Vee

Meanwhile: Now, back to the show.

What recovery? For their two towers of charisma? I don't take anything for granted. We always have to remain vigilant and work hard, especially in this decade from hell. And media still hates Democrats. But I will say we are in a considerably better position for next year right now than I thought we would be some time ago. Our two opponents are DeSantis, who is never going to be ready for primetime, and Trump. Both are poison in a general and one is facing prison or endless litigation for the rest of his life. And everyone knows it. That is a lot working for us. And that's not even getting to abortion, or the book bans or LGBT crackdowns, which do have a corrosive and broad effect on the general public - negatively, for the GOP. Does anyone look at the next year and seriously believe Trump is not only going to recover the softer support he's lost since 2016 but gain more? In the next 18 months? I'll wait.

Same. People online have twitter brain and post anything.

You know you're my guy but I don't get this. Pulls through somehow? His opponents are these two guys and one of them is being indicted again.

Don't feed the sockpuppets.

And an earlier article I hadn't seen:

I think Biden edges his way towards a lot of things over time and with care, but that can be said for a lot of Democratic leaders and I don't mean it as a knock on him. I think he believes in the institutions but also believes in doing the right thing and making change where necessary. Overhauling SCOTUS will be a generational project but I do hope the beginning happens soon. I do wish Ron Klain was still there.

Yeah, that struck me as well. Woof.

It's worth it! And pretty cheap. I posted way too many excerpts from it in the thread dedicated to it at the time and IIRC the author was not pleased with me. I only found that out much later, lol. I'm sorry, Jeff Giles!

You know we're in a weird zone when something like The Pelican Brief feels eerily topical 30 years later, lol. Encouraging, though:

Oh, I know that story too. (IIRC the claim was the boy who played Brian Kendall) But that was an old Datalounge rumor and I don't know if it's ever been corroborated. And Erika, who had no trouble cutting loose with full candor in the oral history once the show was over about many topics like Clint Ritchie's alcoholism, backed the other story, so I choose to opt for that as of now.

I think we're nearer the tipping point where SCOTUS will have to finally be overhauled, tbh. It will take time but it's rattled the general public.

Was she up for the part Julia Stiles got, I wonder? Dexter's equally crazy mate? I'd assume so. Claudia and Johnny were weirdly intimate together from the jump (and again, I felt it suited the very gothic characters) so I'm not sure I fully agree with that complaint, though I can understand not wanting it to be made more textual. I've seen too many women like Sarah Brown dismissed as crazy or irrational over the years only to be vindicated through the passage of time. So I'm sure Sarah has a lot of very valid and true complaints about her ordeals with her ex, some of her work at GH, etc. But I'm not sure what she wanted Jackie or others to do, or about what instance specifically.

I know the later Phil Brent (Martin West) best from his infamous role in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 - the deranged, grief-stricken father who attacks the local gang and spurs the siege of the local police station which the movie is centered around. He spends most of the film incoherent and babbling. I think he must've done it right after GH.

Wow. That's a big one. I just rewatched Good Morning the other day. Ozu's work has so much to teach us still, and a lot of resemblance to soap.

2/10.

It seems obvious he was more used to the pace of daytime by the time he did ATWT vs. his struggle at OLTL where Erika Slezak has said he quit because he just couldn't handle the rigors of it. I wonder what all happened.

What a blunder not to do a proper finale.

Thanks! I always wondered if they wanted to do more with Earl and didn't. But I don't know how far he and Lisa got, I'm still deep in '86 lol.

I don't think anyone thinks this will all change overnight because Licht is gone. (Nor would just getting Jeff Zucker back be a great help, IMO) Zaslav and Malone are still there. But this entire episode has been a thorough embarrassment for CNN and its parent company and will require real course correction. It is within these kinds of margins of unforced errors, failures and vulnerable windows that we as citizens are able to fight back and make our voices heard both with media and in politics as usual. Beltway-centric media will probably never stop venerating the Reagan-era belief that there is a silent center-right majority of Americans they have to constantly coddle, cater to and apologize to and for, at least probably not for much of my remaining lifetime. But changes have been made and more change can be made. You do that bit by bit, day by day, year after year with incidents like this. More about the Fall of Lich(t) - shades of the finale of Succession. As always, use archive.is to bypass paywalls on all these sites. Some office gossip and then a rare moment of clarity from the otherwise exhaustingly credulous ex-CNN Licht casualty Brian Stelter:

Is that what she actually said? Or did she just say they wrote incestuous feelings into the script and she didn't want to play them? Because Claudia and Johnny came off incestuous whether she played it or not.

Me neither. I think it just made sense for that family and story. I agree with everything else you said.

tbh the whole gothic, incestuous vibe of the Zacchara family was the major thing that made it stand out of interest to me. But no, I don't think Guza intended to make Claudia his mother. I just wasn't surprised at all when it happened.

Garin Wolf was the one who made it canon that Johnny was Claudia's son several years after Brown's exit. Guza had nothing to do with that. It didn't surprise me tbh, but there was always an incestuous element to their relationship which I thought was interesting onscreen.