Monday, March 27, 2017

GREASE and more

GREASE 2 -- already made.

And not a bad film.

I especially like when Michelle Pfeiffer sings "Cool Rider."

But now there's this news:

Grease stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John will return as Danny and Sandy to mark the film’s 40th anniversary next year.
Olivia, 68, confirmed the pair are discussing ideas for the reunion – though she did not say what format it would take or how many appearances there would be.
Speaking before collecting the Icon Award at the Fame Awards at Hard Rock Live in Las Vegas, she said: “We are thinking up ways. Nothing to announce yet."


However they do it, it will be of interest to many.

GREASE is a classic film and John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were the stars of one of the biggest musicals of all time.

(Stockard Channing nearly walks off with the film as Rizzo, though.)

Who knows what they'll do.

On the topic of gossip . . .

I like Catherine Zeta-Jones.  I like Michael Douglas.

But I can't stand Kirk Douglas.

Never will be able to.

Zeta-Jones is offering her father-in-law's thoughts on Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Olivia de Havilland.


Why should we care?

In the African-American community, the talk has always been that Kirk Douglas raped Dorothy Dandridge.

In the larger culture, the rumors have always been that he raped Natalie Wood.



Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 
Monday, March, 27, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue as does the illegal war.


Judith Miller didn't work for NPR so they had to depend upon Tom Bowman.





Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for news consumers), they still can.

"Well, Rachel, here's what the Pentagon says happened," Tom offers.

He's always good about that.

And always good about repeating what "officials I talked with" tell him.

Unnamed officials never lie, right?

It's interesting, isn't it, the way he rushes to grab an eraser and try to wipe away the murders.

Murders.

"Concentrated city and there is the risk of all these casualties," stammers and stumbles Rachel Martin, still not up to co-hosting MORNING EDITION.

Naturally, neither Rachel nor Tom ponder the bombing of civilian areas to 'liberate' them.

Naturally, neither point out that the the people of Mosul were told, before The Mosul Slog began -- 161 days ago -- not to leave Mosul.

Repeat that: They were told not to leave Mosul.


ISIS didn't tell them that.  Nor did so-called Rachel Martin.

The Iraqi government told them that.

The Iraqi government told them to stay.

The media did a lousy job then and does a lousy job now.

Tiny child Zaid Jilani pretends he's covering what happened among the press under Bully Boy Bush.  He's not.

He's repeating popular stories and has nothing to share but that which is already widely discussed.

He avoids TV, for example.  That would require doing some work.

More people watched THE TODAY SHOW than read THE NEW YORK TIMES or caught MEET THE PRESS.  But the tiny child is completely unaware of what went on with TODAY.

We're not.  We've told TODAY tales all along.

Let's drop back to June 24, 2013 for one of my favorites:

The question of who's a journalist may be up to a debate.

I agree.  For example, I wouldn't have spent a very long time on the phone January 12, 2004 if a journalist had been doing the 'White House beat' on NBC's Today.  But a journalist wasn't, David Gregory was.  It was the day before Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill.  And what did we learn that day from David Gregory?

What he hoped we would learn was that O'Neill was a thief who'd stolen government documents.  And we would be outraged.

But no documents were stolen.  And what we learned was that David Gregory will report on a book without even reading it's opening pages -- its there that its revealed that O'Neill requested and received from the White House his memos and writings on discs and that's what reproduced in the book.  And we learned that David Gregory wasn't really a journalist.  He was a dummy.  A ventriloquist's dummy.  He moved his lips and said what the White House wanted him to say.  As America saw yesterday, that's still what David Gregory does and he's well paid for it.  January 14, 2004, Today cleaned up David's mess by noting that O'Neill was given copies of the documents in the book -- given copies by the White House.  David always thinks that story will be forgotten.  Not while I'm around.  (I had an advanced copy that I'd already read of Suskind's book and my mouth dropped watching Gregory lie.  I was on the phone talking to everyone I knew at Today about how outrageous David's false charges were.)



Watching David Gregory's career implode was watching justice happen.


Sadly, there's not a lot of justice in the world.

There are a lot of children pretending they are media critics who spend all their time protecting their friends and worse.


tell me this people are terrorist. Who's terrorizing this young boy now? Oh look he's very calm. This is not a movie, this is Iraq.




That's what happened.

Terrorism.


And Tom Bowman remains on NPR because he tidies up and repackages reality into the absurd to ensure that the American people are misled and misinformed.



Over three days, 112 civilian bodies pulled from site of coalition airstrike in Mosul, Iraqi health official says



This is not liberation.

This is not freedom.

These are not deaths caused by ISIS.


What we're doing to today is what we did to Fallujah in 2004, on a far more massive scale. Another day of US-led genocide in .



These deaths have been taking place for over two years now.


And some 'tender hearts' want to be shocked that something like this could happen.


It's happened all along.


UN warns of 'great risk' to civilians as battle for Fallujah looms




 Maybe Americans can now emerge from their 'sleep cure' and face reality -- the reality the Iraqi people have had to live with for the last eight years?

Yes, the media misled.

But after 8 years, you damn well have to take part of the blame for your own refusal to face reality.

"'Improved' Iraq: Civilians killed in air strikes,..." -- that's from November of 2014.

We've been covering this.

It's a shame so many chose to bury their heads in the sand.


Especially since Luis Martinez (ABC NEWS) is reporting this morning, "The U.S. military is sending an additional two companies of soldiers to Iraq to help Iraqi troops fighting to retake Mosul from ISIS, defense officials confirmed to ABC News. Two companies of soldiers is equal to between 200 to 300 soldiers."






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