DramatistDreamer

Oh, I saw it earlier Chit and I am disgusted that this still continues to happen. It looks like Blake is truly going to hold the NYPD and City Hall accountable for this and from his statement, it seems that he is tying it to a larger issue of police brutality, particularly against communities of color. The man who supposedly resembled Blake that they were originally looking at as a suspect, it turned out, was innocent.

Why am I even bothering to watch this Djokovic vs. Cilic match?! Looks like Cilic is exactly who I thought he was. I was hoping he'd rise above against Novak for once but nope.

A small bone to pick with ESPN3. Last year and previous years since they've been streaming the USO, they've showed ALL the Junior events and this year, they are barely showing any. I know Junior champs don't always do well in the Pros but over the last few years, I've been introduced to the likes of Taylor Townsend, Nick Kyrgios, Eugenie Bouchard, Belinda Bencic, Thanasi Kokkinakis, Francoise Abanda and Elias Ymer-- all through watching the Junior tournament at the Majors that were streamed on ESPN3. Now, I'll have to watch a crappy dodgy stream on some random site if I want to see the Junior event apparently. I don't have the desire to do that.

That's sports, for you! That's why I don't make predictions. Ever. I wasn't surprised by Flavia Pennetta, she's been tough for years but I must admit, of all the people to emerge out of Serena's half of the draw, Vinci is definitely a surprise! I read that in Serena's post match remarks that she said that she only felt tight in a few points but otherwise felt no pressure. Sorry but I don't believe this. She had never before lost to Vinci. Vinci played well, don't get me wrong but there were several shots where Serena simply hit the ball straight back to Vinci-- what else was Vinci going to do with a ball? Vinci realized Serena had nerves and really took it to her. Ouch for Serena but she still currently holds all four Majors for the time being and has 21 Majors. That's one silver lining. That's many silver linings, actually.

Looks like Ignacio Serricchio will be in a TV series starring Brandy on BET in early 2016. What some of us always knew but Y&R never seemed to pick up on (or know what to do with)-- the fact that the man is Sexy! He will be playing a character named Miguel, described as a "sexy contractor". I wonder if he's going to be playing a sexier version of Eldin, that's contractor on Murphy Brown? http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/a-new-scripted-series-is-coming-to-bet-starring-brandy-norwood-and-executive-produced-by-debra-martin-chase-20150902?utm_medium=sailthru_newsletter&utm_source=saDaily_newsletter

WTF. What the hell could have happened for a judge not to side with the mother??! I just don't know but I wonder what lasting damage this entire process will eventually do to those kids. I hope none but being a child of divorce myself, I cannot imagine that they'll be left completely unscathed from this.

Julianne Moore trying to get the name of her old high school changed after Thurgood Marshall instead of the Confederate general it is currently named for. https://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/julianne-moore-wants-to-rename-her-high-school-194849672.html

Courtesy of WLS, some actors who also happened to be former soap characters gathered for the 14th Biennial National Black Theater Festival co-hosted by Debbi Morgan and Darnell Williams (Angie & Jessie AMC). http://www.welovesoaps.net/2015/08/photos-14th-biennial-national-black.html#more

Documentarian Ken Burns setting Confederate flag lovers straight with some #Real Talk: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/ken-burns-sets-confederate-flag-lovers-straight-its-about-slavery-slavery-slavery/

Really?? She just played 2 sets of tennis against Wozniacki. Before she scolded Nick, she was doing plenty of chatting him up on social media, so I'd put him on the list too. And then there's Sascha, who she's posted Vine and Instagram videos of him doing her laundry and her riding him like a pony (or is that stallion?), so throw his name in there too. But I tried to look that up and only came across some social media posts from last year, posing the same preggers hypothesis. All the drama and sexual innuendo can stay on the ATP side, even Serena said she has relinquished her drama queen status and is basically satisfied waiting for the next bit of ATP gossip to come out.

Very few in the political arena think long and hard about much of anything. The fact that Trump is trending so high in the polls is a case in point. A lot of pandering to constituencies, money and power grabs while making sure to try to keep large groups of people disenfranchised. I wish people wouldn't fall for it but huge amounts of people do. The number of people I come into contact with in every day life in America, to discover that they haven't picked up a book or a newspaper in years is startling! For many, it's listening to whoever screams the loudest among the din that gets the attention. A sad commentary. I cannot say that I look forward to 2016 right now.

Stakhovsky said in an interview that he would never allow his daughter to play tennis because it was a bunch of lesbians and he'd worry about his daughter's safety. He also went on to say that there are no homosexuals in the ATP although he once thought Nadal and Gasquet were gay (he named some other player but I don't remember who) but now he believes that they are straight. To me, there is little difference whether the remarks were on court or off, when Shamil Tarpischev uttered those offensive comments about the Williams Sisters, he did it on a late night talk show in Russia but he was still punished and rightly so. But oncourt, just last year Fabio hurled an ethnic slur at another player and I don't remember whether there was any fine. I think there may have been an apology. Someone else pointed out the Michael Llodra incident a couple years back when he called a woman in the crowd a Chinese whore. He was fined $2500 and issued an apology but no further action was taken. Maybe the fine has been increased since then but the ATP stated that they are looking at the possibility of further action in the Kyrgios situation. The only other time I can remember an organization looking at further action after a fine has been issued was in 2009 during the l'affaire Serena. Then again, this is the same sport that fined Donald Young for yelling 'Son of a Biscuit!'

How did I miss your other post(s), Chit? Maybe I'm sleep deprived (shouldn't have stayed up watching that tennis). I heard that Nick has been fined, so I'm sure the apology was a firm suggestion so he could keep things moving. I think the apology was necessary and I guess the fine is appropriate but some people do have a point when they asked why Stakhovsky hasn't been fined for the derogatory remarks he made recently. Tennis has to start meting out these reprimands more evenly. If one gets a fine, another should get a fine for something similar. Someone made a statement on social media that Kokk and Vekic dated prior to Stan, so what to make of that? Just a weird situation. Berdych may still be in his honeymoon, but good for Donald Young for grabbing that win! Cool for Andy Murray and Kim Sears but it will be interesting to see Andy, toting a baby girl or baby boy in one of those slings/carrier. Actually, I can see that (lol). The ATP is definitely carrying a lot more drama than the WTA and has been for about a year now.

I have to say that the Aussie players are the worse….and yet we have Darren Cahill pimping them to the hills….Kyrgios and Tomic's behavior on and off the court are just terrible. Who wants to root for players like them? It's kind of weird that Lleyton is now the elder statesmen with his history (some unsavory rumors about what facilitated his breakup with Clijsters, not to mention that racially incendiary incident that he instigated with James Blake at the U.S. Open) but I guess time has matured him, so maybe there is hope for Kyrgios. What I do not like in equal measure to Nick's antics are the people on social media who use this as a pretext to hurl racist remarks against Kyrgios (e.g. someone posted that '...you can take the boy out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the boy..."). Kyrgios' behavior has nothing to do with his color or his ethnicity. I feel bad for Kokk being dragged into this whole thing and part of me wishes that Vekic would tell everyone that she has no ring on her finger so who she sleeps with is nobody else's concern but hers but I wish Stan would stop playing victim on social media because his life has been a mess for months and he plays the victim every single time. I wonder what Stan's estranged soon to be ex wife things of all this. Could it be...? https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CMQpDoSWcAA0sGI.mp4

@ Soapsuds, I went to bed soon after I posted this but I'm eating breakfast, checked social media and Nick is STILL Trending!! I saw parts of the Pospisil/Isner match but Tsonga/Andujar was going on at the same time, so I was going back and forth between the two matches but mostly watching Tsonga. I'm glad I missed Gimme's antics (LOL). I knew Justin was too much about himself when I was reading a book about the Women's tennis tour called Venus Envy and he mentions that he thought Venus was into him and sounded hurt when he came to the realization that she really just wanted to play tennis with him (they were doubles partners at the time). And recently someone posted a "throwback photo" of Justin with his arms tightly around the waist of Venus Wiliams, I found it a bit creepy since, I mean, she was still a teenager! Here's video of the Kyrgios incident and the very brief on court interview: http://www.sportsnet.ca/tennis/rogers-cup/kyrgios-goes-viral-during-match-with-wawrinka/

Not only that but Dimitrov allegedly has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Bulgarian model who is allegedly been going around saying that they slept together. I don't think this lawsuit will get Sugarpova back. Speaking of sexual innuendo, I'm watching this contentious Kyrgios vs. Wawrinka match and Nick, pissed and in a hail of obscenity blurted out "Sorry to tell you mate, but Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend". I'm thinking Nick was talking about Stan's rumored fairly recent, barely legal girlfriend Donna Vekic. At first, I wasn't sure what I'd heard but within minutes there was a Vine (with audio) all over Twitter and it sounds like what I thought. OMG!

Oh Hillary Hillary and this e-mails business. Not. good. Speaking of things that need to be fixed, I do have to giver her campaign credit for this though:

I haven't been closely following this case but apparently Kelly Rutherford (Generations, Gossip Girl) has lost custody of her children: http://abc7ny.com/entertainment/kelly-rutherford-loses-custody-of-2-children/921342/

Yeah, that was pretty bad to read. Yesterday a lot of Indian and Pakistani Americans were posting how embarrassed they are to have Jindal as part of the South Asian American/Desi community. Jindal just doesn't seem to know what he's doing. He's managed the state's budget very poorly and because he wasted money from the state's coffers by squandering it on needless corporate tax breaks, so now he has to rob Peter to pay Paul to try to fill an enormous budget deficit that LA now has. Everything about the way he's been going about things is wrong.

It can definitely be both. I never thought of the victims that may have passed away but given the span of ages and Cosby's prolific predatory history, that's entirely possible. That makes me even sadder. What this industry (and probably many others) does not want to admit that there is a culture of casual acceptance on much older men pursuing, and sometimes preying on younger women who are often looking for advice, mentor-ship, access to opportunities within the industry. There were a few times when I encountered a few at some events and because I'm naturally suspicious I blocked efforts quickly or was fortunate to discover what the person was after while meeting him in a public place but in none of those incidents involved someone of Cosby's magnitude and if I were a more open person...there but for the grace of God, you know?

The NYT has done some good journalism but that has mainly to do with their longform and series stories (Ebola, China's Rural to Urban movement, NYC's toxic nail salons and halfway houses) which most don't bother to read. Many of their shorter articles (1-3 pages) can often get the details wrong in their quest to court clicks. I think in an effort to appear as though they are not being soft on Hilllary, they've gone too far and I'd be pissed if I were the Hillary campaign. The only reason why they've come forward is because people (other journalists/pundits) came forward and pointed it out on several Sunday news shows, which forced the editorial staff at NY Times to print what amounts to a de facto retraction. If Clinton's camp is smart, they will use this to their advantage.

Pill Cosby, Woody Allen, Roman Polansky...and they wonder why more women don't 'Lean In' to get ahead our respective fields. We're too busy trying to protect ourselves. Let's face it, most women can't go out with a V.I.P. to the steakhouse and knock back whiskeys to curry favor like other guys do. Does that empty chair make anyone else feel really sad? Not only does it remind me of the woman/women who feel they cannot come forward but it reminds me that there are other predators in the industry whose identities are still being shielded from exposure.

Some of you may know about the work of the Equal Justice Initiative, founded by Bryan Stevenson-- they are most recently known for doing work with contemporary civil rights issues and working with public figures like Serena Williams who launched an advocacy outreach earlier this year. Michael B. Jordan will be playing Stevenson in a film based on a critically acclaimed book written by Stevenson. http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/michael-b-jordan-adds-adaptation-of-acclaimed-nonfiction-bestseller-just-mercy-to-his-slate-20150724?utm_source=saDaily_newsletter&utm_medium=sailthru_newsletter

I haven't seen the episode (waiting for it to be uploaded online) but I wonder if Larry Wilmore, one of the headwriters of The Bernie Mac show, will be included.

Well, brace yourself Amy (lol): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8PVK6Hky2A&ab_channel=SonyPicturesEntertainment