Judd The Sexist (Marcia, Ann, Ava and C.I.)

Judd Apatow is 'guest editor' for the latest issue of Vanity Fair.  As the four who wrote "We do not embrace sexism (Marcia, Ann, Ava and C.I.)," "We do not embrace sexism (Marcia, Ann, Ava and C.I.)" and  "We do not embrace sexism (Marcia, Ann, Ava and C.I.)," we were curious about the issue.  See, in that piece, we noted a plain fact:

Judd Apatow is her enabler, sponsor and the executive producer of her show.  Apatow's sexism in film after film -- yes, that does include Bridesmaids -- is well known.




But some people had a problem with it.  Judd, they insisted, was not a sexist.


So thank you, Vanity Fair, for allowing the pig to edit.  This is the magazine's comedy issue.  There are three different covers -- we went with the one featuring Leslie Mann (married to Apatow), Melissa McCarthy, Paul Rudd and non-comic Megan Fox.

Apatow isn't responsible for the entire issue, just for a segment beginning on page 53.  That's where "The Comedy Portfolio" kicks off.

The first two page spread (we're not outtakes from the various covers) features Steve Martin and Apatow.  Then an interview with Chris Rock (conducted by Apatow) and a full page photo of Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, then two pages featuring Mindy Kaling, Aubrey Plaza, Zooey Deschanel and Dakota Johnson.  Then a page photo featuring Bo Burnham, Amy Schumer, Chelsea Peretti, Reggie Watts, Hannibal Buress and John Mulaney. a one page essay by Conan O'Brien, a two page photo spread of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, a page of "The Masters" Norman Lear, James L. Brooks, Roseanne Barr, David Milch, Paul Reubens and Garry Shandling, a one page photo of Jim Carrey, a one page photo of Will Farrell, 2/3 of a page of a drawing of Zach Galifianakis and a mini-essay from him with the other third being four minor paragraphs by Sarah Silverman, a two page spread of Sarah Silverman reclining with six unidentified elderly people.  And that's the photo essay.

Did you catch how many men were there versus how many women?

Let's count it or you.

Men:  21


Women:  8

Want to explain to us again how Apatow's not a sexist pig?

We'll come back to the photo essay.  He also 'guest edited' a look at a comedy film: The Blues Brothers.  It's a funny film.  It's not the funniest.  If Vanity Fair was going to highlight a film from that period, it should have probably gone with Tootsie which is a comic masterpiece.  But Judd Apatow probably finds Tootsie too 'challenging.'    Endless  photos of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and John Landis (no mention of how Landis is responsible for the death of Jennifer Jason Leigh's father).  Then a lengthy profile on comic actor Martin Short.  Endless pages on Apatow's failed TV show Freaks and Geeks.  Then Judd inteviews Albert Brooks.  Then Judd has Sam Kashner interview Elaine May and Mike Nichols.  So a TV feature, a movie feature and three profiles -- profiling three men and one woman.

Still want to pretend he's not a pig?

Let's go back to "The Masters" for those who don't get it.

Remember how Roseanne was the only woman included?  Here's what Apatow writes, "ROSEANNE BARR kicked down the door for women in comedy with her groundbreaking show.  More important, she gave me one of my first jobs, writing jokes for her, when I was broke and unqualified."

So we can blame Roseanne for Apatow?  Good to know.

But about that first sentence?

Roseanne did what?

Roseanne's sitcom Roseanne is a groundbreaking show.  But it's not groundbreaking for women.  It's groundbreaking for dealing with taboos, it's groundbreaking for being funny.

Lucille Ball broke down the doors for women in TV comedy and did it before Roseanne told her first joke.  Mary Tyler Moore was next.  And if Judd had bothered to speak to Carl Reiner, he'd know that.  Moore was hired to play Rob's wife on The Dick Van Dyke Show because of her pretty looks.  And that was her role on the show until Carl discovered, to his surprise, that she could be funny.  Mary Tyler Moore was hilarious on that show and on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Presumably, Judd Apatow believes Goldie Hawn is funny since, for one cover of the funny issue,  his wife dressed up as Goldie from her Laugh-In days.  Goldie was hilarious on Laugh-In.  Seventies television would feature comedic performances from Bea Arthur, Marla Gibbs, Jean Stapleton, Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, Nell Carter, Suzanne Somers, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Ja'net Dubois, Betty White, Cloris Leachman and Valerie Harper, among others.

All of those women -- and many more -- were making audiences laugh before Roseanne ever got her own sitcom. By the time Roseanne finally got a sitcom, Candice Bergen had already spent a year on CBS getting laughs in Murphy Brown.

We don't begrudge Roseanne any praise she's earned.  But you have to be a real idiot to think Roseanne kicked down any doors for women in TV comedy.

Women have to repeatedly reinvent the wheel exactly because of men like Judd Apatow who repeatedly want to erase their contributions.  All the women who came before Roseanne are erased -- probably because Judd didn't work on their shows.  The word for erasing the accomplishments of women is "sexism."

Judd Apatow is a sexist and we thank Vanity Fair for allowing him to 'guest-edit' a portion of the magazine because it really underscores just what a sexist pig he is.

Lily Tomlin received no two page spread.  Jane Curtin wasn't included despite starring in three successful comedy shows (Saturday Night Live, Kate and Allie and 3rd Rock From The Sun). Goldie Hawn and Cher were aped on the covers but they don't pop up in a photo essay, so many women who've consistently been funny are ignored and rendered invisible.

But, again, he can and did feature Megan Fox.   Fox might become a great comic actress but for now she's known for popcorn films and for her body.  Only a sexist would go out of his way to overlook many wonderful women of comedy to include Fox.

Murray fights for Veterans Dignified Burials

Senator Patty Murray (above) is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.  Last week, her office noted:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Murray Press Office

Thursday, December 20^th, 2012 

(202) 224-2834

Murray Bill to Ensure Dignified Burial for Every Veteran Passes Senate

Bill also includes provisions to improve veterans’ benefits, including transportation assistance and the creation of a burn pit registry

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, applauded Senate passage of the Dignified Burial and Veterans’ Benefits Improvement Act of 2012. This House and Senate-negotiated package contains proposals from Democrats and Republicans in both Chambers.

The legislation includes provisions from Chairman Murray’s original bill to authorize the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to furnish a casket or urn to a deceased veteran when VA is unable to identify the veteran’s next-of-kin and determines that sufficient resources are not otherwise available to furnish a casket or urn for burial in a national cemetery. Under current law, VA is not authorized to purchase a casket or urn for veterans who do not have a next-of-kin to provide one, or the resources to be buried in an appropriate manner. Earlier this year Chairman Murray and Ranking Member Burr, joined by U.S. Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), introduced this legislation after a veteran, with no known next-of-kin, was buried in a cardboard container at a VA National Cemetery in Florida. The exposed remains were discovered during a project to raise and realign headstones at the cemetery. 

The Dignified Burial and Veterans’ Benefits Improvement Act of 2012 would also establish a registry for those veterans exposed to open burn pits while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and commissions an independent scientific report on the health effects of such exposures. The legislation would expand and protect access to VA services by furnishing eligible veterans with transportation to and from VA facilities and provide transition assistance to eligible veterans and their spouses outside of military installations.

“When America’s heroes make a commitment to serve their country, we make a promise to care for them,” said Chairman Murray, following passage of the bill. “That includes helping them access VA facilities and providing them with a burial befitting their service.”

The House and Senate-negotiated package also includes authority for restoration of the Clark Veterans Cemetery in the Philippines and renames several VA facilities across the country, including the Spokane VA Medical Center, in honor of veterans and individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to veterans, to their communities, and to their country. The bill will now move on to the House of Representatives.

###

Kathryn Robertson
Specialty Media Coordinator

Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray

448 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington D.C. 20510

202-224-2834

 

Senator Patty Murray's office

 

Senator Murray's YouTube Channel

 

Senator Murray's Press Office Twitter Account

 

RSS Feed for Senator Murray's office

Bradley Manning Person of the Year (WW)

Repost from Workers World:

Manning picked as Person of the Year

By Chris Fry on December 21, 2012 » Add the first comment.

5

B. Manning

By an overwhelming vote of its online readers, the British newspaper The Guardian has been forced to name U.S. political prisoner Pvt. B. Manning its “Person of the Year.”
Daniel Ellsberg, the releaser of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed U.S. lies about the contrived Tonkin Gulf incident used in 1964 to justify U.S. attacks on Vietnam and the massive U.S. occupation, last year said this about Time magazine’s selection of its “Person of the Year”:
“The Time Magazine cover gives a protester, an anonymous protester, as ‘Person of the Year,’ but it is possible to put a face and a name to that picture of ‘Person of the Year.’ And the [U.S.] American face that I would put on that is Private Bradley Manning.”
Why has Pvt. Manning inspired such support?
In April 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a U.S. military video taken from an “Apache” helicopter in Iraq as it gunned down a dozen civilians, including a Reuters videographer and his driver. A month later, the U.S. Army arrested and jailed Pvt. B. Manning.
For more than two and a half years, Manning has been locked up, charged with the capital crimes of espionage and “aiding the enemy.” The “enemy” here consists of the world’s people. The “crime” is the release of thousands of military and State Department documents that made the public aware of human rights abuses, U.S. support of ruthless dictators, government and corporate corruption, and U.S. war crimes.
Manning endured months of torture in Kuwait and the brig in Quantico, Va. He was placed in solitary, in a tiny cage, and was often forced to strip naked.
Many “establishment” newspapers in the U.S. and Europe, including the New York Times and the Guardian, published excerpts from what was released by WikiLeaks. Nevertheless, none of these bastions of the so-called free press lifted a finger to defend the person accused of providing this information to them.
Early in December, the Guardian conducted a survey to choose its “Person of the Year.” The paper’s management made their choice clear — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani 14-year-old who was shot in October because she was waging a campaign for the education of Pakistani girls. The corporate media are trying to use her legitimate campaign in order to justify imperialist intervention in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (See article by Deirdre Griswold, Oct. 17, at workers.org)
However, some 70 percent of responders selected Pvt. Manning. Obviously Manning’s stirring courage in the face of overwhelming vilification and harsh treatment has attracted profound support among progressives and people in general here and abroad.
Manning exposed U.S. war crimes, which is supposed to be how an honorable soldier should behave, according to the U.S. Army Field Manual and the Nuremberg Principles determining war crimes. To jail and torture Manning obstructs the people’s justice. It is, in fact, itself a war crime.
Free Manning now!







Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Highlights

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.


"CPJ looks the other way as Nouri threatens Fakhir Karim" -- most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site.



"Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Deaths of Children" -- Isaiah takes on the Drone War.



"Kat's Korner: Stones release a tooth grinder" -- Kat takes on the latest Stones repackaging and shares additional thoughts in "Thoughts on the Stones."


"Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Brad Sherman,"  "Howard Berman's fuzzy figures (Ava)," "Waste at the State Dept. is okay (Wally)," "Gary Ackerman, Embarrassing Ass" and "Benghazi questions must still wait" -- C.I., Ava, Wally and Ruth attend the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing and report on them.





 "The idiot Glenn Greenwald," "Iraq snapshot," "World Can't Wait goes completely nuts," "The sexism of Glenn Greenwald," "Dianne, Carl and John, shut the f**k up,"  "Debra Sweet, kiss my Black ass,"  "World Can't Wait jumps off the deep end" and "F**k you, Bill Van Auken" -- Ann, C.I., Kat, Stan and Elaine on the latest nonsense from our defocused friends.

  "Monkey Business," "good going for penny marshall," "Movies" and  "Total Recall" -- Stan and Rebecca go to the movies.



"Fringe 'Black Blotter'," "Gossip Girl as it should have ended" and "GG again" -- Mike and Marcia cover TV.


 "Stephen Zunes shows up late for the party" -- Elaine calls out a latecomer.


"The news today," "Another reason for concern in Iraq," and "Nouri's next move?" --  Betty, Ruth and Mike cover Iraq.

"THIS JUST IN! BAD NEWS FOR BOBBY!" and "Somerby's big lie gets rejected" -- Wally and Cedric fact check the asshole.

"How bad are things really?" and "Tuition rates don't bother everyone" -- Trina on the economy.

"Inouye's funeral" -- Betty calls out Barack's familiarity at a funeral.

"Holiday thoughts" and "Christmas work party" --  Betty and Ann note the holiday.


"Full On Federline" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.






"Tapping and slapping" and "THIS JUST IN! PRINCESS LOVES PSY!" -- Cedric and Wally on Princess Barry's main man. 

Truest statement of the week

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).

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?

• Truest statement of the week

Michael Hirsh on the Rice debacle.

• Truest statement of the week II

Bruce A. Dixon. 

• Editorial: How did they miss that?

How do you miss four days of massive protests in Iraq?

• TV: The Greed-athon

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.

• The Bionic Woman Season 2

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.

• The Iraq secret the press is keeping from you

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.

• National Intelligence Council attacks safety net

The spy community wants to gut the safety net.

• Things to watch for

We only heard of this while working on the edition.  Dona said we could do it as a short feature so we did.

• Senator Murray fights for veterans rights

From Senator Murray's office.

• Schools push students to for-profit prisons (WW)

Repost from Workers World.

• Highlights

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":

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.