#and how scandalous colin's actions are based on that

[ohtendril]

colin & pen + text posts

[dusty-daydreams]

I think Bridgerton ruined itself when it stopped giving scandals their proper weight.

In the scene between Colin and Cressida in the final episode of season three Colin seems pretty convinced that Cressida just needs to spend the off season or perhaps a year or two being quiet in the countryside and then people will forgive her and let her back into society.

This feels ludicrous- because that’s not how societies based on reputation work.

However, for all that Bridgerton claims to be about the dynamics of reputation, it shies away from consequences.

This is perhaps most clearly seen in Eloise’s story. At the end of season 2, Eloise is ruined - outed as convorting with not only men unchaperoned but working class political radicals. Her name, and to a large extent her family’s name should be mud. Should be poison.

Then in the first episode of season 3 Eloise is out and about at society events with no comment on it at all.

If the show actually did what it claimed too - be telling a romance story in a setting where scandals can make or break you, Eloise would not be welcome back in society.

Another example of Bridgerton failing the follow through with the scandals is how they decided to partially write Anthony and Kate out of the show.

The writers were confronted with a problem - Johnathan Bailey has outgrown this show - so how do we write him out?

They decided first to send him and his wife on an illogical second honeymoon and then they decide that Anthony ‘overprotective’ Bridgerton would be fine taking his pregnant wife across the world on a multi-month journey.

This is all especially illogical when the answer to their problem comes in taking the scandals of last season properly.

They could have easily had Anthony and Kate decide to stay home at Aubry Hall and spare his family the direct association between himself and the HUGE scandal that was their relationship last season. They could still have had Anthony and Kate pop back up to do the scenes they need to as the couple “visiting the family in London” but if the scandals consequences were taken seriously, it would make sense why they aren’t in the show that much, they just decided to avoid society and stay home in the country.

Which brings me to the reason why they seemingly decided to abandon the scandals having consequences.

Because the biggest scandal monger suddenly became the main character this season. Which meant that if her actions had REALISTIC visible negative consequences it would be hard to root for her.

Which means that Bridgerton sacrificed its Stakes and its Drama so that Penelope Featherington would be likeable - because they weren’t willing to have her put in the work to truly improve

[juju-or-anya]

I have an existential question that I can't stop pondering.

Why is Eloise called an idiot, careless, a slut, and accused of not thinking about the consequences for meeting with Theo, when in reality nothing inappropriate happened? The most "scandalous" thing was an almost-kiss that never actually occurred. Their meetings were centered around discussing rights, politics, books, and investigating LW, without causing harm to anyone. So why do people insist on portraying Eloise as someone who doesn't think, simply because she comes from a privileged position and knows her family will support her no matter what? It's as if the fact that her family loves and supports her is seen as a cardinal sin.

Now, if we apply this judgment to Penelope, it seems the situation changes drastically. Penelope is glorified and sanctified, seen as a hopeless romantic for allowing Colin to touch her intimately, kiss her, and meet with her alone. Penelope isn't labeled a slut; on the contrary, she's seen as a powerful woman who knows what she wants.

This is where I completely lose track of this logic. How is it possible that a woman who wants to break out of her bubble, who seeks to understand the reality of people outside her status quo, who meets with a male friend to have intellectual and respectful conversations, is labeled as stupid, a slut, and careless? Eloise, despite any possible feelings for Theo (which I personally hope exist, but that’s a personal preference), hasn't done anything inappropriate, neither sexual nor even close to a romantic relationship. Her relationship with Theo is a beautiful and respectful friendship, based on mutual intellectual admiration.

However, Penelope, following this same logic, isn't judged in the same way. Her behavior is justified and celebrated simply because she is the favorite. Additionally, another factor is added to the equation: Penelope’s body. Some people consider her to be plus-sized, others say she’s medium-sized, and although I try not to comment on other people's bodies unless explicitly asked, it disturbs me that this aspect influences so much in the perception of her behavior. It seems that everything she does is justified because she doesn’t fit into traditional beauty standards, which shouldn’t be relevant when judging her actions.

So, where is the coherence in this logic? Why is such a different measuring stick used for Eloise and Penelope? Why is a woman demonized for seeking knowledge and genuine friendship, while another is exalted for her romantic and intimate actions? The inequality in these judgments seems incomprehensible and deeply unfair to me.

It seems to me that this logic is terribly flawed and reflects a worrying double standard. Not only are different actions being judged with unequal standards, but the context and intentions behind these actions are also being ignored. It's a logic that, ultimately, perpetuates harmful stereotypes and undermines the complexity and diversity of women's experiences and choices.

[petalsmooth]

This is what we talk of when refer to "Pen/Nicola" fans who would love a piece of stone if were a unblemished trophy circling Pen.

They don't know him at all yet. They don't particularly have chemistry based on brief stills seen and NO that is not subjective. Pen thinks he's "nice" but shows no signs of truly being in love or attracted in those stills, only relieved and flattered someone finally is courting her. But dude is a blank slate they wrote to court Pen vs another guy who didn't realize his feelings right away so obviously "insta love". I don't take these people seriously or their own opinions seriously because they have no basis for those opinions.

What we know of Debling. He is a Lord, has money and estates, unconventional in sense he's a vegetarian. Oh, and based on spoilers of first episode did seek her out to chart at the ball but promptly excuses himself to find a maid to help repair a tear in her dress because he is supposedly "nice" but apparently too stupid to understand Cressida did it on purpose in front of him. Whereas this contrasts with season 1 when Colin realizes straight away Cressida dumped that drink on Pen and takes her to dance immediately rather than abandoning her to tears as leaves to find someone to help her clean up. Which is what happened here. Pen runs out of the ballroom in tears once Debling leaves with her dress torn and Colin is the one who follows her out. Because while entirely oblivious to HIS feelings about her he DOES cares about her (drunken frat conversation notwithstanding) and instantly notes something wrong.

So no...he may be a nice guy but if being "nice" precludes you from being able to see a bully and act accordingly in the moment, then he's too stupid for Pen.

Colin isn't stupid. He can be oblivious to HIS feelings, and he may not realize Pen's (likely because she's always acted this way around him so no comparisons of how she's truly act if just "friends"), he can even be your typical privileged Bridgerton at times focused on his own situation to exclusion of others but he is NOT stupid or if being kind...naive.

Even season 1 when they wrote him falling for Marina's scheme, he in part did not believe her capable of deception because she is related to Penelope. He said in season 2 holds her family in great esteem. Why? Because of Penelope. The only people we have seen him initially deceived by were Featherington's because of his attachment to her. He has a pretty clear head about everyone else's intentions otherwise. And when Will hints Lord Featherington may bring scandal to the Featherington's (to Pen) he immediately jumps into action to investigate him (for Pen).

For that matter, continuing the theme he's deceived in a way by Pen by not knowing she's Whistledown but it's Pen so he may get angry or hurt but he'll forgive her. But if he were a bit less emotionally involved there he likely would have suspected sooner. Pretty certain based on lines in season two had suspected Eloise. Which isn't a bad guess. Means, motive, access to biggest scandals of past few years, constant commentary on the ton...he just has a blind spot where Pen is concerned. Much as she had with him before that line end of season, whereas now he's off that pedestal.

I recognize the reason for the plot device of the other guy but been around too long to see attempts to build up the dude as anything else but a stan entirely too invested in the idea of Pen being the belle of the ball desired by everyone (Daphne) because self inserting a little too hard. I don't want Pen to be Daphne.

I'm glad he helps with her self confidence and a few other suitors they show do that as well but I would find it depressing to see her settle for an older guy she isn't really attracted to, she doesn't have a deep connection with, who she'd inevitably be whisked away to the country to watch over the estates and put any other ambitions in the past. Because that is her future with him. He's not previously been in London often or wouldn't need an introduction. Which means he's going back to his estates and leaving the ton once married. And he WILL as a typical male of the time expect her to manage the household and have his children. That is her job, it is her role, it is what he will want. And while I have no issue with that role unlike Eloise if the person desires it, I'm pretty sure Penelope wants more. We know she wants to continue writing. Not sure if they'll continue Whistledown but in the books she shifts to novels. Pretty certain she'd also like to travel and that isn't happening with this guy.

I just don't really see why a true Pen stan would ever claim to love someone else for her that isn't really going to make her happy. I accept him only in the role of prepping her for Colin and him for her. That is it. Like the Prince with Daphne.

I loved the side character of the doctor last year with Kate and THEY had actual chemistry. He may have even been ok with going to India to establish a practice/live. But she wasn't attracted to him and we had only superficial details about him. Certainly didn't build up any "I heart" clubs for him and not really in mood for placating Pen stans cheering on the idea of her hooking up with a guy twice her age just because acceptable in those times.

[yesthatssadirichardslove]

Spielberg wins big as Golden Globes make comeback

LOS ANGELES

Steven Spielberg claimed top honors including best drama at the Golden Globes on Tuesday for his deeply personal film "The Fabelmans," as Hollywood's A-list stars flocked to the first major awards show of the year despite a series of scandals swirling around its organizers.

The other top film award, best comedy or musical, went to "The Banshees of Inisherin" -- a tragicomedy about a shattered friendship on a remote Irish island that ended the night with the most movie prizes.

Spielberg, who also took home the award for best director, thanked his family including his late mother, who he said would be "up there kvelling about this right now."

"The Fabelmans" covers the troubled marriage of Spielberg's parents, anti-Semitic bullying, and the director's early efforts making zero-budget movies with his teenage friends.

"Everybody sees me as a success story, and everybody sees all of us the way they perceive us based on how they get the information," said the 76-year-old filmmaker. "But nobody really knows who we are until we're courageous enough to tell everyone who we are."

Spielberg said films like "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" had used elements from his real life, but he had "never had the courage to hit this story head on" until now.

Despite faring poorly at the box office, the film saw off last year's two biggest commercial hits -- James Cameron's sci-fi film "Avatar: The Way of Water," and "Top Gun: Maverick" -- to win the night's final prize.

"Inisherin" also earned a win for Colin Farrell for best comedy actor, boosting his Oscar hopes, and for writer-director Martin McDonagh for best screenplay.

The Globes, which kick off the annual film prize-giving season, have not had their usual glitz for the past two years, due to the pandemic and revelations about their organizers' lack of diversity and allegations of ethical lapses.

In particular, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which organizes the awards, was criticized for not having a single Black member, although it has recently expanded its ranks.

All eyes were on which A-listers would show up Tuesday, as NBC -- which scrapped its broadcast of the show last year -- brought back the 80th Golden Globe Awards on a one-off basis.

As it turned out, many heavy hitters were in attendance, including Spielberg, Rihanna and Brad Pitt.

Austin Butler, stepping into Elvis Presley's blue suede shoes for rock-and-roll biopic "Elvis," won best actor in a drama.

"You were an icon and a rebel and I love you so much," said Butler to the legendary singer, in an emotional speech in which he also praised Presley's family for their support.

Eddie Murphy accepted a career achievement award at the Beverly Hills gala, while Angela Bassett won best supporting actress for Marvel blockbuster "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."

But Cate Blanchett, who won best drama actress for "Tar," in which she plays a ruthless conductor navigating the cutthroat world of classical music, did not attend the gala.

Other prominent winners who didn't show included Kevin Costner ("Yellowstone"), Zendaya ("Euphoria") and Amanda Seyfried ("The Dropout").

Michelle Yeoh won best comedy actress for the surreal "Everything Everywhere All At Once."

Her co-star in the multiverse-hopping sci-fi film, Ke Huy Quan -- who shot to fame as a child star in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" almost four decades ago -- won best supporting actor.

Action-packed Indian blockbuster "RRR," which has become a huge word-of-mouth hit in Hollywood, added momentum to its awards season campaign by winning best song.

"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" won best animated feature, while "Argentina, 1985" won best non-English language film.

On the television side, "Game of Thrones" prequel "House of the Dragon" won best drama, and "Abbott Elementary" claimed best comedy series.

Success at the Globes is often seen as a potential bellwether for films hoping to win Oscars, which take place this year on March 12.

Academy voters will begin casting ballots for Oscar nominations on Thursday, just days after the Globes gala.

But recent controversies have muddied the waters.

Host Jerrod Carmichael, who struck a daring and edgy tone throughout the night, kicked the gala off with a monologue poking fun at the HFPA.

"I'll tell you why I'm here. I'm here because I'm Black," said Carmichael.

Most of the Globes' usual swanky after-parties -- where winners parade their trophies, and losers drown their sorrows with free champagne -- did not take place this year.

Nominee Brendan Fraser and Tom Cruise, the star and producer of "Top Gun: Maverick," notably did not attend.

But despite the controversy surrounding the Globes, "Avatar" director Cameron told AFP he "didn't really think about it that much."

"Obviously I did my research about what they had gone through, and I made sure that they had been responsive to the protests and complaints and all that, which I believe they have been," he said. "I think we should celebrate the fact that an organization does such radical changes."

[beinglibertarian]

We Hold the News to be Self-Evident

“Fake news.” A phrase given as truth by the 45th President of the United States. Is he a racist, totalitarian monster that is trying to control the media? Or is he one of the plebeians that rose higher than the rest and has been raised seeing the fallacies of mass media coverage? Should the Commander-in-Chief be neutral when it comes to the news or does he have a right to call them out and bring people’s attention to the nature of news today?

There was a time when news consisted of hard-hitting exposes that attempted to change public opinion and lead the nation in a more moral and just direction. Although somewhere along the line, news reports lost their bite. I understand that in a world of twenty-four-hour news cycles there will be filler, but when did filler topics become headlines?

CNN came out recently claiming Donald Trump was waging a war against the press because of his negative view of their reporting. He denied their access to a few events, which translates to Trump waging a war on the freedom of the press. Or could it be a man seeing the blatant agenda of slander and attack against him?

CNN has spent much of their time since his presidential win, trying to bring Trump down. They report on his collusion with Russia, which may or may not be illegal. The only definite information that came from the leaks was that CNN helped Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders, but that is not newsworthy apparently.

What is newsworthy? An affair Trump had twelve years ago, ten years before he was elected. I am willing to bet, that was not news to even Melania, and she is the only one that should care.

A man cheating on his wife is not and should not be news. It is only important information to the spouses involved. If the majority of the population disagreed with this, then why was no one appalled by the existence of AshleyMadison.com? People cheat, it is an unfortunate truth that does not belong on the news.

In 1998, America became aware of the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal. For those too young to remember, the President had a sexual relationship, no matter what his sound clips will tell you, in the Oval Office. Much like the Trump affair, it should have only been known to those involved. The explosion of reporting on the matter may have set a terrible precedent.

I will concede to understand that there is a part of human nature that loves to watch a train wreck, like celebrity break-ups. And presidents are important celebrities. However, those are fluff pieces, shown between sports and the weather. They do not affect policies that are important to the American people.

Fox News also reported bad things in their cycle. Unfortunately, their bad reporting garnered support for unlawful military conflicts. Shortly after 11 September 2001, Fox began to spread the idea of Saddam Hussein’s enormous and varied supply of weapons of mass destruction. Or should I say, Saddam’s alleged enormous and varied supply of weapons of mass destruction.

Nothing was ever found in Iraq, yet they have been bombed and occupied the area for decades. The resulting war on terror produced hundreds of thousands civilian deaths, thousands of American soldiers dead, and trillions of dollars spent. A price far greater than that of the tragedy of 9/11. All that to protect the idea of the infallible nation.

A nation wrought with unrest and anger directed at varying parts of the of the government. A large and vocal part of the nation feels that there are separate rules of engagement that the police follow based solely on race. In the wake of this, a movement rose up behind a mediocre quarterback in the National Football League.

Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence and many of his fellow players followed suit. The nation responded with eruptions on both sides of the political spectrum. The right condemned the players for disrespecting the flag and those that served under it. The left shouted down their claims based on violations of the 1st amendment. Both were wrong.

The flag is a symbol of our nation and our nation was built with the hope of freedom for everyone. Although, at the end of the day it is a piece of fabric, and nothing worth spilling blood over, especially each other’s blood because of a few political disagreements.

Also, while protesting is a protected right, an employer can make whatever statutes it wants, and you are left with the option to work for them or not. When the NFL started seeing ratings drop, they reacted like any company would act to protect their profit margin. Even though it says “National” in the name and has a picture of a little flag on the emblem, the NFL is a private company, and should not be mandated to allow actions that are hurting them.

The bigger issue of the protest is the claimed police brutality. The right should see that the players are not standing against a nation, just a protected few that have brought violence against them. The left must understand that the movement is not being held down because of racism, but because of waning ticket sales. While that may not be a noble reason, the NFL remains a private organization and may conduct business as they see fit. There are plenty of more places that a player can protest.

Therefore, I feel there is no real emotion behind the organizers of the national anthem protest, where is the movement in the off season? Football players play one game a week for about five months. That leaves a considerable amount of time the highly-publicized players could be delivering their agendas and yet they are widely silent. And if the players are not willing to show a concentrated effort toward change, it stops being news.

A few players protesting for a minute and a half once a week should not be news. If all sports players stood together to achieve a goal, that would be news. Hell, if you could get just the NFL players to be on the same side it would be news. Of course, the NFL would still be in the right when they fired every single one of them, and that would be news too.

That is the problem with the media giants like CNN and Fox, somewhere along the line they started reporting feelings instead of events. An abundance of stories describes how a group feels about an event, rather than reporting on it and letting the viewer respond with their own feelings. We are guided toward how we should react, instead of how we may have reacted naturally.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is perfect evidence of this. The right tells people the anti-Trump groups have a disorder because they do not support everything the President does. While the left tells their group that Trump is constantly attacking everything they hold dear. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has conducted policies almost identically to every president before him.

Barack Obama made strong statements against illegal immigration and was supported in it. George HW Bush made the famous “No new taxes” claim and there has never been a time when the government was not trying to add taxes. Trump has defined himself with wall building and tariff making, the only difference is he says mean things. So, because of feelings, Trump is the worst President ever.

Trump does plenty to cause dislike. Just like Obama, he has taken a stand against illegal immigration. Just like Bush, he has sent soldiers to war. Just like under Clinton, police beat individuals for a multitude of unwarranted offenses. However, the news focuses on the wrong aspects of every major issue.

On immigration, one side says we need to keep people out and the other believes we need to let everyone in. Although simple economics will tell you that an open border with the magnet of social programs, like welfare or universal healthcare, will collapse the system supplying the programs because there will be too many mouths and not enough wallets to balance each other out. While on the other side, restricting someone from crossing an imaginary line under the threat of imprisonment or death cannot be the answer. The news focuses on your imposed feelings instead of trying to show people what the problems are.

On war, one side says we must bring peace and safety to the world and the other side says we must protect our values by eliminating the threat at the source. What no one, news source, Republican, or Democrat, will address is that none of the wars we inject ourselves into or start are necessary. We have dropped bombs on an ever-rising number of countries for decades, but then wage war in response to the blowback. Finding creative ways to support wars of aggression should not be news, it probably should be punished in a court of law.

On police brutality, one side says we must always stand with the police and the other believes any violence is too much. Even police should not side with all police all the time. Police officers are people and can make mistakes. And unfortunately, if someone uses violence against police, they should be able to defend themselves. The problem that no one addresses on the news is the non-violent crimes that continue to be the root cause of much of the violence. If a person wants to ingest a plant and there is no one around to be affected by it, why is that a crime?

Three major problems with three reasonable resolutions. Either open the border and cancel social programs or seal it shut and let tax money try and help those that contribute. Do not tell me separating families is wrong because last I heard, there were not many daycares at prisons. War is wrong because it is mass murder. You cannot bring peace and prosperity through death and destruction no matter the reason for bringing the wrath. If we stopped arresting those for non-violent crimes, their cases of police brutality would drop dramatically. Look at crime statistics during and after prohibition for some clear evidence.

I know the major news organizations will not acknowledge these ideas, because I am not the first to say them. But if we can find a way to shift our attention away from their biased, attention-grabbing tactics and focus on facts and events, maybe we can steer them toward being honest and plain. The market will provide. Trust me, there is plenty of diabolical things committed by both sides of the political spectrum, to try and convince people there is a better way, so let’s report those stories and lay off the fluff.

This article represents the views of the author exclusively, and not those of Being Libertarian LLC.

The post We Hold the News to be Self-Evident appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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[newyorktheater]

It was a good week to test your view of New York — the 1990s Bohemia  presented in Rent Live on Fox (which was largely Rent Recorded), or the grittier view expressed by the city’s teenagers in “Generation NYZ,” part of Ping Chong’s Undesirable Elements series at LaMaMa?  How about by the African-American playwrights of the Fire this Time Festival? The truth is, in some ways, all of these share the sardonic and romantic view of the city by Rodgers and Hart in the 1920s, as presented by Santino Fontana as part of the Lyrics and Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y? (It’s very fancy on old Delancey Street, you know/The subway charms us so.)

  Week in New York Theater Reviews and Previews

Generation NYZ

To the seven young performers who tell the stories of their lives in “Generation NYZ,” New York means subways and pizza and opportunity, but also cops and catcalling and homelessness.

They are all New Yorkers, but — as they recount for us over the course of 70 increasingly engaging minutes — either they or their parents or grandparents came from somewhere else. They tell, in other words, the story of New York, and of America.

.@BrandonVDixon, national treasure.#RentLive pic.twitter.com/RFzZ8ROjeq

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 28, 2019

Rent Live

I had worried that, in Rent Live,  Fox television would ruin Jonathan Larson’s musical about bohemian life in the East Village of the 1980s by bowdlerizing it. I felt it worth watching anyway because its cast of celebrated young screen stars and recording artists would make the most of the catchy tunes.

As it turns out, it wasn’t the redacted content but rather a bad break and a series of poor choices that made “Rent” disappointing. And though the cast was clearly full of talent, only a few standouts brought it home in any memorable way. Brandon Victor Dixon, the one performer with the most live theater experience, floored us as Tom Collins,

We’ll Have Manhattan: Rodgers and Hart in New York

When at the age of 17 composer Richard Rodgers met 24-year-old lyricist Lorenz Hart in 1919, he instantly acquired “a career, a partner, a best friend and a source of permanent irritation.”

So Rodgers wrote, in one of the many tidbits Santino Fontana tells us in “We’ll Have Manhattan: Rodgers and Hart in New York,” Fontana’s celebration, as part of the 92ndStreet Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists series, of the hundredth anniversary of Rodgers and Hart’s partnership

    God Said This

Leah Nanako Winkler was sitting on the couch in her mother’s hospital room in Kentucky while her mother was undergoing chemotherapy for a form of cancer called carcinosarcoma, when the playwright started writing what became God Said This. “It just came out.”

The play, now on stage at the Cherry Lane Theater through February 15, revolves around Masako, a Japanese-born mother who is undergoing chemotherapy for carcinosarcoma, and explores the effect of her illness on her family.

The Fire This Time Festival

Over the past decade, the annual festival, created to showcase early-career playwrights of African and African-American descent, has presented some of the first New York plays of such now-celebrated writers as Katori Hall (known for such later works as The Mountaintop and Our Lady of Kibeho), Dominique Morisseau (Pipeline, Skeleton Crew  and the book for the forthcoming Broadway musical “Ain’t Too Proud”), and Jocelyn Bioh (School Girls or the African Mean Girls Play) .

This year’s offerings are not particularly political, although they do touch (often obliquely) on issues as varied as gentrification, immigration, protest, feminism, homophobia, and affirmative action.

Ruthie Ann Miles as Immigration Judge Craig Zerbe

The Courtroom

Elizabeth Keathley moved to the United State from the Philippines, married an American, and three years later registered to vote, even though she was not yet a citizen. As a result, the government ordered her deported.

“The Courtroom”is a re-enactment by Waterwell theater company of her deportation proceedings,  using the transcript as edited by Arian Moayed, directed by Waterwell’s artistic director Lee Sunday Evans, with Ruthie Ann Miles as Immigration Judge Craig Zerbe, and Kathleen Chalfant as Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The play is being presented for free through February 1 in a series of court-like settings

Red State Blue State

Near the end of Colin Quinn’s stand-up comedy, which promises to “lay bare the absurdities…on both sides of the political divide,” the Saturday Night Live alumnus manages to insult every single state of the union…It’s a baffling routine, almost tedious and even tacky…emblematic of Quinn’s enterprise….hit or miss and a missed opportunity.

Week in New York Theater News

Alanis Morissette

Anais Mitchell

Melissa Etheridge

Michael Jackson

“Jagged Little Pill” is coming to Broadway. The musical by Alanis Morissette @based on her 1995 album, put together after she was robbed at gunpoint. will open sometime in Fall, 2019, directed by Diane Paulus, who directed it for the American Repertory Theater last year.  Cast, dates and specific theater to be determined.

  When it opens on Broadway April 17, @Hadestown will feature the same cast that just appeared in London’s @NationalTheatre: left to r: @pagepatrick, #AmberGray, @Andre_DeShields, @EvaNoblezada @reevecarney pic.twitter.com/NgMmBsG3X4

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 28, 2019

.@metheridge will provide the score to a musical based on the 1988 movie Mystic Pizza, the first time we noticed Julia Roberts! MT They are writing the script now and I am looking forward to getting to work on it pic.twitter.com/3xMQCAfJwa

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 22, 2019

The Michael Jackson musical, @dontstoponbway (Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough) premieres Oct 29 – Dec at the James M. Nederlander Theatre (@broadwaychicago) before a 2020 Broadway run. Book by @Lynnbrooklyn ! Music by the King of Pop pic.twitter.com/jShiAsLdnk

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 23, 2019

.@AudraEqualityMc & Michael Shannon will star in a revival of Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clare de Lune @fandjbway . Starts in May, 2019 for 16 weeks at a Shubert theater on Broadway. Details to come pic.twitter.com/2gHdflj3SG

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 23, 2019

Thanks @USPS for this new postage stamp of Broadway’s own Gregory Hines, Tony winner for “Jelly’s Last Jam.” He died in 2003 of cancer at age 57 pic.twitter.com/nbFRnATWel

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 28, 2019

Finalists for the 2019 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, honoring women playwrights

Jackie Sibblies Drury

Ella Dickson

Lily Padilla

Martyna Majok

Nina Raine

Ella Road

Heidi Schreck

Lauren Yee

Hilary Bettis  (U.S.)- 72 miles to go…

Jackie Sibblies Drury (U.S.)- Fairview

debbie tucker green (U.K.)-  ear for eye

Ella Hickson (U.K.)- The Writer

Martyna Majok (U.S.)- Sanctuary City

Lily Padilla (U.S.)- How to Defend Yourself

Nina Raine  (U.K.)- Stories

Ella Road (U.K.)-The Phlebotomist

Heidi Schreck (U.S.)- What the Constitution Means to Me

Lauren Yee (U.S.)- Cambodian Rock Band

.@magicmikebway, a musical that’s touted as a prequel to the Magic Mike movies, Nov 30, 2019- Jan 5, 2020 @EmColonial in Boston prior to an expected Broadway run. Music by the Next to Normal team pic.twitter.com/JfC6gyXU3e

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 24, 2019

the third annual WOW – Women of the World Festival. March 12-17@ApolloTheater “Performances, conversation, activism.”https://t.co/3x7F0eP5yM pic.twitter.com/1y10Y8S7I2

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 24, 2019

House Seats, a series that’s part of @ThirteenWNET‘s forthcoming streaming service @AllArtsTV, will launch Feb 3 w/ screening of @TheaterofWar‘s #AntigoneinFerguson. I saw the play in a playground in Brownsville in 2017, & wrote about it for @HowlRound:https://t.co/iDapHiXSxP pic.twitter.com/fYEnCiOYCp

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 24, 2019

Applications to compete in the 2019 @RogerReesAwards for Excellence in Student Performance are being accepted until Feb 4 at https://t.co/gAN1zmqZBa pic.twitter.com/t6dFM5X7gv

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 24, 2019

What Should We Do About Scandalous Artists? Accusations of misconduct against beloved creators are changing the way we think about genius

today as in the past, one of the most visible ways that our culture negotiates changing ideas about morality is by thinking about art and artists. Is an artist’s work tainted by his personal wrongdoing? Should we give honor and respect to people who excel in their art but are deficient in what we consider ordinary morality? These questions have been at the heart of modern thinking about art since the 19th century; but since the advent of the #MeToo movement, they have begun to receive new kinds of answers.

if Oscar Wilde’s case were being tried today, he might once again be widely scorned—not because the prostitutes he patronized were male, but because they were young, poor and powerless. The hostile gossip that surrounded him at the time, English critic Kate Hext writes, “would be nothing compared to the long lenses and comments section of Daily Mail Online, or the verdicts of social media.”

REST IN PEACE

RIP Kaye Ballard, 93, Broadway veteran (The Golden Apple, Carnival, The Pirates of Penzance), familiar face on TV, funny lady. She was impersonating Maurice Chevalier at age 5)https://t.co/6cMmnOm1ji pic.twitter.com/yfSs5MZk1L

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 22, 2019

RIP JoJo Smith, 80, Broadway veteran, dancer and choreographer. @msdebbieallen‘s teacher, #JohnTravolta‘s dance consultant on #saturdaynightfever pic.twitter.com/URzdmuj9D2

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater)

RIP JoJo Smith, 80, Broadway veteran, dancer and choreographer. @msdebbieallen‘s teacher, #JohnTravolta‘s dance consultant on #saturdaynightfever pic.twitter.com/URzdmuj9D2

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) January 28, 2019

Rockers on Broadway: Alanis, Anaïs, Melissa and Michael Jackson. New York on Stage: Rent, Generation NYZ, Rodgers and Hart. #Stageworthy News of the Week It was a good week to test your view of New York -- the 1990s Bohemia  presented in Rent Live on Fox (which was largely Rent Recorded), or the grittier view expressed by the city's teenagers in "Generation NYZ," part of Ping Chong's Undesirable Elements series at LaMaMa?  

[wazafam]

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Bridgerton season 1. 

Eloise Bridgerton should have been revealed as Lady Whistledown in the Bridgerton season 1 finale. The series, which is based on the books by Julia Quinn, introduced Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews) as the mysterious gossip columnist who was attuned to all the ins and outs of the Ton, a term used to describe London’s high society. She knew everything about everyone and her identity was shockingly revealed to be none other than Penelope Featherington, Eloise’s best friend. 

Penelope being Lady Whistledown didn’t make much sense within the scope of the season 1 story, however. For one, it was unclear what Penelope’s motivations were for taking on the role, and her writing wound up hurting her family and especially Marina, the Featherington’s distant relative whose pregnancy outside of wedlock became the scandalous talk of the Ton. Penelope very clearly wanted to get married and had her eyes set on Colin Bridgerton. However, considering that she purportedly had no problems with the society she was critiquing so often, Penelope writing about the social structures of the Ton and the lives of others didn’t track with her history. Rather, the reveal actually made her actions and characterization inconsistent in Netflix's Bridgerton and, at worst, incredibly petty. 

Related: Bridgerton: Why The Show Reveals Lady Whistledown Earlier Than The Books

Eloise, on the other hand, disparaged the lives of socialites. She pointed out how sexist and unfair it was that men were able to get an education while women’s roles were limited to finding a respectable and wealthy husband. Eloise admired Lady Whistledown and believed her to have a lot more freedom than any of the other women in the Ton because she could write about whatever and whoever she wanted without being held back by the constraints of high society. Eloise’s ideology greatly differed from that of her elder sister Daphne and Penelope, who actually wanted to get married and have families of their own. 

With all that in mind, revealing Eloise as Lady Whistledown would have been much more impactful considering how often she complained about having to get married and the obvious double standards that allowed men to behave in ways that women couldn’t lest there be a scandal in the Ton. What’s more, as Lady Whistledown, Eloise could have actually contended with the ideas she took issue with in a column. Rather than one-sidedly discussing topics such as women’s right to an education, Eloise could have condemned the obvious sexism to a much wider audience, potentially changing others’ minds as well.

Plus, Eloise being Lady Whistledown would have transitioned her from a passive participant to an active feminist with a lot of power and influence over the Ton. Yes, Eloise being the face behind the pen name would have changed Penelope's backstory from Quinn’s books, but Bridgerton is a television adaptation and there are bound to be a few creative changes that may better suit the story. If the mystery of Lady Whistledown's identity had remained a secret for much longer, the series could have better explained why Penelope decided to lift her pen. As it stands now, Bridgerton missed a great opportunity to explore Eloise's frustration with being a woman who is constrained by the traditional values of the Ton. 

Next: What Bridgerton Season 2 Could Reveal About Anthony's Past

Bridgerton: Why Eloise Should Have Been Lady Whistledown from https://ift.tt/35wJQ9N

[junker-town]

The White Sox hired Tony La Russa for all the wrong reasons

Photo by Ron Vesely/MLB Photos via Getty Images

A White Sox team on the brink gave into their worst tendencies by hiring Tony La Russa.

Jerry Reinsdorf tried to hire one of his good ole’ boys to lead a young, rising team primed for the game’s modern era once before. The Chicago Bulls were looking for a new head coach months after cashing in a 1.7 percent chance to win the 2008 NBA draft lottery for the pick that would become Derrick Rose. After balking at Mike D’Antoni’s salary demands, Reinsdorf appeared to settle on a man who had held the same position for the franchise decades earlier: Doug Collins.

Just when it appeared Collins and his glacial offensive philosophies would welcome the organization’s new supercharged point guard to the league, Reinsdorf had a change of heart. It’s not that he doubted Collins was the right man for the job; instead, Reinsdorf couldn’t bear the thought of one day having to fire his friend.

“I love Doug Collins,” Reinsdorf told the Chicago Tribune at the time. “It’s not a great thing for friends to jeopardize a relationship for business. And relationships with coaches always end at some point.”

Reinsdorf’s ability to restrain himself from falling back into the comfort of his worst tendencies was perhaps the best hope for the other pro sports team he owns when rumors began circling that the White Sox were interested in 76-year-old Tony La Russa as their next manager. The similarities with Collins were undeniable: both were in charge of Reinsdorf’s teams during the 1980s, both left their franchises in ways that haunted the owner ever since, and both maintained a close friendship with Reinsdorf through the years.

This time, the nightmare scenario of the fanbase Reinsdorf feels so disconnected from actually played out. La Russa is the next manager of the White Sox after agreeing to a multi-year deal on Thursday. He immediately becomes the game’s oldest manager, and takes on his first managerial job since leading the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series in 2011.

There was a time when bringing back La Russa would have been a cause for celebration for White Sox fans. That time passed about 25 years ago. The White Sox have one of the baseball’s most exciting teams after a long and painful rebuilding effort that went 12 seasons without making the playoffs. That pitiful streak finally ended last season as the team’s excellent young talent started to coalesce at the same time. The decision to fire incumbent manager Ricky Renteria was met with jubilation from the fan base earlier this month.

Finally, it felt like the White Sox would be more concerned with winning than profits. Finally, it felt like they were set to hire an accomplished manager at a critical inflection point to take the team from up-and-coming to true contention.

Now so much of the good will the White Sox have spent years building toward suddenly feels tarnished. There are already reports that members of the White Sox organization are concerned about La Russa’s hire. It makes sense. This is why La Russa feels like such a poor hire for Chicago’s South Siders.

La Russa will likely have trouble connecting to the White Sox’s best players

The White Sox have one of the youngest and most diverse rosters in the majors. They are led by 27-year-old shortstop Tim Anderson, the AL batting champion in 2019 who nearly won it again in 2020. In addition to being among baseball’s most electric players, Anderson is also one of its strongest personalities. He bat flips after every big home run, and then defends his right to do so on social media. The joie de vivre he plays the game has made him the team’s beating heart, but it’s easy to see La Russa’s old school approach clashing with the team’s star.

La Russa is no fan of bat flips. When San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. drew the ire of baseball’s old guard for hitting an awesome grand slam on a 3-0 count earlier this season, La Russa was one of the voices critical of the young superstar:

In the past week, La Russa had conversations with friends in the game who agreed with Tatis’s actions and those who didn’t. La Russa believed Tatis was in the wrong. If Tatis took a strike, La Russa reasoned, he still would have had two pitches to hit. Swinging 3-0, in his line of thinking, was attacking at a moment when the opponent was vulnerable, more for personal reasons than needed team gain.

“It’s just not sportsmanlike,” La Russa said. “The way it was described to me was, it’s team against team. That’s what our sport is, with these very talented individuals matching up. What it isn’t, though, is an exhibition of your talents. You swing 3-0 in that game, and you’re up by seven, you’re trying to drive in more runs.”

La Russa also made troubling comments about Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protests during the national anthem when he was a member of the San Francisco 49ers. Anderson in particular has been outspoken in the fight for racial equality. The White Sox clubhouse also includes burgeoning young stars like Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert.

How will the players respond to a manager who once said this?

“I would tell [a player protesting the anthem to] sit inside the clubhouse,” La Russa told “The Dan LeBatard Show.” “You’re not going to be out there representing our team and our organization by disrespecting the flag. No, sir, I would not allow it. … If you want to make your statement you make it in the clubhouse, but not out there, you’re not going to show it that way publicly and disrespectfully.”

La Russa said he is not racist at his introductory press conference with the White Sox, which is not even the type of the thing that should need to be clarified.

It’s true that La Russa once handled big personalities in Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco when he was in Oakland, but that was 25 years ago. At 76 years old, La Russa is the game’s oldest manager by half a decade over Dusty Baker. These should have been legitimate concerns the White Sox vetted inside their clubhouse before making the hire.

The game has changed since so much since La Russa last managed

The fight over the use of advanced statistics in baseball ended a long time ago: those who embraced them won. Leveraging all the information available is a big reason why the Tampa Bay Rays were able to make a World Series run on one of baseball’s smallest budgets. The big market Dodgers’ front office also obviously embraced every bit of information available on their way to a championship.

La Russa doesn’t appear fully against advanced statistics — he was once on the cutting edge of baseball’s use of numbers to make decisions. But that was long ago. He still represents baseball’s old school in many ways. Here’s what he said about the use of advanced numbers in baseball in 2018:

“If you think your info is so strong that it can forecast once the game starts, on how it’s going to flow, how hitters and pitchers are going to react in game situations, then you’re foolish. It’s great stuff until the first pitch is thrown, and then what you have to do is invest in your managers and coaches.”

Perhaps La Russa won’t be an anti-analytics manager, but regardless the game he’s stepping back into next year certainly has changed since the last time he was a big league manager.

La Russa was infamous for his many pitching changes during his years with the A’s and Cardinals, something he won’t be able to do anymore. MLB now has a rule that each pitcher must face at least three batters. This was a common joke after the announcement the White Sox had hired him.

La Russa is 100% going to try to take a reliever out after one batter

— Eric Freeman (@freemaneric) October 29, 2020

It feels like the White Sox went over their general manager’s head

Jerry Reinsdorf is not supposed to be the person making baseball decisions for the White Sox — that’s Rick Hahn’s job. Hahn was promoted to vice president and general manager ahead of the 2013 season, with the team’s long rebuild happening under his watch.

La Russa sure doesn’t seem like a Hahn hire; it’s a Reinsdorf hire all the way. Here’s what Hahn said when the team began looking for a manager after it let go of Renteria.

“The ideal candidate is going to be someone who has experience with a championship organization in recent years,” White Sox General Manager Rick Hahn said. “Recent October experience with a championship organization would be ideal. But we’re going to keep an open mind. Over the next several weeks we’ll diligently pursue who’s on our list and go from there.”

There was no shortage of candidates who fit that description, most notably A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora, two recent World Series-winning managers who were now available after a year-long suspension from the Houston Astros cheating scandal. If the stain from that scandal was too much for the Sox, there were plenty of other rising young managerial options the team could have went with.

Reinsdorf said the hire was not based on his friendship with La Russa, but it’s hard to believe him:

White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement the hiring of Tony La Russa "is not based on friendship or on what happened years ago." pic.twitter.com/awnOEwCiNy

— Chris Emma (@CEmma670) October 29, 2020

It’s possible the White Sox will still be great anyway

The Sox are seen as a rising contender in the American League for a reason. There is so much young talent on this roster, headlined by Anderson, Robert, and Jimenez in the lineup and Lucas Giolito on the pitching staff. This should still be a very good team next season and beyond regardless of who they hired as manager.

What will likely matter more than the manager is who the White Sox sign in free agency. Reinsdorf has had big market Sox playing with one of baseball’s lowest payrolls over the last decade. Part of that can be chalked up to the team’s rebuild, but now the rebuild is over. If the White Sox want to contend they need to get serious about signing big money free agents. Starting pitcher Marcus Stroman and outfielder George Springer are two names who should be on their radar.

Of course, Stroman sure seems like he’s turned off by the hire of La Russa:

Yeah... Stroman ain’t coming here if they hire La Russa. Good job Jerry. pic.twitter.com/3dkL6cTmuQ

— EWS (@everything_sox) October 29, 2020

The Sox ranked No. 20 in payroll last season. Their payroll will be higher next year, but there should still be plenty of room in the budget for another big signing or two. Sox fans have been extremely patient through so many bad seasons. Now is the time to spend and capitalize on all the young talent they have been grooming.

Perhaps La Russa will prove the fans upset about his hiring wrong. He’s a three-time World Series champion and four-time MLB Manager of the Year. He speaks fluent Spanish. If the White Sox win with him or win in spite of him, the emotions of the fan base will certainly be overshadowed by their love of young stars like Anderson and Robert.

We don’t know how the results will play out, but this sure feels like terrible process from the White Sox. The team spent years building towards this moment when a young team was supposed to get serious about trying to compete for a championship. At such a critical juncture, the team’s out of touch owner decided to go over the head of his GM to hire his friend as manager.

When the White Sox should be looking to the future, they went back to their distant past so their owner could feel closure and conciliation for letting La Russa go back in 1986. If the partnership works out well this time around, Reinsdorf will be the only one who isn’t surprised.

[yesthatssadirichardslove]

Spielberg wins big as Golden Globes make comeback

LOS ANGELES

Steven Spielberg claimed top honors including best drama at the Golden Globes on Tuesday for his deeply personal film "The Fabelmans," as Hollywood's A-list stars flocked to the first major awards show of the year despite a series of scandals swirling around its organizers.

The other top film award, best comedy or musical, went to "The Banshees of Inisherin" -- a tragicomedy about a shattered friendship on a remote Irish island that ended the night with the most movie prizes.

Spielberg, who also took home the award for best director, thanked his family including his late mother, who he said would be "up there kvelling about this right now."

"The Fabelmans" covers the troubled marriage of Spielberg's parents, anti-Semitic bullying, and the director's early efforts making zero-budget movies with his teenage friends.

"Everybody sees me as a success story, and everybody sees all of us the way they perceive us based on how they get the information," said the 76-year-old filmmaker. "But nobody really knows who we are until we're courageous enough to tell everyone who we are."

Spielberg said films like "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" had used elements from his real life, but he had "never had the courage to hit this story head on" until now.

Despite faring poorly at the box office, the film saw off last year's two biggest commercial hits -- James Cameron's sci-fi film "Avatar: The Way of Water," and "Top Gun: Maverick" -- to win the night's final prize.

"Inisherin" also earned a win for Colin Farrell for best comedy actor, boosting his Oscar hopes, and for writer-director Martin McDonagh for best screenplay.

The Globes, which kick off the annual film prize-giving season, have not had their usual glitz for the past two years, due to the pandemic and revelations about their organizers' lack of diversity and allegations of ethical lapses.

In particular, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which organizes the awards, was criticized for not having a single Black member, although it has recently expanded its ranks.

All eyes were on which A-listers would show up Tuesday, as NBC -- which scrapped its broadcast of the show last year -- brought back the 80th Golden Globe Awards on a one-off basis.

As it turned out, many heavy hitters were in attendance, including Spielberg, Rihanna and Brad Pitt.

Austin Butler, stepping into Elvis Presley's blue suede shoes for rock-and-roll biopic "Elvis," won best actor in a drama.

"You were an icon and a rebel and I love you so much," said Butler to the legendary singer, in an emotional speech in which he also praised Presley's family for their support.

Eddie Murphy accepted a career achievement award at the Beverly Hills gala, while Angela Bassett won best supporting actress for Marvel blockbuster "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."

But Cate Blanchett, who won best drama actress for "Tar," in which she plays a ruthless conductor navigating the cutthroat world of classical music, did not attend the gala.

Other prominent winners who didn't show included Kevin Costner ("Yellowstone"), Zendaya ("Euphoria") and Amanda Seyfried ("The Dropout").

Michelle Yeoh won best comedy actress for the surreal "Everything Everywhere All At Once."

Her co-star in the multiverse-hopping sci-fi film, Ke Huy Quan -- who shot to fame as a child star in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" almost four decades ago -- won best supporting actor.

Action-packed Indian blockbuster "RRR," which has become a huge word-of-mouth hit in Hollywood, added momentum to its awards season campaign by winning best song.

"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" won best animated feature, while "Argentina, 1985" won best non-English language film.

On the television side, "Game of Thrones" prequel "House of the Dragon" won best drama, and "Abbott Elementary" claimed best comedy series.

Success at the Globes is often seen as a potential bellwether for films hoping to win Oscars, which take place this year on March 12.

Academy voters will begin casting ballots for Oscar nominations on Thursday, just days after the Globes gala.

But recent controversies have muddied the waters.

Host Jerrod Carmichael, who struck a daring and edgy tone throughout the night, kicked the gala off with a monologue poking fun at the HFPA.

"I'll tell you why I'm here. I'm here because I'm Black," said Carmichael.

Most of the Globes' usual swanky after-parties -- where winners parade their trophies, and losers drown their sorrows with free champagne -- did not take place this year.

Nominee Brendan Fraser and Tom Cruise, the star and producer of "Top Gun: Maverick," notably did not attend.

But despite the controversy surrounding the Globes, "Avatar" director Cameron told AFP he "didn't really think about it that much."

"Obviously I did my research about what they had gone through, and I made sure that they had been responsive to the protests and complaints and all that, which I believe they have been," he said. "I think we should celebrate the fact that an organization does such radical changes."

#yesthatssadirichardslove

[residualsociety-blog-blog]

Therapy 3 (Removing Bandages)

1. Knowing that I have been insulated with a privileged life, has this led me into an existence of melancholy that has no foundation?

I have always been drawn to the melancholy. Blame it on my upbringing of suppressive emotion from the hardened baby boomer Irishmen around me or on the self-detrimental music I listened to (probably symptomatic of reason #1). In my more religious days, the idea of being sick without a cure always brought an egocentric tear to my eye. I’ve always resonated with the idea of being deprived and stuck on a hopeless ship with no ending destination. Does this fantasy have any merit?

Relatively speaking, probably not. Yes, this life is built on the foundations of pain that we build houses on; creating illusions of safety and decorating them in distracting ways. I grew up in a part of the world though that was well nourished, both literally and figuratively speaking. My parents had flaws, of course, but relatively speaking these flaws were incredibly minor in nature. In fact, the loving/sheltering nature of my upbringing is probably my biggest flaw, since I lack the understanding of how dark the darkness can get. I misperceive my shadow as epitome of darkness, when there are far darker dungeons of pain that exist. I try to understand the hierarchy of pains, sometimes successfully, but even then I still lack the feeling that reinforces the idea and brings it to life.

So why not use the positive force in my life to become a beacon of hope to others, or at the very least not pretend that my life is any harder than anyone else’s? Well, thats where it gets complicated. 

Maybe I’m trying harder with all of the self improvement actions I’m taking. I rarely speak of my demons and are way more present for others (for the most part, I think I’m trying). Maybe just slowing down and stepping into the shoes of others and being more realistic about the depth of my own problems is the keys. Being conscious with the realities around me.

2. In what circumstances have I ended relationships with friends and girlfriends? Were they worthy of these measures?

This is going to be hard.

Rachel: Lack of trust. I always assumed she was up to no good. This was textbook overthinking mixed with a large heaping dose of insecurity. The first time I broke up with her was because I thought I could do better. The second time was the opposite.

Amy: We were not compatible, though I wanted us to be. She had a kind heart, was very caring, and on paper was an ideal companion. However, everything personality and value related just did not compute. I always went into a meeting with her with a “lets make this a good night” attitude and left emotionally exhausted from a night of personality dissonance.

Relationships:

Lex: This one is two sided. I did not trust Lex, similar to Rachel, but there were things to not trust. I always had the sense that Lex was up to no good, and I don’t think that was a misguided notion. Lex loved conflict and drama, and spent most of her time digging into the shit of others. I can’t imagine this did not spill into our relationship as well, although it’s hard to tell where.

I also was not very fair to her. I, again, was very insecure, and would constantly be checking her location (one of my more alarming qualities). She was obsessed “fitting in”, and would put scandalous pictures on her social media for attention. It was fair for me to have issue with this, but I would present it in ways that were not fair to her. I should have communicated it in a simple and non-judging way, which I don’t think I did.

It’s weird, I loved spending time with her but I don’t think I actually loved her. She was something fun to experience but was not good for me, like the Rick and Morty episode where Rick sidetracks Unity from her purpose to have a good time. 

I also just run away from conflict whenever possible, which I did in that relationship. Most issues we had were only addressed when they boiled over.

It was a game to keep Lex. I had to be somebody I wasn’t (or someone I was not yet).

Friendships:

James: It was a wise decision to let go of this relationship. James was self destructive, and worse, destructive to those he was around.

Jon: I don’t blame Jon for removing me from his band. I was not a man of solutions, just problems based on my unpolished philosophies of what music should be. We innately did not see eye to eye of what art should be and it let me effect how I saw him as a person. He also was not communicative towards the end, which I can’t blame him for. Many of his faults were ones I dealt with too, which is probably why we were so close in the beginning before we blew up in spectacular fashion. My youthful whimsical idealism and his old hardened traditionalism would never see eye to eye.

Colin: Colin was caring and a lot of fun to be around. We fundamentally were very different people, however. Emotionality and Self-Made Self Acceptance were important to him, whereas I believed more in a more reserved self growth that came from disciplinary action to day to day life. We would have conversations that would really open my eyes to places that were blind to me, which I appreciated with his view of. He just was not a very disciplined person to be around, and I felt that create a rift towards him. I was also just way too close to him all the time, and felt myself needing space even when he was intruding. 

He also made several questionable decisions against me; which I both understand. I forgive him, but I cannot trust him the way I could before.

Teague: This one is complicated. I think he had a lot of expectations of me that I did not live up to. He wanted me to be forgiving to issues I did not understand. I also did things that questioned my character to him, which I think I understand. I probably looked pathetic in many of my decisions, which is probably why I hid so much information from him. There were things he did that were questionable, but maybe they weren’t the same in degree. Does dating a 18 year old just as questionable as being abusive to your dog, doing a lot of drugs, or attacking the ones closest to you? There was a degree of growth though that he was experiencing, and maybe he clumped me into the parts of himself that he needed to let go in order to grow. I can get that. Still, I can’t help but feel there is an essence of blind destruction that came from him letting me go from his life.

I think I get too close to people. Maybe I just get too close to the wrong people. I think most of my best friends have had fundamentally different approaches to life. They’ve also taken to vices that are in some ways self destructive, such as drinking or drugs. Because I don’t have the inclination to go there, thats why I push away. Theres probably a much more caring way, but its much easier to leave something than to fight for it.

One last question that I (personally) feel needs to considered as well:

3. What does my current/past company say about me as a person? What does my attraction to the history of people with mental illness say about me?

4. What if I am, in fact, a leech of “the light of others”?

Listen, feel what they’re feeling, don’t offer solutions.

Lack of exerted boundaries

Deject people using cold fish tactics

Maturity issues.

Certain issues should be valued in certain degrees.

[ignitesthestxrs]

We were watching the results last night and you could just see the disappointment in Jacinda’s face and the smugness in Bill’s. Thoughts on the results?

TBF bill’s face is always sort of smug. worse was the fucking ACT mp, every time RNZ switched to him i just wanted to punch him. like goddamn. what a face.

i...am sad that the left didn’t get as big of a swing as some of the earlier colmar brunton polls were indicating. but having labour be a viable opposition party again, FINALLY, is great. like they were polling at 23% two months ago, and they only took 25% last election. i definitely think that jacinda has done an amazing job just with galvanising labour’s support base and reaching out to people and actually....reminding NZ that labour does want to Do Things. I liked andrew little, but the procession of potato men at the head of that party was doing no one any favours.

i like that the swing to the left forced national to start adopting policies more in favour of shit like parental leave and resulted in bill promising to lift 100,000 kids out of poverty. what they do remains to be seen, but this election has definitely served a purpose of sort of grabbing the back of their collar and yanking them back a bit.

i am...relatively ok with jacinda not being pm. LIKE i voted for labour and i think she would have done a good job, but she’d been leader of the opposition for like. a couple of months, and deputy leader for not much longer. give labour three years with jacinda at the helm of an actually strong opposition party with no more musical chair leader games and i think we’re looking at a much more powerful left wing with more of a mandate coming in to the 2020 election.

THAT SAID i mean winnie is winnie so who knows what way he’s going to swing. NZ First/Green/Labour can still govern if things work out that way but honestly that feels like a real weak argument. it’ll make people bitter, and it gives national a whole raft of attacks to pick away at the perception and power of the left over the next three years. i’ve seen comparisons made to the 1996 election and helen clark missing out that time around but coming back as a much stronger candidate in 1999, and tbh i feel that. 

i definitely would have preferred like, a labour party in the 40s and national cruising down to the 30s, but in the end that is not what we got, and i’m wary of any course of action that destroys what labour has managed to build in only two months. we’re still on hella shaky ground right now, and given that a lot of that ground was built on the back of jacinda personality politics ardern, i think it’d be very easy for the mood to change and us to be looking at 23% again.

overall this was like. a nice? election? it was fiery and interesting but there were no dirty politics scandals or colin craig or kim dotcoms or internet parties muddying the waters. obviously it was still politics and people trying to sabotage each other and shit, but no more so than politics usually is.

SO YEAH ultimately i’m sad about the results and i’m sad that my country is putting personal taxes and ROCKSTAR ECONOMY over the needs of the poor and housing and our fucking rivers. i think it speaks of a selfish core that a lot of kiwis don’t want to acknowledge - i think that there’s a lot of ‘well i don’t see it happening so it must not be happening�� shit that goes down in the overall kiwi psyche that makes us think we’re a better nation than we are. i’m not looking forward to work tomorrow.

but it definitely isn’t an ‘all is lost’ situation. i think it’s probably the most optimistic election the left and Labour in particular has seen in the last decade, and i’m definitely looking forward to seeing how they can build on that for 2020.

[megans-project-blog1]

Love Online, and The Single Woman & The Fairytale Prince – Jean-Claude Kaufmann

I have read two separate books by Jean-Claude Kaufmann; I have chosen to talk about both of these in one blog post as they both related closely.

‘The Single Woman & The Fairytale Prince’ was the book first released by Kaufmann in 1998, and ‘Love Online’ was later published in 2010 as an updated sequel to ‘The Single Woman’. Originally, I was focusing purely on the more up-to-date ‘Love Online’, however it frequently referenced his previous book and so I chose to read both.

Kaufmann mainly talks about the comparisons of the past against the present, to find the main reasons as to why love has evolved in to what it is in the modern day. There is a section in ‘Love Online’ called ‘Who pays the bill’ that says “Chivalry suggests that the man should pay [for dinner]. But after several decades of feminism, that might look like an affront to the woman’s independence” (Kaufmann, 2010, Love Online, pg. 40).  If you were to look in to what the modern version would be, whilst it still is sometimes expected for the man to pay, it is much more common to split the bill 50/50. The feminist movement has had a big part to play in the evolution of love and relationships; women rely less on men.

Through the feminist movement, it can be seen that far more women are choosing to be single rather than being in a relationship. Some women are preferring to sleep around whilst others just like the company of themselves. Jean-Claude Kaufmann has a theory about the stages that a single woman will experience in her life; the supportive stage that occurs whilst she is younger, in which her friends will encourage her to be independent and single,  then the expectation stage that occurs around the age of 30, when all of her friends will start to expect her to settle down with someone and will make her feel guilty for not doing so; “And suddenly the finger is being pointed. It is as though the sky had fallen in and values had been inverted. Being single then comes to seem weird, and something to be slightly ashamed of. At this point, they begin to torture themselves: what have I one with my life, and what decisions should I take now?” (Kaufmann, 1998, The Single Woman & The Fairytale Prince, pg. 41). Finally comes the relaxed stage, in which a finger is no longer pointed and as the social pressures ease a woman can relax in to being single; except in order to have this relaxed environment they must choose to give up being centre stage and learn to be more reserved. I believe that this theory is definitely outdated 21 years later; Kaufmann has not mentioned it in ‘Love Online’ so perhaps he too decided that the stages became outdated. Women can certainly be centre stage, single, and middle-aged these days without too much accusation; it has become a lot more normalised.

However despite women being more openly single, Kaufmann did debate whether there has always been a large portion of people choosing to be single that perhaps was never recorded; “Celibacy had not been unusual but, because single people were scattered across the countryside and hidden within their families, they succeeded in disappearing into ‘the grey background’ (Farge and Klapisch Zuber 1984)” (Kaufmann, 1998, The Single Woman & The Fairytale Prince, pg. 11).

Looking at the fact that women are now free to act as men (live as a single person and sleep with whomever they like and however many people they like), Kaufmann has described our modern world to be “not as virtual as it is sometimes said to be, but it is ‘liquid’ because it has been freed from the constraints that bind us to territories, groups, and established conventions” (Kaufmann, 2010, Love Online, pg. 87). Our world is constantly changing, including what is considered to be a social norm. By the end of our lives, society could be completely different once more, and relationships seen in a new light regarding both genders. This also links to “Liquid Modernity” by Bauman, 2000, and the consumerist life that is spoken about.

The theory from Kaufmann that interests me most is that relationships and love in the modern day have started to become viewed with consumerist intentions. He talks about this idea in both books regarding online dating; “Welcome to the consumerist illusion, which suggests that we can choose a man (or woman) in the same way that we choose a yoghurt in the supermarket” (Kaufmann, 1998, The Single Woman & The Fairytale Prince, pg. 117). Looking at the way tinder is set out – swiping someone left to show that you’re uninterested and right if you are interested – it acts like an online shopping system, or ever like the shelves in a supermarket. Similarly, with a supermarket making returns is easily done; with online dating you can resort to blocking or ignoring the person without feeling too guilty because of how detached you can feel from the other person; interaction online in comparison to in reality feels very detached and almost like none of it is actually happening until you choose to bring it into real life. This looks at the idea of ‘ghosting’, which I previously looked at in the documentary ‘Hot Girls wanted’. The realistic equivalent of that would be disappearing half way through the date and not coming back, leaving the other individual to wonder where you are and if they will ever hear from you again.

Other things that Kaufmann talks about comparing the past and the present include the sexualisation and interpretations of certain actions and how they are seen now. Years ago, a kiss would have mean a lot; it was displayed as extravagant and iconic within Hollywood movies, and scandalous in times before that. These days some people see kisses as nothing, just something to do with someone else. They don’t necessarily associate it with love and it is very common for most people to do so with strangers when intoxicated on a night out. Furthermore, sex is no longer seen to be such a big deal; sex on a first date has become a hot-topic in our modern day, with people debating whether it’s right or wrong. Previously, this never would even have been considered in the past. Jean-Claude Kaufmann also mentions that the significance of dancing; in the past people would participate in the waltz, tango, salsa etc. The close physical contact in these were seen to be very serious and loving. These days it is rare for these dances to be performed, they certainly are not as normalised as they used to be.

All of these debates could be considered pointless; it could all depend on the relationship between two people, the chemistry, the people involved. It can also be linked to social norms. If a boy were to have sex with someone on a first date, he would be praised, yet if a girl were to do so, she would potentially face being called names such as ‘slag’.

One of the main focuses of online dating is the profile picture that someone chooses to put up. The image chosen will be put through the judgement of everyone else viewing it; the viewers will make a decision of whether it fits their standardised view of beauty. Kaufmann claims that “Image are the real, absolute enemy” (Kaufmann, 2010, Love Online, pg. 30). Using statistics found by others, he announced the shocking fact that “Some 23% of the men who visit dating sites are married (Madden and Lenhart 2006), and they are looking for sex, not a soulmate” (Kaufmann, 2010, Love Online, pg. 18). These figures are based on America, but it is likely that the figures will be similar across the Western world. It was noted in ‘Love Online’ that these cheating husbands would almost never have a profile photo, for fear of being caught.

Finally, section 7 of ‘Love Online’ explores the idea of ‘The Game’. “Some men view sex in terms that have more to do with ‘game playing’ in a much stricter sense. We have already seen the way in which they use seduction techniques to get to a fuck close as quickly as possible, [Kaufmann explained earlier that a ‘Fuck Close’ is when someone has sex with someone and then leaves, never speaking or acknowledging them again]. There is a long tradition of male rivalry when it comes to female conquests… they compete to conquer as many women as possible in order to prove something to themselves and to have something to boast about to their friends and rivals” (Kaufmann, 2010, Love Online, Pg. 103). This can almost be compared to a competitive sport and a game, which has become much easier to play now that we have the internet. Jean-Claude Kaufmann explains that the main idea of the game is to not be tied down by one particular girl. If a game like this were to be played by a young male, it is almost no wonder that such a high percentage of husbands later use online dating to cheat; if society had not encouraged these boys to be this way then would the outcome be the same?

Kaufmann explores quite a few sociologists within his books. I will make a separate post looking at a few of these sociologists and their theories of modern love and relationships. This will include Emile Durkheim, Pascal Lardellier, and Bryn and Lenton.

Kaufmann, K 1998, The Single Woman & The Fairytale Prince, Armand Colin, France

Kaufmann, K 2010, Love Online, Armand Colin, France

[kansascityhappenings]

Federal regulators fine Facebook $5B, pin privacy onus on Zuckerberg

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations and are instituting new oversight and restrictions on its business. But they are only holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible in a limited fashion.

The fine is the largest the Federal Trade Commission has levied on a tech company, though it won’t make much of a dent for a company that had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year. Two of the five commissioners opposed the settlement and said they would have preferred litigation to seek tougher penalties. Privacy advocates worry the settlement will do little to force Facebook to rein in its data-collection practices.

As part of the agency’s settlement with Facebook, Zuckerberg will have to personally certify his company’s compliance with its privacy programs. The FTC said that false certifications could expose him to civil or criminal penalties.

Some experts had thought the FTC might fine Zuckerberg directly or seriously limit his authority over the company.

Facebook isn’t admitting any wrongdoing. The company’s top lawyer, Colin Stretch, said the company’s FTC settlement will lead to more rigorous management of user privacy — including more technical controls to better automate privacy safeguards.

FTC Chairman Joe Simons said the settlement is “unprecedented in the history of the FTC” and is designed “to change Facebook’s entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations.”

The FTC opened an investigation into Facebook last year after revelations that data mining firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered details on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission. The agency said Wednesday that Facebook “repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences.”

The agency is also launching a case against Cambridge Analytica over the privacy violations and has settled with its former CEO Alexander Nix and an outside researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who developed the Facebook app that harvested people’s personal information. Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy and hasn’t settled the allegations, but Kogan and Nix have agreed to restrictions on how they conduct business in the future. The settlement requires them to delete or destroy all personal information gathered.

Facebook will pay a separate $100 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges it made misleading disclosures about the risk of misuse of Facebook user data. The SEC said Facebook presented misuse of data as a hypothetical for two years even though it knew since 2015 that the third-party developer had actually misused user data. The SEC complaint notes that Facebook also “falsely claimed” to have found no evidence of wrongdoing when asked by reporters about Cambridge Analytica in 2017, the year before the scandal broke.

Stretch said Facebook’s handling of the Cambridge Analytica affair was “a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who depend on us to protect their data.”

Three Republican commissioners voted for the settlement while two Democrats opposed it, a clear sign that the restrictions on Facebook don’t go as far as critics and privacy advocates had hoped. That wish list included specific punishment for Zuckerberg, strict limits on what data Facebook can collect and possibly even breaking off subsidiaries such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

“The proposed settlement does little to change the business model or practices that led to the recidivism,” Commissioner Rohit Chopra wrote in his dissenting statement. He noted that the settlement lacks “any restrictions on the company’s mass surveillance or advertising tactics.”

Ashkan Soltani, a former FTC chief technologist, said the settlement “amounts to essentially a get-out-of-jail free card for Facebook,” by indemnifying the company from government prosecution for all claims prior to June 12.

Simons, the FTC’s chairman, said in a news conference Wednesday that the agency has limited legal powers to enforce privacy rules. For stiffer penalties, he said, the agency would have faced long odds in drawn-out litigation.

Commissioner Noah Phillips, a Republican, said the purpose of the action isn’t “to vindicate every concern that the world has about Facebook,” but it sends important messages that the price of privacy violations is getting higher and “paying attention to privacy issues is something that companies ought to consider whether to elevate to the board level.”

But despite the record fine and all the public flogging triggered by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is worth more than it was before the blowback began. The company’s stock had slipped by less than 1% to $201.51 in Wednesday’s midday trading, a few hours after the settlement announcement. The company’s market value was hovering around $575 billion — roughly $40 billion above where it stood before the news of the Cambridge abuses broke. Those gains make the $5 billion fine easier to swallow for Facebook and its shareholders.

The FTC had been examining whether that massive breakdown violated a settlement that Facebook reached in 2012 after government regulators concluded the company repeatedly broke its privacy promises to users. That settlement had required that Facebook get user consent to share personal data in ways that override their privacy settings.

The FTC said Facebook’s deceptive disclosures about privacy settings allowed it to share users’ personal information with third-party apps that their friends downloaded but the users themselves did not give permissions to.

The agency also found that Facebook misrepresented the extent to which users could decline, or opt out of, facial recognition technology used to identify people in pictures and videos and that it failed to disclose that phone numbers collected for a security feature known as two-factor authentication could also be used for targeted advertising.

Privacy advocates have pushed for the FTC to limit how Facebook can track users — something that would likely cut into its advertising revenue, which relies on businesses being able to show users targeted ads based on their interests and behavior. The FTC did not specify such restrictions on Facebook.

The fine is well above the agency’s previous record for privacy violations — $22.5 million — which it dealt to Google in 2012 for bypassing the privacy controls in Apple’s Safari browser. There have been even larger fines against non-tech companies, including a $14.7 billion penalty against Volkswagen to settle allegations of cheating on emissions tests and deceiving customers. Equifax will pay at least $700 million to settle lawsuits and investigations over a 2017 data breach; the FTC was one of the parties. The money will likely go to the U.S. Treasury.

The FTC’s new 20-year settlement with Facebook establishes an “independent privacy committee” of Facebook directors. The committee’s members must be independent, will be appointed by an independent nominating committee and can only be fired by a “supermajority” of Facebook’s board of directors. The idea is to remove “unfettered control” by Zuckerberg, the FTC said.

Since the Cambridge Analytica debacle erupted more than a year ago, Facebook has vowed to do a better job corralling its users’ data. Nevertheless, other missteps have come up since then.

In December, for example, the Menlo Park, California, company acknowledged a software flaw had exposed the photos of about 7 million users to a wider audience than they had intended. It also acknowledged giving big tech companies like Amazon and Yahoo extensive access to users’ personal data, in effect exempting them from its usual privacy rules. And it collected call and text logs from phones running Google’s Android system in 2015.

Amid all that, Zuckerberg and his chief lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg, apologized repeatedly. In March, Zuckerberg unveiled a new, “privacy-focused” vision for the social network that emphasizes private messaging and groups based on users’ interests.

The fine does not spell closure for Facebook, although the company’s investors — and executives — have been eager to put it behind them. Facebook is still under various investigations in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, including the European Union, Germany and Canada. There are also broader antitrust concerns that have been the subject of congressional hearings and led the Justice Department this week to announce that it has opened an investigation into major tech companies.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/07/24/federal-regulators-fine-facebook-5b-pin-privacy-onus-on-zuckerberg/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/federal-regulators-fine-facebook-5b-pin-privacy-onus-on-zuckerberg/

[myhollywoodnews-blog]

'KUWTK', 'Southern Charm New Orleans' Recap & 'Below Deck' Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV

'KUWTK', 'Southern Charm New Orleans' Recap & 'Below Deck' Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV

Lorene Porter - Celebrity Interviews - My Hollywood News

‘KUWTK’, ‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ Recap & ‘Below Deck’ Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV, New Disney Celebrities 2018.

Best Celebrity Interviews Of The Decade, Disney Celebrities 2017, ‘KUWTK’, ‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ Recap & ‘Below Deck’ Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV.

Disney Celebrities Official Interview New Celebrity Interviews Youtube top Marvel Studios, LLC (originally known as Marvel Films from 1993 to 1996) is an American motion picture studio based at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, itself a wholly owned division of The Walt Disney Company, with film producer Kevin Feige serving as president. Previously, the studio was a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment until The Walt Disney Company reorganized the companies in August 2015.

Can you watch Disney Celebrities anywhere without Internet?

Downloading a Celebrity from the Disney Celebrities Anywhere app saves the video file onto your device so you can watch it without an Internet connection. You will need to be connected to the Internet to download your Celebrity. Once you have finished downloading, you can watch your downloaded Celebrities offline and on the go.

What does Mulan’s name mean?

In the original poem, the heroine’s name is “Mulan.” According to the Chinese- English dictionary, the name means “lily magnolia.” Mulan is often given a last name, “Hua,” which means “flower.” The Chinese pinyin spelling of the name is “Hua Mu-Lan.”

How did Walt Disney begin?

The Walt Disney Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont Realty in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Disney, and his brother Roy, produced a series of short live-action/animated films collectively called the ALICE COMEDIES. The rent was a mere $10 a month.

‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ star Tamica Lee, ‘Below Deck Mediterranean’ deckhand Colin Macy-O’Toole from, ‘HOT 97’ radio personality Miabelle, ‘People Magazine’ writer & reporter Aurelie Corinthios, and head of BuzzFeed’s Cocoa Butter Chantal Rochelle, recap last night’s episodes of ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’, ‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ & a preview of ‘Below Deck Mediterranean.’ In today’s episode, we also take a look back at an episode from season 5 of ‘The Amazing Race’, with contestant Colin Guinn screaming ‘My ox is broken!’ Subscribe to PeopleTV ►►

Catch ‘Reality Check’ with host Lyndsey Rodrigues for all the latest developments in reality TV, together with a panel of reality TV stars, super-fans, and entertainment journalists.

ACT 1: 00:00 – 9:00 TOPIC: Keeping Up with the Kardashians GUESTS: Aurelie Corinthios (People Magazine Writer / Reporter), Chantal Rochelle (Head of BuzzFeed’s Cocoa Butter) and Miabelle (HOT 97 Radio Personality)

ACT 2: 9:00 – 14:00 TOPIC: Southern Charm New Orleans GUESTS: Tamica Lee (cast, Southern Charm New Orleans)

ACT 3: 14:00 – 20:00 TOPIC: Below Deck Mediterranean Preview GUESTS: Colin Macy-O’toole (cast, Below Deck Mediterranean)

ACT4: 20:00 – 22:00 TOPIC: Reality History – Amazing Race “My Ox is Broken” GUESTS: Colin Macy-O’toole (cast, Below Deck Mediterranean)

PeopleTV is the free streaming network from People and Entertainment Weekly. Watch unlimited full-length episodes on streaming devices, mobile and the web at

Watch the newest celebrity interviews – From Jennifer Lopez to Jennifer Lawrence, Pop Stars to Movie Stars, Bachelors to Real Housewives, we’ve got it all:

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‘KUWTK’, ‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ Recap & ‘Below Deck’ Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV

Hollywood Latest Celebrity Interviews, Disney Celebrities Official Interview, ‘KUWTK’, ‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ Recap & ‘Below Deck’ Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV.

Walt Disney has since created corporate divisions in order to market more mature content than is typically associated with its flagship family-oriented brands. The company is best known for the products of its film studio, Walt Disney Studios, which is today one of the largest and best-known studios in American cinema. Disney’s other three main divisions are Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney Media Networks, and Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media. Disney Interview Moana, ‘KUWTK’, ‘Southern Charm New Orleans’ Recap & ‘Below Deck’ Preview With Tamica Lee & More | PeopleTV.

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[leehaws]

What Does the Future Hold for USA Gymnastics?

On Nov. 5, what felt like the inevitable finally happened. The US Olympic Committee announced plans to pursue decertification of USA Gymnastics after its role in enabling the largest sexual abuse crisis in sports history and continued mismanagement once the extent of the abuse suffered by hundreds of young women at the hands of former Olympic team and Michigan State trainer Larry Nassar became public knowledge.

The scandal that is USA Gymnastics has been going on for three years. Athletes and survivors have been calling for this step for years, but decertification—characterized as a last resort—never came.

The USOC did not invoke this last resort when Nassar was found in possession of more than 37,000 images of child pornography, or when Nassar was sentenced to between 40 to 175 years as a result of pleading guilty to ten counts of sexual assault of girls. Or after watching their victim impact statements go viral—videos of women and girls, either crying or steelily explaining how their abuse impacted their athletic careers and lives. The USOC was similarly unmoved when the federation burned through three executives in two years. (One of those executives, Steve Penny, recently pled not guilty to evidence tampering related to the Nassar case at the legendary Karolyi ranch in Texas. Another, former Republican Congresswoman Mary Bono, made disparaging remarks about Colin Kaepernick’s Nike ad before she took the job; the tweet was resurfaced and Simone Biles, a Nike athlete, was not pleased to say the least.)

So, while the decision has felt inevitable and obvious, it has also been a long time coming, and carries with it a lot of uncertainty—namely how will a sport so inextricably linked to the Olympics carry on with its governing body in so much legal limbo.

In her public statement announcing the largely unprecedented move, USOC CEO Sarah Hirshland said there are plans in place for the athletes to thrive as the process of decertification goes on (review panel, hearings, fact finding, etc.), but the specifics of it aren’t mentioned. In an open letter to the athletes, Hirshland admits that Olympic hopefuls will have support for the Tokyo games, but that’s about as concrete as it gets. If you—or your child—are a club gymnast training in Iowa or California, though? “We are developing both a short- and longer-term plan and will communicate it as soon as we can,” Hirshland wrote in the open letter. “The clearest answer I can provide is that gymnastics as a sport will remain a bedrock for the Olympic community in the United States. Young people will continue to participate, refine their techniques and have fun.”

But her statement and open letter seem to question if USA Gymnastics would continue to exist in its current form when all’s said and done. “In the long-term, it will be the critically important responsibility of the recognized Gymnastics [national governing body], whether the existing organization or a new one, to lead gymnastics in the United States and build on the supportive community of athletes and clubs that can carry the sport forward for decades to come. We are prepared to identify and help build such an organization,” Hirshland said in the statement.

How this plays out is anyone’s guess. Hirshland gave an email at the end of the letter for gymnasts, coaches, trainers, club owners, etc. to reach out with “ideas and suggestions,” which is better optics than Hirshland’s first meeting with gold medal-winner Aly Raisman at a Senate hearing in July. But the optics of the already fraught situation fail to negate the fact that Hirshland’s letter makes it seem like their hands are tied by this last resort, even as the USOC works on long term solutions. “There is a process that must be followed based on the USOC Bylaws that lay out how we recognize, and revoke recognition, for an NGB. We have filed a complaint. A review panel will be identified, a hearing will be held, a report will be issued and a recommendation will be made. Then the USOC board will vote to continue to recognize USAG, or to revoke that status,” she writes.

On Tuesday, a top USA Gymnastics official made it clear that this process will likely turn messy before we see resolution. In an email sent to athletes, coaches and parents, Tom Forster, USA Gymnastics high performance team coordinator, wrote that call for decertification was a “strategic move” to appease critics, Scott M. Reid of the Orange County Register reported. While that is almost certainly true, Forster’s email is telling in that his words show he thinks that the Nassar scandal is just a PR nightmare, instead of a horrifying assault against hundreds of women that could have been prevented. This is a real opportunity to confront safety issues within an elite sport that breeds intensely close one-on-one relationships between adults and children.

Here’s a portion of the email Reid obtained:

“I have met with Sarah Hirshland, the president of the USOC, a few times and it was communicated to me the USOC believes USA Gymnastics will suffer from the legal problems associated with the lawsuits from the survivors which will, in their opinion, hurt our High Performance Teams,” Forster wrote. “I believe this to be a strategic move on their part to appease our critics and congress for the perceived lack of progress we have made as an organization to solve our public image problems. If the USOC takes on the task of managing our [high performance] Teams USA Gymnastics will still be facing the challenges of litigation from the survivors.”

Forster completely missing the point is only natural for someone who worked in the same organization that was briefly run by Kerry Perry, an executive who hired Mary Lee Tracy, a well-known coach, as Elite Development Coordinator, even though Tracy defended Nassar in December 2016 . As a reminder, by mid-December 2016, Nassar was indicted on federal child pornography charges, not to mention multiple sexual assault charges in Michigan. Tracy was asked to resign three days after her hiring was announced because she attempted to contact Olympian Aly Raisman, who is suing USA Gymnastics. Time and again, this is the story of USA Gymnastics: the adults charged with mentoring and protecting children fail to grasp the extent of hurt that their inaction enabled.

The purpose of pursuing decertification is acknowledging that USA Gymnastics failed hundreds of young gymnasts, from medal winners to girls just starting out. The organization failed its athletes, and it repeatedly demonstrated an inability to find executives who could credibly and decently rectify the situation. By pursuing decertification, there is the opportunity to build an organization that privileges the safety of children and adult competitors over the medals they can bring home. (An unintended side effect of pursuing decertification is that the USOC could see some positive PR, but that’s unlikely as even the most casual watchers of the Nassar scandal seem horrified by everyone’s lack of action.)

Even so, Reid also reported that USA Gymnastics could put off the entire process of decertification by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it would result in “an automatic stay” on the organizations’ litigation proceedings while the finances are sorted. Again, from the Register:

“If I was USAG and I wanted to stop decertification by the USOC I would go (to bankruptcy court) because it prohibits you from proceeding,” said attorney Jim Stang, who has written extensively on bankruptcy issues and served on the creditors committee in 13 child sexual abuse cases. “The bankruptcy court judge is like a traffic cop. Should I allow this decertification to continue? Or should I let it go for now or just stop it or keep the red light on? Is there something that can be worked out to keep USAG’s value (to raise funds to pay creditors)? What is the value if USAG is decertified?”

It’s a popular strategy that’s been used in clergy sexual abuse cases, Reid told popular gymnastics podcast GymCastic: The Gymnastics Podcast in early November. “If you look at the history of these Roman Catholic archdioceses cases, they repeatedly did this where they filed Chapter 11,” Reid said.

In 2004, the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon was the first diocese in the country to file for bankruptcy relief when facing lawsuits related to clergy sexual abuse. Plaintiffs at that time were seeking more than $160 million in damages, according to The Associated Press. This strategy was employed in Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Davenport, Iowa; and Wilmington, Delaware, to name a few.

“This is their playbook; this is their go-to play. I think you’re going to see this with USA Gymnastics. There’s a huge financial benefit for filing Chapter 11 for both USA Gymnastics and the USOC,” Reid told GymCastic.

So not only are we looking at no definitive plan for helping athletes at all levels during the (likely lengthy) process of decertification, but there’s the possibility of another legal front that could halt litigation being brought by survivors. The consequences of how this plays out are important not only for athlete safety (and, you know, morals), but also because USA Gymnastics isn’t the only governing body being accused of enabling or looking the other way on sexual abuse. There’s USA Swimming and USA Taekwondo and the U.S. Equestrian Federation, at the very least. (Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz’s deep dive into SafeSport, the initiative by Team USA to reduce misconduct in their ranks and how it has utterly failed is worth your time.)

It’s impossible to predict if USA Gymnastics will set an example for how to treat other organizations failing to protect its athletes—or if the outcome will be an unmemorable stop on the many years of litigation USA Gymnastics is certain to face. If decertification comes to pass, maybe the USOC will finally draw a line in the sand when it comes to protecting athletes from abuse. But what if a Chapter 11 filing happens first? Even after all this pain, money and medals could still rule the day.

If you think the 2020 presidential election is soon, the 2020 Summer Games are even closer. And it’s shaping up to a Valley of the Dolls redux of 2016 in Tokyo: The Americans will dominate the games (led by Simone Biles), while the failure of USA Gymnastics and the USOC to protect its athletes hangs in the air like an Amanar vault waiting to be stuck.

What Does the Future Hold for USA Gymnastics? syndicated from https://justinbetreviews.wordpress.com/