The world is learning what U.S. senatorial candidate Barack Obama meant on October 2, 2002,
when he told a Chicago crowd that he did not oppose all wars. “What I
am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.” We now
know that President Obama is committed to full spectrum,
no-holds-barred, war-without-boundaries against all potential resistance
to U.S. imperial rule, anywhere on the planet – a project he considers
neither rash nor dumb. At stake is survival – not of the people and
government of the United States, which face no existential threat from
any quarter, but of an empire whose self-defined strategic interests
encompass the entire globe. There is a terrifying logic to Washington’s
frenzy: when the systemic structure is collapsing, it must be propped up
everywhere.
President Obama’s contribution to the disintegration of the global
order is awesome; he is a great innovator. Whereas other U.S. leaders
were content to simply violate international law with regularity, Obama
has rewritten the statutes. The very concept of national sovereignty has
been discarded in favor of a kind of universal parole status overseen
by a pyramidal “international community” with the United States at the
top. National self-determination, the bedrock of international law – is
now treated as a franchise, to be issued or withdrawn at the whim of any
coalition the U.S. is able to assemble. For Haiti, a simple troika of
the U.S., Canada and France constituted a quorum empowered to erase 200
years of independence. For Libya, the recognized government’s capital
crime was its threat to quell a jihadist revolt in one of its cities.
The Syrian state has been condemned for resisting tens of thousands of
foreign-financed killers who recognize no earthly law whatsoever. The
U.S. backs a coup against the lawfully elected government of Ukraine by
the direct descendants of Nazis. Simultaneously, Obama threatens the
democratically elected government of Venezuela with dire consequences if
it harms a hair on the head of rioters bankrolled and directed by
Washington.
-- Glen Ford, "Obama’s War Against Civilization" (Black Agenda Report).
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Truest statement of the week II
In a Presentation at European Parliament in Brussels on 29th January the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, likened Iraq's justice system to "processing animals in a slaughterhouse".
She also accused Iraq's justice system of being "too deeply flawed to warrant even a limited use of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time." Torture, sexual abuse and the threat of rape and actual rape are frequently inflicted on detainees, regardless of their gender.
In January this year 38 people were hanged in two days. Last October 42 prisoners were executed in two days, acts Pillay called "obscene and inhuman". Iraq now has the third highest execution rate on earth, according to Amnesty International.
US, UK: selective condemnation of tyrants
However, the US and UK are seemingly remarkably selective when it comes to tyrants who "kill their own people".
Not only have they failed to censure their tyrannical Iraqi puppet, Nuri al-Maliki, but they are also arming him to the teeth with the same weapons which are linked to the horrific birth defects, and cancers throughout the country, which he is now using on "his own people".
-- Felicity Arbuthnot, "Iraq: 935 lies, a tyrant and weapons of mass destruction" (BRussells Tribunal).
She also accused Iraq's justice system of being "too deeply flawed to warrant even a limited use of the death penalty, let alone dozens of executions at a time." Torture, sexual abuse and the threat of rape and actual rape are frequently inflicted on detainees, regardless of their gender.
In January this year 38 people were hanged in two days. Last October 42 prisoners were executed in two days, acts Pillay called "obscene and inhuman". Iraq now has the third highest execution rate on earth, according to Amnesty International.
US, UK: selective condemnation of tyrants
However, the US and UK are seemingly remarkably selective when it comes to tyrants who "kill their own people".
Not only have they failed to censure their tyrannical Iraqi puppet, Nuri al-Maliki, but they are also arming him to the teeth with the same weapons which are linked to the horrific birth defects, and cancers throughout the country, which he is now using on "his own people".
-- Felicity Arbuthnot, "Iraq: 935 lies, a tyrant and weapons of mass destruction" (BRussells Tribunal).
A note to our readers
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.
And what did we come up with:
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
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.
And what did we come up with:
Another truest for Glen Ford.
And another truest for Felicity Arbuthnot.
Tonight the Oscars are handed out. If you're not attending, you can watch it on ABC like me (Jim). C.I. is attending as is Ava. That's why we're done so early this morning. We pulled it together and worked hard to turn out an edition. Our one problem? We decided to do an Oscar theme. But were going to do a straight editorial. And then we started it and it wasn't working. Wally, Ava and C.I. argued that we should change our plans and make this part of the Oscar theme and us accepting an award for Nouri al-Maliki on his behalf. That idea ended up working.
Ronan's playing coy about being gay, Ava and C.I. don't think they outed him but if they did they say it's not unlike a few years back when they outed another blond male and it ended up making his career. I was kind of shocked about the gender identity issue. I don't question them for including it, it is pertinent and does explain a lot about Ronan and how he can go from momentarily relaxed to awkward or even terrified. What shocked me was that Mia would send her son to a doctor because she didn't want him playing like he was a little girl. Why not? What's the real crime there? How out of it is Mia? She's like the Archie Bunker of old actresses. Poor Ronan, I feel sorry for him. I didn't get the Polar reference. I'll tell you now, it's Valley of the Dolls. Ava and C.I. didn't go into that in their report. They can if Mia gets bitchy. They're not sure Ronan even knows about it. But Mia's got a little secret she's kept from Ronan. P.S. as usual, I wrote the headline. Ava and C.I. were a little iffy on it but went along with it because they were not going to spend hours and hours and hours like they usually do during these writing editions.
Another piece by Ava and C.I. Do you know the law of rebel traps? That's what I thought of when Ava and C.I. explained what they've done in this article. They've set numerous traps for Mia. If she wants to respond, she's basically check mated. They would love for this to be their last piece on the issue of Mia Farrow but they do have much more that they can cover.
They're tonight. And we loved The Neighbors special Oscar episode. Go to Hulu and stream it, if you missed it, it's very funny.
What we listened to.
This could have been longer but Klute's one of the films we intend to get to in our Film Classics of the 20th Century.
"Let The River Run" truly is an amazing song.
And Thelma & Louise continues to live on.
Please read the footnote. We didn't solicit readers opinions or votes because we didn't think of it. We're not as smart as Trina. So don't complain that you didn't know about the poll or survey, we didn't either. But as Ty discussed the e-mails and we discovered some of you were voting in your e-mails for the Oscars, we wanted to be sure your picks were included.
You get three Ava and C.I. pieces this edition -- however, this went up at The Common Ills on Tuesday.
A video of Senator Patty Murray defending veterans.
A Workers World repost.
A repost from Great Britain's Socialist Worker.
And Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: And the award for ugliest despot on the global stage goes to . . .
Nouri al-Maliki, you dirty bastard, claim your prize.
Iraq's chief thug and prime minister Nouri has declared war on the Iraqi people.
What's that?
Nouri can't be hear with us?
He's found a children's playground in Falluja to bomb?
Well that is his way. As so many photos can attest. Here's just two:
Here are photos of two 'terrorists' that Jane Arraf apparently feels were appropriately targeted by Nouri.
We call them innocent children who were injured by Nouri's forces.
He calls them terrorists.
We're sure he'd explain how they were terrorists or would become terrorist and how harming small children proves he's a big man.
Crazy people say a lot of crazy s**t.
He couldn't do it alone, to be sure. So he'd probably want to offer a shout out to his Big Kahuna Barack Obama for supplying him with the weapons he can now use on the people of Anbar Province.
While he'd be thanking Barack, he'd have no praise for some others.
Struan Stevenson of the European Parliament, for example, wouldn't get thanks from Nouri. No, not after "Iraq - Genocide in Fallujah:"
The unfolding tragedy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah seems to have slipped off the international radar screen, as the focus of the global community drifts from Syria to Kiev and back again. The humanitarian situation in Fallujah is dire. The sectarian prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki has surrounded the city with thousands of troops, effectively sealing it off. The Iraqi air force has mounted daily bomb attacks, cutting off electricity and water supplies and destroying several bridges in an effort to prevent food and water from reaching the besieged inhabitants. Last week, they bombed Fallujah General Hospital, killing nearly all of the doctors and nurses and many of the patients and forcing its closure. More than 300,000 people have been made homeless.
Ban Ki Moon and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) continue to plead with Maliki to provide humanitarian aid to the city and to enter into negotiations that can bring an end to violence in the predominantly Sunni, Al Anbar Province. The sharp response from the aggressively pro-Shia prime minister was there would be "no negotiation with terrorists." In a single sentence he has labeled all of the residents of Iraq's largest province as "terrorists" in order to justify his genocidal campaign.
And we're sure Nouri wouldn't give any shout outs to The Economist which noted last week:
Since sending the Iraqi army to dismantle a protest camp in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, in December, Iraqi security forces have been embroiled in a standoff with tribal fighters, some backed by al-Qaeda types who are also fighting in neighbouring Syria. From a former American base, the Iraqi army has mortared the outskirts of the city of Fallujah, sending over 300,000 civilians fleeing in the biggest displacement since the civil war of 2006-2007.
Iraq’s government bills the battle as a fight against al-Qaeda rather than a struggle against Sunni Iraqis who say the government arrests and executes its young men and has shut it out of power. Unable to speed up delivery of American attack helicopters, the Iraqi government has persuaded the American government to lease it some. Both Iraqi and foreign journalists are banned from the area.
He might want to note his 'success' in attacking Anbar.
Iraq Body Count sees 930 violent deaths for February, UNAMI counts 703, Margaret Griffis and Antiwar.com count 1,705.
Nouri just knows he gets a real rush from each and every fresh kill.
We're sure that if Nouri were here to accept this award, he'd talk about himself and how he did it all by himself. But he had a lot of helpers -- western reporters who cover for him ("Earlier tonight, Jane Arraf won Best Modern Day Eva Braun for her work in 2013 to assist Nouri"), rulers like Barack who arm him and a supposed peace & justice community in the United States who long ago walked away from Iraq.
Mainly though, we're sure that if Nouri were here to accept his award, he would repeatedly drop it.
When you have as much blood on your hands as he does, your hands are slippery and it's difficult to maintain a good grip -- which, by the way, brings us to how his assault on Anbar has only succeeded in his losing control over various cities and towns. But they're playing us off the stage, so we need to just quickly note that no one is more deserving of the award for Ugliest Despot On The Global Stage than Nouri because he's a tyrant and despot and he's butt ugly.
Iraq's chief thug and prime minister Nouri has declared war on the Iraqi people.
What's that?
Nouri can't be hear with us?
He's found a children's playground in Falluja to bomb?
Well that is his way. As so many photos can attest. Here's just two:
Here are photos of two 'terrorists' that Jane Arraf apparently feels were appropriately targeted by Nouri.
- نموذج آخر لأهداف جيش المالكي الارهابي في حربه على الشعب: . pic.twitter.com/XC2sYD7dDt
- نموذج لأهداف جيش المالكي الارهابي في حربه على الشعب: . pic.twitter.com/KjdBsEJplm
اعلام الربيع العراقي 
We call them innocent children who were injured by Nouri's forces.
He calls them terrorists.
We're sure he'd explain how they were terrorists or would become terrorist and how harming small children proves he's a big man.
Crazy people say a lot of crazy s**t.
He couldn't do it alone, to be sure. So he'd probably want to offer a shout out to his Big Kahuna Barack Obama for supplying him with the weapons he can now use on the people of Anbar Province.
While he'd be thanking Barack, he'd have no praise for some others.
Struan Stevenson of the European Parliament, for example, wouldn't get thanks from Nouri. No, not after "Iraq - Genocide in Fallujah:"
The unfolding tragedy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah seems to have slipped off the international radar screen, as the focus of the global community drifts from Syria to Kiev and back again. The humanitarian situation in Fallujah is dire. The sectarian prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki has surrounded the city with thousands of troops, effectively sealing it off. The Iraqi air force has mounted daily bomb attacks, cutting off electricity and water supplies and destroying several bridges in an effort to prevent food and water from reaching the besieged inhabitants. Last week, they bombed Fallujah General Hospital, killing nearly all of the doctors and nurses and many of the patients and forcing its closure. More than 300,000 people have been made homeless.
Ban Ki Moon and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) continue to plead with Maliki to provide humanitarian aid to the city and to enter into negotiations that can bring an end to violence in the predominantly Sunni, Al Anbar Province. The sharp response from the aggressively pro-Shia prime minister was there would be "no negotiation with terrorists." In a single sentence he has labeled all of the residents of Iraq's largest province as "terrorists" in order to justify his genocidal campaign.
And we're sure Nouri wouldn't give any shout outs to The Economist which noted last week:
Since sending the Iraqi army to dismantle a protest camp in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, in December, Iraqi security forces have been embroiled in a standoff with tribal fighters, some backed by al-Qaeda types who are also fighting in neighbouring Syria. From a former American base, the Iraqi army has mortared the outskirts of the city of Fallujah, sending over 300,000 civilians fleeing in the biggest displacement since the civil war of 2006-2007.
Iraq’s government bills the battle as a fight against al-Qaeda rather than a struggle against Sunni Iraqis who say the government arrests and executes its young men and has shut it out of power. Unable to speed up delivery of American attack helicopters, the Iraqi government has persuaded the American government to lease it some. Both Iraqi and foreign journalists are banned from the area.
He might want to note his 'success' in attacking Anbar.
Iraq Body Count sees 930 violent deaths for February, UNAMI counts 703, Margaret Griffis and Antiwar.com count 1,705.
Nouri just knows he gets a real rush from each and every fresh kill.
We're sure that if Nouri were here to accept this award, he'd talk about himself and how he did it all by himself. But he had a lot of helpers -- western reporters who cover for him ("Earlier tonight, Jane Arraf won Best Modern Day Eva Braun for her work in 2013 to assist Nouri"), rulers like Barack who arm him and a supposed peace & justice community in the United States who long ago walked away from Iraq.
Mainly though, we're sure that if Nouri were here to accept his award, he would repeatedly drop it.
When you have as much blood on your hands as he does, your hands are slippery and it's difficult to maintain a good grip -- which, by the way, brings us to how his assault on Anbar has only succeeded in his losing control over various cities and towns. But they're playing us off the stage, so we need to just quickly note that no one is more deserving of the award for Ugliest Despot On The Global Stage than Nouri because he's a tyrant and despot and he's butt ugly.
TV: Another idiot for the idiot box
If there's anything worse than being a talk show host on the chronically low rated MSNBC, it has to be being the lowest rated talk show host on MSNBC. Ronan Farrow, as Lisa De Moraes (Deadline) noted, became just that last week.
Well at least he became something at last.
It's been such a struggle for him.
Not long ago we pointed out that Chaz Bono should never have been made the spokesperson for gay America. GLAAD made then-Chastity their spokesperson shortly after The National Enquirer outed her as a lesbian. In her role as Gay America Spokesperson, she informed the world that Mel Gibson was not homophobic because he'd always been kind to her.
Yes, but to those gay men and women whose mothers were not international stars so famous they're known by one name only (Cher), might Mel not be so nice to those?
More importantly, Mel Gibson had no history of attacking lesbians.
He verbally attacked gay men. Giving interviews about what anuses are for and, yes, Mel is an ass but he's not a self-aware one so he shouldn't speak to what anuses can and cannot do. Gay men were the targets of homophobia in his films as well.
So Chastity didn't know what she was talking about.
As we noted, she also went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to declare Ellen DeGeneres "too gay" for TV. She did this as ABC was attempting to decide whether or not to renew the sitcom Ellen. Chastity later lied and claimed she didn't mean to say that. (Anne Heche didn't buy her lie and let her have it. Good for Anne.) Chastity did mean to say it, she'd said it to print reporters.
She was a man trapped in a woman's body. Chaz is now free to be the man he wants to be and more power to him with that.
But we went over all of that back then to offer, "So maybe children of stars should actually be required to accomplish something on their own in their own lives before they're treated as informed or experts?"
Ronan Farrow's debut on Ronan Farrow Daily makes that even more clear.
A gay man who can't be open?
That's the least of Ronan's problems.
He's gay and his mother doesn't want him to come out. Remember, for all her decades of pretending to be a 'hippie,' it never got squarer than Mia Farrow. This is the woman who, for example, is opposed to all abortions and used to have problems with birth control use until she was told she was coming off completely crazy and needed to pipe down.
Ronan sleeps with men.
This is not a secret.
It's nothing to be ashamed of.
He's been taught that it is.
That's probably the least damaging thing on this topic.
As a little boy, Ronan wanted to be a girl.
This alarmed Mia who put him into analysis.
And she was so happy with her little boy who no longer wanted to be Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and stopped crying to wear girl's clothing.
When you're told at a very young age that your urges are wrong?
You either reject that nonsense or you go through life afraid of making any real moves for fear that you'll embarrass yourself.
You can see the impact that childhood had on Ronan when he's in front of the camera.
He forever is about to have a moment of joy or passion before the cameras when, suddenly, it's as though Will Truman (Eric McCormack on Will & Grace) just whispered in his ear, "Take it down to the chest voice."
When you grasp that Mia (and an analyst) taught Ronan to act 'like a boy,' you grasp why he is start-stop and so conflicted on air.
It doesn't help that he's been billed repeatedly as super smart.
Ronan's not super smart in a way that helps a talk show host.
He has a level of intelligence, yes.
But he's always had problems relating to other people.
Emotional connections are a struggle.
Miriam Polar, that's all we'll say for now.
His trouble bonding and relating to people allowed him to excel at book smarts.
But when you're a TV talk show host, you really need interpersonal skills.
And when you lack them, it can be embarrassing.
Take, for example, what's going on in the Ukraine. Wherever you stand on the issue (from CIA plot to everything else including Russian assault), you realize it's a serious issue.
But those who never developed social skills will embarrass themselves as Ronan did when he felt the need to gush Yulia Tymoshenko "has amazing hair."
He was referring to the 53-year-old former prime minister who is often billed as "the leader of the opposition," not to a model doing a commercial for Herbal Essence shampoo.
Where do you go from there?
"Joining us now is German Chancellor Angela Merkel and, I must say, check out the rack on her!"?
His Tymoshenko moment was bad but the show went completely off the rails later in the week when do-nothing offspring was sort of the motif. There was Ronan, famous for his parents (Mia Farrow, Woody Allen and maybe Frank Sinatra) interviewing the ridiculous failure that is Cecile Richards (the weak leader of Planned Parenthood).
Ronan didn't have a clue about Cecile's mother Ann Richards, though he pretended to. Cecile was also ignorant.
Or maybe she just can't stop lying?
Cecile was insisting that there was a similar charge in Texas, charge of excitement, like with her mother, around Wendy Davis -- the woman who found fame as a strong proponent of abortion but now that she's running for governor has walked that back.
Ann Richards never would have walked back her stance on reproductive rights and to compare the women is insulting on that aspect alone.
But it's also ignorant to compare the two.
Ann was a woman of many accomplishments long before she became governor. And she held a state wide office (Treasurer) before that as well.
Ann also knew how to handle the press and wouldn't get caught in embarrassing missteps the way Davis does with the reality of her life being contrasted with the fantasy version she's pedaled.
And that's the real issue that Cecile's too dumb or too much of a liar to grasp.
Ann was popular in Texas and won the office of governor for the same reason that Hillary Clinton defeated Barack in the 2008 Texas primary. In fact, Hillary could have carried Texas in the general election.
Texas women are strong and proud and they go about their lives as best they can. Like women everywhere, they know a thing or two about discrimination. But they keep going.
Where Texas is different than many other states is that you will see Democratic and Republican women pull together for strong women -- especially strong women who have persevered despite sexism, despite setbacks. Hillary was that in 2008. Ann was that when she ran for governor.
It's not just that Wendy Davis' resume is so light or that's she backed away from the stance that brought her national attention.
It's mainly that the national media created a narrative that would play on the national stage but won't play in Texas.
Davis is poorly trailing Greg Abbott currently.
That could change, the election is way off.
But unless Abbott implodes, he will likely beat her because she and her campaign don't know what the hell they're doing.
She can be strongly pro-choice and win Republican women in Texas -- they're not all anti-choice.
But Wendy Davis' big problem isn't her positions (except for backing off from them).
It's that she's a superstar.
She's a winner.
She's so very many things, crowned by the media.
Ann Richards?
Like many other successful Texas female politicians, Ann Richards was a fighter who battled.
She got knocked down and she got back up, over and over.
Did any woman take the failure to pass the Equal Rights Amendment more personally than Ann did?
They might have taken it as personally but it's hard to think they could have taken it more personally.
Ann fought and fought and fought again.
A minority of her supporters tried to dub her Queen Ann. (This move was led in particular by a man named Dennis -- does Cecile even know this story, does she even know her mother?) Ann very nicely told the group not to call her that. She was governor, she explained, and she was so happy to be that. Dennis then suggested governor and queen. And Ann lost the glowing smile she was famous for and used terms like "buster" and a loud voice to make clear that she didn't see being called a "queen" in a democracy as a compliment and that she had fought hard for every elected office she had held so don't insult her by calling her the "queen" of Texas.
Ann was never crowned.
Women -- Democrats and Republicans -- gave Ann the boost her campaign needed and she became governor and she's the last Democratic governor Texas has had.
Do not compare Ann to Wendy Davis.
If Wendy's got any real strength, she's yet to show it.
Texas women will bandy together around a female candidate if the woman reminds them of themselves or their mothers. Because they are bonding over hardships and setbacks. They will cross party lines if the woman reminds them of themselves.
Davis needs to lower the stardom and demonstrate how she can be a work horse.
She needs to lose the ridiculous hair, she's not Donald Trump's ex-wife, and either pull it into a ponytail (which Texas women relate to) or get it cut.
She needs to tone down the make up as well.
She's a little too 'starish' currently for Texas.
And Greg Abbott?
Greg Abbott is in a wheel chair. He has been since 1984. From that wheel chair, he's been on the state supreme court and successfully and repeatedly run for attorney general. That's the kind of can-do spirit that Texans admire.
Cecile Richards is deeply stupid.
Making Wendy Davis a media star only made her a vapid blond with big hair.
If Cecile knew a damn thing about Texas politics, she would have already realized that Greg Abbott's not going to be beaten by a glossy 8 x 10 photograph.
In fairness to Cecile, she was the guest.
Host Ronan raised the issue. He should have known the issue. He didn't.
Besides calling her "abortion Barbie," he gushed of Wendy Davis, "I am a fan of hers, personally."
"No style, no sizzle, all fizzle."
That was one of Mia's ex-lovers call on Ronan's hosting last week.
He immediately compared Ronan to Merv Griffin.
We wanted to be clear this wasn't because both men were gay.
No, that's not what he was saying. He talked about how superficial Merv was in interviews and how everything was incredible and amazing to Merv and all equally important -- the taste of a dish and Watergate had the same meaning for Merv.
Yes, "Heroes and Zeroes." It's a special segment that Ronan plans to repeat. His first "hero"? Lena Dumham. The racist Lena Dumham. The cable non-entity was chosen because of her 'class' in responding to Jezebel's offering money for the real photos -- before airbrushing and retouching -- of Lena that ran in and on the cover of a magazine.
That story is so old. February was ending and Ronan was blathering on about a January incident.
And how it made Lena a hero left us puzzled.
As did a later in the week choice of the Pope.
That might have pleased Mia Farrow but it only underscored that, at best, Ronan's noting actions, not people. He'd be better off making it "Heroic Moves and Cowardly Stances" -- so that he was praising or calling out action and not praising or calling out someone just for being.
But from Lena to the Pope cleared it up for us. Ronan's not the new Merv Griffin.
No, Ronan Farrow Daily is just an attempt to do the SCTV parody The Brooke Shields Show straight.
Ourselves, we can't wait to see Ronan perform "Whip It."
Well at least he became something at last.
It's been such a struggle for him.
Not long ago we pointed out that Chaz Bono should never have been made the spokesperson for gay America. GLAAD made then-Chastity their spokesperson shortly after The National Enquirer outed her as a lesbian. In her role as Gay America Spokesperson, she informed the world that Mel Gibson was not homophobic because he'd always been kind to her.
Yes, but to those gay men and women whose mothers were not international stars so famous they're known by one name only (Cher), might Mel not be so nice to those?
More importantly, Mel Gibson had no history of attacking lesbians.
He verbally attacked gay men. Giving interviews about what anuses are for and, yes, Mel is an ass but he's not a self-aware one so he shouldn't speak to what anuses can and cannot do. Gay men were the targets of homophobia in his films as well.
So Chastity didn't know what she was talking about.
As we noted, she also went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to declare Ellen DeGeneres "too gay" for TV. She did this as ABC was attempting to decide whether or not to renew the sitcom Ellen. Chastity later lied and claimed she didn't mean to say that. (Anne Heche didn't buy her lie and let her have it. Good for Anne.) Chastity did mean to say it, she'd said it to print reporters.
She was a man trapped in a woman's body. Chaz is now free to be the man he wants to be and more power to him with that.
But we went over all of that back then to offer, "So maybe children of stars should actually be required to accomplish something on their own in their own lives before they're treated as informed or experts?"
Ronan Farrow's debut on Ronan Farrow Daily makes that even more clear.
A gay man who can't be open?
That's the least of Ronan's problems.
He's gay and his mother doesn't want him to come out. Remember, for all her decades of pretending to be a 'hippie,' it never got squarer than Mia Farrow. This is the woman who, for example, is opposed to all abortions and used to have problems with birth control use until she was told she was coming off completely crazy and needed to pipe down.
Ronan sleeps with men.
This is not a secret.
It's nothing to be ashamed of.
He's been taught that it is.
That's probably the least damaging thing on this topic.
As a little boy, Ronan wanted to be a girl.
This alarmed Mia who put him into analysis.
And she was so happy with her little boy who no longer wanted to be Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and stopped crying to wear girl's clothing.
When you're told at a very young age that your urges are wrong?
You either reject that nonsense or you go through life afraid of making any real moves for fear that you'll embarrass yourself.
You can see the impact that childhood had on Ronan when he's in front of the camera.
He forever is about to have a moment of joy or passion before the cameras when, suddenly, it's as though Will Truman (Eric McCormack on Will & Grace) just whispered in his ear, "Take it down to the chest voice."
When you grasp that Mia (and an analyst) taught Ronan to act 'like a boy,' you grasp why he is start-stop and so conflicted on air.
It doesn't help that he's been billed repeatedly as super smart.
Ronan's not super smart in a way that helps a talk show host.
He has a level of intelligence, yes.
But he's always had problems relating to other people.
Emotional connections are a struggle.
Miriam Polar, that's all we'll say for now.
His trouble bonding and relating to people allowed him to excel at book smarts.
But when you're a TV talk show host, you really need interpersonal skills.
And when you lack them, it can be embarrassing.
Take, for example, what's going on in the Ukraine. Wherever you stand on the issue (from CIA plot to everything else including Russian assault), you realize it's a serious issue.
But those who never developed social skills will embarrass themselves as Ronan did when he felt the need to gush Yulia Tymoshenko "has amazing hair."
He was referring to the 53-year-old former prime minister who is often billed as "the leader of the opposition," not to a model doing a commercial for Herbal Essence shampoo.
Where do you go from there?
"Joining us now is German Chancellor Angela Merkel and, I must say, check out the rack on her!"?
His Tymoshenko moment was bad but the show went completely off the rails later in the week when do-nothing offspring was sort of the motif. There was Ronan, famous for his parents (Mia Farrow, Woody Allen and maybe Frank Sinatra) interviewing the ridiculous failure that is Cecile Richards (the weak leader of Planned Parenthood).
Ronan didn't have a clue about Cecile's mother Ann Richards, though he pretended to. Cecile was also ignorant.
Or maybe she just can't stop lying?
Cecile was insisting that there was a similar charge in Texas, charge of excitement, like with her mother, around Wendy Davis -- the woman who found fame as a strong proponent of abortion but now that she's running for governor has walked that back.
Ann Richards never would have walked back her stance on reproductive rights and to compare the women is insulting on that aspect alone.
But it's also ignorant to compare the two.
Ann was a woman of many accomplishments long before she became governor. And she held a state wide office (Treasurer) before that as well.
Ann also knew how to handle the press and wouldn't get caught in embarrassing missteps the way Davis does with the reality of her life being contrasted with the fantasy version she's pedaled.
And that's the real issue that Cecile's too dumb or too much of a liar to grasp.
Ann was popular in Texas and won the office of governor for the same reason that Hillary Clinton defeated Barack in the 2008 Texas primary. In fact, Hillary could have carried Texas in the general election.
Texas women are strong and proud and they go about their lives as best they can. Like women everywhere, they know a thing or two about discrimination. But they keep going.
Where Texas is different than many other states is that you will see Democratic and Republican women pull together for strong women -- especially strong women who have persevered despite sexism, despite setbacks. Hillary was that in 2008. Ann was that when she ran for governor.
It's not just that Wendy Davis' resume is so light or that's she backed away from the stance that brought her national attention.
It's mainly that the national media created a narrative that would play on the national stage but won't play in Texas.
Davis is poorly trailing Greg Abbott currently.
That could change, the election is way off.
But unless Abbott implodes, he will likely beat her because she and her campaign don't know what the hell they're doing.
She can be strongly pro-choice and win Republican women in Texas -- they're not all anti-choice.
But Wendy Davis' big problem isn't her positions (except for backing off from them).
It's that she's a superstar.
She's a winner.
She's so very many things, crowned by the media.
Ann Richards?
Like many other successful Texas female politicians, Ann Richards was a fighter who battled.
She got knocked down and she got back up, over and over.
Did any woman take the failure to pass the Equal Rights Amendment more personally than Ann did?
They might have taken it as personally but it's hard to think they could have taken it more personally.
Ann fought and fought and fought again.
A minority of her supporters tried to dub her Queen Ann. (This move was led in particular by a man named Dennis -- does Cecile even know this story, does she even know her mother?) Ann very nicely told the group not to call her that. She was governor, she explained, and she was so happy to be that. Dennis then suggested governor and queen. And Ann lost the glowing smile she was famous for and used terms like "buster" and a loud voice to make clear that she didn't see being called a "queen" in a democracy as a compliment and that she had fought hard for every elected office she had held so don't insult her by calling her the "queen" of Texas.
Ann was never crowned.
Women -- Democrats and Republicans -- gave Ann the boost her campaign needed and she became governor and she's the last Democratic governor Texas has had.
Do not compare Ann to Wendy Davis.
If Wendy's got any real strength, she's yet to show it.
Texas women will bandy together around a female candidate if the woman reminds them of themselves or their mothers. Because they are bonding over hardships and setbacks. They will cross party lines if the woman reminds them of themselves.
Davis needs to lower the stardom and demonstrate how she can be a work horse.
She needs to lose the ridiculous hair, she's not Donald Trump's ex-wife, and either pull it into a ponytail (which Texas women relate to) or get it cut.
She needs to tone down the make up as well.
She's a little too 'starish' currently for Texas.
And Greg Abbott?
Greg Abbott is in a wheel chair. He has been since 1984. From that wheel chair, he's been on the state supreme court and successfully and repeatedly run for attorney general. That's the kind of can-do spirit that Texans admire.
Cecile Richards is deeply stupid.
Making Wendy Davis a media star only made her a vapid blond with big hair.
If Cecile knew a damn thing about Texas politics, she would have already realized that Greg Abbott's not going to be beaten by a glossy 8 x 10 photograph.
In fairness to Cecile, she was the guest.
Host Ronan raised the issue. He should have known the issue. He didn't.
Besides calling her "abortion Barbie," he gushed of Wendy Davis, "I am a fan of hers, personally."
"No style, no sizzle, all fizzle."
That was one of Mia's ex-lovers call on Ronan's hosting last week.
He immediately compared Ronan to Merv Griffin.
We wanted to be clear this wasn't because both men were gay.
No, that's not what he was saying. He talked about how superficial Merv was in interviews and how everything was incredible and amazing to Merv and all equally important -- the taste of a dish and Watergate had the same meaning for Merv.
Yes, "Heroes and Zeroes." It's a special segment that Ronan plans to repeat. His first "hero"? Lena Dumham. The racist Lena Dumham. The cable non-entity was chosen because of her 'class' in responding to Jezebel's offering money for the real photos -- before airbrushing and retouching -- of Lena that ran in and on the cover of a magazine.
That story is so old. February was ending and Ronan was blathering on about a January incident.
And how it made Lena a hero left us puzzled.
As did a later in the week choice of the Pope.
That might have pleased Mia Farrow but it only underscored that, at best, Ronan's noting actions, not people. He'd be better off making it "Heroic Moves and Cowardly Stances" -- so that he was praising or calling out action and not praising or calling out someone just for being.
But from Lena to the Pope cleared it up for us. Ronan's not the new Merv Griffin.
No, Ronan Farrow Daily is just an attempt to do the SCTV parody The Brooke Shields Show straight.
Ourselves, we can't wait to see Ronan perform "Whip It."
The award for best self-created drama goes to Mia Farrow (Ava and C.I.)
Mia Farrow's gotten desperate.
In an attempt to garner headlines and market herself, she's crossed every line in the world.
For example, only a fake ass gives the Golden Globes permission to broadcast footage of her (from The Purple Rose of Cairo) in a segment honoring Woody Allen and then takes to Twitter to denounce the segment.
Mia's little fan brigade -- tiny as it is -- didn't seem to realize Mia was craven enough to make sure she was included in the segment she was 'protesting.'
And no one wants to point out that both she and her son Ronan waited until after the segment aired to be bitchy on Twitter.
They both knew Mommy wouldn't be in the segment if they attacked before it was aired.
Mia knows how to promote herself.
She knows damn little else, but she can self-promote.
Which is why, as last year was winding down, she grabbed headlines for the Maureen Orth profile of her in Vanity Fair, the one where she revealed baby boy Ronan may not be Woody Allen's son but Frank Sinatra's.
In the sixties, Mia was a minor soap actress (Peyton Place). She'd never become a movie star. Americans would never rush to a film because she was in it. But in the soap opera, her love interest was Ryan O'Neal who would go on to have three blockbuster films (Love Story, What's Up Doc? and The Main Event) as well as some smaller but pleasing offerings. Ryan became a movie star. Mia just made the tabloids.
She set her sights on Frank Sinatra.
It was considered scandalous to some. Her own mother publicly stated Sinatra should be dating her, not her young daughter.
But Mia was no naive waif.
When Frank refused to risk angering Big Nancy (his ex-wife and the mother of his children) by demanding that Mia be invited to a party Big Nancy was staging, Mia stayed home and chopped off her long locks.
She likes to pretend otherwise today but it was a tantrum over a party.
And it freaked Frank out, leaving him to wonder just how crazy she was?
He married her in 1966. She was supposed to make the film The Detective with him but she was also supposed to be faithful to him. He was very hurt that she spent the bulk of their brief marriage sleeping around (John Phillips was only one of her many lovers during this period and Phillips was one of four that Frank had photographic proof of as a result of the detectives he had trailing her). She was filming Rosemary's Baby in NYC when Frank reached his boiling point and served her with divorce papers -- he said he was disgusted over the crowded bed Mia occupied -- it was the swinging sixties and one partner in a bed seemed passe -- to Mia anyway.
In 1968, their divorce was final.
Mia then set her eyes on Andre Previn. She'd have to get rid of his wife Dory first which is why (pregnant) Mia didn't marry him until 1970. They divorced (with cheating on both sides) in 1979.
In 1979, she began dating Woody Allen. The two never lived together and their dating relationship never gave Mia what she wanted (a third husband).
Those details and others we wouldn't normally bring up.
But now we have to. Mia explained to Maureen Orth that Frank might be the father of Ronan because, even though they divorced in 1968, they continued to sleep together.
Ronan was born at the end of 1987, so, if Mia's to be believed (always iffy), she slept with Frank on-and-off-again from 1968 to at least 1987.
This matters for many reasons but it matters most because Mia was trying to trap Woody into marriage.
She badgered him over and over about needing a baby by him -- this as she continued to adopt children.
She finally got him to agree after she promised he would not have any duties or obligations.
Basically, he would be the sperm donor.
That's how Mia sold it to him.
And it matters because, for nearly six months, they had no luck.
Woody and Mia tried.
But no pregnancy.
Mia leaves out all of those facts.
They won't make her look sympathetic.
But these are facts and they're facts that take on new meaning thanks to her 2013 revelation that she was having sex with Frank Sinatra at the time and he could be the father of Ronan.
Nearly six months.
And no pregnancy.
Then Mia sleeps with Frank and shortly after is pregnant?
If Mia's telling the truth, then Frank probably is the father.
But she doesn't tell the public the full truth because it'll make her look like the liar that she is.
Woody was in his early fifties at the time Mia became pregnant.
He had no biological children -- he still has no biological children if Ronan isn't his.
They tried for nearly six months and the eternally fertile Mia (who was telling friends she was on fertility drugs though she may not have told Woody that) couldn't get pregnant.
But then she has an assignation with Sinatra and ends up pregnant?
That means Mia is cruel and cold and calculating.
She didn't just know it was possible Sinatra was the father, she knew it was pretty much a given after the months and months of attempts with Woody.
About right now is where the audience on Jerry Springer starts booing.
And they would have a point.
A woman who willfully passes a child off as a man's son when he's not the son?
That's fraud.
When she passes the child off as Woody's son to the courts, that's fraud as well.
When she takes child support from Woody Allen for this child that she knows isn't his?
That's fraud.
We had no reason to discuss any of this until Mia decided she needed attention.
And then she and Dylan worked on further attention. Her daughter put her name to a 'letter' that most believe Mia wrote.
The letter wasn't just about Woody Allen -- whom Dylan insists molested her as a child in August of 1992.
No, the letter wanted to demonize others, like Diane Keaton, who had worked with Woody or were friends with him.
Mia had already gone too far in the eyes of the entertainment industry with her Tweets which were seen as especially insulting to Keaton, and now she was going after Keaton and other actors when she begged Nicholas Kristof (Iraq War insisting columnist who went on to greater 'fame' by purchasing women overseas) to print the letter written by Dylan or 'Dylan.'
Mia was surprised to discover that, as she put it to one NYC friend last month, "I'm dead in Hollywood."
Mia, Mia, not just Hollywood.
If she hadn't overplayed her hand, her daughter might be believed.
But Mia had to go all Jerry Springer on America and it wasn't the first time.
Her soap opera nearly derailed the 1992 presidential election.
America had had more than enough of it by the end of summer 1992.
But many were on her side then and recently.
Yet she couldn't leave well enough alone.
Like a robber returning to the scene of the crime, she wanted to stir things up in 2013.
We have no idea what happened to Dylan. She may have been molested, she may not have been.
But like her mother, she makes no sense and isn't believable.
It's interesting that she (or Mia) will blame Diane Keaton and call her out in public when Diane is not Dylan's parent and has never molested her and only encountered Dylan (who was a small infant) on the set of Radio Days. (Diane performs a musical number in that Woody Allen film.)
She questions Diane Keaton, but Dylan's full of nothing but praise for Mommy Mia.
It takes a special kind of woman to pimp her own daughter.
If Woody did molest Dylan (we have no idea), we're not talking about a stunned and unknowing Mia. No, she was as much a part of her daughter's misadventure as Susan Sarandon's character was to Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby.
Maureen Orth loves facts.
If she can make them pliable.
She's a wonderful novelist, she can write a narrative.
But like her late husband Tim Russert, she struggles to nail down facts.
Last week's editorial opened with this, "The laughable and sad Natalie Russell (The Pitt News) will get served next week." We were looking for a new way to write about the March 12, 2006 gang-rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, when it became obvious the way to write about the man who killed her parents and her sister, took part in the gang-rape of her and then shot her dead was to note how yet again certain writers (Natalie Russell among them) wanted to write superficial pieces about celebrity instead of taking on real issues.
Natalie Russell?
She had to add a little note to her piece and redo it:
Correction: A previous version of this article deemed Mr. Allen's previous relationships pedophiliac. While it was alleged, Mr. Allen has not been convicted of being a pedophile. Thus, the language was removed.
Russell's too stupid to be allowed to operate a keyboard without a guardian present.
Where did dumb ass get her misinformation?
It's been popularized -- and called "facts" -- by Maureen Orth. It's shady and dishonest. And at a time when VanFair's war on Gwyneth Paltrow is already making some in the entertainment industry leery of the magazine, is it really the the time to be offering such nonsense?
Orth writes:
2. Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.
The doctor didn't rule the behavior to be sexual. The doctor felt that Woody's attention to the child (amount and focus) was inappropriate.
Mia had been saying it was sexual, yes. She had said that for some time.
When the doctor observed an encounter with the two she told Mia that she felt Woody's focus on Dylan was inappropriate and demanding.
She did not feel there was a sexual component to it.
Maureen damn well knows that but she wants to present 'facts' that back her up.
We're glad she whored.
She was married to Tim, of course, she's a media whore.
By whoring, she lets us bring up something that all Natalie Russells in the world better damn well pay attention to.
According to Mia, there was relief (on her part) when the doctor wanted to address the focus issue. According to her, she had felt that it was sexual attention.
So, if Mia's telling the truth, why did Mommy pimp her daughter?
Woody wasn't Dylan's father at that time. Why didn't Mia stop the attempts at adoption?
Yes, she has one of her poor-me excuses that she trots out.
But the reality is, if she thought Woody's behavior was sexual towards Dylan, she never should have let the man adopt her daughter.
Natalie might also want to ask why Mia didn't demand prosecution? Or Dylan for that matter?
Maureen wants you to know the 'fact' that Mia didn't go to the police.
Of course she didn't.
She didn't go to the police and she didn't fight for a trial.
And she and her daughter waited until any legal statute of limitations ran out to raise the whole tired issue one more time.
If Dylan Farrow were an honest person, she wouldn't be defending Mia.
If she really was assaulted by Woody Allen, that's on Mia as much as it is on Woody.
Mia should have refused to allow him to adopt Dylan since, according to her story, she knew years prior to the adoption that Woody was sexually inappropriate with Dylan.
Mia doesn't talk about that much.
Or about all the money Woody gave her over the years prior to 1992.
We're not talking about her salary. We're talking about gifts.
At one point, Woody gets $7 million for doing a Japanese TV commercial and he gives Mia, who didn't appear in the ad and had nothing to do with it, a million dollars.
We're talking about gifts like that -- we're talking about what Mia doesn't want anyone to talk about.
Even lying to the city of NYC to keep the rent control price of her mother's apartment, Mia lived outside her means and then some. She was paid well for appearing in Woody's films but not enough to take care of her brood of countless children.
She needed those gifts from Woody because there wasn't much interest in her by 1980.
Broadway? Mia was doing Broadway, Romantic Comedy with Tony Perkins. It was a success but the backstage drama ensured neither Mia nor Tony was sought after for another Broadway play.
Films?
Mia was not a film star. Ever.
Linda Blair was and is a bigger star than Mia.
She was the lead in Roman Polanski's classic film Rosemary's Baby. Yet she was so ineffective in the role that when a sequel was made as a TV movie, many critics felt the need to stress how much more believable Patty Duke was in the role of Rosemary.
The only box office hit of her career was followed by bomb after bomb.
Secret Ceremony, A Dandy in Aspic, John and Mary, See No Evil, bomb, bomb, bomb. And she fled to England where she would have stayed if it weren't for Ali MacGraw leaving Robert Evans for Steve McQueen. Evans, head of Paramount at the time, needed an immediate replacement for MacGraw who was to play Daisy in The Great Gatsby. One actress after another turned the role down. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, they offered it to Mia who couldn't pass up the chance to show the world how awful she could be.
Mia had been miscast before, but this time it was just sheer awful as she played Daisy as if she were a scream queen and Gatsby was written by Ira Levin.
This was followed with the Canadian bomb Full Circle (Mia in another horror film), then there was what many considered her all time worst performance -- Buffy in Robert Altman's A Wedding.
This was followed by the box office bomb Avalanche which starred Rock Hudson.
Then came her freaky and fifth billed performance in Death on the Nile (a role she appears to be acting out currently).
Next was 1979's bomb Hurricane and her film career was over.
That's why she ended up on Broadway.
Some say that's why she pursued Woody Allen.
When she finally returned to the screen it would be in his film A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982). It would be the first of fourteen live action films she'd appear in from 1982 to 1992. With the exception of her bit part at the beginning of Supergirl, all the films were Woody Allen films.
With Woody as her director, she'd give some classic performances: Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, Radio Days, New York Stories, possibly Hannah and Her Sisters. But she also was so-so in some of the movies and flat out awful in Shadows and Fog, Another Woman and September. She'd be Golden Globe nominated for Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Alice. She'd be BAFTA nominated for The Purple Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters.
She would claim that during this time she was offered Father of the Bride -- and she was. But then they found out they could get Diane Keaton and had no interest in Mia.
Immediately after the 1992 scandals, she kept insisting Mike Nichols was going to cast her but he had no role for her in Wolf or The Birdcage or Primary Colors or . . . She'd been convinced that she would be his new muse but, for once, she wasn't able to make a married man fall for her.
No one wanted her. Miami Rhapsody wanted so badly to be Woody Allen-esque but it wasn't and the film bombed. As did Reckless, Coming Soon, -- really everything she's done except for her bit part in the remake of The Omen.
It's very sad for Mia. As she told her children in 1992 -- after she told them Woody was having an affair with her adult daughter Soon-Yi Previn -- she might never work again. That's why she was so furious when Woody announced that they would not be making Manhattan Murder Mystery together (he replaced her with Diane Keaton)
Yes, Mia was willing to make a film with Woody. In fact, according to her, she was sleeping with Woody up until August of 1992. Determined to get him back. Even though July 4, 1992 found him isolating with Dylan in her words.
So if Dylan believes she was molested (and she may have been), she needs to start aiming a lot of anger at her useless mother who put more thought and concern into having a film career than she did into protecting her daughter from a man she claimed was sexually interested in her.
And let's go back to Orth.
Mia's at Frog Hollow. Woody has to travel a distance to get there (from NYC) and doesn't show up unannounced.
"Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan."
Really, Maureen Orth?
You think that looks good for Mia?
It doesn't.
His visits were rare and usually short. If Mia was concerned -- as she insists she was -- that Woody was or would sexually abuse her daughter, her ass should have been at her Frog Hollow home every minute Woody was there.
What was she doing?
She wasn't off acting in a film, she wasn't promoting a film, she was just running around for fun.
You don't do that.
Not if a man you think is a child molester is with your daughter.
You don't disappear.
You never hear claims that your daughter was missing for 20 minutes because you never let her out of your sight.
If it happened, it happened because Mia shirked her duties as a mother.
July 4, 1992, Mia's claiming Woody monopolized Dylan, took her away from the party and, pay attention Orth, out of Mia's site.
So if she was truly worried, her ass should have been at the house in August for every minute Woody Allen was present.
Now these are details that were made public by Mia in 1992.
Notice how they've vanished in the efforts to make Mia a saint.
In her 'facts,' Orth insists, "Dylan’s claim of abuse was consistent with the testimony of three adults who were present that day."
Yes, but was inconsistent with the testimony of one adult present (Monica Thompson, whose salary was paid by Woody Allen). And we're fine noting Woody paid the woman. Mia paid two adults on her side and her friend Casey Pascal paid the third. We don't have the need to present 'facts' that aren't the full facts.
We'd like this to be our last story about trashy Mia Farrow.
But we can go further.
We can explain, for example, what Mia doesn't want you to know, about why she never should have had Ronan to begin with (that's not a slam at Ronan, that is noting the health issue that 'miracle mom' didn't want to talk about then or since). We can talk about that. We can air all the dirty laundry.
We're free to do that for a number of reasons.
First, Mia disgraced herself with her assertion regarding Ronan's paternity. Second, she chose to be in the tribute she then Tweeted against. Third, she's been a real bitch in going after Diane Keaton. Fourth, who the hell is this unaccomplished actress to try and destroy Cate Blanchett's chance to get an Academy Award for Best Actress. Fifth, Naomi Campbell is a friend and we do not forgive Mia.
But mainly because we're sick of Mia and her witch hunt.
If Woody Allen did molest Dylan, Mia's little stunts haven't helped her daughter deal with reality.
Twenty-two years later, Dylan Farrow and her mother are trying to try this in the press.
You better find another way for closure.
This is America. And in the United States, you are innocent until proven guilty.
Woody Allen has never been found guilty.
He's an elderly man who's being dragged through the mud.
That's not justice in America.
Dylan had many years to pursue a legal case against him.
She chose not to.
Woody Allen's been found guilty of nothing and people need to stop rushing to insist otherwise.
In an attempt to garner headlines and market herself, she's crossed every line in the world.
For example, only a fake ass gives the Golden Globes permission to broadcast footage of her (from The Purple Rose of Cairo) in a segment honoring Woody Allen and then takes to Twitter to denounce the segment.
Mia's little fan brigade -- tiny as it is -- didn't seem to realize Mia was craven enough to make sure she was included in the segment she was 'protesting.'
And no one wants to point out that both she and her son Ronan waited until after the segment aired to be bitchy on Twitter.
They both knew Mommy wouldn't be in the segment if they attacked before it was aired.
Mia knows how to promote herself.
She knows damn little else, but she can self-promote.
Which is why, as last year was winding down, she grabbed headlines for the Maureen Orth profile of her in Vanity Fair, the one where she revealed baby boy Ronan may not be Woody Allen's son but Frank Sinatra's.
In the sixties, Mia was a minor soap actress (Peyton Place). She'd never become a movie star. Americans would never rush to a film because she was in it. But in the soap opera, her love interest was Ryan O'Neal who would go on to have three blockbuster films (Love Story, What's Up Doc? and The Main Event) as well as some smaller but pleasing offerings. Ryan became a movie star. Mia just made the tabloids.
She set her sights on Frank Sinatra.
It was considered scandalous to some. Her own mother publicly stated Sinatra should be dating her, not her young daughter.
But Mia was no naive waif.
When Frank refused to risk angering Big Nancy (his ex-wife and the mother of his children) by demanding that Mia be invited to a party Big Nancy was staging, Mia stayed home and chopped off her long locks.
She likes to pretend otherwise today but it was a tantrum over a party.
And it freaked Frank out, leaving him to wonder just how crazy she was?
He married her in 1966. She was supposed to make the film The Detective with him but she was also supposed to be faithful to him. He was very hurt that she spent the bulk of their brief marriage sleeping around (John Phillips was only one of her many lovers during this period and Phillips was one of four that Frank had photographic proof of as a result of the detectives he had trailing her). She was filming Rosemary's Baby in NYC when Frank reached his boiling point and served her with divorce papers -- he said he was disgusted over the crowded bed Mia occupied -- it was the swinging sixties and one partner in a bed seemed passe -- to Mia anyway.
In 1968, their divorce was final.
Mia then set her eyes on Andre Previn. She'd have to get rid of his wife Dory first which is why (pregnant) Mia didn't marry him until 1970. They divorced (with cheating on both sides) in 1979.
In 1979, she began dating Woody Allen. The two never lived together and their dating relationship never gave Mia what she wanted (a third husband).
Those details and others we wouldn't normally bring up.
But now we have to. Mia explained to Maureen Orth that Frank might be the father of Ronan because, even though they divorced in 1968, they continued to sleep together.
Ronan was born at the end of 1987, so, if Mia's to be believed (always iffy), she slept with Frank on-and-off-again from 1968 to at least 1987.
This matters for many reasons but it matters most because Mia was trying to trap Woody into marriage.
She badgered him over and over about needing a baby by him -- this as she continued to adopt children.
She finally got him to agree after she promised he would not have any duties or obligations.
Basically, he would be the sperm donor.
That's how Mia sold it to him.
And it matters because, for nearly six months, they had no luck.
Woody and Mia tried.
But no pregnancy.
Mia leaves out all of those facts.
They won't make her look sympathetic.
But these are facts and they're facts that take on new meaning thanks to her 2013 revelation that she was having sex with Frank Sinatra at the time and he could be the father of Ronan.
Nearly six months.
And no pregnancy.
Then Mia sleeps with Frank and shortly after is pregnant?
If Mia's telling the truth, then Frank probably is the father.
But she doesn't tell the public the full truth because it'll make her look like the liar that she is.
Woody was in his early fifties at the time Mia became pregnant.
He had no biological children -- he still has no biological children if Ronan isn't his.
They tried for nearly six months and the eternally fertile Mia (who was telling friends she was on fertility drugs though she may not have told Woody that) couldn't get pregnant.
But then she has an assignation with Sinatra and ends up pregnant?
That means Mia is cruel and cold and calculating.
She didn't just know it was possible Sinatra was the father, she knew it was pretty much a given after the months and months of attempts with Woody.
About right now is where the audience on Jerry Springer starts booing.
And they would have a point.
A woman who willfully passes a child off as a man's son when he's not the son?
That's fraud.
When she passes the child off as Woody's son to the courts, that's fraud as well.
When she takes child support from Woody Allen for this child that she knows isn't his?
That's fraud.
We had no reason to discuss any of this until Mia decided she needed attention.
And then she and Dylan worked on further attention. Her daughter put her name to a 'letter' that most believe Mia wrote.
The letter wasn't just about Woody Allen -- whom Dylan insists molested her as a child in August of 1992.
No, the letter wanted to demonize others, like Diane Keaton, who had worked with Woody or were friends with him.
Mia had already gone too far in the eyes of the entertainment industry with her Tweets which were seen as especially insulting to Keaton, and now she was going after Keaton and other actors when she begged Nicholas Kristof (Iraq War insisting columnist who went on to greater 'fame' by purchasing women overseas) to print the letter written by Dylan or 'Dylan.'
Mia was surprised to discover that, as she put it to one NYC friend last month, "I'm dead in Hollywood."
Mia, Mia, not just Hollywood.
If she hadn't overplayed her hand, her daughter might be believed.
But Mia had to go all Jerry Springer on America and it wasn't the first time.
Her soap opera nearly derailed the 1992 presidential election.
America had had more than enough of it by the end of summer 1992.
But many were on her side then and recently.
Yet she couldn't leave well enough alone.
Like a robber returning to the scene of the crime, she wanted to stir things up in 2013.
We have no idea what happened to Dylan. She may have been molested, she may not have been.
But like her mother, she makes no sense and isn't believable.
It's interesting that she (or Mia) will blame Diane Keaton and call her out in public when Diane is not Dylan's parent and has never molested her and only encountered Dylan (who was a small infant) on the set of Radio Days. (Diane performs a musical number in that Woody Allen film.)
She questions Diane Keaton, but Dylan's full of nothing but praise for Mommy Mia.
It takes a special kind of woman to pimp her own daughter.
If Woody did molest Dylan (we have no idea), we're not talking about a stunned and unknowing Mia. No, she was as much a part of her daughter's misadventure as Susan Sarandon's character was to Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby.
Maureen Orth loves facts.
If she can make them pliable.
She's a wonderful novelist, she can write a narrative.
But like her late husband Tim Russert, she struggles to nail down facts.
Last week's editorial opened with this, "The laughable and sad Natalie Russell (The Pitt News) will get served next week." We were looking for a new way to write about the March 12, 2006 gang-rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, when it became obvious the way to write about the man who killed her parents and her sister, took part in the gang-rape of her and then shot her dead was to note how yet again certain writers (Natalie Russell among them) wanted to write superficial pieces about celebrity instead of taking on real issues.
Natalie Russell?
She had to add a little note to her piece and redo it:
Correction: A previous version of this article deemed Mr. Allen's previous relationships pedophiliac. While it was alleged, Mr. Allen has not been convicted of being a pedophile. Thus, the language was removed.
Russell's too stupid to be allowed to operate a keyboard without a guardian present.
Where did dumb ass get her misinformation?
It's been popularized -- and called "facts" -- by Maureen Orth. It's shady and dishonest. And at a time when VanFair's war on Gwyneth Paltrow is already making some in the entertainment industry leery of the magazine, is it really the the time to be offering such nonsense?
Orth writes:
2. Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.
The doctor didn't rule the behavior to be sexual. The doctor felt that Woody's attention to the child (amount and focus) was inappropriate.
Mia had been saying it was sexual, yes. She had said that for some time.
When the doctor observed an encounter with the two she told Mia that she felt Woody's focus on Dylan was inappropriate and demanding.
She did not feel there was a sexual component to it.
Maureen damn well knows that but she wants to present 'facts' that back her up.
We're glad she whored.
She was married to Tim, of course, she's a media whore.
By whoring, she lets us bring up something that all Natalie Russells in the world better damn well pay attention to.
According to Mia, there was relief (on her part) when the doctor wanted to address the focus issue. According to her, she had felt that it was sexual attention.
So, if Mia's telling the truth, why did Mommy pimp her daughter?
Woody wasn't Dylan's father at that time. Why didn't Mia stop the attempts at adoption?
Yes, she has one of her poor-me excuses that she trots out.
But the reality is, if she thought Woody's behavior was sexual towards Dylan, she never should have let the man adopt her daughter.
Natalie might also want to ask why Mia didn't demand prosecution? Or Dylan for that matter?
Maureen wants you to know the 'fact' that Mia didn't go to the police.
Of course she didn't.
She didn't go to the police and she didn't fight for a trial.
And she and her daughter waited until any legal statute of limitations ran out to raise the whole tired issue one more time.
If Dylan Farrow were an honest person, she wouldn't be defending Mia.
If she really was assaulted by Woody Allen, that's on Mia as much as it is on Woody.
Mia should have refused to allow him to adopt Dylan since, according to her story, she knew years prior to the adoption that Woody was sexually inappropriate with Dylan.
Mia doesn't talk about that much.
Or about all the money Woody gave her over the years prior to 1992.
We're not talking about her salary. We're talking about gifts.
At one point, Woody gets $7 million for doing a Japanese TV commercial and he gives Mia, who didn't appear in the ad and had nothing to do with it, a million dollars.
We're talking about gifts like that -- we're talking about what Mia doesn't want anyone to talk about.
Even lying to the city of NYC to keep the rent control price of her mother's apartment, Mia lived outside her means and then some. She was paid well for appearing in Woody's films but not enough to take care of her brood of countless children.
She needed those gifts from Woody because there wasn't much interest in her by 1980.
Broadway? Mia was doing Broadway, Romantic Comedy with Tony Perkins. It was a success but the backstage drama ensured neither Mia nor Tony was sought after for another Broadway play.
Films?
Mia was not a film star. Ever.
Linda Blair was and is a bigger star than Mia.
She was the lead in Roman Polanski's classic film Rosemary's Baby. Yet she was so ineffective in the role that when a sequel was made as a TV movie, many critics felt the need to stress how much more believable Patty Duke was in the role of Rosemary.
The only box office hit of her career was followed by bomb after bomb.
Secret Ceremony, A Dandy in Aspic, John and Mary, See No Evil, bomb, bomb, bomb. And she fled to England where she would have stayed if it weren't for Ali MacGraw leaving Robert Evans for Steve McQueen. Evans, head of Paramount at the time, needed an immediate replacement for MacGraw who was to play Daisy in The Great Gatsby. One actress after another turned the role down. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, they offered it to Mia who couldn't pass up the chance to show the world how awful she could be.
Mia had been miscast before, but this time it was just sheer awful as she played Daisy as if she were a scream queen and Gatsby was written by Ira Levin.
This was followed with the Canadian bomb Full Circle (Mia in another horror film), then there was what many considered her all time worst performance -- Buffy in Robert Altman's A Wedding.
This was followed by the box office bomb Avalanche which starred Rock Hudson.
Then came her freaky and fifth billed performance in Death on the Nile (a role she appears to be acting out currently).
Next was 1979's bomb Hurricane and her film career was over.
That's why she ended up on Broadway.
Some say that's why she pursued Woody Allen.
When she finally returned to the screen it would be in his film A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982). It would be the first of fourteen live action films she'd appear in from 1982 to 1992. With the exception of her bit part at the beginning of Supergirl, all the films were Woody Allen films.
With Woody as her director, she'd give some classic performances: Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, Radio Days, New York Stories, possibly Hannah and Her Sisters. But she also was so-so in some of the movies and flat out awful in Shadows and Fog, Another Woman and September. She'd be Golden Globe nominated for Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Alice. She'd be BAFTA nominated for The Purple Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters.
She would claim that during this time she was offered Father of the Bride -- and she was. But then they found out they could get Diane Keaton and had no interest in Mia.
Immediately after the 1992 scandals, she kept insisting Mike Nichols was going to cast her but he had no role for her in Wolf or The Birdcage or Primary Colors or . . . She'd been convinced that she would be his new muse but, for once, she wasn't able to make a married man fall for her.
No one wanted her. Miami Rhapsody wanted so badly to be Woody Allen-esque but it wasn't and the film bombed. As did Reckless, Coming Soon, -- really everything she's done except for her bit part in the remake of The Omen.
It's very sad for Mia. As she told her children in 1992 -- after she told them Woody was having an affair with her adult daughter Soon-Yi Previn -- she might never work again. That's why she was so furious when Woody announced that they would not be making Manhattan Murder Mystery together (he replaced her with Diane Keaton)
Yes, Mia was willing to make a film with Woody. In fact, according to her, she was sleeping with Woody up until August of 1992. Determined to get him back. Even though July 4, 1992 found him isolating with Dylan in her words.
So if Dylan believes she was molested (and she may have been), she needs to start aiming a lot of anger at her useless mother who put more thought and concern into having a film career than she did into protecting her daughter from a man she claimed was sexually interested in her.
And let's go back to Orth.
Mia's at Frog Hollow. Woody has to travel a distance to get there (from NYC) and doesn't show up unannounced.
"Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan."
Really, Maureen Orth?
You think that looks good for Mia?
It doesn't.
His visits were rare and usually short. If Mia was concerned -- as she insists she was -- that Woody was or would sexually abuse her daughter, her ass should have been at her Frog Hollow home every minute Woody was there.
What was she doing?
She wasn't off acting in a film, she wasn't promoting a film, she was just running around for fun.
You don't do that.
Not if a man you think is a child molester is with your daughter.
You don't disappear.
You never hear claims that your daughter was missing for 20 minutes because you never let her out of your sight.
If it happened, it happened because Mia shirked her duties as a mother.
July 4, 1992, Mia's claiming Woody monopolized Dylan, took her away from the party and, pay attention Orth, out of Mia's site.
So if she was truly worried, her ass should have been at the house in August for every minute Woody Allen was present.
Now these are details that were made public by Mia in 1992.
Notice how they've vanished in the efforts to make Mia a saint.
In her 'facts,' Orth insists, "Dylan’s claim of abuse was consistent with the testimony of three adults who were present that day."
Yes, but was inconsistent with the testimony of one adult present (Monica Thompson, whose salary was paid by Woody Allen). And we're fine noting Woody paid the woman. Mia paid two adults on her side and her friend Casey Pascal paid the third. We don't have the need to present 'facts' that aren't the full facts.
We'd like this to be our last story about trashy Mia Farrow.
But we can go further.
We can explain, for example, what Mia doesn't want you to know, about why she never should have had Ronan to begin with (that's not a slam at Ronan, that is noting the health issue that 'miracle mom' didn't want to talk about then or since). We can talk about that. We can air all the dirty laundry.
We're free to do that for a number of reasons.
First, Mia disgraced herself with her assertion regarding Ronan's paternity. Second, she chose to be in the tribute she then Tweeted against. Third, she's been a real bitch in going after Diane Keaton. Fourth, who the hell is this unaccomplished actress to try and destroy Cate Blanchett's chance to get an Academy Award for Best Actress. Fifth, Naomi Campbell is a friend and we do not forgive Mia.
But mainly because we're sick of Mia and her witch hunt.
If Woody Allen did molest Dylan, Mia's little stunts haven't helped her daughter deal with reality.
Twenty-two years later, Dylan Farrow and her mother are trying to try this in the press.
You better find another way for closure.
This is America. And in the United States, you are innocent until proven guilty.
Woody Allen has never been found guilty.
He's an elderly man who's being dragged through the mud.
That's not justice in America.
Dylan had many years to pursue a legal case against him.
She chose not to.
Woody Allen's been found guilty of nothing and people need to stop rushing to insist otherwise.
The Oscars
On the first day of Oscar, my true love gave to me
Sandra Bullock defying gravity
Friday on The Neighbors, Jackie-Joyner Kersee (Toks Olagundoye) and Larry Bird (Simon Templeman) sang that as they geared up for the Oscars that air tonight on ABC.
And that led to a discussion among us about some of the great Oscar winners.
But the thing is, there aren't that many.
For instance, Jim thought Steven Soderbergh won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Sex, Lies & Videotape. He should have.
Instead Tom Schulman won for the ridiculous Dead Poets Society.
Sex, Lies & Videotape was a revolutionary film, one that really made Sundance and kicked started a golden age of film.
Soderbergh went on to direct classics like Magic Mike, Out of Sight, Traffic, Erin Brokovich, Behind the Candelabra, Ocean's 11 and The Underneath.
Winner Schulman?
He followed up his Oscar win by writing Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and such high profile bombs as Second Sight, Medicine Man, Holy Man and 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag.
If the Academy could go back in time, you know they'd redo that award.
Nora Ephron?
No Academy Award for directing or for writing.
Spike Lee?
Also no Academy Award for directing or for writing.
Marilyn Monroe may have won the Golden Globe for Some Like It Hot and been nominated for Bus Stop as well as nominated for a BAFTA for The Seven Year Itch, but she never got nominated for Academy Award.
There have been tremendous slights and oversights over the years.
We looked over a list of winners in various major categories and found only three where we would argue the wins were not just worthy but indisputable:
Best Actress
Best Original Song
Best Original Screenplay
Drop a line -- especially if you have a pick of your own -- at thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
Sandra Bullock defying gravity
Friday on The Neighbors, Jackie-Joyner Kersee (Toks Olagundoye) and Larry Bird (Simon Templeman) sang that as they geared up for the Oscars that air tonight on ABC.
And that led to a discussion among us about some of the great Oscar winners.
But the thing is, there aren't that many.
For instance, Jim thought Steven Soderbergh won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Sex, Lies & Videotape. He should have.
Instead Tom Schulman won for the ridiculous Dead Poets Society.
Sex, Lies & Videotape was a revolutionary film, one that really made Sundance and kicked started a golden age of film.
Soderbergh went on to direct classics like Magic Mike, Out of Sight, Traffic, Erin Brokovich, Behind the Candelabra, Ocean's 11 and The Underneath.
Winner Schulman?
He followed up his Oscar win by writing Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and such high profile bombs as Second Sight, Medicine Man, Holy Man and 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag.
If the Academy could go back in time, you know they'd redo that award.
Nora Ephron?
No Academy Award for directing or for writing.
Spike Lee?
Also no Academy Award for directing or for writing.
Marilyn Monroe may have won the Golden Globe for Some Like It Hot and been nominated for Bus Stop as well as nominated for a BAFTA for The Seven Year Itch, but she never got nominated for Academy Award.
There have been tremendous slights and oversights over the years.
We looked over a list of winners in various major categories and found only three where we would argue the wins were not just worthy but indisputable:
Drop a line -- especially if you have a pick of your own -- at thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.
This edition's playlist
The rule this week was that we'd only listen to movie soundtracks
1) Grace of My Heart
2) Magnolia
3) Hairspray
4) Grease
5) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
6) Party Girl
7) What's Love Got To Do With It?
8) Singles
9) A Hard Day's Night
10) Flashdance
1) Grace of My Heart
2) Magnolia
3) Hairspray
4) Grease
5) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
6) Party Girl
7) What's Love Got To Do With It?
8) Singles
9) A Hard Day's Night
10) Flashdance
Best Actress
There wasn't a lot promising about the character of Bree Daniels. Not as written in Andy and Dave Lewis' screenplay. But director Alan J. Pakula wanted Jane Fonda for the role and was willing to take her on as a real collaborator.
Bree was a call girl. Jane's research unearthed various details including the popularity of images of John F. Kennedy in the homes of many call girls. It would be among the many details she added to the set for Bree's apartment.
Pakula trusted Jane's skill for improvisation and some of the best moments in the film are Bree's sessions with her psychiatrist (Vivian Nathan). They're raw and they're real.
They are part of the reason Bree is so fully realized.
Part.
Jane also delivered with regards to the scripted scenes.
A product of the Actors Studio, Jane can easily work from the inside out and come up with stunning externals for her characters. But it's a known problem for the Studio that their alumni often gets a wonderful bit of steam going into a scene but loses it as the lines grow in importance.
That's not the case with Fonda and especially not the case with regards to her Bree. All the sense memory and other tools that allow her to become Bree when Bree is walking or standing in silence continue to erupt when she has to serve the script.
"Are you upset because you didn't make me cum? I never come with a john," Bree explains to Klute (Donald Sutherland) in one of the more brutally honest scenes in the film.
Jane Fonda's performance in Klute resulted in her first Academy Award for Best Actress. The performance remains the finest film acting by anyone -- male or female -- in the 20th century.
Bree was a call girl. Jane's research unearthed various details including the popularity of images of John F. Kennedy in the homes of many call girls. It would be among the many details she added to the set for Bree's apartment.
Pakula trusted Jane's skill for improvisation and some of the best moments in the film are Bree's sessions with her psychiatrist (Vivian Nathan). They're raw and they're real.
They are part of the reason Bree is so fully realized.
Part.
Jane also delivered with regards to the scripted scenes.
A product of the Actors Studio, Jane can easily work from the inside out and come up with stunning externals for her characters. But it's a known problem for the Studio that their alumni often gets a wonderful bit of steam going into a scene but loses it as the lines grow in importance.
That's not the case with Fonda and especially not the case with regards to her Bree. All the sense memory and other tools that allow her to become Bree when Bree is walking or standing in silence continue to erupt when she has to serve the script.
"Are you upset because you didn't make me cum? I never come with a john," Bree explains to Klute (Donald Sutherland) in one of the more brutally honest scenes in the film.
Jane Fonda's performance in Klute resulted in her first Academy Award for Best Actress. The performance remains the finest film acting by anyone -- male or female -- in the 20th century.
Best Original Song
In a category that has repeatedly overlooked the finest (Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin," Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin's "The Man That Got Away," Alex North and Hy Zaret's "Unchained Melody," Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "The Look Of Love," Dolly Parton's "9 to 5," Lionel Richie's "Endless Love," etc.) and nominated some real garbage ["Love Song From Mutiny On The Bounty (Follow Me)," "Bless the Beasts and Children," "Benji's Theme (I Feel Love)," etc.]?
This year, the category is marred by disqualifying a song (for good reason, but it did cause a scandal) and having three other songs that really aren't up to snuff. Did no one hear "Please Mr. Kennedy" from Inside Llewyn Davis (written by Ed Rush, George Cromarty, T Bone Burnett, Justin Timberlake and Joel and Ethan Coen)? Apparently not. Of the nominated songs, only "Let It Go" is deserving.
No Academy Award category comes out wrong more often.
So it's truly amazing when they not only nominate a worthy song but that the worthy song also wins.
In 1989, Carly Simon won for her contribution to Mike Nichols' Working Girl.
Carly's composition, an urban hymn titled "Let The River Run," would also result in a Golden Globe and a Grammy.
More importantly, it would become a song many would find strength from in troubled times, such as the immediate aftermath of 9-11 and the anthrax scares.
We're coming to the edge
Running on the water
Coming through the fog
Your sons and daughters
We the great and small
Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire
Through the darkling dawn
Vivid and haunting imagery make this a strong song whether sung with musical backing or acapella .
In imagery, melody and theme, it's one of the finest choices the Academy made in the 20th century. "Let all the dreamers wake the nation," indeed.
This year, the category is marred by disqualifying a song (for good reason, but it did cause a scandal) and having three other songs that really aren't up to snuff. Did no one hear "Please Mr. Kennedy" from Inside Llewyn Davis (written by Ed Rush, George Cromarty, T Bone Burnett, Justin Timberlake and Joel and Ethan Coen)? Apparently not. Of the nominated songs, only "Let It Go" is deserving.
No Academy Award category comes out wrong more often.
So it's truly amazing when they not only nominate a worthy song but that the worthy song also wins.
In 1989, Carly Simon won for her contribution to Mike Nichols' Working Girl.
Carly's composition, an urban hymn titled "Let The River Run," would also result in a Golden Globe and a Grammy.
More importantly, it would become a song many would find strength from in troubled times, such as the immediate aftermath of 9-11 and the anthrax scares.
We're coming to the edge
Running on the water
Coming through the fog
Your sons and daughters
We the great and small
Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire
Through the darkling dawn
Vivid and haunting imagery make this a strong song whether sung with musical backing or acapella .
In imagery, melody and theme, it's one of the finest choices the Academy made in the 20th century. "Let all the dreamers wake the nation," indeed.
Best Original Screenplay
Callie Khouri was an actress whose career was not taking off. She could have grown bitter, she could have left the industry. Instead, she wrote a script. The kind of gutsy script she would have liked to have been offered as an actor.
It was so great that many names got attached to it. Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn were a team at one point, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster at another. It would become the film Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis starred in. And the film that made Brad Pitt a star.
It would captivate the nation and capture the dialogue.
All these years later, 1992's Thelma & Louise is still a cultural touchstone.
Callie wrote about people as she knew them and audiences recognized them onscreen.
It was authentic in the best sense of the word.
Community picks for tonight's awards
At the end of tonight, there will be no more nominees, only winners.
As you gear up for ABC's telecast of the Academy Awards tonight, here are a few picks made by the community:
Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett "Oscar food in the Kitchen" -- Trina
"Best Actress: Judi Dench" -- Marcia
Meryl Streep -- 2 readers of this site*
Best Director:
"Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director" -- Stan
Steve McQueen -- 7 readers of this site*
Best Actor:
"Bruce Dern is my pick" -- Stan
"Leonardo" -- Ann
"Matthew McConaughey" -- Kat
Christian Bale -- 5 readers of this site*
Best Supporting Actress:
Anyone but Julia Roberts "'i'm rooting for julia roberts ..." -- Rebecca
Lupita Nyong'o -- 4 readers of this site*
Jennifer Lawrence -- 3 readers of this site*
Best Supporting Actor:
"Bradley Cooper" -- Betty
Best Foreign Film:
"The Missing Picture" -- Elaine
Best Documentary:
The Square "Best Documentary" -- Mike
Best Costume Design:
"I hope Catherine Martin wins Sunday night" for The Great Gatsby -- Ruth
Best Picture:
Gravity -- 42 readers of this site*
The Wolf of Wall Street -- 30 readers of this site*
American Hustle -- 11 readers of this site*
Nebraska -- 10 readers of this site*
Dallas Buyers Club -- 8 readers of this site*
12 Years a Slave -- 8 readers of this site
Philomena -- 8 readers of this site*
Her -- 3 readers of this site*
Captain Phillips -- 0 readers of this site*
--------------
* "I read this site all the time and even e-mail you and no one e-mailed asking my opinion!" Unlike Trina, we didn't think to e-mail regular readers and ask them who they wanted. (Trina's post where she picks Cate Blanchett also includes her readers responding to her e-mail about what food they plan to serve at their Oscar parties.) We wish we would have. This was 142 readers who e-mailed on their own, just to offer their views. For those doing the math, there are 143 votes -- but from 142 readers. While 141 e-mails noted one choice they were rooting for, Denise let us know she would pick American Hustle for Best Film and Jennifer Lawrence for Best Supporting Actress.
As you gear up for ABC's telecast of the Academy Awards tonight, here are a few picks made by the community:
Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett "Oscar food in the Kitchen" -- Trina
"Best Actress: Judi Dench" -- Marcia
Meryl Streep -- 2 readers of this site*
Best Director:
"Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director" -- Stan
Steve McQueen -- 7 readers of this site*
Best Actor:
"Bruce Dern is my pick" -- Stan
"Leonardo" -- Ann
"Matthew McConaughey" -- Kat
Christian Bale -- 5 readers of this site*
Best Supporting Actress:
Anyone but Julia Roberts "'i'm rooting for julia roberts ..." -- Rebecca
Lupita Nyong'o -- 4 readers of this site*
Jennifer Lawrence -- 3 readers of this site*
Best Supporting Actor:
"Bradley Cooper" -- Betty
Best Foreign Film:
"The Missing Picture" -- Elaine
Best Documentary:
The Square "Best Documentary" -- Mike
Best Costume Design:
"I hope Catherine Martin wins Sunday night" for The Great Gatsby -- Ruth
Best Picture:
Gravity -- 42 readers of this site*
The Wolf of Wall Street -- 30 readers of this site*
American Hustle -- 11 readers of this site*
Nebraska -- 10 readers of this site*
Dallas Buyers Club -- 8 readers of this site*
12 Years a Slave -- 8 readers of this site
Philomena -- 8 readers of this site*
Her -- 3 readers of this site*
Captain Phillips -- 0 readers of this site*
--------------
* "I read this site all the time and even e-mail you and no one e-mailed asking my opinion!" Unlike Trina, we didn't think to e-mail regular readers and ask them who they wanted. (Trina's post where she picks Cate Blanchett also includes her readers responding to her e-mail about what food they plan to serve at their Oscar parties.) We wish we would have. This was 142 readers who e-mailed on their own, just to offer their views. For those doing the math, there are 143 votes -- but from 142 readers. While 141 e-mails noted one choice they were rooting for, Denise let us know she would pick American Hustle for Best Film and Jennifer Lawrence for Best Supporting Actress.
A Stiff and Iffy Start for Seth (Ava and C.I.)
Last Tuesday, Ava and C.I. joined together to critique Late Night with Seth Meyers. That would have been fine if it had appeared here. (As they noted, I -- Jim -- had a problem with it.) But we are reposting it now.
As Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Old Man Seth" notes, it was not pretty last night on Late Night. Jimmy Fallon left to host The Tonight Show leaving Seth to become the fourth host of Late Night (David Letterman was the first, Conan O'Brien the second and then Jimmy).
Meyers has no real experience hosting a talk show but he did do some guest co-hosting on Live! With Kelly (now LIVE with Kelly and Michael, Kelly Rippa and Brad Paisley are two of Seth's guests on Wednesday night's show). Tonight was not only his chance to connect with guests but also to connect with audiences.
As Dennis Miller had to learn the hard way, and Seth still hasn't, Weekend Update doesn't transfer -- not even when, as Seth did, you perform it standing up.
Attempting to do it outside of Saturday Night Live may get a few laughs but it mainly leaves you looking as if your calling out Bingo numbers.
It's a wonderful skit.
On Saturday Night Live.
It's a faux TV newscast.
Some will argue, "Jon Stewart does it!"
No, he doesn't. First, he brings more energy to his opening and, most important, he involves the audience. He gets worked up, he shouts and screams, he plays with and off the audience.
What Jon does on The Daily Show is very, very different from Weekend Update -- a format that merely tosses a number of jokes into the air and hopes some result in chuckles.
It's especially surprising that Seth didn't grasp the problems since not only did Denis Miller struggle and fail trying to redo the skit on his own talk shows but Jimmy Fallon was smart enough not to make it his anchor when he went to Late Night. And Jimmy was actually talented on Weekend Update and got the job because he was talented.
Seth whined and whined until Lorne Michaels finally slid the writer into the post. He co-hosted the weekly skit with Amy Poehler who earned her slot and had done the skit with Horatio Sanz for a year and with Tina Fey for two years previously. When Amy left for Parks & Recreation, who would be the new co-host?
No one.
The dull writer didn't want to share. So he tried to deliver his jokes that frequently fell flat and, when they did, he wasn't smart enough to ad lib to make fun of the flop. So for years and years, it was stiff Seth obviously reading a teleprompter and stopping for laughs that didn't always come.
His departure meant that, in the fall of 2013, Cecily Strong was made co-anchor of the skit. Her presence immediately added a jolt of energy. Maybe NBC can make her his co-host of Late Night?
Not very likely.
As Ruth pointed out last night, "women are never considered." Ruth points out that, since 1990, CBS and NBC alone have had to fill 7 late night slots ("more if we note Carson Dailey's program") and not one has gone to a woman.
Or, as Isaiah points out in his cartoon, a woman or man of color.
Of Seth's stiff and iffy debut last night, Sarene Leeds (Rolling Stone) observes:
The monologue was little more than an "Update" rehash, populated by way-too-long pauses between jokes. It seemed no one had given Meyers the memo that he didn't need that extra beat for audiences to acknowledge the corresponding image in the corner of their screens – because they didn't exist! The comedic bits that preceded his guest interviews fell a little flat (I still don't get how a Venn diagram works), and the entire set looked like it was furnished by Ikea – was it me, or did Meyers' tiny desk make him look like he was doing a webcast out of his dorm room?
His monologue wasn't his only problem.
Kevin Fallon (Daily Beast) points out another huge failure with the show:
His attempts at bits (every late night show must have bits, after all) stemmed from clever ideas, particularly one where sports like basketball and wrestling were narrated using figure skating's soft-spoken, muted color commentators. But all of the bits suffered from one fatal flaw, and it's a bad one. They all garnered, several jokes in, a "Oh, this segment is still going…" reaction—proof that they lacked the pizzazz and fun of those brilliant Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel bits that so frequently go viral.
Kevin Fallon also notes that Amy Poehler more or less hijacked the second half of the show (someone had to) and out did host Seth. Trina wondered, "How could Jimmy Fallon slide into The Tonight Show last week and have it fit him like a good pair of jeans while Seth Meyers stepping into The Late Show was like a large woman trying to squeeze into a size two dress?" Elaine compares his debut as a host to John Davidson's attempts at being a talk show host and judges Seth "beyond bland." Rebecca offered:
did you catch the awful 'late night with seth meyers'?
who's producing the show?
aarp?
gone is jimmy fallon's spark, spunk and spirit.
seth was cutting edge ... if the year was 1971.
his show was tired, his style non-existent.
the worst moment - a hard choice - may have been watching him attempt to dance as the credits rolled.
dance? he's no ellen degeneres.
Others agree with Rebecca. Verne Gay's Newsday critique includes:
Seth Meyers' opener was disappointing. Not massively disappointing (that would be ridiculous overstatement), but mildly so, and not for anything he did, but for what he seemed largely content to do: follow a charted path that was established deep in the last century without bringing anything particularly new or even mildly revolutionary to the format.
Betty argues Seth Meyers has no where to go but up after Monday's lousy show:
But he's so wrong for it.
So wrong.
In looks and style, he comes off like a recurring character on "Green Acres," not like someone you'd like to spend an hour with.
Watching him fail over and over, and look so awkward, I kept wondering why they didn't give Joel McHale the job.
Joel's the actor on "Community."
He would bring the right attitude and sensibility for the show.
Seth has no attitude beyond prissy.
Okay, yeah, he's what's his name.
Don Knotts!
It's like watching Don Knotts try to host "The Tonight Show."
Yes, he was awkward.
But at least Don Knotts had star quality. Seth lacked even that.
For Kat, Monday's debut had a key revelation: Jesus must be a Craig Ferguson fan to put someone as inept as Seth on opposite him. She noted Seth's failure as a host speaking to guests:
First off, how do you blow an interview with Joe Biden?
You can do a straight interview because Joe's a smart man.
You can do a funny interview because Joe has a good sense of humor and isn't one of those annoying people who take themselves too seriously.
But Seth managed to make it all so meaningless.
It wasn't informative.
It wasn't entertaining.
And it only got worse.
You then had the brief bit where the musical guest came on.
We love Diana Ross. She's an amazing performer.
She's sang on 19 number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 -- 12 with the Supremes, 5 solo, 1 duet and "We Are The World."
If you leave number ones -- or the Billboard Hot 100 to go to dance, R & B, etc -- Diana's got even more hits. She's immensely talented and beloved.
But on her Why Do Fools Fall In Love? album?
We can appreciate what's she's attempting to do with "Endless Love."
We can appreciate it.
But we prefer the duet she did with Lionel Richie, the number one hit.
If Diana was going to be the guest on Seth's first show, the living legend could sing anything she wanted, we grasp that. But if she'd attempted, from all of her hits, to sing a solo version of "Endless Love"?
We would have found the music spot a waste.
Diana wasn't a guest last night.
No person of color was.
No critic seems to notice that. The Whitest host NBC's had since Tom Synder left the air and he surrounded himself with all White guests.
But we bring Diana for a reason.
His guest was A Great Big World.
The American group is nothing to get excited about, as sales demonstrate. In fact, some viewers could be forgiven for assuming it was Ben Folds fronting a new group.
The group performed one of their two singles -- yes, there have only been two. No, they don't have huge album sales. Their only album, so far, has not even gone gold.
They released two singles last year. The first, "This Is The New Year," didn't chart in the US. The second is "Say Something" and it made it to number four on the Hot 100 last year.
Number four.
On his opening night, Seth's musical guest is a one-hit wonder?
It gets worse.
The only reason A Great Big World made it on the charts with that song? They re-recorded it with Christina Aguilera. That's what made the song a hit. They performed it with Christina at last month's American Music Awards.
Last night?
No Christina.
Seth's debut show was so damn weak that it featured a musical guest with non-existent album sales and only one chart hit -- which was last year -- a duet which was sung without the singer.
That, even more than Seth's robotic like dancing as the credits rolled, more than captured how D-list Seth's show is and how poorly he stumbled in his debut.
A Stiff and Iffy Start for Seth (Ava and C.I.)
As Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Old Man Seth" notes, it was not pretty last night on Late Night. Jimmy Fallon left to host The Tonight Show leaving Seth to become the fourth host of Late Night (David Letterman was the first, Conan O'Brien the second and then Jimmy).
Meyers has no real experience hosting a talk show but he did do some guest co-hosting on Live! With Kelly (now LIVE with Kelly and Michael, Kelly Rippa and Brad Paisley are two of Seth's guests on Wednesday night's show). Tonight was not only his chance to connect with guests but also to connect with audiences.
As Dennis Miller had to learn the hard way, and Seth still hasn't, Weekend Update doesn't transfer -- not even when, as Seth did, you perform it standing up.
Attempting to do it outside of Saturday Night Live may get a few laughs but it mainly leaves you looking as if your calling out Bingo numbers.
It's a wonderful skit.
On Saturday Night Live.
It's a faux TV newscast.
Some will argue, "Jon Stewart does it!"
No, he doesn't. First, he brings more energy to his opening and, most important, he involves the audience. He gets worked up, he shouts and screams, he plays with and off the audience.
What Jon does on The Daily Show is very, very different from Weekend Update -- a format that merely tosses a number of jokes into the air and hopes some result in chuckles.
It's especially surprising that Seth didn't grasp the problems since not only did Denis Miller struggle and fail trying to redo the skit on his own talk shows but Jimmy Fallon was smart enough not to make it his anchor when he went to Late Night. And Jimmy was actually talented on Weekend Update and got the job because he was talented.
Seth whined and whined until Lorne Michaels finally slid the writer into the post. He co-hosted the weekly skit with Amy Poehler who earned her slot and had done the skit with Horatio Sanz for a year and with Tina Fey for two years previously. When Amy left for Parks & Recreation, who would be the new co-host?
No one.
The dull writer didn't want to share. So he tried to deliver his jokes that frequently fell flat and, when they did, he wasn't smart enough to ad lib to make fun of the flop. So for years and years, it was stiff Seth obviously reading a teleprompter and stopping for laughs that didn't always come.
His departure meant that, in the fall of 2013, Cecily Strong was made co-anchor of the skit. Her presence immediately added a jolt of energy. Maybe NBC can make her his co-host of Late Night?
Not very likely.
As Ruth pointed out last night, "women are never considered." Ruth points out that, since 1990, CBS and NBC alone have had to fill 7 late night slots ("more if we note Carson Dailey's program") and not one has gone to a woman.
Or, as Isaiah points out in his cartoon, a woman or man of color.
Of Seth's stiff and iffy debut last night, Sarene Leeds (Rolling Stone) observes:
The monologue was little more than an "Update" rehash, populated by way-too-long pauses between jokes. It seemed no one had given Meyers the memo that he didn't need that extra beat for audiences to acknowledge the corresponding image in the corner of their screens – because they didn't exist! The comedic bits that preceded his guest interviews fell a little flat (I still don't get how a Venn diagram works), and the entire set looked like it was furnished by Ikea – was it me, or did Meyers' tiny desk make him look like he was doing a webcast out of his dorm room?
His monologue wasn't his only problem.
Kevin Fallon (Daily Beast) points out another huge failure with the show:
His attempts at bits (every late night show must have bits, after all) stemmed from clever ideas, particularly one where sports like basketball and wrestling were narrated using figure skating's soft-spoken, muted color commentators. But all of the bits suffered from one fatal flaw, and it's a bad one. They all garnered, several jokes in, a "Oh, this segment is still going…" reaction—proof that they lacked the pizzazz and fun of those brilliant Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel bits that so frequently go viral.
Kevin Fallon also notes that Amy Poehler more or less hijacked the second half of the show (someone had to) and out did host Seth. Trina wondered, "How could Jimmy Fallon slide into The Tonight Show last week and have it fit him like a good pair of jeans while Seth Meyers stepping into The Late Show was like a large woman trying to squeeze into a size two dress?" Elaine compares his debut as a host to John Davidson's attempts at being a talk show host and judges Seth "beyond bland." Rebecca offered:
did you catch the awful 'late night with seth meyers'?
who's producing the show?
aarp?
gone is jimmy fallon's spark, spunk and spirit.
seth was cutting edge ... if the year was 1971.
his show was tired, his style non-existent.
the worst moment - a hard choice - may have been watching him attempt to dance as the credits rolled.
dance? he's no ellen degeneres.
Others agree with Rebecca. Verne Gay's Newsday critique includes:
Seth Meyers' opener was disappointing. Not massively disappointing (that would be ridiculous overstatement), but mildly so, and not for anything he did, but for what he seemed largely content to do: follow a charted path that was established deep in the last century without bringing anything particularly new or even mildly revolutionary to the format.
Betty argues Seth Meyers has no where to go but up after Monday's lousy show:
But he's so wrong for it.
So wrong.
In looks and style, he comes off like a recurring character on "Green Acres," not like someone you'd like to spend an hour with.
Watching him fail over and over, and look so awkward, I kept wondering why they didn't give Joel McHale the job.
Joel's the actor on "Community."
He would bring the right attitude and sensibility for the show.
Seth has no attitude beyond prissy.
Okay, yeah, he's what's his name.
Don Knotts!
It's like watching Don Knotts try to host "The Tonight Show."
Yes, he was awkward.
But at least Don Knotts had star quality. Seth lacked even that.
For Kat, Monday's debut had a key revelation: Jesus must be a Craig Ferguson fan to put someone as inept as Seth on opposite him. She noted Seth's failure as a host speaking to guests:
First off, how do you blow an interview with Joe Biden?
You can do a straight interview because Joe's a smart man.
You can do a funny interview because Joe has a good sense of humor and isn't one of those annoying people who take themselves too seriously.
But Seth managed to make it all so meaningless.
It wasn't informative.
It wasn't entertaining.
And it only got worse.
You then had the brief bit where the musical guest came on.
We love Diana Ross. She's an amazing performer.
She's sang on 19 number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 -- 12 with the Supremes, 5 solo, 1 duet and "We Are The World."
If you leave number ones -- or the Billboard Hot 100 to go to dance, R & B, etc -- Diana's got even more hits. She's immensely talented and beloved.
But on her Why Do Fools Fall In Love? album?
We can appreciate what's she's attempting to do with "Endless Love."
We can appreciate it.
But we prefer the duet she did with Lionel Richie, the number one hit.
If Diana was going to be the guest on Seth's first show, the living legend could sing anything she wanted, we grasp that. But if she'd attempted, from all of her hits, to sing a solo version of "Endless Love"?
We would have found the music spot a waste.
Diana wasn't a guest last night.
No person of color was.
No critic seems to notice that. The Whitest host NBC's had since Tom Synder left the air and he surrounded himself with all White guests.
But we bring Diana for a reason.
His guest was A Great Big World.
The American group is nothing to get excited about, as sales demonstrate. In fact, some viewers could be forgiven for assuming it was Ben Folds fronting a new group.
The group performed one of their two singles -- yes, there have only been two. No, they don't have huge album sales. Their only album, so far, has not even gone gold.
They released two singles last year. The first, "This Is The New Year," didn't chart in the US. The second is "Say Something" and it made it to number four on the Hot 100 last year.
Number four.
On his opening night, Seth's musical guest is a one-hit wonder?
It gets worse.
The only reason A Great Big World made it on the charts with that song? They re-recorded it with Christina Aguilera. That's what made the song a hit. They performed it with Christina at last month's American Music Awards.
Last night?
No Christina.
Seth's debut show was so damn weak that it featured a musical guest with non-existent album sales and only one chart hit -- which was last year -- a duet which was sung without the singer.
That, even more than Seth's robotic like dancing as the credits rolled, more than captured how D-list Seth's show is and how poorly he stumbled in his debut.