Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Truest statement of the week

Last week, in a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump took the Smithsonian’s museums to task for emphasizing “how bad slavery was.” The White House staff followed up on August 21 with a statement titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian,” flagging several objectionable exhibits, including one, weirdly, on Anthony Fauci.

Trump is in eminent company. For nearly a century, between the 1860s and the 1950s, defenders of slavery succeeded in creating a dominant narrative in the nation’s textbooks, trying to show that slavery wasn’t so bad and that the real outrage was the abbreviated period of Reconstruction.

The whitewashing of slavery began as early as 1867, with publication of a book by Edward Pollard, titled The Lost Cause. In this account, slavery was mostly a benign system that uplifted Blacks; plantation owners were typically kindly. This echoed a century of antebellum Southern propaganda. Pollard contended that the Civil War was not really about slavery; it was a war over states’ rights.

 As public education systems became more widespread in the South after the Civil War, states of the former Confederacy set standards to ensure that textbooks for public schools would portray a sympathetic view. These laws influenced Northern publishers. Meanwhile, some prominent Northern scholars embraced the Lost Cause view. The most notable of these was William Archibald Dunning of Columbia University.

 --  Robert Kuttner, "How Bad Slavery Was: Donald Trump joins a long line of apologists for America’s peculiar institution." (THE AMERICAN PROSPECT).

 

A note to our readers

 Hey --

Tuesday. 



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?

  

Peace.

 

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

 

 


Media: That what you fear the most could meet you halfway

Some live to be humiliated or maybe they can't help themselves?  It's a high for them and their drug of choice..  Think 'journalist' Glenneth Greenwald.  At the end of May, GiGi got outed and worked hard to spin it.  

 

tc2

As we've long noted over the years, Glenneth hates women.  Can't stand women.  Part of that's his college days.  By the way, some of this we've written about here before.  And we've long noted his computer flash drive that was turned over to one of us by an unknown person (left at the agency C.I.'s signed with).  We've long noted the MAGA cashmaster he did online 'hookups with' and we know his computer history.  

So last May, it was delicious justice, when 'manly' girl Glenneth got exposed in her halter top and skirt with her meth and meth pipe on the bed while Glenneth went to town on the feet of a man who was spitting on him and verbally humiliating him.  We are aware that he's bragged to his few friends that he now masturbates to that exposure and has a mind blowing orgasm.

 There was the misogynist Glenneth, the trans hating Glenneth, the widow Greenwald who ignored his death bed (former sex worker) husband to start his own talk show, dressed as a woman.  

And paying a man to humiliate him.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

 

Eddie Vedder sings that refrain from "Crazy Mary" on the album SWEET RELIEF: A BENEFIT FOR VICTORIA WILLIAMS.  

 

 "That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

 And it certainly met Glenneth. 

 

A man who hates women, has spent years actively insulting them, undermining them and sidelining them, needs to dress up as one to get off?

 

It should make you think.  It should make you look for connections and shadings and possible confessions.

 

In the second half of the last century, a phenomenon emerged known as "White flight." For those unfamiliar with the term, this is the American Psychological Association in 2021:

 

As the population of people of color grows across the United States, white Americans are still prone to move when neighborhoods diversify, and their fears and stereotypical beliefs about other racial and ethnic groups may help maintain segregation, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

In a nationally representative survey and six additional studies, white Americans perceived a threat to their culture and way of life when presented with information about changing demographics in hypothetical white-majority neighborhoods and schools, compared with when no demographic change was projected. The projected population growth of Arab Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans evoked the strongest feelings of foreign cultural threat, followed by the projected population growth of Black Americans. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

“The more that white Americans perceived this foreign cultural threat, the more they reported wanting to move out of those communities,” said lead researcher Linda Zou, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maryland. “Racial segregation of schools and neighborhoods never ended. The country is growing more diverse, but those changing racial demographics may trigger heightened perceptions of threat among white Americans and contribute to the persistence of segregation.” 

 

White flight, in the second half of the 20th century, was one of the factors creating the growth in suburbs.  One.  And we don't say all who left the cities for the suburbs were motivated by Black people moving into city neighborhoods they were previously prevented from.  Nor do we assert that every White person took part in White flight.  Nor do we overlook the role of the press in scaring people or its historic racism.

 

But we do wonder about those who fled to the suburbs and did so to avoid living near a Black person.

 

There were a lot of racists.  There are still a lot of racists.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

At the heart of some racists is the basic humiliation that they fear the people they target with racism are actually superior to them.   

 

Take Donald Chump, for example.  He needs buck dancers to flatter him constantly and these Uncle Toms are kind-of, sort-of welcomed by him until they cross a line.  These Uncle Toms reassure his troubled manhood that Black people aren't superior to him or they wouldn't rush to kiss his ass.

 

But at the heart of it all, yes, Chump realizes he's beneath every Black person.  While he doesn't grasp is that he's really beneath all Americans regardless of their skin color, he does grasp that, for instance, US House Rep Jasmine Crockett is smarter than he is, is stronger than he is and is more of a leader than he is. 

 

When Crockett or any other Black person refuses to just grin and nod along, it's very hurtful for Chump because it reminds him that these people he thinks are beneath him are above him and that peels the scab off of the never healing wound from all the times his father told him just how worthless he is. 



President Donald Trump’s plot to control American history got a sharp takedown from a top Democrat on Sunday.

Last Tuesday, the president raged about the “out of control” and “woke” Smithsonian Institution in a post on Truth Social, complaining how its museums only focused on how “horrible our Country is” and “bad Slavery was.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) scoffed at Trump’s suggestion that there was any upside to depict about slavery as he spoke to Dana Bash during a stop by CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“There is no good aspect of slavery, and so Donald Trump is once again behaving like a racial arsonist,” he said, adding that it was “extraordinary that he would make such a historically ignorant statement.”

Putting his full support behind the institution, Jeffries said, “The Smithsonian should continue to hold the line and make sure that this very painful part of American history is not erased, but is understood by everyone across this country and throughout the world.”

Hakeem Jeffries?  Yep, he's a stronger leader and a smart leader than Chump.  And, yes, Donald, we all see it and we all know it.  Kanika Saini (INQUISITR) notes:
 

Donald Trump ignited debate on a topic that nobody expected or probably wanted to be scrutinized. But here we are, discussing the very foundation and concept of the museum. Recently, Fox News contributor Clay Travis joined the debate as he went on a bizarre rant, likening the history of slavery to plane crashes while siding with Trump’s unhinged attacks on the Smithsonian Institution.
Last week, Trump ranted about how museums in the United States focus excessively on “how bad slavery was,” while implying that it needs to be changed from hereon. 

Trump wrote in his social media post, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”

 

Slavery was awful.  And yet Black people survived it.  

 

Donald, that nagging thought in the back of your head is accurate, you never could have survived slavery.  You're just not strong enough.  

 

Last week, a highly racist conversation took place between two well known racists but Elaine's the only one we've found who bothered to note it ("MTG and Megyn Kelly: A Couple of Racists Sitting Around Talking"). The key moment of the trash Megyn Kelly broadcast was when she and the other racist took it upon themselves to debate whether or not Jasmine Crockett is Black.

Marjorie Taylor Greene insisted Jasmine wasn't (she is) and stated, "So she claims to be, you know, from her people.  She puts on this image that she understands the Black American struggle.  But let's face it, the girl went to private school.  She went on to, you know, I don't know what college and law school.
 

First off, "the girl" is 44-years-old.  Calling Jasmine a "girl" is no different than calling a 40-year-old Black man a "boy.''

 

Second, she did attend private schools, they were private religious schools.  Does MTG really want her constituents to know that she was insulting private religious schools? 

 

Third, she went to college in Memphis (Rhodes College) and she attended two law schools (Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law and University of Houston Law Center).

  

Fourth, shocker for MTG but Black children have been going to private schools in this country for nearly 300 years.  The first one for Black children was establishes in 1760, Virginia's Williamsburg Bray School.  

Fifth, Black people have been going to college in the US for nearly two hundred years.   In 1835, Ohio's Oberlin College became the first US college to admit Black students. And the first college for Black student came along two years later with the Institute for Colored Youth which became the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. 

 

Sixth, going to private school, going to college and going to law school?  Black people can and have done all of that for nearly two centuries now in this country.  In fact, let's educate MTG, Judge Macon Bolling Allen?  He was the first Black attorney (licensed attorney) in this country and that was back in 1844.  He went on to become a judge.  

It's only in MTG's starving brain, where facts are forbidden but conspiracies run free, that a Black person can't know "the Black experience" if they've gone to law school.

 

Megyn offered her own racism including, of Jasmine Crockette, "She's a complete fake.  She's as fake as her eyelashes.  She's as fake as her hair --"

 

We'll cut her off there but we will note that Megyn wears extensions (fake hair) and has a lot of make up on (mainly because she's got a wonky eye and one side of her face looks caved in). 

 

Mainly though, we'll note that racist Megyn was a Blackface defender and that got her fired from NBC.

 

So Megyn, a friend of Glenneth Greenwald's, is a racist who wants to dress up as a Black person.

 

Glenneth's jealous of women and it manifests itself as sexism.  Megyn wishes she was 'authentic' and could be Black and that manifests in her as racism.

 

"That what you fear the most could meet  you halfway." 

 

Keep all the above in mind.   

 

 

MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk called on the NAACP to give President Donald Trump a nonexistent "Man of the Year" award for sending federal troops into Washington, D.C.

[. . .]

According to Kirk, Trump proved "you can stop Black-on-Black crime."

"In fact, President Donald Trump should be getting the Man of the Year award from the NAACP," he argued. "President Donald Trump should be awarded at the Black Entertainment Television Awards for what he is doing here. President Donald Trump should be given the Hero Medal of Freedom equivalent in the Black community."

 

Racist Charlie Kirk -- defender of Blackface.  Again, factor that in.  Factor in how he feels small and inauthentic and wishes he was Black but can't be so he turns it into racism.

 

BET Awards?  Those go to musicians, people in film and TV and athletes.  None of which, Albino Charlie, is a category for Donald Chump.  

 

There is no Man of the Year NAACP Award.  Mainly because there are no NAACP Awards.  The awards  handed out by the NAACP are The NAACP Image Awards.  Those awards?  Man of the Year is not a category and never has been.

 

Many of us often wonder how, in the 21st century, you can still have racists in the United States?

 

In the past, it was ignorance taught in schools and encouraged in the press.  

 

Now? 

 

Now it's about butt hurt White people like Megyn, Chump, Charlie and Marjorie whose jealousy of Black people manifests itself as racism.

 

If you pay attention, they do reveal themselves.  

 


Roundtable

 Jim: Roundtable time.  Remember our e-mail address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com and you can also use common_ills@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are  The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; 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); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;  Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the illustration. You are reading a rush transcript. 

 

Roundtable
Jim (Con't): So I think Stephanie Ruhle said last night on MSNBC that Chump's now been president for 218 days.  Anybody else wonder if we're going to survive it?

Isaiah: I worry about that every single day.  He is destroying our country.

Kat: We should win the mid-terms by a landslide.  But I think about the 2020 election and how he was pressuring governors to deliver him X votes after the votes had been counted. I think about that and then I wonder about his scam where he's asking for voter rolls from states right now and I wonder if that's some stunt he plans to pull to overturn elections.  I wouldn't put anything past him.  He's the closest thing to Satan on this earth.

Jim: I hadn't really thought about that.  It's something to be concerned about.

Cedric: I'll note that I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him, think he's scum but even I'm surprised by how outright evil he has become.  And this is the man who led an insurrection against the government.  But I've never seen someone so hateful and so joyless and so determined to destroy the American people.  Kat's right, he's the closest thing to Satan that we have on earth. 

Trina: People like him tend to destroy themselves.  By that I mean, look at him, his skin's rotting, he's taking on water in the ankles, he's morbidly obese and can no longer walk a straight line.  He is a stroke waiting to happen.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had to step down because he became physically and mentally incapacitated.  I also wouldn't be surprise if he had a fatal stroke and passed away.  And I wouldn't shed a tear for a number of reasons but in terms of medical the main reason I wouldn't cry is that his administration has devalued and defunded preventative care.  He, as a patient, is also rejecting preventative care.  So he will have brought any health problems on himself.

Jim: Trina's a nurse.  Can anyone think of a previous president so determined to attack half of the country, half of its citizens.


Ruth: Let me grab that.  No.  I did not care for President Ronald Reagan, for instance.  And I think he did real damage on issues like the homeless and AIDS; however, I would not say that his policies were about attacking the Americans who did not vote for him.  He also did not spew hatred every time he opened his mouth.  I have had it with The Convicted Felon and members of his cabinet constantly attacking former President Joe Biden.  There is no excuse for it.  And it makes our entire country look dysfunctional on the international stage.


Jim: What's been the biggest disappointment in the last 218 days?

Wally: Republicans in Congress.  They've always claimed to have ethics.  They have none.  They vote that Big Bulls**t Bill that destroys America -- for example, destroys medical insurance for so many Americans -- and then they make it worse by going into their districts and lying about what the bill will do.  And then they have a whiney fit when their constituents refuse to go along with them and their break from reality.  That's what the second Chump term is: A break from reality.  A psychotic break. 

Dona: Grace Hall (MIAMI HERALD) cites Pew's latest poll which found his job approval rating has fallen "to 38%" and it was 47% at the start of his second term in January 2025."  It would appear that a large number of Americans are tuned into what he's doing.

Marcia: Yes, but that's not registering with Republicans in Congress -- like Wally pointed out earlier.  And they control both houses of Congress.  So it's hard not to feel as though we're screwed for the rest of this year and next.


Betty: And we've got a corrupt Supreme Court.  Don't forget that.  And let's never forgive John Roberts, Chief Justice, for bringing us to this point.  He is part of the problem.  And he will be remembered in history for presiding over the Court that the American people lost faith in.  For decades, we had seen the Supreme Court as a trusted body.  Now we see it for a collective of right-wing partisan hacks. It doesn't represent the American people and it doesn't even attempt to pretend that it does.  This is a very sad and very risky moment in American history.  And I think we're seeing how little democracy means to a number of people -- some of whom hold elected office.


Jess: That's a majority.  A majority is what Chump didn't get in the 2024 election.  He got 49% to Kamala's 47%,

Ty: It's a majority saying Chump needs his power limited because people have caught on.  Chump is a menace, a threat to democracy.  
 
Betty:  It is prayer.  That's all that's getting me through these days.  He is rejecting even the Supreme Court these days.
 
 
Elaine: Exactly.  He announces that he's got an executive order that now will put anyone burning a flag into prison for one year.  This despite the rulings of the Supreme Court that flag burning is a form of free speech.   Or his attempts to fire Lisa Cool from the Federal Reserve Board -- a move that a Supreme Court verdict earlier this year said he did not have the power to do. 
 
Rebecca: As Ruth and Mike both noted last week, Chump needs to learn his lane. He thinks being president of the United States means he can dictate our medical rights, that he can dictate what's on TV and what's not, that he can dictate what cases attorneys take and do not take, that he can misuse the Justice Dept. to go after his political enemies, that he can dictate what colleges teach, go down the list.  He's out of control.
 
Mike: And while he does all of this, our economy is tanking and our democracy is fading.  He is the worst president this country has ever seen.  
 
Jim: Ever?
 
Mike: Ever, ever, ever. And he doesn't even have one decent appointee in his administration.  He may have the administration that he deserves but it's not one that this country deserves.
 
Jim:  Ann, Stan we need to wrap up.  What disturbs you two the most?
 
Stan: For me, it's the media coverage.  Too much of the media fails to address what is going on and fails to call it out.  You can't both sides Hitler without embracing and backing Hitler.  That's the reality.  You're supposed to be on the side of democracy.  Someone attacks democracy, they've become the enemy and the press needs to grasp that.
 
Ann: And he's certainly attacked the press.  The thing that bothers me is even his attempts to take over business -- to dictate to business -- even this doesn't result in a flurry of press outrage.  The editorial board of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, for example, did come out against that.  But talk to people you know and you'll learn that much of the press has still not even reported on it, let alone weighed in against it.  
 
Jim: And that's going to have to be the last word.  This is a rush transcript.  Ava and C.I. took notes for this transcript.
 
 
 
 
 
ann stan 

The WILL & GRACE Game (Jess)

So far, Jim's played "The WILL & GRACE GAME (Jim),"   Dona played "" and Ty played "The WILL & GRACE game (Ty)."  Marcia kicked it off with "Sitcom with the most name guest stars: Will & Grace (and I can name 133)."  After Marcia played it others followed -- see Stan's ''HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER 1 ," Rebecca's  "have you tried to list all the guest stars on 'will & grace'?" and Kat's "Prayers for Ann Wilson and my try at the WILL & GRACE game."  Now it's Jess' turn.

 

 

1 David Foley

2 Veronica Cartwright

3 Beau Bridges

4  Brian Jordan Alvarez

5 Demi Moore

6 Cher

7 Eileen Brennan 

8 Nicole Sullivan

9 Emily Rutherfurd

10 Andrea Martin

11 Matt Damon

12 Rosie O'Donnell

13 Britney Spears

14 Janet Jackson

15 Will Arnett

16 Jennifer Lopez

17 George Takei

18 Kevin Bacon

19 Parker Posey

20 Tim Curry

21 John Cleese

22 Alec Baldwin

23 Andy Garcia

24 Joel McHale

25  Macaulay Culkin

26 Wanda Sykes

27 Candice Bergen

28 Joan Collins

29 Bernadette Peters

30 Suzanne Pleshette

31  Samira Wiley

32 Debbie Reynolds

33 Alan Arkin

34 Geena Davis

35 Sara Rue

36  Mary McCormack

37 Ed Burns

38 Eric Stoltz

39 Harry Connick Jr.

40  Woody Harrelson

41 David Schwimmer

42 Chelsea Handler

43 Sharon Stone

44 Molly Shannon

45  Natasha Lyonne

46 Jeremy Piven

47  Billie Lourd

48 Wendi Jo Sperber

49 Glenn Close

50 Blythe Danner

51 Sydney Pollack

52 Steven Weber

53  John Slattery

54 Jon Tenney

55 Cheyenne Jackson

56 Taye Diggs

57 Gregory Harrison

58 Patrick Dempsey

59 Michael Douglas

60 Tracey Ullman

61 Edie Falco

62  Chloe Sevigny

63 Sharon Osborne

64 Lily Tomlin

65 Buck Henry

66 Madonna

67 Barry Manilow

68 Elton John

69 Clark Gregg

70 Ben Platt

71 Max Greenfield

72 Al Roker

73 Matt Lauer

74 Katie Couric

75 Minnie Driver

76 Ellen DeGeneres

77 Neal Patrick Harris

78 James Earl Jones

79 Kristen Davis

80 & 81 Hall and Oates

82 Jason Biggs

83 Seth Green

84 Patti Lupone

85 Chita Rivera

86 Michelle Lee

87 Jack Black

88 Bebe Neuwirth

89 Lee Majors

90 Sandra Bernhard

91 Victor Garber

92 Richard Chamberlain

93 Piper Laurie

94 Orson Bean

95 Roscoe Lee Browne 

96 Dylan McDermott

97 Rip Torn

98 Hal Linden

99 Brandon Routh

100 Rosanna Arquette

101 Sara Gilbert

102 Chris Penn

103  Camryn Manheim

104 Nicolette Sheridan

105 Mira Sorvino 

106 John Edwards

107 Bruce Campos

108 Tom Skerritt

109 Judith Ivey  

110 Nick Offerman

111 Stacey Keach

112 Leslie Ann Warren

113 Lanie Kazan  

114  Dan Bucatinsky

115 Ken Marino

116 Leslie Jordan 

117 Luke Perry

118 Demi Lovato

119 Matt Bomer

120 Andy Richter

121 Jane Lynch

122 Andrew Rannells 

 

 

Do the country a favor, tell a dumb Bondi joke

bondijokes

 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes

 Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "."  AG Pam Bondi explains, "Some people call me Pam Bimbo and that's just not fair.  Bimbos are much smarter."  FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is ready with Bondi jokes, "Why did the Bondi get fired from the M&M factory?  For throwing out the Ws."   Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS. 

  

Let's all let AG Pam Bimbo Bondi know that we are a democracy and we will mock anyone who tries to harm our democracy.  We see you, Pam.  So do the country a favor and tell a dumb Bondi joke this week. 

 

We'll lead by example:   What did the Bondi say after glimpsing a box of Cheerios?  "OMG! Doughnut seeds!"

 

 

2025 passings

ceme

 

In 2025, we'll continue to note passings that we see as significant -- as we did previously "2024 passings" and  "2023 passings."

 

"James Dobson has left to run to the arms of Satan" -- Ann notes a most welcome death.

"Terence Stamp" -- Kat notes the passing of an actor. 

"A racist and homophobe dies" -- Kat notes the death of a fake 'athlete' in a fake 'sport.'

 
"julian mcmahon" -- Rebecca covers the passing of an actor.

 
"Michael Madsen" -- Stan covers the passing of an actor. 
 
 
"Shrimp Salad Rolls in the Kitchen" -- Trina notes the passing of a musical genius. 
 

"Teeny bopper and man tease Bobby Sherman has passed away" -- Stan notes the passing of a teeny bopper. 
 

"Jimmy Swaggart has finally joined his beloved in hell" -- Kat covers the passing of a monster.

"David Lynch" -- Stan notes the passing of a director.


"Joan Plowright" -- Marcia notes the passing of an actress 


"Movies and Leslie Charleson" -- Stan notes the passing of daytime actress Leslie Charleson. 


"Roberta Flack" and "Roberta Flack was one of a kind amazing" -- Kat and Elaine reflect on the art of Roberta Flack. 

"Gene Hackman" -- Stan covers the passing of a two time Academy Award winner.


"Shattered Love: A Memoir" -- at the start of the year, Marcia reviewed Richard Chamberlain's autobiography.  He passed away at the end of the March and a lot of readers e-mailed to say Marcia's review works as a good obit.

"Angie Stone" -- Betty covers the passing of the queen of neo soul.

 

"Jay North" -- Kat covers the death of a child actor from the 50s. 

 

"Clem Burke" -- Kat covers the death of a drummer. 


"MATLOCK, REACHER, MID CENTURY MODERN, Val Kilmer" and "More on Kilmer and ABC killed SHIFTING GEARS"  -- Stan covers the passing of an actor.

 

"Pope Francis has passed" and "The Snapshot" -- Trina and C.I. note the death of Pope Francis. 

 

 "David Souter, former Supreme Court justice" -- Betty notes a passing.

 

 

 

Video of the week

 

 

 

 

Jim's World

aa5
 

There's no book talk this edition.  Hasn't been one since the first of July.
 
What's going on?

Two things.
 
First, Ava and C.I. came up with that as a quick feature.  But they're already doing the media coverage and are honestly exhausted.  Sometime editions this year, that's all we've had -- their piece.
 
Second, along with being tired, some of the choices of books involved coverage of people they know and some weeks they're just not in it.  They didn't sign on to analyze their friends. 
 
So we'll continue to do a book list in future editions but the book talk is probably over at this point.
 
 



 

 

 

 

 

Rebecca's take on a book

julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology

today, marcia and i do our annual summer book read.

we've never gotten this close to labor day.  but the book we read?  we hated it.  it was dull and plodding.

so we chose a new book friday of last week after we compared notes.  we wanted to do a biography about cesar romero but it's actually not out yet.

we're sure that would have been a fun book and we both plan to read it.  but what we then selected last week was a much applauded book we'd heard of but never read. 

it was even a tcm podcast by that ugly looking toad ben mankiewicz whose friends with the anti-trans idiots of 'the young turks.'


tcm really needs to kick his ass to the curb if only for doing a season's podcast with sexist b**ch julie salmon.

that piece of work wrote 'the devil's candy' about the shooting of the box office bomb 'the bonfire of the vanities.'  and that's also what tcm and ben made the podcast about.


in her book, julie sucks up to every man - even the sexist pig richard sylbert.


she presents it as charming when he says barbra streisand is so old and ugly you'd have to put a sack over her head to f**k her.  excuse me, 'box,' you'd have to put a box over her head.  'she's an old jew,' he snarls.  barbra was 48 y.o. at the time this well know pig made those comments.

that the sylbert brothers were legendary sexist pigs - richard & paul.  i knew them both (through c.i.) and as a blond with big tits, i knew just how disgusting they were.  i'll leave it at that since they're both dead.

but know this is the type of person julie chooses to embrace and celebrate.

however, she goes to town on melanie griffith.

there are horrifying sections of this book and that a woman wrote it?  appalling.


there's the whole attacking melanie griffiths looks.  3 men - none director brian depalma - attack melanie's looks for the lines under her eyes.  and this is presented as funny by the b**ch named julie salamon.  she can be judgemental - when it comes to melaine.  she can editorialize when it comes to melanie.

like when she mocks melanie for being with the hair dresser on the last day of filming to discuss hair.

please note that assistant director and director are going over things in this last scene with tom hanks who has a great deal to do in the scene.  

what does it matter if melanie - before she's called to the set - is talking to a hair dresser?

julie salamon mocks her - and mocks the fact that the hair styles being discussed aren't even for the film.

let's be really clear here that melanie shows up when she's called to the set and let's be really clear that melanie's not made up and her hair's not done when she shows up and that there's a reason for that: in the scene - her final moment on camera - that's about to be shot, the camera will be on tom hanks for everything but 1 shot of melanie - 1 shot of her foot pressing down on an accelerator.  only her foot is in the scene.

but the b**ch authoress makes fun of melanie and mocks her.


so let's not pretend that the author has a problem editorializing.


but she giggles over the attacks on melanie's face by 3 men in a lengthy discussion.

bruce willis has to leave the shoot on a designated date as does morgan freeman but the author has a real tone and attitude about melanie not being there when the shoot starts - even though every 1 knew melanie was shooting 'pacific heights' and wouldn't be done until a specific date before melanie was signed to the film.  and melanie is there on that specific date. 

i know melanie casually, by the way.  she and c.i. are friends.  i've never known her to be anything to be sweet.  the only thing that ever really irritated me about her was that she had a relationship with steven bauer. they were married.  now i think antonio bandreas is hot - who melanie was also married to - but steven bauer was gorgeous onscreen and, in person, he was even hotter.  i will not pretend that when she was steven i wasn't jealous.  he was something (he'll still attractive to me but in his prime i don't think there was a man on the planet who was as hot he was.  and as hot as he looked onscreen, he was even hotter in person.  the camera did not do him justice.)


julie salamon takes even the most innocuous moment with melanie - 1s i can picture playing out because i know melanie - and always presents them as evil and heavy handed.



that's christian bale, on the set of 1 of those terminator films, blowing up because some 1 was walking in his sight line - his line of vision - as he was preparing for the scene they were about to shoot.

now actors are having to dredge all sorts of feelings to play a scene and it may seem a simple or straight forward scene but you don't know what they're building from - it might be a very painful memory, for instance.

i understood people being shocked by the outburst but, having been on many film sets, i didn't take it as a problem for more than a moment.  every 1 got back to work, no 1 got fired, christian apologized for his outburst.

i bring it up because melanie doesn't like people in her sight line.  many actors don't. they're preparing to deliver a performance, they have to be focused.  jane fonda - on the sets of 'klute' (where she gave the best performance by an actress in the 2nd half of the 20th century) and 'fun with dick and jane' (a hilarious and underrated comedy) was darting off to pay phones every second she wasn't filming to work on various political causes.  when they needed for filming, she would take a moment, take a breath, and she was ready.  that's great.  that's how she works.  but not every 1 has her training (she studied the method with strasberg) or her concentration skills.  some people need to key in on moods or emotions.  goldie hawn on a comedy set is playful and having fun and if you watch her you realize that various funny bits she's doing are going to be brought into the performance.  every 1 has their own way of working.

but julie salamon slams melanie for not wanting people in her sight line and wanting the set cleared of any 1 who doesn't need to be there at that moment to film the scene.

julie salamon slams her for this.  slams her for not wanting addition people on the set when she's disrobed and about to film a love scene.

what kind of f**king b**ch is julie salamon.  she is the reason 'me too' had to happen.  she is an enabler.  she wrote a book that ridiculed and mocked an actress, that treated as normal men wanting to hang around and see her naked, that treated as normal men grabbing melanie's ass (i'm not talking about a scene being filmed, i'm talking about on the set).  

melanie's looks are mocked.  her age is mocked (she was 'old,' sorry, i did not realize that 33, her age at the time, was 'old').  she feels the need to share that melanie griffith had a boob job.  every thing is mocked.


now please note that bruce willis has paint or powder being used - depending upon the day - to cover his bald spot. and he was 35 at the time.  and this bald spot was a lighting problem.  and the powder was worse because when he took off his glasses that he wore in scenes, the powder would get all over everything.  but he's not mocked.  his age is never made an issue in the book.

her acting and her acting process is mocked.  at no point is this academy award nominated actress treated or portrayed as talented. 

julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who made life worse for all actresses with her lousy book that has been overly praised for decades.  a reappraisal is desperately needed.

and there was no excuse for 'turner classic movies' to do a podcast in 2021 on this sexist garbage.  by 2021, it should have offended 90% of the people who read this trash.

and don't get me started on how julie salamon also goes to town ridiculing melanie's mother.

marcia and i are both posting right now.  so a second or 2 after this goes up, i'll have a link right here to marcia's review so you can read her take.  'A really bad book' is marcia's review.  be sure to check it out.

 


 

 

 

 

 

Marcia's take on a book

 

A really bad book

 

The Devil's Candy is a bad book by Julie Salamon.  It's been praised for years.  I have to believe a lot of the praise is by people who didn't read it.   

It's had three printings, by the way.  It's original and then in 2001 on the 20th anniversary and then on the 30th.

Why is that an issue?

I'm sorry if you're reprinting garbage maybe it's too much for you to read it?


Is that it?  


Is that the excuse for all the factual errors?

The book is about turning Thomas Wolfe's racist book The Bonfire of the Vanities into a film.  Brian de Palma is the director.  The cast includes Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Kim Catrall. 

Early on, it's feared that Melanie Griffith is too old -- at 33 -- to play Tom Hanks' mistress.  Tom was 34 at the time.  But there's a push to give the part to Uma Thurman -- then 20 years old -- before filming starts.  

Bad writer Julie Salamon tells us Uma was hot off her film debut in Dangerous Liaisons.

Do you see the problem?


Because no one's bothered to correct it.  Three reprintings over 30 years.


Uma Thurman first film was Kiss Daddy Goodnight.  She made two other films before she made Dangerous Liaisons -- making DL her fourth film -- not, as Julie types -- her film debut.

There are errors like that on one page after another.  Gross factual errors on page after page.


Again, did the people who praised this crapfest over the years actually read it?  

Here's a passage from the bad book:


But when the book was published and became an instant literary and sociological phenomenon, a great many people wanted to find a through line. Suddenly Bonfire seemed very desirable. Still, nothing happened. No one could completely overcome his or her doubts—not until Peter Guber read the book in late autumn of 1987 and put in a call to Jeff Berg, chairman of Wolfe’s literary agency, International Creative Management. 


The book was published, Salamon types, and was a success but "still nothing happened" and wouldn't happen "until Peter Guber read the book in late autumn of 1987."  


Wow.  What a long, long wait. 

The publisher shows the release date to be November 1, 1987.  The New York Times reviewed it October 13, 1987.


Late autumn?  That's generally considered to be November.  "Still, nothing happened."  Weeks after the book's published and  then makes the best seller list is not a great length of time.

But facts don't matter to this author. 

It's a boring book, it's a book with non-stop factual errors and -- Rebecca's zooming in on this -- it's a very sexist book.


We're both posting right now.  A second or two after this goes up, I'm adding a link here to Rebecca's review.   Okay, Rebecca's "julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology" and it's an epic.  You'll enjoy it, be sure to read it.

 

Deep album cut of the week

 

 

From Diana Ross'  1971 album SURRENDER, "And If You See Him" was written by Ashford & Simpson (who also produced the album). 

This edition's playlist

diana cover 2

 

 1) Diana Ross' THANK YOU.


2) Beyonce's COWBOY CARTER.

 

3) The Rolling Stones' HACKNEY DIAMONDS.

 

4) Sam Smith's THE THRILL OF IT ALL.


5)  The Mamas and the Papas' THE PAPAS & THE MAMAS

 

6) Joni Mitchell's JONI MITCHELL ARCHIVES -- VOL. 3: THE ASYLUM YEARS (1972 - 1975).

  

7) Green Day's  'SAVIORS.'

 

8) Ben Harper's CALL IT WHAT IT IS.


9) Harry Styles' HARRY'S HOUSE

 

10) Alicia Keys' HERE.

 

 

Highlights

a park painting 11


This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.
 

"Chump's illegal war on immigrants" -- most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site. 

 

"Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes"" and THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Dumb Bondi Jokes" -- Isaiah's latest comics.
 
 
"A really bad book" and "julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology"  -- Marcia and Rebecca do their summer book read. 
 
 
"The Snapshot,"  "The Snapshot,"  "The Snapshot," "The Snapshot," "The Snapshot," "Idiot of the Week,"  "Can Donald Chump learn his lane?," "Chump's making his reservation for a long (eternal) stay in hell,"  "Some Senate races," "That disgusting Glenneth Greenwald," "Taco Bell," "Chump should be charged with stolen valor,"  "Dr Phil and Chump -- fakes and frauds," "Epstein -- pal of Maxwell and Chump.," "target fooled around and now gets to find out," "chump embarrassed the country on the world stage," "crazy nuts,"  "Chump and his non-Christian base (they're Saulians)," "Junior betrays the staff in the department he is supposed to lead,"  "MTG and Megyn Kelly: A Couple of Racists Sitting Around Talking,"  "Marjorie Taylor Crook,"  "Chump and his boy Junior,"  "Chump's stupidity is only matched by his desperation,"  "Chump has too much time on his hands,"  "No, Chump, you are not going to heaven," "Chump has declared war on voting,," "Everyone has caught on to Chump," "What happened to the kid in THE SIXTH SENSE?," "Racist Chump is allergic to the truth," "We've all lost confidence in our corrupts Supreme Court," "Liar Chump continues war on science," "The fools are all here: Trampy Melania, Pam Bondi Bimbo and Pete Hegseth and his overused (gaping) anus," "James Dobson has left to run to the arms of Satan," "A good ruling from Judge Fred Biery," "Male cheerleaders," "Pete Hegseth did WHAT with a subway sandwich?," "The freaks of the Chump administration," "DC follies and disgraces," "THIS JUST IN! THAT WACKY D.C.!," "Like his administration, Chump's flesh rots in public," "Stupidity is the common theme of the Chump administration," "Dumb Bondi, Fat Chump and Plastic Surgery Addict Noem," "Pam Bondi inspires Dumb Bondi jokes," "THIS JUST IN! CHUMP, BONDI AND NOEM -- 3 IDIOTS 3," "The administration has a contest to declare who's the most stupid in their group" and "Immigration is a concept the court of Queen Chump doesn't really understand" -- news coverage in the community.

 

 

"New England Style American Chop Suey," "Pork Chops with Apples and Onions in the Kitchen." "Air Fryer Spicy Shrimp Crispy Rice in the Kitchen," "Chicken Tetrazzini in the Kitchen" and "Red Potato Salad in the Kitchen" -- Trina serves up some recipes. 

  

"joan collins, nicholas clay, luke macfarlane,"  "RELAY and fall TV,"  "PARAMOUNT's assets are overestimated, PEACEMAKER season 2 has started,"  "ALIEN EARTH and the revival of KING OF THE HILL,"  "Chris Pratt doesn't realize he's over," "Weekend box office,"  "Terence Stamp" and "Cartoons" -- TV and film coverage in the community.  

 

"Doja Cat, Little Nas X, Heart, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys,"  "Garbage, Oasis, Robbie Williams, Devo," "Losers Dean Cain and Michael Franti" and "Oasis, Rick Springfield, Devo, Blondie" -- music coverage in the community. 

 

 

 

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