As the WGA strike looms over Hollywood like a fire in the hills, the mind recoils in horror as the body gently sits this whole mess out, poolside with a drink. True, its difficult to imagine Marc Cherry and Patric Varrone overturning cars (Though I can easily picture Nick Counter pressure-hosing women and children). However, lest we be lulled into false security by the puffy nature of WGA membership, let us recall the strikes of yore through this pictoral stroll down Hollywood (STRIKE) Blvd.
1919 Actor's Strike
Actors' Equity joined the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and called a strike seeking recognition of the association as a labor union. The successful strike of 1919 ended the dominance of the Theatrical Syndicate, including theatre owners and producers like Abe Erlanger and his partner, Mark Klaw. Mark Klaw is credited as being the father of all draconian-sounding theater owners. The 1919 Strike also sees the very first Strike Photo Op, one of those hats is supposed to be Ethel Barrymore, who had made a comeback after beating her Laudanum adicction at age 10.
1941 Disney Animator's Strike
The bitter animators' strike of 1941 at Walt Disney Studios was a psychological turning point within the company. The strike had relatively little effect on Walt Disney's reputation with the public, who generaly could give a rat's ass about these kind of things, but damaged his standing with commies and pinkos who had heralded "jazz, porn, and the animated cartoon" as the three art forms which America had given to the world. The strike destroyed the paternalistic relation between Herr Disney and his animation staff, and cemented the studio's derogatory nickname of "the mouse factory". The strike turned violent when Disney struck his head animator with a wooden mallot, causing retaliation in the shape of an anvil dropped from the second story of the animation building. It was this strike that would ultimately cost Clara the Cow her career.
1945 Set Decorator's Strike (Holy shit! Don't fuck with decorators!)
Hollywood Black Friday is the name given, in the history of organized labor in the United States, to October 5, 1945. The WGA immediately submitted a complaint since it was not consulted on the name, and several other events had claim to the title. Regardless, on that date, a six month strike by the set decorators, represented by the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) boiled over into a bloody riot at the gates of Warner Brothers' studios in Burbank, California. The strikes helped the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which was eventually replaced by the studios with the Hope-Crosby act, which was mistakenly believed to be more funny.
2000 SAG Commercial Strike
The commercials strike of 2000 was extremely gay. Some factions within SAG call it a success, asserting that it not only saved Pay-Per-Play (residuals) but it also increased cable residuals by 140% up from $1,014 to $2,460. Others suggest almost identical terms were available in negotiation without a strike, and if the actors had stopped their soliloqiues for a moment, they would have notcied. In the wake of the strike, SAG, and its sister union AFTRA, gathered evidence on over 1,500 non-members who had worked during the strike. SAG trial boards found Elizabeth Hurley and Tiger Woods guilty of performing in non-union commercials and both were fined $100,000 each, which was equal to the total box office gross of Bedazzled, and doomed TIGER!: The Musical.
My younger brother and I argue about things. Many things, in fact. Often meaningless things, that no one could possibly care about. Last night, my brother paraded a historical theory around our living room as if it were fact. I assaulted his theory as being a fringe theory, and he cited the History Channel as proof positive of its mainstreaminess. I pointed out the following History Channel presentation as proof that sometimes the ol' HC will present lunatic fringe theories to drum up viewers:
" A controversial scientific theory states that gigantic eruptions of methane gas from deep in the ocean have occurred regularly throughout history. Although a global-scale methane eruption today is highly unlikely, there may be stagnant, oxygen-poor basins in the ocean where methane might accumulate. Even a small explosion could cause a catastrophe. Imagine what would happen if such an event occurred in the mid-Pacific. Tsunamis would be generated in continuous waves, striking Hawaii and the entire West Coast. Coastal areas would be flooded for miles inland. Methane/water clouds would auto-ignite and the massive fires could cause widespread destruction. Consequences could be global. Whatever humanity survives would be thrown into a Dark Age."
Holy crap! Ruuun! Methane? Noooo!
But the fact is, anyone with an IQ higher than a dung beetle's (I always end up regretting these sort of comments, because inevitably someone with a dung beetle IQ always turns up). can realize that an Earth Fart is a highly unlikely exctinction level event. I think its self evident that the History Channel, like any network has realized the sort of things that bring in viewers. In fact the following Words in any combination seems to make up the entire lineup fr the History Channel:
Bible Disasters! Hitler and Nostardamus! Bible Secrets of Hitler! Ultra UFO Disasters! Da Vinci and The Mega Bible!
There was an actual show, not even remotely embarassed to be called Da Vinci: The Code he lived by
I suppose its an in depth view at Rennaisance drunkeness and Buggery. But we take these silly programming gimmicks with a grain of salt. Most of us can understand that when BATTLES OF THE BIBLE comes on and they are the only ones to have ever represented Exodus as a Military Diversionary tactic, that perhaps its simply highlighting one of the many theories about the historical facts of יציאת מצרים and that the reality must lie somewhere within all of these and maybe not within any. The problem with exodus from a historical sense is that we are trying to support a story as we find facts, and those facts don't always support the story. But i won't get into the facts and fairy tales of the bible. Maybe my brother had his Moseses Mixed up.
"You can pry these commandments from my cold, dead hands"
What's truly disturbing is the weird list of words that has influenced programming on the History Channel. All of those words seem to havean air of the supernatural. I think i've made it abundantly clear how i feel about the "supernatural", but the wide interest in the "unexplained" has become something of an alarm for those of us who consider ourselves fans of rational thought, skepticism, and the scientific method. I can see all my exes rolling their eyes in unison. The fact however, cannot be denied.
Business is booming for charlatans who offer easy answers to difficult questions, and i knew it was only a matter of time before this litigous fuckwad dared reappear.
Uri Geller
How? What? I thought this guy had been tossed out as a fraud years ago. Now, Criss Angel (Or however you magickally spell his name) is involving himself with this fraud, by hosting a contest called PHENOMENON . Why would a talented Magician/ Illusionist like Criss Angell pair himself up with someone who claims to have psychic powers and preys on the weak and emotionally needy? What's worse! Someone who has been exposed as a fraud over and over!
Well, for starters Criss Angel is a whore.
A man doesn't wear faux fur and Mr. T cum argent, unless he has a douchey persona he needs to maintain. Its incredible that anyone outdouched David Blaine, but there it is.
So Criss Angel has specifically chosen to align himself with a revealed fraud and choose the next "Mentalist" Now, what the fuck is a "mentalist"?
Wiki sez:
"The term mentalist refers to entertainers whose performance appears to be based on "psychic" abilities, featuring the ability to read minds, project the mind to alter the state of matter, foretell the future, and see distant and hidden objects. This branch of magic is referred to as "mentalism." There are analogues in the field of parapsychology, where a mentalist is defined as someone who is believed to read thoughts and place suggestions in people's minds. While a psychic may claim to observe a hidden spiritual reality and report on it, in a process known as "psychic reading," a mentalist might claim the ability to manipulate and change that reality. The stage mentalist ostensibly mimics these supernatural behaviours by natural means."
Which means that with this show, Criss Angel has purposely chosen to blur the line between magic and pseudo science. Claiming psychic abilities within his parlour tricks Ever-whore Angel smells money. He knows how much is to be made from psychic claims, and as he descends down this very slippery slope, who knows what people he may take with him?
Magicians like Houdini, Penn and Teller, and most significantly James"The Amazing" Randi have fought for many years to expose fraud in the claims of Psychic abilities. In fact, it has been something of a Magician's code of honor to expose these buffoons for what they are. Unfortunately, NBC has joined the History Channel in this disconcerting trend of feeding on people's worst tendencies.
The intellectual laziness, and seditary lifestyle of the US poses the biggest threat to our way of life to date. Its not some imagined terrorist threat, or the collapse of family values, but rather the need for quick answers and simple solutions that threatens us, and when you watch ANY (cough) of these "Psychic' or "Mentalist" shows, or watch Discovery or the History Channel and fail to use healthy skepticism, you may find yourself parading hack theories to your friends, or worse being unable to differentiate between Psychic Frauds and Magicians.
If it can happen to my brother who is somewhat well rounded and a realtively healthy skeptic, it can happen to any intellectually lazy younger sibling.
For your viewing pleasure:
James Randi and Johnny Carson (Who was a magician early in his career) Expose Uri Geller as a fraud on live TV.
VS As an Armenian, or rather, as someone who's residence in Glendale and copious body hair was often mistaken for Armenian, I am passingly familiar with the Armenian Genocide, and the desperate plight of the Armos at the hands of the pre Attaturk, Ottoman Turks during WW thee Firste.
As far as i am given to understand, the (Ottoman) Turks rounded up 2 million Armenians for "Deportation" and 1.5 of them conveniently died en route. Nasty nasty lot, those Ottomans. After The "Great" War, the allies spanked all the naughty axisss pretty damn well. Germany had to pay out the nose, the Kaiser abdicated, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceased to exist and was partitioned into incredily troublesome little states (Serbia, Bosnia, Endor), and the Ottomans were also disbanded. To the great fortune of Europe and all the cutures thas collide at the bosporous, the man who took the reigns of a throttled Turkey was a great man named Kamil Attaturk. He developed Turkey into a prosperous, secular, democracy, fully understanding that a place so steeped in religion, can only be peacful without it.
Since then, Turkey has been our friend and ally. A part of NATO, and even a grudging helper in our bullshit invasion of Iraq, they grumpily allowed us to invade through the north by passing through their airspace. Turkey is cool by us, right? But today, they called back their ambassador and are throwing a world-class hissy fit, over the congressional vote to aknowledge the Armeian genocide of nearly a century ago.
Now, here's the thing. WTF? I mean, WTF? I thought that the Germans had established the rule for international fuckupery. You can fuck up really hard, but at the end you have to say "Sorry", and you have to mean it. That's it. Now deportation and Genocide are hugely different, I get that. But come ON! Let's call it like it is. Everyone except the biggest assholes in the world have accepted the genocide as , well.. a genocide. Check out this handy map of all the US states whos legislatures have accepted the Genocide.
As you can see, only the "DIck" states, have refused to accept the fact (With Hawaii just not giving a Dervish's Fart). But even some traditional "Dick"states have accepted the facts , which is huge when you consider their aversion to them (Facts, not Dick).
So, what's the big deal?
Let's say you're Ted the Turk, you don't admit to anything, you preserve whatever macho bullshit you need to preserve, and the whole world is slightly pissed at you, but hey we're all friends here, right?
If you're Armo Armakian, you're stil going to be pissed at the Turks and everyone knows they've got genocide issues, so there, take comfort in that.
What strikes me, is the pissy reaction from Turkey. Phrases like "Hardball" or "you'll be sorry" have been flung around diplomatic circles like in an Alabama High School commencement speech. Now, I expect that from our "Plaintalking, "Folksy, and "Reatrded" President. But Turkey? Really? It sounds like our little vote struck a cord with the Turks.
The overreaction is not dissimilar to the reaction i got from Larry Craig's "I'm Not Gay" speech.
Whoa! Whoa! Larry, no one is saying you're GAY. We're just saying you got caught soliciting cop cock in a public toilet.
A similar reaction to the Paultards with my previous post.
Hey Paultards, I didn't say the doctor was a facist, racist, asshole. I just said that his voting record tends to appeal to facist racist assholes.
So Turkey, fuckin' relax. If you're so sure there was no wrongdoing, why all the melodrama?
Hey Paultards! Ever give a thought to who else might share your views? Aside from being anti war, and a fiscal libertarian, your boy is also anti-reproductive rights, and anti gay marriage, and who knows what other classic misogynistic and bigoted views. Don't be fooled by the anti-war rhetoric and the smaller government platform!
These are just a few of the crazy ideas Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul has...
1.) Eliminating public institutions of higher learning by privatizing the entire system, and stubbornly voting against all measures to increase public funding of universities. -------------------------------------------- 2. Destroying free public education at all levels K-12 and beyond (i.e. abolish the dept. of education, arguing that that all education should be a privately-owned venture, advocating home-schooling, opposing all public spending initiatives, eroding funding by eliminating taxes on the wealthy). Ron Paul believes that education should be treated as any other commodity, like an iPhone, and purchased only if you have enough money to afford it. On his view, it is neither a social good nor a right that any fair or just society should try to ensure and nurture. Your parents don't earn enough to pay out of pocket for your schooling? Ron Paul says 'tough luck.' -------------------------------------------- 3. Staunchly opposing Universal Health Care and in favor of further privatizing an already corrupt corporate system that rakes in billions in profits for its ownership while close to 50 million Americans are uninsured and those that are insured get screwed, dropped or drowned in extremely costly co-pays and premiums. -------------------------------------------- 4. Worsening the student debt crisis by further gutting (I say 'further gutting' because Bush and his GOP congress made putative cuts in 2005) programs like Pell Grants and Stafford Loans (put in place by LBJ) and giving even more of the student loan system over to a (corrupt, as we've seen from recent revelations in NY) billion-dollar private racket. Students in France and the UK strike over tuition increases and fight for grants and the abolition of loans... Ron Paul thinks we should slash all of it and only have private lenders who generate profits from college students' inability to afford high-priced tuition. -------------------------------------------- 5. Destroying the environment: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to shield oil companies from MTBE contamination lawsuits, against increasing gas mileage standards, to allow new offshore drilling, and to stop making oil companies pay royalties to the government for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. -------------------------------------------- 6. Destroying the progressive income tax (reverting to the regressive system in place during the Gilded Age), letting the rich get out of paying their fair share and depleting funding for social goods. On Ron Paul’s view, it’s ‘communistic and against liberty’ for Bill Gates to be expected to pay higher taxes than working-class single mothers. -------------------------------------------- 7. Supporting right-wing anti-choice laws and stripping women of reproductive rights.
------------------------------------------- 8. Opposing Church-State Separation: From keeping "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance to co-sponsoring the school prayer amendment to keeping the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, this "strict constitutionalist" isn't a big fan of the Constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state. Paul is in step with Pat Robertson on the issue of “Separation of Church and State, which Paul thinks is something that left-liberals simply made up from whole cloth. -------------------------------------------- 9. Supports the repeal of public programming like NPR, PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. -------------------------------------------- 10. Supporting right-wing anti-immigration legislation. Opposes building a wall, but only because that would require ‘big government’, otherwise presumably erecting a wall would be a great idea for this xenophobic nativist. -------------------------------------------- 11. Opposing worker's rights and virulently against workers organizing themselves against exploitative employers (has consistently voted against Employee Free Choice Act.) -------------------------------------------- 12. Fervently opposes raising the minimum wage, in favor of abolishing the minimum wage altogether (a standard libertarian belief.) Let me repeat this one more time: Ron Paul argues that we should abolish the minimum wage altogether. -------------------------------------------- 13. Repealing Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and every other social program put in place since the New Deal. -------------------------------------------- 14. etc, etc, etc...
Yes, Ron Paul is against the Iraq War, and so are Pat Buchanan and David Duke. The fact that he is against the Iraq war alone isn’t enough to actually make the guy worth a second look. He's also not the only person running for president who is advocating withdrawal (Kucinich (D) and Gravel (D), both of whom also have no chance of receiving a nomination, both advocate immediate withdrawal.) His non-interventionist position on Iraq cannot be a compelling reason to suspend judgment about the lunacy of his other positions.
"But he's consistent throughout his whole career!" They will say. Yes, we agree, but since when is being consistently wrong about everything that matters a good thing? --------------------------------------------------------------- According to most major polls, Ron is pulling either " - " or "1-2%" among Republicans.
As a Congressman, Ron Paul (R-TX) has voted with his party nearly 80% of the time, which places him firmly within the bounds of a "rank-and-file-Republican"."
DO NOT BE FOOLED!
Monday, October 08, 2007
One thousand years ago today ,or Friday, the 12th a terrible slave-trading murderer/imbecile who did not even know how to spell his own name, which is Latin for “asshole,” landed at the “Sandals” resort in Puerto Rico or some such Caribbean island and thought he was in Bangalore. What an idiot!
Seriously, Columbus was retarded. To his death, he was convinced the mountains of Cuba were the fucking Himalayas. George W. Bush is smart compared to Christopher Columbus, that’s how stupid Columbus was.
So on his third journey to the “Wrong India” he set up a death camp for all the “Indians” who were actually Carib tribespeople known for their colorful reggae hats and “ganja.” He killed all of those people and also many Spaniards, who finally overthrew his cruel regime and sent his ass back to Spain, where he became a total Jesus Freak and spent the rest of his life bumming people out, the end.
Oh look, it’s Folksy Fred Thompson doing a teevee interview and he’s got a little girl on his lap for some reason and OH JESUS CHRIST SHE’S EATING A DIAPHRAGM. Okay, you can stop the clip now — we have no idea what happens after it cuts away from the charming sight of a little girl chewing on her mother’s giant diaphragm. - Wonkette
NEW YORK (AP) — A piece of outer space named for George Takei is in kind of a rough neighborhood for somebody who steers a starship: an asteroid belt.
An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original "Star Trek" series and movies.
"I am now a heavenly body," Takei, 70, said Tuesday, laughing. "I found out about it yesterday. ... I was blown away. It came out of the clear, blue sky — just like an asteroid."
The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers in 1994, was formerly known as 1994 GT9. It joins the 4659 Roddenberry (named for the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry) and the 68410 Nichols (for co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura). Other main-belt asteroids have been named for science fiction luminaries Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD ALL YOUR "DEADLY ON IMPACT" "CRATER HOLE" and innuendo filled snickers
At the risk of seeming trite, i've noted a very interesting trend in geopolitics: The rise of the the attractive , strong, female politico. Gone are the days of Maggie Thatcher, who was as feminine as Rosie. Even the grandma who will kick your ass, like Maddy Albright, seems outdated. Condi? Please. We are talking real women, with real influence, making waves on the world stage, not photo-op lapdogs. Behold! The 5 Hottest women in global politics.
#5.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Ok, so Angie isn't what we may call conventionally hot, but you know what Kissinger told Mao, "Power makes us dumpy guys look hot" or something like that. If beer and power is all it takes, then Angie's got you covered.
#4
Hil
Yeah, so Hilary's looks change, but Damn! There's always something attractive about a inteligent woman who knows what she's talking about. And when they put just a little effort into looking good, well let's just say wonk dudes turn to puddy. Just ask Bill. If not, ask the sculptor.
#3
Ursula Plasnik
Das Gentle Giantess aus Osterreich, The Austrian foreign minister has wowed world leaders with her style, grace, and threats to step on them if they piss her off. Who doesn't love a woman who can look down on putin, and wears breakfast menu Chuck Talylors?
#2
Segolene Royale
Why am I including a failed presidential candidate? Well, she was a real contender in a country that is so steeped in misogyny, that the national pastime is grabass. This socialist could have looked great as prez de la republique and in a swimsuit.
#1
Yulia Tymoshenko
Holy CRAP! She just claimed victory in the Ukrainian Presidential elections, she could claim ElvisAlive and well, and I'd believe it. In my experience the women of the Ukraine are some of the hottest in the world, and with Yulia here rockin' the stockings and the traditional do, she beckons the next age of geopolitics, THE AGE OF THE WLIF (World Leader).
