Third Estate Sunday Review

The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, February 19, 2012

5 Best Super Hero Shows (Live Action) of All Time

In honor of TV Day Monday (we're declaring it TV Day, much more worth celebrating than elected officials), we've made our selection for the five best super hero (live action) TV shows of all time.

1) Batman (1966 to 1968). This classic half-hour series starred Adam West and Burt Ward for all three seasons as well as Yvonne Craig for season three. Half hour? Yes, it managed to pack a punch, provide jokes and advance the storyline all in 30 minutes. Something to remember the next time you suffer through a never-ending hour long episode of a live action super hero series. It was pop art and camp and, when you catch the show as a child, you may not appreciate that and just take the stories straight. But those two aspects are part of what makes it remain so enjoyable once you've seen the episodes over and over. Though the Batcave was very cool, season three featured Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) changing into her costume "secret walls, hidden rooms"at a desk in her apartment and then she emerges as a piece of her apartment's exterior wall comes down to allow her to drive off on her motorcycle. Boasting probably the best guest stars as villians including Julie, Newmar, Eartha Kitt, Vincent Price, Joan Collins, Victor Buono, Burgess Meredith, Tallulah Bankhead, Cesar Romero, Liberace, Shelley Winters, Frank Gorshin, Ida Lupino, Roddy McDowall, Anne Baxter, Ethel Merman and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Our vote for best single episode? Season three's "The Unkindest Tut of All." Best multi-part episodes? Season three's "The Londinium Larcenies," "The Foggiest Notion" and "The Bloody Tower" which find Batman, Robin and Batgirl in London (with Alfred).

2) The Bionic Woman (1976 - 1978). Jamie Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) was already featured in two Six Million Dollar Man two-parters (1975). The first one found her dead at the end but the character was too popular to kill off. So they brought her back the following and then they gave Jamie her own show. On a top twenty list, The Six Million Dollar Man (starring Lee Majors) would surely place. But The Bionic Woman was the far better show because it had storylines and moments that resonated. Majors and his character of Steve Austin could be rigid to the point of stiff whereas Wagner kept Jamie more fluid with reactions similar to what the audience might have. This is most obvious in the Bigfoot crossover storyline between the two shows. And while Steve thought nothing of killing various bad guys, Wagner didn't want that kind of show and insisted on more humor and a lighter touch. Jamie also had a sense of humanity that was missing in The Six Million Dollar Man. Confronted again with Lisa (con-artist and crook who is made to look like Jamie via plastic surgery) in the two-parter Deadly Ringer, Jamie stops Oscar from sending in agents, states "she's a human being" and enters the carriage house to confront (and hopefully reach) Lisa all by herself. This is a thread throughout the series and includes Jamie breaking Max (the bionic dog) out of the lab at the start of season three because he's gong to be put down as well as the entire last episode ("On the Run"). Some of us saw this show when it aired in real time, some of us caught it in syndication and learned of Jamie (and Steve) via the three bionic TV movies. But with season three of The Bionic Woman now on DVD, there's a whole new chance to appreciate the show and the amazingly real character Wagner created. In terms of the historic DC vs. Marvel approach to characters, you could call Jamie Sommers TV's first live action Marvel character.

3) The Incredible Hulk (1978 - 1982). Scientist David Banner (Bill Bixby) is haunted by the death of his wife and, after treating himself with gamma radiation, he transforms into the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) whenever he is angry. Like Batman, The Incredible Hulk had many name guest stars including Mackenzie Phillips, Loni Anderson, Scatman Crothers, June Allyson, Esther Rolle, Lewis Arquette, Rick Springfiled, Sherman Hemsley, Sally Kirkland, Ernie Hudson, Pat Morita and Debbi Morgan. Like The Bionic Woman, it offered a lead character you could identify with and root for, one who was even more alienated than Jamie in season three. It's the quality that no one else potraying the role of Dr. Banner has yet been able to pull off but maybe Mark Ruffalo will manage to in this summer's Avengers.

4) Dark Angel (2000 - 2002). Titanic might have made James Cameron King of the World, but it didn't make him king of TV. He was a creator and producer of this show which starred Jessica Alba as a genetically enchaned soldier trained by the government since childhood to be a killer. Visually stunning and fast paced, the show also offered a nice sexual tension between Max (Alba) and Logan (Michael Weatherly). Alba's strongest performance thus far is in this series. When watching all the fights Max gets into, you realize what a mistake they made on the Fantastic Four films by sidelining her and refusing to utilize her for the action scenes. If Alba were really smart, she'd be talking up a Dark Angel movie to studio heads.

5) The Cape (2011). Police detective Vince Faraday (David Lyons) is burned by a dirty cop and framed for murder. He's also wrongly thought dead. He assumes the identity of The Cape while hoping to one day be able to return to his wife and son. But for that to happen, he will need to bring down ARK (think Blackwater) and its CEO Peter Fleming. Among those helping him are Max (Keith David) who runs a circus and Orwell (Summer Glau) an anonymous blogger who is also the daughter of Peter Fleming. Some elements of the show were still coming together when NBC decided to air the season (and series) finale on the web only but Lyons, David and Glau were already a formidable team. Like the other shows on our list, The Cape got the axe just as it was hitting its stride. Which says a great deal about what the networks really want from super heroes.

From The TESR Test Kitchen

Do you like Cheetos? What would you think of an "all natural" Cheeto?

That's what we wondered when we came across Smart Puffs which contain "REAL WISCONSIN CHEDDAR." The puffs from Pirate Brands (in Sea Cliff, New York) features a man on the package proclaiming, "GENIUS!!" -- a man who looks as if he's the love child Ben Stein produced with Ira Glass.

They kind of taste a little like Ira Glass: Weak and bland.

"Robert" proclaims on the back of the package that "Smart Puffs is a deliciously light and airy snack" -- and our big question was: Who the hell is this one-named Robert?

Before we could pursue that line of inquiry, we stumbled upon a new Ruffles flavor: Smokehouse Style BBQ.

The front of the package sports 4 juicy looking ribs which will raise your hopes way too high. They taste like Ruffles BBQ chips with a spice that may lead to heartburn after eating for some people (Jim and Ty both ended up with heartburn 30 minutes after eating). Minus that extra spice, it's really just "Authentic BBQ" Ruffles.

Equality doesn't equal 34% (Ann, Ava and C.I.)

The Diane Rehm Show is a public radio program which airs five times a week, for two hours each day. (A weekend 'best of' also airs on many NPR stations.) Rehm is the host and has been for many decades now. You might expect a public radio program hosted by a woman to be friendly to book an equal number of men and women as guests but if there's one thing we've learned about NPR, it's that gender imbalance may be more common on public airwaves than pledge drives. For example, in 2010 women made up only 18.546% of the guests of Terry Gross' guests on Fresh Air. Or take what happens when the CPB funds a music radio progam to correct 'diversity' issues, and ends up with a radio program which considers 14 women in five hours of commercial free, non-stop record spinning radio programming.

We've surveyed Diane's program for ten months (April 2011 through January 2012). During this time, she's had 1533 guests on her program. How many of those guests were women?

As we've pointed out before, in the United States women are said to make up 50.1% of the population. So half the country is women. This should mean that half of Diane's guests were women.

But that's not the case. Over ten months, only 34% (33.9%) of Diane's guests have been women.

So although women make up half the country's population, they make up only 34% of Diane's guests.

How does that happen?

This is on NPR which is funded with taxpayer dollars and listener contributions and was created with a mandate for diversity. So how is that women are repeatedly so underrepresented on the airwaves?

And how does a host of program pretend she doesn't notice the imbalance?

Especially when there have been whole two hour broadcasts where every guest was a man. You'd think a host would notice that.

And you'd think a host that didn't register that she was speaking to only men was a host that might need to consider packing it in.

For previous hard numbers, see "Diane Rehm manages to book even fewer women (Ann, Ava and C.I.) " and "Diane Rehm's gender imbalance (Ann, Ava and C.I.)" as well as the numbers below -- covering June 2011 through the end of January 2012 -- which should add up to 335 women and 625 men (thank you to Jim who did the math on this piece to help out):

Susan Rice: Bolton With Less Charm

Above is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Alice In Barackland." Susan Rice has always been a piece of trash. She demonstrated it through out the 2008 primary campaign.

But one would have hoped that when made the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Rice would have picked up a sense of decorum if not, in fact, any actual class.

That was not to be. So when the Security Council vote at the United Nations didn't go the way she (and the White House) wanted, she began hissing and snarling in public, "Outrageous!"

What was outrageous was the fact that her behavior was no different than that of John Bolton's and when Bolton was the US Ambassador to the United Nations those of us on the left were appalled by his blustering and bullying.

Maybe it's time Barack learned to curb Rice? Unless, of course, this is the way he wants the world to see his administration.

Homeless Women Veterans

Senator Patty Murray (above) is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Her office notes:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Murray Press Office
(202) 224-2834
Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tester Press Office (202) 228-0371
Snowe Press Office (202) 224-8667

VETERANS: Chairman Murray and Senators Tester and Snowe Call on VA and HUD to Provide Answers about Homeless Women Veterans

After GAO report emphasizes data collection partnership opportunities between VA and HUD, Murray, Tester, and Snowe ask Secretaries for answers ahead of the March 14 Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on veteran homelessness

READ FULL GAO REPORT HERE

(Washington, D.C.) -- Today, Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Patty Murray, Committee Member Jon Tester, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe sent a joint letter to Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinkseki and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan asking for explicit answers to questions in light of a GAO report highlighting missed opportunities for the two departments to improve services for homeless women veterans. The report also highlighted limitations in available housing options for women veterans with children and an inability to ensure the privacy, safety, and security of women veterans in mixed-gender housing facilities.

"It is critical that we continue doing absolutely everything we can on behalf of the brave men and women who have already made tremendous sacrifices for our nation," the Senators wrote. "Until every single veteran is off the street, we must not relent in our efforts to provide the services and assistance they need to find adequate and long-term housing for them and their families. In doing so, we must make every effort to ensure we are addressing the needs of our entire veteran population, particularly our women veterans, to ensure their needs are being met and they are not falling through the cracks."

The Senators have requested a response in advance of the March 14 Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing scheduled on veteran homelessness.

The full text of the Senators' letter follows:

The Honorable Eric K. Shinseki
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20420

Honorable Shaun L.S. Donovan
Secretary
United States Department of
Housing & Urband Development
451 7th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20410

Dear Secretary Shinseki and Secretary Donovan,

We appreciate your ongoing efforts to reduce homelessness among our nation's veterans, and applaud your request for an increase of $333 million for programs to end veteran homelessness in the fiscal year 2013 budget. Recent reports of a 12 percent reduction in the homeless veteran population over the last year are certainly a testament to your hard work and leadership. Despite these gains, we have concerns that the particular needs of homeless women veterans are frequently being overlooked. As we see more and more women veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is increasingly critical that we do more to help them transition home.

As you know, a recent Government Accountability Office report, "Homeless Women Veterans: Actions Needed to Ensure Safe and Appropriate Housing," highlighted an opportunity to increase collaboration between your two agencies when it comes to gathering data about homeless women veterans. As you would undoubtedly agree, without that data, it is impossible for us to have a clear understanding of the demographics of this population or to develop a strategy that can effectively address their particular needs.

The report also highlighted limitations in available housing options for women veterans with children. Although VA has a referral policy in place for temporary housing, it is not being implemented uniformly nationwide. As a result, homeless women veterans in some parts of the country are forced to return to the streets until they are admitted into the Grant and Per Diem or HUD-VASH programs. Additionally, infrastructure needs such as private and secure rooms and showering facilities are often lacking -- placing women veterans in uncomfortable and potentially unsafe situations. We can and should do better.

In light of this report, we request responses to the following questions:

* What steps are your agencies taking to better capture information on our homeless women veteran population?

* How do you track both the demographics and particular needs of this population?

* What strategies are being employed to effectively address their unique needs?

* What improvements will be made to VA's implementation of its referral policy?

* What type of gender-specific safety and security standards will be implemented for VA's Grant and Per Diem program?

* What additional steps need to be taken to reduce the rate of homelessness among female veterans?

Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics points out that, although the overall number of unemployed veterans has decreased significantly over the past year, the unemployment rate amongst women veterans is now more than double the national average. As unemployment rates often directly correlate with rates of homelessness, how closely are your Agencies working with the Department of Labor to reduce the homeless women veteran population by addressing one of the underlying symptoms of their unemployment or underemployment?

It is critical that we continue doing absolutely everything we can on behalf of the brave men and women who have already made tremendous sacrifices for our nation. Until every single veteran is off the street, we must not relent in our efforts to provide the services and assistance they need to find adequate and long-term housing for them and their families. In doing so, we must make every effort to ensure we are addressing the needs of our entire veteran population, particularly our women veterans, to ensure their needs are being met and they are not falling through the cracks.

We appreciate your attention to this matter, and request a response to inform our views in advance of the March 14 hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs on veteran homelessness. We look forward to working closely with both of you to address this critical issue.

Sincerely,

Chairman Patty Murray

Senator Jon Tester

Senator Olympia J. Snowe

###

Meghan Roh

Deputy Press Secretary

Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray

@PattyMurray

202-224-2834

Get Updates from Senator Murray

The empire targets Syria (Workers World)

Workers World repost:

Defend Syria against imperialism

Published Feb 18, 2012 9:35 AM

Workers World has made its position clear again and again with regard to the recent events in Syria: no imperialist intervention! That means the U.S., Britain, France and all of NATO must keep hands off. It means “no” to intervention, whether or not NATO, the Arab League or the United Nations Security Council approves.

Workers World welcomes the decision of China and Russia to veto the resolution before the Security Council that would have opened the door to U.N.-backed intervention against Syria. Last March, such a resolution disguised as a means of protecting civilians in Libya led to the deaths of thousands of Libyans, and the destruction its infrastructure and its sovereign government.

Nassar Ibrahim of the Alternative Information Center wrote a thorough analysis on Feb. 9 in the article, “Syria: the Middle East’s tipping point.” It is worthwhile to excerpt some of his points here.

“The struggle for Syria isn’t just about Syria,” Ibrahim writes, “it’s the struggle for a free, democratic Middle East versus one that lives under the yoke of American and Israeli hegemony. … [It] has a crucial significance from various strategic points of view. …

“From the moment that the Arab League made the decision to suspend Syria’s membership, entailing a series of sanctions against the Syrian people, the clashes happening in Syria have moved to another level. This became even clearer with the second proposed U.N. resolution — calling for a democratic transition and for Bashar Al Assad to step down — which was stopped by Russia and China’s vetoes last Saturday for the second time in four months.

“There have been two attempts to prepare the ground for a military intervention — that the U.S., European and Arab countries would like to see and that 13 out of 15 U.N. Security Council members voted for. Such fervor reminds one of the international climate before the war against Iraq began in 2003.

“With the recent developments, the façade has tumbled down disclosing the real goals hidden behind different masks, revealing that the slogans demanding freedom, democracy and human rights have been used as a battering-ram by the advocates for an intervention to break Syria. The objective seems clear: depriving the country of its role and the Syrian people of their will.”

The imperialists, writes Ibrahim, have two possible scenarios in Syria.

First, “to ride the wave of the Arab revolts, employing full force to overthrow Syria using a comprehensive political, psychological and media war, including the internationalization of the crisis and the call for an external intervention (like the one that occurred in Libya) to finally turn this NATO-hostile country into a satellite state. …”

If this fails, to “sink Syria in a quagmire of destruction, exhausting its resources as state and society and, in doing so, erasing the gains of its historical role at the regional and international level. This would be achieved by fueling sectarian violence and by arming terrorist organizations and extremist groups.”

Ibrahim concludes with this point: “There is no room to be neutral or ambiguous in the face of this confrontation, and the duty of the resistance forces and the actors struggling for a democratic change across the Arab world — the actors that shouldn’t be forgotten — is, therefore, to evolve and protect Syria and the broader Middle East.” (See alternativenews.org)

For the anti-war and anti-imperialist movement inside the U.S., there is a similar conclusion. We should do everything within our power to prevent and obstruct the intervention of the imperialists in Syria.

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

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Senator Murray speaks with Olympia veterans Monday

Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and her office notes:

FOR PLANNING PURPOSES
Friday, February 17th, 2012

CONTACT: Murray Press Office (202) 224-2834

MONDAY: Murray in Olympia to Hear from Veterans

(Washington, D.C.) -- On Monday, February 20th, 2012, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, will hold a listening session to hear from area veterans on local challenges and to discuss her efforts to improve veterans care and benefits nationwide. This will be Senator Murray's first discussion with local Olympia veterans as Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Senator Murray will use the struggles, stories, and suggestions she hears on Monday to fight for local veterans in Washington, D.C.

WHO: U.S. Senator Patty Murray
Local veterans

WHAT: Veterans listening session with Senator Murray

WHEN: Monday, February 20th, 2012
2:30 PM PT

WHERE: Harbor Wholesale Foods
3901 Hogum Bay Rd. NE
Lacey, WA 98516
Map
###

Meghan Roh

Deputy Press Secretary

Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray

@PattyMurray

202-224-2834

Get Updates from Senator Murray