Nostalgia and other lies of the past (Ava and C.I.)

A lot of people tell lies.  For example, there's the woman who did her notorious kiss-off to a magazine in 1986 and got on a soapbox when the actual reality was she felt her movie wasn't promoted 'enough' by the magazine and that's why she wrote her ridiculous letter.  (And, yes, it was ridiculous.)  Then there are the people who are Larry Hagman freaks and rush to insist that he was not mean or homophobic to Dack Rambo.  But he was.  And these idiots also seem to mistakenly believe that Hagman and Rambo met when Rambo joined the cast of Dallas in 1985.  No.  The two met seven years before when Hagman guest starred on the pilot of Dack Rambo's Sword of Justice.  Hagman didn't feel he was properly courted and fawned over -- he was especially upset that the crew paid more attention to June Lockhart (also guesting in the episode) and that a 20-year-old actor just starting out, Lorenzo Lamas, had established himself in the 'regular guy' role on the set that Hagman usually cast himself in. He also made cutting remarks about another guest star for the episode, Cristina Ferrare (then Cristina Ferrare DeLorean).Rambo, of course, was the star and Hagman  And the conflict began there for Hagman who never met a grduge he couldn't stop nursing. And, yes, he and others on the set of Dallas openly baited Rambo with homophobia.

And then there's Bob Somerby, the media critic who doesn't seem to grasp the difference between reporting and a TV talk show.

Worst of all, he's glorifying a past that wasn't that glorious -- the days of Cronkite and Huntley. This was covered in the January 3rd "Iraq snapshot" and that snapshot also included this 1992 quote from Hillary Clinton:

None of these women need lectures from Washington about values.  They don't need to hear about an idealized world that never was as righteous or carefree as some would like us to think.


But for those who don't get how wrong Bob Somerby is about the 'need to return to days of yore'?




Judith Hennessee's  "Some News Is Good News" appeared in the July 1974 issue of Ms. magazine.  CBS had 4 women correspondents, as did ABC and NBC (the photo above is from the Ms. magazine story).  This did not mean they were used regularly.  At CBS, for example, three of the women were covering DC and Sylvia Chase was stationed out of New York.  Being stationed out of New York meant Chase was used far less.  At CBS, Hennessee observed, "it's an event whenever any of the three women in the Washington Bureau -- Mayra McLaughlign, Connie Chung and Lesley Stahl -- appears on the screen."

That's what Bob Somerby wants the country to return to.

Nostalgia can be a sickness.  In Somerby's case, it certainly is.