Saturday, August 15, 2009

Saving Grace to be cancelled: Boo Hoo!!!!!

Show to be canceled after 9 shows next summer. "TNT’s bold series SAVING GRACE i. Academy Award® winner Holly Hunter stars as gutsy Oklahoma City Police Det. Grace Hanadarko, a woman who holds nothing back, whether on the job or in her personal life. ...Hunter’s acclaimed performance has earned the actress two consecutive Screen Actors Guild Award® nominations." Loved the series. I am a regular watcher of the show. Holly Hunter and her many co-stars do a great job pulling off a complicatedplot line each week. The main plot always involves detective work to find the culprit, the other plot going on involves an Angel named Earl, who portrays a downhome kind of guy, sent by God to save Grace from her sexual, drinking and other sinful behavior. There is no Christian banality in this comedy/drama. Reminds me sometimes of the brilliant play "Angels in America", not sure that fits but it has overtones as Grace goes through her seemingly driven and challenging life. Her best friend is a crime pathologist working for the same police department where Grace is a detective. The women are depicted as competent and determined and Grace's male friends including her married boyfriend are true characters to remember. The show also demonstrates the local humor of these police types which is often very funny even to me, a non police midwesterner originally from Ohio transplant to LA. The rumor is the show is not selling as well in overseas markets as here in the USA. It does have regional significance as it takes place in Texas ( I think) and there is a lot of local color. I thought Europeans loved cowboy types and there is a modern American Indian detective on the show to boot. Too bad only 9 more episodes to go. I guess Holly Hunter can go back to making block buster movies. Boo Hoo!!!!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Watch this Documentary: The Yes Men Fix the World

Watch the "The Yes Men Fix the World" on HBO on demand documentaries shown until 8/24/09. It was fabulous. If you haven't seen it, you will love it. It is about two hoaxsters who brilliantly and in reality try to fix the world. You will feel good and will learn
a great way to educate people about how to right wrongs i.e Bhopal, New Orleans, Exxon pollution.

http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Watch Meteors tonight Wed. Aug. 11, 2009


href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rDY5K115rlE/SoOmJFXY7lI/AAAAAAAAA54/WAycbZSZVUE/s1600-h/Martin1_strip.jpg">

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-313016

Get away from city lights. I live in Southern California where the lights can be at certain times at one per minute.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Obama team debunks end of life bunk about his health care plan

Go to the following link and watch video which debunks the right winger assertion that Obama's end of life option in his health plan would "kill seniors". It turns out the government would pay every 5 years for the health participant in the plan to get updated information about advanced directives which is only optional. Advanced directive are forms one can fill out to determine who will make decisions for the person if he or she is incapacitated and unable to make choices for her or himself and to decide
what kind of end of life treatment the person chooses. Notice the word chooses. The person can choose not to get counseled at all. But more specialists in aging believe filling out directives about future option is a good thing and has nothing to do with killing anyone. These options enhance quality of life and the help provide a voice for the person facing a terminal illness or catastrphobic illness that will help health care providers give the person the care he or she desires. It has nothing to do with "killing seniors". Why do the Republicans lie so much?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Two Attorneys for Gay Marriage Reject Gay Groups Lawyers Requests

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/08/BA4V1963JA.DTL

They agree on little else, but the two sides of the federal lawsuit challenging California's ban on same-sex marriage have found one point in common: that other gay-rights groups and the city of San Francisco should be kept on the sidelines as the case moves ahead.


Lawyers for the same-sex couples challenging Proposition 8 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and for the Alliance Defense Fund, representing sponsors of the law, filed briefs Friday that differed on whether a trial is required to settle the dispute over the November ballot measure, which invalidated the state Supreme Court's May 2008 ruling that struck down a law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

But the two sides agreed that the court should deny motions by the city and the advocacy groups seeking to become parties in the case.

The two couples represented by attorneys Theodore Olson and David Boies note that the gay rights organizations seeking to intervene in the case share their clients' basic positions. But adding parties would just delay matters, they argue - an opinion shared by the Alliance Defense Fund.

But underlying the plaintiffs' objection to the intervention is a more fundamental debate that has riven the gay rights community: the question of whether this federal lawsuit should have been brought at all.

That debate began shortly after the suit was filed in May, within days of the California Supreme Court upholding Prop. 8. Several gay rights groups immediately slammed the suit as disastrously timed because they said federal courts and the Supreme Court were unlikely to uphold same-sex marriage at this time.

Chad Griffin, president of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which launched the suit, sent a letter in July accusing the advocacy groups of undermining the case in public and private comments and asking them not to intervene.

Nevertheless, the groups filed a motion to intervene that month, arguing that they represented a more diverse community of same-sex couples than did the two couples represented in the suit. San Francisco also moved to intervene.

Olson and Boies suggested Friday that if the court allowed any intervention, it should grant San Francisco's request. But the other advocacy groups, the lawyers argued, should be limited at most to roles as "friends of the court," - allowed to offer opinions, but shut out from decisions on how the case should be pursued.

"Having declined to bring their own federal challenge to Prop. 8," they wrote, the advocacy groups "should not be allowed to usurp Plaintiffs' lawsuit."

Attorneys for the city and the advocacy groups have note yet filed their responses to the opposition to intervention.

E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com

Tel Aviv Shooting Protesters Attacked

Advocate.com
Tel Aviv Shooting Protesters Attacked
By Julie Bolcer

Residents of an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem attacked a group of young people who visited the area on Thursday to hang posters condemning the deadly shooting at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv, reports The Jerusalem Post.

The youngsters and an Army Radio reporter went to the Mea She’arim area to raise awareness about the shooting at a gay youth center that killed a counselor and a young woman and injured at least 10 on Saturday. Members of the ultra-Orthodox haredim chased the protesters down alleyways, prompted by the feeling that the youths were blaming them for the shootings, but the young people managed to escape.

In the days since the shooting, many have cited strong religious bias against LGBT people, and appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to mitigate the influence of conservative religious opinions in government.

Israeli government officials have confirmed that the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime, among other possible motives.

A vigil is scheduled for Saturday night to mark one week since the shooting, considered the worst attack ever against Israeli’s LGBT community. President Shimon Peres is expected to attend.