The sun's up and streaming across your face. You wake knowing things are going good. You've got a nice promotion that puts you among a very select few -- that takes care of professional life. And you're been thrilled to learn that you're pregnant -- that takes care of personal. Things just seem wonderful.
Then one day, you hear rumbles. Office rumors. They pop up all the time. They don't mean anything. Just something to fill the boredom, right? You're busy focused on your work, focused on your family. Then comes the meeting.
Everyone's acting a little strange. You're not sure what it's about but thankful that it has nothing to do with you. Right?
Not exactly. See, you're not fired, you're just demoted.
Why?
Well you'll be instructed to say publicly that with the pregnancy, you just aren't up to the duties required in your new position. You'll play along because the only thing worse than being demoted would be to be fired publicly. Besides, play along, and the promise is dangled that the guy (yeah, they went with a guy) who's grabbing your position will retire in a matter of years and maybe, just maybe, if you make nice, you can have your promotion back then.
So even though you've made comments, publicly, about how after the baby's born, you're going right back to work and, indeed, you'll be hitting the road for the job, you find yourself having to mouth words that really don't match up with you or anything you said before.
As you do that, most people just act like nothing big happened.
Doesn't it sound familiar?
It should. It's the story most didn't want tell last week. Argubably one of the biggest broadcast stories of the year. Why? Well it's sexism and it's against the law.
It was noted that ABC had stood behind Elizabeth Vargas originally but, with the tragedies Bob Woodruff experienced while attempting to report from Iraq, they seem to be weakening their show of support in the face of the news that she's pregnant. The word for that, as pointed out repeatedly, is "sexism." When a woman's job may be in jeopardy because she's pregnant, that's sexism. Family leave guidelines aside, her pregnancy has resulted in whispers of ABC's losing support for/interest in her as an anchor.
We (Ava and C.I.) wrote the above for "Katie Was a Cheerleader" (The Third Estate Sunday Review, April 16, 2006). We knew Vargas was being shoved out. E-mails came in during the week asking if we were going to update the topic? Or comment on the coverage?
We hadn't planned on it. Then friends started calling. Not all women, but all concerned about what happened and the rah-rah coverage of it that refused to seriously address what went down.
Elizabeth Vargas was promoted to co-anchor World News Tonight on ABC. She's now out of that position. No one seems to want to seriously address it in the coverage thus far. To focus on The New York Times, Wednesday Jaques Steinberg had a front page story entitled "ABC Rejects Dual Anchors In 2nd Shuffle" (continued inside on page two of the Business section). Now front page means something news wise. So we both read the article eagerly thinking Steinberg might address it. That didn't happen.
Steinbereg does note (on C2, not A1):
But in the end, Mr. Gibson not only got the job he sought last year, but he also got it alone, as Ms. Vargas was shunted to the sidelines. When she returns from her maternity leave in the fall, it will not be to "World News Tonight," but to the prime-time news program "20/20." Mr. Gibson said in a telephone interview yesterday that he was most comfortable, at least on an evening newscast, as a solo anchor. "I am not a particular fan of two people sitting next to each other in a studio," he said [Ava and C.I. note: Tell it to Diane, Charlie.] "It's a half-hour broadcast."
Gibson goes on to blather about Vargas' "joyous event . . . that affected us all."
Oh really, Charlie?
Yeah, it effected you. It got you a promotion. You went along with it. What does that say about you because we don't think it says "company man" or "team player" -- we think it says backstabber, we think it says hypocrite.
And if that's harsh, what we're hearing from friends ABC News is a lot harsher, a hell of a lot harsher.
They're bringing up the habit Gibson has of falling asleep on camera or pretending that a feed is lost when he doesn't want to address a topic a guest brings up.
Gibson, years ago, did a little news. Years ago. This isn't someone working their way up the chain. This is someone who willingly elected to turn their back on news and work in the entertainment division in some apparent desire to become the next David Hartman (with far less class, said one correspondent at ABC).
He's not just taking Elizabeth Vargas' job, he's also taking Bob Woodruff's. Let's deal with Woodruff first because we're also disgusted with the way Woodruff has been treated.
Woodruff was injured in the combat zone. ABC sent him there to cover Iraq. He was injured there and he's now lost his co-host seat at the anchor desk. Now, remember, we're talking about journalism here. But to us, that's a bit like someone being injured while serving in the military and returning stateside to find out that their employer doesn't want to hold their job but instead wants to give it to someone else.
He's injured on the job and ABC's answer is to give his job away publicly. It's rotten, it sucks and people at ABC News are very unhappy with the decision.
Now let's turn to Vargas. Steinberg, rightly, notes that the spin right now is spin. It is. She didn't want to leave -- everyone knows that, everyone whispers it. She was forced out because she's pregnant.
That's sexism and it's illegal:
Title VII was amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions.
No one wants to note that. Steinberg gets credit for noting that the current talk doesn't fit with the talk a few months back. But why the reluctance to call it what is which is discrimination?
Vargas got pregnant. She didn't lose her mental competency. She didn't prove she was unfit for the job. As she'd indicated publicly, prior to this decision being announced, she intended to return to work "soon" after the child was born (as Steinberg notes).
The average reader of Steinberg's story can grasp what happened. So why the reluctance to call it what it is?
When we learned the decision was going to be announced, we thought we'd take a pass on it because a) we'd noted the rumors last month and b) we really didn't want to get into it. We don't care for Gibson, we're not impressed with him and we never have been. So there was really no reason to write anything else on the matter.
But that was dependent upon the press doing their job. And they're apparently not going to do it. Steinberg, we'll give credit to. The article lines it up perfectly. But Vargas didn't go willingly and to stay silent when publicly the press has taken the attitude of: "Oh well, things happen, what you gonna' do . . ." -- we didn't see how we could do that (especially not in the face of the e-mails from community members and the phone calls from friends at ABC and another network).
So since we're all supposed to look the other way (again, credit to Steinberg for his article), you know we've got to speak up. We know it too.
So here's some of the talk at ABC News among the people who aren't pleased with the decision/discrimination:
* It was one thing to have Vargas and Woodruff come to the anchor desk with less qualifications than Peter Jennings because they're much yonger but Gibson elected to make his career nonsense.
* He won't be able to pull off the ratings without Diane Sawyer by his side.
* Good Morning America will probably benefit from a change in co-hosts (not anchors, they're hosts of a morning talk show) because Sawyer's more important to the viewers.
* Vargas is making a big mistake by playing nice. She won't sue. Everyone feels she won't. And that it's a mistake to to believe anything she was told when she was informed of the decision. Too many broken promise (to women especially, but to men as well) indicate that there's no second shot for Vargas. When Gibson's gone, she won't be considered for the slot and they'll have a new reason. Probably tell her that they need her on weekends.
* With this demotion, her career is over at ABC. She needs to find a new network. She needs to do it quick. She can get out of the current contract by asking ABC if they want her to go public with why she wants to leave the network.
* "This is such a slap in the face to Peter [Jennings.]" It is.
But as we noted in "Peter Jennings Reporter leaves a bad taste:"
Remember how viewers were left hanging as to whom Fox was speaking of that silenced him? Well now it's time for Jennings' report on little league baseball and child abuse. The clips highlighted in the montage, 3 minutes and 31 seconds, focus on a father, Chris, and a son, Jeremy. Their last name isn't provided in this special (it was in the original reporting that Jennings did). We see Chris threaten his son and we're told about abuse (Jennings confronts Chris on camera about his threats and Chris admits he beats his son). What does that segment call for?
If Jennings were around, from what all said on camera, we think it would call for an update. That was some time ago, the baseball special. But we're not given an update because not only do viewers not get to savor Jennings' reporting, they aren't treated to any real reporting from this special. (For the record, Jeremy just completed a season playing baseball for Hagerstown Community College and Chris has a listed phone number. We're having a hard time believing ABC News couldn't track down what we did and actually get one of them on camera for some sort of update.)
We think even the most optimistic viewer must have given up any hope of a "tribute" that honored what Jennings stood for (we're told constantly what he stood for -- interest in the world and in covering the news). Apparently no one left at ABC News is too concerned with what interested Jennings.
Which is why we now are firmly in the land of fluff with 1 minute and 14 seconds on Jennings' love of the Constitution and statements such as "Jazz was one of his thriving passions" and "He loved his kids."
Let's be really clear that Jennings' work and his goals weren't honored. Think Disney is displeased by that? Think again.
Bob Iger, president of The Walt Disney Company, comes on camera to complain that too much coverage "in the last few days" has been about Jennings' career -- don't worry Iger, no one will accuse Peter Jennings Reporter of being about his career. Or of honoring it.
[. . .]
Bob Iger made it clear what he wanted -- the person, not the career. That's what he got. So why call it Peter Jennings Reporter? Why the testimonials of people who continually stressed how interested Jennings was with the world, how important what made it on to the newscasts he anchored was? Because the news department wanted one special and the bosses wanted another. The news department fought to work in what they could (they're especially proud of the sequence on tobacco -- which includes a tobacco exec raving over how fair Jennings was, showing "all sides"). Management wanted what they saw as a two hour Oprah special.
The special demonstrated the continued conflict between the news departments and the bosses who see it all as another form of entertainment. And in this round, news lost. (Though people in the news department fought very hard.) We heard grumbles about some of the news "stars" included in the special but the message came down that the network wanted their own highlighted. Some stress to us that it's a miracle that two hours of prime time television was turned over to news. We'd agree with that if we'd actually seen any news.
What are we hoping to accomplish with this? Really nothing. Most readers of this site and members of The Common Ills community know what happened, they were clued in back in April. But we will note it and note that it's disgusting. We'll also offer Woodruff some advice -- leave the network. Woodruff's injuries speak to his dedication . . . to news people. ABC News is not being run by news people. (You could argue that is true of all the networks but more so ABC.) It's being run by entertainment people. Don't think that means Woodruff justs need to learn how to navigate a new channel or venue.
Entertainment people run from an injury -- run from anyone's injury or disease the same way they do from someone on a string of flops. Woodruff's tainted now with "bad luck." That's his "crime." As long as Iger and the entertainment squad call the shots, he'll be avoided like the plague. He'll hear from some that they'll fight for him (we're told he's already heard that) but they're not up against news people, they're up against entertainment people -- ten pounds of weight gain freaks them out and can result in a shunning so that they don't 'catch' the bad luck.
We're sure ABC corporate will deny this. They did on another item with a laughable cover story -- more damaging than the original event itself. And yes, we have still have the videotape. Like Simply Red, we'll keep holding on (to the tape).
So that's what happened, Elizabeth Vargas got pregant and ABC got nervous (we noted that the first week of April). As expected, they demoted her. Not because of ratings or because she couldn't do the job and certainly not because she wanted some down time, but because she was pregnant. We hear about "the Mommy wars" and there's a book put out by a magazine and an organization but they don't seem to want to address this. It's obvious what happened. It's obvious to everyone at ABC News.
So that's our first look at TV and women. This is a grab bag commentary.
Let's talk ER and Neela. While the left worked itself into a frenzy over a standup comic's routine, ER addressed the war -- not in one episode, but in many. And guess what? The right wing noticed. News Busters has clips from some episodes. They're frothing at the mouth over what went down. Also blowing her right wing lungs is Sister Toldjah -- who by the way carries an ad endorsing Condi Rice for president in 2008 which means she at least has some sense of humor, right? (Oh, she's serious? . . . . Okay.) She takes time out from being alarmed that Barbra Streisand called Bully Boy a "C student" long enough to let her right wing base know what's been going down on ER.
She notes this March episode:
Dr. Neela Rasgotra: My duty is to be a good doctor and to be a good wife, not to be brainwashed into falling in line with some pseudo-patriotic delusion.
And that when a woman declared "our loved ones are serving our country and it's a small price to pay," Neela responded, "I think it's a huge price to pay, especially under the circumstances. . . . Well, the way the whole thing's been handled, how we got into it, how it's been managed . . . I still haven't seen any weapons of mass destruction, have you?"
We noted that episode here. (And it was also noted at The Common Ills.)
So why is it that the left isn't there to offer support?
James Spader delivers a court room speech against the Patriot Act (Boston Legal) and he 'da man, he 'da bomb. Neela tackles the war in multi-epiosdes and the left's just not interested?
Another episode was noted on May 11th:
Tonight on ER, the war comes home (came home in some time zones where it's already aired). But Parminder Nagra's Dr. Neela Rasgotra was ignored last time when her comments on the war weren't as important as some flashy speech. I'm sure that there's some White male who did something on TV that will be deemed as more important.
Just like last time. This wasn't just a court room speech, this was a storyline that they worked very hard on. It's actually given the show life. And it's created a wonderful starting point for a dicussion if any viewers are still playing the Quiet Game or sitting on the fence. I know people involved so someone could argue that's why I continue to note the program; however, Ava and I both know people involved and when we did our review at the start of the fall season and we didn't pull any punches. ("Pull the plug!" isn't pulling punches.)
It does matter what the alternative weeklies cover. It does matter what we hear on the radio or see on TV. Ending the war doesn't come via secluded conversations with only our nearest and dearests. It comes by putting the war front and center.
Another episode was noted May 18th:
To, again, note ER, Parminder Nagra's Dr. Neela Rasgotra attended the funeral of her husband Michael, a doctor serving in Iraq. As Michael's father puffed out his chest and talked to some men (of course) about the "kind of boy I raised," the "mindset of a warrior" and sharing stories of Sitting Bull telling people "this it was a good day to die," Neela walked over, shoved Michael's medals at him and refused to take them back.
She informed him that, "To me all they mean is death [. . .] How dare you, how dare you stand there and say that. 'A good day to die'? [. . .] You could have kept him here. You could have saved him. But instead you made him want to go back. For what? Because there was something 'noble' in it? Why did you do that when it would have been just as easy to convince him to stay for a much better reason? Because we loved him. Because we loved him."
A powerful moment and one that addresses the cost of war beyond dollars and cents. But don't expect it to be noted. This has been an ongoing story on ER as Neela has been vocal about being against the war. That's not been noted. It wasn't noted in the episode when she was informed Michael died. There's always some White Male to praise week after week. Usually doing a funny. Maybe that's a little easier to relate to?
It's not like they don't watch ER -- Noah Wylie's return and cause was noted -- but then Noah Wylie is a White Male. As, week in and week out, we can giggle at a comic or get excited by a Saturday Night Live skit or bluster about a speech in a courtroom on the Patriot Act, we never can find the time to note this ongoing storyline that's provided many powerful moments. Maybe that's it? Maybe it's easier to look away at the pain that's on the screen. It's a character Nagra's playing. She's doing a powerful job. Maybe we just don't want to note it because it's too powerful. I don't know if John Kerry's going to be on Mad TV this week, but, if so, I'm sure it will suck up all the discussion online.
So what's going on? The right wing noted it. Where was the left? Was it her race? Was it the fact that she's a "she"? It wasn't the fact that she was a character because noting James Spader's already demonstrated that TV characters could be raved over. Provided they were White and male apparently.
Now, yes, we know people working on ER. We knew this storyline was coming. Is that why we're so offended that it didn't result in all the back slapping every moment involving a White male did?
This is the first show to really tackle the war on broadcast, commercial television. (American Family -- A Journey of Dreams did a wonderful job while the war was just starting -- it didn't air on commercial television.) This was an important moment, this storyline. It's a shame it couldn't garner the attention it deserved. But the war came home, on your TV screens, invading a TV drama. It's the sort of thing that will be noted in cultural studies of this time period -- hopefully, by then they'll have a conclusive answer as to why a left so quick to applaud a con-man lawyer (that's what Spader plays and that's being kind) for talking about the Patriot Act, to win a case and sway a jury (and after it's been reauthorized by the Congress), couldn't match that applause for the storyline developing on ER? Couldn't even find the time to note it -- let alone applaud it.
By the way, please don't think we're under any delusions that males were the only ones not noting it. There are plenty of women as well. They didn't bother to note it either.
Take one site which actually blogged on Iraq this week (for a change). They did it about an Abu Ghraib trial and only because a female carried a book to the trial with a one word title that rhymes with "runt," but hey, they're doing their part, right? No comments on Iraq or even Abu Ghraib but that book title, gotta' love it!
Why they're so on top of things they also noted the 'clarification' Newsweek offered last week for creating a "fact" about a woman being more likely to be killed by a terrorist than married after a certain age. They even noted that Susan Faludi revealed (in 1991) that the claim wasn't true. After that, it got a little confusing for them. They started wondering if now Newsweek would apologize to Susan Faludi?
For what exactly? They ran a story in 1986 and she debunked it in 1991 (in Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women). Why does the magazine owe her an apology? They may owe everyone, male and female, who read the article in 1986 an apology, but why would they owe Faludi an apology? It makes no sense (neither does ignoring the war). But for the sake of argument, let's defy logic and just nod and say, "Newsweek owes Susan Faludi an apology!" Well it's a shame they waited so long, a little while ago and they could have just written "I'm sorry" on her paycheck. (The screamers for an apology to Faludi from Newsweek are aware that Newsweek hired Faludi as a contributing editor in the late nineties and that she worked for the publication until recently, right?)
While Backlash was a wonderful book (and Faludi's a great writer) some seem to be under the impression that Backlash came out and the mainstream media said "NO!" Time put Gloria Steinem and Susan Faludi on the cover together. Faludi's debunking of the myth was well noted. Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle refers to the book with Meg Ryan's character saying that the terrorist figure isn't true and that there's a whole book written to refute that myth. A male character asks, "Did anyone read the book?" We did.
But we wonder if all the finger pointers on the web did? Why? How about this from Newsweek's "Twenty Years Later: It turns out that getting married after age 40 wasn't quite as difficult as we once believed" (no link, we don't link to trash):
Much of the ire focused on a single, now infamous line: that a single 40-year-old woman is "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than to ever marry, the odds of which the researchers put at 2.6 percent. The terrorist comparison wasn't in the study, and it wasn't actually true (though it apparently didn't sound as inappropriate then as it does today, post 9/11).
No, it wasn't true and, as Faludi reported (page 100 of Backlash), a Newsweek intern explained that the lie started as a joke reporters kidded each other about "and next thing we knew, one of the writers in New York took it seriously and it ended up print." Newsweek doesn't tell you that. They just tell that you that it wasn't true -- fifteen years after Faludi already did and, if you think about it, twenty years after people at Newsweek knew it wasn't true. (They knew when the story ran.) And guess what else? Readers of Backlash know this, Newsweek went with a faulty study for the rest of that story. And "months later" they had actual census data that disproved their cover story. That got "a two-paragraph item buried in the 'Update' column." The current article doesn't tell you that either. Newsweek's new story really admitted nothing. A real admission didn't require an apology to Susan Faludi, it did require that they admit to knowing the figure was false when they ran it and, that when they had census data months later that refuted the Harvard-Yale study (on which they based their cover story), they didn't issue a correction but instead buried the real data in the magazine.
Another great Susan (Sontag) had an excellent suggestion (that was vilified when she made it) encouraging us not to all be stupid together. We think it applies today as much as it did then.
Stupid is as Reba McEntire does. And Reba's thankfully canceled (and then gets an order for 13 episodes -- which will hopefully never air). But we grabbed a few minutes on Friday to see if we wanted to run an update review? Nope. It was an episode where the Hurricane Katrina evacuees were staying with Reba at Barbara Jean's invitation and Reba felt the need to say, "Barbara Jean, you're the whitest person in Texas! Stop talking like that!"
No, Reba is the Whitest person in Texas. In front of the cameras and behind them. Which is why, despite the fact that the show was supposed to take place in Houston, which the 2000 census found to be 25.3% African-American, there were no supporting actors who were African-American. In fact, to watch Reba you'd never know that Houston is only 51.2% White. That is reality, even if it wasn't what the star cared to show you.
Last Sunday, Charmed ended eight season with a one hour finale that wrapped up loose ends. Unlike Will & Grace, happiness for Piper, Phoebe and Paige (Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan) did not entail them exiting one another's lives for sixteen years.
The bulk of the episode revolved around them (yet again) saving the world (and returning magic powers to one of Piper's sons). They touched on many things during those fast paced scenes (and long time viewers were probably happy to note a child at the end with Pru-like powers, closing the front door as Pru used to do -- without her hands touching the door). Then, having vanquished evil yet again, they returned to their home and Piper brought the Book of Shadows down from the attic because, "I think we should write everything down . . . Just so we can pass it down like it was passed down to us."
Will & Grace trashed friendship and also left you wondering if Will or Grace even had a job anymore? Charmed? In a very quick wrap up, you saw the sisters in their immediate futures. Phoebe continued her advice column but focused on love since fate had paired her with a cupid. She had three children, a job, a husband and, most of all, her sisters. Paige also had children, embraced her "inner white lighter" and her marriage to Harry (Ivan Sergei). Piper noted that she "filled the time" when they weren't fighting to save the world with opening her own restaurant (a success), her marriage and her children. ("Leo reclaimed Magic School and went back to teaching.")
As Piper finished her story, we saw her (played by Ellen Geer) as an elderly woman, reading from the Book of Shadows to one of her granddaughters who asked her to read more. Piper explained she was tired but told the young girl that she could look through the book herself, "After all, it will be your's one day." As Piper heads upstairs with Leo, more grandchildren come running through the front door.
Though Will & Grace wanted to do bad (melo)drama and spit at the loyal viewers (while disowning the message of the show), Charmed tied up all the loose ends, name checked several no longer on the show and left viewers with the knowledge that, through it all, the Halliwell sisters were always there for each other.
As we noted last year (May 29, 2005), Charmed was the longest running hour drama starring women. Eight seasons put them ahead of all the other shows. (It also put them ahead of the sitcoms, Laverne & Shirley had seven seasons.) They could have chosen a "downer" ending -- they could have killed off one of the sisters in a battle. They didn't. The sisters remained strong and they remained together.
That may not seem a whole lot to some but in a TV landscape that pits woman against woman, it did say something. (Charlie's Angels, to name another long running show with three female leads went out on their fourth season with Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd's characters battling over a man, guest star Patrick Duffy, when they came back for the fifth season, the entire storyline was dropped and never mentioned.)
Last year, Ty informed us, we noted that Desperate Housewives would see a ratings decline (it has, not as steep as many expected but that's what next season is for), we even noted Susan Faludi's Backlash in that feature. But he thought the section that needed quoting was this:
Season after season, it has presented female leads as actors in their own lives, not reactors, not passive victims. Four sisters (counting Pru who never shared space with Paige) have fought demons and each other yet always managed to pull it together despite everything else that was going on in their lives. Their paid careers, such as they are, can be described as hobbies. But that's due to the fact that unlike the Desperate Housewives, they actually have a purpose -- saving the world.
Saving the world. Let's repeat that because while a show like Desperate Housewives portrays women as narcissistic, self-serving and self-focused, Charmed has repeatedly addressed the issue of sacrifice for the larger good.
Charmed lived up to its part of the bargain with the audience on the season finale. And for eight seasons it presented women as we rarely see them on TV: working together, not against one another. "The power of three" wouldn't work without all three (as they sometimes had to learn). It may not have had the promotion and zeigeist to satisfy the trendy water cooler critics, but it had what mattered (what networks stopped caring about long ago): the power to satisfy the audiences.
[Semi-related end note: On Sunday, May 14th, hours after the post defending Alysa Milano from slime merchant Mike McCurry went up, we both were advised over the phone that there was another reason McCurry slimed Milano. She'd come out strongly for net neutrality -- the post doesn't have an indivual http address, the title is "Internet Freedom." If only she'd given a fiery speech -- and been a man -- on TV, she too could have been applauded all over the net. We'll note that we stuck up for her without knowing of her stance on net neutrality and we're glad that we did. We'd hate to have been one of the sites posting McCurry's slime about Milano and then taking him to task for other things but letting his attack on Milano slide.]
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Quick one: Why is Kagan not i.d.ed by the Washington Post
NOTE: C.I. did not work on this article.
"If Power Shifts In 2008: A Democrat Might Not Be as Different as You Would Think" is little Bobby Kagan's op-ed in this morning's Wash Post. Why is little Bobby allowed to weigh in (with his talk of those "left wing critics" (opponents to the war) in the Democratic Party?
It's not that little Bobby's useless, though he is. It's not that he can't even construct an argument with subtext -- it's all on the surface -- a cautionary tale for Dems to reign in those radicals. It is that his wife worked for Dick Cheney's office and currently holds a position (we believe in the UN) due to Cheney.
Little Bobby's going to blather. Expecting him not to is like expecting the 9 month old not to wet the diaper. In Little Bobby's case, take a big dump. But The Washington Post owes it to readers to note potential conflicts of interests. Now maybe if it's a high profile couple like Mary Matalin and James Carville, most know. But most don't know about Bobby and Vicky.
They should. The Wash Post needs to note Little Bobby's wife. It's an apparent conflict. Noting it allows the readers to decide how much weight they will or won't give to his stream of yellow urine writing.
For more on this marriage, and how the press allows Bobby to come off as a disinterested commentator, read C.I.'s "When NPR Fails You, Who You Gonna Call? Not the Ombudsman."
In closing, note, again, C.I. did not participate in the writing of this. (If C.I. had, we'd know Kagan's wife's current position.) Jess saw the article and wanted to write about it. C.I. bowed out because a) C.I. avoids critiquing that paper and b) C.I. knows Kagan. Ava, who did participate, has met Kagan at "two or three larger parties." She's dubbed him "Little Bobby" in this because her alternative is much more harsh.
"If Power Shifts In 2008: A Democrat Might Not Be as Different as You Would Think" is little Bobby Kagan's op-ed in this morning's Wash Post. Why is little Bobby allowed to weigh in (with his talk of those "left wing critics" (opponents to the war) in the Democratic Party?
It's not that little Bobby's useless, though he is. It's not that he can't even construct an argument with subtext -- it's all on the surface -- a cautionary tale for Dems to reign in those radicals. It is that his wife worked for Dick Cheney's office and currently holds a position (we believe in the UN) due to Cheney.
Little Bobby's going to blather. Expecting him not to is like expecting the 9 month old not to wet the diaper. In Little Bobby's case, take a big dump. But The Washington Post owes it to readers to note potential conflicts of interests. Now maybe if it's a high profile couple like Mary Matalin and James Carville, most know. But most don't know about Bobby and Vicky.
They should. The Wash Post needs to note Little Bobby's wife. It's an apparent conflict. Noting it allows the readers to decide how much weight they will or won't give to his stream of yellow urine writing.
For more on this marriage, and how the press allows Bobby to come off as a disinterested commentator, read C.I.'s "When NPR Fails You, Who You Gonna Call? Not the Ombudsman."
In closing, note, again, C.I. did not participate in the writing of this. (If C.I. had, we'd know Kagan's wife's current position.) Jess saw the article and wanted to write about it. C.I. bowed out because a) C.I. avoids critiquing that paper and b) C.I. knows Kagan. Ava, who did participate, has met Kagan at "two or three larger parties." She's dubbed him "Little Bobby" in this because her alternative is much more harsh.
Crapapedia: Kids don't use it to research papers!
[Sing jingle] "It's not an encyclopedia . . . It's CRAP, CRAP-a-pedia."
Enter generic White (natch) Male (ditto) host. Grins to the camera.
GWM: Hey boys and girls! Want to learn a lot of fake facts! That's what we'll do this morning on Crapapedia!
Yeah, we're talking Wikipedia. Some of us felt sorry for it when it was being attacked by the mainstream media (following a heavily passed around New York Times memo). None of us used it but the concept of a group of people coming together to document things seemed like a wonderful idea. And then . . . we visited it.
That was due to another issue [see "April Oliver got a fiancial settlement, whether Wikiepedia tells you it happened or not, It Happened"] with the rabid right, slow readers that they are, finally responding to an old story here and all citing Wikipedia as though it were handed down on holy tablets.
Ty was the first to take a look (he's also the primary on reading e-mails) and urged the rest of us to take a look. Mistakes abound. Big ones. As well as a strong thread of sexism that repeatedly pops up. For our study, we examined the entries on the Mamas and the Papas (as a group and individuals), Carly Simon and James Taylor (young kids, Carly was once married to the guy that you asked "Who?" about just now), and Fleetwood Mac (as a group and also focusing on Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham). We saw men pop up all the time in entries on women but the same women didn't pop up like that in entries about the men (implying through the sheer bulk of the references that the men helped the "little ladies" do their hobby but men are so damn manly they don't need any help when doing their art).
Facts aren't present. Whether it's getting a single wrong, creating an album title that doesn't exist, not knowing a date of birth, crediting a song to a writer who didn't write it or much, much more, there was one error after another.
Where to start?
Let's start with the Mamas and the Papas. (A favorite group of all of ours.) (And a favorite with our readers.)
We'll start with this from the Michelle Phillips' entry (a very nasty entry):
In 1986 she penned her autobiography, California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas, [. . .] In it Phillips describes such events as [. . .] and how her writing credit on the California Dreamin' song, which still nets her royalties, was "the best wake-up call" she ever had (she was asleep on the tour bus and John Phillips woke her long enough for her transcribe the song he was writing).
Is that what Michelle Phillips writes in her book?
Funny, we didn't get that. First off, we don't know what she would be doing on a tour bus in the Earl Hotel? Let's go to page 46:
Before moving to the apartment in Charles Street in the Village, John and I had stayed at the Earl Hotel in the Village, and it was there that we had written "California Dreamin'" two years before. It was John's way to walk around with his guitar strapped to him and make up little tunes; often I would go to bed, have a night's sleep, and wake up to find him still strapped to his guitar. Sometimes there would be a song, and sometimes there wouldn't. "All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey . . ." He already had much of the song by the time he woke me that morning. It was four a.m., but he was wide awake with the "upper" he'd taken. He said, "Listen, you have to help me finish this song, Mitch. Help me, and you'll thank for me it someday." Well, I got up, and we finished the song. "I've been for a walk on a wintere's day. I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. California dreamin' on such a winter's day . . ." I do make a point of trying to thank him for it every now and again. We did, do still, share publishing on "California Dreamin'" and every other song we wrote together. No matter how great or small my individual part was in writing, it was a share.
Obviously, she didn't write in her book that the song was created on a tour bus. Transcribed? She helped write the song. What kind of sexist, lying freak wants to take away her credit AND claim that he's merely summarizing what she wrote in her book? What a sick, sick fuck.
Now let's go to their Mamas and the Papas entry and note this:
They were one of the few American groups to maintain widespread success during the British Invasion (others being The Beach Boys and The Lovin' Spoonful).
"Others being"? In terms of toe to toe, the American group to come closest to the Beatles with number one hits was Motown's Supremes (later Diana Ross & the Supremes). They did it "during" the British Invasion. The Beatles hit number one 20 times. During the same period, the only group to come close, American or otherwise, was The Supremes with 12 number one hits. Where's there mention? (And don't give us that "they didn't play on their recordings!" b.s. -- get real about the Beach Boys once Brian Wilson really takes over. Also, John Phillips is the only member of the Mamas and the Papas playing on their recordings.)
Back to Crapapedia. There are so many lies in their Mamas and Papas entry that the writer should be banned from ever writing there again. Presented as "FACT" is that Jill Gibson (who was never known for her singing -- though an image did take hold when she split on Jan Barry of Jan and Dean) sang on all but two of the twelves songs that make up The Mamas and the Papas. That is Jill Gibson's claim. It's not anyone else's.
It's not the claim of any of the musicians who were in the studio for recordings with Michelle Phillips and present for recordings with Gibson. This is dealt with at length in Matthew Greenwald's Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas & The Papas. (Papa) Denny Doherty said of Gibson's attempts in the studio "She was completely out of her element, and she didn't know what the fuck she was doing there." Lou Adler (who produced the sixites albums) said, "She had done some singing, but she wasn't a singer. . . . We recorded Jill on six songs . . . It was real hard work -- she may have done some singing, but to step into The Mamas & The Papas . . . he [John Phillips] got six vocal performances out of her, which we later replaced, some of 'em." Bones Howe:
In some ways, Jill had trouble blending in with Cass, because Michelle, I think had sung so much with Cass that she understood how to let Cass be the up front voice, and she just blended in with her. This was big pressure on Jill, too, and I think she came in and tried to find a different way to be part of the group in a different way. I'm sure there was a lot of working around the sound, you know, giving Cass more things to do, like overdubbing on herself.
Gibson's assertion (which matches no one else's account including muscians who were there for the recordings with her and with Phillips) is that one of the two songs she didn't sing on was "Dancing in the Street." P.F. Sloan refused to record with the group while Jill Gibson was in it (he was visting Jan Berry, in the hospital after the infamous car accident) because he didn't want anything to do with Jill Gibson due to the whole scene between her and Jan. Since Sloan remembers the recording of the hit "I Saw Her Again Last Night" quite well, she obviously can't be on that song.
And until she can find people who were present that can back up her claim, especially in the face of the public comments made by Adler, Sloan and others, Crapapedia has no business printing her dubious assertion as FACT. The Crapmeister also claims that some seeing the "tour" (we believe it was a little over three dates and no more then ten tops) were upset that Michelle wasn't in the group ("Mama Jill" was introduced at the shows with no explanation of where "Mama Michelle" was*) but that some were okay with it. This grossly underestimates the crowd's audible reaction to learning that wasn't Michelle on stage in Dallas Memorial Auditorium and at Forest Hills. Strangely the Forest Hill detail was included at one point in an earlier entry at Crapapedia but someone dubbed it a "myth" and it was striken. Strange since even Jill Gibson herself remembers, in Greenwald's book, the concert "at Forest Hills, New York, where a guy in the audience yelled out, 'Where's Michelle?' I think that upset John. I remember the shows going smoothly, as though people accepted me, or perhaps they didn't even realize I wasn't Michelle." Or perhaps Gibson was too stoned out of her mind to grasp what went on in Dallas Memorial Auditorium? (Her complaint to Greenwald is that "I would have been more comfotable on stage if John hadn't pushed me to get stoned before going on.")
It bears noting that Gibson was briefly in the group for about two months. Three weeks were spent rehearsing in London. The remainder was playing some already scheduled dates and recording. Though the first album was recorded quickly, The Mamas and The Papas wasn't. It wasn't to the point that Cass would be complaining yet that they spent an entire month recording one song, but it wasn't far from that either. Gibson's claims, even without the denails from everyone else involved, are hard to swallow.
There are so many errors in the Crapatedia entry, we can't tackle them all. We'll note this (still from the group entry):
John approached them and made an insulting remark about her in front of the guests. Disgusted and humiliated, she stormed out of the party and quit the band.Their record company released a Greatest Hits compilation as a stopgap measure. Cass was contractually bound for the band's next LP, and therefore appeared on The Papas & the Mamas, the group's fourth album.The band broke up in July 1968. In a rare interview, after the group's break up, with Rolling Stone magazine, Cass admitted she wanted to go solo and that this is what had caused the official break up of the band.
First off, the Dunhill/ABC (by then ABC was a part of it) released Farewell to the First Golden Era because they needed "product" and needed money. It had nothing to do with a "stopgap" measure and, in fact, was bad for the group. It wasn't to help the band and it was done for one reason only, to make a quick buck. They would have done it regardless of when the fourth album was completed and only a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would write such nonsense. (The writer is obviously unfamiliar with the whole Dunhill/ABC saga -- but when Dunhill was swallowed, it effected a lot of artists negatively.) As for the embarrasment Cass suffered in England, where's the sourcing on that because it's not the tale Cass, Michelle, Denny or Lou told? The reason she did the 1968 group album was because she wanted to do it. That album would give her the ability to quit because it would provide her with what was seen her as her first solo hit (the Mamas and the Papas "Dream a Little Dream of Me"). (If the writer is attempting to suggest that, prior to 1968, an album was released entitled Greatest Hits -- he may be suggesting that, he doesn't type "greatest hits" -- he is again mistaken.)
The Cass entry states:
Her most successful recording during this period was 1968's Dream a Little Dream of Me from her solo album of the same name, released by Dunhill Records, though it had originally been recorded for and released on the album The Papas & The Mamas Presented By The Mamas and The Papas earlier that year.
Wrong. A version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" appeared on The Papas & The Mamas and one appeared on Cass' first solo album. They are not the same recording. The one for the solo album has sound effects in it (thunder, rain, a radio being switched from station to station, etc.), different vocals and was never released as a single. The hit single was taken from the album The Papas and the Mamas, was credited to "Mama Cass with The Mamas and The Papas," and featured on the flip side the Mamas and the Papas "Midnight Voyage" (also on the album The Papas & The Mamas). Cass' first single issued off her solo album Dream a Little Dream of Me was "California Earthquake."
The clear impression from the Michelle entry and the Denny entry (less so from the John entry, which, to its credit doesn't attempt to steal her songwriting credit from her -- but then "Frecklefoot" doesn't list it as one he worked on -- though he worked on the problematic ones) is that Naughty Michelle caused all the problems. That's interesting considering that this was the period of free love and that John Phillips was involved in several affairs while Michelle Phillips (no longer living with John Phillips) was seeing Gene Clark. But a woman engages in affairs, and she's a bitch. A man does it and he's just a "stud." That same 'enlightened' thinking allows Michelle Phillips to be stripped of her credit for Monterey Pop Festival. Three people on the Mamas and Papas team helped put that festival together, Lou Adler, John Phillips and Michelle Phillips. It's curious that only John Phillips gets credit.
That's true of many accounts which often note that "John and Lou" put money into the project -- since John Phillips was back with Michelle Phillips and they were married, it was their money. On the festival, Michelle has written (in her book California Dreamin'):
But I loved Monterey and the excitement, and the fun of working with the graphic designers and stage managers around us; my job was telephoning record companies and getting them to pay $1,500 for a page advertisment in the program put together by Tom Wilkes, Guy Webster (who had covered our career with his camera from the start), and David Wheeler. Nobody turned us down for ads.
She also writes of how she and John kept office hours, how "we" formed a board of directors and much more. Michelle Phillips has long been denied her earned credit for the festival, one would think the "people's encyclopedia" would attempt to right that wrong. Instead, it's just interested in repeating sexist notions about the female as transgressor and heaping credit (deserved or not) onto males.
But John did it all himself (a key to all the entries we studied) the burnout apparently even wrote an "autobiograhpy" entitled Papa John. Now an "autobiograpy," to us, means someone wrote their own book. It doesn't mean they had a co-writer. Papa John has a credited co-writer, he's just never mentioned at Crapapedia though they mention the book repeatedly.
The main entry once contained a link to this "Review of Dream a Little Dream" but Frecklefoot pulled it because only they can offer opinions -- their useless, factually challenged, piece of crap opinions. While passing them off as facts. It should also be noted that in one entry, they write that Michelle Phillips is blowing kisses to Gene Clark at a concert. That concert took place at the Melodyland and not only did no press account report blown kisses but two people who were at that concert swore that it didn't happen. Considering that the public account has Michelle and Cass attempting to keep John from noticing Gene Clark in the audience, the idea that Michelle was on stage (with her estranged husband) blowing kisses at her lover is a bit hard to buy. (Especially since, like most of the dubious claims, it has no sourcing.)
On the trail of how men are elevated to genius which requires downplaying women, Rebecca suggested we contrast and compare the Carly Simon and James Taylor entries. We did. While the Simon entry merely notes that the couple divorced, the Taylor entry contains a curious bit of 'explanation':
Taylor and Simon had two children, Ben and Sally. Simon was unhappy with Taylor's extended absences due to touring; he rejected an ultimatum from her that he spend more time with his children and they eventually divorced in 1983.
That's why they divorced? There's no source for that curious claim and Taylor's lifelong battle with drugs is generally seen as the reason for the breakup. Simon's never made that claim, so where does it come from?
To read the Taylor entry is to get a rah-rah impression of the recording career, one slump (Walking Man -- apparently they never heard of Never Die Young), and BAM! THE MAN IS BACK! It helps to avoid mentioning the failures.
It's also interesting to contrast No Nukes which Simon and Taylor both participated in. Here's the version in the Taylor entry:
Taylor also performed at the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden and appeared on the album and film from the concert.
That's it in full. Now here's the same event from the Simon entry:
That year, shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, from September 19 to September 22, a series of concerts were held at New York's Madison Square Garden sponsored by MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), a group of musicians against nuclear power. Simon and James Taylor were part of the concerts which later became a film documentary as well as a soundtrack called No Nukes.
You see that throughout, men weighing heavily in entries on women but the same women never weighing heavily in entries on the same men. We stopped counting at seven the number of sentences covering Carly Simon and James Taylor's joint vocals on songs -- in the Simon entry. It's not mentioned in the Taylor entry -- even when "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" is noted (which Simon did sing backup on). In fact, Simon is only mentioned in five brief sentences in the Taylor entry, but be prepared for a long read of Taylor coverage in the entry supposedly about Carly Simon.
Here are two FACTS not stated in the coverage: Simon, unlike Taylor, won a Grammy (and Oscar and Golden Globe) for songwriting; Simon, unlike Taylor, wrote her number one hit.
Now let's note mistakes. There is no album titled Christmas Is Here Again. In 2002 a Christmas album was released by Rhino called Christmas Is Almost Here. In 2003, Rhino released the album with two additional tracks. The title was not, as Crapapedia tells you, Christmas is Here Again -- the title remained Christmas Is Almost Here. Simon did not write "Someone Waits For You" for the film Swing Shift. The song was written by Peter Allen and Wilbur Jennings (that's how it's credited on the sheet music). She sang it, she didn't write it. "All the Love in the World" was not written "for the 1985 TV movie Torchlight" because, get this, Torchlight (starring Pamela Sue Martin) was not a TV movie. It was a theaterical release. The Very Best of Carly Simon was never "released" in the United States -- it can be purchased in the US as an import and most copies cleary display the sticker reading "IMPORT" on the plastic wrapping. (Which is why the single disc's list price in this country is $27.97 -- because it's an import.) We're also confused as to how both that album and Reflections can be "her third greatest hits collection." But, in the Simon entry, both are credited as "her third greates hits collection."
Further confusion comes from the fact that these two words never appear in the Taylor entry: "Kathyrn Walker." The second wife. The one whom Taylor couldn't stop yapping about (they divorced in the mid-nineties) and credited with his more sober life. Equally puzzeling is how Taylor just "left" the mental institution since he himself has spoken of how he escaped and, in fact, whines in the current issue of Rolling Stone about revealing that in an interview (he actually discussed it in many interviews). But that, like Walker, who has fame in her own right, just goes unremarked upon.
It's an interesting portrait of the man alone, not unlike James Taylor's Dad Loves His Work which, despite the title, contained no mention of children. Rest assured, the house and the garden, the boys in the band -- all divided up. The children? Dad Loves His Work so much that the then father of two can't mention his children in one damn song. (He does meet an old man, in one song, who talks about how he walked out on his son years and years ago. That's the closest to a child appearing on "Dad"'s album.)
How about Fleetwood Mac? Huge group and one where all the members tried to have solo careers. (Sales wise, Lindsey Buckingham never got a career off the ground.) The first thing that popped up was the issue of age.
C.I.: Prior to 1984, Lindsey Buckingham was one year older than Stevie Nicks. While promoting Go Insane, suddenly he was a year younger than her. If he could put that diet into print form, How to Lose Two Years, he might finally be able to claim writing a real hit because I'm sure the book would sell millions.
Crapapediea lists Lindsey Buckingham's birth as October 3, 1949. That is popular -- it's just not correct. We'd advise Crapapedia's writers to put down the issues of Guitar and research their facts. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame backs up C.I.'s assertion, they give his date of birth as October 3, 1947. Crapapedia's Buckingham entry currently opens with:
"Lindsey Buckingham (born October 3, 1949) . . ."
Wrong. It's not encyclopedia, it's CRAP-crapapedia.
Linsdey Buckingham sure comes off talented in his entry and in Fleetwood Mac's. That's because they read like a sexist wrote them. Whether it's the same sow plowing through other entries, we have no idea. But there's a need to elevate Buckingham above the rest by creating things that flat out never happened.
For instance, in both the Stevie Nicks entry, the Buckingham entry and the Fleetwood Mac entry, Stevie Nicks is only asked to join the group because Buckingham told them it was him and Nicks or he wasn't joining the group. That's not true and the public record demonstrates that.
Here's what the public record tells you. The band needed a guitarist (Bob Welch had left the band). You can find comments by Stevie Nicks that she always thought (or "suspected" in some accounts) that they only asked her to join because they wanted Lindsey. You'll also find many accounts from Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie saying that's not true. Producer Keith Olsen has long been the cited source for bringing up the issue of Nicks being in the band. Fleetwood spoke with him about the issue of a guitar player and noted he'd like to use Buckingham. Olsen's version is (and always has been) that he stated Buckingham and Nicks were a combo deal. He has always stated that Mick Fleetwood replied that he wanted them both.
Somehow, probably the same way Buckingham becomes two years younger, that story, as told by Crapapedia becomes: "Stevie Nicks not wanted in the band! Lindsey Buckingham had to fight to have her in the band! Next on Behind the Music!"
The Buckingham lover/luster who wrote the entries also wants to attack a much reported account of what happened to end the Tango In The Night tour before it began. We have to scream "Stop!" here.
Crapapedia:
1987's "Tango In The Night", or, "Shake the Cage" tour was the first outing for this lineup."
There was no Tango In The Night Tour. The tour was called Shake the Cage. There's no "or" there.
Now let's go to Crapapedia for a few more lies:
Fleetwood Mac had always had personality conflicts, but some believe the tension between Buckingham and Nicks had grown unbearable, leading to Buckingham quitting the group right before their Tango in the Night world tour. Buckingham has never publically attributed that decision directly to relations with Nicks. In the Fleetwood Mac segment of British TV Program Rock Family Trees (broadcast in 1995), John McVie described the confrontation between Nicks and Buckingham at Christine McVie's house in August 1987 as "physically ugly". Nicks admitted that Buckingham almost killed her, after she violently rejected Buckingham's decision to leave the band. After Buckingham chased her through the house and out onto the street and, according to Mick Fleetwood in his disputed autobiography, threw her against a car and strangled her, Nicks warned him that if he killed her and none of the other band members came to get him, her brother Christopher and father Jess would murder him.
The tension between Nicks and Buckingham, Crapapedia says, was "unbearable." Then we get Buckingham "never publicly attributed" his departure from the band to that. Then we're told that an argument occurred and, "according to Mick Fleetwood in his disputed autobiography," Buckingham threw her against a car and tried to strangle her. (Mick Fleetwood writes nothing of Nicks warning Buckingham that her bandmates or her brother and father would kill him if he killed her.)
The writer of the entry clues you that he doesn't think it's true.
That's a pretty sympathetic portrait of Buckingham. It's not factual, but it's sympathetic. First off, long before Fleetwood wrote his book, the music press had already covered the highly publicized fight where Buckingham stormed out of McVie's house with others following him, turned on Nicks, threw her against the car and then attempted to strangle her. (Musician magazine mentioned it, in detail, in a lengthy story on the band.) That fact, heavily reported, is not in dispute anywhere but at Crapadeia. It happened.
Why did Buckingham storm out of the house? It probably helps to first explain why he was at the house. It had nothing to do with tensions between him and Nicks (other than possibly commerical envy on Buckingham's part). It had to do with the band agreeing to tour, the album being out and them needing to start touring. Buckingham pulled his "Guys, I'm not touring" nonsense which led members to demand a face to face since the tour was scheduled to begin, dates were booked, contracts were signed, roadies were hired, go down the list.
He didn't just say, "Hey, I might like to tour." He told the band he'd tour, he let deals be made and then tried to weasel out of without telling the band face to face. But presenting him as less than the saint of our times doesn't fit with the genius label he created for himself and the press ran with. This fact free approach to reality makes us wonder who in the administration writes for Crapapedia?
In the Stevie Nicks entry at Crapapedia, this appears:
Nicks contributed songs including "Rhiannon" and "Landslide", originally written for the second Buckingham Nicks album. It also included a re-release of a song from the 1973 Buckingham Nicks album, "Crystal".
Who wrote that song? ("Crystal.") Stevie Nicks did. But that won't be told at Crapapedia. Reading the sentence, the average reader will see "Buckingham Nicks" and think they wrote it together. (The way some still think that since Buckingham sang on "Don't Stop," he must have co-written it. He didn't. Christine McVie wrote the song.)
At their Fleetwood Mac entry, they list Fleetwood Mac singles but apparently missed "Paper Doll" which was recorded for and released in conjuction with the boxed set The Chain. To close this out, we'll note that "Planets of the Universe" was not Nicks' first remix to hit the dance charts (look to the eighties, Crapapedia!) and that, since they're attempting to track Stevie Nicks mentions in films and cite Joan Cusack's character in School of Rock, they might need to consider adding Mr. Wrong wherein Cusack plays a character who once stalked Stevie Nicks. As for the singles "discography," someone remind them of "Needles & Pins" (among other charting singles that are missing from the line up). Otherwise they need to change the heading to "select discograpy."
We could go on and on. We could go back to Carly and James and note other mistakes, or to the Mamas and the Papas or stay here. There's a lot more to note.
But the point's been made. It's not encyclopedia, it's Crapapeadia.
[*"Michelle's in Mexico!" shouted out, by John Phillips, to those hollering, "Where's Michelle?" at a concert is not an explanation. It's a location, it's not an explanation.]
Enter generic White (natch) Male (ditto) host. Grins to the camera.
GWM: Hey boys and girls! Want to learn a lot of fake facts! That's what we'll do this morning on Crapapedia!
Yeah, we're talking Wikipedia. Some of us felt sorry for it when it was being attacked by the mainstream media (following a heavily passed around New York Times memo). None of us used it but the concept of a group of people coming together to document things seemed like a wonderful idea. And then . . . we visited it.
That was due to another issue [see "April Oliver got a fiancial settlement, whether Wikiepedia tells you it happened or not, It Happened"] with the rabid right, slow readers that they are, finally responding to an old story here and all citing Wikipedia as though it were handed down on holy tablets.
Ty was the first to take a look (he's also the primary on reading e-mails) and urged the rest of us to take a look. Mistakes abound. Big ones. As well as a strong thread of sexism that repeatedly pops up. For our study, we examined the entries on the Mamas and the Papas (as a group and individuals), Carly Simon and James Taylor (young kids, Carly was once married to the guy that you asked "Who?" about just now), and Fleetwood Mac (as a group and also focusing on Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham). We saw men pop up all the time in entries on women but the same women didn't pop up like that in entries about the men (implying through the sheer bulk of the references that the men helped the "little ladies" do their hobby but men are so damn manly they don't need any help when doing their art).
Facts aren't present. Whether it's getting a single wrong, creating an album title that doesn't exist, not knowing a date of birth, crediting a song to a writer who didn't write it or much, much more, there was one error after another.
Where to start?
Let's start with the Mamas and the Papas. (A favorite group of all of ours.) (And a favorite with our readers.)
We'll start with this from the Michelle Phillips' entry (a very nasty entry):
In 1986 she penned her autobiography, California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas, [. . .] In it Phillips describes such events as [. . .] and how her writing credit on the California Dreamin' song, which still nets her royalties, was "the best wake-up call" she ever had (she was asleep on the tour bus and John Phillips woke her long enough for her transcribe the song he was writing).
Is that what Michelle Phillips writes in her book?
Funny, we didn't get that. First off, we don't know what she would be doing on a tour bus in the Earl Hotel? Let's go to page 46:
Before moving to the apartment in Charles Street in the Village, John and I had stayed at the Earl Hotel in the Village, and it was there that we had written "California Dreamin'" two years before. It was John's way to walk around with his guitar strapped to him and make up little tunes; often I would go to bed, have a night's sleep, and wake up to find him still strapped to his guitar. Sometimes there would be a song, and sometimes there wouldn't. "All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey . . ." He already had much of the song by the time he woke me that morning. It was four a.m., but he was wide awake with the "upper" he'd taken. He said, "Listen, you have to help me finish this song, Mitch. Help me, and you'll thank for me it someday." Well, I got up, and we finished the song. "I've been for a walk on a wintere's day. I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A. California dreamin' on such a winter's day . . ." I do make a point of trying to thank him for it every now and again. We did, do still, share publishing on "California Dreamin'" and every other song we wrote together. No matter how great or small my individual part was in writing, it was a share.
Obviously, she didn't write in her book that the song was created on a tour bus. Transcribed? She helped write the song. What kind of sexist, lying freak wants to take away her credit AND claim that he's merely summarizing what she wrote in her book? What a sick, sick fuck.
Now let's go to their Mamas and the Papas entry and note this:
They were one of the few American groups to maintain widespread success during the British Invasion (others being The Beach Boys and The Lovin' Spoonful).
"Others being"? In terms of toe to toe, the American group to come closest to the Beatles with number one hits was Motown's Supremes (later Diana Ross & the Supremes). They did it "during" the British Invasion. The Beatles hit number one 20 times. During the same period, the only group to come close, American or otherwise, was The Supremes with 12 number one hits. Where's there mention? (And don't give us that "they didn't play on their recordings!" b.s. -- get real about the Beach Boys once Brian Wilson really takes over. Also, John Phillips is the only member of the Mamas and the Papas playing on their recordings.)
Back to Crapapedia. There are so many lies in their Mamas and Papas entry that the writer should be banned from ever writing there again. Presented as "FACT" is that Jill Gibson (who was never known for her singing -- though an image did take hold when she split on Jan Barry of Jan and Dean) sang on all but two of the twelves songs that make up The Mamas and the Papas. That is Jill Gibson's claim. It's not anyone else's.
It's not the claim of any of the musicians who were in the studio for recordings with Michelle Phillips and present for recordings with Gibson. This is dealt with at length in Matthew Greenwald's Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas & The Papas. (Papa) Denny Doherty said of Gibson's attempts in the studio "She was completely out of her element, and she didn't know what the fuck she was doing there." Lou Adler (who produced the sixites albums) said, "She had done some singing, but she wasn't a singer. . . . We recorded Jill on six songs . . . It was real hard work -- she may have done some singing, but to step into The Mamas & The Papas . . . he [John Phillips] got six vocal performances out of her, which we later replaced, some of 'em." Bones Howe:
In some ways, Jill had trouble blending in with Cass, because Michelle, I think had sung so much with Cass that she understood how to let Cass be the up front voice, and she just blended in with her. This was big pressure on Jill, too, and I think she came in and tried to find a different way to be part of the group in a different way. I'm sure there was a lot of working around the sound, you know, giving Cass more things to do, like overdubbing on herself.
Gibson's assertion (which matches no one else's account including muscians who were there for the recordings with her and with Phillips) is that one of the two songs she didn't sing on was "Dancing in the Street." P.F. Sloan refused to record with the group while Jill Gibson was in it (he was visting Jan Berry, in the hospital after the infamous car accident) because he didn't want anything to do with Jill Gibson due to the whole scene between her and Jan. Since Sloan remembers the recording of the hit "I Saw Her Again Last Night" quite well, she obviously can't be on that song.
And until she can find people who were present that can back up her claim, especially in the face of the public comments made by Adler, Sloan and others, Crapapedia has no business printing her dubious assertion as FACT. The Crapmeister also claims that some seeing the "tour" (we believe it was a little over three dates and no more then ten tops) were upset that Michelle wasn't in the group ("Mama Jill" was introduced at the shows with no explanation of where "Mama Michelle" was*) but that some were okay with it. This grossly underestimates the crowd's audible reaction to learning that wasn't Michelle on stage in Dallas Memorial Auditorium and at Forest Hills. Strangely the Forest Hill detail was included at one point in an earlier entry at Crapapedia but someone dubbed it a "myth" and it was striken. Strange since even Jill Gibson herself remembers, in Greenwald's book, the concert "at Forest Hills, New York, where a guy in the audience yelled out, 'Where's Michelle?' I think that upset John. I remember the shows going smoothly, as though people accepted me, or perhaps they didn't even realize I wasn't Michelle." Or perhaps Gibson was too stoned out of her mind to grasp what went on in Dallas Memorial Auditorium? (Her complaint to Greenwald is that "I would have been more comfotable on stage if John hadn't pushed me to get stoned before going on.")
It bears noting that Gibson was briefly in the group for about two months. Three weeks were spent rehearsing in London. The remainder was playing some already scheduled dates and recording. Though the first album was recorded quickly, The Mamas and The Papas wasn't. It wasn't to the point that Cass would be complaining yet that they spent an entire month recording one song, but it wasn't far from that either. Gibson's claims, even without the denails from everyone else involved, are hard to swallow.
There are so many errors in the Crapatedia entry, we can't tackle them all. We'll note this (still from the group entry):
John approached them and made an insulting remark about her in front of the guests. Disgusted and humiliated, she stormed out of the party and quit the band.Their record company released a Greatest Hits compilation as a stopgap measure. Cass was contractually bound for the band's next LP, and therefore appeared on The Papas & the Mamas, the group's fourth album.The band broke up in July 1968. In a rare interview, after the group's break up, with Rolling Stone magazine, Cass admitted she wanted to go solo and that this is what had caused the official break up of the band.
First off, the Dunhill/ABC (by then ABC was a part of it) released Farewell to the First Golden Era because they needed "product" and needed money. It had nothing to do with a "stopgap" measure and, in fact, was bad for the group. It wasn't to help the band and it was done for one reason only, to make a quick buck. They would have done it regardless of when the fourth album was completed and only a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about would write such nonsense. (The writer is obviously unfamiliar with the whole Dunhill/ABC saga -- but when Dunhill was swallowed, it effected a lot of artists negatively.) As for the embarrasment Cass suffered in England, where's the sourcing on that because it's not the tale Cass, Michelle, Denny or Lou told? The reason she did the 1968 group album was because she wanted to do it. That album would give her the ability to quit because it would provide her with what was seen her as her first solo hit (the Mamas and the Papas "Dream a Little Dream of Me"). (If the writer is attempting to suggest that, prior to 1968, an album was released entitled Greatest Hits -- he may be suggesting that, he doesn't type "greatest hits" -- he is again mistaken.)
The Cass entry states:
Her most successful recording during this period was 1968's Dream a Little Dream of Me from her solo album of the same name, released by Dunhill Records, though it had originally been recorded for and released on the album The Papas & The Mamas Presented By The Mamas and The Papas earlier that year.
Wrong. A version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" appeared on The Papas & The Mamas and one appeared on Cass' first solo album. They are not the same recording. The one for the solo album has sound effects in it (thunder, rain, a radio being switched from station to station, etc.), different vocals and was never released as a single. The hit single was taken from the album The Papas and the Mamas, was credited to "Mama Cass with The Mamas and The Papas," and featured on the flip side the Mamas and the Papas "Midnight Voyage" (also on the album The Papas & The Mamas). Cass' first single issued off her solo album Dream a Little Dream of Me was "California Earthquake."
The clear impression from the Michelle entry and the Denny entry (less so from the John entry, which, to its credit doesn't attempt to steal her songwriting credit from her -- but then "Frecklefoot" doesn't list it as one he worked on -- though he worked on the problematic ones) is that Naughty Michelle caused all the problems. That's interesting considering that this was the period of free love and that John Phillips was involved in several affairs while Michelle Phillips (no longer living with John Phillips) was seeing Gene Clark. But a woman engages in affairs, and she's a bitch. A man does it and he's just a "stud." That same 'enlightened' thinking allows Michelle Phillips to be stripped of her credit for Monterey Pop Festival. Three people on the Mamas and Papas team helped put that festival together, Lou Adler, John Phillips and Michelle Phillips. It's curious that only John Phillips gets credit.
That's true of many accounts which often note that "John and Lou" put money into the project -- since John Phillips was back with Michelle Phillips and they were married, it was their money. On the festival, Michelle has written (in her book California Dreamin'):
But I loved Monterey and the excitement, and the fun of working with the graphic designers and stage managers around us; my job was telephoning record companies and getting them to pay $1,500 for a page advertisment in the program put together by Tom Wilkes, Guy Webster (who had covered our career with his camera from the start), and David Wheeler. Nobody turned us down for ads.
She also writes of how she and John kept office hours, how "we" formed a board of directors and much more. Michelle Phillips has long been denied her earned credit for the festival, one would think the "people's encyclopedia" would attempt to right that wrong. Instead, it's just interested in repeating sexist notions about the female as transgressor and heaping credit (deserved or not) onto males.
But John did it all himself (a key to all the entries we studied) the burnout apparently even wrote an "autobiograhpy" entitled Papa John. Now an "autobiograpy," to us, means someone wrote their own book. It doesn't mean they had a co-writer. Papa John has a credited co-writer, he's just never mentioned at Crapapedia though they mention the book repeatedly.
The main entry once contained a link to this "Review of Dream a Little Dream" but Frecklefoot pulled it because only they can offer opinions -- their useless, factually challenged, piece of crap opinions. While passing them off as facts. It should also be noted that in one entry, they write that Michelle Phillips is blowing kisses to Gene Clark at a concert. That concert took place at the Melodyland and not only did no press account report blown kisses but two people who were at that concert swore that it didn't happen. Considering that the public account has Michelle and Cass attempting to keep John from noticing Gene Clark in the audience, the idea that Michelle was on stage (with her estranged husband) blowing kisses at her lover is a bit hard to buy. (Especially since, like most of the dubious claims, it has no sourcing.)
On the trail of how men are elevated to genius which requires downplaying women, Rebecca suggested we contrast and compare the Carly Simon and James Taylor entries. We did. While the Simon entry merely notes that the couple divorced, the Taylor entry contains a curious bit of 'explanation':
Taylor and Simon had two children, Ben and Sally. Simon was unhappy with Taylor's extended absences due to touring; he rejected an ultimatum from her that he spend more time with his children and they eventually divorced in 1983.
That's why they divorced? There's no source for that curious claim and Taylor's lifelong battle with drugs is generally seen as the reason for the breakup. Simon's never made that claim, so where does it come from?
To read the Taylor entry is to get a rah-rah impression of the recording career, one slump (Walking Man -- apparently they never heard of Never Die Young), and BAM! THE MAN IS BACK! It helps to avoid mentioning the failures.
It's also interesting to contrast No Nukes which Simon and Taylor both participated in. Here's the version in the Taylor entry:
Taylor also performed at the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden and appeared on the album and film from the concert.
That's it in full. Now here's the same event from the Simon entry:
That year, shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, from September 19 to September 22, a series of concerts were held at New York's Madison Square Garden sponsored by MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), a group of musicians against nuclear power. Simon and James Taylor were part of the concerts which later became a film documentary as well as a soundtrack called No Nukes.
You see that throughout, men weighing heavily in entries on women but the same women never weighing heavily in entries on the same men. We stopped counting at seven the number of sentences covering Carly Simon and James Taylor's joint vocals on songs -- in the Simon entry. It's not mentioned in the Taylor entry -- even when "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" is noted (which Simon did sing backup on). In fact, Simon is only mentioned in five brief sentences in the Taylor entry, but be prepared for a long read of Taylor coverage in the entry supposedly about Carly Simon.
Here are two FACTS not stated in the coverage: Simon, unlike Taylor, won a Grammy (and Oscar and Golden Globe) for songwriting; Simon, unlike Taylor, wrote her number one hit.
Now let's note mistakes. There is no album titled Christmas Is Here Again. In 2002 a Christmas album was released by Rhino called Christmas Is Almost Here. In 2003, Rhino released the album with two additional tracks. The title was not, as Crapapedia tells you, Christmas is Here Again -- the title remained Christmas Is Almost Here. Simon did not write "Someone Waits For You" for the film Swing Shift. The song was written by Peter Allen and Wilbur Jennings (that's how it's credited on the sheet music). She sang it, she didn't write it. "All the Love in the World" was not written "for the 1985 TV movie Torchlight" because, get this, Torchlight (starring Pamela Sue Martin) was not a TV movie. It was a theaterical release. The Very Best of Carly Simon was never "released" in the United States -- it can be purchased in the US as an import and most copies cleary display the sticker reading "IMPORT" on the plastic wrapping. (Which is why the single disc's list price in this country is $27.97 -- because it's an import.) We're also confused as to how both that album and Reflections can be "her third greatest hits collection." But, in the Simon entry, both are credited as "her third greates hits collection."
Further confusion comes from the fact that these two words never appear in the Taylor entry: "Kathyrn Walker." The second wife. The one whom Taylor couldn't stop yapping about (they divorced in the mid-nineties) and credited with his more sober life. Equally puzzeling is how Taylor just "left" the mental institution since he himself has spoken of how he escaped and, in fact, whines in the current issue of Rolling Stone about revealing that in an interview (he actually discussed it in many interviews). But that, like Walker, who has fame in her own right, just goes unremarked upon.
It's an interesting portrait of the man alone, not unlike James Taylor's Dad Loves His Work which, despite the title, contained no mention of children. Rest assured, the house and the garden, the boys in the band -- all divided up. The children? Dad Loves His Work so much that the then father of two can't mention his children in one damn song. (He does meet an old man, in one song, who talks about how he walked out on his son years and years ago. That's the closest to a child appearing on "Dad"'s album.)
How about Fleetwood Mac? Huge group and one where all the members tried to have solo careers. (Sales wise, Lindsey Buckingham never got a career off the ground.) The first thing that popped up was the issue of age.
C.I.: Prior to 1984, Lindsey Buckingham was one year older than Stevie Nicks. While promoting Go Insane, suddenly he was a year younger than her. If he could put that diet into print form, How to Lose Two Years, he might finally be able to claim writing a real hit because I'm sure the book would sell millions.
Crapapediea lists Lindsey Buckingham's birth as October 3, 1949. That is popular -- it's just not correct. We'd advise Crapapedia's writers to put down the issues of Guitar and research their facts. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame backs up C.I.'s assertion, they give his date of birth as October 3, 1947. Crapapedia's Buckingham entry currently opens with:
"Lindsey Buckingham (born October 3, 1949) . . ."
Wrong. It's not encyclopedia, it's CRAP-crapapedia.
Linsdey Buckingham sure comes off talented in his entry and in Fleetwood Mac's. That's because they read like a sexist wrote them. Whether it's the same sow plowing through other entries, we have no idea. But there's a need to elevate Buckingham above the rest by creating things that flat out never happened.
For instance, in both the Stevie Nicks entry, the Buckingham entry and the Fleetwood Mac entry, Stevie Nicks is only asked to join the group because Buckingham told them it was him and Nicks or he wasn't joining the group. That's not true and the public record demonstrates that.
Here's what the public record tells you. The band needed a guitarist (Bob Welch had left the band). You can find comments by Stevie Nicks that she always thought (or "suspected" in some accounts) that they only asked her to join because they wanted Lindsey. You'll also find many accounts from Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie saying that's not true. Producer Keith Olsen has long been the cited source for bringing up the issue of Nicks being in the band. Fleetwood spoke with him about the issue of a guitar player and noted he'd like to use Buckingham. Olsen's version is (and always has been) that he stated Buckingham and Nicks were a combo deal. He has always stated that Mick Fleetwood replied that he wanted them both.
Somehow, probably the same way Buckingham becomes two years younger, that story, as told by Crapapedia becomes: "Stevie Nicks not wanted in the band! Lindsey Buckingham had to fight to have her in the band! Next on Behind the Music!"
The Buckingham lover/luster who wrote the entries also wants to attack a much reported account of what happened to end the Tango In The Night tour before it began. We have to scream "Stop!" here.
Crapapedia:
1987's "Tango In The Night", or, "Shake the Cage" tour was the first outing for this lineup."
There was no Tango In The Night Tour. The tour was called Shake the Cage. There's no "or" there.
Now let's go to Crapapedia for a few more lies:
Fleetwood Mac had always had personality conflicts, but some believe the tension between Buckingham and Nicks had grown unbearable, leading to Buckingham quitting the group right before their Tango in the Night world tour. Buckingham has never publically attributed that decision directly to relations with Nicks. In the Fleetwood Mac segment of British TV Program Rock Family Trees (broadcast in 1995), John McVie described the confrontation between Nicks and Buckingham at Christine McVie's house in August 1987 as "physically ugly". Nicks admitted that Buckingham almost killed her, after she violently rejected Buckingham's decision to leave the band. After Buckingham chased her through the house and out onto the street and, according to Mick Fleetwood in his disputed autobiography, threw her against a car and strangled her, Nicks warned him that if he killed her and none of the other band members came to get him, her brother Christopher and father Jess would murder him.
The tension between Nicks and Buckingham, Crapapedia says, was "unbearable." Then we get Buckingham "never publicly attributed" his departure from the band to that. Then we're told that an argument occurred and, "according to Mick Fleetwood in his disputed autobiography," Buckingham threw her against a car and tried to strangle her. (Mick Fleetwood writes nothing of Nicks warning Buckingham that her bandmates or her brother and father would kill him if he killed her.)
The writer of the entry clues you that he doesn't think it's true.
That's a pretty sympathetic portrait of Buckingham. It's not factual, but it's sympathetic. First off, long before Fleetwood wrote his book, the music press had already covered the highly publicized fight where Buckingham stormed out of McVie's house with others following him, turned on Nicks, threw her against the car and then attempted to strangle her. (Musician magazine mentioned it, in detail, in a lengthy story on the band.) That fact, heavily reported, is not in dispute anywhere but at Crapadeia. It happened.
Why did Buckingham storm out of the house? It probably helps to first explain why he was at the house. It had nothing to do with tensions between him and Nicks (other than possibly commerical envy on Buckingham's part). It had to do with the band agreeing to tour, the album being out and them needing to start touring. Buckingham pulled his "Guys, I'm not touring" nonsense which led members to demand a face to face since the tour was scheduled to begin, dates were booked, contracts were signed, roadies were hired, go down the list.
He didn't just say, "Hey, I might like to tour." He told the band he'd tour, he let deals be made and then tried to weasel out of without telling the band face to face. But presenting him as less than the saint of our times doesn't fit with the genius label he created for himself and the press ran with. This fact free approach to reality makes us wonder who in the administration writes for Crapapedia?
In the Stevie Nicks entry at Crapapedia, this appears:
Nicks contributed songs including "Rhiannon" and "Landslide", originally written for the second Buckingham Nicks album. It also included a re-release of a song from the 1973 Buckingham Nicks album, "Crystal".
Who wrote that song? ("Crystal.") Stevie Nicks did. But that won't be told at Crapapedia. Reading the sentence, the average reader will see "Buckingham Nicks" and think they wrote it together. (The way some still think that since Buckingham sang on "Don't Stop," he must have co-written it. He didn't. Christine McVie wrote the song.)
At their Fleetwood Mac entry, they list Fleetwood Mac singles but apparently missed "Paper Doll" which was recorded for and released in conjuction with the boxed set The Chain. To close this out, we'll note that "Planets of the Universe" was not Nicks' first remix to hit the dance charts (look to the eighties, Crapapedia!) and that, since they're attempting to track Stevie Nicks mentions in films and cite Joan Cusack's character in School of Rock, they might need to consider adding Mr. Wrong wherein Cusack plays a character who once stalked Stevie Nicks. As for the singles "discography," someone remind them of "Needles & Pins" (among other charting singles that are missing from the line up). Otherwise they need to change the heading to "select discograpy."
We could go on and on. We could go back to Carly and James and note other mistakes, or to the Mamas and the Papas or stay here. There's a lot more to note.
But the point's been made. It's not encyclopedia, it's Crapapeadia.
[*"Michelle's in Mexico!" shouted out, by John Phillips, to those hollering, "Where's Michelle?" at a concert is not an explanation. It's a location, it's not an explanation.]
Carly Simon's Christmas albums
Okay, we need everyone to note the two covers above. They were too wide to both fit in full. You've got the title for both. You can click on them and make them better. We like Carly Simon, no, we love Carly Simon. And we all love her Christmas Is Almost Here.
In fact, when we were picking out our favorite Christmas songs in December, Wally selected "Twelve Gates To The City" from this album.
Which one? No, your eyes do not deceive. Those are two different back covers. The first, or top, one which lists the song tracks came out in 2002 and was entitled Christmas Is Almost Here. The second, released in 2003, was the same album plus two additional tracks ("White Christmas" and "Forgive"). This one was also called Christmas Is Almost Here.
Pay attention to that for the next feature that's going up. Also pay attention to the album (either version). It's worth listening to. But remember that both versions have the same title.
April Oliver got a fiancial settlement, whether Wikiepedia tells you it happened or not, It Happened
Slow readers are the right wing? We're suspecting that. A group launched an e-mail campaign about comments on April Oliver here. We're not sure what piece they're noting. Possibly a mention in Katie Was a Cheerleader." That ran April 16th and we hope we're not over-estimating their abilites to think that they could have completed reading a feature in around forty-two days. (Maybe they just made it up to the April Oliver mention?)
We delighted in noting that all thirty-two e-mails were more or less the same.
When you can't think for yourself, why should you be able to write for yourself?
Here's the story. CNN and Time magazine get together to produce a news magazine (NewsStand). Valley of Death details Operation Tailwood (the use of sarin in Laos on American troops captured or who had gone AWOL). The televised program creates a stir.
CNN and Time, which wanted attention and wanted that program, get nervous with the reaction. (Including the usual nonsense of "I will never watch again!" e-mails.) Worse (our opinion) they've got the Pentagon on their backs and God forbid CNN (or Time) ever lose access to the Pentagon. So they turn on April Oliver.
They don't tell her that they've turned on her. They tell her they need to do an investigation into the story. They let her think that they (CNN and Time) are on the same side as Oliver. And that a journalistic investigation will be conducted. The witch hunt wasn't about journalism. It was about taking the heat off CNN and Time. (Not unlike the recent "investigation" into CBS' story on Bully Boy's National Guard 'service.') Lawyers aren't journalists and a legal review is rarely about journalism.
April Oliver was led to believe they were on the same side. It should have been a wake up call to every journalist. When those investigations start, you're not part of a team. Retain your own lawyer immediately and don't agree to be silent. Oliver got burned, Mapes got burned. Take it to heart. Realize that the media has power and use it to make your case in. Not aftewards, when no one's too interested in reporting anything other than a "I can't belive they came to those conclusions" soundbyte. While the investigation is going on, reporters are interested. You talk then. You make your case then.
You will be screwed over, it happens every time.
The e-mails have noted that Oliver was "wrong" or "proven wrong." That's an interesting take, it's just not true.
CNN would like for you to believe that fiction as would Time magazine. But it's fiction.
Heavily reported was the witch hunt. Less reported was what happened when the matter headed for the court. From pages 308-309 of Reese Schonfeld's Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN:
On January 17, 2000, Oliver, Moorer, Singlaub, and their lawyers and associates met to take Admirable Moorer's deposition. Throughout the morning, lawyers for the plantiffs lobbed easy questions at him, suggesting that Oliver had been harassing him and had misrepresented his answers in the documentary. Then it was Roger Simmons's turn.
Oliver had hired Simmons, a gentlemanly country lawyer devoted to history and the Constitution, out of Frederick, Maryland. She had spent her Christmas break with him, reviewing documents. Immediately after the interviews with Moorer, she'd entered her notes into a computer and kept the handwritten originals.
Simmons knew that Admiral Moorer had great respect for history and was a man of honor. He opened by asking Moorer if he had said, "The difference between a democratic and communist government is that in a democratic government we advertise and discuss our faults and that in a communistic government they cover them up." Moorer agreed that he had. Then Simmons talked Moorer through a brief history of the Vietnam War, and discussed Moorer's distinguished military career.
Finally, Simmons presented Moorer with a computer printout of April Oliver's handwritten notes from their interviews. Question by question, Simmons asked the Admiral if the notes fairly refelcted Moorer's recollections of his conversations with Ms. Oliver. Time after time, the Admiral agreed that the notes were accurate. His answers indicated that Oliver had quoted him correctly about Operation Tailwind. Moorer admitted that sometimes defectors were killed and that he had been told by Singlaub that killing defectors was a priority. When asked about the use of sarin, the poison gas, Moorer said, "If the weapon [sarin] could save American lives, I would never hesitate to use it."
Moorer seemed to have confirmed the two basic points of Operation Tailwind. One, that some American defectors in Laos had been killed, and two, that sarin had been used to rescue American pilots. After Moorer's deposition, it was apparent that CNN's retraction was premature, cowardly and dead wrong.
Oliver got a huge settlement as a result of this. But the impression is still that the Operation Tailwind reporting was "wrong" and had been proven to be "wrong." No such thing happened. CNN and Time never conducted a journalistic investigation. The goal was always (our opinion) to placate the Pentagon. They hired Floyd Abrahms who knows about the First Amendment but very little about journalism (his son knows even less).
The only time journalism entered into the picture was when Oliver was named in a law suit and she got her own attorney. When that happened, the witness who had disputed had to admit that the quotes were accurately presented.
A visit to Crap-apedia, fails to turn up these facts. We were informed by several angry e-mailers that Wikipedia says the story was wrong (it doesn't state that) and that's the end of the story.
Crap-apedia. Where to start? How about with another article? (Which we will do.) For now, we'll just note that we supported the idea of Crap-apedia . . . and then we visited. Crap-apedia has no excuse for being unaware of what happened on January 17, 2000. But Crap-apedia has so many mistakes, we're sad to say, that it's practically filled with crap.
We delighted in noting that all thirty-two e-mails were more or less the same.
When you can't think for yourself, why should you be able to write for yourself?
Here's the story. CNN and Time magazine get together to produce a news magazine (NewsStand). Valley of Death details Operation Tailwood (the use of sarin in Laos on American troops captured or who had gone AWOL). The televised program creates a stir.
CNN and Time, which wanted attention and wanted that program, get nervous with the reaction. (Including the usual nonsense of "I will never watch again!" e-mails.) Worse (our opinion) they've got the Pentagon on their backs and God forbid CNN (or Time) ever lose access to the Pentagon. So they turn on April Oliver.
They don't tell her that they've turned on her. They tell her they need to do an investigation into the story. They let her think that they (CNN and Time) are on the same side as Oliver. And that a journalistic investigation will be conducted. The witch hunt wasn't about journalism. It was about taking the heat off CNN and Time. (Not unlike the recent "investigation" into CBS' story on Bully Boy's National Guard 'service.') Lawyers aren't journalists and a legal review is rarely about journalism.
April Oliver was led to believe they were on the same side. It should have been a wake up call to every journalist. When those investigations start, you're not part of a team. Retain your own lawyer immediately and don't agree to be silent. Oliver got burned, Mapes got burned. Take it to heart. Realize that the media has power and use it to make your case in. Not aftewards, when no one's too interested in reporting anything other than a "I can't belive they came to those conclusions" soundbyte. While the investigation is going on, reporters are interested. You talk then. You make your case then.
You will be screwed over, it happens every time.
The e-mails have noted that Oliver was "wrong" or "proven wrong." That's an interesting take, it's just not true.
CNN would like for you to believe that fiction as would Time magazine. But it's fiction.
Heavily reported was the witch hunt. Less reported was what happened when the matter headed for the court. From pages 308-309 of Reese Schonfeld's Me and Ted Against the World: The Unauthorized Story of the Founding of CNN:
On January 17, 2000, Oliver, Moorer, Singlaub, and their lawyers and associates met to take Admirable Moorer's deposition. Throughout the morning, lawyers for the plantiffs lobbed easy questions at him, suggesting that Oliver had been harassing him and had misrepresented his answers in the documentary. Then it was Roger Simmons's turn.
Oliver had hired Simmons, a gentlemanly country lawyer devoted to history and the Constitution, out of Frederick, Maryland. She had spent her Christmas break with him, reviewing documents. Immediately after the interviews with Moorer, she'd entered her notes into a computer and kept the handwritten originals.
Simmons knew that Admiral Moorer had great respect for history and was a man of honor. He opened by asking Moorer if he had said, "The difference between a democratic and communist government is that in a democratic government we advertise and discuss our faults and that in a communistic government they cover them up." Moorer agreed that he had. Then Simmons talked Moorer through a brief history of the Vietnam War, and discussed Moorer's distinguished military career.
Finally, Simmons presented Moorer with a computer printout of April Oliver's handwritten notes from their interviews. Question by question, Simmons asked the Admiral if the notes fairly refelcted Moorer's recollections of his conversations with Ms. Oliver. Time after time, the Admiral agreed that the notes were accurate. His answers indicated that Oliver had quoted him correctly about Operation Tailwind. Moorer admitted that sometimes defectors were killed and that he had been told by Singlaub that killing defectors was a priority. When asked about the use of sarin, the poison gas, Moorer said, "If the weapon [sarin] could save American lives, I would never hesitate to use it."
Moorer seemed to have confirmed the two basic points of Operation Tailwind. One, that some American defectors in Laos had been killed, and two, that sarin had been used to rescue American pilots. After Moorer's deposition, it was apparent that CNN's retraction was premature, cowardly and dead wrong.
Oliver got a huge settlement as a result of this. But the impression is still that the Operation Tailwind reporting was "wrong" and had been proven to be "wrong." No such thing happened. CNN and Time never conducted a journalistic investigation. The goal was always (our opinion) to placate the Pentagon. They hired Floyd Abrahms who knows about the First Amendment but very little about journalism (his son knows even less).
The only time journalism entered into the picture was when Oliver was named in a law suit and she got her own attorney. When that happened, the witness who had disputed had to admit that the quotes were accurately presented.
A visit to Crap-apedia, fails to turn up these facts. We were informed by several angry e-mailers that Wikipedia says the story was wrong (it doesn't state that) and that's the end of the story.
Crap-apedia. Where to start? How about with another article? (Which we will do.) For now, we'll just note that we supported the idea of Crap-apedia . . . and then we visited. Crap-apedia has no excuse for being unaware of what happened on January 17, 2000. But Crap-apedia has so many mistakes, we're sad to say, that it's practically filled with crap.
Laura Flanders and Anthony Arnove discussed realities about Iraq Saturday on RadioNation with Laura Flanders
Saturday on RadioNation with Laura Flanders, Flanders had a great deal to cover (and, no surprise, she did so -- and did so wonderfully). We're going to focus on one guest, Anthony Arnove, the author of IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal. This was a wonderful discussion (between Flanders and Arnove and, later, between them and callers).
Flanders asked him to speak of the liberation talk being bandied about (that we're over there for 'liberation') and he noted that "The rhetoric's been used by many countries" to take control of an area and then went on to offer some examples (including the Phillipines -- which, he reminded listeners, Bully Boy had seen as a good model).
"What's interesting is that the argument that's been put foward," the we must stay to liberate talk, Arnove said, "has been put foward by people who call themsevles liberals."
This despite the fact that the occupation has fueld and continue to fuel the "secretarian conflict in Iraq."
The longer the occupation continues, the bigger the mess.
"It gets worse the longer the United States stays," he noted.
Also discussed was the bait and switch of "reasons" for the war. WMDs as the invasion began, 'liberation' and 'democracy' after it was underweigh. But we aren't supposed to notice that or to comment on it any more than we're supposed to comment on the oil that Iraq has.
Noting Howard Zinn, whom Flanders pointed out wrote the preface and afterword to Arnove's book, Arnove discussed how, in 1967, Zinn had published Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawl. Also addressed was how we need to get honest and look at what was going on because he didn't want to be back on Flanders' show ten years from now talking about the logic of withdrawing from Iran, Venezuela . . .
We have used military agression to maintain our economic control and until we can face that, we'll be in that "long war" (over and over) that Bully Boy keeps insisting we're in.
With Memorial Day on Monday, Arnove noted that "the United States is not honoring those who sacrificed as George Bush claimed" but instead just piling up more casulities and fatalities.
"They've had to come up with a new series of lies to keep us in Iraq," Arnove noted.
The only way to combat that is to stay informed and to stay active. Forget Arnove being on with Laura Flanders in ten years to talk about another war -- when he said that Howard Zinn published Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawl in 1967 and began with the preface of not wanting to be on the show in ten years . . . We thought he was going to finish the sentence with, "Still talking about why we need to withdraw from Iraq."
We didn't leave Vietnam in 1967, or 1968, or 1969, or 1970, or 1971 or . . .
It's really past time to be active and aware and, as Ava and C.I. note in their TV commentary that will go up in a bit, posting at a web site about a book with a controversial title being carried into an Abu Ghraib trial by a witness doesn't really cut it for your coverage of the week on Iraq.
(But yes, a site did just that. That was their coverage of Iraq for the week. A few sentences about a book whose title, Ava and C.I. note, rhymes with "runt." If you're confused, the word starts with a "C.")
It's past time to get serious and it's a real shame that so many have so little to say. Laura Flanders always has something to say.
Broadcasting over local airwaves on Air America Radio, over XM satellite radio and online,
RadioNation with Laura Flanders can be heard from seven to ten p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Saturday and Sunday nights. Here's what's scheduled for tonight:
SUNDAY:
MASSIE RITSCH, of Washington's Center for Responsive Politics, on Ken Lay's days as W's biggest donor.
A Media Roundtable with GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA, Senior Editor with The American Prospect and DOUG HENWOOD, Nation Contributor and Editor of the Left Business Observer.
Then the return of our independent bookstore hour with JOAN GRANIER from Odyssey Books in South Hadley, MA. And PEGGY HALEY of Book People in Austin, TX.
Flanders asked him to speak of the liberation talk being bandied about (that we're over there for 'liberation') and he noted that "The rhetoric's been used by many countries" to take control of an area and then went on to offer some examples (including the Phillipines -- which, he reminded listeners, Bully Boy had seen as a good model).
"What's interesting is that the argument that's been put foward," the we must stay to liberate talk, Arnove said, "has been put foward by people who call themsevles liberals."
This despite the fact that the occupation has fueld and continue to fuel the "secretarian conflict in Iraq."
The longer the occupation continues, the bigger the mess.
"It gets worse the longer the United States stays," he noted.
Also discussed was the bait and switch of "reasons" for the war. WMDs as the invasion began, 'liberation' and 'democracy' after it was underweigh. But we aren't supposed to notice that or to comment on it any more than we're supposed to comment on the oil that Iraq has.
Noting Howard Zinn, whom Flanders pointed out wrote the preface and afterword to Arnove's book, Arnove discussed how, in 1967, Zinn had published Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawl. Also addressed was how we need to get honest and look at what was going on because he didn't want to be back on Flanders' show ten years from now talking about the logic of withdrawing from Iran, Venezuela . . .
We have used military agression to maintain our economic control and until we can face that, we'll be in that "long war" (over and over) that Bully Boy keeps insisting we're in.
With Memorial Day on Monday, Arnove noted that "the United States is not honoring those who sacrificed as George Bush claimed" but instead just piling up more casulities and fatalities.
"They've had to come up with a new series of lies to keep us in Iraq," Arnove noted.
The only way to combat that is to stay informed and to stay active. Forget Arnove being on with Laura Flanders in ten years to talk about another war -- when he said that Howard Zinn published Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawl in 1967 and began with the preface of not wanting to be on the show in ten years . . . We thought he was going to finish the sentence with, "Still talking about why we need to withdraw from Iraq."
We didn't leave Vietnam in 1967, or 1968, or 1969, or 1970, or 1971 or . . .
It's really past time to be active and aware and, as Ava and C.I. note in their TV commentary that will go up in a bit, posting at a web site about a book with a controversial title being carried into an Abu Ghraib trial by a witness doesn't really cut it for your coverage of the week on Iraq.
(But yes, a site did just that. That was their coverage of Iraq for the week. A few sentences about a book whose title, Ava and C.I. note, rhymes with "runt." If you're confused, the word starts with a "C.")
It's past time to get serious and it's a real shame that so many have so little to say. Laura Flanders always has something to say.
Broadcasting over local airwaves on Air America Radio, over XM satellite radio and online,
RadioNation with Laura Flanders can be heard from seven to ten p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Saturday and Sunday nights. Here's what's scheduled for tonight:
SUNDAY:
MASSIE RITSCH, of Washington's Center for Responsive Politics, on Ken Lay's days as W's biggest donor.
A Media Roundtable with GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA, Senior Editor with The American Prospect and DOUG HENWOOD, Nation Contributor and Editor of the Left Business Observer.
Then the return of our independent bookstore hour with JOAN GRANIER from Odyssey Books in South Hadley, MA. And PEGGY HALEY of Book People in Austin, TX.
Radio highlights for Sunday (and one for Tuesday)
Radio highlights for Sunday. All of the programs are available online -- you can listen for free with no registration or "day pass." So what's going on today? You've got science and a look at the "Selfish Gene," you've got the topic of war resistors, Asian and Pacific Islander heritage month, independent bookstores . . . and more.
This evening on WBAI (time given is Eastern Time Zone):
Sun, May 28, 6:00 pm: Equal Time for Freethought
Funddrive Program: Religion, Science, Dubya and the "Selfish Gene." For this special fund drive program, we will be traveling along the crossroads of religion and science, and chatting a bit about the relevance of science for a progressive understanding of political activism, and we will perhaps delve a bit into how science may become politicized, even subtly. Offering as premium, Dr. Niles Eldredge's latest book, Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene.
Today on KPFA (time given is Pacific Time):
Sunday Salon
Sunday, May 28th, 09:00a.m.
This week on Sunday Salon...
Hour 1: Conscientious objectors -
Hour 2: Reduce your travel woes
Annual API Heritage Month Special
Sunday, May 28th, 6:30p.m.
Annual Celebration of Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month on KPFA.
Today on RadioNation with Laura Flanders (Air America, on the airwaves, on XM satellite and online, airs from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Eastern):
SUNDAY:
MASSIE RITSCH, of Washington's Center for Responsive Politics, on Ken Lay's days as W's biggest donor.
A Media Roundtable with GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA, Senior Editor with The American Prospect and DOUG HENWOOD, Nation Contributor and Editor of the Left Business Observer.
Then the return of our independent bookstore hour with JOAN GRANIER from Odyssey Books in South Hadley, MA. And PEGGY HALEY of Book People in Austin, TX.
And Tuesday on KPFA:
La Raza Chronicles
Tuesday, May 30th, 7:00p.m.
Puerto Rico and her Diaspora.
This evening on WBAI (time given is Eastern Time Zone):
Sun, May 28, 6:00 pm: Equal Time for Freethought
Funddrive Program: Religion, Science, Dubya and the "Selfish Gene." For this special fund drive program, we will be traveling along the crossroads of religion and science, and chatting a bit about the relevance of science for a progressive understanding of political activism, and we will perhaps delve a bit into how science may become politicized, even subtly. Offering as premium, Dr. Niles Eldredge's latest book, Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene.
Today on KPFA (time given is Pacific Time):
Sunday Salon
Sunday, May 28th, 09:00a.m.
This week on Sunday Salon...
Hour 1: Conscientious objectors -
Hour 2: Reduce your travel woes
Annual API Heritage Month Special
Sunday, May 28th, 6:30p.m.
Annual Celebration of Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month on KPFA.
Today on RadioNation with Laura Flanders (Air America, on the airwaves, on XM satellite and online, airs from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Eastern):
SUNDAY:
MASSIE RITSCH, of Washington's Center for Responsive Politics, on Ken Lay's days as W's biggest donor.
A Media Roundtable with GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA, Senior Editor with The American Prospect and DOUG HENWOOD, Nation Contributor and Editor of the Left Business Observer.
Then the return of our independent bookstore hour with JOAN GRANIER from Odyssey Books in South Hadley, MA. And PEGGY HALEY of Book People in Austin, TX.
And Tuesday on KPFA:
La Raza Chronicles
Tuesday, May 30th, 7:00p.m.
Puerto Rico and her Diaspora.
Music Spotlight: Kat reviews the Dixie Chicks' Taking The Long Way
Kat's Korner: Dixie Chicks Taking The Long Way home while NYT gets lost along the way
Kat: The Dixie Chicks Taking The Long Way came out Tuesday. The album brings up a number of issues and the big question is where to start?
With the CD itself, of course (though a number of 'critics' seem confused). What do you have if you purchase the CD? One of the strongest albums of the year.
The Dixie Chicks take the long way but it's their only way. That's lyrically (as many have noted) but it's musically as well. Wide Open Spaces was a musical world away from Home. They might as well have been recorded by two different groups. Taking The Long Way continues down the same road.
Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to
No I could never follow
No
I could never follow
Its' been two long years now
Since the top of the world came crashing down
And I'm getting it back on the road now
But I'm taking the long way
That's from the first track and it sets the tone for the album. It's what has a lot of 'geniuses' saying that the group sounds like Fleetwood Mac. The song's called "Taking the Long Way Around" (written by Emily Robison, Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines and Dan Wilson) and it continues musical progression made on Home as well as on "Too Far From Texas."
What-what-what?
Oh, that's right your big critics in your big papers, like the New York Times, Jon-Boy and Kelefa for instance, who weigh in but know nothing, they don't mention that song. Because they're talking out their asses -- but we'll get to them soon enough.
It's a sad, sad story
When a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Sayin' that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over
I'm not ready to make nice
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
The lyrics quoted above are being read as only applying to what Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks went through following Maines telling an audience at a London concert that she was ashamed the Bully Boy was from Texas. The song (also written by Robison, Maquire, Maines and Wilson) does have that meaning. It also has additional meanings.
Shut up and sing, shut up and smile. Find me a woman who's never been told that, urged that and we're going to be looking at a doormat who never takes a chance or takes a shot -- someone just pleased as punch with whatever she's got and might be handed.
The Dixie Chicks have always been about sisterhood. And they've always been slammed for it. "Dixie Chicks with D**cks" was a popular sneer circa 1998. Your foolish critics can't tell you that because they don't live in the real world and the Chicks didn't register with them until 2003.
But the Chicks have long been slammed by sexists.
These songs on this album, Natalie Maines is singing for everywoman. Consider her the heir to Jackson Browne's legacy in terms of her voice/persona. That's always been the case. And like Browne, with each album, the world around has come closer and closer. (Unlike Browne or any other man, Maines isn't allowed to be angry.)
There's not a clunker on the album. Lyrically or musically. Lyrics? Women can identify. So can any man who's refused to stand down in the face of adversity. If you could get into Jackson Browne's Running On Empty, you can get into this album. It's a glimpse that makes some uncomfortable but that's always been true of the Dixie Chicks. "Goodbye Earl" wasn't for the weak hearted. "Bitter End" will call to mind "Rosie" from Running On Empty -- but when Browne sings it, we're supposed to either giggle that he got in a nod to masturbation or else be overpowered that a man could lay it so bare.
Many years ago, in the now defunct Musician magazine, Joni Mitchell was interviewed by Bill Flanagan. (Skip the version that appears in Flanagan's Written in My Soul -- he leaves out many important details such as Joni explaining how the charts could be, and were, rigged.) Speaking of then newcomer Aimee Mann, Mitchell said:
Do you think they accept it [exposing one's self in song] from a woman? I don't know. The feedback that I get in my personal life is almost like, "You wanted it, libertine!" I feel like I'm in the same bind. That's not going to stop me, I'm still going to do it but I don't feel like I have the luxury because of my gender to do this. Uh-uh. It's just as hard. The things that to me as a writer have the most vitality are those kind of details. Those are the things that would make a novel or a screenplay good and have some depth as opposed to just being a caricature. I sacrifice myself to them. I'd never really say that ws easy. I just don't know any other way to be. If I could think of a way to change and get consistently strong so that I could sing about strong things . . . no, it's a delicate thing. I wouldn't go putting it into a gender bag at all.
But I know what you mean about Aimee. A guy could not get up and deliver that. But I don't think there are many people that can, period. For the people that can, it's not even a risk; it's just kind of an inevitability.
That just explained Long Way Home for anyone still confused.
The Dixie Chicks are using their own lives (as they have before) and that's making a few nervous. Most of the guys I've heard singing (in their day to day non-performing lives) "If the roadie don't mind" (Browne's "The Load Out") have never been on stage or dealt with a roadie. There was something more they were relating to.
The same is true of this album, it's very easy to relate to. The harmonies are tight (and reminiscent of some of the strongest vocal groups -- including Fleetwood Mac when they're actually harmonizing), the production is first-rate (this isn't tripping back to the seventies and the LA sound despite what some reviews tell you) but equally important is the music and if you can listen to "Bitter End" or "Silent House" and not be pulled in, then this isn't the album for you -- go look for another return of Mimi or wait for Justy's new product to be unleashed on the public.
Vocally, Robison and Maguire provide solid harmonies throughout. Lead vocals? Natalie Maines has always had similarities to Stevie Nicks and those shine through on this album. She can do the contralto Nicks uses so effectively these days as well as the soprano that Stevie turned into a sacrificial offering during the xillioneth performance of "Rhiannon" somewhere on the never ending tour of 1975 and 1976.
Forget the nay sayers. If you're reading this and didn't stumble across this site, you'll love the album. You'll love the honesty, the strength of it all. Yes, lyrically, yes, musically, yes in every way.
Is there a weak spot? Track nine. Track nine's a little too sunshine-day and has nothing really to say that fits with the rest of the album. It won't make you groan and it's over quickly enough that by the time you're onto the next song and lost in the backing vocals of "Voice Inside My Head," you'll have forgotten it.
In the sixties, vocal groups offered a range of personas. The tough-girls were the Shangri-Lahs. (Some try to argue for the Ronettes and, while they were tougher than many, they weren't the ones who would inspire Steven Tyler -- they would inspire Eddie Money which puts their 'toughness' into perspective.) But the Shangri-Lahs got stuck on the side of Let's All Polish Up Road (no motorcycle to hop onto after the crash of their "Leader of the Pack"?) and it's been starts and stops for women since then. The closest thing afterwards for women may have been the Go-Gos but a disaster of a performance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live did more to destroy them then Belinda Carlisle's desire to be cute ever could.
Solo, women could and have been strong with chart success. But as a group of stength, it's been a long road of smile pretty, don't make waves, act like a lady. Along comes the Dixie Chicks. They're not new to crossover success, they pulled that trick while Bill Clinton was still in the Oval Office. And only someone ignorant of the charts could argue otherwise.
Which brings us to our critics of today. And, in the spirit of the Dixie Chicks, I'm not ready to make nice.
Let's start with Jon-boy by noting he loves to trash the women (study his reviews for Rolling Stone). He's also had it in for Stevie Nicks for years and was part of the subgroup at Rolling Stone that derided her talents and acomplishments. He was part of the whole "Lindsey Buckingham is Fleetwood Mac!" movement.
They tried for years, Rolling Stone, to pass that propaganda off as reality. Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks provided the big hits for the band. Once Lindsey's over-inflated opinion of himself took hold, the albums got a lot more gimicky (Fleetwood Mac's albums, his own were always "silly" as Jon-boy would note with pride and approval while hectoring Nicks) and you can thank your phallus worshipping critics for all of that -- chief among them the likes of Jon-boy -- idiots who never could stop crediting Buckingham for every bit of success the group had. As they sought refuge writing music reviews and articles for publications not noted for their music coverage, reality began to overcome fantasy at Rolling Stone and Stevie Nicks actually got some respect from the magazine.
Those boys who tried to crown Buckingham a rock star (a crowning that never took -- though they all sat around waiting for the head to emerge) never forgave Stevie for her succes or for not having a penis. Well in your dreams, Jon-boy, she can be whatever you need her to be.
Along comes Kelefa. Not a dumb critic. Not a useless one. But one who frequently writes with such a fact-free approach that she'd be better off starting those pieces with, "I'm about to go on and on about something I know nothing about." That was true last year when she laughable wrote of certifications based on shipments. (That was the pre-SoundScan age, as I pointed out at my site.) So what's a critic with an assignment to do but crib from Jon-boy?
That's why she doesn't tell you about "Too Far From Texas." (Jon-boy will always be at war with Stevie, that's his excuse.) What's "Too Far From Texas"? Ask the insta-expert Kelefa, I'm not here to spoon feed her.
Instead, let's "turn to the crystal blue mirror -- as always it is truthful." Stevie lyric but let's leave Kelefa uninformed since her "It's Dixie Chicks vs. Country Fans, but Who's Dissing Whom?" demonstrated she's happy to occupy space in the land of confusion.
There are two chief points she misses. C.I. called at noon to ask if I was going to note Kelefa in my review because otherwise, "I'm going to have to do an entry on it -- I'm getting too many complaints from friends and, when I finally read it, I saw why."
Kelefa tells you that the Dixie Chicks are in the midst of a war with country music fans. Kelefa's got a Bully Boy mentality of you're either with us or you're against us going on and it's not pretty. Her own non-existant claim isn't about WMD, it's in the midst of a laughable "therefore . . . therefore . . . therefore" sentence. I don't have a great deal of time to waste on her nonsense so we'll just note that she's apparently gotten 'bad intel.' (Jon-boy may be the one behind the Niger forgeries!)
Arriving late, and under-dressed mentally, Kelefa has no idea what the Chicks have been up against since they started. She probably thinks Toby Keith dissed Maines for the first time after the London concert. That's not reality. Reality is a lot of blustering boys were offended by the group long before Bully Boy illegally invaded Iraq. It's a size-envy thing. The Chicks outsold them and the Chicks didn't do it via Vegas-country. If Kelefa knew what was what, she'd know that it was the same thing Loretta Lynn was up against (the same thing that resulted in her songs being banned). Or Patsy Cline or any woman who didn't follow the 'rules.'
But Kelefa doesn't know her history so she's convinced that there's some new war going on when it's the same war that's been going on for years. You listened to "The Pill" or you listened to "Bandy The Rodeo Clown." I think if she'd been writing about a genre that had emerged more recently, Kelefa would be far less likely to stereotype the audience. But she does that while accusing the Dixie Chicks of making the same mistake she has made.
That's the way it goes at the Times with few exceptions. They just make up "facts" and write them down and an article with, for instance, fourteen factual errors gets two mistakes noted in the corrections and the Times figures that's enough (that writer, by the way, is back with the Times again -- proving that Jayson Blair can be put upon the cross but others who pass fiction off as fact never pay for their crimes).
The Dixie Chicks have been talking about the audience and that apparently shocked Kelefa because in her mind it's all the same thing. In her mind, Juice Newton, Lee Greenwood,
Willie Nelson, damn it, it's all the same thing!
If you tried to talk bluegrass with Kelefa (which does come to bear when you're talking the Dixie Chicks), she'd probably stare into space or go running down the hall, "Jon! Jon! What's blue grass!"
When Lynn had eight songs banned from the radio, it didn't end her career because everyone in country music wasn't opposed to those songs. The country audience is a bit more complex than Kelefa understands. (The Dixie Chicks grasp that, Kelefa's the one acting the fool.)
Kelefa appears to see Reba McEntire as the mouthpiece for all of country music. Why she thinks that, who knows? McEntire hosted a TV awards show which doesn't make her the last word in country music it just means she had the highest TVQ of anyone they could get. That TVQ comes from being the faded star of a cancelled show. (Quick, Reba, go record "Delta Dawn"!)
McEntire doesn't like the Dixie Chicks and got off a snide remark upfront. Kelefa would have you believe it brought the house down. It didn't. That's partly due to the fact that McEntire can't deliver a would-be funny line without jerking her head around as though she's gone into a seizure. It's also because the artists aren't all in McEntire's camp.
In the future, Kelefa might want to watch the shows she summarizes (both the awards show and 60 Minutes) and not just read about them.
Next Kelefa wants to tell you that the animosity towards the Dixie Chicks hasn't been experienced by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. They called out the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. (They've both done more privately, but that's what they did publicly.) In 2005, calling out the Bully Boy on something everyone could see with their own eyes is nothing like, in 2003, saying we need to think before rushing into war and maybe, just maybe, listen to the people.
Only in Kelefa's mind are the two events comparable.
McGraw can kick a poser like Toby Keith's butt (and Keith knows that) and Hill & McGraw are a couple.
The Dixie Chicks aren't men and they've got no high profile relationship with a country star male who can act as a shield. What they have had goes to why McEntire loathes them and it's nothing new, unless your name is Kelefa.
McEntire loves her some Bully Boy, but the conflict predates the installation of the chimp-in-chief. McEntire shot to fame and, with dopey tales of how she remembers her dead dog to work up emotion for 'sad' songs, immediately went the Queen Bee route. She's to be worshiped and adored as the exception (to the rule). It's Reba against the (female) world. It's there in her music, it was on display in her crappy TV show where, trying to do a conservative version of Roseanne, Reba made sure she came off more angelic than Della Reese and Roma Downey combined.
Now off camera, she was fond of sick outs, but in front of the camera, she was the Angel of the Administration. (Just touch her cheek before you leave her, Bully.) "My husband done left me!" allowed her character to trade barbs with the woman who stole her man and kept Reba center stage. Without a sidekick. With no female friends popping into multiple episodes. This wasn't Roseanne.
How she was supposedly paying for food for all those (nonworking) people in her house was the sort of detail that, like Bully Boy's tax code, careful study reveals to be a crock. She crowed, over and over, "I'm a survivor" and it didn't reach the tweeners of the WB and didn't reach out to women that might have been the show's intended audience. Probably because most women don't picture living close by to the woman who stole their husband -- but she's a survivor! No need for assistance from the government, she's a survivor! No need to tackle the issue of insurance or any other thing that someone who had to work for a living while feeding six people would have to face. It was dream-time in the non-reality based world of der 'homeland.'
She's an exception and the point is made in her lousy I-done-lost-another-man songs over and over. Queen Bees are nothing new (except to Kelefa) and that's always been at the heart of the conflict between McEntire and the sisterhood of the Dixie Chicks. One stood for empowerment and the strength you can gather within a group, the other stood for herself and only herself.
To deal with the more recent issue of party politics and war, Kelefa doesn't bother to tell readers (probably because she has no idea) that McEntire was offering her corn-pone slams on the Dixie Chicks right after Natalie Maines remark. (Reba apparently supports "110%" the right of "our armed forces" to die in an illegal war.) As someone said of McEntire, "She was born trash, she'll die trash. The only question is whether or not she'll apologize for cheerleading a war that's cost so many lives?"
Though Kelefa either doesn't know or doesn't tell readers, Reba hobknobs with the Bully Boy family in Houston (Internet pals with Poppy! Keep it clean, Reba!), supported Bully Boy's 2004 run (well that's at least $2000 that didn't get wasted on bad plastic surgery) and of course got into the White House first when Poppy was president. (The Dixie Chicks, pre-Maines, performed at Bill Clinton's inauguration.)
That's the backstory readers aren't told.
Current truths also go missing. When Kelefa's going to write about the Dixie Chicks current career status, she needs to note McEntire's: Reba needs a hit real bad. In 2004, when the Bully Boy was riding higher, so was Reba. But like the Bully Boy's polls in the last two years, Reba's taken a tumble. Her last two singles? The most recent peaked at sixty and the one prior at thirty-three. For all Kelefa's cautionary tales of the Dixie Chicks, they charted higher this year than did Reba. And, to repeat, the low rated sitcom Reba has been mercifully cancelled. (Survive that.) (ADDED: C.I. advises me that although Reba was cancelled, on May 17th, the CW ordered thirteen episodes of the show for next year. Which is sort of the sucker punch we've come to expect when we get a little good news these days.)
There's something sad about aging Queen Bees. They don't become aware, they just spin around uselessly and damage the world around them. Reba cheerleaded the Bully Boy and cheerleaded the war. If anyone has something to apologize for, I'd say it's the fifty-plus loud mouth with the brassy (dyed) red hair who pushed a war when she damn well should have been old enough to know better. But war cheerleaders and war pornographers never apologize.
As for Kelefa, there should be some embarrassment factor for her. Not just for being so ignorant but also for the fact that she works at a paper that was instrumental in lying us into war. Instead, she wants to lecture the Dixie Chicks who (pay attention, Kelefa) don't need a lecture about whining over lost fans because they haven't whined. They've accepted any fall out. They're not running from anything. They're upfront about it on the CD and in interviews.
Having proven she knows nothing about emo and knows nothing about how albums are certified, today Kelefa wanted to demonstrate to America that she also knows nothing about country music. Having done that, quite successfully, it may be time for her to try taking some responsibility?
For instance, when she next has gas and finds herself bored, maybe she could do the readers a favor and light her farts instead of attempting to have them put to the printed page.
That would certainly do the world more good than her accusing the Dixie Chicks of the dastardly deed of "having conflated politics and culture" -- that's what art is. (Combining and bringing together are the definitions I'm using.) So the Dixie Chicks mine their own experiences and end up with an amazing album, an amazing work of art. How do you know it's amazing. It sends the Timid, forever two years late when it comes to music coverage, in a frenzy over the fact that three women might actually have something to say. Yes, we're back to the ones screaming "Shut up and sing!" It may surprise some that the Times would join in on that but they were, after all, one of the biggest sellers of the war on Iraq -- and, point of fact, they still sell the war. Today they pushed their limited scope into the music section.
dixie chicks
taking the long way
stevie nicks
fleetwood mac
jon pareles
reba mcentire
reba
kelefa sanneh
the new york times
the third estate sunday review
kats korner
the common ills
With the CD itself, of course (though a number of 'critics' seem confused). What do you have if you purchase the CD? One of the strongest albums of the year.
The Dixie Chicks take the long way but it's their only way. That's lyrically (as many have noted) but it's musically as well. Wide Open Spaces was a musical world away from Home. They might as well have been recorded by two different groups. Taking The Long Way continues down the same road.
Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to
No I could never follow
No
I could never follow
Its' been two long years now
Since the top of the world came crashing down
And I'm getting it back on the road now
But I'm taking the long way
That's from the first track and it sets the tone for the album. It's what has a lot of 'geniuses' saying that the group sounds like Fleetwood Mac. The song's called "Taking the Long Way Around" (written by Emily Robison, Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines and Dan Wilson) and it continues musical progression made on Home as well as on "Too Far From Texas."
What-what-what?
Oh, that's right your big critics in your big papers, like the New York Times, Jon-Boy and Kelefa for instance, who weigh in but know nothing, they don't mention that song. Because they're talking out their asses -- but we'll get to them soon enough.
It's a sad, sad story
When a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Sayin' that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over
I'm not ready to make nice
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
The lyrics quoted above are being read as only applying to what Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks went through following Maines telling an audience at a London concert that she was ashamed the Bully Boy was from Texas. The song (also written by Robison, Maquire, Maines and Wilson) does have that meaning. It also has additional meanings.
Shut up and sing, shut up and smile. Find me a woman who's never been told that, urged that and we're going to be looking at a doormat who never takes a chance or takes a shot -- someone just pleased as punch with whatever she's got and might be handed.
The Dixie Chicks have always been about sisterhood. And they've always been slammed for it. "Dixie Chicks with D**cks" was a popular sneer circa 1998. Your foolish critics can't tell you that because they don't live in the real world and the Chicks didn't register with them until 2003.
But the Chicks have long been slammed by sexists.
These songs on this album, Natalie Maines is singing for everywoman. Consider her the heir to Jackson Browne's legacy in terms of her voice/persona. That's always been the case. And like Browne, with each album, the world around has come closer and closer. (Unlike Browne or any other man, Maines isn't allowed to be angry.)
There's not a clunker on the album. Lyrically or musically. Lyrics? Women can identify. So can any man who's refused to stand down in the face of adversity. If you could get into Jackson Browne's Running On Empty, you can get into this album. It's a glimpse that makes some uncomfortable but that's always been true of the Dixie Chicks. "Goodbye Earl" wasn't for the weak hearted. "Bitter End" will call to mind "Rosie" from Running On Empty -- but when Browne sings it, we're supposed to either giggle that he got in a nod to masturbation or else be overpowered that a man could lay it so bare.
Many years ago, in the now defunct Musician magazine, Joni Mitchell was interviewed by Bill Flanagan. (Skip the version that appears in Flanagan's Written in My Soul -- he leaves out many important details such as Joni explaining how the charts could be, and were, rigged.) Speaking of then newcomer Aimee Mann, Mitchell said:
Do you think they accept it [exposing one's self in song] from a woman? I don't know. The feedback that I get in my personal life is almost like, "You wanted it, libertine!" I feel like I'm in the same bind. That's not going to stop me, I'm still going to do it but I don't feel like I have the luxury because of my gender to do this. Uh-uh. It's just as hard. The things that to me as a writer have the most vitality are those kind of details. Those are the things that would make a novel or a screenplay good and have some depth as opposed to just being a caricature. I sacrifice myself to them. I'd never really say that ws easy. I just don't know any other way to be. If I could think of a way to change and get consistently strong so that I could sing about strong things . . . no, it's a delicate thing. I wouldn't go putting it into a gender bag at all.
But I know what you mean about Aimee. A guy could not get up and deliver that. But I don't think there are many people that can, period. For the people that can, it's not even a risk; it's just kind of an inevitability.
That just explained Long Way Home for anyone still confused.
The Dixie Chicks are using their own lives (as they have before) and that's making a few nervous. Most of the guys I've heard singing (in their day to day non-performing lives) "If the roadie don't mind" (Browne's "The Load Out") have never been on stage or dealt with a roadie. There was something more they were relating to.
The same is true of this album, it's very easy to relate to. The harmonies are tight (and reminiscent of some of the strongest vocal groups -- including Fleetwood Mac when they're actually harmonizing), the production is first-rate (this isn't tripping back to the seventies and the LA sound despite what some reviews tell you) but equally important is the music and if you can listen to "Bitter End" or "Silent House" and not be pulled in, then this isn't the album for you -- go look for another return of Mimi or wait for Justy's new product to be unleashed on the public.
Vocally, Robison and Maguire provide solid harmonies throughout. Lead vocals? Natalie Maines has always had similarities to Stevie Nicks and those shine through on this album. She can do the contralto Nicks uses so effectively these days as well as the soprano that Stevie turned into a sacrificial offering during the xillioneth performance of "Rhiannon" somewhere on the never ending tour of 1975 and 1976.
Forget the nay sayers. If you're reading this and didn't stumble across this site, you'll love the album. You'll love the honesty, the strength of it all. Yes, lyrically, yes, musically, yes in every way.
Is there a weak spot? Track nine. Track nine's a little too sunshine-day and has nothing really to say that fits with the rest of the album. It won't make you groan and it's over quickly enough that by the time you're onto the next song and lost in the backing vocals of "Voice Inside My Head," you'll have forgotten it.
In the sixties, vocal groups offered a range of personas. The tough-girls were the Shangri-Lahs. (Some try to argue for the Ronettes and, while they were tougher than many, they weren't the ones who would inspire Steven Tyler -- they would inspire Eddie Money which puts their 'toughness' into perspective.) But the Shangri-Lahs got stuck on the side of Let's All Polish Up Road (no motorcycle to hop onto after the crash of their "Leader of the Pack"?) and it's been starts and stops for women since then. The closest thing afterwards for women may have been the Go-Gos but a disaster of a performance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live did more to destroy them then Belinda Carlisle's desire to be cute ever could.
Solo, women could and have been strong with chart success. But as a group of stength, it's been a long road of smile pretty, don't make waves, act like a lady. Along comes the Dixie Chicks. They're not new to crossover success, they pulled that trick while Bill Clinton was still in the Oval Office. And only someone ignorant of the charts could argue otherwise.
Which brings us to our critics of today. And, in the spirit of the Dixie Chicks, I'm not ready to make nice.
Let's start with Jon-boy by noting he loves to trash the women (study his reviews for Rolling Stone). He's also had it in for Stevie Nicks for years and was part of the subgroup at Rolling Stone that derided her talents and acomplishments. He was part of the whole "Lindsey Buckingham is Fleetwood Mac!" movement.
They tried for years, Rolling Stone, to pass that propaganda off as reality. Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks provided the big hits for the band. Once Lindsey's over-inflated opinion of himself took hold, the albums got a lot more gimicky (Fleetwood Mac's albums, his own were always "silly" as Jon-boy would note with pride and approval while hectoring Nicks) and you can thank your phallus worshipping critics for all of that -- chief among them the likes of Jon-boy -- idiots who never could stop crediting Buckingham for every bit of success the group had. As they sought refuge writing music reviews and articles for publications not noted for their music coverage, reality began to overcome fantasy at Rolling Stone and Stevie Nicks actually got some respect from the magazine.
Those boys who tried to crown Buckingham a rock star (a crowning that never took -- though they all sat around waiting for the head to emerge) never forgave Stevie for her succes or for not having a penis. Well in your dreams, Jon-boy, she can be whatever you need her to be.
Along comes Kelefa. Not a dumb critic. Not a useless one. But one who frequently writes with such a fact-free approach that she'd be better off starting those pieces with, "I'm about to go on and on about something I know nothing about." That was true last year when she laughable wrote of certifications based on shipments. (That was the pre-SoundScan age, as I pointed out at my site.) So what's a critic with an assignment to do but crib from Jon-boy?
That's why she doesn't tell you about "Too Far From Texas." (Jon-boy will always be at war with Stevie, that's his excuse.) What's "Too Far From Texas"? Ask the insta-expert Kelefa, I'm not here to spoon feed her.
Instead, let's "turn to the crystal blue mirror -- as always it is truthful." Stevie lyric but let's leave Kelefa uninformed since her "It's Dixie Chicks vs. Country Fans, but Who's Dissing Whom?" demonstrated she's happy to occupy space in the land of confusion.
There are two chief points she misses. C.I. called at noon to ask if I was going to note Kelefa in my review because otherwise, "I'm going to have to do an entry on it -- I'm getting too many complaints from friends and, when I finally read it, I saw why."
Kelefa tells you that the Dixie Chicks are in the midst of a war with country music fans. Kelefa's got a Bully Boy mentality of you're either with us or you're against us going on and it's not pretty. Her own non-existant claim isn't about WMD, it's in the midst of a laughable "therefore . . . therefore . . . therefore" sentence. I don't have a great deal of time to waste on her nonsense so we'll just note that she's apparently gotten 'bad intel.' (Jon-boy may be the one behind the Niger forgeries!)
Arriving late, and under-dressed mentally, Kelefa has no idea what the Chicks have been up against since they started. She probably thinks Toby Keith dissed Maines for the first time after the London concert. That's not reality. Reality is a lot of blustering boys were offended by the group long before Bully Boy illegally invaded Iraq. It's a size-envy thing. The Chicks outsold them and the Chicks didn't do it via Vegas-country. If Kelefa knew what was what, she'd know that it was the same thing Loretta Lynn was up against (the same thing that resulted in her songs being banned). Or Patsy Cline or any woman who didn't follow the 'rules.'
But Kelefa doesn't know her history so she's convinced that there's some new war going on when it's the same war that's been going on for years. You listened to "The Pill" or you listened to "Bandy The Rodeo Clown." I think if she'd been writing about a genre that had emerged more recently, Kelefa would be far less likely to stereotype the audience. But she does that while accusing the Dixie Chicks of making the same mistake she has made.
That's the way it goes at the Times with few exceptions. They just make up "facts" and write them down and an article with, for instance, fourteen factual errors gets two mistakes noted in the corrections and the Times figures that's enough (that writer, by the way, is back with the Times again -- proving that Jayson Blair can be put upon the cross but others who pass fiction off as fact never pay for their crimes).
The Dixie Chicks have been talking about the audience and that apparently shocked Kelefa because in her mind it's all the same thing. In her mind, Juice Newton, Lee Greenwood,
Willie Nelson, damn it, it's all the same thing!
If you tried to talk bluegrass with Kelefa (which does come to bear when you're talking the Dixie Chicks), she'd probably stare into space or go running down the hall, "Jon! Jon! What's blue grass!"
When Lynn had eight songs banned from the radio, it didn't end her career because everyone in country music wasn't opposed to those songs. The country audience is a bit more complex than Kelefa understands. (The Dixie Chicks grasp that, Kelefa's the one acting the fool.)
Kelefa appears to see Reba McEntire as the mouthpiece for all of country music. Why she thinks that, who knows? McEntire hosted a TV awards show which doesn't make her the last word in country music it just means she had the highest TVQ of anyone they could get. That TVQ comes from being the faded star of a cancelled show. (Quick, Reba, go record "Delta Dawn"!)
McEntire doesn't like the Dixie Chicks and got off a snide remark upfront. Kelefa would have you believe it brought the house down. It didn't. That's partly due to the fact that McEntire can't deliver a would-be funny line without jerking her head around as though she's gone into a seizure. It's also because the artists aren't all in McEntire's camp.
In the future, Kelefa might want to watch the shows she summarizes (both the awards show and 60 Minutes) and not just read about them.
Next Kelefa wants to tell you that the animosity towards the Dixie Chicks hasn't been experienced by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. They called out the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. (They've both done more privately, but that's what they did publicly.) In 2005, calling out the Bully Boy on something everyone could see with their own eyes is nothing like, in 2003, saying we need to think before rushing into war and maybe, just maybe, listen to the people.
Only in Kelefa's mind are the two events comparable.
McGraw can kick a poser like Toby Keith's butt (and Keith knows that) and Hill & McGraw are a couple.
The Dixie Chicks aren't men and they've got no high profile relationship with a country star male who can act as a shield. What they have had goes to why McEntire loathes them and it's nothing new, unless your name is Kelefa.
McEntire loves her some Bully Boy, but the conflict predates the installation of the chimp-in-chief. McEntire shot to fame and, with dopey tales of how she remembers her dead dog to work up emotion for 'sad' songs, immediately went the Queen Bee route. She's to be worshiped and adored as the exception (to the rule). It's Reba against the (female) world. It's there in her music, it was on display in her crappy TV show where, trying to do a conservative version of Roseanne, Reba made sure she came off more angelic than Della Reese and Roma Downey combined.
Now off camera, she was fond of sick outs, but in front of the camera, she was the Angel of the Administration. (Just touch her cheek before you leave her, Bully.) "My husband done left me!" allowed her character to trade barbs with the woman who stole her man and kept Reba center stage. Without a sidekick. With no female friends popping into multiple episodes. This wasn't Roseanne.
How she was supposedly paying for food for all those (nonworking) people in her house was the sort of detail that, like Bully Boy's tax code, careful study reveals to be a crock. She crowed, over and over, "I'm a survivor" and it didn't reach the tweeners of the WB and didn't reach out to women that might have been the show's intended audience. Probably because most women don't picture living close by to the woman who stole their husband -- but she's a survivor! No need for assistance from the government, she's a survivor! No need to tackle the issue of insurance or any other thing that someone who had to work for a living while feeding six people would have to face. It was dream-time in the non-reality based world of der 'homeland.'
She's an exception and the point is made in her lousy I-done-lost-another-man songs over and over. Queen Bees are nothing new (except to Kelefa) and that's always been at the heart of the conflict between McEntire and the sisterhood of the Dixie Chicks. One stood for empowerment and the strength you can gather within a group, the other stood for herself and only herself.
To deal with the more recent issue of party politics and war, Kelefa doesn't bother to tell readers (probably because she has no idea) that McEntire was offering her corn-pone slams on the Dixie Chicks right after Natalie Maines remark. (Reba apparently supports "110%" the right of "our armed forces" to die in an illegal war.) As someone said of McEntire, "She was born trash, she'll die trash. The only question is whether or not she'll apologize for cheerleading a war that's cost so many lives?"
Though Kelefa either doesn't know or doesn't tell readers, Reba hobknobs with the Bully Boy family in Houston (Internet pals with Poppy! Keep it clean, Reba!), supported Bully Boy's 2004 run (well that's at least $2000 that didn't get wasted on bad plastic surgery) and of course got into the White House first when Poppy was president. (The Dixie Chicks, pre-Maines, performed at Bill Clinton's inauguration.)
That's the backstory readers aren't told.
Current truths also go missing. When Kelefa's going to write about the Dixie Chicks current career status, she needs to note McEntire's: Reba needs a hit real bad. In 2004, when the Bully Boy was riding higher, so was Reba. But like the Bully Boy's polls in the last two years, Reba's taken a tumble. Her last two singles? The most recent peaked at sixty and the one prior at thirty-three. For all Kelefa's cautionary tales of the Dixie Chicks, they charted higher this year than did Reba. And, to repeat, the low rated sitcom Reba has been mercifully cancelled. (Survive that.) (ADDED: C.I. advises me that although Reba was cancelled, on May 17th, the CW ordered thirteen episodes of the show for next year. Which is sort of the sucker punch we've come to expect when we get a little good news these days.)
There's something sad about aging Queen Bees. They don't become aware, they just spin around uselessly and damage the world around them. Reba cheerleaded the Bully Boy and cheerleaded the war. If anyone has something to apologize for, I'd say it's the fifty-plus loud mouth with the brassy (dyed) red hair who pushed a war when she damn well should have been old enough to know better. But war cheerleaders and war pornographers never apologize.
As for Kelefa, there should be some embarrassment factor for her. Not just for being so ignorant but also for the fact that she works at a paper that was instrumental in lying us into war. Instead, she wants to lecture the Dixie Chicks who (pay attention, Kelefa) don't need a lecture about whining over lost fans because they haven't whined. They've accepted any fall out. They're not running from anything. They're upfront about it on the CD and in interviews.
Having proven she knows nothing about emo and knows nothing about how albums are certified, today Kelefa wanted to demonstrate to America that she also knows nothing about country music. Having done that, quite successfully, it may be time for her to try taking some responsibility?
For instance, when she next has gas and finds herself bored, maybe she could do the readers a favor and light her farts instead of attempting to have them put to the printed page.
That would certainly do the world more good than her accusing the Dixie Chicks of the dastardly deed of "having conflated politics and culture" -- that's what art is. (Combining and bringing together are the definitions I'm using.) So the Dixie Chicks mine their own experiences and end up with an amazing album, an amazing work of art. How do you know it's amazing. It sends the Timid, forever two years late when it comes to music coverage, in a frenzy over the fact that three women might actually have something to say. Yes, we're back to the ones screaming "Shut up and sing!" It may surprise some that the Times would join in on that but they were, after all, one of the biggest sellers of the war on Iraq -- and, point of fact, they still sell the war. Today they pushed their limited scope into the music section.
dixie chicks
taking the long way
stevie nicks
fleetwood mac
jon pareles
reba mcentire
reba
kelefa sanneh
the new york times
the third estate sunday review
kats korner
the common ills
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