The long awaited novel,  We, The People is soon to be released on the Starry Night publishing imprint.

As far as the pulp novels word will be forthcoming.

This year, seeing that the Eastman House was going through renovations on the Dryden Theater the Princess and I ended up in Buffalo for the Shea’s Oscar party.  The people attending were very nice and we actually ended up sitting with two fellow Rochestarian Oscar Party attendees. The rest, well, let’s just say we’re hoping for the Eastman House Oscar party next year.

Anyway, as it usually is with most popular items, I have a love/hate relationship with the Oscars. One side of me congratulates the Film industry on making an annual self-gratiating award show a cultural phenomenon.  People actually give a damn on who wins these awards, which are bestowed upon members of their profession by themselves. This masturbatory event also serves to increase revenues for not only the winners but the nominees.

The other side of me says, are these awards actually given out based upon the quality of work, or is it a politically biased agenda that endows these honors to those that garner the proper favor to the powers-that-be.

That aside I’ll look at the recent winners of the major awards. This years Oscar nominee field benefited from a weaker field than prior years.

Anne Hathaway, one of the few child stars who became a young actress with no crash and burn tendencies, won the Best Supporting Actress award.  Ms. Hathaway, while a fine actress, was able to take advantage of the fact that this year’s field wasn’t as talented as prior years’ winners. Her legacy will hopefully live on as long as prior winners Hattie McDaniel, Miyoshi Umeki, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, Mary Stenburgen, Brenda Fricker, Whoopi Goldberg, Mira Sorvino, Marcia Gay Harden, Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Hudson, and Mo’Nique’s have.

in the category of Best Actress, everyone’s latest darling, Jennifer Lawrence, won for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook. As a best actress winner she joins such great thespians as Halle Berry, Marion Cotillard, Marlee Matlin, and Cher. Her win helps make up for the travesty of Gabourey Sidibe being passed over for best actress prior. Thus assuring the fact that the Academy does take a look at true talent and not merely marketability in their choices.

Similar to the Best Supporting Actress category, the Best Actor field wasn’t as crowded with such acting talent as prior years.  Remarkable actors such as Forest Whitaker, Jamie Foxx, Roberto Benigni, Art Carney, and Jon Voight were conspicuously absent this time. Thus allowing Daniel Day Lewis another win in the best actor category to fill up his shelf with three statuettes.

Best Supporting Actor was a challenge. This year‘s field was filled with all prior Oscar winners in the category. Again, the winner,  Christoph Waltz  didn’t have to contend with the likes of Red Buttons, Burl Ives, Joel Grey, Timothy Hutton, or Cuba Gooding Jr. allowing him to grab another trophy.

And, finally, Best picture winner, Argo, was extremely fortunate to join such unforgettably memorable best picture winners such as How Green Was My Valley, Marty, Kramer vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, The English Patient, American Beauty, Chicago, and The Hurt Locker.  Argo will be a picture we’ll want to watch over and over again like the aforementioned winners.

So, another year, another round of Oscar winners. It was fun, and it was enlightening as usual.  Now, I have to run so I can catch up on the pictures I haven’t seen yet!

P.S.

The less I say about best song and soundtracks the better off I’ll be.

“We could have ate it all….”

After everything that has happened this week I have to reflect on this parable:

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

“Hello Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”

“Alright then…how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.

“Ahh…,” said the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drowning frog’s back.

“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

This is in the “You’ve got to be kidding” category, or, “How stupid do you think the American Public is?” (Actually very stupid if you consider .)

Unless you’ve been sheltered very well, even the least knowledgeable sports fan has heard about Manti Te’o.  Now, I’m not going to go into the story, I just am amazed at the people in the press ignoring the facts and trying to come up with explanations to this farce.

‘Catfishing’…… bull. He lied to try to build a story around him to increase his stock after three mediocre years in football. Period.

Here, let the facts speak for themselves.

Sports Illustrated 10/1/2012:

Story lead in: “On Sept. 12, three days before Notre Dame played Michigan State, the parents of Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te’o woke him up with a 7 a.m. phone call from Hawaii: His grandmother, 72-year-old Annette Santiago, had died, of natural causes. Six hours later, while standing at his locker, Te’o got a call from his girlfriend’s older brother, Koa, who sobbed, “She’s gone.”

As Lennay struggled to survive, Te’o developed a nightly ritual in which he would go to sleep while on the phone with her. When he woke up in the morning his phone would show an eight-hour call, and he would hear Lennay breathing on the other end of the line. Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice.

Every night? With a phantom? If someone was pranking him they had an AWFUL lot of time on their hands.

Press conference 10/04/2012

Q. No one would question how any person grieves, but what went into your decision or did you think at all about going back for your girlfriend’s service? I understand you had a game that day but what was the decision there?

Manti Te’o: You know, I really wanted to see her. I really wanted to see her. But I knew that she made me promise, you know one day she made me promise that, she said, “Babe, if anything happens to me, you promise that you’ll still stay over there and that you’ll play and that you’ll honor me through the way you play, and know that I would rather have you there.” And just make sure that all she wanted was some white roses. White is her favorite color. So she just wanted some white roses and that’s all she asked for. So I sent her roses and sent her two picks (interceptions) along with that, so that was good.

How would he know where to send the flowers if he never met her? Where did the flowers go? The Notre Dame alumni?

NY Times  Nov. 25, 2012

It was suggested to Te’o that in the shadows of the Hollywood sign, he had produced the perfect script. Not quite, he said. To have his grandmother and girlfriend around to share in the celebration, “would have been a better script,” Te’o said, “but other than that, I don’t think you can write a better one.”

Well, he certainly tried to write a hell of a script.

South Bend Tribune 1/17/2013

Tribune sports writer Eric Hansen receives news tips reporting that Teo’s grandmother and girlfriend both had died. Hansen contacts Brian Te’o, who provides details about both deaths. Notre Dame’s sports information department also confirms deaths and provides more details.

Gee, do you think his Father was in on it?

– Oct. 10: In a taped telephone interview by Eric Hansen with Te’o’s parents, Te’o’s father said the initial meeting between Manti and Kekua came in person in November 2009, when Notre Dame played Stanford in Palo, Alto, Calif.

The detail included the touching of hands and the fact Manti thought she was cute.

“They started out as just friends,” Brian Te’o added. “Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple.

“And we came to the realization that she could be our daughter-in-law. Sadly, it won’t happen now.”

Wow, he not only met the phantom but touched her hand, as witnessed by his stoic Father.

While we could probably bring out more examples but I think the bottom line is that it worked very well for Te’O and Notre Dame. They got an appearance in the National Championship when they clearly didn’t deserve it (Last I remember you don’t get ranked #1 by winning four of your games by single digits or OT. A dominant team that does not make) and he got the press he needed to compete for the Heisman by having just one good year.

Or, Perhaps he wanted to follow in George O’Leary’s footsteps, a fine tradition of lying from the mighty Notre Dame.

Bernstein says it nicely: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/01/20/bernstein-manti-teo-is-a-liar/

“Ravens stun Patriots”

What game were they watching? The only thing they stunned were the moron sports reporters/prognosticators who all washed the Patriots’ jock straps all week.

Actually a better headline from this weekend should be “Atlanta gives up large lead, as usual.”

Anyone who really knows me realizes that I have more than a passing interest in the NFL. And this goes beyond ‘my’ team.

Well, the recent playoffs made me smile. I love these ‘reporters’ who predict the outcomes of the games. I mean, it’s one thing to say, ‘I think this team will win’ but it has evolved into emphatic statements of which team will win the game. And, when they’re wrong they scramble to discount the accomplishments of the winning team.  Nice case in point, Denver vs. Baltimore.

If you read/listen to the resultant stories you would think that Baltimore barely eked it out against the clearly superior Peyton Manning’s play. Really?

Baltimore out-gained Denver 479 yards to 398. Flacco out-passed the ‘god’ Peyton 324-273 yards. And, before someone says ‘well they had to pass because the run wasn’t working’ the Broncos rushed for 125 yards compared to the Raven’s 155. (Also, Flacco had a 9.5 yards per pass while Peyton had 6.3.)

The facts speak for themselves.

Denver scored two touchdowns with special teams. Take away those two scores (shame on you Baltimore. There is nothing worse than crappy special teams in the playoffs! Right Buffalo?) and the game didn’t even have a chance to end up in overtime. Yet you still see and hear the headlines that say ‘Baltimore surprises/stuns the Broncos.’

Spare me.

Denver, besides Green Bay and Houston, were the most overrated, over-adored teams in the playoffs by the so called ‘unbiased’ sports media. And Atlanta is in danger of joining that group. (over 500 yards allowed Green Bay?! An elite team that does not make.)

I’ve got an idea. Let the teams play the game. No one really cares about your biased prognostications.  I mean, really. And, Take a real look at Peyton’s record. If it wasn’t for his lucky win in the Super Bowl he would be the modern Dan Marino or Dan Fouts. The Manning that gets no respect has two rings. TWO.Take that, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees! (the other favorites in the ultimate Quarterback contest. There is only one guy currently playing that deserves that and, even though I don’t personally like him his numbers speak for themselves Five appearances and counting…)

Sorry, I rant but you have to love the NFL. The one and done method of playoffs is still the best! So, again, let them play the game and then we’ll talk about it.

Oh, and maybe Flacco can take a lesson from Peyton’s better brother and just go out and let his play and accomplishments speak for himself instead of the sports fans/reporters.

I especially love the quoted people. You KNOW who they voted for.  Welcome to the world geniuses. This is what happens when you vote with your heart and not your head.

Millions noticing paychecks lighter today, due to payroll tax hike

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published January 11, 2013

FoxNews.com

Gabriella Hoffman’s paycheck is a little lighter today, thanks to a payroll tax increase that is forcing millions of Americans to make the kind of tough budget cuts their representatives in Washington lawmakers seem unwilling to tackle.

Hoffman, a 21-year-old Virginian who works at a nonprofit, estimates her paycheck will be roughly $30 less this biweekly pay period, or about $780 annually, thanks to the end of a two-year cut on payroll taxes, which fund Social Security. The tax has risen back up to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent, costing someone making $50,000 annually about $1,000 per year and a household with two high-paid workers up to $4,500.

“As a newly-graduated person, someone coming straight out of college, I don’t like the idea of having less money coming to me due to the selfish interests of people in Congress who don’t have any interest in reducing our financial problems,” Hoffman told FoxNews.com. “This is an impediment for future economic growth. It’s going to make it harder for young people like myself to get married, find a better job, you name it.”

Hoffman admits the hike won’t completely alter her spending, but the University of California-San Diego graduate said she will definitely have it in mind when it comes to leisure activities and entertainment.

“Although it’s a small quantity on a monthly basis, just having less money going into my paycheck will prevent me from doing things and force me to be more frugal,” she said. “I’ll be more cautious with my spending.”

“It’s going to make it harder for young people like myself to get married, find a better job, you name it.”

– Gabriella Hoffman

The looming hit to Americans’ paychecks has been a hot topic around water coolers nationwide, as well as online, where several forums have been created for taxpayers to commiserate with their lighter wallets. On Twitter, #WhyIsMyPaycheckLessThisWeek has been a trending topic as most U.S. workers have either already seen less green or are preparing to do so.

“Well, looks like we’re starting to pay back all of the money we’ve spent, without cutting back spending,” one posting read.

Another user cited the need for the U.S. government to “refill the Social Security ‘lockbox’” before stealing from it again as the reason paychecks are smaller.

Other postings chose to politicize the end of the tax cut that was part of the fiscal pact passed by Congress last week.

“Seems to me that anybody who is paid a check for working is considered ‘the rich’ in Obama’s world,” Jeff Hobbs of Texas wrote Wednesday.

Another posting read: “Hey Liberals, #YourPaycheckIsLowerThisWeek because you voted for the job KILLER, not the job SAVER!”

So, what exactly does $40 mean?  That’s what the White House asked Americans last year when President Obama signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which extended the payroll tax cut and emergency jobless benefits through the end of the year and prevented the typical family earning $50,000 a year from losing roughly $40 from each paycheck.

“$40 is 10 gallons of heating oil when the temperatures in winter hover in the negative numbers for months,” Pamela from Fairbanks, Alaska, posted on www.whitehouse.gov/40dollars.

“Forty dollars is a tank of gas, a nicer Sunday family meal instead of hot dogs, the ability to leave lights on instead of turning them off earlier in the evening,” Rita from New Britain, Conn., wrote. “Forty dollars is being able to go to the movies, or having a night out at an inexpensive restaurant, it’s also paying co-pays for my meds that I need to live on.”

Priscilla of Kailua, Hawaii, said $40 is the amount “sometimes between paying the electric” bill or not.

“We cannot pay more,” she wrote. “We do not have it.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told The Associated Press that the higher Social Security tax will slow growth by 0.6 percentage point in 2013. But for the average American worker who earns $41,000 – and will receive $32 less on every biweekly paycheck moving forward – the change will not be an “insubstantial hit,” analysts told FoxNews.com.

“And I think a lot of people don’t even realize this is happening,” said  Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “This kind of just slid by the wayside with all the talk of the fiscal cliff.”

Simply put, less money “definitely will be” a shock for many Americans toiling in an uncertain economy, Tanner said, adding that many will restrict impulse purchases rather than alter long-term financial planning.

“People will have less money in their pockets, so by definition, they’re going to have to make do with less,” he said. “How they change their behavior remains to be seen.”

For Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform, the hike represents a chance for young Americans to take a hard look at Social Security as a whole.

“My hope is that people under the age of 40 will start asking serious questions as to why they’re paying more into a Social Security system that they are increasing unlikely to get the full benefit of,” Ellis told FoxNews.com. “I hope everybody does. It’s not a Republican or Democrat thing.”

Hoffman, meanwhile, said she already has all the answers she needs.

“Any tax increase is not good for young people,” she said. “What it does is diminish your hard work and you’re slapped on the wrist. This administration is punishing people who are making money. They don’t like the concept of free enterprise. They think these problems will be solved in Washington by taking away more of people’s incomes.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/11/lighter-paychecks-to-hamper-many-americans-amid-uncertain-economic-times/#ixzz2HhU5Ptjj

And:

Bernard Goldberg

The High Cost of Obama’s America

Posted: January 10, 2013 in Featured, Political Opinion

87 214 11

It didn’t take Carnak the Magnificent to see this one coming.  The euphemistically titled Affordable Care Act … isn’t.  Affordable, that is.  Turns out that hundreds of employees at Wendy’s are having their hours cut because of the new health care law, better known as ObamaCare.  And that’s just in and around one mid-size city, Omaha, Nebraska.

WOWT-TV is reporting that nearly 300 workers at 11 Wendy’s locations in the Omaha area will have their hours reduced to 28 hours a week because the franchise owner says he can’t afford to pay for his employees health care. ObamaCare requires businesses to pay health care for employees that work more than 32 hours a week.

One employee told the TV station that, “It has a huge effect on me and pretty much everybody that I work with. I’m hoping that I can get some sort of promotion because then I would get my hours, but everybody is shooting for that because of the hours being cut.”

In a way this is a good thing, though I don’t expect anyone working at Wendy’s in Omaha to agree.  Ordinary Americans need to feel the pain that flows from Mr. Obama’s vision for a new America.  When it’s only the so-called rich who have to kick in their “fair share” to keep Mr. Obama’s dreams alive, no one really cares. When Americans are asked if the rich need to pay higher taxes, a majority says “Sure, why not?”  Class warfare is seductive, after all, and nobody plays that game better than President Obama.  If the other guy has to pay more to keep the federal government’s spending spree going, millions and millions of Americans think that’s a great idea.  It’s easy to be generous with somebody else’s money.

But when you’re the “other guy,” when you’re the one who pays a price for liberalism run wild, then you tend to see things differently.

When enough Americans endure enough pain – reduced hours, loss of jobs altogether – then maybe they will understand that we can’t keep going down this road that will only lead to economic disaster.

Expect more stories like the one in Omaha.  A lot more.

Feeling extremely cynical today….

Oh, what an unselfish and generous gesture from the music industry last night! These wonderful benevolent musical artists performed ‘gratis’ to raise funds and assistance for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. It’s wonderful to know that the spirit of rock and roll still lives in the following artists:

Bruce Springsteen: New album and tour in 2013

Alicia Keys: New Album just released in 2012 with tour

Roger Waters: Tour in 2013 (still milking the cow called The Wall after all these years.)

Bon Jovi: New album and tour in 2013

Foo Fighters: New album and tour in 2013

Rolling Stones: New album and tour 2012-2013

Eddie Vedder: New album 2013

Kanye West: Possible new album 2013

and, my beloved Who: Tour 2012-2013

Ah, it’s nice to see that musical integrity still exists. “But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity. ”

Hmmm… The Who Sell Out becomes more prophetic.

And, Kanye. I wonder if President Obama hates white people because so many people are still in dire straits since the Hurricane. Does he Kanye?

Today we found out that an athlete, an NFL player in particular, killed his girlfriend and then himself. Of course, all of the headlines are lamenting about the athlete.

The athlete? Who the fuck cares! A spoiled, out-of-reality moron? Who cares, I repeat. What about the poor woman? A young woman who will never have the chance to succeed, fuck up, cry, or even laugh ever again. Or, worst of all, never be a mother to her child.  No, instead, all the press is worried about is the ‘high profile’ athlete.

This is wrong on so many levels it isn’t even funny. This coward, a person (he does not deserve to be called a man) decides to takes another persons life and then, because he has neither the courage nor maturity to face the consequences of his actions, takes the easy way out by killing himself.

Our society’s adulation of people who do not deserve it breed this type of cretin. It is obvious that this person has gotten away with most everything in life based upon his physical characteristics and not his intellect (of which, I am sure he had little to none).

How many times in high school was he allowed to re-take a test because he didn’t feel like taking it originally. How many times was he allowed to skate on a paper in college because he had a game coming up. And, not to beat a dead horse, how many times did he get away with traffic infractions in Kansas City due to his celebrity status?

Rest in peace, Kasandra Perkins. Unfortunately, your death will be blamed on repeated injuries to the head or other such drivel instead of the honest answer that your life was unfortunately ended by a society that refuses to hold gifted athletes to standards that ordinary people are held to.

Random thoughts:

– Never put your television system on for the purpose of providing ‘White Noise’ while you’re writing your novel.  It doesn’t work, especially when the bastards at TCM put on The Big Heat directed by Fritz Lang and starring Glen Ford.  I, (yes, it’s hard to believe) had never seen the film before (in its entirety). Probably because I thought that Glen Ford was just deplorable. Bastards. The film was so terrible I didn’t concentrated on my writing! Screw you Lee Marvin, you woman beating son-of-a-bitch!

– Turn off commercial television for the next week.  My god, if I hear one more time that Ted O’Brien, Louise Slaughter, Maggie Brooks, Kathleen Hochul, Sean Hanna, and the bunch are so disgusting I’ll bust.  Don’t they realize that by attacking each other that eventually we’re all going to figure that our Politicians should all be locked up. “Ted O’Brien kicked a box full of puppies. PUPPIES! Ted O’Brien doesn’t deserve your vote…” or “Yes, I spotted President OBama spraying lighter fluid on the base of the Statue of Liberty. He’s an anti-american bastard!”, or “Sean Hanna is bad for women. He once wouldn’t hold a door for his own Mother. MOTHER!” or my favorite, “Maggie Brooks just looks out for the rich people. So, you should vote for somebody richer who has a gold walker!”

– Next Tuesday. VOTE! It doesn’t matter for who, just do it. Regardless of what you hear we are still one of the few countries in the world that allow us to have a voice.  So, grow up and vote and don’t pout if your person didn’t win.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled writing (or a re-watch of The Big Heat!)