Hey --
Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
First we highlight Workers World often. Usually every week. Reader John e-mailed asking that we highlight an article by WW on Whitney Houston. We were interested. Most of us read it and it seemed fine. C.I. read and said, "No way in hell." She explained why and we agree. We didn't stream or watch the funeral. So Kevin Costner in all his Whiteness got up there and tried to play The Great White Man who got Whitney into the movie, did he? Over objections because she was Black. As C.I. said, "Damn f**king liar." The Bodyguard goes back to the seventies (no, we didn't know that either) and was planned as a film starring Ryan O'Neal and Diana Ross. Tina Fey's pal Sue Mengers was a super agent and part of the reason Diana Ross film de-railed. Diana had her as an agent. Time and again when a script came in for Diana, Sue rushed it over to Barbra. Most of which Barbra Streisand eventually refused to make. But that was months and years after she started 'meetings' to explore doing the film. C.I., "Point is, that film was written to be an interracial and when Lawrence Kasdem wrote the script, that's what he wanted. When the script was finally filmed, Kasdem was no longer a struggling screenwriter, he was one of the industry's most successful producers and he was the producer of The Bodyguard. He made the decision, the second he decided to produce his old script, to return to the interracial romance. Kevin Costner's a little s**t and he's trying to play Dances With Wolves yet again, where he's the Great White Man coming to the rescue. It's exactly this behavior that's put his career in the toilet. Shame on him for lying about Lawrence." So we're not noting that piece, John.
Here's what we did manage:
Cindy Sheehan.
Kevin Alexander Gray.
This was actually going to be a short piece. Elaine and C.I. suggested the 1967 event. We decided to go with it as the editorial to switch things up.
Ava and C.I. This takes on the Water Cooler Set. And I'll just say I couldn't believe it when Ava and C.I. walked me through the story. That show was huge with the Water Cooler Set. Funny how when the interview appeared that gets the show cut, the Water Cooler Set walks away at the same time. Strange. Who pays them? Apparently it's more than just their news outlets. The man, if you didn't get who it was by the clues Ava and C.I. dropped, wasn't walked away from by everyone. While the domestic press acted as though they'd suddenly never heard of him, he got nominated for a 2012 Golden Globe -- but then, those awards come from the foreign press.
Because Ava and C.I. had to go to the Academy Awards, we tried to do one of our Let It Be editions -- wherein every member of Third contributes an individual feature. So Ava and C.I. (as always) do TV. Jess didn't feel like writing but said he could do a transcript piece. So he did this mini-roundtable with Elaine and C.I.
The Hedges lawsuit is important and we do try to note it as often as we can.
Dona went with the Archies for her piece because her two previous pieces have resulted in mountains of e-mails on the topic.
I write/babble about movies.
Ty uses the corner to reflect on seven years online.
A repost of Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
That's it for this week.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.