As you can tell, I don't go for the two or three sentence postings that a lot of people seem to use in this format. But events worth commenting on start to pile up, and so I will periodically offer my thoughts on Stuff You Might Have Missed...
*Actor Robert Wagner recently admitted in his memoir to having had an affair with actress Barbara Stanwyck on the set of the film Titanic in 1953. Wagner was 22 and Stanwyk was 45. The affair was kept a secret, which robbed Eddie Cantor, host at the time of NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour, of telling the first on camera "cougar" joke.
* Singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, an artist I have admired for decades, is taking a stand that is worth celebrating. He filed a lawsuit last month against the republican party and John McCain because they used Browne's song "Running On Empty" in a commercial that attempted to discredit democratic candidate Barak Obama's energy policy. Browne is to be applauded. Songs are intellectual properties in this country and are protected by copyright laws. Browne, as the author of the song, is owed royalties any time it is used for commerical purposes. But more than that, Browne should have complete control of the use of his song in the first place, and he doesn't like McCain as a candidate. I'm glad he had the courage to stand up to the GOP so that his music will not be used against his will. I would write moreon this, but I'm about to watch an online pirated copy of Pineapple Express shot last week on a stolen video camera from the back row of a theater in Juarez. Sweet!!
* Actress Julianne Moore stars in a movie this fall called Blindness which has a rather interesting premise. When an epedemic strikes a city and leaves all of the inhabitants blind, Moore is the last person who is left with sight. The blindness came as a result of sinister activities and Moore leads the blind inhabitants of the city against those responsible. Could be fascinating or awful, depedning on the script (I would tend to give Moore and co-star Mark Ruffalo the benefit of the doubt). But whether it is a good flick or not, I'll be reading www.rottentomatoes.com in the coming weeks to see which movie critic is the first jackass to call it "must-see filmmaking".
*General David Petraeus, the guy who ran the show in Iraq while "the surge" lowered the rate of violence there, is being promoted to a position in the millitary that gives him authority over, among other places, Afghanistan. A few of you may remember this country as the one that we half-heartedly attacked back in 2001 due to their role in the terrorist events of 9/11. In the years that have passed since that sad attempt at retaliation that has yet to result in the capture of Osama Bin Laden, Petraeus seems to be the first leader who has shown overall competence in leading our efforts to decimate Iraq, a country that even President Bush has admitted had nothing to do with 9/11. So my question is this; If Petraeus is such a frigging genius, why wasn't he running the show in Afghanistan a long time ago? Had he been there, we might have already captured Bin Laden and kept the terrorist elements of the country that we claimed to have defeated years ago from making their current comeback. We might also have avoided the accidental killings of 321 Afghani civilians during 2007 (according to Human Rights Watch), fatal mistakes that will no doubt fill local terrorists with a whole new level of hatred for the United States.
*Bill Clinton weighed in on Sarah Palin today, saying, "I get why she's hot out there." I now understand just how powerful the economic bailout story is, because I have yet to hear one comedian or pundit make a single joke about this statement from the former First Poon Hound.
*Former American Idol runner up Clay Aiken reveals in the new issue of People magazine that he is gay. A frenzied press is flocking to the home of a blind nine-year-old "Claymate" (show biz slang for Aiken's fans), as she is the only person in America to react with surprise to the story.
* The New York Yankees were officially eliminated from the playoffs today, marking the first time since 1993 that the Yanks have not been a part of baseball's postseason. They will sit at home this October while the Tampa Bay Rays try to slug and pitch their way to a World Series championship. The Yankees fielded a team this year with a payroll of $209 million, while the Rays checked in with a bargain roster at just under $44 million. I'm sure there is some sort of brilliant financial analogy that can be made that compares the demise of the Yankees and the financial disaster in our nation in recent weeks. Maybe it has something to do with the Yankees being AIG, while the Rays are that State Farm guy with his name on the office door in town who wears short sleeves with a tie and constantly bugs you about adding to your term life policy. And if that isn't good enough I don't care, because the Yankees and all of their fans can suck it!!
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