Saturday Open Thread

Posted on June 1, 2013 by rikyrah

Good Morning. Enjoy the weekend with family and friends.

This entry was posted in Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

36 Responses to Saturday Open Thread

  1. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 11:38 pm

    Just finished watching Hyde Park on Hudson

    I gotta say…

    FDR was a playa.

    Man had a sidepiece for damn near everyday of the week.

    Reply
  3. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 6:56 pm

    Kerry Washington: The queen of repping black girls
    Opinion
    by Demetria L. Lucas | May 31, 2013 at 4:51 PM

    I was thinking about Scandal, because my brain is now programmed to anticipate Thursday nights. Officially, I am going through Scandal withdrawal. It’s bad enough when ABC randomly delays a new episode for three weeks, but now I have to go months and I’m not feeling this.

    I have what Jay –Z once called “Carrie-fever,” an apt description of the way that women went gaga for HBO’s Sex and the City. My illness has re-surfaced as a stronger strain: “Kerry-fever.” And luckily, it’s contagious.

    ………………………………………..

    In May, Kerry graced the cover of Elle magazine. That win was quickly followed by her second Hollywood Reporter cover, on which she appears front and center, and literally a step (or two) above the all-white group of actresses. I can’t think of a better actress to sit, or er, stand in that position right now.

    I say that not just because Kerry is a great actress — I call her by her first name, not out of disrespect, but because she’s “the homie” in my head — but because she’s an actress doing what she’s supposed to do when she gets a global platform and people are hanging on her every word: she reps black girls right.

    ……………………………………………

    When A-list actress Zoe Saldana gets in front of a microphone, she gets it wrong. In her recent Allure cover story, she’s huffy and defensive about the outcry over her playing Nina Simone in the upcoming biopic, declaring her black pride, then bafflingly dismissing being black as “arbitrary,” seemingly a way to downplay her ethnicity. It’s as though she doesn’t even realize her attitude is part of the outcry.

    ………………..

    However, Kerry doesn’t budge on who and what she is or who she represents. In the Hollywood Reporter round-table, Washington and the other actresses discussed how hard it can be for women to land decent roles in Hollywood and the way looks play into it.

    Washington addressed the issue of race head on, saying, “It’s a little bit different for me because I’ll audition for something and they’ll just decide that they’re not going ‘ethnic’ with a character, which I hear a lot… Whereas you could maybe lose some weight, there’s not really anything I can do, nor would I want to, about being black.”

    http://thegrio.com/2013/05/31/kerry-washington-the-queen-of-repping-black-girls/#s:kerry-washington-2-5

    Reply
  4. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    PBS Sets Downton Abbey Season 4 Premiere Date
    Sadie Gennis
    May 14, 2013 02:09 PM ET
    by Sadie Gennis

    Downton Abbey will return to PBS on Sunday, Jan. 5, the network announced Tuesday. The period drama will run for eight straight weeks, with Season 4 concluding on Feb. 23.

    “Masterpiece fans will not be disappointed: Julian [Fellowes] has done another brilliant job, this time, portraying the Downton family moving on from the tragedies of last season,” Masterpiece Classic executive producer Rebecca Eaton told The Daily Beast.

    The tragedies Eaton referenced include the deaths of both Downton’s heir Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) and the family’s youngest daughter Sybil (Jessica Brown-Findlay). Siobhan Finneran, who played the scheming maid O’Brien, will also not return for Season 4.

    The series is making up for these losses by adding a slew of new cast members, including Tom Cullen as a new love interest for Mary (Michelle Dockery); Dame Harriet Walter as Lady Shackleton, an old friend of the Dowager Countess; Nigel Harman as a visiting valet Green; Julian Ovenden as aristocrat Charles Blake; Joanna David as the Duchess of Yeovil; and Gary Carr as Downton’s first black character, a young jazz singer. Shirley MacLaine will also reprise her role as Martha Levinson, Lady Crawley’s fiercely American mother.

    Are you excited for more Downton?

    http://www.tvguide.com/News/Downton-Abbey-Season4-Premiere-1065639.aspx?obref=obinsite

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      June 1, 2013 at 5:02 pm

      Ah HELL; Not O’Brien too! But yes, I’m excited for more Downton. I’m playing reruns of the first 3 seasons this summer and fall to keep it going, until Jan 2014.

      Reply
  5. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 4:34 pm

    ED’s putting a hurtin’ on Michele Bachmann this evening.

    Reply
  6. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 3:54 pm

    All in the Family’ star Jean Stapleton dies at 90

    By Claudia Luther

    June 1, 2013, 12:56 p.m.

    Jean Stapleton, who played Archie Bunker’s long-suffering wife Edith in the long-running 1970s television series “All in the Family,” died Friday at her New York City home. She was 90.

    Stapleton died of natural causes, her family announced Saturday.

    She had been a veteran of stage, film and television when she was cast in the CBS sitcom opposite Carroll O’Connor’s loud-mouthed, bigoted Archie Bunker, who often addressed her as “dingbat.” She won three Emmys for the role.

    The benign, compassionate presence she developed made my egregious churl bearable,” O’Connor wrote of Stapleton in his 1998 autobiography. He died in 2001.

    Born in New York City on Jan. 19, 1923, Stapleton was the daughter of a billboard advertising salesman and an opera singer.

    In 1949, she got a break when she was cast in the national touring company of “Harvey.” Many characters later in summer stock, regional and off-Broadway plays, Stapleton starred as a wisecracking waitress in 1953 Broadway production of “In the Summer House.”

    Stapleton went on to a feature role as Sister in “Damn Yankees,” singing the hit tune “You’ve Gotta Have Heart,” and reprised the role in the 1958 film. She also appeared in both the stage and film versions of “The Bells Are Ringing” as Sue, the proprietor of Susanswerphone Service. And she originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in “Funny Girl,” which made a Broadway star of Barbra Streisand.

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-jean-stapleton-dies-at-90-20130601,0,2810680.story

    Reply
  7. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 2:44 pm

    Watching old episode of “Newhart” Here’s a classic scene:

    Reply
  8. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 2:29 pm

    I’m gonna go down Sanford and Son memory lane..

    outside of the Lena Horne Episode..

    My favorite Sanford and Son of all time is when Lamont gets in deep with card sharks and Fred turns the tables on them and wipes them out.

    http://youtu.be/_4NcNzfo3aQ

    Reply
  9. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 10:31 am

    Trayvon Martin family to speak at Miami peace gathering
    May 31, 2013|By Desiree Stennett, Orlando Sentinel

    With George Zimmerman’s second-degree murder trial just days away, the family of slain teenager Trayvon Martin will speak at a peace and prayer meeting in Miami Saturday afternoon.

    Trayvon’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, will speak at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Bethel Apostolic Temple at 1855 NW 119 Street in Miami.

    http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-05-31/news/os-trayvon-martin-peace-miami-20130531_1_trayvon-martin-sybrina-fulton-george-zimmerman

    Reply
  10. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 10:30 am

    Seven adults and two children were killed in Friday’s storms in Oklahoma, a spokeswoman for the state’s chief medical examiner’s office said Saturday morning.

    In all, 17 tornadoes were reported in the Midwest.

    More than 210,000 customers were without power Saturday — 89,000 in Missouri, 86,000 in Oklahoma, 31,000 in Illinois, 3,000 in Arkansas, 1,000 in Kansas and 500 in Indiana.

    Reply
  11. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 10:20 am

    Congratulations, Senator Al Franken & Franni Franken, NEW GRANDPARENTS!

    Meet Joseph Bryson Greenwald, all 6lbs, 11oz. of him.

    cece2c3184f34713ca_rim6b9foj

    Reply
  13. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 9:53 am

    The ‘smoking gun’ fires blanks
    By Steve Benen
    –
    Fri May 31, 2013 11:39 AM EDT

    Given the excitement on the right this morning, you’d like they’d found a video of President Obama personally shredding Tea Party groups’ tax-exempt applications in the Oval Office. What’s all the fuss about? The Daily Caller — which really didn’t need another bogus story dragging down its reputation even further — ran a report this morning, echoing a report from Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly last night, that said former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House 157 times between 2009 and 2012.

    This, O’Reilly said, may very well be the “smoking gun” Republicans have been hoping for.

    As part of its commitment to transparency, the administration makes public a list of everyone who visits the White House. But as The Atlantic’s Garance Franke-Ruta explained this morning, the right’s attempt to use these records to advance the IRS story has failed miserably.

    Shulman was cleared primarily to meet with administration staffers involved in implementation of the health-care reform bill. He was cleared 40 times to meet with Obama’s director of the Office of Health Reform, and a further 80 times for the biweekly health reform deputies meetings and others set up by aides involved with the health-care law implementation efforts. That’s 76 percent of his planned White House visits just there, before you even add in all the meetings with Office of Management and Budget personnel also involved in health reform.

    Complicating the picture is the fact that just because a meeting was scheduled and Shulman was cleared to attend it does not mean that he actually went. Routine events like the biweekly health-care deputies meeting would have had a standing list of people cleared to attend, people whose White House appointments would have been logged and forwarded to the check-in gate. But there is no time of arrival information in the records to confirm that Shulman actually signed in and went to these standing meetings.

    So, Shulman, the Bush-appointed head of the IRS, was cleared to attend 157 gatherings at the White House. How many did he actually attend? Eleven. The former IRS commissioner attended 11 events at the White House over the course of three years. Why is that interesting? It’s not.

    To borrow a phrase, this isn’t a smoking gun; it isn’t even a lukewarm slingshot.

    http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/31/18656873-the-smoking-gun-fires-blanks?lite

    Reply
  16. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 9:47 am

    Published on Jun 1, 2013

    In this week’s address, President Obama says that the economy is moving in the right direction, but there is still more work to do.

    http://youtu.be/_zq8ilzRFFE

    Reply
  17. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 9:38 am

    Joy Reid on the MHP Show , and she just said the most genius thing Wall Street did was companies stripping away our pensions and replacing with 401Ks. Pensions that our parents had, where they KNEW they could retire comfortably.

    Who else could ARTICULATE that scheming fuckery as succinctly as Ms. Reid? WHO?

    Reply
  19. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2013 at 9:22 am

    Suspension scaled back for boy, 5, who took cowboy-style cap gun on school bus
    By Donna St. George,

    Published: School officials in Calvert County ruled Friday that a kindergarten boy suspended for taking his cowboy-style cap gun onto a school bus may return to school Monday, according to the child’s family and a lawyer.

    The decision, made at a Friday disciplinary conference, cuts the boy’s 10-day suspension back to the three days he has already served. The family’s request to clear the incident from the boy’s school records must be considered separately, those involved said.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/suspension-scaled-back-for-boy-5-who-brought-cowboy-style-cap-gun-on-school-bus/2013/05/31/5fdab2d6-ca24-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 9:16 am

    found this over at Field Negro in his post about the Cheerios Commercial:

    never thought that I would think of a breakfast cereal maker as being courageous. But here I am pouring high praise on the makers of Cheerios for their commercial featuring an interracial family with a…gasp, black man as the head of the household.

    Madison Avenue always gives me the one black friend, the one who is always smiling with the group. I have even seen Gay couples and other interracial couples before, but I have never seen the black and white couple with the male being black.

    Still, this is America, and given the nature of some of our fellow countrymen we know that the “post-racial” buzz was just an illusion.

    The reality is quite different, and Cheerios had to disable the comments under the You Tube video because of all the vile racist comments that were being left.

    And, speaking of comments, I found the following one under the New York Daily News article on the subject quite interesting.

    “I just posted a comment on another story of a white woman having various sex acts with a dog and recording these acts on her phone. I was lamenting the fact that it was the fourth story within the last nine or so months where animals were so savagely assaulted and the responses to such atrocities by the public were largely tepid.

    I turned to this story about the cheerios ad which features a fictional mixed race family and all hell has broken loose. well,well, well… Those of you who like to claim that racism is over or non-existent, here is your empirical answer. The racist savages in this country are so sick and twisted that they believe that it is okay if a white person rapes a dog. But showing a fictional interracial family with a black man as the head — it’s heresy. That is why any time a black person alleges an act of racism against them I almost always believe. Because racism , even though it is dying, is still very much alive and still is a potent force in this country. There is an unnatural fear of the Black man. Whatever stereotypes that the racists have in their minds about black masculinity, it stimulates this dread that the black man and the white would get together and that would leave the white man out. This is not likely to happen; but fear is not a rational thing. In societies where races freely mix only a certain percentage of each race would mix. Most races and cultures would stay within.

    The problem with racism is that the leaders of this country from the very outset embarked on demonizing and dehumanizing the black man. Not only was he enslaved, but the white power structure, spent many millions of dollars and hundreds of years to create a false and negative image of the Black man. The power structure also expended resources to make sure that blacks were poor and powerless and thus without the wherewithal to pull themselves up from the valley of oppression. Whites upon seeing the condition of blacks and hearing from the white power structure that they were superior to blacks , believed it. Because humans love praise. People enjoy hearing that they are better than others. That is why, even today, if a racist hears any spectacular story of black success they would either try to deny it or downplay it. It is not easy hearing all your life that you are something special then wake up one day to the reality that you are not. You would fight violently against that. For example if someone were to come up with proof that God does not exist, most believers would fight violently against that truth. They may even try to kill the messenger. Long held beliefs, whether right or wrong, are not easily discarded. They have been unquestioningly held for too long.

    So what we are seeing is the racist violently spinning out of control because he is beholding a new world which he does not understand. He does not understand it because he believes he is losing control of it. He longs for the time when he could just go out there and kill a non-white person with impunity. He misses the days when he could rape a non-white woman and nobody would care. The racist long for the days when nobody would take the word of a non-white person over his — no matter his reputation. He had absolute power then. But they say absolute power corrupts absolutely. The white racist is absolutely corrupt. And he is fighting to keep it that way.”

    http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2013/05/bullseye-on-their-backs-and-bold-move.html#.UaoAtZwnUSk

    Reply
  21. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2013 at 9:08 am

    Good Morning, Everyone at 3CHICS!

    Reply
  22. vitaminlover says:
    June 1, 2013 at 7:43 am

    I just dearly love my First Family!

    Reply

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