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."

Thursday, December 23, 2021

TV: Wishes and reality

The things we wish. Maybe it's the holiday season, but lately, we've been wishing a lot -- and for a lot -- when watching.

For example?

Katie Halper did a pretty strong roundtable on Julian Assange last Thursday.

A number of people participated and, like Halper, they made strong points regarding the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange by the US government and the nonsense of Joe Biden and company trying to extradite Julian for the 'crime' of reporting. Susan Sarandon, Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald, Margaret Kimberly, Marianne Williamson and many more participated. Again, strong points and they more than established the case for ending the persecution. So what was our complaint?

Watching, we wished Kyle Kulinski hadn't participated. We don't care for Kyle for various reasons -- among which? He constantly interrupts women when they speak. The two hour plus special hadn't even gone ten minutes in before Kyle was repeatedly cutting off Marianne.

Marianne Williamson is many things. The list includes a businesswoman, an author, a politician and an activist. Some people forget but the list also includes a strong and moving speaker. So when Marianne was explaining the basics about Julian Assange the last thing needed was for Kyle to be repeatedly interrupting her.

Marianne Williamson: Key to authoritarianism in secrecy and no secrecy is more dangerous than military secrecy. Everybody [corporate media lapdogs] will be going on about what a 'criminal' he is. And great people will be talking tonight [on the live stream] about how is he and what did he really do. But I I want to talk for a moment about what he did do. What Julian Assange revealed were War Crimes. What he revealed were atrocities. What he revealed were gratuitous deaths. I'll give you just an example: Almost 700 people were killed because -- mainly, by the way, the mentally ill and women who unknowingly got to close to a checkpoint. There were men who were trying to drive their pregnant women to the hospital, got too close to a checkpoint. This was in 2010 that all these things were revealed. Let's be very clear here everyone Vietnam was a debacle, Iraq was a debacle, Afghanistan was a debacle. So when the military establishment tries to go at us with "Nothing to see here, guys"? If anything is clear, there's a lot to see. There's a lot to see. There's a lot we should have been paying very close attention to. And the fact that the US government, rather than wanting to stand for the free press, the right of the people to know and holding the military accountable? You have to have transparency. A military that is not held accountable? And the way that they are able to do what they do is through this completely illegitimate use of the classification system. Classified document, right? They're not supposed to classify a document [when] it's just really they don't want you to know. [The sole man on the panel feels the need to interrupt Marianne while she is speaking; not once but twice.] So millions of documents are made classified. Journalists who would say, "What's in there?" -- "we can't tell you because it's classified. They're only able to classify something if they can prove it's essential to US security. This is a whole veil that they're putting over it. You're going to hear a lot tonight about how 'Oh, you're putting the troops in danger.' We don't want to put the troops in danger but we don't want them to put the people of Afghanistan in danger, which they did, and the people of Iraq in danger, which they did, or the people of Iraq in danger, which they did. So you're going to hear about that tonight. All of these issues are extremely important.

Marianne knows how to shape the topic, she knows how to build, she's an incredible speaker . . . if someone doesn't keep butting in and talking over her.

This is not the first time Kyle has talked over a woman. This is his pattern. It's long past time that he was told to take a look at it. He needs to take a look at it and grasp that women don't need him jumping in to explain what they're saying. He needs to grasp that women can -- and do -- speak for themselves.

It was irritating and it was entirely avoidable. All you had to do to avoid it was to not invite him.

We wished that they had.

Watching PEACOCK's new series MACGRUBER, we couldn't help but wish that Tina Fey wasn't always so busy being one of the boys and that she'd actually have taken the time to write for women. Specifically, Kristen Wiig. It's years since BRIDESMAIDS and Kristen's really had little to show for it. In MACGRUBER, she's back as Will Forte's girlfriend and she's often hilarious -- especially when singing. A little real effort poured into developing a sitcom for her talents would've paid off.

MACGRUBER pays off. It's engaging and funny. Wil, Kristen, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Zane, Ryan Phillipe and Sam Elliot are all good sports and that goes a long way to make this extended SNL sketch work.

Even so, we wish PEACOCK had more to offer. ONE OF US IS LYING remains their best series. You can -- and we do -- applaud MACGRUBER and THE GIRL IN THE WOODS (which reminds us a little of season one of THE OA). That's three programs. Not a lot to praise when you grasp that PEACOCK hit the one year mark over the summer.

That said, have you checked out AMAZON or HULU?

They've been in the original programming game for some time and so much of what they offered in the past was wretched. Not 'okay,' not 'blah,' but outright wretched.

Both now have 'hubs' where they highlight all their original programming and you can find years and years of wretched and unwatchable programming.

Now every streaming service is going to have spotty programming. It's a given. But NETFLIX, for example, early on offered original programming and, in 2013, we're talking programs like HOUSE OF CARDS, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK and HEMLOCK GROVE. Neither AMAZAON nor HULU can boast of similar strong programming in its early years. In 2011, HULU got into the original programming game. and it was years before they had anything worth watching. Even now, the only thing in production that's worth watching is THE HANDMAID'S TALE. AMAZON had similar problems with garbage no one wanted to watch until they lucked on to THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL. What did both shows share in common? They weren't 'dude' shows programmed for the bro community. In other words, when both streamers realized they could go after something then the audience for SPIKE TV, they found success.

We wished that they had realized that sooner. So much sooner. And we wished they had more to show for it but they really don't. FUTURE MAN and DIFFICULT PEOPLE remain HULU shows that have ceased production but remain worth watching and you can say the same about season one of AMAZON's HOMECOMING and the still-in-production series THE BOYS. But they're not NETFLIX. NETFLIX has GRACE AND FRANKIE, SENSE8, OZARK, STRANGER THINGS, YOU, THE WATCHER, FIREFLY LANE, ATYPICAL, LUPON, DAREDEVIL, JESSICA JONES, MINDHUNTER, RUSSIAN DOLL, ASTRONOMY CLUB: THE SKETCH SHOW, MASTER OF NONE, LUKE CAGE, IRON FIST, THE DEFENDERS, SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT, ALTERED CARBON, WHAT/IF?, DOLLY PARTON'S HEARTSTRINGS, HATERS BACK OFF, ONE DAY AT A TIME, DISJOINTED, LOST IN SPACE and DISJOINTED to name only a few.

PARAMOUNT+ is the latest streamer in the game and it beats HULU, AMAZON and PEACOCK easily. That's mainly because it's CBS streaming and more. It has access to shows you're not getting elsewhere. THE KROLL SHOW and STRANGERS WITH CANDY aired, while in production, aired on COMEDY CENTRAL. PARAMOUNT+ has those shows and many others. These archival programs give the service a huge step ahead of others emerging (or others still struggling all these years later). In addition, they have original programming like WHY WOMEN KILL, THE GAME, THE GUILTY PARTY, the one season of TELL ME A STORY, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, STAR TREK: PICARD and STAR TREK: LOWER DECK. There's more. EVIL and SEAL TEAM moved from CBS to streaming on PARAMOUNT+ with new episodes. Still more, there is the access to PARAMOUNT's film library. That puts it so far ahead of other streaming services.

There's a lot to wish for but, as 2021 draws to a close, we wish people would grasp that, no, we are not in a golden age of TV. If we were, with all these channels and streaming services, there would be a lot more worth watching.

Monday, December 13, 2021

Truest statement of the week

Hillary Clinton was so sure she would defeat Trump that she chose senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Kaine is one who straddles the fence claiming he is personally opposed to abortion because he is a Catholic while claiming he would defend Roe v. Wade. Clinton herself foolishly sought to portray herself as being ambivalent about abortion, thinking she would get support from some conservative voters. Of course real conservatives were in love with Donald Trump. So-called moderate republicans voted for him too. Hillary’s efforts to be as slick as Bill Clinton were laughable and her sad attempt at Clintonian triangulation led to Trump’s victory.

Democrats don’t like to mention that Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have stepped down when Barack Obama asked her. He also didn’t fight for his nominee Merrick Garland because he assumed that a president Hillary Clinton would have her choices. The miscalculations are guarded like a shameful family secret lest left leaning democrats question the cult leadership and head for the exits.

Of course the constant demand that leftists stick with the democrats over the issue of abortion falls apart upon even cursory examination. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was taken to task in 2017 for saying that abortion was “fading” as an issue of concern to her party’s members. In 2018 when democratic voters were urged to give control of the House to democrats and diminish Donald Trump’s power she said abortion was not a litmus test issue. While voters are harangued to stay with the democrats as if they are a political lifeboat, the leadership make clear that they don’t care what their constituents want and only raise issues at opportune moments to raise money and keep the rank and file in line.

Democrats are only serious about neo-liberal austerity, protection of corporate interests, and carrying out imperialism abroad. Everything else is propaganda meant to convince the gullible to stay in their camp. Liberals think themselves superior and sneer at white republicans for voting against their interests. They are no better, allowing themselves to be fooled again and again by SCOTUS fear mongering when their party could protect abortion rights with legislation if they really wanted to do so.

-- Margaret Kimberley, "Democratic Party Betrayal, Abortion, and the Supreme Court" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).

Truest statement of the week II

There was an interesting interview recently with Chicago’s Ex-Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson who explained why he was immediately suspicious of the account of actor Jussie Smollett. The first thing that Johnson noticed was that Smollett went through an alleged vicious attack where bleach was thrown on him but still held on to his Subway sandwich. Johnson said that victims usually drop everything in such an attack. Of course, Smollett could note that real professionals like Peter Clemenza always remember to “leave the gun, take the cannoli.”

Johnson told NewsNationNow’s “Morning in America” that Smollett left his home around 2 a.m. which is a bit odd to go and buy the sandwich.
“OK, that’s fine. He comes back and gets attacked in a hate crime, supposed hate crime, and during all this scuffle – they poured bleach on him and all of this – when he got up and went into his apartment building he still had that Subway sandwich with him. That doesn’t happen.”

He added real victims do not do that. They usually drop what they have “because they’re afraid.” Not to mention when the victim claims to have been doused in an unknown chemical: “This guy had the sandwich in his hand, never been touched. So that was a real tip and a clue to us that something was amiss.”

-- Jonathan Turley, "Did Jussie Smollett Take the Cannoli?" (JONATHAN TURLEY.ORG.)

A note to our readers

Hey --

Still Sunday night here on the west coast.

Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's K itchen, Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And what did we come up with?

Peace.

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

Editorial: Success in Iraq?

Success in Iraq?

October 10th they held elections. All this time later, there's still no new government. Over two months after the election and there's still no new government.

Success?

This isn't even functioning.

Meanwhile we're supposed to (again) pretend that renaming "combat troops" as "non-combat troops" means US troops are out of Iraq.

Again, not even functioning.

The only one falling for this nonsense? The western press. Apparently being called "dumb" is preferred to being called a "whore."

TV: Coming out kind of- Colton

Colton Underwood is a 29-year-old male and some might argue that's awful young to be the sole focus of a 'reality' TV show. But Colton's already been a contestant on 2018's THE BACHELORETTE and the star of 2019's THE BACHELOR. In April of this year, he came out as gay.

Now he's the star of NETFLIX's 'reality' program COMING OUT COLTON.

Colton has several things going for him -- looks, an interesting past and a likeability factor.

He also has a few things going against him. He had a very bad patch publicly when he stalked a woman, Cassie Randolph, after their 'reality' TV hookup and then break up. In COMING OUT COLTON, Colton explains (repeatedly) that he became convinced that Cassie was his one shot at being straight and that he just couldn't let her or that go. We have no reason to doubt him and we don't believe, if there's a season two of the series, that he needs to continue to rake himself over the coals. He's tried to make amends and if the person in question doesn't want you to make amends to them, move on. Otherwise, it's not about you making amends, it's about you making that person uncomfortable.

We were uncomfortable watching much of the series. We'll come back to that in a moment but instead note a decided plus: Gus Kensworthy. Going in, we thought he would be the worst part of the show. His actions at the Olympics really did not impress us one bit. We felt he focused too much on the outside world and not enough on the events and that this was reflected in his Olympic performance. But he seemed more focused in the mini-series and more honest -- was that porn star Diego Sans he admitted to having had sex with?

He also offered honesty on the show at a time when it seemed in short supply.

That's not to pick on Colton.

A friend of ours has a comedy special and it's being hailed as many things -- all of them good. We've ignored the special. Why? The man is gay.

There's nothing wrong with being gay. But in the special, he's talking about his demons and what he's dealt with and lived with and . . . The suggestion is that he's straight. This comedy special would have been the perfect opportunity to come out as gay.

But he didn't.

Gay is complicated. A lot more complicated than most grasp, we're starting to realize. Especially when it comes to men. Tenderness between women is not something shocking so maybe that's why society can better understand when romance develops between two women?

Or maybe it's just because straight men frequently fantasize about two women having sex so it's more easily pictured?

What we're getting at is Colton's not done coming out.

Let's back up. Colton presented himself, as part of ABC's 'reality' programs, as a virgin.

Was that true? We don't know. And this is a failure of season one of COMING OUT COLTON. It's never asked, it's never explored.

Was he a virgin? He may well have been.

Equally true, "I'm a virgin" may have also just meant he never had sex with a woman.

Had Colton had sex with a man. Oral, anal, mutual jerk off as a teen, anything?

He didn't want to be gay, okay, we get that. But were their times when he acted on his urges? That's part of the story that should have been told.

The Colton in the media at that point and in the series apparently didn't even masturbate.

When you consider the various things discussed and implied on the show, the fact that we have no idea about how the adult star has acted -- or not acted -- on his healthy, sexual urges is a cop-out.

It's also a cop-out that we have to do the work.

Unless the point is that season two is going to be the second coming out.

Frequently, a man has to come out as gay. And then there's the second coming out.

That's the subtext of season one of COLTON COMING OUT. It's the story in the background.

Colton is now dating Jordan C. Brown. We found that out from friends we discussed the series with a few weeks back. Friday and Saturday, they called to say, "You were right! You picked up on what no one noticed!"

We find it hard to believe that no one else noticed it -- even if our friends didn't notice it.

Colton's next coming out is as a bottom -- if he's honest.

No one really asks that about women. Well, Richard Avery on KNOTS LANDING did ask "who's the man?" when he accused his wife Laura (Constance McCashin) of having an affair with CJ (Lisa Hartman). But most people -- even what you might call the de-volved -- can grasp how women interact with one another sexually. It's only when it's two men that so many feign shock and surprise.

We grasped Colton was a sub or bottom early on.

There's a conversation where Gus is asking him about his ideal man. Colton's looking down, looking to the side, looking all over before he uncomfortably cites 'wisdom' and Gus correctly notes that Colton wants a "daddy." It's said briefly and then immediately disappeared.

But that's what he wanted -- and with Jordan C. Brown, it's what he's gotten.

We get how this is uncomfortable for Colton. He's a former professional football player, he's someone desperate for his father's approval. He's also a guy who wants to be penetrated and we're still not at a point in our society where everyone's comfortable with that.

But if that's what Colton wants and his failure to get that (Gus really picked a bad group of men to have him interact with -- maybe Gus thought he was being silly when he said Colton wanted a 'daddy') is what's hampering season one, that's not making for 'reality' TV. We do expect a certain honesty and a certain reality even though we know it's not really reality.

There is nothing wrong with Colton wanting to take a cock. But because it's something that so many women do, there's a stigma attached to it. Two women eating each other out, for example, doesn't carry that kind of stigma. Again, men can relate to that.

Truth be told, probably most men can relate to a cock inside them as well. They may not want one in them but they can relate to it. And a lot of the reaction to it is, honestly, pretense. They're overreacting because they don't want to be seen as gay. Pegging's popularity may end up being the thing that shatters the pretense.

Colton is clearly worried about his father's approval -- much more so than his mother's. Maybe that's because his mother has experienced penetration and he feels she can relate to his desires? Equally true, if he were a man dating a woman, people would think it was cute if he wanted a woman like his mother or if he were a woman dating a man and he wanted a guy like his father. We need to grow up as a society. There's nothing wrong with Colton wanting to bottom or with him wanting a Daddy.

It's not fair to Colton, or any gay man, that their lives may require multiple coming outs. But it's also not fair to do a 'reality' TV show about a man who has come out when you're not really being honest, when watching a full season of six episodes still requires you to 'do the math' to figure out what's going on.

Ty's Corner

So Jussie Smollett got convicted. And it's been shocking, in the time since, to see what passes for commentary from the so-called reality-based community. The same outlets that repeatedly trash this or that group as not being factual, had no problem setting aside the facts for Jussie.

You could argue that was always the case -- even at the start of the hoax.

Zach Stafford is an embarrassment to the gay community but he popped his head out to the straight world last week to embarrass us outside the community as well.

Writing, after the verdict of guilty, the verdict finding that Jussie lied, Stafford minces around with garbage like "Sure, Smollett may have lied -- or at least was found guilty of it" and:

It doesn’t matter if the actor, who starred on “Empire,” really was beaten up by people yelling “This is MAGA country!” and is wrongly being punished or if he did stage an elaborate hoax, as the jury decided he did by finding him guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct.

It doesn't matter. Just shut the f**k up, Stafford. You're a damn embarrassment. And since when does the MSM question verdicts? How is that reality based?

He staged a hoax. America long ago came to that conclusion and its one that is now echoed by a court of law. Stop lying.

Bitch-boi Stafford wants you to know that this has been hard for him.

Well don't use it as a political football. He's convinced that the right-wing is doing that. Are they? I'm not obsessing over the right wing so I have no idea and I could care less. But maybe Stafford's practicing projection? He did himself use the attack as a political football when he thought it was real.

Now that it exploded in his ignorant face, he wants to pretend otherwise.

I'm gay and Black -- as Jussie was -- or, excuse me, as he claimed to be. Jussie was saying he was bi-sexual before the attack and justifying the storylines where his gay character on EMPIRE was attracted to women. Jussie also says he's Black. I am Black. I have a Black father and a Black mother. Jussie is bi-racial because one of his parents is White.

You must really hate your White parent if you're not willing to claim them and I guess that means you hate half of yourself as well?

Then there's Isaac Bailey at CNN who wants to prove himself the biggest bitch in the world with his stupid column insisting this was about putting a Black man in his place.

Jussie's not Black. Shut the f**k up. I'm sick of it. I'm so tired of these light-skinned mixed people who get into trouble trying to hide behind being Black. Those of us who are Black are not amused. By this logic can I just call half and half "whole milk"?

Bitch Bailey wants to insist that Jussie is just like Amy Cooper. Who? That stupid racist White woman who dialed 911 to report a crime when there was none.

Yeah, that's the exact same thing, Bailey, if we ignore the fact that Jussie's actions were premeditated, that he paid off others as part of his criminal conspiracy.

Bailey should stick to picking his ass crack because that's probably the only thing he excels at.

He certainly doesn't excel at reasoning. It's so wrong, Bailey wants you to know, that Jussie just got put on trial. So wrong!!! Such a waste of money!!!

No, what was wrong was that he called in favors from friends -- including prosecutor Kim Foxx and the now disgraced Tina Tchen whose made her public life all about running interference for the guilty.

What was wrong was that he got to (a) get off without having to admit guilt and (b) went so far as to insist he was innocent.

Amy Cooper clearly had mental issues and maybe the court-ordered therapy helped her with those, maybe it didn't. But her actions were spur of the moment.

Jussie's apparently started with mailing powder and a hate note to himself. That's actually a federal crime and it's one that's not noted by Bitch Bailey.

From there, he conspired to stage a false attack. He paid his 'attackers.' He filed a false police report. He went onstage to call himself the gay Tupac -- again, he's not gay (bi) and he's not Black (mixed). Then it was onto ABC and the embarrassing interview with Robin Roberts -- an interview that's causing harm to her reputation -- where he repeated how hard it was for him and how blah blah blah.

He staged a false attack. He risked inciting the nation.

It is not the same thing.

And then he used his money and his connections to get away with it.

To lie -- as Bitch Bailey does -- that this was about the police objecting?

I get it, brother man, you working on the Democratic Party plantation so you're not going to point out that the loudest and most prominent voice against Jussie walking was then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

(I may be a Democrat but I don't work anybody's plantation.)

Garbage like this doesn't help anyone.

It's conspiracy mongering and it's fact free. It harms the people. If you can't be honest, do us all a favor and just s**t the fuck up already.

KINDLE UNLIMITED (Betty, Ava and C.I.)

1summerread

In 2018, community sites took turns covering a book every week. You can see "In 2018, we read books" to review that coverage. We didn't want to repeat ourselves in 2019 or 2020. So when Marcia came up with a way to cover books but with a twist, we were all for it. Marcia's idea was for us to digital books -- we're largely a printed text crowd -- and to use AMAZON's KINDLE UNLIMITED. So for 2021, we'll be trying to do a book a week and trying to just use KINDLE UNLIMITED. This week, we're speaking with Betty about her "WHO IS THE GREAT EARTHA KITT? (and thank you, Diana Ross!)"

Betty, this was the second book you read this year about Eartha Kitt, you covered the other book in ""John L. Williams' AMERICA'S MISTRESS: EARTHA KITT, HER LIFE AND TIMES." You found this book to be a marked improvement over Williams' book.

Betty: I really did. It offended me that Williams took the approach of "Eartha said but the reality is . . ." over and over. Like Eartha was too stupid to know anything. The British man had a very low opinion of Eartha's intelligence for example. He thought she was an embarrassment at the White House. How so? This is a woman who spoke multiple languages, who had traveled around the world, who was active in social work with the youth of America at the time she had her encounter with Lady Bird Johnson. But for Williams, she was just some dumb Black woman, apparently. And I was glad to see that America Selby, in her book WHO IS THE GREAT EARTHA KITT?, was also bothered by this attitude. She notes that Williams thinks Eartha's too stupid to know who her own mother was. And this from a man who tries to pretend he's figured out who Eartha's White father was. No, he didn't. It was decades later, there were no records and he's just guessing. But let Eartha offer something different and Williams is attacking her memory, her comprehension and her truthfulness. Reading America Selby's book was great because it restored my faith in Eartha and made me feel I wasn't alone for wondering over the way Williams' portrayed Eartha in the book he wrote.

It really offended you.

Betty: It did. I just didn't like the attitude and, sorry, but, for me, it touched on the way the British treated people during the British Empire, people of color. For me, Williams was writing as though he was superior and better and the final judgment and that he was all of these things because he was a White man. I thought Eartha Kitt deserved better than a biographer who was so dismissive of her.

In terms of KINDLE, any thoughts?

Betty: I'd say this goes to the strength of AMAZON online books. If you read one book on a topic or subject and don't care for it, you're likely to be able to find another one on the same topic or subject -- one that hopefully speaks to you.

Good. Before we wind down, Betty, you had wanted to bring in something else regarding reading.

Betty: Yep. I want to quote from last Tuesday's "Iraq snapshot:"

That's reality. It's in short supply at JACOBIN this week. They're also promoting Liza Featherstone's deeply misguided defense of the 'canon.' And, Liza, I don't know that I'd called young right-wingers "little s**ts" in the same article where I went on about how the books of Aristotle and Shakespeare must be read. No, we're not just talking personal taste here (I've never had the Eurocentric devotion to William Shakespeare), we're also talking about the fact that neither wrote books. Shakespeare wrote plays, dear, and Aristotle delivered lectures. It's a quibble but so is dismissing some young people as "sh**ts."

Betty (Con't): I'm sorry, but this notion that we need the so-called canon is repulsive. The canon left out too many people. It left out the experiences of people of color, it left out the experiences of women. At this late date for Liza Featherstone to be lamenting that people don't like George Orwell. I say, "F**k you, Liza." No one has to read Orwell and no one's life suffers because they don't. Orwell was a homophobic bastard. Liza may be willing to go back those times and embrace that but I'm not. My brother is gay, my brother-in-law is gay and their child is being raised by two wonderful parents who happen to be gay. That's reality today. Orwell has no place in it. He was also a little snitch. Times change, people grow. A canon that was exclusionary should fall to the wayside. Liza wants to restore it when, in fact, it never should have existed. If books have merit, they will always be read. Regardless of being in the canon or not. I don't need Liza promoting homophobes in the 21 century and if that's what she and JACOBIN have to offer, f**k them both.

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"Remembering Mort Sahl (Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Kat, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Betty, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Ann, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Jim, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Kat, Ava and C.I.)"

" KINDLE UNLIMITED (Trina, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)"

"KINDLE UNLIMITED (Jess, Ava and C.I.)"