DramatistDreamer

There's one thing we won't have to wonder about, TC likely won't be showing it, since they don't have the rights., lol. TC's hate for women's tennis has reached such ridiculous lows that they'd likely rather show a Challenger in a back alley in Cleveland than show a WTA final. ...and this is coming from someone who enjoys watching a good Challenger match but come on!

Coco Gauff is the only tennis player from the U.S. to make a final this weekend and the Tennis Channel has been missing it. TC is borderline useless, glad I no longer subscribe.

ICYMI-Trump took several "L"s this week.

I'm beginning to think that the Ukraine talking points being sent to Democrats is not a mistake but someone inside trying to bust these GOP con artist. Also, I know I can't be the only one who made the connection between the clandestine meeting between Rupert Murdoch and A.G. Barr with Shep Smith's departure.

This is what Trump has done to most of the U.S.' existing treaties and agreements, only in this instance signs of the damage has been almost immediate. I mentioned this up-thread the other day. This will do lasting damage to the U.S. in negotiating treaties and accords going forward. ICYMI-

And I said this was going to happen from the get-go. Clearly, she was never going to bow to Trump.

Since 2017, the number of Cuban deportations has increased ten-fold. So far, I haven't heard a peep from Marco Rubio. Oh well.

Kiki Bertens has had some losses this year for sure, but this is Coco Gauff's first win against a Top 10 opponent, so that is a memorable win for her.

The Internet morphed into the disastrous wreck we have today because of corporations like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon (once known as Ma Bell-Bell Atlantic) and the other consolidated cable and telecommunications company getting into the industry and closing out the smaller, independent Internet Service Providers (ISPs). As a student, I started using what was known as the World Wide Web when it first started to become known to the general public, around 1994 but 1996, I was taking computer science courses on html (when, in order to build your own website, you had to learn how to write code, none of this template stuff that everybody does today. The Internet, while only accessible to a small population, was a completely commerce-free environment, that was about connecting with people (an outgrowth of the flourishing of electronic mail a.k.a. "e-mail"). By around 1997-98, small, independent start-ups sprang up to offer Internet service for little cost. By 1999-00, big telecommunications companies (AT&T, chief among them) decided that they were not content to see indie/small startups thriving--they wanted in. The communications behemoths began to squeeze the smaller, indie ISPs (which tried but couldn't compete as companies like AT&T had a lock on the wires and infrastructure that ISPs used) out of the industry. Unfortunately, ISPs couldn't pay the cost of paying companies like AT&T for the use of their wires, as they didn't have the capital but these indie ISPs did try to hang in there--some raised their monthly fees, others like Netzero, went from free to a form of "metering" their service, whereas it had previously been unlimited. Eventually, most of the corporate titans swallowed the smaller, indie ISPs (anyone remember AT&T buying out EarthLink?). By 2005, The telecommunications behemoths had a virtual lock on the industry. The Bush administration, headed by a "CEO in the White House" did nothing to stop the tide of these corporations forming a virtual monopoly on the industry, setting the monthly fees as they had done with the cable, claiming that they were raising industry standards and creating/shoring up better use of technological infrastructure and spurring innovation to ensure worldclass Internet, therefore they needed to keep fees at a certain level to cover costs. Nonsense! Across the Atlantic, in places like the U.K., Germany and the E.U., competition between ISPs flourished, which kept companies competing for business and kept prices down. And in Asia, Internet technology was at least a full decade ahead of the U.S. (e.g. they had video phones on mobile many years before the U.S. did) as they began to build their fiber optic technology (cables wired under the sea floor) post WWII. The U.S. telecommunication corporations' contribution to the Internet was not innovation or technology, it was the introduction of commerce and money, which opened the door for fraud, scams and other forms of criminality (As early as 2002, I reported an incident of "phishing" to my bank when my bank had no idea what "phishing" even was!) all in the name of financial greed. So that is where we are today and IMO, the big telecommunications firms are the reason why we are in the state we are in. Even the founders of the World Wide Web/Internet suggested that we needed to "start over" and build an alternate web, one just for connection, communication and education, where information is shared freely and commerce is banned.

Apparently William Barr had a secret (not-so-secret now) meeting with Rupert Murdoch last night, under cover of darkness. Didn't Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen travel to Vienna during Trump's campaign a couple years ago?

^^ Two words--Flight risk. The corruption of Trump and his Trump-adjacent GOP cronies appears to be endless. Like a bottomless swamp pit. My friends had tried to get me to join Facebook half a dozen times over a decade ago. I'm glad I resisted. It always seemed like it would be a drain on my privacy and I never knew why but I had a feeling.

Anybody know what time this show will be slotted in?

Why does Kei look so adorable here?

Exactly! Trump has two towers in Turkey, people shouldn't forget that when assessing his motives for leaving the door open for Turkey's military to attack the Kurds.

I actually agree with some things but not totally. Having family from other countries and getting their perspective, I get more of a clear-eyed perspective of how the U.S. has been perceived over the last couple of decades. The U.S. was never perceived as being totally trust-worthy by many countries (particularly those with a majority non-white population) but hear me when I say that Obama definitely made inroads in that respect. Also when it came to formulating treaty agreements, there was almost always a base level of some sort of trust (perhaps out of mutual necessity, as you mentioned) that the U.S. had that, it would, as a nation be a reliable partner (as Angela Merkel alluded to) and keep their end of the agreement. The U.S., under Trump, doesn't even have that base level of assumed integrity. Under Trump, the U.S. has shown that not only will they say one thing, one day, only to reverse themselves the very next day but not a word that is said or put into writing, can be taken seriously. That has not always been the case--that is a new contribution from the Trump administration to the perception of the U.S. worldwide. The level of damage that Trump has done is brand new and it will last generations.

Wow, I actually think that Sheryl Underwood put it the most succinctly and I wasn't expecting that, tbh.

In the meantime, I don't know any country that will trust the U.S. at this point, especially with Trump in office. Perhaps some of the damage can be repaired once he's out of office, but that will take a lot of time an effort. It has gone beyond undoing agreements that the Obama administration put in place, Trump has actually been destroying some long-standing accords, treaties and agreements that have been in place for generations. Angela Merkel alluded to the U.S. no longer being a reliable partner during the nascent days of the Trump administration and things have only deteriorated since then. Trump has been wrecking long-existing partnerships and obliterating what level of trust there was, not to speak of the countries (Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa) that often tended to look warily on the U.S. where the Obama administration had just begun to cultivate trust--I seriously doubt those places will ever have one iota of trust where the U.S. is concerned. Trump has done a ton of damage, diplomatically speaking. His foreign policy is the worst I've ever seen of any president in my lifetime.

Speaking of DJH and DH, this article by Anais Granofsky, who played Lucy Fernandez is such an interesting read. https://torontolife.com/city/life/mom-welfare-dad-hippie-grandparents-two-richest-people-toronto/

When my free trial runs out in a few days, that won't be an option for me. YouTube is free and the picture quality has always been pretty solid. PBS used to stream it on their YouTube Channel, but I don't know whether they still do this--I haven't checked lately.

Can someone contact the Marion Stokes estate to see if she, by any chance, recorded some of those episodes that we are all craving to see but somehow no soap fan seems to have?

I've never gotten the sense that Caso was all that much revered, tbh. During about half of his tenure, the talk focused on Marland as HW, which really does say that no matter how much skill an individual may possess as an EP, you can't have a good show without good writing. The remainder of Caso's tenure, unfortunately was marked by stories that were either dull, depressing, or just didn't really work, and for better or for worse, it is that part of his tenure that stays in the minds of many ATWT fans. I mentioned Caso as being a likely good interview based on some things I've heard him say in the past. He seems to at least have a sense of self-awareness and he seems frank, without vanity and knowledgeable about the limitations of the job and the industry. It's not perfection that makes someone a great interview, it's honesty, awareness and the ability to provide insight free of arrogance or defensive posture.

Lord knows, I feel like I could have been there, I've been hearing about it so much without even trying, LOL.