Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Truest statement of the week

These people’s frustrations, if not addressed, could turn into a more potent enemy of the regime in Baghdad than even ISIS. Just like when it comes to Sunni Arab areas newly liberated from ISIS and in Kurdish areas recently coerced away from any moves towards independence, the government in Baghdad has a limited window of opportunity to address problems. If Baghdad fails to give Sunnis and Kurds their promised shares of governing power and wealth, if it goes on pumping oil from places like Basra and Kirkuk while the people there continue to live in poverty, the next big Iraqi crisis will not be long in coming. The past week’s protests in the south are simply a warning that people’s patience – whether they be Shia, Sunni, Kurdish or other – has limits.

-- David Romano, "Protesters in southern Iraq are right to be angry" (RUDAW).














Truest statement of the week II

Monday’s meeting in Helsinki has unleashed a torrent of wild denunciations that verge on a direct appeal to the military and intelligence agencies to take action to force Donald Trump’s removal from the White House.
The Democratic Party, the corporate media and leading figures within the US military and intelligence apparatus have joined in branding Trump a traitor who is functioning as an agent of the Kremlin.
Trump and his cohorts have many crimes to answer for. But the objectives that motivate the anti-Trump hysteria in the media and the conspiratorial methods to which the Democrats are resorting are utterly reactionary.
The summit in Helsinki was preceded by the strategically timed announcement of an indictment of 12 alleged Russian military intelligence officers by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of hacking into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta.
This indictment, which consists of a series of unsubstantiated allegations, was seized upon by top Democrats and sections of the media to demand that Trump call off his meeting with Putin.
When the Republican president ignored these demands and went ahead with the trip to Helsinki, the Democrats and their allied media outlets were prepared to erupt as soon as the talks had ended. This was made clear by a particularly reactionary piece by New York Times columnist Charles Blow headlined “Trump, Treasonous Traitor” published on the morning of the meeting, which accused Trump of “committing an unbelievable and unforgivable crime against this country …”
The hysterical tone had already been decided upon in advance of the Trump-Putin meeting, and the reaction once it was over was instantaneous.
No sooner had the US and Russian presidents finished their joint press conference than CNN’s anchor in Helsinki, Anderson Cooper, an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune who interned with the CIA before going into television news, announced to his viewers that they had been “watching the most disgraceful conduct by an American president…that I have ever seen.”
”The most disgraceful conduct by an American president”? That’s really saying something!
More disgraceful than George W. Bush’s launching of a war of aggression against Iraq based on lies, which claimed more than a million lives? More disgraceful than Barack Obama’s drone assassination campaign that murdered thousands? More disgraceful than Trump’s own savage war on immigrants, in which the deliberate torture of children has become a weapon?
What was Trump’s crime in Helsinki that eclipsed all of these war crimes and crimes against humanity? It was to question the campaign over Russian “meddling” in the 2016 election, in which the media treats the assertions of US intelligence agencies—the same agencies that gave us “weapons of mass destruction”—as proven facts, despite the lack of any substantiation.


-- Bill Van Auken, "After Helsinki, Democrats incite 'deep state' action against Trump" (WSWS).




A note to our readers

Hey --

Tuesday evening.  And we're done.


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?


David Romano gets a truest.
Bill Van Auken gets another truest.
Watch as the US looks away from its continued destruction of Iraq.
Ava and C.I. take on the talk show.
We'd like this to be a regular feature. 
How does she still have a job?
We actually had a third feature that would have noted CRAPAPEDIA . . . We just went with two.
They want to celebrate fan clippings, not journalism.  They're not experts on journalism, they're not experts on much except how to shoot people and drop bombs.
Iraq.

Our second CRAPAPEDIA.
Continuing our regular feature.
Great news from Kevin de Leon's campaign.
WSWS.
Where's the playlist?  We were all together for a second weekend.  There's way too much music to list so we went with just one song, one that we listened to over and over throughout the week.



See you next week.


Peace,





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





















Editorial: The US government continues to destroy Iraq


The situation in Iraq now is like that: The civilian are protesting against the government because of the miserable situation in Iraq, the government's answer is: - cutting of the internet service. - shutting down the electricity power in a lot of cities.





Iraq.  The 'liberated' country.

The country that US Senator Macho Duckworth wants credit for her contributions to.

She didn't contribute s**t.

She took part in an illegal war.

Since Rahm Emanuel helped her into Congress (first the House, now the Senate), she's done nothing to end the war.

That's because she's a War Hawk.  Senator Macho is the 21st century's answer to John McCain.

As he prepares for the grave, Satan hands out another pitchfork.

The US destroyed Iraq.

That's not in debate.

It was an illegal war.

That's also a fact.

The war continues and the US government backs Hayder al-Abadi who, when Iraqis began protesting ten days ago, made the decision to sick the military on them.

That's not democracy.

Senator Macho may not grasp that, but others should.

The US government doesn't care about democracy in Iraq.  That's why they backed Saddam Hussein for so many years.  It's why they back thug Nouri al-Maliki and why they now back Hayder al-Abadi.

The US-installed Iraqi government is attacking the Iraqi people.

This should alarm everyone.

Watch Senator Macho and her ilk try to distract from reality with more hysteria about Russia.


Media: Is the talk show terminal or it just committing suicide?

It's been a pretty strong summer entertainment wise.   TNT is broadcasting two strong shows: THE ANIMAL KINGDOM lost Scott Speedman but became a much tighter series, CLAWS avoided the dreaded sophmore slump; ABC has the entertaining TAKE TWO; NBC's got the final season of SHADES OF BLUE and a suprisingly strong second season of MARLON; and NETFLIX offered six new episodes of THE JOEL MCHALE SHOW WITH JOEL MCHALE this week.

a new illst

Let's stay with Joel McHale for a moment.  NETFLIX has tried an original talk show and failed.  That was true of CHELSEA (Chelsea Handler's obsession with Donald Trump made it a one-note show).  It was supposed to be NETFLIX doing late night talk show but it didn't make it and got worse with each episode.  You'd hope NETFLIX had learned their lesson.

They hadn't.

Before we move into that, let's note that the talk show format is struggling.  Yes, that's true of the big three's late night programming where 'winners' are being called despite niche ratings.  But we're talking about actual biggies -- for example, the biggest talk show on daytime television.

Ellen Degeneres is preparing to do her first stand up act in forever.  Why?  She's hoping (a) it will revive her now struggling talk show and (b) she can still pull off stand-up since it appears THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW may be coming to a close sooner than anyone would have ever expected.  This is partly due to Ellen's raises throughout the series long life (its currently on season 15) which increase the cost of the program and partly due to her ratings issues (earlier this month, the show saw a season low which was actually a series low in the ratings).

Some of it has to do with overexpsoure, to be sure.  When Ellen debuted her daytime talk show she was coming off two successful comedy tours following two sitcom cancellations (ELLEN got the axe by ABC -- not for low ratings -- and CBS only aired one season of her follow up sitcom).  Was it because she was gay?  Because she came out?  Some combination of the two?

People believe in -- and root for -- fairness.  So Ellen's daytime show was a hit once Ellen proved she could deliver.  As a people, we wanted to support Ellen and root for her.  And she delivered a breezy, nonsense hour that daytime hadn't seen since the end of THE ROSIE O'DONNELL SHOW.

It was never going to be anything but amusing but that was enough.  For some viewers (the ones advertisers don't care for), she's still a staple.  For other viewers (those who are younger), she's someone their parents and grandparents watch and they themselves don't see the point.

This isn't a development unique to Ellen.  As Joni Mitchell's always argued, fame is a four year office.  As Carly Simon's pointed out repeatedly, if you wait it out, it will be, yes, "coming around again."

This has been a season of struggle for ELLEN because viewers have been hugely unimpressed.  Though part of that is due to familiarity, a large part of the problem is Andy Lassner who came on to a certain type of program and was forced to support that genre while Jim Partore was alive, but when Paratore passed away in 2012, Andy began tinkering with the show.  This has led to some of the most embarrassing moments in the last two years.  It's led to Ellen's negatives increasing.  Most of all, it's led to an unamusing show.

Ellen's going on the road, she'll probably turn it into an HBO special.

Speaking of HBO . . .

Roseanne Barr has been the easy topic of late for so many.  But if you want to talk crash and burn, isn't Jon Stewart part of that?

Nearly three years ago, NBC NEWS reported:



Jon Stewart's retirement as "Daily Show" host has allowed him to change channels — to HBO, that is.
The comedian and premium-cable network announced a four-year deal Tuesday that will include Stewart creating exclusive digital content for HBO NOW, HBO Go and other platforms.
The production pact also gives HBO the first-look option for any film and TV projects by Stewart, the network said in a news release.


That digital content?

Jon couldn't pull it off.  It was so bad, what he managed, that not only did HBO never air it or post it online, they cancelled that portion of the deal.

He will now do an HBO comedy special.  It's 1996 all over again!  Maybe Jon's comedy special will lead to praise and his own TV show!!!!

Talk about crash and burn.

And talked about how sheltered he's been.  He hand picked his successor for THE DAILY SHOW and not only did a woman not get the spot, a woman wasn't even considered.

And that's before you note that he was buddy-buddy with Harvey Weinstein.  Funny how one riff on Stephen Colbert's late night show and no one ever thought to ask Stewart about his long friendship with Harvey Weinstein or his financial relationship for that matter.

Jon Stewart, like so many others, mocked women openly on his show.

There is a man in the White House today, Donald Trump, who we are repeatedly told should not be there with many attaching the reason to his treatment (or perceived treatment) of women.

But who has standing to call him out?

Rob Reiner thinks he has the standing to call Trump out.  We'll close our lips on his personal life (for now) but we'll note he has nothing to point to professionally.  WHEN HARRY MET SALLY . . .?  That was Nora Ephron.  That was Nora writing the screenplay and Nora and Meg Ryan (during shooting) fighting for Sally.  Otherwise Sally would have disappeared the way most women do in Reiner's films.  This is the man, please remember, who rudely brushed off Diane Keaton on the set of AND SO IT GOES . . . when she was attempting to address character and plot points.  But Reiner never has time for women.  It's why he could make a film entitled THE PRINCESS BRIDE that barely focused on the title character.  Whether it's his just released bomb SHOCK AND AWE or any other film, he ignores women.

And yet he thinks we're supposed to listen to him?

Jon Stewart, as already noted, didn't believe a woman was capable of replacing him, but we're supposed to listen to him?

David Letterman's past is nothing but sexual harassment on the job and we're supposed to listen to him?

Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmerl, Seth Meyers, et al?  We're supposed to listen to them?  They're an island of straight White males, arms linked to ensure that no woman crosses over and we're supposed to listen to them?

Colbert thought it was cute to make Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem cook on his show and to sit in his lap.  Now they may have been stupid enough to go along with that, they might have thought it was silly but, no, most women did not find it amusing.

These men -- and so many more -- think they can stand in judgment on Donald Trump but their own behavior isn't praise worthy.

If Chelsea Handler could have found a way through the rage, she might have been able to lead on the topic.  As it was, her anger crippled her.  It's worth noting that John Mulaney has done the best Trump critique and the only one that will stand the test of time because it's actually funny.  (See his NETFLIX specail JOHN MULANEY: KID GORGEOUS AT RADIO CITY .)

Samantha Bee?  She's just trying to find sponsors since the c-word spectacle.  And that stunt also hurts her chances to lead on this issue.

Which brings us back to NETFLIX's refusal to learn.

A lot of money was spent on CHELSEA but Chelsea delivered.  Not huge streams, but she earned her money and then some and, most important for NETFLIX, left them with a large library (120 episodes in two years, she worked for her large salary).  Then there's Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman.  As part of their deal with Jerry, NETFLIX stole COMEDIANS IN CARS from CRACKLE.  On the free service CRACKLE, the show did well.  On NETFLIX, it's not pulling in streams and critics are carping that its quality has declined.  As for Letterman?

David got a fortune for his six episode season.  If you missed it, NETFLIX has still not said there will be a second season.  That's because no one streams David Letterman.  It might be due to the fact that his guests are tired.  Did, in 2018, anyone really need another interview with George Clooney or Tina Fey?  At least Tina was a woman -- one of only two on David's show.  He did, however, find time to interview Howard Stern.  In fact, his guests are so out dated and out of touch, you can almost picture him requesting Lou Albano for a possible season two guest and then Dave bursting out in tears when informed Captain Lou died in 2009.

David, like so many piggish men, thinks he can slam Trump for his treatment of women and we're all going to say, "Thank you, Dave!" But Dave's own piggish behavior is well known.

It's so funny how these men think they have voices to speak with.  They've -- as Jimmy Kimmel did -- shoved women at their crotches on camera for giggles and now they think we're going to applaud them?

Yes, some women will.  Dumb women who follow trends will applaud them.

But the majority of women?  No.

NETFLIX is failing with talk shows.  Joel McHale has been the exception.  We'd hoped that another show would succeed but THE BREAK WITH MICHELLE WOLF just isn't making it.

We waited and waited to find something good to say about this show.  Here it is, she took on virtue signaling in a recent episode.  She addressed a topic we have -- applause is not laughter.  She took on the 'comedians' of late night in a pointed segment where she noted that they just weren't funny but people were applauding to show their agreement with the sentiments.

Maybe that can lead to something?

Who knows but if she's going to be the voice for women, she's going to have bring women on as guests.  Her line up so far is worse than David Letterman's has been.

There she is, on her July 4th episode, celebrating women's rights . . . with guest Seth Meyers?  Or she's delivering a commentary on what she sees as the entitlement of White men before chatting with the guest for that epiosde . . . Nick Kroll.  Eight episodes and eight guests and only one has been a woman.

Does Michelle really think she has standing to criticize Donald Trump?

She's as bad as any of the men hosting talk shows.

Let's be really clear, if Michelle can't find a way to make half the guests women, why should women watch her?  What she's saying currently with her guest list is that women aren't interesting enough to be guests.  Well if they're not interesting enough to be guests, they aren't interesting enough to be hosts.

So which is it, Michelle?

Chelsea's rage was real.  You never got the feeling that she was performing -- the way you do with Jimmy Kimmel's whose bemused reactions frequently demonstrate that his feud with Donald Trump is little more than a publicity bonaza.  And it's a shame that her rage ended up crippling her because she could connect and she was a real and valid voice.  She deserves credit for that and she also deserves credit for making it clear that women were part of the US and part of the world.  Not 1/8th as Michelle Wolf appears to believe, but an equal part of the world and equal part of existence.

When we were having a discussion about these topics with two NETFLIX friends, they first of all wanted to insist that A LITTLE HELP WITH CAROL BURNETT was a talk show.  We noted that when we'd praised it here -- several times -- we'd lumped in as family programming.  They agreed that it was also that.  We don't see an also.  It's more of a game show -- without prizes -- than a talk show.  It's a good show.  It's also a funny show.

And NETFLIX really seems to struggle with funny when doing a talk show.  Joel McHale's been the exception.  NETFLIX suits want to toss Carol's show in as well (and it is funny) so let's go ahead.  But that still doesn't explain why Michelle Wolf has failed to live up to funny or, for that matter, failed to live up to the promise that she wasn't going to be another partisan voice and would only touch on politics when there was something funny to say.


In a strong summer, it's not enough just to be new.  For instance, no one's rushing to watch PENN & TELLER FOOL US or LIVING BIBLICALLY or, sadly, the final season of THE ORIGINALS which has not been about the characters you love but instead all about setting up teeny bop Hope for her spin-off.  It's shoved all the other characters except for Klaus to the side and THE CW might want to worry about that because by not sending the show off with a powerful last season, it's ensured that LEGACIES (the Hope spin-off) has generated tremendous ill will before a single episode has aired.  In a strong summer, with actual entertainment, viewers don't have to settle and, as the ratings have demonstrated, they haven't.














We wonder . . .

THE DAILY SHOW is a comedy show on COMEDY CENTRAL.  It's supposed to take pot shots at anything and anyone.  It's not supposed to be one sided.

We mention that because of Matt Negrin.

He attacks Donald Trump.  He attacks all Republicans.  He's one-sided.

And he's part of THE DAILY SHOW?

Once upon a time, you were supposed to be seen as objective.  Certainly, having an axe to grind was a bad thing.


But these days, every idiot is on Twitter broadcasting their bias -- whether they're a CNN 'analyst' or part of a comedy show.






  1. republicans effectively labeled john kerry a flip-flopper for changing his vote on iraq and in 3 minutes every republican will back trump saying "what i meant to say was the opposite"




No, you idiot, Matt.  John Kerry labeled himself a flip-flopper when he said of his stance on the Iraq War that he was for it before he was against it.

From CNN in September of 2004:

Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday gave an explanation for his comment that he "actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," calling it "one of those inarticulate moments."
Kerry made the comment during a March 16 appearance at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, in response to a question about his vote against an $87 billion supplemental appropriation for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As he tried to explain that he had voted for an earlier version of the bill before opposing final passage, Kerry said, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."



And CBS NEWS put it on his top ten flip-flops.

Matty, we get it.  You couldn't hack it writing for Diane Sawyer (how sad) or trying to work for print outlets.  So you bolted for a comedy show (despite lacking a sense of humor) and now you want the world to know where you stand political.

You're well grounded in ignorance.

John Kerry is responsible for his flip-flops.

We'd suggest you try to educate yourself but we're afraid that would lead to self-harm.






Our littlest Tommy Friedman

My uber driver today spent 28 years in the military. Served in Iraq. He told me he hasn’t stopped thinking about what the president did yesterday. “It actually hurt me. It was a betrayal.”




So who is Bari Weiss besides a woman with a man's name and a man's face?

Here's Glenn Greenwald (INTERCEPT) explaining:

AFTER THE NEW YORK TIMES last April hired Bari Weiss to write for and edit its op-ed page, I wrote a long article detailing her history of pro-Israel activism and, especially, her involvement in numerous campaigns to vilify and ruin the careers of several Arab and Muslim professors due to their criticisms of Israel. I chose to profile Weiss’s history because (a) the simultaneous hiring of Bret Stephens generated so much controversy that Weiss’s hiring was ignored, even though it was clear her hiring would be more influential since she would be not just writing but also commissioning articles for that highly influential op-ed page; (b) the NYT was justifying these hires on the grounds of “diversity,” even though hiring hardcore, pro-Israel activists for that page (which has no Muslim columnists) was the literal opposite of diversity; and, most of all, (c) Weiss was masquerading as an opponent of viewpoint intolerance on college campuses even though her entire career had been built on trying to suppress, stigmatize, and punish academic criticisms of Israel.
Since that article, Weiss has predictably written multiple banal columns for the Times denouncing what she perceives as growing left-wing intolerance for dissent in general, but particularly on college campuses. I’ve watched as Weiss has become celebrated in right-wing circles as some sort of paragon of free expression and academic freedom, and mourned by centrists as the tragic victim of online PC mob silencing campaigns (imagine being a columnist and editor at the New York Times — with full access to the most influential media platform in the world — and seeing yourself as the victim of silencing and censorship), even though her entire career is grounded in precisely the viewpoint suppression, vilification, and censorship campaigns she now depicts herself as loathing.
All of this finally came to a head last night after Weiss published yet another column complaining that she and her ideological comrades are unfairly criticized by left-wing authoritarians who try to silence them by associating them with “fascism.” Weiss’s column was so replete with humiliating factual errorsshoddy argumentation, and glaring holes in reasoning that she ended up trending on Twitter, and her editors had to delete an entire paragraph from her column and then add an editor’s note explaining that she had cited evidence that was an obvious hoax.


That's little lying Bari.  That's who THE NEW YORK TIMES hires.


Bari says she writes "as a Jew" and that's a good thing.  She's not old enough to have any real world experience to pull from.  She doesn't have the perspective of a parent because, well, she has no kids.  She can't write as a spouse because . . . no one would marry her.  So all she has is her religion (and her hatred of Arabs) and she's going to ride it to rails fall off.

She's not very smart -- she barely got through college as an undergraduate.

So she pulls a page from Tommy Friedman and decides to share insight via cab drivers.

Mythical cab and uber drivers who have no names and, fantasy much?, just happen to say things that agree with her already formed opinions.

Oh, Bari, you're such a disgrace.  What a perfect match, you and THE NEW YORK TIMES.






Remember, kids, it's CRAPAPEDIA

Ellen Degeneres starred in ELLEN, an ABC sitcom originally known as THESE FRIENDS OF MINE, for five seasons.  CRAPAPEDIA has some interesting 'facts' about that show.


Main cast[edit]

Note: Between seasons one and two, there was not only a title change from These Friends of Mine to Ellen, but several characters disappeared without explanation.
  • Ellen DeGeneres as Ellen Morgan: Ellen Inez Morgan is the main character of the sitcom. In season one, Ellen works in a Los Angeles bookstore called "Buy the Book". In the second season, she purchases the bookstore from her boss and becomes its owner. Throughout season four, hints were made to her sexuality and near the end of season 4 in "The Puppy Episode," Ellen announced she was a lesbian. For the first one and a half seasons, Ellen lived in an apartment with roommate Adam. She lived alone after Adam moved out and then with her cousin Spence. Towards the end of season four, she bought her own house. Ellen's personality was likable and cheerful, but also somewhat clumsy and awkward, and with a persistent need to be liked. Her trademark behavior (and the main object of her comedy) was that she would digress, rambling and babbling, especially when nervous or embarrassed. An example of both her clumsiness and her need to please is found in the episode where she had Martha Stewart over for a dinner party and Ellen became highly stressed trying to organize the perfect dinner.
  • Joely Fisher as Paige Clarke: Appearing in seasons two through five, Paige is Ellen's somewhat vain and promiscuous best friend who works for a movie studio. Paige planned to tie the knot with her boyfriend Matt Liston, but dumped him at the altar after resuming an affair she had with Ellen's cousin Spence. When Ellen comes out of the closet, Paige has the hardest time dealing with it (even harder than Ellen's parents). In the fourth-season finale, Paige finally comes to terms with it. Paige also likes to try on clothes and work on her singing voice. Her singing voice is powerful enough to blow things off tables, as seen in season 2 episode 13.
  • Holly Fulger as Holly: Appearing only in the first season, Holly is Ellen's friend. Shy and self-conscious, she tries to avoid any trouble and is desperate to get along with the people around her. She actually would love to be the center of attention, though she doesn't dare to overcome her shyness. While her surname was never spoken or seen in the show, it is actually revealed to be Jamison.
  • Arye Gross as Adam Green: Appearing in seasons one through three, Adam is Ellen's roommate and they have been friends since college. A photographer, he is completely unsuccessful with women and is frequently dumped. In the middle of the third season, Adam moves to England to work as a photographer for The Sun Times, but upon his departure, he reveals that he was harboring a crush on Ellen. She in turn lies that she has one for him too, but he finds out the truth and that creates tension between the two of them until shortly before he leaves.
  • David Anthony Higgins as Joe Farrell: Appearing in all five seasons, Joe is a dour, sarcastic Canadian who works as the barista at the coffee shop inside Ellen's bookstore. His personal life is only touched upon, usually for comic relief in constant reference to misadventures he had in Moose Jaw. In the third season he becomes a member of the core group which aside from him consists of Ellen, Spence, Paige, and Audrey.
  • Clea Lewis as Audrey Penney: Audrey is Ellen's squeaky-voiced and exceedingly perky neighbor and later co-worker, seen usually in the color pink and whose catchphrase was the enthusiastic greeting "Hi, Ellen!". Ellen has something of a love–hate relationship with Audrey, often annoyed at her overly upbeat demeanor. But after Ellen comes out, Audrey is extremely supportive (and excited, saying that she thinks "it's SUPER!"), and she throws herself into the LGBT culture, ironically with more reverence than Ellen did. In season one, Ellen refers to Audrey's husband, but he never appears and Audrey later dates several people, including Adam and Ron Palillo, who played himself over several episodes. It is revealed that she comes from a very well-off family, though she rejected her inheritance so that she could continue being an assistant at the bookstore. In her initial appearance in the first season, her personality and appearance were quite different and Ellen complained about Aubrey's dour and negative personality, but upon her reappearance later in season two she has developed her upbeat and perky demeanor.
  • Jeremy Piven as Spence Kovak: Ellen's volatile but well-intentioned cousin from New York, who joined the cast in the third season. His arrival in Ellen's life coincides with the aftermath of a large Los Angeles earthquake that leads to the destruction and subsequent remodeling of the book store. Spence was training as a doctor, but was fired from his job for punching a patient and as a result spent the beginning of the third season bored and depressed. He begins training as a lawyer but after saving someone's life decides to resume his career in medicine. He and Paige had a love-hate relationship that began as constant fighting but later they became lovers and stayed such until a few episodes before the end of the series when the relationship ended amicably.
  • Maggie Wheeler as Anita Warrell: Ellen's friend and a main character in the show's first season. Like Holly, she does not appear in subsequent seasons and is not mentioned again. She was mentioned by Holly to be much more attractive than her but, unlike Holly, most of her romantic relationships were never shown on screen.



There's a big error above.  Did you catch it?

Maybe this CRAPAPEDIA graph will help you.

Characters of Ellen
S1S2S3S4S5
Ellen MorganMain
HollyMainNo Appearance
Anita WarrellMainNo Appearance
Adam GreenMainRecurringNo Appearance
JoeMain
Paige ClarkeNo AppearanceMain
AudreyGuestRecurringMain
Spence KovakNo AppearanceMain
Harold MorganRecurring
Lois MorganRecurring
Laurie ManningNo AppearanceRecurring
Ed BillikNo AppearanceRecurringNo Appearance
Peter BarnesNo AppearanceRecurring
BarrettNo AppearanceRecurring



Anita and Holly do appear in a subsequent season.  They're in the third season's "The Mugging" and "The Tape."  These are episodes that aired in the third season as even CRAPAPEDIA's episode guide for season three notes.

And on David Anthony Higgins CRAPAPEDIA page they might want to fix this:

1994–1998EllenJoe FarrellMain role; 102 episodes

He is credited for 101 episodes, not 102.  More to the point, 13 of the episodes that he is credited for?  He doesn't appear in those episodes.  So although he's billed in the credits for 101 episodes, he actually appears in only 88 episodes.




Vote Vets wants applause not honesty

You always knew Vote Vets was nothing but partisan hacks and that their ideal was Senator Macho Duckworth but did you know how really stupid they were?


This is ABC's . He suffered a traumatic brain injury, when reporting about our troops in Iraq. He is a reporter, and not the "enemy of the people." MANY other journalists have sacrificed, even died, to report to you. Add one you'd like to honor.





Bob Woodruff is certainly a likable person and he has certaily done a great job since being injured on covering topics like, yes, injuries.

But let's not pretend that Bob ever did anything much before that.

ABC sent him to Iraq because?  He was supposed to get footage of US troops and their reactions to Bully Boy Bush.  He was embedded for a fluff piece.  His career was nothing but fluff pieces.

He was not covering the Iraqi people.  He was not covering the effects of war on the Iraqi people.

Had he not been injured, his career would have remained pure fluff and pure garbage.

The notion that Vote Vets presents is not only false, it's whoring.  In their world, nothing matters but them.  They are the most important thing in the world.  Not democracy, not self-rule, nothing but the fact that they put on uniform and went where they were told -- even if that was into an illegal war.


They're important, you understand, because they're vets -- in their mind.

An alternative view?


In the real world, they should probably be addressing what they actually did -- which was kill Iraqis, destroy the Iraqi people.

But, hey, Tammy Duckworth wants you to know she lost her legs.

Oh, how awful.  Even the two faux testicles that she's since grown -- in here head -- don't make her a mircale.

She was part of an oppressive force that destroyed a country.

She and her buddies really need to learn to shut the f**k up and grasp that they don't understand democracy and their constant harping on their military 'experience' is both bragging and confessing to War Crimes.



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