Monday, October 02, 2017

Truest statement of the week

This is the political company that Morgan Freeman keeps: Zionists, militarists, spies, and rightwing hate-mongers – the real dangers to world peace. When Freeman says that the U.S. is already “at war,” he is effectively demanding an attack on Russia. Under Nuremberg rules, Morgan and others like him are guilty of crimes against peace – which are capital crimes. Freeman is trying to whip up a war frenzy that can only end in nuclear annihilation. That makes Freeman a danger to the human race. A war whore -- not God-like at all.


-- Glen Ford, "Morgan Freeman: War Whore" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).



A note to our readers

Hey --

Monday.  Closer to Sunday but still not there.
 


Let's 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?


See you next week.


Peace,





-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.


Editorial: The falling empire

Pentagon: US servicemember in coalition fighting ISIS was killed Sunday in Iraq when a IED struck a coalition vehicle.



Another US death in the never-ending Iraq War.

When does it end?

When the US government finally installs the 'right' government?

They keep installing prime ministers but they don't 'take.'

And they won't 'take' because the Iraqi people will not accept these lackeys to the US -- all, so far, cowards who fled Iraq decades ago -- as their own leaders.

But still the nonsense continues.

The government won't tell you how this all ends but Chris Hedges (ICH) does:


Empires in decay embrace an almost willful suicide. Blinded by their hubris and unable to face the reality of their diminishing power, they retreat into a fantasy world where hard and unpleasant facts no longer intrude. They replace diplomacy, multilateralism and politics with unilateral threats and the blunt instrument of war.
This collective self-delusion saw the United States make the greatest strategic blunder in its history, one that sounded the death knell of the empire—the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. The architects of the war in the George W. Bush White House, and the array of useful idiots in the press and academia who were cheerleaders for it, knew very little about the countries being invaded, were stunningly naive about the effects of industrial warfare and were blindsided by the ferocious blowback. They stated, and probably believed, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, although they had no valid evidence to support this claim. They insisted that democracy would be implanted in Baghdad and spread across the Middle East. They assured the public that U.S. troops would be greeted by grateful Iraqis and Afghans as liberators. They promised that oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. They insisted that the bold and quick military strike—“shock and awe”—would restore American hegemony in the region and dominance in the world. It did the opposite. As Zbigniew Brzezinski noted, this “unilateral war of choice against Iraq precipitated a widespread delegitimation of U.S. foreign policy.”

Historians of empire call these military fiascos, a feature of all late empires, examples of “micro-militarism.” The Athenians engaged in micro-militarism when during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) they invaded Sicily, suffering the loss of 200 ships and thousands of soldiers and triggering revolts throughout the empire. Britain did so in 1956 when it attacked Egypt in a dispute over the nationalization of the Suez Canal and then quickly had to withdraw in humiliation, empowering a string of Arab nationalist leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and dooming British rule over the nation’s few remaining colonies. Neither of these empires recovered.




War Whore Ken Burns is currently lying at length in his PBS mockumentary supposedly about Vietnam.  And lies is all they have to offer as they try to pretend like no one would have ever thought these wars would maim and kill, let alone drag on.

The corrupt wars are the result of the corrupt government.













TV: Sometimes you can go home again

When reboots were announced earlier this year, The Water Cooler Set wondered how ROSEANNE could come back from the last ten minutes of the last episode?

In those minutes, the character of Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) reveals in a voice over that Dan died and the whole show was her novel.  She says she switched the reality of Becky and David and Darlene and Mark to Becky and Mark and Darlene and David, etc.

This was, The Water Cooler Set insisted, going to be so hard to get over.

And they said nothing about WILL & GRACE.

Remember WILL & GRACE?

It had one of the worst endings of any sitcom.

As we noted in real time:

Thursday night, NBC's Will & Grace ended its eighth season and its series run.

For us, the funniest plot revolved around Rosario (Shelley Morrison) and Val (regular guest-star Molly Shannon). Having fought Grace, stalked Jack and been knocked out by Karen, it was past time Val set her eyes on Rosario.

"Hey, Nutso!" Rosario cried catching Val watching her wax the floors of Karen's mansion, "if you get off on household fluids, go stalk Mr. Clean!"

Of course Val did no such thing, but she did provide Rosario with a scheme to oust Karen (Megan Mullally) from the manse and make it her own. It was hilarious, and a long time coming, to see Rosario get the upper hand.

Meanwhile, Grace's water broke just as Leo (Harry Connick, Jr.) showed up and learned he was the father of the baby. Accompanying Grace (Deborah Messing) and Will (Eric McCormack) to the hospital and listening to them bicker throughout the labor, he finally had to face the reality that, while there was a place for him in Grace's life, the friendship bond between Will and Grace will never fade or die.

Jack rediscovered the joys of performing when a recently out of the closet Harlin (Gary Grubbs) returned to announce he's purchased a legitimate theater on Broadway which will be where Just Jack: 2010 will debut. "Oh my God," Jack will realize, "that only leaves me four years to pull my act together!"

Best line in the subplot was probably when Harlin explained to Jack why it took so long for him to realize his own sexuality, "I'm from Texas, Jack. We watch a lot of football. Took me forever to realize it wasn't the cries of 'Hut one! Hut two!' that were getting me excited. It was the the buns in the air on the guy crouched over --"

"That's great," Jack replied. "Now about my revue. I see sequins. I think it's important to sparkle when I move."

Which leads him to recruit Bobbie Adler (Debbie Reynolds) to help him with arrangements and choreography -- a post she readily accepts because she's determined to sabotage the production in order to take the lead in her own show Menopause or The Men All Paused: Bobbie Adler's Salute to Rocking Pop Classics of the '80s and Life Changes.

Best of all may be the moment when Rob (Tom Gallop) and Ellen (Leigh Allyn Baker) put Leo straight: Will and Grace and Leo, without the buffer zone of Will & Grace, is just Rob and Ellen.

"Long term marriage without the sex," Ellen explained.

"Long term marriage without the sex, Leo," Rob confirmed nodding agreeably.

"That's what I just said, Rob!" Ellen snarls at her husband.

It was hilarious. It wrapped up threads and points you might have feared were forgotten.

It was a classic series finale . . . if, like us, you provided your own finale.

If, however, you merely watched the two hours on NBC (one hour of tribute, one hour of show), you should probably immediately head for the nearest police station -- you were robbed.

You were robbed of laughter, you were robbed of joy.

Someone thought that instead of wrapping up details, we need an "experience." Despite having an hour, the laughs were in short supply -- but then when you time travel forward over eighteen years offering "experience" there's so little
time for anything else.


It was awful.

The ending they aired rejected everything including friendship as it argued that, for Will and Grace to have lives, their friendship had to die.

It was disgusting.

It destroyed everything the show stood for.

So any episode last Thursday that didn't pick up and run with that awful storyline was going to be worth watching.

The first scene dismissed it all as, apparently, as Karen's drug induced fugue.

It was done quickly and humorously.

If that's all the show had managed in its return, that would have been enough.

Instead, it established that you can go home again.

WILL & GRACE was NBC's last great sitcom.  (Leaving aside the series finale, we would argue it was TV's funniest sitcom -- on NBC or anywhere else.)

In the reboot debut, Karen got a job for designer Grace -- redoing the Oval Office.  This as Will was giving lip service to despising a Republican but was secretly involved with him.


It was funny and true to character for both.

Will has so frequently dated guys he shouldn't have (most infamously Patrick Dempsey's TV sports journalist who is gay but deeply in the closet).

Grace has ethics that she will toss to the side and has done so many times it's not even worth citing.

Let's do a negative here, fix the lighting.

Debra Messing's Grace has Cissy Houston's brow fold as a result of bad lighting.

Yeah, Eric McCormack is wearing way too much make up but we're sure this will work its way into an episode when someone wonders whether he's raided George Hamilton's medicine chest and run off with all of Hamilton's bronzer.


But the lighting is the only complaint we have about the show.

About the schedule?

Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, who created WILL & GRACE, attempted to sell NBC on another sitcom to go with WILL & GRACE.

The network passed.

We think that was a mistake.

We've never seen anything on that show that was being prepared.

But we know it was to be shot before a live audience.

NBC has surrounded WILL & GRACE with three single-camera mild-coms.

These are the mild-coms that destroyed NBC's Thursday nights.

GREAT NEWS is in a state of flux and might emerge as a hit after all the current retooling but THE GOOD PLACE and SUPERSTORE have established that there is only a very limited audience for either.

WILL & GRACE brought in over ten million viewers.

GREAT NEWS had five million and THE GOOD PLACE and SUPERSTORE both had less than five million.

This is not how you build a night.

This is beyond bulls**t.

NBC has  learned nothing.

30 ROCK never delivered an audience and failed in syndication and it was the funniest show they had in the TRASH THURSDAY NIGHT scheduling that followed MUST SEE THURSDAY.

MY NAME IS EARL, THE OFFICE and everything else they've tried failed in the ratings and failed in syndication.

Even NETFLIX is finding that its original single-camera sitcoms are streamed less than their own multi-camera sitcoms (DISJOINTED, THE RANCH and FULLER HOUSE).

Is NBC incapable of successful programming because they just won't learn?

This is exactly the problem they had when WILL & GRACE went off eleven years ago.

Last Thursday, WILL & GRACE delivered the numbers NBC needs.

It did so as an island -- awash in mediocrity and unfunny programs.

If NBC were smart, it would axe the weekly episodes and instead do two episodes a week to offer a solid hour of comedy viewers could go for.

Back to the show itself.

Debra Messing has made comments about how Grace is going to be different.

We were concerned.

Grace cares -- as she did before: superficially.

She is honest with emotions and a klutz with reality.

Debra's never been funnier.

We disagree with the actress on so many things but we're glad to see that she's flat out funny.

Eric hasn't been as appealing since he was Julia Louis-Dreyfus' boyfriend on her funniest sitcom (THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE).

Sean Hayes?

Oh, who worries about Sean?  He was funny in SEAN SAVES THE WORLD, he's funny here and stepped back into the role of Jack quicker than any of his co-stars.

Megan Mullally?

She was funny as Tammy on PARKS & RECREATION.  She and her husband Nick Offerman were funny in their recent comedy special for EPIX.

But Megan's never as outrageous and funny as she is when playing Karen.  There's a reason she was a seven time Emmy nominee for playing Karen (and she won two Emmys for the role).

Debra, Eric, Sean and Megan are the finest comedy ensemble today and they were the finest of the 90s and the 00s as well.  And with strong scripts by Kohan and Mutchnick, this is a welcome return.




















Top 50 Country Singles (60s through 90s)


1) "I Will Always Love You" -- Dolly Parton

2) "Crazy" -- Patsy Cline

3) "She Stopped Loving Him Today" -- George Jones

4) "Mammas Don't Let You Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" -- Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson

5) "Love is Like a Butterfly" -- Dolly Parton

6) "Ring of Fire" -- Johnny Cash

7) "All My Ex's Live in Texas" -- George Strait

8) "Forever and Ever, Amen" -- Randy Travis

9) "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" -- Waylon Jennings

10) "Mama, He's Crazy" -- The Judds

11) "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" -- Willie Nelson

12) "Coat of Many Colors" -- Dolly Parton

13) "Hello Darlin'" -- Conway Twitty

14) "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right" -- Barbara Mandrell

15) "Trouble In The Fields" -- Nanci Griffith

16) "Ode to Billie Joe" -- Bobbie Gentry

17) "Delta Dawn" -- Tanya Tucker

18) "The Most Beautiful Girl" -- Charlie Rich

19) "I Walk The Line" -- Johnny Cash

20) "Two More Bottles of Wine" -- Emmylou Harris

21) "I Saw The Light" -- Wynonna Judd

22) "Don't Come Home a Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" -- Loretta Lynn

23) "Touch Your Woman" -- Dolly Parton

24) "Three Wooden Crosses" -- Randy Travis

25) "Touch The Hand" -- Conway Twitty

26) "Witchita Lineman" -- Glen Campbell

27) "Women I've Never Had" -- Hank Williams Jr.

28) "Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'" -- Charley Pride

29) "Blue" -- LeAnn Rimes

30) "The Bargain Store" -- Dolly Parton

31) "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" -- Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty

32) "I Love A Raining Night" -- Eddie Rabbitt

33) "A Lesson In Leaving" -- Dottie West

34) "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" -- Willie Nelson

35) "Southern Nights" -- Glen Campbell

36) "Life Turned Her That Way" -- Ricky Van Shelton

37) "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" -- Tammy Wynette

38) "9 to 5" -- Dolly Parton

39) "Goodbye's All We've Got Left" -- Steve Earle

40) "Always On My Mind" -- Willie Nelson

41) "Every Time Two Fools Collide" -- Kenny Rogers and Dottie West

42) "Fist City" -- Loretta Lynn

43) "It's All Wrong, But It's All Right" -- Dolly Parton

44) "Harper Valley PTA" -- Jeannie C. Riley

45) "Tennessee Flat Top Box" -- Roseanne Cash

46) "(We're Not) The Jet Set" -- George Jones and Tammy Wynette

47) "She's No Lady" -- Lyle Lovett

48) "Go Rest High On That Mountain" -- Vince Gill

49) "Daddy Sang Bass" -- Johnny Cash

50) "Love Is Alive" -- The Judds



A footnote doesn't mean something is correct

It's a lesson the readers of CRAPAPEDIA needs to grasp.

Take "Morgan Freeman: War Whore" who never spoke out against the Iraq War.

But you'd never know that to read CRAPAPEDIA which includes Morgan on their "List of veterans critical of the Iraq War:"





It's got to be true!!!! It has a footnote!!!!

Yes, it does.

To a 2012 USA TODAY article noting what Morgan Freeman said in the commercial he recorded for Barack Obama's re-election campaign.



No, Morgan was never one to stand against war.







No, CRAPAPEDIA, Just No

In the Eddie Rabbitt entry at CRAPAPEDIA, this was found:

The illness and subsequent death of his son put his career on hold following the 1985 RCA Records release Rabbitt Trax, which included the No. 1 "Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)", a duet with country pop star Juice Newton. Like "You and I," the song was used as the theme for a soap opera, this time for Days of Our Lives.[16]


Problem?

The link at CRAPAPEDIA goes to the British paper INDEPENDENT which states the song was used on DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

No, it was not.

DAYS OF OUR LIVES used Gloria Loring's version.  Gloria Loring played Liz, a singer, she performed in the night club with Carl Anderson.  It was used as the theme song for the show's supercouple Kimberly and Shane.

Remember, kids, it's not WIKIPEDIA, it's CRAPAPEDIA.

Puerto Rico



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