DramatistDreamer

Because there was some discussion about Cynthia Nixon's run for governor of NY, I thought this might be of interest. Also, this sort of ties into that mention that I made about reading news from publications other than the same ones that get posted from all the time-- Nixon did her first interview since declaring her candidacy with the Amsterdam News. (*warning-- there's an annoying embedded video newsfeed that runs to the right of the article. Just click pause or mute, if you want to silence it*). Candidate and the city: Cynthia Nixon speaks one-on-one with the AmNews To those who may not know, the Amsterdam News (formerly The New York Amsterdam News), is the oldest active Black newspaper in the United States. When I lived in NYC, I often used to read it and I have a particular fondness for the Amsterdam News since reading it helped me find my first apartment.

Some people may try to giggle and dismiss this but this situation looks to have real consequences.

Good news, I was beginning to wonder what was going on!

There is no new king in Saudia Arabia (yet). They still have the old one. There is a prince-- Mohammed bin Salman (A.K.A. MBS), who has ascended the ranks and is primed to take over for the king, eventually (if there is no coup or upheaval that affects that takeover before it happens). He is the same one who has Jared wrapped around his finger. I haven't seen that tweet at all. I try to stay away from random tweets that come from random unaccredited sources because Twitter has quite a bot problem. Many of the bots are known for spreading news that is not true. I just saw today that the right-wing were imploding over some doctored picture of Emma Gonzalez, one of the Parkland, FL teens. Apparently, this happened over the weekend but I didn't see the doctored vs. real picture until today because I generally don't follow any of those accounts who would send that type of thing out. Twitter can be a great resource but I always look at "news" tweets with a critical eye and generally avoid the unscrupulous accounts.

As for the paper/blog/media debate, my two cents: NYT will always be a better regional/local paper than national one. Being that I grew up and still live in the NYC Metro area, the regional/local stories will always be the one that I read first and the other sections Arts & Entertainment, International, Politics, National, etc. happen to catch my attention while I'm there. Yet, currently, I don't consume the NYT at the rate I once did, which is for the best. Growing up, I was taught to read critically and to pick apart the perspective presented in everything I read, so I never took NYT to be gospel anyway. Politico/WSJ are basically the same to me. They both seem very slanted to a certain worldview. NYT and many other publications disappoint in terms of the dearth of diverse voices in their papers and publications like Politico and WSJ are even less diverse than NYT. No offense but they strike me as having an entitled White guy perspective that does little to engage me on a regular basis. I've always read "foreign" newspapers being that my family came from "foreign" and I find that helps a lot because I am keenly aware that what happens is not just about the U.S. I consume news from at least one non-Western country a day and subscribe to news from a 100+ year old paper from a so-called "Third World Country", which has maintained a high standard of news coverage. I would encourage others to do the same. Read some good quality papers outside of the U.S./England domain. Read a good non-Western paper that maintains a high standard of news coverage. Watch a news stream that isn't American-centric. Not RT though, they're garbage, LOL.

It is well known (or should be) that Jared Kushner has been compromised to do the bidding of Saudia Arabia/Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE. You can see this clearly in the U.S. shift in attitude toward Qatar, a U.S. ally that also has air bases for the U.S. military, which has now become antagonistic.

I looked at that interview from a legal standpoint and the fact that the FEC stated that the campaign finance violation(s) may, in fact, be worse than in the Edwards' case to be pretty significant. I know many people chose to gravitate to the more salacious aspects but Cliffords' lawyer, Mr. Avenatti emphasized that this case was all about the cover up. I also believe that to be as important as the possible FEC violation(s). Speaking of the GOP in shambles, This guy chooses not to run again because he knows he can't win in a newly drawn district--one that no longer heavily favors Republicans. Republican Rep. Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania won't seek re-election

Very effective of Daniels'/Cliffords' lawyer to repeatedly refer to Cohen's/Trump's tactics as being "thuggish". A very apt description of how Trump Inc. has been known to operate. Interesting too that this is being seen as being worse than John Edwards' campaign violations, which were pretty darn bad.

It's not just about acclaim, they literally used her image in every single one of their promotional ads for the show. Even when her co-stars were in promos, she was featured alongside them in addition to ads that featured her alone. I don't agree with the idea that Smith should somehow donate/refund the difference in salary but the production company should pay Foy commensurate to her value to the show, a helluva lot since any show about the British crown in the 20th and 21st century simply could never place without Queen. In fact, critical acclaim mattered a great deal to this company and Netflix because once Claire Foy won her acting awards (she won more than one), Netflix and the production company doubled-down on using her image to promote the show. Pay the lady what she's worth. And since it was the production company who decided to "let the cat out of the bag", not Netflix (or anyone else), the responsibility to fix this should rest with the production company.

Based on the show he wrote for cable (A New Day In Eden), I think Marland would've jumped at another chance to write far more edgy racier fare than what he was allowed to do in daytime.

This is the response from the Miami Open. Doesn't sound as if anything will be resolved anytime soon.

I saw this yesterday, tweeted out by Avenatti. Seems like that 60 Minutes interview has all the potential to be Fire! Also, Trump is noticeably silent about it on twitter. Meanwhile, I've been checking in with some of the speeches from the March For Our Lives event online and these kids are so inspiring! They are so much more thoughtful, eloquent and resilient than the people who currently run this country.

It's like a OLTL reunion on Netflix. Shaun Evans makes a cameo in Roxanne Roxanne as a bouncer who doesn't want to let Roxanne rap and her friend (Shenell Edmonds) is trying to change his mind.

Oh my goodness, Shenell Edmonds (Destiny, OLTL) is playing Roxanne Shanté's friend in the Netflix movie Roxanne Roxanne. It took half a second to recognize her.

Also, did anyone see Nia Long's SAG interview? Guiding Light is literally the first show that gets mentioned.

I guess nobody saw Long's Uncensored episode on TV One? She talks about getting the call about an audition for Guiding Light fresh out of high school. She did talk about not liking the audition process but getting the role. Honestly, I think had anyone bothered to ask Nia Long, she would likely have gladly talked about it but she's unlikely to bring it up out of nowhere. I don't remember her bringing up Boys In The Hood or The Best Man and more people likely know her from those roles. Perhaps she sensed that time was limited and wanted to use it to promote her latest project. In any case, I put the onus at the women of The Talk for failing to introduce the topic, then again, I don't expect them to draw attention to either of the two canceled soaps, lest they stir feelings about ATWT, the soap they replaced.

Yeah but Long as long gone by then.

It may not always have been great storyline (I agree that ATWT could have and should have kept Lisa and Lucinda clashing) but Lisa had storyline until the mid 90s. The last several years of the show's existance the Lisa character was totally marginalized and then shut out. Eileen Fulton was the most upset about this.

Trump signed the spending bill. Is this what all the hullabaloo was about?

I remember Bolton railing on CNN during the times of the Bush administration. A real nutter! Lord help us all if Trump gets cornered on any number of the violations he has perpetrated, both personally and during his administration-- surely Bolton will help orchestrate some conflict or beat the drums of war because he is an avid warmonger. I could imagine a scenario where the U.S. will suddenly step up their footprint in an African country where they already have a presence (Niger, Mali, etc.), thinking that it is too "far flung" for Americans to notice or care, the way the Bush administration once thought of Iraq (remember the Bush White House's adage that the U.S. should fight "them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here", there being Iraq and here being the U.S.? There is a reason why the Trump WH has been steadily upping the U.S. military presence in Africa in the past year.

I saw the segment and couldn't help but think that it's likely Sheryl wasn't watching GL in the 90s and had no idea Nia Long was on the show. Someone should've done research.

Keys retired from her match against Azarenka. Did Keys play Indian Wells? I don't remember at all.

South Africa, like many countries including the U.S., is a land of contrasts. An economy that grows in leaps and bounds, with pockets of astonishing poverty. There is a Black middle class that continues to expand, although the progress has slowed down in recent years, for various reasons. South Africa's political problems (i.e. the ANC vis a vis Jacob Zuma) is what the right-wing media has no doubt affixed themselves to. Zuma has been expelled as leader of the ANC but in being allowed to stay so long, he has done a lot of damage to the party of Mandela, mainly the reputation and trust the ANC had cultivated with the South African people over decades. Needless to say, South Africa is in a (re)building phase. Still, people must remember that it's South Africa, not Somalia with its struggle with militants...or Kenya, with its history of bursts of pre/post election ethnic violence. It's not even Nigeria, that has a simmering battle with Boko Haram. It's not even Rwanda, that has an economy on a decided upswing yet has a president that dabbles in autocratic tendencies at times. And all countries battle corruption, obviously some (e.g. Nigeria, Russia, etc) more than others. South Africa has a youthful, increasingly highly educated population that has been building a lively arts/entertainment and technology scene for the past decade. It has more in common with its neighbor Botswana (which is proving to be more and more of an economic success story-which is why you never hear about it in the Western media) than it does with countries that are derisively referred to as 'failed states'. For sure, South Africa has a lot of challenges that it must take on, like that of the governance/political issues that I mentioned but we should all resist the urge to compare the country to those that have had democracy for centuries (the U.S. is often still referred to as a "young country"). Remember that South Africa only emerged from apartheid in what, 1990-91? Of course, if you're living in poverty and squalor any wait is too long. Just ask any post-Civil Rights POC who is stuck living in any ghetto in the U.S. One thing this political crisis with the ANC has brought about is that people now realize that the ANC is no longer the party that Mandela helped build and are now giving serious consideration to other political parties when they cast their votes, especially the youth, which I mentioned before, only grow in numbers. Needless to say, right-wing media is the least likely to paint any balanced, nuanced or even accurate picture of what happens in any African country. Right-wing media can't even be trusted to report the facts of what happens with black people who live in the U.S., let alone a continent away.