DramatistDreamer

Oh, he's great as Trump's chief antagonist.

I had a feeling too @Vee. Just based on what I've read secondhand though. Is this part of the reason why CBS is so highly misogynistic in it's programming?

Serbia emerged from the war and strife in the Balkans (from collection of countries formerly known as Yugoslavia) as a relatively poor country. It is a lifetime away from Croatia, (another Balkan country that emerged from the war) which has been a well-known travel destination for at least a decade. Let's just put it this way-- I once saw a special on Frontline PBS where a man who had been held in a CIA "Black site" during the war in Afghanistan was released to Serbia and after months of being there he was crying to be sent to another country! Recently, I read that there was some real estate development that has been going on (which is displacing some residents) but yeah, life there is still tough for many and there is still a fair amount of crime there.

I just saw this! All those times when people used to wonder why he shielded his son's face from public view, my immediate thoughts were always that perhaps he wanted to protect his son from the possibility of being kidnapped. The threat is very real if he's in Serbia, although I know he lives in Monte Carlo but clearly he and is wife have family who still live there.

I always do this. The town where I currently live used to chuckle when I did this. I wonder if they think I'm being silly when I do this again before midterms. I think I just saw the video. Do most Americans truly stop and think of the cruelty that is being committed in their names?

It's so interesting that when Obama was president, deficits were practically all that mattered. So much so that when the Obama administration proposed a bigger stimulus that would include upgrading the electrical grid (making it a national priority), the Republicans squawked endlessly about exploding deficits, cowing even some Democrats to back down from supporting anything other than a modest stimulus. Consequently, it's now being discovered that the Russians have recently been hacking into various electrical authorities, causing various power outages.

I definitely don't want Avenatti to ever run for president. I am so tired of these guys who believe that fighting their 'cases' in the media means that they can do the hard work of governing. And similar to Trump, Avenatti believes himself to be a streetfighter who likely seems himself as being uniquely capable of 'getting the job done'. These types usually believe that only they are uniquely skilled to 'fix' the problem(s) alone. He's great as a foil to antagonize Trump but higher elected office? No thanks. I need the U.S. to get back to electing people who can be diplomats with a deft touch, not a wrecking ball. We've been discussing tax cuts and deficits and shockingly, there are still some folks out there who believe Trump's tax cuts to be having a positive effect. Well, this is for 'the people in the back' who still don't get it.

I've cut out on soaps when I felt that the writing just wasn't good. I'm not going to waste my time out of some misplaced sense of loyalty when the shows haven't earned it. That goes for any websoaps too. I've watched low budget fare online (particularly comedies) that was good and entertaining, so I don't care how high or low the production values are, if the writing is poor, even talented actors can't cover that and I will turn away from that. Something else that I just thought of with soaps on the web--they're not just competing with other soaps as they (mostly) did in their heyday, on the networks. Today's soaps on the web are competing against everything else on the web. And there is such an abundance of entertainment on the web that if a program doesn't either stand out above everything else, or be so excellent that they can't be ignored-- then they will struggle to capture an audience. Korean soaps and telenovelas have managed to find audiences by offering what no other genre can offer. Have American online soaps managed to do this? Do daytime dramas even know how to do this anymore?

When his game started to pick up, I figured Djokovic likely dumped that guru.

Oh boy, hold onto your re-boots.

@soapfan770 Speaking of the Grammars, I just saw this, LOL. Oh Lordy, why did I mention his success with this show...it's almost like speaking this into being!

Simon Cambers mentioned that the ratings for the women's final exceeding the men's were similar to last years women's semifinals (Venus vs. Konta) ratings which exceeded last years men's final!

The Prospect Park soaps, in particular, did well because even though they were still launched slightly ahead of their time, they were launched on a streaming platform that had great infrastructure and was emerging as a highly recognizable name. For the most part, Hulu, even back then had brand recognition. Hulu had already started building a strong sense of trust among an audience. Hulu itself was the invention of a coalition built by the networks and have the support of network television corporations, unlike Netflix which continues to be seen as an interloper (if not an outright threat) in the entertainment ecosystem. Had P&G/PGP tried launching a similar model with, perhaps their longest two running soaps, Guiding Light and As The World Turns, particularly at this time, PGP and those two shows likely would've had less skeptics to deal with than the Prospect Park soaps and might have had an easier time building their audience. To add more to what @SteelCity was talking about, soap fans seem very much to be married to brand recognition and brand loyalty. The soaps and their production companies themselves fostered this mindset over decades--it's how they literally sold soap. By and large, that attitude has remained and soap fans are very staunchly wedded to brands that they grew up with, recognize and have memories of using and enjoying. In the rest of the populations, these attitudes seem to have changed faster-- the embrace of what's new and different, more experimentation. I've found that many (again, not all) soap fans have been reluctant, if not slow, to embrace the new. Many soap fans have memories attached to these brands, including their television programs and frankly, soap fans are not alone in this-- which is why so many of these rebooted series of long ago canceled shows (One Day At A Time, Full House, the upcoming Murphy Brown, even Roseanne-for better or worse) are having such an impact at this time.

I cut the cord almost 8 years ago and while it has been challenging, I definitely don't have any regrets. @Khan An antenna is a viable option for many people (if you live in an apartment building, it gets a bit more tricky). The technology is basically the same as its been for 100 years with some updates but the antennas now transmit faster than cable and streaming for the local channels that you get. Also, there are more than a handful of digital substations that you cannot get on cable or streaming (GetTV, Bounce, etc.) I have sporadically tried watching these shows. Even though the production values of these indie soaps being streamed has vastly improved, I still find a lot of the content (scripts, direction, some of the performances) somewhat lacking. I can't put my finger on it, but there are some elements and nuances that are still missing for me.

Wow, Kathryn Hays had Bell's Palsy? Was she ever interviewed about what she believes brought it on and how she dealt with it?

Gosh, with all the seedy topics lately, these threads are practically getting lost in the tangle!

In some article I recently read I learned that there is no such thing as farm insurance, just crop insurance and certain crops are more difficult to insure than others. You can probably guess the easiest crops to get insurance for-- yes, corn and soy. This is why there is so little bio-diversity in the U.S., farmers are dissuaded from growing a variety of crops, even though it would provide for richer, healthier soil and less of a need for pesticides. There are at least 20 varieties of apples yet, in the U.S., only 4-5 varieties are grown. The pests have adapted to the few varieties grown here, hence the need for stronger and stronger pesticides. Agribusinesses like Monsanto have been trying to subvert the scientific study of certain weedkillers and pesticides (e.g. nicotinoids) and their potentially disastrous effect on the bees but there seems to be some studies' results that suggest that these nicotinoids are the main cause of colony collapse of the bees. It seems that there are solutions but very few in the agricultural industry appear willing to undertake these suggestions.

Resignations happen so frequently now, it should come as no surprise but this letter of resignation is worth a read. Apparently Holtzman is not alone in resigning from the DHS.

Spieth trended quite a lot on Twitter but Tiger Woods was trending pretty much the entire weekend. Pretty fair indicator of just how much people were talking about and watching the tournament.

@JaneAusten has the energy that I wish had to explain things nowadays. @Khan The first outage really had me perplexed when it happened because the outage occurred early on a Saturday morning (just a little after 6am)--hardly a time of high energy usage (like mid-afternoon). The power company was evasive and really couldn't (or wouldn't) offer an explanation on how/why it happened. I wish our media outlets would ask these questions of people. Jeff Bezos and the Walton family are some of the country's/world's wealthiest people. Should anyone who cannot "afford" to pay a fair wage and benefits to their employees really be in business? Americans should ask themselves whether it is truly acceptable for someone who works (even part-time) to be unable to afford to eat healthily or see a doctor?

Remember when President Obama wanted to upgrade the electrical grid nationwide but the Republicans threatened to torpedo any more spending higher than the most meager stimulus plan? Yeah, I remember that. Makes me wonder whether some Republicans were being cultivated by Russian operatives even back then. Perhaps the operatives had a hand in preventing the necessary upgrades to the electrical grid with the hopes that it would be weak enough for them to manipulate and hack. Makes me wonder.

And I've experienced two power outages in the last six weeks!!

@DRW50 That's what I get for clicking on that damn suggestion column. Against my better judgement, I decided to test my theory of how bad the show's final decade was, mainly to see if I was somehow being unfair or whether my initial judgement(s) were correct. I have given up on watching all the way through and have taken to hitting the FF tab. A LOT. I truly am starting to feel badly for the senior and longtime veteran actors, many of whom might as be wallpaper at this point. Some wallpaper is styled better too--honestly some of the worst hair, makeup and clothing choices I've ever seen on the show. I thought Lily's 1988 'mom jeans' were bad but Barbara's satin gold pantsuit is in a league all it's own! Sets, styling, etc. Bad visuals all around.