DramatistDreamer

Kokkinakis won that match in three sets. If Tomic doesn't win in straight sets, it's a pretty good guess that he'll tap out before the match is over.

Manafort is looking at serious time, irrespective of what happens with the other 10 charges.

Partial verdict so far. The jury has agreed on 8 of 18 charges so far. EDT: And those 8 counts have all been guilty so far.

We may actually hear about that sometime soon today.

What can one say about C-SPAN these days? The call screening is...at least this was a good time not to screen the call though. He got cut off unfortunately.

She looks so gorgeous here!

So Cohen copped a Plea?

The music video goes by an altogether different model than it once did which is probably healthier and a bit more democratic than what it had become under MTV. I suspect that MTV was likely finding it more difficult to monetize music as easily as they once did. It happened sooner rather than later, when I suspect a 'Napster for music videos' type service was likely to show itself and eat from MTV's bowl. It was inevitable.

Music video is still very much alive on the Internet through the likes of Vevo, Noisey, Vimeo, BBC, WorldStar and those are just the mainstream sites.

Clive Davis holds some sway and if he has anything to do with it (which I can't see him not being involved), it's going to be a sure sight better than anything MTV can think of. I only saw clips of last night's VMA this morning. I lost interest in MTV a very long time ago. When I was a child in the 80s, I ranked MTV and BET about even. For awhile, BET had more diverse programming, in the fact that they didn't just do videos, they also had cooking shows and game shows and so I probably watch BET more than MTV earlier on. MTV was known for playing the same small number of music videos in heavy rotation early on. It was known that if you watched for 90 minutes, you saw pretty much what they had to offer for the rest of the day. When the Thriller album videos started airing, around '84 (MTV was late), MTV actually started to become appointment viewing TV. Still, if you wanted to see groups that did less known musical genres like freestyle, that was very popular in the NYC metro area, you couldn't get that on MTV, you were more like to see that on a local show like Video Music Box or even BET, if it was a black artist like Shannon. There was just so much in music that MTV didn't cover that you had to supplement by watching other channels, networks. That was just the way it was.

Speaking of Video Soul, I just took a peek at Donnie Simpson's social media and his posted this tweet from Maxwell about Aretha Franklin. This is too cute!

Yeah, that's why I referenced that interview that Bowie did with MTV. Everyone knew that MTV systematically devalued Black music until that system was losing them money. I do think that Fab5 Freddy did a very different show than Ed Lover & Dre. Freddy didn't want to be in a studio every day like other VJs at MTV, so he turned them down when they suggested a daily 'in studio' show. He felt it was best to go out and talk to people, which is why you saw him on location with his interviews. Ed Lover & Dre were not music or art connoiseurs like Freddy, they were comedians-- they had a totally different approach that dealt more in shallow comedy and silliness, which seemed to suit MTV's purposes just fine.

Maybe now that a conservative website has been hacked, enough GOP will take the matter seriously. I doubt it though. Speaking of the Hudson Institute, it just reminds me that while conservatives whine about how liberals are supposedly embedded in college and university campuses to indoctrinate students, they do just as much to try to indoctrinate students, the only difference is that conservatives have been less successful at it. As a grad student/alumni, I can remember getting spammed by the Hudson Institute and my university was in the heart of liberal NYC. I was offered an associate membership in the organization and I allowed my e-mail to be on the mailing list because they not only was I curious about what this organization was about but they were offering freebies, LOL. They had some celebrity speakers basically giving lectures, mainly about achieving success in business and/or in certain fields/industries as well as free subscriptions to certain magazines like Forbes (a conservative leaning financial publication). Well, I was only ever tempted to attend one of the lectures and I never made it there because by then I had moved out of NYC and I didn't want to bother taking a train and subways just for one lecture. I also got bored of the same old self-aggrandizing white men on the covers of the magazines, which had no appealing or useful advice for me. Even when they offered to extend my membership, I canceled. They had nothing of value or interest for me and I no longer wanted to deal with the clutter their mailings had been causing my mail and e-mail. Also, Republican politicians began to send me mail about their campaigns and they seemed way too familiar with referring to me as a fellow Republican which was the final straw as I didn't want to hear from anyone from the GOP and I definitely didn't want anyone thinking that I was a Republican! (Had they seen me in person, surely they would balk, ) Reading about the GRU hacking the Hudson Institute and other conservative sites that had been critical of Russian interference just reminded me of my very brief time as a member of the Hudson Institute.

MTV systematically ignored Black artists for the first few years of its existence as a network. There is a, by now, (in)famous interview with David Bowie where he questions VJ Adam Goodman on why MTV is ignoring Black artists and Goodman replies with some bullsh*t response about the possibilityof kids in middle America being scared off. The reaction of David Bowie as he guffaws and shakes his head is priceless. The Grammys has their own history with Black musicians that I won't get into but yeah, MTV definitely has a history too.

MTV does this by design. Madonna did the exact same thing with her "tribute" to Prince. This was no accident. There is a generation of Black people who grew up in the 1980s who remember seeing Aretha singing in music videos. Songs like "Freeway of Love" (which got a LOT of play on BET, Video Music Box, Friday Night Videos) "Who's Zooming Who?" "Jump To It" (which, I admit was far more popular on the radio than video) "Jumping Jack Flash" where Whoopi Goldberg made a very memorable cameo "The Sisters Are Doing It (For Themselves)" with Annie Lennox "(I) Knew You Were Waiting For Me" with George Michael. Just because MTV didn't acknowledge or play most of these videos doesn't mean they didn't exist. Nor does it diminish their importance. MTV was the same network that tried to keep Michael Jackson's videos and only started playing his videos under duress. Soon after they practically tied their network to Jackson once they saw how many were flocking his music. I do agree that MTV is not the proper venue to pay tribute to Aretha. Madonna is not the right artist to do so either.

How did I miss this?! Had anyone posted this before?

Who actually believed that Halep would play the Connecticut Open?

Ms. Argento was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. Years later, Ms. Argento sexually assaulted Jimmy Bennett. Both things are true. Since there are other women who HW assaulted, I don't think his case hinges on Ms. Argento and Ms. McGowan. In fact, none of the charges against HW include those made my Ms. Argento. There are quite a few other women who HW assaulted and none of this invalidates their claims.

Wow, we're not hearing anything that's going on in Yemen these days. Also, last year, the U.S. government decided that the number of casualties in Afghanistan will no longer be made public.

Good Lord. I can't keep up anymore. Everything's so twisted. This makes me wonder whether Anthony Bourdain discovered this. I won't go on in what I'm thinking because I only started to read the article. Sometimes the preyed upon can then become a predator to someone else.

So messy! Those stories about Martines and Pilgrim.

It makes for some exciting competition though and it is quite an accomplishment for Novak.

I'll always remember his Davis Cup exploits in the mid '00s. Same.