TGIF Open Thread!
By SusanUnPC on January 16, 2009 at 6:00 PM in CNN, Inauguration Day, Joe The Plumber, Media Bias, Media Handling of Story, Media, Television, Michelle Obama, Open Thread, Racism, Religion
Take in and digest each of these, will you? And then do tell us how you react to each? Below the fold, you’re going to learn that Robert Redford hates poor people and is a racist, and that one CNN reporter felt compelled to slam “Joe the Plumber” with a stern lecture.
(1) My question: Where did this girl learn to talk to her father like that? Just wondering … (as I chuckle wickedly to myself) …
Obama’s Daughter On Inaugural Speech: “It Better Be Good”
As the final preparations are made for his historic Inauguration on Tuesday, pressure is mounting for President-elect Barack Obama– including from his own children. Speaking to the Washington Post, Obama gives an account of his family “field trip” to the Lincoln Memorial where there is an inscribed copy of the 16th President’s famous Second Inaugural speech. At this point, Obama’s 7 year-old daughter Sasha asked her father if he would be giving a similar speech. Obama describes the interaction to the Post:
“And I said, ‘Well, actually, that’s a short version, but yeah, I will,’ ” Obama recalled. “And then Malia says, ‘First African American president — it better be good.’
“So I just want you to know the pressures I’m under here from my children.The family’s “field trip” was a symbolic gesture to Lincoln, to whom Obama has frequently been compared. Obama’s children clearly have equally or even higher expectations of their father. This sets them somewhat apart from their mother, who throughout the campaign has insisted that her husband is merely human. Ta-Nahisi Coates, in the January/February Atlantic delves into this quirk extensively, explaining why Michelle Obama was initially viewed as an “Angry Black Woman” during the campaign and why that really isn’t the case at all. The article gives an enlightening account of the value the Obamas place on family. …
(2) SensibleWoman e-mailed this story to me. She noted in her e-mail, “It aggravated me to listen to Rick S. ‘calling out’ Joe the Plumber (whom we all KNOW isn’t a journalist) after going through the ’08 Election year NOT getting enough info from those we THOUGHT were journalists.”
The thoughts of Rick Sanchez, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you ask me.
(3) Did you know that film legend and environmental activist Robert Redford is an enemy of the poor, and a racist to boot? Nope? Me either.
Protesters label Redford an enemy of the poor
Oil and gas drilling » Clergymen link famed moviemaker’s stance to racism.Hollywood’s Sundance Kid is hurting poor people.
So say some East Coast ministers and conservative activists, who took to the streets in front of a downtown Salt Lake City theater on the eve of Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival to accuse the actor of holding down low-income Americans with his opposition to oil and gas drilling near national parks in Utah.
The protesters, led by the Congress of Racial Equality’s national spokesman Niger Innis, suggested Redford should “relinquish his wealth” and live like a poor person. They complained that the filmmaker’s anti-drilling stance could lead to higher energy prices for inner-city residents, forcing them to accept a lower standard of living.
The clergymen prayed for Redford “to see the light” and linked his environmental activism with racism.
“The high energy prices we’re going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory,” said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., chairman of the High-Impact Leadership Coalition, a petroleum industry advocate.
A month ago, Redford, a trustee of the National Resources Defense Council, voiced support for a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the Bush administration’s “morally criminal” attempt to auction 103,000 acres of scenic redrock desert for oil and gas drilling near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument. …
And what else is going on in the world?
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
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.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
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