halloween?  Where does it end?


Preacher preaching love like vengeance
Preaching love like hate
Calling for large donations
Promising estates
Rolling lawns and angel bands
Behind the pearly gates
You know he will have his in this life
But yours will have to wait
He's immaculately tax free

"Multiple hundreds of thousands of..."
Tax free
"Hundreds and millions of dollars"
Tax free
"A hundred billion dollars!
And who is paying the price?
Who who
"Your children are"

Pissed off
Jacked up
Scream into the mike
Spit into the loving cup
Strut like a rooster
March like a man
God's hired hands and the devil bands
Packing the same grandstands
Different clothes
"Pot in their pockets!"
Different hair
"Sexually active"
Raise a screaming guitar
or a bible in the air
Theatre of anguish
Theatre of glory
God's hired hands and the devil bands
Oh come let us adore - ME!
Lord, there's danger in this land
You get witch-hunts and wars
When church and state hold hands

F**k it!
Tonight I'm going dancing
With the drag queens and the punks
Big beat deliver me
From this sanctimonious skunk
We're no flaming angels
And he's not heaven sent
How can he speak for the Prince of Peace
When he's hawk right militant
And he's immaculately tax free
== "Tax Free," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her DOG EAT DOG


All they want to do is preach hate and they lie over and over.  That's Tucker Carlson, that's FOX NEWS.  They went with a very sick individual from England to trash transgender people.  This is a man who says he no longer wants to be a woman.  This is a White man who has had multiple surgeries to look like a Korean.  This is a man who says that Korean men have smaller penises so, he announced, he's going to get a penis reduction.  This is the 'sane' voice they brought on to attack the transgender community and Oregon state.  Oregon's laws make the age of consent for surgery 15 -- that's for all surgeries.  That's a state law so you'd think FOX NEWS would be all for it.  But they're not.  Because they're fake asses.  


These hate merchants peddle their hate and it has real world implications.  


It really does.  They should be ashamed of themselves and they should choke on their own hate.



"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, March 4, 2023.  The nepo baby wins the Academy Award, Lauren Boebert got pregnant at 17 and now her son has impregnated at the same age, a crackdown on rights is taking place in Iraq as the 20th anniversary roles around -- just in case anyone pretending to be anti-war want to pay attention -- most of the anti-war types have paid attention to Iraq since 2008.


We are going to deal with something right at the start.  The Academy Awards.  I didn't vote for Jamie Lee Curtis.  I love Chris (her husband) but I'm not impressed with Jamie Lee* and never have been.  I voted for Angela Bassett and she was one of the nominees I spent weeks talking up to other voters (I also talked up Brendan and Michelle).  It quickly became obvious to me that Angela was not going to win.  

That's not because of her performance which was amazing.  Jamie Lee delivered a strong performance as well.   All the nominees in that category were deserving.


Angela didn't lose due to her skin color -- unless we're going back to the historic decisions made by Hollywood in its early days.  Angela lost because she isn't a nepo baby.


In 1973, Diana Ross was nominated for Best Actress.  It was a one-of-a-kind performance.  Diana went on to give other worthy performances -- including in MAHOGANY and especially in the TV movie  OUT OF DARKNESS.  And they were nothing like what she did as Billie Holiday.  Diana is not recognized to this day for her acting gifts.  Those three performances alone are all unique and different.  She created three completely different characters.  


In 1973, Liza Minnelli walked home with the award.  It was what Liza had already done -- acting wise -- in CHARLIE BUBBLES, THE STERILE CUCKOO and TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JULIE MOON.  It was the same acting performance that she would continue to deliver.  I like Liza and you can argue that, for a musical, her dancing and singing in CABARET were also worthy of praise.

But the reality is that Diana created a one-of-a-kind character when playing Billie Holiday.

She lost.  And she was always going to lose because Liza was a child of Hollywood.  Her mother -- though nominated -- never won a competitive Academy Award (the child Oscar doesn't count). Her father won an Academy Award for directing GIGI.  As the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincent Minnelli, she was second generation, a child of Hollywood.

The Academy Awards are about presenting the industry best face to the world.  A child of Hollywood will always have an unfair advantage when nominated because the industry wants to show off their own -- handing Jamie Lee an award is handing it to Janet and Tony and the whole industry; handing it to Liza is handing it to Judy and Vincent  and celebrating the whole industry, "Look what we turned out!"

['Jane Fonda didn't win for THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY!' No, she didn't.  She was seen as too political at the time.  Henry's daughter should have won for that -- that would give her three Academy Awards instead of two.  By the time she won for KLUTE, she was far more political but the industry had caught up with her.]

Jamie's mother Janet Leigh was nominated for PSYCHO (in the same category that Jamie Lee won) and her father, Tony Curtis, was nominated for Best Actor for THE DEFIANT ONES.

Slater and Bronwyn may benefit from being Angela's kids (and Courtney B. Vance's) in a decade or two if they're nominated.

I firmly believe that her 'lineage' to old Hollywood gave Jamie Lee the edge.  And I'm basing that on the reactions of other voters as I tried to build up support for Angela. That said, Jamie did give a very strong performance, all the nominees in that category were outstanding.  And to those whining that she wasn't in the film that much -- the category is Supporting Actress.  Of all the complaints being made about the award, that is the stupidest.  Judi Dench won for a supporting role with eight minutes of screen time, Beatrice Straight for less than six minutes, Gloria Grahame for less than ten minutes, etc.  If you don't know what you're talking about, you just look ignorant.  


The Golden Globes has always done a better job with regards to nominating and awarding African-American film actresses -- see Ann's "Thanks for insulting Black women, Jimmy Kimmel."


*For Jamie Lee's devoted fans, no I don't like her and, unlike you, I actually know her.  She makes funs of her fans -- I don't do that, I don't do bit about how 'weird' someone who asked me for an autograph is and I don't mock the way they speak after they walk off -- and she's not supportive of other actresses.  Her best acting may be on Instagram where she pretends to support young women actors when the reality is that, face-to-face, she's a nightmare for young actresses and has been for decades.  She's rude, she's cutting and she's spoiled.  A brat of Hollywood, an overgrown brat.

Decades ago, the industry tried to build her into a star.  GRANDVIEW USA was the first film that was supposed to make her a star -- and she got that role only after Cher turned it down.  Had Cher starred in it, the film probably would have made money.  Playing dowdy and angry in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, she locked into the two areas she knows something about.


Onto other news.  Boe-boe's going to be a grandma.  Brian Niemietz (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) reports American's 36-year-old Christian illiterate is about to be a grandmother next month via her 17-year-old son.  Lauren Boebert dropped out of high school at 17 when she got pregnant and now her son is going to be a parent at 17 as well.  And that's why you don't let these uneducated idiots plan school courses.  Lauren uses her position in Congress to try to put an end to sex education.  Where does that get you? Lauren clearly was unable to educate her own son and now he's caught in the same cycle she was -- more than likely his girlfriend is caught in the same cycle but the point stands.  

She had a chance to educate her son but she failed.  That's why the country needs sex education in the schools.


Turning to Iraq, rights are under attack.  They're so under attack, in fact, that the prime minister would rather talk climate change.  Alex MacDonald (MIDDLE EAST EYE) reported Saturday on Iraq's ban on booze:


Last month, the Iraqi government published long-proposed legislation banning the import of alcoholic beverages into the country, no doubt including Saddam's beloved Johnny Walker Black Label.

According to the new legislation, the sale or production of alcohol in Iraq is now illegal, while the General Customs Authority in a statement said it had "given orders to all customs centres to ban the entry of all types of alcoholic drinks".

The legislation, originally passed in 2016 but only becoming law after its publication in the official gazette on 20 February, is unlikely to affect the autonomous Kurdistan region that controls its own border crossings.


No, as Julian Bechoca (RUADW) noted last week, it's not going into practice in the Kurdistan.  Hadi Mizban (AFP) reports, "Some see the measures as an attempt by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to head off potential political challenges from religious conservatives. They say another motive may be to distract from economic woes, including rising prices and wild currency fluctuations."  Ali Mamouri (AL-MONITOR) reports:


Iraq has great religious diversity. The majority of the population is Shiite and Sunni Muslims, but there are also sizable communities of Christians, Yazidis, Zorastrians, Mandaeans and others. Some analysts believe the law is a step toward turning Iraq into an Islamic country.

"This is ethnic discrimination," Diya Butros, an activist in the predominantly Chaldean Catholic town of Ankawa, told Al-Monitor. "It's a violation of the rights of non-Muslim religions that do not forbid alcohol."

Ali Saheb, an Iraqi political analyst, told Independent Arabia on March 6 that Iraq is not an Islamic country, and "Some religions allow drinking alcohol, and the government cannot impose a certain opinion or ideology on others."

Unlike Islam, the Yazidi and Christian faiths do not forbid alcohol consumption. Some even use it in their religious rituals. 

Others argue the law violates the Iraqi constitution, which guarantees personal, religious and cultural freedom. Mirza Dinnayi is a Yazidi activist and chairman of Luftbrucke Irak, a non-governmental organization that helps victims of conflict in Iraq. He told Al-Monitor, "The law is contrary to the constitution because Iraq is a multi-ethnic, -religious and -cultural country, and drinking alcohol is not prohibited for many." 

Dinnayi also argued that if alcohol drinkers turn to other alternatives, the ban could provide an opportunity for the spread of drug use

“The majority of Muslim countries do not ban alcohol, but rather regulate it. Why doesn’t the Iraqi government do something similar, instead of banning it totally?” 

The law is especially troublesome for Yazidis and Christians, who manage the overwhelming majority of alcohol shops in the country. Many Christians and Yazidis have been attacked in recent years for working in this sector, and some fear this law could lead to an increase in violence against them.

 

This is one aspect of a never-ending crackdown on freedoms and liberties in Iraq.  Leave a post on social media and risk being arrested or killed.  Dropping back to the February 10th snapshot:


Once the KRG came up, Ned rushed off to another journalist and another topic.  That's far from the only thing being ignored.



Tiba al-Ali.  Is there a reason that the US government has made a decision to ignore her murder?  Is there a reason that the press covering the State Dept and the White House can't get off their lazy asses and ask for a statement regarding the murder.

So-called 'honor' killings continue in Iraq.  And not just in Iraq.  And it's past time that the US government made a public response about this latest murder.


They're real good about starting wars, the US government, not real good about ending them (or winning them).  Maybe if they could use Tiba's murder to start a new war, they'd have something to say?


Savera UK issued the following:


Tiba al-Ali was killed by her father on January 31st, 2023, in a reported ‘honour’ killing.

The 22-year-old was in the southern province of Diwaniya when she was killed, reportedly because her father had been ‘unhappy’ about her decision to live alone in Turkey. Her death has sparked protests in Iraq, with dozens gathering on February 5th to condemn the killing. Savera UK stands with those protesting against her murder.

Afrah Qassim, Savera UK CEO and Founder, said: “Savera UK is appalled and heartbroken by the ‘honour’ killing of Tiba al-Ali at the hands of her father in Iraq. Yet we are not shocked. Each year around 5,000 people die as a result of ‘honour’-based abuse and violence. There has been a cry for justice raised worldwide for Tiba only because she was widely known as YouTube star and media personality. But we should reminded ourselves that many others lose their lives in ‘honour’ killings, and who calls for justice for them? Iraq’s penal code stipulates that killings with an ‘honourable motive’ are a mitigating circumstance for punishment. It also states that punishment for a man who kills or beats his wife, female relative or her partner (in the case of adultery) to death or causes them permanent impairment, is up to three years in prison, with the judge afforded discretionary power to reduce this punishment.

“If ‘honour’ continues to be a mitigating factor – and excuse for murder – thousands more like Tiba will die. We stand with all those calling for justice for Tiba around the world. She was a bright, 22-year-old woman with the whole of her life ahead of her. She had the right to chose to leave her family home in Iraq to live in Turkey. She had a right to live freely, happily and peacefully. But that right was taken away from her.

“There is no ‘honour’ in abuse and there is no ‘honour’ in murder.

“Justice for Tiba al-Ali. Justice for all those lost in the name of ‘honour’.”

If you are at risk of ‘honour’-based abuse or harmful practices in the UK, contact the Savera UK helpline on 0800 107 0726 (operates weekdays 10am – 4pm). 



Friday, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Abby Sewell (AP) noted: 


The alcohol ban comes on the heels of the contentious campaign to police social media content.

In January, the Interior Ministry formed a committee to investigate reports of what it called indecent posts and set up a website for public complaints. The site received tens of thousands of reports.

A month later, judicial authorities announced the courts had charged 14 people for posting content labeled indecent or immoral; six were sentenced to prison time.

Among those targeted were people who posted videos of music, comedy skits and sarcastic social commentary. Some showed dance moves deemed provocative, used obscene language or raised sensitive social issues such as gender relations in Iraq’s predominantly conservative society.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as local and regional rights groups, said the crackdown on expression violates fundamental rights.


Now they're going after those who expose truths in real life, face-to-face.  RUDAW reports:


Dozens of Baghdad’s teachers and exam proctors on Sunday protested an arrest warrant issued for one of their colleagues who exposed a case of fraud relating to a former police official’s son.

Uday al-Salihi, the head of the examination department in al-Rusafa’s education directorate, in February removed a young man from a ministerial examination, accusing him of impersonating the son of former Federal Police Commander Raed Shaker Jawdat, and taking the test on his behalf.

According to Salihi, once he was removed from the exam room, the young man admitted to receiving 5,000 dollars to take the exam instead of Jawdat’s son.

Nonetheless, when the case was brought to relevant authorities, it was not the impersonator that faced the legal repercussions, but rather Salihi, who was served an arrest warrant. It is not yet clear what the proctor has been accused of.

“This is a message for everyone, if you see someone cheating or taking exams on behalf of someone else, just keep your mouth closed and do not speak,” Nidhal Muhammad, a school principal, told Rudaw's Halkawt Aziz on Sunday.


More attacks on the rights of the people?  Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:


As Kurds across the Kurdistan Region marked traditional clothing day on Thursday, Iraqi security forces manning the gates at Kirkuk University denied entry to students dressed in Kurdish outfits.

“We tried to enter from the main gate, but they told us that we were not allowed,” a geography student at Kirkuk University who dressed up in traditional clothing alongside scores of his fellow Kurdish students told Rudaw English on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They prohibited us from entering the campus from all three gates, telling us there was no such thing as national dress day. We remained in the parking lot until the school day was over,” he said.

Rudaw reached out to the university, but they declined to comment on the ban.

[. . .]

“One year, they ban raising the Kurdistan flag. Then, they ban Kurdish clothing. If it continues like this, in a couple of years they will forbid Kurds from entering the university altogether,” said another student.


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "A Hooptie Ride Named Marjorie" went up Saturday night.  The following sites updated:





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