Blog Betty (Thomas Friedman is a Great Man was an online novel)

Monday, April 01, 2024

I do Barbara Rush

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Declare Your Ignorance" went up today.

There is so much truth in that cartoon.

Now let me note a passing.

"I do Barbara Rush."

In the 70s film classic SHAMPOO, Warren Beatty plays hair dresser George who is trying to get a bank loan to open his own salon. Goldie Hawn is the woman he's seeing (Jill). Julie Christie is Jackie, the woman he broke up with but is now sleeping with again. Lee Grant, in an Oscar winning performance, is Felicia, the married woman he's sleeping with. Carrie Fisher, in her film debut, is Felicia's daughter who also has sex with George.

When George goes to a bank to apply for a loan (the first time, not later on when Felicia sends him to her husband for a loan), he's asked for references.

And George says, "I do Barbara Rush." Meaning he does her hair.

I had no idea who Barbara Rush was the first time I saw SHAMPOO. I laughed at the joke but I laughed more as I got older and actually saw Barbara Rush.

I think it was during FLAMINGO ROAD that my brother pointed out, that's Barbara Rush. I'm referring to the early 80s TV series on NBC. After that, I was able to pick her out on my own when watching syndicated TV shows.

Or when I got the DVD boxed set of THE BIONIC WOMAN. She played a woman pretending to be Jamie's mother in an episode on that series. She's not Jamie's mother. She looks like her -- and even fools Steve Austin's mother -- but that's because she had plastic surgery to look like her. She's really a double agent.

She was good. She made you care about the character she was playing even though you naturally sided with Lindsay Wagner's character Jamie.

She was on an episode of BATMAN. Nora Clavicle. She was named Mayor and fired Commissioner Gordon and all the men. So that she and her hench-women could get away with crimes. She threatened Batgirl with a knitting needle prompting Robin to say, "Holy knit one purl two!" Somehow wind-up mice are going to explode and destroy the city and somehow Batman has Batgirl, Robin and himself play flutes or something that lure these mechanical robots into following them.

I stream PLUTO a lot and one of the channels I "favorited" is the TV sitcom which means I see MAUDE a lot. Barbara Rush played Phyllis in an episode of that which streamed recently (MAUDE was Bea Arthur's long running 70s sitcom.) She's Maude's friend that Maude hasn't seen since college and is now breathtaking as well as a success. Maude is threatened that Carol (her daughter) appears to like Phyllis better.

You can see her on MANNIX, CANNON, MCLOUD, MAGNUM P.I., MURDER SHE WROTE, 7TH HEAVEN and many more.

In terms of films, she was great opposite Paul Newman in THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS -- they have real chemistry and up the story (she's the rich daughter of a man who gives Paul a job and this makes her believe Paul's been bought off leading to multiple twists and turns). She starred with Newman again in HOMBRE. She was great in THE YOUNG LIONS -- remarkable cast that includes Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando. She starred with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. in ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS. She also starred with Frank Sinatra in COME BLOW YOUR HORN. She starred with James Earl Jones in the early seventies film THE MAN -- about the first Black president of the US. She starred in DISNEY's 1973 film SUPERDAD (a Kurth Russell film). She's in the camp classic CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES notes:

Barbara Rush, the Golden Globe-winning actor who starred in the sci-fi horror "It Came From Outer Space," has died. She was 97.

Claudia Cowan, Rush's daughter and a journalist at Fox News Channel, confirmed her mother's death to The Times on Monday. Rush died Sunday afternoon in a senior care center in Westlake Village after years of living with dementia.

Cowan broke the news with social media posts shared Monday morning. On Instagram, Cowan wrote, "There's another star shining on us tonight."

"My beautiful mother was called to heaven on Easter of all days — a nod to the transition and resilience and joy we celebrate on this happy holiday — and I know she will stay alive in our hearts through cherished memories and movie reruns," Cowan captioned several Instagram pictures of moments she shared with her mother. "She was [an] elegant and classic actress and the best mom in the world."

Cowan also shared news of her mother's death on Facebook.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER notes:

A starlet at Paramount, Universal and Fox whose career blossomed at the end of the Hollywood studio system, Rush also played opposite Frank Sinatra in Come Blow Your Horn (1963) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), the last of the Rat Pack movies. Filming on the latter was stopped twice, once when President Kennedy was assassinated and again when Sinatra’s son was kidnapped.

In Douglas Sirk’s 1954 remake of Magnificent Obsession, Rush portrayed the adorable sister of Oscar nominee Jane Wyman, whose character is blinded in an accident caused by a reckless playboy (Rock Hudson).

Rush, Hudson and Sirk had warmed to the task by collaborating on the tongue-in-cheek film Taza, Son of Cochise (1954), in which the actors played Native Americans, and the three would work together again in the Ireland-set love story Captain Lightfoot (1955).

AP notes:

Rush, who had made TV guest appearances for years, recalled fully making the transition as she approached middle age.

“There used to be this terrible Sahara Desert between 40 and 60 when you went from ingenue to old lady,” she remarked in 1962. “You either didn’t work or you pretended you were 20.”

Instead, Rush took on roles in such series as “Peyton Place,” “All My Children,” “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” and “7th Heaven.”

“I’m one of those kinds of people who will perform the minute you open the refrigerator door and the light goes on,” she cracked in a 1997 interview.

Her first play was the road company version of “Forty Carats,” a comedy that had been a hit in New York. The director, Abe Burrows, helped her with comedic acting.

“It was very, very difficult for me to learn timing at first, especially the business of waiting for a laugh,” she remarked in 1970. But she learned, and the show lasted a year in Chicago and months more on the road.

And THE NEW YORK POST notes:

During her illustrious career, Rush was associated with various Tinseltown icons, such as Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Paul Newman and Kirk Douglas, even befriending Marilyn Monroe at one point.

“Oh yes, we were friends,” Rush told Fox Digital. “We were in the studio club together. At least with me, when you first come to Hollywood, and I went to Paramount, they put me immediately in the studio club. It’s kind of like a sorority house.”

“And Marilyn Monroe was there,” she continued. “I loved her. Marilyn was such a darling lady. She was very sweet and nice. All the girls in the studio club just had a good time.”

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, April 1, 2024. The Israeli military ends its assault on one hospital to focus on attacking another, War Criminal Netanyahu goes after ALJAZEERA, an active duty US service member starts a hunger strike, and much more.

Australia's ABC reports:

The Israeli military has withdrawn from Gaza's largest hospital after a two-week raid, leaving behind Palestinian bodies scattered in the dirt and a vast swath of destruction.

Hundreds of residents rushed to the area around Al-Shifa Hospital to check on damage to the surrounding residential districts.

Mohammed Mahdi, who was among hundreds of Palestinians who returned to the area, described a scene of "total destruction".

He said several buildings had been burned down and that he had counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard.

Footage circulated on social media and not yet verified showed the bodies of dead Palestinians, some covered in dirty blankets, scattered on the ground around the charred hulk of the hospital building, which had many outer walls missing.

Last night, Fareha Naaz (THE MINT) reported:

World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was at ‘loss for words’ following an Israeli strike on Gaza hospital that killed four and injured numerous others.

The Director-General of WHO highlighted the dreadful situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza amid ongoing hostilities between Israeli forces and the Hamas militant group. These hostilities took the shape of a war following Hamas's attack on Israel six months ago, on October 7, following which Israel declared war.

Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital came under siege on March 18, since then 21 patients have lost their lives and the situation remains critical, the UN health agency reported.

ALJAZEERA noted:

Antony Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, who has been reporting on Israel and the Palestinian territories for 20 years, has been speaking to Al Jazeera following Israel’s latest withdrawal from Al-Shifa.

He said the dozens of bodies the Health Ministry has discovered there are an indication of just how many people had been sheltering in the complex.

“Even though hospitals have been targeted extensively by the Israelis, many civilians have nowhere else to go,” he told Al Jazeera. “Many Palestinians need intense medical care and hospitals are – well there’s nowhere safe in Gaza – but it’s somewhere to go and after Israel [first] pulled out of Al-Shifa, the hope was that it would remain a safe place and clearly, it was not.

“Not just bombing but air striking areas around these hospitals is not just a breach of international law, these are the actions of a rogue state, not a so-called democracy.”

Despite international outcry, the Israeli government attacked the hospital for two weeks. And they had previously attacked it in November. Of the November attack, Niha Masih (WASHINGTON POST) reminds, "A Washington Post analysis in December into whether the civilian harm caused by the IDF’s campaign at the hospital complex was proportionate to the assessed threat found that the evidence presented by the Israeli government fell short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center." Of the more recent attack, Yolande Knell and Sean Seddon (BBC NEWS) note, "Photos showed that al-Shifa's main surgery building, which housed the intensive care unit, and the neighbouring building where the emergency, general surgery and orthopaedics departments were located had been destroyed." Henry Austin (NBC NEWS) adds, "Kidney and maternity buildings, morgues, cancer and burns refrigeration facilities, and the outpatient clinics building, were also left ruined at the facility in northern Gaza, which was the Strip's main medical facility before the war began, the ministry said."

As the Israeli military backed off one hospital, they continued to attack another. THE HINDUSTAN TIMES reported yesterday on the assault of al-Aqsa Hospital, "The strike at Al-Aqsa hospital was witnessed by a World Health Organization team sent there to assess needs and to collect incubators for the north of Gaza." On this attack, Rushdi Abualouf and George Wright (BBC News) report, "Seven journalists, including a freelancer working for the BBC, have been injured in an Israeli air strike in the courtyard of a hospital in Gaza." ALJAZEERA adds:

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says its team working at the Al Aqsa Hospital had to stop work and “seek cover” when the compound came under Israeli air attack on Sunday.

Writing on X, MSF said the area just outside the emergency unit was hit. The group provides medical and surgical wound care at the hospital, the only place in central Gaza to offer trauma care.

“When our team heard a loud explosion nearby, they stopped what they were doing right away to seek cover inside the hospital, until confirmed that the attack was over,” it quoted one of its coordinators as saying.

MSF reiterated its call for an “immediate and sustained” ceasefire.

War Crimes. Over the weekend, it was learned that lawyers for the United Kingdom's government have found that the government of Israel is breaking international law. Toby Helm (THE OBSERVER) explained:

The British government has received advice from its own lawyers stating that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public, according to a leaked recording obtained by the Observer.

The comments, made by the Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, Alicia Kearns, at a Tory fundraising event on 13 March are at odds with repeated ministerial denials and evasion on the issue.

On Saturday night, Kearns, a former Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence official, who has repeatedly pressed ministers, including foreign secretary David Cameron, on the legal advice they have received, stood by her comments and called for the government to come clean.

“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make,” she said. “Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.”

The revelation will place Lord Cameron and prime minister Rishi Sunak under intense pressure because any such legal advice would mean the UK had to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay.

While this finding should prevent the UK from furnishing more weapons to Israel, the US government will, no doubt, continue to supply the death machine. Yolande Knell (BBC News) explains:

Despite a week of tensions with Israel over its conduct of the Gaza War, Washington is reported to have authorised arms transfers to its ally worth billions of dollars.

These include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000lb (900kg) bombs and 500 MK82 500lb bombs, as well as 25 F35A fighter jets, The Washington Post and Reuters news agency have said.

The larger bombs have previously been linked to air strikes in Gaza causing mass casualties.

Washington gives $3.8bn (£3bn) in annual military assistance to Israel.

But the latest package comes as the Biden administration has been raising concerns about rising civilian deaths in Gaza and humanitarian access to the territory, which the UN says is on the verge of famine.

War Criminal Netanyahu is attempting to dismantle and replace UNRWA the Palestinian aid agency. In addition, THE NATIONAL reports, "Al Jazeera may be shut down in Israel on Monday evening as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed lawmakers to pass a bill outlawing the network in a Monday evening hearing."

Gaza remains under assault. Day 178 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE GUARDIAN notes, "At least 32,845 Palestinians have been killed and 75,392 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

And the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."

The assault on Gaza continues to impact US President Joe Biden's chances of re-election. Alice Herman (GUARDIAN) notes:

In Wisconsin, a campaign by anti-war voters to abandon Joe Biden during the Democratic primary has found an ally in the labor movement – but not from its traditional leaders.

Instead, the Listen to Wisconsin campaign, an effort inspired by the Michigan campaign to reject Biden during the primary over his military support for Israel, has earned the support of rank-and-file trade unionists and a statewide coalition of low-wage workers and immigrants angry about the president’s handling of the war.

“Individuals in labor have been very active,” said Janan Najeeb, a Wisconsin organizer spearheading the Listen to Wisconsin campaign.

Israel’s war on Gaza has laid bare a divide within the labor movement – which has played out largely between union leaders in the AFL-CIO, the largest US labor federation, and the movement’s rank and file, many of whom have vocally opposed the war and turned to their unions as an avenue for political action.

Also in the US, a US service member has announced a hunger strike.

Today active-duty Air Force Senior Airman Larry Hebert will begin a hunger strike to highlight the plight of the starving children of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/qRyVwBtsWS

— Veterans For Peace (@VFPNational) March 31, 2024

New content at THIRD:

Kat's "Kat's Korner: COWBOY CARTER slays them all" went up this morning. and the following community sites updated:

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Martina and Caitlyn -- Two who will not be missed

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX & THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS A GREAT MAN & ANN'S MEGA DUB & THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS & THE COMMON ILLS -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

CAITLYN JENNER AND MARTINA NAVRATILOVA DIED TODAY IN A SCISSORING GONE SORELY WRONG. THE TRANSHATING WOMEN WERE IN DENIAL ABOUT THEIR AGE -- AMONG OTHER THINGS -- AND REFUSED TO USE LUBRICANTS.

MARTINA WAS PRETENDING THAT IT WAS STILL 1987 AND PEOPLE KNEW WHO SHE WAS WHILE CAITLYN WAS PRETENDING SHE WAS TONGUING DONALD TRUMP'S RIGHT LOAFER WHILE HE PUT HIS LEFT FOOT DOWN ON HER NECK WHEN BOTH WOMEN NOTICED TOO LATE THE SMELL OF SMOKE AND REALIZED THE FRICTION HAD STARTED A FIRE.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, DAUGHTER KENDALL JENNER STATED, "CAITLYN WAS A CONTINUAL EMBARRASSMENT TO ME. THE HATE SHE PROJECTED ONTO OTHERS FINALLY RESULTED IN HER OWN DEMISE. I WISH I COULD TELL YOU SHE WILL BE MISSED BUT I DON'T LIKE TO LIE."

KENDALL THEN ATTEMPTED TO HANG UP BUT WE STOPPED HER ASKING HER FOR A COMMENT ABOUT MARTINA.

"WHO?"

EXACTLY.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Yesterday, in NYC, it was a gathering of presidents as President Joe Biden was joined by former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for a big fundraiser. That's a single sentence and does not have enough interest for me to include it in the snapshot -- let alone open with it. What makes it news to me? Michael Williams, MJ Lee and Donald Judd (CNN) report:

The event was interrupted at least four times by protesters, with at least three calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“That’s alright. Let them go. There’s a lot of people who are very, very — there are too many innocent victims, Israeli and Palestinian. We’ve got to get more food and medicine, supplies into the Palestinians,” Biden said, according to journalists in the room, following one interruption. “But we can’t forget, Israel is in a position where its very existence is at stake. You have to have all those people. They weren’t killed. They were massacred. They were massacred.”

Ahead of the fundraiser, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Midtown Manhattan to protest Biden’s support for Israel amid its war in Gaza and call for a ceasefire. Biden has called for a temporary ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

How embarrassing. That's like a Hillary Clinton visits a college campus appearance.

Jeff Mason (TIMES OF ISRAEL) adds:

“Shame on you, Joe Biden!” one yelled.

Obama and Clinton offered a presidential perspective of the Gaza crisis that stressed the political realities of being in the White House.

A president needs to be able to support Israel at the same time as fighting for Palestinians to have more access to food, medical supplies and a future state, they said.

“It’s a lonely seat,” Obama said. “One of the realities of the presidency is that the world has a lot of joy and beauty, but it also has a lot of tragedy and cruelty.”

Boo! Boo! Let's all boo that from Barack! Poor, little president, such a rough job. What could be worse?

Uh, try living in Palestine right now for starters.

This was a fundraiser. They're getting heckled at a fundraiser. That's how deeply unpopular the US government's embrace of the assault on Gaza is.

The whole thing was a nightmare. And that includes the visuals. Who decided, for example, that the three men -- at a pricey fundraiser -- should all go tieless? Did they think that made them look like regular people?

It didn't work for any of them but especially not for Bill. He needed that tie to avoid people wondering if he'd stolen one of Hillary Clinton's pant suits for the night.

There are other campaigns taking place. Marianne Williamson, for example, relaunched her campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination not to secure the nomination -- Joe Biden has it -- but to raise important and needed issues.

Marianne Williamson: Ten years ago, if I was, after I'd seen a patient and I told the patient what medicine or what treatment I wanted, ten years ago the question would have been, "What are the side effects?" Today, the question is often -- more often, "How much will it cost me?" You have 18 million Americans who cannot afford to pay for the prescriptions that their doctors give them. And I don't believe that incremental changes are going to fix this. We are already in crisis mode. And if Washington doesn't see it, the average American does see it. People are living with-with the silent emergencies of poverty. The silent emergencies of hunger. You know we talk about COVID being an emergency. COVID was what's called a screaming emergency. Once the president declared that it was no longer an emergency and millions of people were thrown off Medicaid and SNAP benefits. People were basically just told "Go back to life as you were living it" which was already an emergency -- a constant emergency. The emergency of poverty. The emergency of hunger. The emergency of having to work two or three jobs just to put food on the table. And I'll tell you something, at this point, what we should see as the emergency of hopelessness. We should not talk about this mental health crisis as anything other than an emergency of hopelessness. and despair.

Last Saturday, Democratic Party primaries were held in Louisiana and in Missouri. Joe won both, no surprise. In Louisiana, Marianne came in second with 4.7% of the vote and in Missouri she came in third with 1.6% of the vote -- second place went to "Uncommitted" which received 11.7% of the vote.