Ava and C.I. don't ask me to fact check their articles. They don't need a fact checker. They nail their stuff down, as they noted in "TV: Can we Impeach WSWS?," Hillary Clinton was not accurate about 'the vast right-wing conspiracy' as Patrick Martin maintained recently in WSWS. Hillary used that phrase on THE TODAY SHOW when Matt Lauer spoke to her on the January 28, 1998 episode.
Monica Lewisnky, or rather 'claims' that she had an affair with Bill Clinton, is what Hillary's addressing. Stream it for yourself. Bill did not have a sexual relationship with Monica, Hillary maintains. He may or may not have given Monica gifts, but he gives everyone gifts, she wants you to know. As for Bill Richardson giving her a UN job interview and Vernon Jordan setting up two job interviews for her, well . . .
CLINTON: I don’t know the circumstances of any of that,
Matt. I think that—you know, I just can’t describe to you
how outgoing and friendly Vernon Jordan is. I mean, when he
stood up and said what I believe to be the absolute truth, that
he has helped literally hundreds of people—and it doesn’t
matter who they are. And if he were asked to help somebody, he
would help that person. I’ve seen him do it countless times. So I guess I know the people involved. I know them
personally. I know them well. I’ve known Vernon longer than
I’ve known my husband.
LAUER: So when people say there’s a lot of smoke here, your
message is where there’s smoke...
CLINTON: There isn’t any fire, because think of what we’ve
been through for the last six years and think of everything
we’ve been accused of. And you know, initially, when this first
started, and I would be accused of something or my husband would
be accused of something, I would be really upset. And I would want to rush
out, and I’d say, that’s not true. And then somebody would nit
pick and say, well, what about this? I would say, well, I
hadn’t thought about that. And then I’d rush around, I’d say,
well, that’s not true.
LAUER: Are you saying that you no longer—this doesn’t
upset you anymore? You’re almost numb to it?
CLINTON: It’s not being numb so much as just being very experienced in the unfortunate, mean-spirited give-and-take of American politics right now. So having seen so many of these accusations come and go, having seen people profit, you know, like Jerry Falwell, with videos, accusing my husband of murder, of drug running, seeing some of the things that are written and said about him, my attitude is, you know, we’ve been there before, we have seen this before.
This is the vast right-wing conspiracy, Hillary wants you to know. Bill's told the truth, no sexual relations with that woman, Hillary wants you to know.
Bill lied. And Patrick Martin was a fool to write what he did.
Ava and C.I.
They do it nail it down, like they stated.
But I do like to check. Maybe I think, or hope, I'm going to catch them in a mistake. So when they were writing about Bob Dylan in their latest piece, I went over to WIKIPEDIA -- or as they call it CRAPAPEDIA -- to check some basics.
They're right, first of all, it truly is CRAPAPEDIA. In the ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS section of Bob Dylan's bio, this appears:
This made it Dylan's highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 in more than a decade. It also marked his seventh consecutive decade of charting top 40 albums, making him the only artist to date to accomplish this feat.[112]
I found that interesting and mentioned it to Ava and C.I. who immediately (and rightly) guessed that I had been to CRAPAPEDIA.
Not true, insisted one, Barbra Streisand has done the same thing now that RELEASE ME 2 has been released.
So not true, said the other, and check the footnote, if that's BILLBOARD, there's no way BILLBOARD said he was "the only artist."
CRAPAPEDIA or Ava and C.I.? Bet on Ava and C.I. every time.
Yes, Barbra did go into the top forty on the album chart this decade with RELEASE ME and, as they've noted before, Barbra and Bob were COLUMBIA RECORDS sign-ees back in the early sixties. So, yes, they've both charted top forty albums in all seven decades -- Barbra more so than Bob and Barbra's outsold Bob. Yes, they are right that BILLBOARD did not say "only.'' (Yeah, the footnote goes to BILLBOARD.) It said "the first" and it pointed out "He’s the first act to have achieved at least one top 40 album in each decade from the ‘60s through ‘20s. (The 2020s decade is still young, so a number of other acts could join him in this achievement.)"
So, yes, it is CRAPAPEDIA.
And we've long noted it here. C.I. brought that issue in our orbit early on. A friend of hers, a singer, was appalled when she checked out her own WIKIPEDIA entry. Was her profession singer? According to WIKIPEDIA, it was slut.
Every man she had slept with was mentioned in her entry. These same men, many of whom had slept with many more women, didn't have that in their entries. She looked around and found this true of all the women of her time period -- that the entries portrayed them as sluts. C.I.'s friend threatened WIKIPEDIA with a law suit. That's why it changed. But before it changed, we started calling it out. It has always been a sexist platform and remains one to this day.
Give Bob Dylan credit for what he's accomplished, yes, but do that for anyone. And that means noting that he's not the only one. That means noting that Barbra Streisand has also accomplished this feat.
It's also kind of limited as I realized when I told Ava and C.I. they were right.
Of course, said one, and Cher will have the same record if she releases an album this decade. She's already charted at least one album in the six previous decades.
The other declared, You do realize -- even if CRAPAPEDIA doesn't -- that's there's a whole world out there beyond pop music, don't you? Meaning Diana Ross is most likely about to be in her "seventh consecutive decade of charting top 40 albums" on the R&B chart -- 21 albums hitting the top 40 on the R&B charts in the sixties, 15 in the seventies, 11 in the 80s, 1 in the 90s, 1 in the 00s and 1 in the 10s. Next month's THANK YOU is released and, based on pre-orders, it stands a good chance of giving her another top forty album -- this one in her seventh decade.
That's "If The World Just Danced" from Diana's upcoming THANK YOU album.
Like the song says, Yeah, we'd be better if the world just danced. :D