March 24, 2011 · 10:56 pm

Zsa Zsa Gabor Says ‘I’m Next’

Poor Zsa, Zsa….

It’s all about her….

Upon learning that her dear friend Elizabeth Taylor has passed away on Wednesday morning, Zsa Zsa Gabor became so upset that she was rushed back to the hospital in Los Angeles, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.

Zsa Zsa’s husband Frederic Prinz von Anhalt told RadarOnline.com that his wife was watching television when the story broke of Taylor’s death.

Taylor and Gabor, 94, had been friends for decades and she “went hysterical” after she was told of her passing.

“Zsa Zsa said celebrities go in threes and I’m next,” her husband said she exclaimed.

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor passed away after spending six weeks in the hospital for congestive heart failure. She was 79. Hollywood icon Jane Russell died in February, she was 89.

Frederic said Zsa Zsa’s blood pressure “went through the roof,” so he called an ambulance and she was rushed back to the UCLA Medical Center.

via EXCLUSIVE: Zsa Zsa Gabor Says ‘I’m Next’ After Learning Of Elizabeth Taylor’s Death, Rushed To Hospital | Radar Online.

Leave a comment

Filed under Broadway, Gay, Media, Movies

Tagged as , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 10:07 pm

Tom Ford | On Being a Gentleman

I love Tom Ford…

Mainly because we think so much alike about style and manners…

I just wish I could afford his Italian Cypress cologne…

Tom Ford – fashion powerhouse, film mogul and old school romantic – is the cover star of the spring/summer 2011 issue of Another Man. Alongside web exclusive images from Jeff Burton’s shoot, AnOther presents Tom Ford’s five easy lessons in how to be a modern gentleman, taken from Jefferson Hack’s intimate conversation which appears in full in the issue.

1. You should put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world because that is a show of respect to the other people around you.

2. A gentleman today has to work. People who do not work are so boring and are usually bored. You have to be passionate, you have to be engaged and you have to be contributing to the world.

3. Manners are very important and actually knowing when things are appropriate. I always open doors for women, I carry their coat, I make sure that they’re walking on the inside of the street. Stand up when people arrive at and leave the dinner table.

4. Don’t be pretentious or racist or sexist or judge people by their background.

5. A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.

via Tom Ford | AnOther.

1 Comment

Filed under Entertainment, Movies, Style

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 9:30 pm

CNN Tops Cable Ratings Amid World News Bounty – NYTimes.com

Great news about both the rise in ratings at CNN and their returned focus to hard news.  As a former news junkie, there just isn’t anything for me on TV anymore…

I like MSNBC, but they have to be the worst managed Network out there.  As their ratings started to improve, they let Keith get away.  And they basically ceded the weekends by putting that prison crap on all Saturday and Sunday.

They don’t seem to realize the Fox viewers just keep Fox on all the time.  I used to do that with CNN before it became so insipid.  MSNBC will never build that kind of loyalty when they aren’t even willing to program news all week….

Maybe CNN will come back to what it once was.  It would be nice to have at least one TV channel I could watch without wanting to throw things at the TV…

But that still won’t cure the issue with both the number of commercials and their vulgarity that appear on TV…but that’s another post….

CNN has been the big ratings gainer among the cable news networks during the extensive coverage of events in Japan and Libya in the last two weeks, and that success has come mostly at the expense of MSNBC, which has fallen into third place almost across the board because of CNN’s surge.

The disparity has been most noticeable during the last two weekends, when CNN has attracted huge audiences with continuing coverage of the international crises, beating even Fox News, the perennial leader among the news channels. Meanwhile MSNBC, sticking to a weekend lineup of recorded programs largely about problems in prisons, attracted only about a third as many viewers as CNN.

In prime time Saturday, CNN averaged 678,000 viewers among the audience most desired by news advertisers, ages 25 to 54. MSNBC averaged 254,000, while Fox News drew 353,000. On Sunday, CNN averaged 442,000 viewers; MSNBC, 298,000; and Fox News, 344,000.

Now CNN’s advantage has begun to carry over into weeknights. For more than two years, MSNBC has consistently beaten CNN in prime time on weeknights. But for March, CNN has moved ahead from 8 to 11 p.m., beating MSNBC in every hour among the 25-to-54 audience.

If the message seems to be that CNN cannot be matched in covering breaking international news, even MSNBC’s top executive is not disputing it.

“This is where CNN excels,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC. “This is in their bull’s-eye, and they’ve done a great job. Even Fox News, which dominates them, gets beat by CNN at times like this.”

He called MSNBC’s weekend reliance on “Lockup,” its recorded documentary-style program about prisons, a “tricky situation.” He said, “This is our strategy for weekends, and it has worked well for us.” Its audience now “has an expectation” of seeing such programs on Saturday and Sunday nights, he said.

via CNN Tops Cable Ratings Amid World News Bounty – NYTimes.com.

1 Comment

Filed under Journalism, Media, Television

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 8:35 pm

Race and the 2012 election – Ezra Klein – The Washington Post

Glad to see the re-elect numbers so high…

And the race issue with White People doesn’t surprise me.  The whole Tea Party thing is really just a cover for racism.

There are a lot of White People who just can’t deal with the fact that we have a Black/African American President.  And they have a lot of trouble admitting it-even to themselves.

The good news is that we are well on our way to being a multi-racial society and in less than 50 years, White People will be a minority.  Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic group.  That’s something else that scares them…

Demographics and trends continue to support a growing Democratic Party and a dying Republican Party in the long run…

If we can just survive the short run without the GOP destroying everything…

Dave Weigel notes that Barack Obama’s poll numbers are higher than George W. Bush’s or Bill Clinton’s were at this point in the political cycle. You can come up with a lot of reasons for that, but the big one seems to be “ninety-two percent of black voters want to re-elect Obama, as do 66 percent of Hispanics. Only one percent of blacks (!) and 16 percent of Hispanics want to vote against Obama. That’s the source of the positive re-elect number — break it down to white voters, and only 36 percent of them want to re-elect him.”

In “Obama’s Race,” Michael Tesler and David Sears mount a strong case: Far from ushering in a “post-racial period” in American politics, Obama’s election “was more polarized by racial attitudes than any other presidential election on record and, perhaps more significantly, that there were two sides to this racialization: resentful opposition to to and racially liberal support for Obama.”

Another way to say this is that far from marking the end of us-vs.-them elections associated with Richard Nixon’s infamous Southern strategy, the 2008 election was arguably the beginning of its inverse: an electoral campaign where race, because of the skin color of the Democratic nominee, was a central issue, but this time, the “racially progressive” coalition proved larger than the racially conservative coalition. Call it the Northern strategy.

What’s interesting, though, is that the racial polarization has continued into Obama’s presidency.

via Race and the 2012 election – Ezra Klein – The Washington Post.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, Politics, Polls, Tea Party

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 8:09 pm

Big Ag Wants To Make It a Crime to Expose Animal Abuse at Factory Farms | | AlterNet

This is almost unbelievable…

But not much is really unbelievable when Big Business controls the government…

And one thing politicians and corporate executives both fear is being exposed on the internet by regular people with cell phone cameras, etc…

Their best defense is to operate in secrecy.  They’ll do anything they can to keep out of the limelight-except when the Corporate owned politicians are  running their their talking points in front of patriotic backgrounds trying to get re-elected.

Reagan proved “image is everything” and they are still trying to get by with style- and media control- over substance and a free press.

The last thing they want is an empowered electorate or average people having the tools to blow their image….

In Florida, the Humane Society of the United States and other groups pushed for the adoption of the first statewide law in the country to restrict the extreme confinement of animals on factory farms. In 2002, voters there passed Amendment 10, to phase out the caging of breeding sows in gestation crates. In Iowa, HSUS and other animal welfare groups have conducted a series of undercover investigations (see the video) to expose cruelty in the nation’s biggest factory farming state.

Now, these two states have something else in common. They are trying to make it a crime to photograph or videotape farm animals. They don’t want to criminalize animal cruelty, but they do want to make criminals of people trying to document abuse and to put an end to the cruelty. Lawmakers have introduced bills in both states to establish criminal penalties for going undercover at agricultural facilities and simply taking pictures.

Mind you, if this legislation is enacted, it won’t just be a setback for animal welfare. Shabby, squalid, overcrowded conditions for animals on factory farms are also a food-safety threat for Americans, with millions of Americans sickened every year by contaminated food. It was, of course, an Iowa egg factory farm that was forced to recall half a billion eggs last year because of a Salmonella outbreak, creating one of the biggest food product recalls in American history.

With a potentially dramatic pare-back of funding for federal inspections of animal-agriculture operations looming, at production and slaughter facilities, these new proposed policies to bar the exposure of unhealthy and unsafe practices could not come at a more inopportune time. The industry has long argued for self-regulation, and with government inspection programs stretched so thin, they now want no meddling animal advocacy groups looking either.

via Big Ag Wants To Make It a Crime to Expose Animal Abuse at Factory Farms | | AlterNet.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, Pets, Politics

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 8:02 pm

Congress Making Themselves and Friends Richer, While Everyone Else Struggles to Make Ends Meet | | AlterNet

This is a glaring truth that too many people still are ignoring…

The sad thing is, campaigns are so expensive now you almost have to be a millionaire to run for office.

And this crowd currently in DC is not about to change campaign finance laws to correct the situation…

While the great majority of workaday Americans are struggling to make it on about $30,000 a year — and having, at best, puny pensions and iffy health coverage — these incoming lawmakers tend to be sitting pretty on hundreds of thousands of dollars each in accumulated wealth. Their financial reports show them holding extensive personal investments in such outfits as Wall Street banks, oil giants and drug makers.

Their wealth and financial ties might help explain the rush by the new Republican House majority to coddle these very same corporate powers. From gutting EPA’s anti-pollution restrictions on Big Oil to undoing the restraints on Wall Street greed, they’re pushing for a return to the same laissez-fairyland ideology of the past 20 years that got our country in massive messes.

At the same time, they’re out to kill a green-jobs program, bust unions, cut Social Security, defund Head Start and generally stomp on the fingers of working families trying to hold onto the middle class rungs of the economic ladder.

The change in Congress is taking America backward, not forward, for the new majority literally is the voice of millionaires. That’s not progress.

via Congress Making Themselves and Friends Richer, While Everyone Else Struggles to Make Ends Meet | | AlterNet.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, Politics, Tea Party, The Economy

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 8:02 am

Warren Buffet: There is Class Warfare and the Rich Are Winning – MarketWatch

Per my previous column about the Rich being different…

Buffet is Wealthy, one of the good guys, not one of the Evil Rich…

Yes, “there’s class warfare, all right,” warns Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Yes, the rich are making war against us. And yes, they are winning. Why? Because so many are fighting this new American Civil War between the rich and the rest.

Not just the 16 new GOP governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and across America fighting for new powers. Others include: Chamber of Commerce billionaires, Koch brothers, Forbes 400, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform — which now has 97% of House Republicans and 85% of the GOP Senators signed on his “no new taxes” pledge — the Tea Party and Reaganomics ideologues.

Buffett: Deals wanted

Warren Buffett said he is ready to make more acquisitions in Korea, the U.S. or the UK, and he said “the bigger the better”. Shira Ovide talks with Kelsey Hubbard about Berkshire Hathaway’s next move, plus Buffet’s positive outlook on Japan.

Wake up America. You are under attack. Stop kidding yourself. We are at war. In fact, we have been fighting this Civil War for a generation, since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981. Recently Buffett renewed the battle cry: The “rich class” is winning this war. Except most Americans still don’t realize they’re losing, don’t see the prize at stake.

via New Civil War erupts, led by super rich, GOP Paul B. Farrell – MarketWatch.

Leave a comment

Filed under Elections, Politics, The Economy

Tagged as , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 8:01 am

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: How to Handle a Woman

I found this lovely video on YouTube and wanted to share it…

Wonderful pictures of the all-time great celebrity couple.

Song is from “Camelot” and sung by Richard Burton.

Leave a comment

Filed under Broadway, Entertainment, Movies

Tagged as , , , ,

March 24, 2011 · 7:59 am

Fran Lebowitz: Public Speaking

Fran Lebowitz is one of my literary and cultural idols.  I’ve loved her since I discovered Metropolitan Life in College.

If you missed this great documentary about her by Martin Scorsese when it ran on HBO, it’s coming out on DVD in May.

I’ve already pre-ordered my copy for my archives…

Leave a comment

Filed under Books, Entertainment, Movies, New York, Social Justice, Television

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

March 23, 2011 · 9:57 pm

Elizabeth Taylor: A Film Tribute to The Last Star

Elizabeth Taylor has left the stage…

We will never see her like again…

A great Actress and a great humanitarian who lived life to the fullest…

She was one of the greatest Stars ever to come out of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Her life both on and off the screen was the stuff of legend…

She spoke out for and fought for People With AIDS when everyone else was afraid of the social stigma.  Then she raised over $350 Million for AIDS Research.

She will never be forgotten.  They don’t make’em like her anymore…

She was one hell of a Dame….

“A Place in the Sun” proved she could be a serious actress.  And she appeared in it with her great friend Montgomery Clift, perhaps the only person as beautiful as she was:

She was my favorite Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”:

“Giant”, with her great friend Rock Hudson and James Dean was to become legendary:

With “Cleopatra”, she became the first actor or actress to be paid $1Million for a film.  She met Richard Burton on the set and fireworks erupted as the two married stars began an affair. It was the scandal of the 20th Century, well after the previous scandal when she stole Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds.

But she became ill and almost died, so all was forgiven. She won her first Oscar for “Butterfield 8” after her recovery and while shooting Cleopatra.  The “Cleopatra” drama almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

With “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”, she and Burton gave incredible performances and she won her second Oscar.  Their offscreen dramas only added to the legend:

Perhaps her greatest role came later in her life.  AIDS activism.  She spoke out for people with AIDS when everyone else was afraid to do so.  She raised millions of dollars for AIDS research.

Here is a great interview from that era with Larry King:

2 Comments

Filed under Movies

Tagged as , ,