Show tonight! We’re talking movies. Two movies in particular: Network and Rollerball. These brilliant mid-70s films predicted the state of our society today…Anita Finlay, author of Dirty Words on Clean Skin, and John Smart, purveyor of JohnwSmart.net, discuss our current discontent and how these two prescient films reverberate today. Join us. Click here at 7pm to listen.
MSNBC is beyond the pale.
ROLLERBALL is one of my all-time favorites!
I have the original on DVD
THanks to the “Chatters” tonight. Great stuff in the chat room.
This one’s for Sophie:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/michelle-obama-after-the-election-im-going-to-get-years-and-years-of-payback-from-barack/article/2511226?utm_campaign=Outbrain+Story+Box&utm_source=traffic.outbrain.com&utm_medium=internal_outb
barry’s one hundredth problem.
Thanks a lot Tamer, and to think my blood pressure was normal today, at least until I read that..
In the spirit of Halloween, here’s a short film I made a gazillion years ago:
Love love love this
This is the best clip from Network. It’s even more true today than it was in 1976:
BTW – I remember watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when Peter Finch came on to promote the movie. After the show he had a heart attack and died. He won the Best Actor Oscar posthumously.
Yes. And today it’s telling us to vote for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.
Hi John, I havent posted in a long time. I remember you had wanted a discussion on race and I dont know if this is the proper place to post. But I had today one of the most hurtful discussions from my family today discussing Obama. I wanted show what a black anti Obama pro hillary person goes through and has gone through since 2008 This came from my cousin who graduated from Yale Law School 1973 with Hillary Clinton and turned 65 yesterday, I would post all the emails but it would take to much. The last one was where I felt my heart break.. any way..
Re: solace and encouragement
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“No longer can they use slavery or racism as an excuse. To be equal they will …”
you mean “we,” don’t you?!
we all know how locked into your viewpoint you are. your early comment about “blue/black lips” was the tipoff. black bourgeois affront over an interloper! one wonders if the issue is sheer stubbornness, or you simply enjoy the role of adversary. I’ll give you the courtesy of not assuming this flows from mental mediocrity.
who cares about Alice palmer or some nobody in St. Louis? no one but you! no question but obama is relentlessly ambitious, calculating, ruthless. so was Abraham Lincoln. pull up last week’s newsweek.
all the qualities we applaud in a white male, but question in a black man or woman.
not smart? … you don’t get to Harvard law and the presidency of its review w/out some smarts. that should also answer your specious criticism re resume.
obama became a community organizer, not a grasping lawyer. you conveniently overlook that. if, instead, you find some devious ulterior plan, was that not smart?!
mccain or Hillary in the white house? … are you kidding? .. mccain is a buffoon and a false hero. he cried “uncle” in Vietnam after being shot down owing to his stubborn foolishness. (yeah, he punked out, signed a confession.) he abandoned his disabled first wife on his return and lied to marry the moneyed second one. Hillary is a confirmed liar (taking cover from fire on the tarmac in kosovo!)and a former goldwater girl. both are mostly ego and would have been rolled bigtime.
meanwhile, here is a man whose family marital record is spotless. your quibbles have to do with hard-hitting Chicago politics. maybe what irks you is that he chose someone your (hi yella?) ilk would have thought was not in the running. ??
if, for no reason other that the uplift — to a people, to a nation, to the world! — seeing a black face at the pinnacle of (white western) power provides, it was worth electing obama. and re-electing him! the example of his rise from single motherhood and Michele’s rise from the working class, and their parenting of their girls is of incalculable value respecting precisely the problems of black folk you catalogue.
contrast them with your own example! contrast obama with Jesse Jackson, al sharpton, all the black dictators of Africa, even the womanizing martin Luther king! he looks far better!
the fact is that obama is cool, calculating, and has achieved despite severe, Racist, even unpatriotic obstinacy by republicans. he has been amazing!
healthcare reform, while far from perfect, has been a great accomplishment. this country was on the precipice. he f–king saved it in spite of the naysayers, idiots, and obstructionists. obama has been a ruthless adversary to our enemies. the call to take out bin laden required tremendous courage.
sure, he has faults. but I like a man who was a pot smoker, a smoker, an idler, and then found purpose via his own inner journey.
what? you want to elect another teetotalling, pussyfooter who doesn’t begin to measure up to his father in moral courage?
the beauty of family is that disagreements do not necessarily result in schism.
you are still communicated with and loved. perhaps mostly out of respect for your father. ?? if we were not related, interchange would have been halted years ago.
your views are not respected. your intransigence is a joke. you have become a foil.
it is time for a rethink, a return from prodigality.
the question you need to ask is whether WE — the large family, with no exceptions, unless you care to name one (other than a couple misguided born-again types in Atlanta) — are all wrong and deluded, while you, a person let’s admit of meager accomplishment who has never assumed the burden of self sustainance, are correct.
don’t think so!
Wow-I am so sorry. You can’t pick your family…and I hope you don’t mind me saying it, but what a condescending asshole.
Yikes! Poor you. It it’s any comfort, your cousin is a jerk (and can’t write for shite).
For a Yale Law grad, her ad hominem attack on you and her sub-literacy (even cutting slack for e-mail casualness) speaks for itself. E.g. “if, for no reason other that the uplift — to a people, to a nation, to the world! — seeing a black face at the pinnacle of (white western) power provides, it was worth electing obama.” Keep the faith. (I wonder how many of us find similar versions of this “altar call” to repent from prodigal ways and bow down to the Messiah from our family and friends around now, as in ’08?)
Cut that relative loose.
Regardless of political or philosophical differences, that person is toxic to you.
If well meaning relatives ask why you no longer speak to so and so, forward this letter.
Chips, you have a virtual family here with us. All of us went through similar in 2008, and are encountering it again now. Your experience seems especially harsh.
Sadly, your family are trapped in a cult. You have ‘strayed’ in their minds, so they subject you to ‘the Treatment’/ put you ‘in the Circle’ — the cult tactic of ganging up on the doubter with belittling personal attacks.
Stay strong. You know the truth.
Thanks.. its a He by the way. In 2008 he always had negative things to say about Hillary yet never once could give he me a clear argument about why he hated her so much except talking about her looks. If Obama has done anything its put multitudes of divisions among so many groups. Anyway as my sister says there are far more important things to be concerned about also I apologize to John if this post was inappropriate.
Your cousin sounds like a few of our friends who thought they were so so smart by voting for this Harvard, community activist, biracial person. Now they are angry that their ‘messiah’ is a mere whiny mortal who has made things worse so rather than admitting how wrong they were they lash out at others. They will never admit how they were scammed / taken in although there was plenty of evidence showing his politics.
“Hillary is a confirmed liar”
This simply amazes me. How, as we find ourselves in the midst of the Benghazi cover-up, an Obama supporter can call any other candidate/politician a liar just boggles the mind.
I have great sympathy for AAs and persons of color who do not support Obama. I’ve heard too many stories about the anger and abuse their family and friends heap upon them. Then to add insult to injury, the MSM disappears them. (Poof, gone, you don’t exist!) Stay strong. Let truth bring you comfort. You are not alone, we are all in this together.