Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Iraq snapshot

Tuesday, November 27, 2024.  The horrible grifter Jill Stein did achiever her goal, THE NATION's Katrina vanden Heuvel is a Twitter buddy to a homophobic, anti-abortion, Trump supporter (that she reTweets), BLUESKY is on the rise and (to those e-mailing after Stan's post), I revisit my visit with Earl Holliman from two years ago.


Let's start with this.



I'm going to try to be as kind as I can to Zac and Gavin of THE VANGUARD.

First, thanks for tackling the topic.  It's a good topic, it's a worthy topic.

Second, you make some strong points in the video -- especially with regards to grifter Jill Stein's hypocrisy.  More could be said on that hypocrisy -- you could do a 24-7 feed for a week and still not have enough time to cover it all. 

But?

Jill Stein did win.  

Her goal was not to become president.  Even as crazy as she is -- and her supporters were -- she knew she was not going to win.

Her goal was the same reason that Trump's allies donated to her and gave her legal representation: To ensure the Democratic Party did not win.

Jill accomplished her goal.

She took away votes.

She didn't just do that with the people who voted for her.

That's not the point of Jill Stein.

Her point is to mount her high horse and for her supporters like Amy Goodman to pitch her as what we need.  "Oh, she's brilliant!  She's great!  Look, over there, it's the Black woman.  It's Kamala.  She's not as great Jill.  She's nothing.  How can anyone vote for the Black woman."

Trump didn't think Jill would become president.  He didn't think she'd get a ton of votes from people who would vote for Kamala.  What he knew she could do was be POSTER GIRL FOR THE LEFT and attack Kamala and degrade Kamala and destroy enthusiasm for Kamala thereby depressing turnout.

That's what Jill did.

That's what Amy Goodman and others backed.

And now we have Trump back in the White House. 

You need to understand that.  

Pay attention next time as the Greens front another presidential candidate and they spend all their press time attacking the Democratic nominee.  That's not a third party -- that's a GOP auxiliary.


Let's move over to Danielle Moodie as a needed palette cleanser.








When I wrote that Johnny Depp was making a big mistake, was in a mid-life crisis, that the woman didn't really love him and it would all end in horror -- words I had all said to his face -- and it came to be, our e-mails were non-stop on where is it one after another.  We're starting to get that again as a result of Stan's "Earl Holliman:"

Earl Holliman died.  

Not sure what to say.


Over a year ago -- maybe two -- C.I. noted at THE COMMON ILLS a man over ninety whose health was faltering was hiding in the closet.  She noted it was an actor.  A mutual friend asked C.I. to meet with the actor because they thought he would feel better if he came out.  So C.I. talked to him about that and told him that people would embrace him.

As C.I. noted at THE COMMON ILLS, she didn't think the man would ever come out, that he would go to his grave in the closet.

That man was Earl Holliman.

He's dead now and Craig Curtis had to announce the death.  Who?  His husband.


I don't know if people are sincere in their e-mails or not.  If it wasn't a holiday weekend -- I'm starting now -- I would ignore it.  But if I do that right now, it's going to pile up in the e-mails and I'm not looking forward to the way that goes.

September 5, 2022, "My Labor Day Weekend:"


Hope your Labor Day Weekend was better than mine.

A friend asked for a favor.  Could I speak to one of their former clients?  

By phone?  No problem.  

No, in person.  

He lives in the valley.  I did not want to go.

But he thinks he's dying -- he's thought that before.  And the man he's spent his life with wants him to come out and called my friend.  

"I'll send a car."

Yeah, you better because I'm not driving in the valley, let alone to it.

So he's an actor.  Unlike some closeted actors and actresses, he can't insist his mother would be shocked -- his mother died long, long ago.  How old is he?  He's so old that ____ _____ once bearded for him back when she was a starlet -- a decade before she became a respectable actress and a winner of numerous awards.

He won an award too.  Many, many decades ago.  

He made a lot of movies.

He was like Orlando Bloom.  He didn't really sell tickets but no one who went to the movies he was in felt like they'd been short changed.  So he was more like Orlando Bloom than, for example, Josh Harnett.  

He's been part of five classics -- one is a camp classic but it's a classic none the less.  He was popular on the big screen but never a star.  In TV, he'd finally become a star.  

He's well over seventy and he won't step out of the closet.  He's worried what people will think.

What people will think? Few thing of him today and even fewer know he's alive.  

By the time the sixties ended, so did his pretense of dating actresses.  By the 80s, the never married status should have registered.  

No one's going to be appalled.  Coming out would be seen as brave.  And if he truly is on the end cycle (again, he's thought this before but he's edging ever closer to 100 so this could be it), coming out would mean he would make the In Memoriam reel at the Academy Awards broadcast.  It would also mean renewed interest in his work.  He hasn't played a role in a film or TV show in over two decades.  

It would also mean that it would come out (his being gay) on his terms.  He could give a few interviews as his life wound down (if he is indeed dying) and talk about what is was like coming up in Hollywood in the fifties. There would be tremendous interest for historical, sociological and media reasons.  


The more we talked, the more obvious it was that nothing was going to happen re: his coming out.  I offered to hook him up with Lily Tomlin because in our only conversation before this one -- a conversation that took place over 30 years ago -- he'd expressed that he was a fan of Lily Tomlin's and then, he leaned in, and sotto voice added, "I've heard she's gay."  To which I replied, "You mean like you."


Is that why, all these years later, his former publicist had arranged this meeting?  No.  It was because, I was told by the actor, I was known for not sugar coating.  That reputation's been there for years but it was when the Iraq War was about to start and I told off a roomful of big names as they tried to figure out how best to 'message' what was coming -- as opposed to standing up against it -- that the reputation really took hold.  I didn't realize what a bitch I was considered -- and I'm fine with that.  I did rip people apart -- fake ass, faux lefties who are held up as heroes by a public that doesn't know better.  I don't regret a word I said (and I'm very grateful to the friend, a film director, who stood up and walked out of the room with me) and it was past time that someone said it to those fake asses. 


Apparently, the actor feels the country has gone astray (it has) with one war after another and, as a veteran himself, he has loved hearing about that moment when I told off a bunch of fake asses.  (It's rather notorious within the industry.)  


I told him the truth.  He can act on it or not.


Not only would it be good for his image -- coming out -- it would be good for others who need role models.  The man's not had any scandals in his life -- no arrests for drug use or what have you.  When people do think of him, they think of him fondly because he didn't wear out his welcome.


It would also be good because someone's going to talk after he's dead.  Better he be the one to talk about it now.  



"He's so old that ____ _____ once bearded for him back when she was a starlet -- a decade before she became a respectable actress and a winner of numerous awards."  That was Jane Fonda.  
 

"He's been part of five classics -- one is a camp classic but it's a classic none the less.  He was popular on the big screen but never a star.  In TV, he'd finally become a star."  


The camp classic is FORBIDDEN PLANET.  The other four classic movies were GIANT, THE RAINMAKER (he won a Golden Globe for his performance),  THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI and GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL. 

"He hasn't played a role in a film or TV show in over two decades" -- 2000 was when he did his last acting roles.

He passed away Monday and he's survived by his husband Craig Curtis. He was twice enlisted in the Navy -- the first time for only a year -- he was kicked out when they found out he was underage.  After finishing high school, he rejoined.

On TV, he became a big star supporting Angie Dickinson on POLICE WOMAN.





And we realize how awful its been for all women and how recent the change has been.



Those two promotional photos above ran in the October, 1974 issue of Ms. magazine. Sue Cameron's "Police Drama:  Women Are On The Case" opened with, "Not since Barbara Stanwyck starred in The Big Valley has a woman had the lead in a weekly dramatic series. This year Angie Dickinson and Teresa Graves have hit prime time as the leads of two police stories, Police Woman (NBC) and Get Christie Love (ABC)."  The last new episode of The Big Valley aired in May of 1969.  From then until September 11, 1974, when Get Christy Love debuted, there had been no female star of a TV drama.  (Police Woman debuted September 13th.)

39 years later, NBC thought it was acceptable to unveil a fall season without one show -- sitcom or drama, 30 minutes or hour long -- that starred a woman?



I wasn't friends with Earl.  We met once at a party -- I believe we nodded at one another from time to time at other gatherings.  And then, in 2022, I visited him at his request and we spoke at length. 

Stan notes he died in the closet.  It would have been better for him if that wasn't the case. But at least he wasn't closeted completely.  But it did wear on him.  He did struggle with the idea of coming out, he did see that as something that would be freeing.

What held him back?

A century of lies and attacks from society.  He was a sexy man with a strong sex drive.  Warren Beatty, a contemporary of his, was the same.  But Earl was attracted to men.  Warren got a star build up long before BONNIE & CLYDE due to who he dated and slept with as much as for his performances.

That didn't happen to an out gay actor.

When we spoke, and note that he hadn't acted in film or TV in over 20 years at this point, he just knew any offers would dry up if he came out.  That's not the case.  If he had come out, it would have given him a cachet he no longer had.  There would have been an interest -- renewed interest -- the same as what Richard Chamberlain experienced after coming out in 2003.

Earl didn't understand that times had changed.  He was confused about a lot of things.

Like?

The whole industry knew he was gay back when he working.  He posed as straight when we met -- the Lily Tomlin line -- until he got that I already knew and that it wasn't a problem to me.  When we met, there were still some men and women who would feel the need to pose as offended.  And I say pose because a number of them were gay men and lesbians in the closet.  In fact, there's a closet case just a little younger than Earl -- and still alive -- who always made it show of being upset when meeting someone gay.  He's even written laughable books -- as a 'straight' man -- about things like Noel Coward coming on to him but we'll save that for another obituary -- I mean, I don't want to be thrown off the ship into the ocean.

It never matters, for employment in the industry, if you're gay.

It did matter if the public knew you were gay.  Then the studio would be nervous.  

And that went on forever.  To a degree, it still does.  Anne Heche and Ellen were a couple.  That was known before Anne was hired for that film with Harrison Ford -- SIX DAYS AND SEVEN NIGHTS.  The pre-filming panic only ensued when they went public as a couple.  Then the studio panicked.  That was 1997.

So there was the employment issue.

He was also confused -- pretty much his entire career -- about what he was.

He was not a romantic lead actor.  He really was a supporting actor who sometimes was elevated higher.

THE RAINMAKER typifies who he was on stage -- a supporting actor and someone a little slower on the draw than the audience.  This was not leading man roles and that's because of certain characteristics he had -- none of which was from being gay, to be clear.  

But he -- and his team -- for decades thought he was just the one role away from being a leading man and that required more closeting.

That role was never going to come.  He didn't have the weight.  He was good at getting laughs and, if he could have been cast in comedies, he might have risen to leading man there.  Jim Carey is tremendously talented and can do drama but he loses his spark when he does drama.  When he does comedy, he is more at ease and we, as an audience, are more comfortable.  In POLICE WOMAN, he got to do comedy -- it was a drama, not a sitcom but his character got to banted with Angie and that was the highlight of any episode. 
 

He and his team -- his people -- spent way too many years -- wasted them -- on roles that never came because they were all wrong for him.  In the end, it's his moments of relatability that stand out in your mind.  Not some heavy drama scene, but that moment of just breathing and being.  That's a gift and people sometimes don't get that they have it or they don't appreciate what they have.

When you're not getting the roles you want, it's easy to pretend you're the victim of a whisper campaign and need to go deeper into the closet.  But he didn't get the roles that he wanted because that's not what he projected.  He spoke of Burt Reynolds -- who he was friends with -- and how he never got those roles.  No, he didn't.  Burt was a lech onscreen.  He was not kind, he was not good.  Earl projected a caring and decency.  He could play the Warren Beatty role in ISHTAR, for example.  Burt was the 'bad boy' to some -- to his fans -- but he never managed to go much beyond that because what he projected was someone who was going to use you for all the good times he could and then move on.

It can be hard for any of us to see who we actually are.  It can be even harder to see what others see in us.  He had an element that lifted the projects he was in.  But the element wasn't going to work in a dramatic role without any comedy.  Again, barring a comedy find of a role, he was a supporting actor.  

Acceptance of that would have made his life easier.

Anyway, I didn't mean to dictate that much on that into the snapshot but he was a nice man and he did achieve in his career and he will be missed by many including his husband.  Maybe to young Americans today, there's something in his life story that they can find.  


An angry e-mail to the public account (common_ills@yahoo.com) claims I haven't given Naomi Klein her due.  She has left Twitter for BLUESKY!!!!!  "Just like you're asking people too but you don't give her a single credit to that, do you!"

What do you say?

Learn to read.

 
The pinned Tweet on her Twitter -- no link to Twitter -- is:


I’ve stopped posting here for the time being.  Find me on Bluesky (http://naomiaklein.bsky.social) and Instagram/ Threads (naomiaklein). And my free newsletter, which is about to become more fun! Subscribe at http://news.naomiklein.org/newsletter



That's what she posted to Twitter.  


Coward couldn't leave Twitter.  


She's just left "for the time being."


What is that?

Is that like, in 1965, while concerned Americans are marching on Selma, you do a brisk walk through Duluth as part of your daily constitutional and want credit for being a member of the Civil Rights Movement?


Seriously, one is a Civil Rights action, the other is just a stroll.

So Namoi's smart enough -- after THE GUARDIAN, NPR, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gabrielle Union and so many more -- millions more -- to see that being on Twitter -- on a racist platform that preaches hate -- might be bad for her 'brand' or 'logo' so she scoots over to BLUESKY but our 'brave' 'activist' doesn't have the spine to just walk away from Twitter completely.

Naomi's not going to help us with the lunch counter sit-in but she will wave to us as the police escort us out and then will spend hours talking about her 'bravery' during the difficult situation.

Are you a racist, Naomi?  Then why aren't you off that platform?  You've got one toe in the freedom pool and the other in the Whites Only pool.  Why should we give you credit for a damn thing?


Grasp that there is vile and disgusting hate speech and photos all over Twitter -- little ha-has about Black people being enslaved again.  I'm not even going to do it.  I'm not going to list all the things wrong with Twitter for the left.

Naomi's too concerned about building up her follower count to do the right thing.

DO THE RIGHT THING!!! It's not just a great film by Spike Lee, it's something we should try to live up to.


The only good that came from the e-mailer was it made me wonder if racist Katrina vanden Heuvel was still on Twitter?



She is and it's oh so worse than I could have imagined.


Katrina vandenHeuvel reposted
memer
@memer_mem
·
Nov 25
Sally Field shares details of her illegal abortion.
‘We can’t go back,’ the actor said.
She was just 17yrs i forgive her
#sallyfield 
Rest of video THREAD 👇


You forgive her?  

Oh, well, thank heaven.  I normally wouldn't presume to speak for Sally but I do know her and I think her reply to you would be NSFW and that's because (a) she didn't ask for forgiveness (nor has she done anything to be forgiven for) and (b) she doesn't give a damn what some hateful homophobe thinks of her.


Homophobe?


"I forgive her" -- Katrina reposted that garbage.  

WTF?


She's unhinged over that fact that I've noted her racism for weeks here.  She's a part owner of THE NATION and she's a good liberal and she's . . . 

She's a racist.  And what upsets about that charge I've made is that her own actions back it up.  That's why she's suffering fall out.  All I did was point out the reality no one wanted to grapple with or address.

Now mutual friends and people I know at THE NATION report back over and over how she's enraged that people are calling her a racist.  Here's a quote from her friend that called me on Saturday, "She's losing her s**t over this."

She's clearly lost her mind.

What 'left' woman would publish a Tweet from a man saying he forgives a woman for having an abortion?

What woman would indulge an insufferable man?

Not a feminist.  But as Ava and I pointed out long ago, Katrina's no feminist ["The Nation featured 491 male bylines in 2007 -- how many female ones?"].


memer is trash.  And 'left' Katrina is reposting him and endorsing what he Tweeted and endorsing him.


Has she gone completely nuts?  Is it time to put her in a home?


Here are some of memer's other Tweets:



memer
@memer_mem
·
Nov 22
#Khalid comes out as gay after being outed by ex-lover
Khalid's parents tried their best but the devil won


Homophobe.  Raging homophobe.  And that's who Katrina vanden Heuvel reTweets?


memer
@memer_mem
·
Nov 20
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has been indicted in New York over a multi-billion-dollar fraud scheme, the Justice Department says.
We thank God Donald Trump will be in the driving seat. Justice will be serve because he did not make a deal with a demon Must Go.



That's Katrina's man.  She's reTweeting a homophobic Trump supporter. 

She should hang her head in shame.  She's a racist who is reposting anti-abortion Tweets from a Trump supporting homophobe.  

Get off the world stage, Katrina.  Or, in fact, don't.  Stay on that stage and prove to the world just how right I am about you.


BLUESKY is not a hate speech site.  It does not want to bring back slavery, it does not want to destroy the rights of women or LGBTQ+ people.  And that's why it's growing.
 



There's much to find on BLUESKY.

One of the great things about being off Twitter is how rarely I have to hear about Glenn Greenwald anymore

— Michael Clear (@michaelclear.bsky.social) Nov 25, 2024 at 4:49 AM

Can't believe how fast this site is growing. Sharing a thread of my writing, starting with this piece on my Substack about last year's Rage Against the War Machine Rally. It's some of the most fun I've ever had writing.

[image or embed]

— amanda moore 🐢 (@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social) Nov 17, 2024 at 8:59 PM

Good. It’s horrific how other platforms abused their reach to strangle local, independent, and national outlets alike. I WANT to see news and actual vetted work and I WANT journalists to get rewarded for it. Because I want to live in a thinking human world over some AI generated slop dystopia

[image or embed]

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) Nov 26, 2024 at 7:38 PM

Let's wind down with this from "Media: You apparently can't teach common sense to journalists (Ava and C.I.)" where Ava and I point out what a liar and idiot Glenn Greenwald actually is:


Common sense?

 

They have none which is how the meet-up happened.

 

But let's stay with the lack of common sense.


Alleged pedophile and sex trafficker Matt Gaetz had to abandon his nomination for Attorney General of the United States; however, please note this came only after the disgusting foursome of Matt Stoller, Lee Fang, Ryan Grim and Glenneth Greenwald championed and defended his nomination.

 

Glenneth, a transphobe who hates lesbians as a class, went so far as to insist Matt Gaetz had earned the right to be confirmed it on the issue of gay rights alone. He Tweeted, "He was also the key figure in having Florida repeal its ban on same-sex couples adopting (sorry, just facts)."

Glory Hole Glenn is always a liar.  That wasn't a fact that he served up, it was a lie.


Glenneth knows his aged fan base swallows any lie he tells and he's no longer important enough for most to bother fact checking.  He figured he'd get away with yet another lie.

"He was also the key figure in having Florida repeal its ban on same-sex couples adopting (sorry, just facts)."


What does that say to you?  That statement implies that Matt Gaetz ending the ban on gay and lesbian couples adopting.  


Lie. Lie.  Lie.


Where to begin?


How about the fact that the ban -- pushed by Anita Bryant -- was not on same-sex couples.  It was on any gay person.


What a stupid idiot.  

 

He's always hated lesbians and that's why he missed March of 2002 when Rosie O'Donnell came out as a lesbian.  Steve Rothaus (KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS) reported that month:

 

Rosie O'Donnell learned last year that Florida is the only state that flat-out won't allow gay people to adopt. That gays can become foster parents in the Sunshine State, but not permanent adoptive parents. 

The TV star and magazine editor -- who lives in Miami Beach with her partner and three children who were adopted in New York -- suddenly realized she would not be allowed to keep the 4-year-old foster daughter entrusted to her by the state of Florida.

"She will soon be adopted by friends of mine. I am not legally able to adopt this child, because I am gay," an outraged O'Donnell writes in the introduction to a book, Too High A Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting, to be published this week by the American Civil Liberties Union.

O'Donnell decided to out herself and join forces with the ACLU after reading about Steven Lofton and Roger Croteau, a Miami Beach couple fighting in court to adopt their three foster sons. On Aug. 30, 2001, a federal judge in Miami upheld a 1977 Florida law that prohibits gays and lesbians from adopting.

 


At that same time, only one other state prohibited gay adoptions -- and that was Mississippi -- but, pay attention Glory Glenn -- it prohibited couples adopting -- gay couples -- it did not, like Florida did -- prohibit gay couples and an individual gay man or lesbian from adoption.


"He was also the key figure in having Florida repeal its ban on same-sex couples adopting (sorry, just facts)."


So Glenn the lousy lawyer was wrong -- he was wrong when he said the ban was on same-sex couples.  No, you damn fool, you damn liar, the ban was on gay couples and on a single gay man adopting and on a single lesbian adopting.  If you're too lazy to read the original law, you could refer to 2004's LOFTON V SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN & FAMILY SERVICES which argued that there was a difference between a single straight person adopting a child and a single gay person.  

Glenn's a liar and a loser.


"B-b-b-but, Ava and C.I., he was right about Matt Gatez being key to the ban being repealed!!!!"


No.  He was lying there as well.  There are two more lies to cover.  One is that Matt was key to the ban being repealed.  He's referring to Matt adding an amendment to a bill in 2015.  Now, more reality, though Matt has a 'son' who he 'adopted' that many in Florida have thought was his lover, Matt's no friends of LGBTQs and never was.  The legislators who served with Matt that we spoke to noted that Matt didn't want the bill to pass -- the one he added the amendment to.  He added it, we were told, at the last minute hoping to kill the bill and it almost did kill the bill in Florida's senate (Matt was in the lower chamber).  It wasn't seen as a bill that was going to pass -- especially not as the senate received it three weeks before the end of their session..  


So there's that lie.


But here's the big lie, Rosie and the ACLU brought the issue to attention in 2002.  Matt acted in 2015.  Guess what happened between those two events?


In 2010, the courts found the 1977 law to be unconstitutional and it was no longer enforceable (IN RE: GILL).


Oops!


Bitch slapped across his lying face.


You need to stop believing that Glenn tells the truth and you especially need to grasp that he never knows the law. 


Common sense should have told you decades ago that Glenneth doesn't know the law but he sure knows how to lie.


Common sense is your friend.  Learn to trust it.


There will be a post by me tomorrow.  It'll depend on when I can break away from cooking.  But we do post on Thanksgiving.  It may be late in the morning or early in the afternoon.  Friday?  I'll do something but it might not be up at the usual time on Friday.  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "It's A Choice!" went up yesterday.   The following sites updated:








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