After a series of strikingly unsuccessful meetings on Capitol
Hill in which she failed to impress even moderate Republicans such as
Susan Collins of Maine, Rice also found herself facing resistance from
foreign-policy elites who questioned her temperament and her record. In
addition, human-rights critics were up in arms over her behavior toward African dictators,
particularly her role in allegedly holding up publication of a U.N.
report that concluded the government of Rwandan President Paul Kagame,
with whom she has a long and close relationship, was supplying and
financing a brutal Congolese rebel force known as the M23 Movement.
-- Michael Hirsh, "Obama Gets a Solution to His Susan Rice Problem" (National Journal).
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Truest statement of the week II
Letting CNN explain to us what it means to be black in America is about as smart as chickens choosing Popeye's to teach their history. To nobody's surprise, the latest installment of CNN's “ Black in America” spoke more to white perceptions of blackness and black history than it did to actual black experiences. This episode's focus on what Zora Neale Hurston called “the tragic mulatto” revisits what's always been chiefly a white obsession, rather than any central fact of African American life, and offers a fake history of the origin of the so-called “one drop rule” which makes anybody with detectable African ancestry in the US considered black.
-- Bruce A, Dixon, "CNN's Black In America: What Happens When Popeye's Teaches Chickens History & Current Events" (Black Agenda Report).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
Michael Hirsh on the Rice debacle.
Bruce A. Dixon.
How do you miss four days of massive protests in Iraq?
Ava and C.I. cover the 12.12.12 concert. We took a break before doing the note. Two have e-mailed to say it's "12-12-12-" and link to Huffington Post. Actually, check the article, it's 12.12.12. You'll note that in the screen snap of Brian Williams from the live YouTube broadcast.
We have one more article to go and then we wrap this feature up. Thanks to Dona and Kat who went through screen snaps to pick the ones for this article.
In a functioning world, The Nation would make this the cover story, Democracy Now would spend the hour on it, CodePink would object to it and various leaders would be calling it out.
The spy community wants to gut the safety net.
We only heard of this while working on the edition. Dona said we could do it as a short feature so we did.
From Senator Murray's office.
Repost from Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
Michael Hirsh on the Rice debacle.
Bruce A. Dixon.
How do you miss four days of massive protests in Iraq?
Ava and C.I. cover the 12.12.12 concert. We took a break before doing the note. Two have e-mailed to say it's "12-12-12-" and link to Huffington Post. Actually, check the article, it's 12.12.12. You'll note that in the screen snap of Brian Williams from the live YouTube broadcast.
We have one more article to go and then we wrap this feature up. Thanks to Dona and Kat who went through screen snaps to pick the ones for this article.
In a functioning world, The Nation would make this the cover story, Democracy Now would spend the hour on it, CodePink would object to it and various leaders would be calling it out.
The spy community wants to gut the safety net.
We only heard of this while working on the edition. Dona said we could do it as a short feature so we did.
From Senator Murray's office.
Repost from Workers World.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: How did they miss that?
Iraq is an oil-rich country of approximately 30 million people and there are many stories to cover. The US press has long seemed to be hung up chiefly on the oil -- reflecting the US government's own interest in Iraq. But they have managed to cover other stories out of Iraq.
So how is it that a major protest -- one that lasted days -- which took place last week didn't get coverage?
Oh, it must not have been in Baghdad, right?
Because so many of the non-Iraqi reporters are little more than human veal and Baghdad acts as their cage. So if it doesn't happen in Baghdad, it didn't happen.
But, thing is, Baghdad was one of the places it did take place in.
On Monday, Nouri al-Maliki supposedly gave a speech on human rights but the speech was really Nouri blasting people for talking about the abuse of women in Iraqi prisons and to trash cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
Moqtada's supporters did not take kindly to this. Here's Baghdad on Tuesday.
See all those protesters? The protests were noted in Tuesday's "Iraq snapshot":
And the protests didn't end the day they started. As noted in Friday's "Iraq snapshot," "Al Mada notes that protesters also showed their support for Moqtada on Wednesday in Baghdad, Najaf, Basra and Maysan and that they called out Nouri and burned photos of Nouri. Al Mada reports that the protests continued in Baghdad and Najaf today for the fourth consecutive day. If you're not aware of those protests, it's because the non-Iraqi media hasn't been reporting them."
So where was the coverage?
Massive protests against a sitting leader, he is denounced at the protests, his pictures are burned at the protests -- where are the US reports of this happening?
The US installed Saddam Hussein. He's the tyrant they would turn on. But for many years, the US government was more than happy to do business with him. In the eighties, for example, he and Donald Rumsfeld (who would become US Secretary of Defense in 2001) were very tight. But as tight as Rumsfeld and other US officials were with Hussein, even tighter was the US press. In fact, Eason Jordan would take to The New York Times after the start of the Iraq War to whine about how CNN wasn't able to report the truth about Saddam Hussein.
It appears the US 'news' industry is yet again censoring itself. In 2019 or so, when the world is going on about what a tyrant Nouri al-Maliki is (and he is, he shut down another TV station in Baghdad on Saturday and is threatening a newspaper editor currently) and wondering how it happened and where were the reporters, remember, they knew what was happening.
They just didn't report it.
So how is it that a major protest -- one that lasted days -- which took place last week didn't get coverage?
Oh, it must not have been in Baghdad, right?
Because so many of the non-Iraqi reporters are little more than human veal and Baghdad acts as their cage. So if it doesn't happen in Baghdad, it didn't happen.
But, thing is, Baghdad was one of the places it did take place in.
On Monday, Nouri al-Maliki supposedly gave a speech on human rights but the speech was really Nouri blasting people for talking about the abuse of women in Iraqi prisons and to trash cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
Moqtada's supporters did not take kindly to this. Here's Baghdad on Tuesday.
See all those protesters? The protests were noted in Tuesday's "Iraq snapshot":
In Basra and Baghdad today, protests took place against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al Mada reports photos of Nouri were burned and he was denounced loudly. As noted in yesterday's snapshot, Nouri used a Monday speech allegedly about human rights to attack Moqtada al-Sadr -- cleric and movement leader. Dar Addustour adds
"thousands" poured into the streets in Baghdad at two o'clock in the
afternoon. As they marched to a central location, Muzaffar Square,
they chanted slogans. Nouri can take comfort in that his wasn't the
only photo burned -- there were also a few photos of former leader
Saddam Hussein that were set on fire. All Iraq News notes
that as the protests took place, Moqtada al-Sadr issued a statement
noting that the Iraqi army must be armed but not via corrupt deals
(like the Russian deal Nouri signed and then called off) and that all
arms must be to defend Iraq and not used to attack Iraqis. Please note
that all three previous links have a photo of the turnout in Baghdad,
it was huge. Just how large it was may be best captured in the photo Kitabat runs. At the Basra protest, Sheikh Khalid al-Issawi tells Al Mada
that the protest is to convey the outrage over Nouri's verbal attack on
Moqtada while, in Baghdad, Sheikh Taha Altablawbawi explains that the
people of Sadr City, elders, intellectuals, children, all, are serving
notice that attacks on Moqtada al-Sadr will not go unnoticed and will
result in a response. Protester Sam Abdul-Mahdi tells Alsumaria that this is the start of protests in Basra and that Nouri should retract his attack on Moqtada. The Iraq Times reports
that Nouri ordered helicopters to fly overhead during the Baghdad
protest and that some Sadrists saw that as an attempt at intimidation.
Al Mada reports
that Iraqiya is warning that if changes do not take place in Iraq
quickly, popular uprisings will take to the streets. Protests were
taking place around Iraq in January. Demonstrators were calling out
the disappearance of their loved ones into the 'justice system,' they
were calling out the lack of jobs and the lack of basic services. This
swelled into the massive protests that took place across Iraq February
25th. Iraqis took to the streets and, in Baghdad, Nouri sent his
forces to attack. Iraqi reporters were kidnapped by the police after
covering the protests, they were then tortured and forced to sign
statements saying they had not been tortured. Haidi al-Mahdi was one
of those reporters. It was after the protests, he and some other
reporters were ordering lunch and seated a table when Nouri's forces
barged over, used the butt of their guns to strike people and rounded
up Haidi and the other reporters.And the protests didn't end the day they started. As noted in Friday's "Iraq snapshot," "Al Mada notes that protesters also showed their support for Moqtada on Wednesday in Baghdad, Najaf, Basra and Maysan and that they called out Nouri and burned photos of Nouri. Al Mada reports that the protests continued in Baghdad and Najaf today for the fourth consecutive day. If you're not aware of those protests, it's because the non-Iraqi media hasn't been reporting them."
So where was the coverage?
Massive protests against a sitting leader, he is denounced at the protests, his pictures are burned at the protests -- where are the US reports of this happening?
The US installed Saddam Hussein. He's the tyrant they would turn on. But for many years, the US government was more than happy to do business with him. In the eighties, for example, he and Donald Rumsfeld (who would become US Secretary of Defense in 2001) were very tight. But as tight as Rumsfeld and other US officials were with Hussein, even tighter was the US press. In fact, Eason Jordan would take to The New York Times after the start of the Iraq War to whine about how CNN wasn't able to report the truth about Saddam Hussein.
It appears the US 'news' industry is yet again censoring itself. In 2019 or so, when the world is going on about what a tyrant Nouri al-Maliki is (and he is, he shut down another TV station in Baghdad on Saturday and is threatening a newspaper editor currently) and wondering how it happened and where were the reporters, remember, they knew what was happening.
They just didn't report it.
TV: The Greed-athon
Ravi Shankar passed away last week and, yet again, his timing was impeccable. The artist impacted the world of music and much more. With UNICEF, Shankar and George Harrison started "the rock-and-roll benefit concert" in 1971 with the Concert for Bangladesh. A legendary concert for victims in need that changed the landscape was in stark contrast to what 12.12.12 offered.
12.12.12 was a concert for . . . something. Wednesday night's performers often seemed confused about what exactly -- which might explain the lackluster performances. Anytime a concert gets more coverage for what a performer wore (Kanye West performed in a leather skirt and leggings) than for any song performed, that's your first clue that the music didn't make it.
Your second clue that the music was less than inspiring was that the second most talked about topic after the concert was Adam Sandler's rewriting Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Sandler's been around forever and hasn't shown anything fresh since 1992, three years before he was fired from Saturday Night Live. His most recent live-action film (That's My Boy) cost $70 million to make (plus prints and advertising) and didn't even bring in $40 million in tickets in the US. If you hadn't caught that he was a moldy oldy before, maybe seeing him do song parodies like he used to decades ago on SNL should have tipped you off?
Instead, it resulted in glee from New York magazine, Rolling Stone and many others who attacked Mitt Romney. That was puzzling because what was Adam Sandler doing but espousing Romney? Begging for others to pay the bill while insisting "we" (his NYC clan) built it. Did they miss that? Did a few dirty words have them so amused that the entire point of the song was lost?
The further away from NYC you got, the more of a bomb Sandler's song was. Though few connected it to Romney, we did hear people in the DC area and Colorado express sentiments about how irritating and insulting they found Sandler whose routine translated as, "We're the best in NYC, no one is better. Now all you scum outside of NYC send us money!" Probably not a good idea to beg for money by bragging about yourself, let alone implying others aren't worthy.
As you listened to the insufferable Sandler or the overly made up Jon Bon Jovi (who may have topped Sandler if you include the pre-taped spot aired during the concert where JBJ implied hurricanes prior to Sandy were minor -- apparently former pop stars never heard of Hurricane Katrina), you realized something else: The ego on NYC celebrities is appalling.
The 'victims' were on stage. Or answering the phones. Poor Ben Stiller! He shared with Brian Williams that he had been without electricity for nearly nine days! Oh, the horror. Ben Stiller, trapped -- due to poverty -- in a tiny hovel with no electricity . . . Oh, that's right. A mansion. And he could have left at any time and jetted off somewhere (like Hawaii where he'll be golfing with Barack Obama during the Christmas break). Whoopi Goldberg was among the confused as she Price-Is-Righted a Samsung Galaxy for the cameras when she should have been focusing on the victims of Sandy and not hawking a product to Brian Williams.
Maybe the 'victims' on screen and their bad behavior explains the money raised? Kara Williams (MTV) reports that "more than $30 million was raised from ticket revenue, sponsorships and corporate donations." For perspective, Live Aid raised over $280 million in 1985. Maybe smug stars full of themselves don't garner as much sympathy as people who are starving?
Kimberly Nordyke (Billboard) reported that "5.2 million" were watching the concert on TV at any given moment with a total of 19 million having checked out the five hour concert. In other words, at any given moment more people were watching Tim Allen on any episode of Last Man Standing than bothered to watch 12.12.12. Nordyke points out that in addition to multiple channels in the US, it was also streamed online which only makes the donations appear all the more paltry.
Daltrey? Yes, the Who was there and 'singer' Roger Daltrey spent big on pec implants so the 68-year-old man felt the need to strip and show. It's a shame he didn't take time for sit ups or lipo on the stomach. But maybe the implants detracted from the fact that he just couldn't hit the notes anymore? Despite being decades younger, Jon Bon Jovi couldn't hit the notes either.
It was embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the performance of "Cut Me Some Slack." If you were to ask people to make a dream team of a Beatles and Nirvana combo, we believe most playing this fantasy band contest would assemble Kurt Cobain and John Lennon with George Harrison and Ringo Starr rounding things out. 12.12.12 offered Paul McCartney (the most vanilla of the Beatles) and the failures who backed Kurt. So it was the bland leading the bland.
Piano Man Billy Joel and Piano Woman Alicia Keys were the only real reason to watch. Both offered perspective and range that was missing in the obviously rushed performances (the Stones didn't even use all their allotted time).
Two acts were worth watching in five hours? That's not an endorsement. Also missing were the actual victims. For every Kristen Stewart patting themselves onstage for hopping a plane to be there, there were actual victims who were in the area but not at the concert because this benefit concert apparently wanted to use the victims, not embrace them. In New York especially, this became an issue. Though you were more likely to hear of it when the scalping scandal was raised, the bigger outrage for NYC residents still suffering was that no efforts were made to provide tickets for them.
They might want to consider themselves lucky. The sight of Jon Bon Jovi humping the aged Bruce Springsteen on stage may have been meant to recall the open mouthed, french kisses Bruce used to exchange with the late Clarence Clemons but it just left us worried Patti Scialfa would spend days trying to get Jon's make up off Bruce's shirt. We pictured her scrubbing away as furiously as the Cult of St. Barack. After all, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are part of the United States.
Willie Nelson and John Menllencamp championed Farm Aid in the 80s because the US government (under Ronald Reagan) was foreclosing family farms to help out corporations. NYC needs a benefit concert? That's really an indictment of the White House. In fact, if this were the 70s, we might see "Obama to City: Drop Dead" on the front page of The New York Daily News.
Instead, everyone on stage and on camera wanted to pretend that an awful hurricane hit NYC (and sometimes New Jersey) and no one had a right to expect the White House to be leading the relief effort. Heck of a job, Barry.
12.12.12 was a concert for . . . something. Wednesday night's performers often seemed confused about what exactly -- which might explain the lackluster performances. Anytime a concert gets more coverage for what a performer wore (Kanye West performed in a leather skirt and leggings) than for any song performed, that's your first clue that the music didn't make it.
Your second clue that the music was less than inspiring was that the second most talked about topic after the concert was Adam Sandler's rewriting Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Sandler's been around forever and hasn't shown anything fresh since 1992, three years before he was fired from Saturday Night Live. His most recent live-action film (That's My Boy) cost $70 million to make (plus prints and advertising) and didn't even bring in $40 million in tickets in the US. If you hadn't caught that he was a moldy oldy before, maybe seeing him do song parodies like he used to decades ago on SNL should have tipped you off?
Instead, it resulted in glee from New York magazine, Rolling Stone and many others who attacked Mitt Romney. That was puzzling because what was Adam Sandler doing but espousing Romney? Begging for others to pay the bill while insisting "we" (his NYC clan) built it. Did they miss that? Did a few dirty words have them so amused that the entire point of the song was lost?
The further away from NYC you got, the more of a bomb Sandler's song was. Though few connected it to Romney, we did hear people in the DC area and Colorado express sentiments about how irritating and insulting they found Sandler whose routine translated as, "We're the best in NYC, no one is better. Now all you scum outside of NYC send us money!" Probably not a good idea to beg for money by bragging about yourself, let alone implying others aren't worthy.
As you listened to the insufferable Sandler or the overly made up Jon Bon Jovi (who may have topped Sandler if you include the pre-taped spot aired during the concert where JBJ implied hurricanes prior to Sandy were minor -- apparently former pop stars never heard of Hurricane Katrina), you realized something else: The ego on NYC celebrities is appalling.
The 'victims' were on stage. Or answering the phones. Poor Ben Stiller! He shared with Brian Williams that he had been without electricity for nearly nine days! Oh, the horror. Ben Stiller, trapped -- due to poverty -- in a tiny hovel with no electricity . . . Oh, that's right. A mansion. And he could have left at any time and jetted off somewhere (like Hawaii where he'll be golfing with Barack Obama during the Christmas break). Whoopi Goldberg was among the confused as she Price-Is-Righted a Samsung Galaxy for the cameras when she should have been focusing on the victims of Sandy and not hawking a product to Brian Williams.
Maybe the 'victims' on screen and their bad behavior explains the money raised? Kara Williams (MTV) reports that "more than $30 million was raised from ticket revenue, sponsorships and corporate donations." For perspective, Live Aid raised over $280 million in 1985. Maybe smug stars full of themselves don't garner as much sympathy as people who are starving?
Kimberly Nordyke (Billboard) reported that "5.2 million" were watching the concert on TV at any given moment with a total of 19 million having checked out the five hour concert. In other words, at any given moment more people were watching Tim Allen on any episode of Last Man Standing than bothered to watch 12.12.12. Nordyke points out that in addition to multiple channels in the US, it was also streamed online which only makes the donations appear all the more paltry.
Daltrey? Yes, the Who was there and 'singer' Roger Daltrey spent big on pec implants so the 68-year-old man felt the need to strip and show. It's a shame he didn't take time for sit ups or lipo on the stomach. But maybe the implants detracted from the fact that he just couldn't hit the notes anymore? Despite being decades younger, Jon Bon Jovi couldn't hit the notes either.
It was embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the performance of "Cut Me Some Slack." If you were to ask people to make a dream team of a Beatles and Nirvana combo, we believe most playing this fantasy band contest would assemble Kurt Cobain and John Lennon with George Harrison and Ringo Starr rounding things out. 12.12.12 offered Paul McCartney (the most vanilla of the Beatles) and the failures who backed Kurt. So it was the bland leading the bland.
Piano Man Billy Joel and Piano Woman Alicia Keys were the only real reason to watch. Both offered perspective and range that was missing in the obviously rushed performances (the Stones didn't even use all their allotted time).
Two acts were worth watching in five hours? That's not an endorsement. Also missing were the actual victims. For every Kristen Stewart patting themselves onstage for hopping a plane to be there, there were actual victims who were in the area but not at the concert because this benefit concert apparently wanted to use the victims, not embrace them. In New York especially, this became an issue. Though you were more likely to hear of it when the scalping scandal was raised, the bigger outrage for NYC residents still suffering was that no efforts were made to provide tickets for them.
They might want to consider themselves lucky. The sight of Jon Bon Jovi humping the aged Bruce Springsteen on stage may have been meant to recall the open mouthed, french kisses Bruce used to exchange with the late Clarence Clemons but it just left us worried Patti Scialfa would spend days trying to get Jon's make up off Bruce's shirt. We pictured her scrubbing away as furiously as the Cult of St. Barack. After all, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are part of the United States.
Willie Nelson and John Menllencamp championed Farm Aid in the 80s because the US government (under Ronald Reagan) was foreclosing family farms to help out corporations. NYC needs a benefit concert? That's really an indictment of the White House. In fact, if this were the 70s, we might see "Obama to City: Drop Dead" on the front page of The New York Daily News.
Instead, everyone on stage and on camera wanted to pretend that an awful hurricane hit NYC (and sometimes New Jersey) and no one had a right to expect the White House to be leading the relief effort. Heck of a job, Barry.
The Bionic Woman Season 2
"Principles that kill your friends don't fit my definition of principles." Jaime Sommers makes that statement in the three-parter "Kill Oscar" during the second season of The Bionic Woman. It captures what the show hinted at frequently during the first season and what it became in the second and third season. So does the screen snap below of Jaime (Lindsay Wagner) and Steve Austin (Lee Majors).
"Kill Oscar" was one of the cross-over episodes between The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man. In it and the other cross-over ("The Return of Bigfoot" and "The Return of Bigfoot Part II") Jaime's not a tag along. She's an active participant even over Steve's objections. It's a much stronger Jaime than season one hinted at.
She's not playing anyone else's game, she's playing her game with her rules such as "Principles that kill your friends don't fit my definition of principles." This is obvious throughout the season including in the ambitious two-parter "Doomsday Is Tomorrow" (written by Kenneth Johnson) in which a mad scientist, played by Lew Ayers, creates a computer "Alex" to oversee a doomsday device that will kill the world if they can't stop murdering each other with deadly weapons.
The doomsday device doesn't actually exist, Jaime finds out after risking everything. She explains that the scientist knew someday, someone would try to set off a bomb (triggering the doomsday device) and that this was a way of making the leaders appreciate life and hopefully bringing about peace. A Russian scientist wonders "will they remember it tomorrow?" But he's someone Jaime's made peace with, had to trust him to work with him even though it meant exposing her bionics to a foreign agent. Trust threads its way through every episode of season two as does the motto she embroiders on a sampler "TO YOUR OWN SELF BE TRUE."
That's in the two-parter "Deadly Ringer." Season two is full of multi-parters because it's a more ambitious and satisfying season. Lindsay Wagner gets to deeper and richer characterization in the lead role and also gets to again play Jaime look-alike Lisa. She's tossed in prison and Lisa's set free. No one will believe her that she's really Jaime. Again, issues of trust are explored and, as Lisa says at the end, "You know, sometimes it, uh, it does take seeing something in another person before you realize you have that something yourself." Wagner gives a tour de force performance, one that resulted in the Emmy for Best Actress.
Seasons one and two were ratings hits for ABC. With season one, the network wanted a second season but with season two, they were done with it. They apparently hoped they could have a more cartoonish series and nothing complex. Season two was too rich and too strong for them. They also weren't too keen on women. Fall 1977 would find The Bionic Woman on NBC and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman on CBS. ABC wasn't opposed to super heroes, you understand. They kept The Six Million Dollar Man. What was the difference? Oh, right, that show had a male lead.
"Kill Oscar" is probably the most famous of any episodes of The Bionic Woman because it introduces the fembots -- robots that pose as women created by another mad scientist, this one played by John Houseman. (Houseman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Paper Chase -- Lindsay Wagner also starred in the film and played his daughter.) The fembots were so popular that they ended up with an action figure, a season three return and overwhelmed the reality that there was also a 'him-bot.' After kidnapping Oscar Goldman, Houseman sends a robot of Goldman back to OSI headquarters.
Along with John Houseman and Lew Ayers, second season guest stars included Stefanie Powers, John Saxon, Marj Dusay, Norman Fell, Hoyt Axton, Doc Severinson, George Maharis, James Hong, Ed Walsh, Katherine Helmond, Jeff Corey and, pictured above, Vincent Price, Julie Newman, Hermione Baddeley, Abe Vigoda and William Windom.
As strong as the multi-episodes stories are, the stand alones work as well. And one, "Road to Nashville" is one of two episodes that includes commentary from Lindsay Wagner who talks about Richard Dean Anderson's Oscar and how his performance on this show differed from his Oscar on The Six Million Dollar Man, the 'laws of bionics,' the importance of humor, humanity and fun to the show as well as how to sum up Jaime Sommers. The other she offers commentary on is "Biofeedback" which is both a strong episode and an interesting storyline considering Wagner's own interest in and work on holistic health.
Artistically, season two is a huge leap. Lindsay Wagner's offering a richer characterization than you normally see on TV for female or male characters. Kenneth Johnson and others behind the scenes are digging deep for storylines that really resonate. The show becomes haunting and is the perfect lead-in to season three. Back when the likes of Starsky and Hutch and Baretta and all the rest were perfectly fine to have every season be like the one before, The Bionic Woman pioneered the kind of episodic TV we now expect from all our dramas.
In this series, we've offered "The Bionic Woman Season Three" and "The Bionic Woman Season One" and we actually have one more to do -- hopefully next week.
"Kill Oscar" was one of the cross-over episodes between The Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man. In it and the other cross-over ("The Return of Bigfoot" and "The Return of Bigfoot Part II") Jaime's not a tag along. She's an active participant even over Steve's objections. It's a much stronger Jaime than season one hinted at.
She's not playing anyone else's game, she's playing her game with her rules such as "Principles that kill your friends don't fit my definition of principles." This is obvious throughout the season including in the ambitious two-parter "Doomsday Is Tomorrow" (written by Kenneth Johnson) in which a mad scientist, played by Lew Ayers, creates a computer "Alex" to oversee a doomsday device that will kill the world if they can't stop murdering each other with deadly weapons.
The doomsday device doesn't actually exist, Jaime finds out after risking everything. She explains that the scientist knew someday, someone would try to set off a bomb (triggering the doomsday device) and that this was a way of making the leaders appreciate life and hopefully bringing about peace. A Russian scientist wonders "will they remember it tomorrow?" But he's someone Jaime's made peace with, had to trust him to work with him even though it meant exposing her bionics to a foreign agent. Trust threads its way through every episode of season two as does the motto she embroiders on a sampler "TO YOUR OWN SELF BE TRUE."
That's in the two-parter "Deadly Ringer." Season two is full of multi-parters because it's a more ambitious and satisfying season. Lindsay Wagner gets to deeper and richer characterization in the lead role and also gets to again play Jaime look-alike Lisa. She's tossed in prison and Lisa's set free. No one will believe her that she's really Jaime. Again, issues of trust are explored and, as Lisa says at the end, "You know, sometimes it, uh, it does take seeing something in another person before you realize you have that something yourself." Wagner gives a tour de force performance, one that resulted in the Emmy for Best Actress.
Seasons one and two were ratings hits for ABC. With season one, the network wanted a second season but with season two, they were done with it. They apparently hoped they could have a more cartoonish series and nothing complex. Season two was too rich and too strong for them. They also weren't too keen on women. Fall 1977 would find The Bionic Woman on NBC and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman on CBS. ABC wasn't opposed to super heroes, you understand. They kept The Six Million Dollar Man. What was the difference? Oh, right, that show had a male lead.
"Kill Oscar" is probably the most famous of any episodes of The Bionic Woman because it introduces the fembots -- robots that pose as women created by another mad scientist, this one played by John Houseman. (Houseman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Paper Chase -- Lindsay Wagner also starred in the film and played his daughter.) The fembots were so popular that they ended up with an action figure, a season three return and overwhelmed the reality that there was also a 'him-bot.' After kidnapping Oscar Goldman, Houseman sends a robot of Goldman back to OSI headquarters.
Along with John Houseman and Lew Ayers, second season guest stars included Stefanie Powers, John Saxon, Marj Dusay, Norman Fell, Hoyt Axton, Doc Severinson, George Maharis, James Hong, Ed Walsh, Katherine Helmond, Jeff Corey and, pictured above, Vincent Price, Julie Newman, Hermione Baddeley, Abe Vigoda and William Windom.
As strong as the multi-episodes stories are, the stand alones work as well. And one, "Road to Nashville" is one of two episodes that includes commentary from Lindsay Wagner who talks about Richard Dean Anderson's Oscar and how his performance on this show differed from his Oscar on The Six Million Dollar Man, the 'laws of bionics,' the importance of humor, humanity and fun to the show as well as how to sum up Jaime Sommers. The other she offers commentary on is "Biofeedback" which is both a strong episode and an interesting storyline considering Wagner's own interest in and work on holistic health.
Artistically, season two is a huge leap. Lindsay Wagner's offering a richer characterization than you normally see on TV for female or male characters. Kenneth Johnson and others behind the scenes are digging deep for storylines that really resonate. The show becomes haunting and is the perfect lead-in to season three. Back when the likes of Starsky and Hutch and Baretta and all the rest were perfectly fine to have every season be like the one before, The Bionic Woman pioneered the kind of episodic TV we now expect from all our dramas.
In this series, we've offered "The Bionic Woman Season Three" and "The Bionic Woman Season One" and we actually have one more to do -- hopefully next week.
The Iraq secret the press is keeping from you
You may have missed it, but the US is back in Iraq.
No, we're not just talking about the reports that 3,000 US troops entered Iraq this month from Kuwait (see last week's "Editorial: The superflous American media"). We're mainly talking about what gives them authority to do that, the Memorandum of Understanding For Defense Cooperation Between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Iraq and the Department of Defense of the United States of America which was signed December 6th.
The memorandum calls for joint-patrols. That was a bit hard for some to understand. Monday's "Iraq Snapshot" covered it and the response to that was a sort of mass denial leading C.I. to offer, "But for those idiots who can't quite grasp reality, my question would be where, if not in Iraq, would you expect these joint-exercises to take place? Paris? Are joint teams of US and Iraqi service members going to patrol the Champs Elysees?" The matter was addressed again in the Tuesday snapshot.
Hopefully, those who were shocked have gotten over their disbelief.
Barack always wanted US troops in Iraq. He made that clear when speaking to The New York Times in 2007. When the paper bungled their report on that, we grabbed the transcript of the interview and re-wrote it as "NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq'" to emphasize the main point.
Counter-terrorism operations was bandied about in that 2007 interview.
No surprise, the memorandum notes that they will be engaging in joint counter-terrorism operations.
There really are no surprises here but to dispense with a few lies that have been tossed around in the last days, this is not about State Department contractors. This is not an agreement with the US State Department. This agreement was signed by the US Defense Department.
This is about US service members. Did the White House not think things through?
They thought it through enough to plan for what to do in the case of US service members' deaths.
The only shocking thing about the memorandum is how it has been greeted with silence. Don't expect The Nation magazine or Democracy Now! to break from their 'important' whoring for Barack to tell you about the memorandum. But we've already included the link. The Pentagon published the memorandum.
And when you grasp how the alphabets (MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, etc.) refused to tell you about the memorandum, grasp that the Pentagon made no effort to keep this quiet. December 6th, they released the following:
The only thing wrong in the above is the link to view the memorandum:
http://www.defense.gov/news/US-IraqMOUDefenseCooperation.pdf
Use the link and realize that the White House got their way, a legal agreement to send more US troops back into Iraq. Also grasp that the press 'forgot' to inform you of this development.
No, we're not just talking about the reports that 3,000 US troops entered Iraq this month from Kuwait (see last week's "Editorial: The superflous American media"). We're mainly talking about what gives them authority to do that, the Memorandum of Understanding For Defense Cooperation Between the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Iraq and the Department of Defense of the United States of America which was signed December 6th.
The memorandum calls for joint-patrols. That was a bit hard for some to understand. Monday's "Iraq Snapshot" covered it and the response to that was a sort of mass denial leading C.I. to offer, "But for those idiots who can't quite grasp reality, my question would be where, if not in Iraq, would you expect these joint-exercises to take place? Paris? Are joint teams of US and Iraqi service members going to patrol the Champs Elysees?" The matter was addressed again in the Tuesday snapshot.
Hopefully, those who were shocked have gotten over their disbelief.
Barack always wanted US troops in Iraq. He made that clear when speaking to The New York Times in 2007. When the paper bungled their report on that, we grabbed the transcript of the interview and re-wrote it as "NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq'" to emphasize the main point.
Counter-terrorism operations was bandied about in that 2007 interview.
No surprise, the memorandum notes that they will be engaging in joint counter-terrorism operations.
There really are no surprises here but to dispense with a few lies that have been tossed around in the last days, this is not about State Department contractors. This is not an agreement with the US State Department. This agreement was signed by the US Defense Department.
This is about US service members. Did the White House not think things through?
They thought it through enough to plan for what to do in the case of US service members' deaths.
The only shocking thing about the memorandum is how it has been greeted with silence. Don't expect The Nation magazine or Democracy Now! to break from their 'important' whoring for Barack to tell you about the memorandum. But we've already included the link. The Pentagon published the memorandum.
And when you grasp how the alphabets (MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, etc.) refused to tell you about the memorandum, grasp that the Pentagon made no effort to keep this quiet. December 6th, they released the following:
Under the auspices of the Strategic
Framework Agreement, the Governments of the United States of America and
the Republic of Iraq reaffirmed their commitment to an enduring
strategic partnership during the second meeting of the Defense and
Security Joint Coordination Committee on December 5-6, 2012 in Baghdad.
The
meetings held at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense were co-chaired by Iraqi
Defense Minister Saadoun Al-Dlimi, the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense
for Policy James Miller, and the Acting Under Secretary of State for
Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller.
Defense
and Security Cooperation is one of the cooperation areas that were
agreed upon in the Strategic Framework Agreement signed in 2008 between
the United States Government and the Government of the Republic of Iraq
in order to strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest for the
two countries.
The
United States and Iraq discussed efforts to continue strengthening
their security cooperation, enhance Iraq's defense capabilities,
modernize Iraq's military forces, and facilitate both countries'
contributions to regional security. The two delegations explored
U.S.-Iraq training opportunities and Iraq's participation in regional
exercises.
The
United States and Iraq also discussed the strong and growing foreign
military sales program, a symbol of the long-term security partnership
envisioned by both countries. The United States stated its support for
Iraq's efforts to meet its defense and security needs.
Both
delegations reviewed regional security issues. They exchanged views on
the conflict in Syria and its effects on regional stability, with both
sides urging an end to the violence and support for a political
transition that would represent the will of the Syrian people. The two
sides agreed to continue consulting closely on regional security
matters.
The
capstone event was the exchange of a Memorandum of Understanding signed
by Defense Minister Saadoun Al-Dlimi and Secretary of Defense Leon
Panetta. This agreement represents the enduring strategic partnership
between the United States and Iraq, and provides mechanisms for
increased defense cooperation in areas including defense planning,
counterterrorism cooperation, and combined exercises.
Finally,
the United States and the Republic of Iraq committed to convene a third
recurring Defense and Security Cooperation Joint Coordination Committee
meeting in Washington, D.C., during 2013 to continue discussions on the
enduring security and military cooperation between the two countries.
View the Memorandum of Understanding at: http://www.defense.gov/releases/US-IraqMOUDefenseCooperation.pdf
The only thing wrong in the above is the link to view the memorandum:
http://www.defense.gov/news/US-IraqMOUDefenseCooperation.pdf
Use the link and realize that the White House got their way, a legal agreement to send more US troops back into Iraq. Also grasp that the press 'forgot' to inform you of this development.
National Intelligence Council attacks safety net
Monday the National Intelligence Council was pimping their organization's new report "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" (PDF format warning, click here). The report bills itself as "the fifth installment in the National Intelligence Council's series aimed at providing a framework for thinking about the future." If you're wondering, "who?," they helpfully explain:
The National Intelligence Council supports the Director of National Intelligence in his role as head of the Intelligence Community (IC) and is the IC’s center for long-term strategic analysis.
Since its establishment in 1979, the NIC has served as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities, a source of deep substantive expertise on intelligence issues, and a facilitator of Intelligence Community collaboration and outreach.
The NIC’s National Intelligence Officers -- drawn from government, academia, and the private sector -- are the Intelligence Community’s senior experts on a range of regional and functional issues.
The "Global Trends" is a yearly report and supposedly just intel. But it's not.
First, owing to the likely growth of revenues dedicated to funding pensions, health-care, and other entitlements in the West to care for aging populations, younger generations will feel a growing sense of inter-generational inequality.
Along with endorsing fracking, the report attacks 'entitlements.' Not just above but elsewhere.
In an "Iraq snapshot" this week, the attack was noted and a member of the administration informed C.I. that she had misread the report. The only real attack, C.I. was told, came from the report including an essay that New Marxist Review had published. C.I. responded by asking where that 'magazine' published and whether or not she and the official had both been asleep for a number of years?
She didn't misread the report; however, a White House official did.
The New Marxist Review 'article'?
That was written by the intelligence community. Your first clue to that, if you read closely, is that the NMR editor (an unnamed woman in the report -- there is no such real magazine, by the way) ran an essay contest to note the 210 anniversary of Marx's birth.
Why would someone go with 210 as opposed to 200?
That's a good question. A better one is when was Marx born? 1818.
210 years after would be 2028.
Which is why the report uses that year, it's not a typo.
In 2028, the Editor of the New Marxist Review launched a competition for the best short essay on the meaning of Marx and Communism 210 years after Marx’s birth in 1818. To her surprise, the journal was flooded with thousands of submissions. She was having a hard time sifting through the piles and selecting a winner, but she found one that pulled together many of the recurring themes. The essay made the case that Marx isn’t dead but is instead thriving and doing better in the 21st century than anybody could have imagined just 15 or 20 years ago. The following are excerpts from that essay.
This 'essay' -- that trashes entitlements -- was written by the national intelligence community.
So desperate is their lust to kill off Social Security and Medicare that they created a fictional magazine which in the future publishes a (poorly written) essay in which a 'Marxist' celebrates the end of 'entitlements.'
Those in charge of the spy community don't just want to spy on you, they want to gut the safety net.
A functioning US press would be covering that, would be asking who wrote the 'essay' and where the intelligence community gets off attempting to dictate policy?
But, as we learn each year, we don't have a functioning press in the United States.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
