CNN reports: “ESPN has suspended host Jemele Hill for two weeks due to ‘a second violation of our social media guidelines,” the network announced Monday [October 9, 2017] afternoon.”
I frankly have not followed any of Jemele Hill, her [Tweets] about President Donald Trump, so it is not a focus of mine. Perhaps there is at least one reader, here Progressives Chat, who can weigh in.
Last Monday [October 2, 2017], I wrote of the 40th anniversary of the premiere of the CBS series Lou Grant. With the 2017–18 television season less than a month old, and with every Monday in October a remembrance of past series’ premiere anniversaries, this entry looks back 30 years. Coincidentally, this is thirtysomething.
Created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, thirtysomething premiered on ABC on September 29, 1987. According to Wikipedia.org, in its description of the series, “[thirtysomething] tells of Baby Boomers living in their thirties who reside in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and examines how this group of friends learn to negotiate their prior involvement with early 1970s counterculture as young adults, in contrast to the yuppie lifestyle which dominated American culture during the 1980s.”
thirtysomething was very reflective of life during the Republican Party presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. In fact, thirtysomething’s run was during Reagan and Bush. Its last original episode was May 28, 1991.
The 1987–88 television season was the last on record in which two freshmen series—thirtysomething and The Wonder Years (which premiered after Super Bowl XXII on January 31, 1988)—won best-series Emmys. It was also the last season on record ABC captured both prizes for outstanding drama series and outstanding comedy series for the same season. thirtysomething, in fact, was prized in each of its four seasons; most notably, in the performances, as Patricia Wettig (who played housewife Nancy) and Melanie Mayron (who played the artist Melissa) won statues. (Wettig, married to male lead Ken Olin, won supporting actress in 1988 and lead actress in 1990 and 1991. Mayron won supporting actress in 1989. Also: Timothy Busfield, whose character was married to Wettig’s, won supporting actor in 1991.)
Had thirtysomething run at least two more years, could it have also been reflective of the period that gave us at least the first year of the Democratic Party presidency of Bill Clinton?
I am including a YouTube-uploaded video of the series’ theme music, partly by W.G. Snuffy Walden (who went on to compose the themes for ABC’s Roseanne and NBC’s The West Wing, among many others, which are also two series with political and/or cultural impact). I considered the pilot. But, the video I came across had an annoying crawl message. Considering many at the time found thirtysomething to be very annoying, that may have been an appropriate inclusion.
Last Thursday [September 28, 2017], I blogged my appreciation for Twitter’s “Peter Douche.” Now, it is time to do that with a live person—comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore.
Born July 26, 1965, the same day as Emmy winning actor Jeremy Piven, in Chicago, Illinois, Jimmy Dore has been on the scene since 1989.
According to Wikipedia.org, “[Dore] has made many appearances on late-night television on shows such as ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CBS’s The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn and NBC’s Late Friday. He starred in a Comedy Central Presents half-hour special on April 9, 2004.”
Dore is also an author. He has been doing his Jimmy Dore Show since 2009.
I appreciate Jimmy Dore because, as one guest recently made the observation, his perceptions of what are playing out in politics—especially in the United States and most especially in the Democratic Party—have a direct and blunt take that recalls the late comedian George Carlin (1937–2008). Carlin understood human nature. And I think Dore does as well. They both have in common being able to read between the lines.
This is a voice that is much-needed.
Below are two recent videos from The Jimmy Dore Show. The first video is take on Hillary Clinton’s most recent book, What Happened. The second video is his take on Moderate Republican/Democratic Party U.S. president Barack Obama.
I ask interested participating members to share some of their favorite videos from The Jimmy Dore Show.
She had an impact with Democratic Party politics in 2016.
Last year, for Election 2016, actress Susan Sarandon endorsed for the Democratic presidential nomination U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Sarandon—who turns 71 years old today (she was born October 4, 1946, in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York)—has taken her hits from Good, Loyal Democrats who could not fathom that she was not going to get on board for the corporate, establishment Democrats’ preferred candidate, and eventual nominee, former U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. In fact, according to Wikipedia.org, it was on October 30, 2016 when Sarandon endorsed for the general election Green Party nominee Jill Stein of Massachusetts.
In addition to winning the 1995 best-actress Oscar for Dead Man Walking—following four additional nominations in the same category (Atlantic City, 1981; Thelma & Louise, 1991; Lorenzo’s Oil, 1992; and The Client, 1994)—Sarandon received a 2016–17 Emmy nomination for lead actress in a limited series or movie for FX's Feud: Bette & Joan. In Ryan Murphy's miniseries, about the decades’ long rivalry pitting two movie-screen legends, Jessica Lange (who won the 1994 best-actress Oscar for Blue Sky) plays Joan Crawford (c. 1904–1977) to Sarandon as politically-left Bette Davis (1908–1989). In addition to Feud, Sarandon has received six more Emmy nominations spanning the previous and current decades.
Susan Sarandon is a true artist. And many artists, at least ones who do not easily go along with Hollywood's connection with Democratic Party Establishment bona fides, are truly on the left. They're real progressives. They’re more in line with the Democratic Party presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. With the fine example of Sarandon, who endorsed at least one of consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s presidential election bids, this is a risk. The same cannot be said of the those who have smeared her.
Tim Black and H.A. Goodman discuss the mass killings in Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as other topics, on the [Monday, October 2, 2017] edition of No Sell Outs.
(Note: Availability to comment lasts 72 hours from when a thread is posted. I will typically do my best to post a given thread on its respective date at 06:00 a.m. ET.)
Last Monday [September 25, 2017], “Day One” was interestingly timed for the first day of the new 2017–18 television season. A new season can bring about new and memorable series; ones which have impact; ones which, years after they are no longer in first-run broadcast, are still remembered.
For the month of October 2017, and on Mondays, I will be posting thread topics on the milestone anniversaries of the premieres of past television series. Each has in common a voice on politics and/or having been affected by politics.
First up is Lou Grant. It premiered on CBS on September 20, 1977. It ran for five seasons.
Created by future Oscar winner James L. Brooks (1983’s best picture Terms of Endearment), Allan Burns, and Gene Reynolds, this was the spinoff from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which Edward Asner’s title character left Minneapolis, Minnesota for Los Angeles, California.
The premise was that, at the end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (with its final episode also 40 years ago, March 19, 1977), every pivotal member of the fictional WJM–TV news station was fired but with exception of the least competent employee—news anchor Ted Baxter. This forced Lou to find other work. And he was offered a new job at the fictional Los Angeles Tribune.
When Lou arrives at the Tribune, his friend and boss Charlie Hume (Mason Adams) surprises him—it is not a low-level job, as Lou expects, but as the publication’s city editor. The paper’s owner, Margaret Pynchon (Nancy Marchand), a widowed character partly a composite of Washington Post’s Katharine Graham, is indifferent as to who Charlie hires. The two reporters are Joe Rossi (Robert Walden) and Billie Newman (Linda Kelsey). (In the first three episodes, Rebecca Balding plays the other reporter, Carla Mardigian. She was replaced by Kelsey in the fourth episode.)
What made me think of Lou Grant was not just its 40th anniversary. Shout Factory began releasing the series on DVD in 2016, one season at a time, usually spanning about three months apart of each other. As of this date, four of its five seasons are now available on DVD.
This was an important drama series. It won the outstanding drama series Emmys in 1979 and 1980. Asner won twice for lead actor. Marchand, who would later give us another iconic supporting character (Livia Soprano, Tony’s mother, on HBO’s The Sopranos), won four Emmys for her work.
Here in 2017, Lou Grant gives insight into why we need journalism and news. This was before the corporations overtook media. This was before our current reality of deregulation and that we now have six companies with ownership and control of what content we receive from mass media.
Below is a YouTube-uploaded video of the pilot (titled “Cophouse”).
