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yallerdawg
yallerdawg's Journal
yallerdawg's Journal
September 17, 2017
Jennifer Lawrence's "mother!" earns rare F CinemaScore
"mother!" gets a grade. NOW I have to see it!
Not what people expected? Sounds interesting!Jennifer Lawrence's "mother!" earns rare F CinemaScore
Not even Jennifer Lawrence could win over CinemaScore audiences with mother! Her new ‘WTF’ film with director (and current boyfriend) Darren Aronofsky earned a dreaded F from the movie polling company after Friday night screenings.
mother! had a positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes (69 percent of critics gave the film a positive review), but audiences revolted against Aronofsky’s film, which mixes broad religious allegory with home-invasion horror and ends with a sequence of shocking, R-rated violence. The overall rejection might have something to do with how the film was marketed, as CinemaScore founder Ed Mintz explained in a 2016 interview about his company.
“A’s generally are good, B’s generally are shaky, and C’s are terrible. D’s and F’s, they shouldn’t have made the movie, or they promoted it funny and the absolute wrong crowd got into it,” he said.
CinemaScore grades films based on reactions from moviegoers at the start of opening weekend at theaters across North America and Canada with a ballot of six questions. Other movies with an F grade include Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly, Richard Kelly’s The Box, I Know Who Killed Me with Lindsay Lohan, William Friedkin’s Bug, Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek, Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris, and Robert Altman’s Dr. T and the Women.
mother! had a positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes (69 percent of critics gave the film a positive review), but audiences revolted against Aronofsky’s film, which mixes broad religious allegory with home-invasion horror and ends with a sequence of shocking, R-rated violence. The overall rejection might have something to do with how the film was marketed, as CinemaScore founder Ed Mintz explained in a 2016 interview about his company.
“A’s generally are good, B’s generally are shaky, and C’s are terrible. D’s and F’s, they shouldn’t have made the movie, or they promoted it funny and the absolute wrong crowd got into it,” he said.
CinemaScore grades films based on reactions from moviegoers at the start of opening weekend at theaters across North America and Canada with a ballot of six questions. Other movies with an F grade include Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly, Richard Kelly’s The Box, I Know Who Killed Me with Lindsay Lohan, William Friedkin’s Bug, Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek, Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris, and Robert Altman’s Dr. T and the Women.
September 15, 2017
From: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/politics/new-jersey/2017/09/12/reports-trump-may-host-world-leaders-bedminster-golf-club/658774001/
The president of the United States may be hosting world leaders at his golf club over the next week and a half, according to multiple reports.
*****
"The State Department is getting ready for an unspecified number of foreign meetings at the Bedminster, N.J., golf club over several days during the week of Sept. 18," the Washington Post reported. "The White House has not announced plans for Trump’s first visit to the gathering, which usually draws roughly 150 heads of state."
The report said that presidents attend the gathering for around two days, while the secretary of state stays for a week or more.
According to a report in Politico, however, Trump is planning to spend at least three days at the General Assembly, breaking from the ranks of former presidents.
*****
A VIP temporary flight restriction has also been issued for Sept. 15 to 24 for the Morristown and Bedminster area. Temporary flight restrictions for VIP officials were issued during all of Trump's previous visits.
*****
Wouldn't it be ironic if 'Jose' paid Trump a visit while 'not vacationing' at his private golf club?
Hurricane Jose Forecast Cone Now Includes New Jersey
At least he's keeping fit.
Trump Headed to Bedminster Golf Club Today
Reports: Trump may host world leaders at Bedminster golf clubFrom: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/politics/new-jersey/2017/09/12/reports-trump-may-host-world-leaders-bedminster-golf-club/658774001/
The president of the United States may be hosting world leaders at his golf club over the next week and a half, according to multiple reports.
*****
"The State Department is getting ready for an unspecified number of foreign meetings at the Bedminster, N.J., golf club over several days during the week of Sept. 18," the Washington Post reported. "The White House has not announced plans for Trump’s first visit to the gathering, which usually draws roughly 150 heads of state."
The report said that presidents attend the gathering for around two days, while the secretary of state stays for a week or more.
According to a report in Politico, however, Trump is planning to spend at least three days at the General Assembly, breaking from the ranks of former presidents.
*****
A VIP temporary flight restriction has also been issued for Sept. 15 to 24 for the Morristown and Bedminster area. Temporary flight restrictions for VIP officials were issued during all of Trump's previous visits.
*****
Wouldn't it be ironic if 'Jose' paid Trump a visit while 'not vacationing' at his private golf club?
Hurricane Jose Forecast Cone Now Includes New Jersey
At least he's keeping fit.
September 15, 2017
We can google 'double standards' whenever we like.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/the-original-nasty-woman-of-classical-myth/506591/
September 14, 2017
The IT department.
September 14, 2017
What Hillary Clinton really thinks
Source: Vox, by Ezra Klein
On page 239 of What Happened, Hillary Clinton reveals that she almost ran a very different campaign in 2016. Before announcing for president, she read Peter Barnes’s book With Liberty and Dividends for All, and became fascinated by the idea of using revenue from shared natural resources, like fossil fuel extraction and public airwaves, alongside revenue from taxing public harms, like carbon emissions and risky financial practices, to give every American “a modest basic income.”
Her ambitions for this idea were expansive, touching on not just the country’s economic ills but its political and spiritual ones. “Besides cash in people’s pockets,” she writes, “it would be also be a way of making every American feel more connected to our country and to each other.”
This is the kind of transformative vision that Clinton was often criticized for not having. It’s an idea bigger than a wall, perhaps bigger even than single-payer health care or free college. But she couldn’t make the numbers work. Every version of the plan she tried either raised taxes too high or slashed essential programs. So she scrapped it. “That was the responsible decision,” she writes. But after the 2016 election, Clinton is no longer sure that “responsible” is the right litmus test for campaign rhetoric. “I wonder now whether we should’ve thrown caution to the wind, embraced [it] as a long-term goal and figured out the details later,” she writes.
What Happened has been sold as Clinton’s apologia for her 2016 campaign, and it is that. But it’s more remarkable for Clinton’s extended defense of a political style that has become unfashionable in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Clinton is not a radical or a revolutionary, a disruptor or a socialist, and she’s proud of that fact. She’s a pragmatist who believes in working within the system, in promising roughly what you believe you can deliver, in saying how you’ll pay for your plans. She is frustrated by a polity that doesn’t share her “thrill” over incremental policies that help real people or her skepticism of sweeping plans that will never come to fruition. She believes in politics the way it is actually practiced, and she holds to that belief at a moment when it’s never been less popular.
Read the rest and the interview at: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/13/16298120/hillary-clinton-what-happened-interview
September 13, 2017
*****
Technology is a good example of commodity fetishism and alienation; one widely known example of this idea is Apple products. Things like iPad, iPhones, and MacBooks have such a cult following that they drive people to be infatuated with the products. Evidence of this commodity fetishism with Apple products can be seen in the social affects that these commodities have on society. For example, when a new Apple product is released to the market, it has become socially acceptable for people to form extensive lines outside of Apple stores hours in advance in order to be one of the first to own the latest technology.
This social preoccupation of owning the latest forms of technology cause the commodities to discredit its use value and the wage-labor behind the production of a single object. People tend to forget about the labor needed to create the commodity and insist on focusing on its exchange value and social affect. The popular demand of such a product, like iPhones, cause the need for more production of the commodity and leads to worker’s alienation. This alienation is not visible to society because consumers narrow their attention to the object and not the mode of production behind it.
Commodity fetishism causes a social relation between the capitalist and his workers. The combination of social relation and the fetishism with the commodity leads and deepens the alienation felt by the workers. For example, Foxconn workers, the corporation that produces Apple products, face all four types of alienation described by Marx. Since these workers are mistreated, they face alienation from the process of work because they are force to work long hours for a minimal wage. Also, Foxconn workers face alienation from product of work since they don't take ownership in the commodities they produce. Most importantly, Foxconn workers experience alienation from others and species-being. The workers are not able to voice their opinions in the workplace and are forced to work long hours each day that they don't receive much personal leisure time.
One specific case of the Foxconn worker’s alienation is Ma Xiangqian, a nineteen-year-old worker who committed suicide from being miserable at his workplace. According to Barboza’s article, Ma’s paystub showed that he has worked 286 hours the month before he died (Barboza, 2010). Following the death of Ma, there was even more reports on suicides and suicide attempts from Foxconn employees. This social issue of alienation is extremely visible in Foxconn employees, but its safe to say that all wageworkers experience one or multiple forms of alienation from their work to some degree. The workers’ alienation is not presented to consumers when they are waiting in line for the latest phone or computers. Because of commodity fetishism, consumers only care for the product and not the value and the labor put behind each product by a wageworker, making the consumer blind to alienation.
From: http://uicsocialtheory.weebly.com/marx/gonzalez-commodity-fetishism-andalienation
Commodity fetishism and Apple.
A layman's explanation.*****
Technology is a good example of commodity fetishism and alienation; one widely known example of this idea is Apple products. Things like iPad, iPhones, and MacBooks have such a cult following that they drive people to be infatuated with the products. Evidence of this commodity fetishism with Apple products can be seen in the social affects that these commodities have on society. For example, when a new Apple product is released to the market, it has become socially acceptable for people to form extensive lines outside of Apple stores hours in advance in order to be one of the first to own the latest technology.
This social preoccupation of owning the latest forms of technology cause the commodities to discredit its use value and the wage-labor behind the production of a single object. People tend to forget about the labor needed to create the commodity and insist on focusing on its exchange value and social affect. The popular demand of such a product, like iPhones, cause the need for more production of the commodity and leads to worker’s alienation. This alienation is not visible to society because consumers narrow their attention to the object and not the mode of production behind it.
Commodity fetishism causes a social relation between the capitalist and his workers. The combination of social relation and the fetishism with the commodity leads and deepens the alienation felt by the workers. For example, Foxconn workers, the corporation that produces Apple products, face all four types of alienation described by Marx. Since these workers are mistreated, they face alienation from the process of work because they are force to work long hours for a minimal wage. Also, Foxconn workers face alienation from product of work since they don't take ownership in the commodities they produce. Most importantly, Foxconn workers experience alienation from others and species-being. The workers are not able to voice their opinions in the workplace and are forced to work long hours each day that they don't receive much personal leisure time.
One specific case of the Foxconn worker’s alienation is Ma Xiangqian, a nineteen-year-old worker who committed suicide from being miserable at his workplace. According to Barboza’s article, Ma’s paystub showed that he has worked 286 hours the month before he died (Barboza, 2010). Following the death of Ma, there was even more reports on suicides and suicide attempts from Foxconn employees. This social issue of alienation is extremely visible in Foxconn employees, but its safe to say that all wageworkers experience one or multiple forms of alienation from their work to some degree. The workers’ alienation is not presented to consumers when they are waiting in line for the latest phone or computers. Because of commodity fetishism, consumers only care for the product and not the value and the labor put behind each product by a wageworker, making the consumer blind to alienation.
From: http://uicsocialtheory.weebly.com/marx/gonzalez-commodity-fetishism-andalienation
September 13, 2017
Read it all at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/12/single-payer-democrats-litmus-test-bernie-sanders-215600?wpisrc=nl_health202&wpmm=1
The Single-Payer Insanity
Source: Politico Magazine, by Bill Scher
I can’t believe I have to remind anybody of this, but health care debates are always vicious. The Hillarycare push contributed to the Democratic loss of Congress in 1994. The passage of the Affordable Care Act fueled the Tea Party backlash that helped Republicans take the House in 2010, and lingering resentment buoyed Trump in 2016. Then the failed attempt at ACA repeal burned Republicans this year, sowing bitterness among conservative base voters and driving a wedge between the president and congressional leaders.
However, single payer is not a moral imperative; it is just one means to an end. The ACA is another.
The framework is already built. The ACA’s individual mandate requires most to purchase insurance or pay a penalty, save for those with a hardship exemption. As a result, nearly 20 million more Americans are now covered. In 2016, 6.5 million chose the penalty instead of getting coverage (paying an average of $470), and another 12.7 million were exempted. Instead of building an entirely new system, a willing Congress could less dramatically and disruptively build on the current system, stiffening the penalties for noncompliance, increasing subsidies and pursuing further cost controls to eliminate the need for hardship exemptions.
The framework is already built. The ACA’s individual mandate requires most to purchase insurance or pay a penalty, save for those with a hardship exemption. As a result, nearly 20 million more Americans are now covered. In 2016, 6.5 million chose the penalty instead of getting coverage (paying an average of $470), and another 12.7 million were exempted. Instead of building an entirely new system, a willing Congress could less dramatically and disruptively build on the current system, stiffening the penalties for noncompliance, increasing subsidies and pursuing further cost controls to eliminate the need for hardship exemptions.
Climate change is more than a life-and-death issue, it’s a planetary survival issue. Yet Democrats are not falling over each other to see who can most rapidly slash greenhouse gas emissions and stem the crisis.
Ending an immigration system that has created millions of second-class American denizens who lack voting rights and worker rights is a moral imperative. Trump’s toying with the lives of undocumented Dreamers galvanized Democrats last week. Yet this week, Democrats risk blunting that momentum by diving back into the health care cauldron.
Crumbling infrastructure risks lives and drags down the economy. Unaffordable early education and higher education exacerbates inequality. The opioid crisis is devastating communities. The globalized, automated “gig” economy fuels economic anxiety and insecurity.
But health care? That’s a battle Democrats have waged for three decades, paid enormous political prices and somehow managed to come out ahead. The Affordable Care Act is still standing. For Pete’s sake, Democrats. Pocket the win and move on.
Ending an immigration system that has created millions of second-class American denizens who lack voting rights and worker rights is a moral imperative. Trump’s toying with the lives of undocumented Dreamers galvanized Democrats last week. Yet this week, Democrats risk blunting that momentum by diving back into the health care cauldron.
Crumbling infrastructure risks lives and drags down the economy. Unaffordable early education and higher education exacerbates inequality. The opioid crisis is devastating communities. The globalized, automated “gig” economy fuels economic anxiety and insecurity.
But health care? That’s a battle Democrats have waged for three decades, paid enormous political prices and somehow managed to come out ahead. The Affordable Care Act is still standing. For Pete’s sake, Democrats. Pocket the win and move on.
Read it all at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/12/single-payer-democrats-litmus-test-bernie-sanders-215600?wpisrc=nl_health202&wpmm=1
September 13, 2017
Our next US Senator?
September 10, 2017
The Deuce, HBO, Sunday, Sept 10, 9-8CT - NYC porn industry in late '70's, early '80's. It's HBO!
Top of the Lake: China Girl, Sundance, Sunday, 9-8CT - All 6 episodes this week, two a night - another EPIC binge!
The Vietnam War, PBS, Sunday, Sept 17, 8-7CT - Ken Burns
The Good Doctor, Monday, Sept 25, 10-9CT - Ever seen this one before?
Designated Survivor, ABC, Wednesday, Sept 27, 10-9CT - Season 2. Not absolutely awful!
Liar, Sundance, Wednesday, Sept 27, 10-9CT And then... (6 episodes)
September Drama
A final batch of new shows and returning favorites.The Deuce, HBO, Sunday, Sept 10, 9-8CT - NYC porn industry in late '70's, early '80's. It's HBO!
Top of the Lake: China Girl, Sundance, Sunday, 9-8CT - All 6 episodes this week, two a night - another EPIC binge!
The Vietnam War, PBS, Sunday, Sept 17, 8-7CT - Ken Burns
The Good Doctor, Monday, Sept 25, 10-9CT - Ever seen this one before?
Designated Survivor, ABC, Wednesday, Sept 27, 10-9CT - Season 2. Not absolutely awful!
Liar, Sundance, Wednesday, Sept 27, 10-9CT And then... (6 episodes)
September 8, 2017
Source: Washington Post, by Fareed Zakaria
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-being-afraid-of-more-government-its-exactly-what-we-need/2017/09/07/e362177a-940a-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?utm_campaign=dfbc09f3dc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_08&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Fareed%27s
Stop being afraid of more government. It's exactly what we need.
One of those things that made us lifelong, unconditional Democrats!Source: Washington Post, by Fareed Zakaria
Seeing the devastating effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and of wildfires out West, one cannot help but think about the crucial role that government plays in our lives. But while we accept, even celebrate, the role of government in the wake of such disasters, we are largely blind to the need for government to mitigate these kinds of crises in the first place.
Ever since President Ronald Reagan, much of the United States has embraced an ideological framework claiming that government is the source of our problems. Reagan famously quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Ever since President Ronald Reagan, much of the United States has embraced an ideological framework claiming that government is the source of our problems. Reagan famously quipped, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Reagan’s worldview grew out of the 1970s — a period marked by fiscal mismanagement, government overreach and slowing growth. It might have been the right attitude for its time. But it has stayed in place for decades as a rigid ideology, even though we have entered a new age in which America has faced a very different set of challenges, often desperately requiring an activist government. This has been a bipartisan abdication of responsibility.
We are living in an age of revolutions, natural and human, that are buffeting individuals and communities. We need government to be more than a passive observer of these trends and forces. It needs to actively shape and manage them. Otherwise, the ordinary individual will be powerless. I imagine that this week, most people in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico would be delighted to hear the words “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Read it all at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-being-afraid-of-more-government-its-exactly-what-we-need/2017/09/07/e362177a-940a-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?utm_campaign=dfbc09f3dc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_08&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Fareed%27s
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Fri Apr 4, 2014, 04:21 PM
Number of posts: 16,104
