Truest statement of the week

The murder of [Lauri] Carleton is just the latest manifestation of right-wing violence incited, cultivated and inspired by ex-president Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Seeking to divide the working class and lay the groundwork for further attacks on democratic rights, Republicans have made anti-LGBTQ demagoguery and laws restricting gender affirming care, drag shows and sex ed a central tenet of their far-right agenda.

A tracker maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has recorded 494 “anti-LGBTQ bills” proposed in the 2023 legislative session across all 50 states, virtually all sponsored by Republicans. Of these bills, some of which ban gender-affirming care, 78 have already become law, while 197 are classified by the ACLU as “advancing.”

--  Hong Jian, "California shop owner murdered over LGBTQ pride flag by fascist gunman" (WSWS).

A note to our readers

Hey --

Monday night.


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?

 

 

• Truest statement of the week

Hong Jian gets a truest.

• Iraq's polluted rivers threatens daily life, poses...

FRANCE 24 notes the destruction in Iraq.

• TV: FOX "NEWS" never listened to Little Richard

Ava and C.I. wrote this about how FOX "NEWS" tries to create fear and characters.

• 60 years of great albums

Except for Ava and C.I., we all worked on this.  And picking one for this year?  There are still a few months left this year but that's our pick for the best album of 2023.

• Books (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)

Ava and C.I. talk to Marcia and Rebecca about their summer read.

• The Cowardly and pathetic Robert F. Kennedy Junior

Betty, Wally, Kat, Ava and C.I. wrote this today in between speaking engagements.

• JODIE LOVES CHRISSY

Betty, Wally, Kat, Ava and C.I. wrote this today in between speaking engagements.

• Sad Sirota

Dona, Ty, Mike, Jess, Elaine and I (Jim) wrote this.

• Rest with confidence, Naomi Wolf is watching

Betty, Wally, Kat, Ava and C.I. wrote this today in between speaking engagements.

• Send Tara Reade to the front lines!

Betty, Wally, Kat, Ava and C.I. wrote this today in between speaking engagements.

• Hate merchants

A list of the hate merchants.

• 2023 passings

Notable deaths of the year.

• Books

Books reviewed in the community this year.

• Tweet of the week

Jacqueline Luqman gets another truest.

• This edition's playlist

What we listened to while working on this edition.

• Highlights

Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.

 

 

Peace.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iraq's polluted rivers threatens daily life, poses serious health risks • FRANCE 24 English

 

 

Over the past few months, temperatures in Iraq have reached 50 degrees Celsius and water levels in the country’s rivers are dropping fast. Despite having two big rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, Iraq suffers from desertification and there are concerns about the water disappearing - mainly from Iranian and Turkish dams upstream and the excessive use of water resources, particularly within agriculture. But despite this, Iraq is doing little to protect its rivers. From the north to the south, industrial, chemical, medical and biological waste flows untreated into the water, effectively poisoning it. From Kirkuk to Basra and Baghdad, the water is contaminated. Marie-Charlotte Roupie and Josh Vardey report. Read more about this story in our article: https://f24.my/9k9v.y

 

 

TV: FOX "NEWS" never listened to Little Richard

FOX "NEWS" is a lot like a certain glossy celebrity mag of the 90s.  Year after year, it took whatever man  slept with a certain male director to get cast in the film, splashed him on the cover and pronounced him a star.  It never really took.  

In the same way, FOX "NEWS" just can't get it right, no matter how hard they try.  They're not a news network, so they're never bound by facts or reality.  They are a fear network and they cast various people into roles that they just don't fit.

 

Last week, they were casting the role of a well-worn and well-used aging ingenue and went with a woman named Tracy Shannon.  She was brought on to be pathetic and garner sympathy.  Just an innocent "home maker," you understand, who had entire life turned upside down when her husband, after a decade and a half of marriage, left her and became a woman.

 

 She offered all these pathetic and uniformed opinions that no one was supposed to question because she'd suffered.  

Actually, the one suffering were the ones watching her crap.  

Her story never held up on air -- it hasn't in real life and it never will.  She wasn't an innocent.  Before they ever had children, she knew her husband cross-dressed.  They went to therapy for it.  He promised he'd stop.  Repeatedly, she caught him breaking that promise.

She insists that she "believed him several times."

No, she didn't.  She was too lazy to go to work.  She wouldn't get off her lazy ass and get a job -- true during the marriage, true today.  

It's so awful, she tells you, because her husband became a woman and her kids lost their daddy!

Anyone who thought trashy tabloid TV ended with the death of Jerry Springer has not caught FOX "NEWS."

"I think," she said in a tone indicating otherwise, "that gender is a lie."  Huh?  "I don't think that anybody can ever accomplish the goal of completely becoming the opposite sex." 

She blames the internet and a new friend in her FOX "NEWS" interview; however, in the past she's blamed others -- for example, in past interviews, she's blamed Caitlyn Jenner. 

 

In the past?  

 

Yeah, FOX "NEWS" just discovered her but, as her hagged out face makes clear, she's been around forever.  She's also not a "mother" as FOX "NEWS" billed her, she's a "grandmother."

 

She's a lazy ass who's been whining for years now.  She's never taken accountability for her own role and she never will.  But she is an anti-trans activist and has been for years -- a detail FOX "NEWS" left out as they attempted to make her Queen For A Day. 

 

 

September 26, 2019, Michael Barajas (TEXAS OBSERVER) reported:

Tracy Shannon calls the drag dossiers her “exposés,” something she compiles and sends out whenever she hears about a drag queen story hour. The event, in which drag performers read books to children, started in San Francisco four years ago to boost LGBTQ inclusivity at libraries. As its popularity grows across the country, activists like Shannon are pushing back.

[. . .]

Emboldened by her success in Houston, Shannon branched out. Ahead of drag queen story time in Leander this summer, she sent her “exposés” to the mayor and city council members, spreading the images among neighborhood groups and other concerned citizens she met along the way.

“We just compile this to illustrate what drag culture looks like in that city,” Shannon said. It’s easier to scare people unfamiliar with drag when the photos are racy, but Shannon insists it’s inappropriate to put kids next to any queen.

“Even if you’re the type of drag queen where you’re imitating Doris Day, and you’re not wearing scantily clad outfits exposing your latex boobs or whatever, it’s still what they’re performing, the culture they’re in,” she said. “It’s adult. It’s immersed in erotic and fetishism.”

 

 Poor sexless Tracy Shannon, she sees sex everywhere while she starves for it. March 1st of last year, Michael Murney (DALLAS OBSERVER) reported:

 

Last month, during a speech to supporters gathered in the conference room of a Hilton Garden Inn in Denton, right-wing activist Tracy Shannon threw down a challenge.

In the coming weeks and months, she and a group of fellow activists in North Texas plan to push a young adult novel into circulation in North Texas’ public libraries and local public school districts, she said. If administrators refused to include the [anti-trans] book in circulation, she said, it would constitute nothing less than political oppression and a violation of all Americans’ rights to religious freedom.

If that happened, it was the responsibility of everyone gathered that night to “raise hell," Shannon told the crowd.

Over the years, she's tried to 'soften' her image and leaves a lot of stuff out of interviews.  She instead wonders if maybe it was something she did that turned her spouse.  In most cases, we'd say no but she appears to deserve her share of blame and then some.  She's a controlling and off-putting person so we wouldn't be surprised if she didn't drive everyone out of her life.

Despite making Caitlyn Jenner the reason for her divorce in past interviews, on FOX "NEWS" last week, she explained it was the internet that was at fault and a new friend her husband met.

She also raged against estrogen.  Her spouse went on it, she explained, and she wasn't told!!!

Nor should she have been.  If her spouse didn't tell her, it wasn't the doctor's job too.

 

She's so stupid that she doesn't understand medical confidentiality.  For example, a woman tells her spouse she's pregnant.  Her doctor is not going to violate her privacy by telling her spouse.  

 

She doesn't understand the law, she doesn't understand anything.

For example, she's railed about being a "paper lesbian."  

 

 

 Huh?

 

While they were divorcing, her spouse was transitioning.  That, she insists, made her a "paper lesbian."  Oh, cool, did she meet Ellen and Portia?

 

She's offended that her spouse was able to do a name change.  She's offended by so much -- as the truly ugly usually are.

 

 

Mainly, read her interviews, she's offended that she had to get a job after the divorce.  She's laid around on her lazy ass for 15 years and now she had to get a job.  The horror!

 

But, happy ending, she quickly met another man -- while perusing dresses at Lane Bryant? -- and she marched him down the alter and went back to not working.  

 

She's a little hate merchant.  FOX "NEWS" tried to pass her off as "a Christian mother."  But a mother -- Christian or otherwise -- doesn't whine that she has to work to support her three kids.  A "Karen" does.  A Karen whines.  But a mother doesn't. 

 

 

Over 70% of mothers in the US work outside the home.  Some do so because they have no economic choice.   We'd say Tracy needs to stop bashing her ex-spouse and feel fortunate that for 15 or so years she didn't have to work, she didn't have to face the demands that most women do.  

But again, she's not a "mother."  She's a grandmother now.  She's an old and ugly woman on a mission to destroy her ex-spouse.  That's all this is about.  It's always that pathetic and that personal.

Just as she couldn't find the joy in the fact that she didn't have to work for 15 or so years, she can't enjoy today when another man's paying her bills and letting her stay home.  Two spouses have carried her lazy ass and she's not grateful.  

And she never will be. 

The tiara doesn't set well on her head but the shame cloaks her.

"If it don't fit, don't force it."  Little Richard sang it but FOX "NEWS" never heard it.

Last week, they were also trying to force Cornel West to be the Green Party's presidential nominee.

There was Laura Ingram, his "dear sister," per The King of Shuck and Jive Cornel, explaining that she couldn't understand how he could win when he was only on the ballot in "fewer than 20 states right now."  He's not on the ballot in any state.

Not only is he not a Green Party member, he's not the Green Party's nominee.  He wants to be.  He may end up being.  But there's a lot of resistance to him and his shucking and jiving within the Green Party.  They're tired of him presenting himself as their nominee.  They won't pick a nominee until the summer of next year.  They're tired of him speaking for the party -- he's not the nominee and he's not a member.  They're appalled that he's taking his tired and pathetic act to FOX "NEWS" because if anyone hates FOX "NEWS" more than Democrats, it's the Green Party.

A Green Party list-serv last week was especially critical as it called him out for telling Laura that Democrats and Republicans had to "earn the vote" with people commenting on how Cornell hasn't earned the vote of the Green Party and may not at this rate.

But there he was on FOX "NEWS" acting like he was the party's nominee and there was Laura forcing him into that role because FOX "NEWS" will always be fact-free.

Asked about his $500,00 reported debt, Cornel blamed the Democrats ("They've got good reason to be afraid.") while, if you paid attention, yes, he does owe $500,000 in taxes.  He can't manage his household budget but he wants to be president?

What we don't understand is: Why doesn't he just declare himself president?

He's declared himself the nominee of the Green Party and he's not that but so many are letting him get away with it that he should try just announcing he's President of the United States and see if he can get away with that too. 

 

 

60 years of great albums

So we're naming the best albums of the last sixty years -- the best album of each year of the last sixty years.  These lists are starting points, not end points.  Agree, disagree, build your own list.  

We split up by decades and came up with our picks for the five best albums of each year.  Then when we got back together, we picked what we thought was the single best of each year.  We argued, we swore at each other, we laughed and these are our picks.

 

1963: Bob Dylan: THE FREEWHEELIN' BOB DYLAN.

 

1964: Diana Ross & the Supremes: WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?

 

1965: Bob Dylan: HIGHWAY 61 REVISTED.
 

1966: The Mamas & the Papas: IF YOU CAN BELIEVE YOUR EYES AND EARS. 

 

1967: The Beatles: SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND.  

1968:  Laura Nyro: ELI AND THE THIRTEENTH CONFESSION.

 

1969: Buffy Sainte-Marie: LLUMINATIONS.

 

1970: Jimi Hendrix: BAND OF GYPSIES.

 
1971: Joni Mitchell: BLUE. 

1972: Stevie Wonder: TALKING BOOK.

 

1973: David Bowie: ALADDIN SANE. 

1974: Joni Mitchell: COURT & SPARK. 

 

1975: Patti Smith: HORSES.  

 

1976: Stevie Wonder: SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE. 

 

1977: Fleetwood Mac: RUMOURS.

 

1978: Blondie: PARALLEL LINES. 

 
1979: Diana Ross: THE BOSS.

 

1980: Diana Ross' diana.

 

 

1981: Prince: CONTROVERSY.

 

1982:  Prince: 1999 

1983:  Pretenders: LEARNING TO CRAWL. 

1984: Tina Turner: PRIVATE DANCER.

 

1985:  Eurythmics: BE YOURSELF TONIGHT. 

1986: Janet Jackson: CONTROL.

1987:  Prince: SIGN OF THE TIMES. 

 

1988: Tracy Chapman: TRACY CHAPMAN.
 

 

1989: Tracy Chapman: CROSSROADS.

 

1990:  George Michael: LISTEN WITHOUT PREJUDICE VOL. 1.

 

1991: Nirvana: NEVERMIND. 

 

1992: Tori Amos: LITTLE EARTHQUAKES.

 

1993:  Liz Phair: EXILE IN GUYVILLE.  

 

1994: Soundgarden: SUPERUNKOWN.  

1995:  Pretenders: THE ISLE OF VIEW. 

1996: The Afghan Whigs: BLACK LOVE. 

1997: Ani DiFranco: LIVING IN CLIP. 

 

1998: Lauryn Hill: THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL.

 

1999: Fiona Apple: WHEN THE PAWN . . .

 

2000: Carly Simon: THE BEDROOM TAPES.

 

2001:  Janet Jackson: ALL FOR YOU.

 

2002:  Tori Amos: SCARLET'S WALK. 

 

2003:  Dashboard Confessional: A MARK A MISSION A BRAND A SCAR.

 

2004: kd lang: HYMNS OF THE 49TH PARALLEL.

 

 

2005: The Cowboy Junkies: EARLY 21ST CENTURY BLUES. 

 

2006: Ben Harper: BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN.

 

2007: Joni Mitchell: SHINE.

 

2008: Jack Johnson: SLEEP THROUGH THE STATIC. 

 

2009: Ben Harper: WHITE LIES FOR DARK TIMES. 

 

2010: Sade: SOLDIER OF LOVE. 

 

2011: PJ Harvey: LET ENGLAND SHAKE. 

 

2012: Animal Collective: CENTIPEDE HZ.

 

2013: Shannon and the Clams: DREAMS IN THE RAT HOUSE.

 

2014: Stevie Nicks: 24 KARAT GOLD.

 

2015: Janet Jackson: UNBREAKABLE.

 

2016: Nick Jonas: LAST YEAR WAS COMPLICATED.

 

2017: Sam Smith: THE THRILL OF IT ALL.

 

2018:  Janelle Monae: DIRTY COMPUTER.

 

2019: Vampire Weekend: FATHER OF THE BRIDE.

2020: Fiona Apple: FETCH THE BOLT CUTTERS.

2021: Diana Ross:THANK YOU.

2022: Harry Styles: HARRY'S HOUSE.

2023: Chase Rice: I HATE COWBOYS & ALL DOGS GO TO HELL.

 

 

Books (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)

 

As we did in 2021, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. After a review posts, we try to do a discussion with the reviewer.  This go round, we're talking to Marcia and Rebecca about their reviews "Worst summer read ever is by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince" and "'the fondas: henry, jane and peter' is a very bad book" of Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince's THE FONDAS: HENRY, JANE AND PETER.  You both hated the book?

Marcia: We did.  And I even took a break in reading because I thought it had to be me.  But when I went back to the book it was just as bad.  It was awful.

Rebecca: And Marcia my point of our annual summer read is to find a book that we think people will like.  This summer we chose so very poorly.  

Marcia: Because we like these authors and we liked the book this is a sequel to HENRY FONDA: HE DID IT HIS WAY.  But this is an awful book.

You both talk about how the book repeatedly ignores key moments in the acting professions of all three Fondas.  That includes ignoring THE MORNING AFTER which Jane Fonda was Academy Award nominated for, YOUTH which Jane was Golden Globe nominated for, ignoring the Emmy nominations Jane got for NEWSROOM and GRACE AND FRANKIE and ignoring Jane's Emmy-winning role in THE DOLLMAKER as well as her successful return to Broadway in 33 VARIATIONS which resulted in a Tony nomination.

Marcia: And yet they made time for four or five pages on Jean Harlow.  Why?  Peter saw a play with a character in it who was Jean Harlow so that resulted in four or five pages about the late actress that never knew a Fonda -- not Henry, not Jane, not Peter. Stuff like that happened repeatedly.  And there were so many errors.  Every page seemed to have an error.

Rebecca: When did Liza Minnelli and Shirley MacLaine work together?  The book says they did a TV-movie remake of ON GOLDEN POND. 

No.  Ernest Thompson wrote the play ON GOLDEN POND.  He adapted it for the film and won an Academy Award.  Another play he wrote, THE WEST SIDE WALTZ.  Later, it was turned into a TV project with Liza, Shirley and Kathy Bates among others.

Rebecca: So another error.  And even the photo captions had errors. 

Marcia: It was appalling.  And, again, we like the writers.  We've read other books by them and praised the books.  This one needed a fact check and it was also really dull.  We thought the book would be a sure thing and didn't worry that, as Labor Day was looming, we still needed to do our summer read.  And then when we read it, it was too late to pick out another book.

Rebecca: In the past, our summer reads were always praising books.  This is the first time we've used it to call it out.  And that's not that we didn't find things to critique from time to time, it's that we liked the books.  We don't like this one.  And it was too late to try to find another book and too late to try to read it.  So we went with this bad book and panned it.

You two have been doing your joint-reviews each summer for years now.  Is this the farewell?

Marcia: No.

Rebecca: But we're not waiting until August to read a book again.  We'll pick our summer read early -- and we did on this, as Marcia said we loved the first volume of this book HENRY FONDA: HE DID IT HIS WAY.  But we'll make sure we get it read before August and if it's bad like this one?  We'll pick another real quick.

Marcia: We paid for this book.  It wasn't part of KINDLE UNLIMITED.  And I've enjoyed the authors past books but I don't think I'll pay $22 for another book by them until I hear what others think.  This was a bad book, an awful book.  

Rebecca: It didn't even have any good or new gossip.  Oh.  Hold on.  Who had sex?  Tom Hayden walks in, in a New York apartment, on Leonard Bernstein and Huey Newton having sex.  That was the only good gossip in the entire book.

 

 

-------------------

Previous book discussions this year.

"Books (Ann, Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.),"  "Books (Ann, Elaine, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ann and C.I.)," "Books (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)" and "Books (Ava and C.I.)."

 

The Cowardly and pathetic Robert F. Kennedy Junior

The populist movement has been emerging from the left and the right. So many people have been betrayed by their leaders. They're tired of the uniparty. It's time for a leader who can give you back the America that was taken from you.

So Tweeted Huckster and Fake Ass Robert Kennedy Junior.  He's leading a populist movement, he Tweets.

 

 

 

Really?

You know what he's not Tweeting about?  Lauri Carleton.

She's dead now.  She was shot dead by one of Junior's supporters.  Travis Ikeguchi supported Junior and Matt Walsh.  Why?

Junior, can you figure it out?  We think it's because you hang out with transphobes like Mother Tucker Carlson and because you refuse to defend LGBTQ+ people.  Is it because you're crazed and crazy mother is a raging homophobe?  Is that where you got it from? 

She was the mother of nine.  She was also straight.  But she was an LGBTQ+ ally and that was just too much for Travis Ikeguchi who was stirred up by hate merchants.  Nine children are mourning, Junior. 

You want to be president but you can't even denounce your now dead supporter because you're afraid you might lost your right-wing support and, after all, isn't that all you've really got left at this point?  Democrats aren't taking you seriously because of your nutty and insane hypothesis and non-educated guesses.  All you really have at this point is the right-wing.  Oh, and your homophobia.  You think after your failed run is over, your homophobia's going to help Cheryl get jobs?  We don't.  We think you've pretty much ended her career.

Now go back to cowering before the right-wing, Junior.

 

-------------

 

Illustration is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Junior Topless, Nips To The Wind"

JODIE LOVES CHRISSY

This fall, on ABC, JODIE LOVES CHRISSY.  

There's something magic in the way you hold me in your eyes. No one ever warned me, love just takes you by surprise.

The show, a spin-off from CRAPPY DAYS, finds Jodie Evans and Chrissy Lynn Hedges leaving Hillary's Diner and Hillary Clinton to move off on their own.

Chrissy: I have known Jodie Evans for many years.  She is my ally, my friend and my life.  We disagree over how we view China's labor practices and what is happening with Uyghur minority and we disagreed over her using CODEPINK to promote Barack Obama who she was a bundler for in 2008 so she sicked CODEPINK on Hillary Clinton and John Edwards and called it "bird dogging" and we disagreed on her insisting in the fall of 2009 that the US military should stay in Afghanistan and -- well, you know, I do not doubt for a second her sincerity, decency and commitment to build a better world.

 

Jodie: Oh, Chrissy, thank you.  And I forgive you for your serial plagiarism you serial plagiarist Chris Hedges.  Most of all, though, I thank you for your support of my second husband Neville Roy Singham.  He knows all about China's labor practices but you're on board with him and with me.  

JODIE LOVES CHRISSY is set in the mythical land of Utopia and is an Earl Browder Production.  This fall on ABC thanks to the cooperation of scab writers and union busters.  "Check us out!" implores Jodie Evans.