What the hell?? College Professor Claims American Airlines Racially Profiled Sick Black Woman To Have Ebola Ebola paranoia is reaching a fever pitch. With infected patients hopping on planes and traveling state-to-state left and right, airline workers might be exhibiting a heightened sense of fear . But is that fear translating to racism? Via MailOnline : A college professor is claiming that an American Airlines crew who feared Ebola locked a sick woman in an airplane bathroom after she vomited in the aisle. American Airlines is strongly denying the claim and said the crew never believed the ill passenger was suffering from the deadly disease – and that the traveled wanted to stay in the lavatory in case she was ill again. The incident happened on American Airlines Flight 2325 Thursday night from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago. University of Texas professor Martha Shelby told MailOnline she heard a flight attendant say to the woman: ‘Because of our current health situation, we’re going to have to ask you to stay in the bathroom.’ The cabin crew then cordoned off the back of the airplane with seat belt extenders. When the plane landed and the woman was carted off the plane by medics, flight attendants wrapped her carry-on luggage in plastic before sending it off the plane with her, professor Shelby, who is chair of the Asian studies department in Austin, said. She believes that because the ill woman was black, she was treated as if she had Ebola. ‘I’m outraged. And some of my fellow passengers were, too. We just could not believe what we have seen… they thought it was about race, too,’ she said. When the plane began to land, professor Shelby said, she heard a flight attendant tell the passenger in the lavatory: ‘You’re going to have to stay in there, hang on tight.’ The incident speaks to a growing fear that sick air travelers could be carrying Ebola. Passengers from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, have been hauled off planes by hazmat-clad officials after getting ill on board. So far, all of them have tested negative for the deadly disease. Today, Washington DC lobbyist Terry Thames caused a lock down of part of the Pentagon after she got ill and vomited outside the Defense Department offices. However, Dallas nurse Amber Vinson flew on two Frontier Airlines flights after being exposed to Ebola while treating ‘patient zero’ Thomas Eric Duncan. She was hospitalized with the disease just hours after flying from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday night. American Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Mohr said professor Shelby had ‘absolutely the wrong reading’ of the situation on the plane. Ms Mohr said the passenger became ‘extremely, violently ill’ and projectile vomited while waiting to get into a lavatory on the plane. Ebola was never mentioned. In fact, that flight attendants suspected the passenger had food poisoning. Ms Mohr also denied that the woman was locked in the bathroom. ‘The passenger who was sick elected to go into lavatory and elected to remain there for the short duration of the flight. At no time was she ever locked in lavatory. elected to stay there,’ Ms Mohr said. Hmmm…don’t see what this lady has to gain by making up such a thing, but stranger things have happened. Who do YOU believe?
Wait… WHAT ?!? Saxby Chambliss Blames Sexual Assault On Hormone Levels Via RawStory reports: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) on Tuesday suggested that the “hormone level created by nature” was to blame for rapes in the military and that all pregnant servicewomen should be investigated to make sure their condition was the result of consensual sex. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on sexual assaults within the military, Chambliss opined that the Pentagon’s decision to allow women in combat roles was only going to make the problem worse. The Georgia Republican recalled that “several years ago when we had the first females go out on an aircraft carrier, when they returned to port, a significant percentage of those females were pregnant.” “Was any investigation made by the Navy following that incident to determine whether or not all of those pregnancies occurred as a result of consensual acts?” he asked Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert. The admiral replied that he did not have details of the incident immediately available, but he pledged to follow up. Chambliss noted that Democratic proposals to modify the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and take sexual assault reporting outside of the victim’s chain of command might not work because young servicemen were being driven by their “nature.” “The young folks coming in to each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23,” he pointed out. “Gee-whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So, we’ve got to be very careful on our side.” Watch this video from NBC News… WTF is he trying to say?? It doesn’t matter what the reason is. It should be handled by someone outside the chain of command and especially not by the current commander. Rape is not a combat decision and we don’t care if the rapist is your ace sniper.
The biggest upset of this year’s Oscars took place weeks before the actual ceremony, when Zero Dark Thirty helmer Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed for a Best Director nod. Conventional wisdom holds that debates about torture and political bias in the Osama Bin Laden thanato-pic, which began weeks before the film’s release, derailed Bigelow’s chances at a second statuette. But the bigger story – one that’s hardly been told – is that Bigelow’s partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency during the production of ZDT inadvertently shined an unwelcome spotlight on the military-entertainment complex: the surprisingly close and definitely reciprocal relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon. If, as some have alleged, the CIA did share confidential information with Bigelow and ZDT screenwriter Mark Boal – or lied to them – about the role of torture in the manhunt for Bin Laden, that’s certainly cause for debate, censure, and possibly even stronger measures.(Right.) But it’s not just the isolated cases of Bigelow, Boal and their sources that merit closer political scrutiny: It’s time we took a good, hard look at how the military-entertainment complex operates. Cooperation between Hollywood and the military brass goes back to the 1920s, when the Pentagon helped produce Wings , the first Best Picture Oscar-winner. The relationship between the studios and the armed forces has waxed and waned in the decades since, but tends to get cozier in times of conflict. During World War II, for instance, the Department of Defense enlisted Hollywood as its virtual press agent: one Pentagon memo called wartime Disney shorts aimed at children – tomorrow’s recruits – “an excellent opportunity to introduce a whole new generation to the [newly] nuclear Navy.” According to The Hollywood Reporter , it wasn’t until the 1980s, after memories of Vietnam had begun to fade, that “a steady growth [occurred] in the demand for access to military facilities and in the number of films, TV shows and home videos made about the military.” Sure, the decade saw the release of a number of searing films about Vietnam, such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , but most of the military-themed films fed to the public were hyper-macho, bazooka-toting fantasy fare like Top Gun , Red Dawn , Rambo II , and Predator . That increasing synergy between Hollywood and the Pentagon led to the current military-entertainment complex in which studios get to use taxpayer-subsidized military locations, equipment, personnel, and expertise in exchange for giving the military script approval. In this disproportionate exchange of power, the studios get significantly reduced production budgets, while the Pentagon gets to harness the power of cinema (and television) to advance a pro-war, pro-military agenda where multiplexes, flat screens and PCs become virtual recruitment offices. A prime example of this dynamic at work was last year’s Navy SEAL porn flick, Act of Valor , which hit theaters just a few months after SEAL Team Six assassinated Bin Laden. As a film drafted within the Pentagon and pitched to studios — a reversal of standard operating procedure — Act of Valor hails back to the days of World War II, when the military enlisted Hollywood in the production of naked propaganda. (In an inspired but ultimately unsuccessful move, active-duty NAVY Seals also made up the cast.) The film was received as the propaganda that it was; the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in its review that ” Act of Valor is intended to wow audiences with high-test action while planting a giant wet kiss on the smacker of the U.S. military – and it scores at both tasks.” The Military-Entertainment Complex doesn’t just produce overt propaganda, by the way. It has also had a hand in mindless, seemingly apolitical popcorn movies. Take Battleship , director Peter Berg’s board game-based stinker from last summer. (The picture is noteworthy for practically ending the big-screen dreams of Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna .) Along with Act of Valor and the upcoming Captain Philips and Lone Survivor , Battleship was one of four films that the U.S. Navy had a hand in producing last year. U.S. Navy documents, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request via Muckrock (where you can view them in their entirety), show that the Department of Defense’s decision to work with Berg and Universal hinged on one main question: “Do we believe that [the movie] could have a positive impact on recruiting?” The Navy concluded yes, confidently declaring, “ Battleship will certainly continue to be a conversation starter that carries our ‘brand’ to many Americans who aren’t familiar with their Navy.” Apparently unconcerned that Battleship is about naval forces battling an alien invasion, Navy officials got Universal to agree “to consult with the DoD Project Officer [the technical advisor] in all phases of pre-production, production, and post-production that involve and/or depict the U.S. military” in order to ensure that the script “positively represents our service and our Sailors” and “accurately portray[s] the Navy.” Specifically, that meant the Department of Defense had veto power over every word of the script, with any military-related changes having to go through another approval process. The DoD also mandated contractually obligated screenings of the rough cut, when changes to the film could still be made, as well as a screening of the final cut in Washington, D.C., before the film’s theatrical release. The Department of Defense also insured that its public affairs personnel were able to take pictures and videos of the film’s cast, crew, and sets and were granted full permission to use those images, as well as any of the film’s marketing materials. The Department of Defense Production Assistance Agreement states that the Navy would employ those pictures and videos solely for internal use, but doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be visible to the public. “Some of the imagery may be viewed by the general public if posted on an open DoD web site or on ‘The Pentagon Channel,’ or other publicly-accessible media source,” states the agreement, opening the door to use those backlot shots as a recruitment aid. As if life as a Navy sailor had anything to do with a mission to destroy an alien mothership hovering over Hawaii. In the case of Battleship , the Navy reportedly agreed to participate because “whether or not we supported Battleship , the film was going to be made – it was going to carry our brand and represent who we are to the American people.” That would have been an unfavorable scenario for the Navy, but also an extremely unlikely one, since Battleship ’s production budget – already $209 million with the help of the Navy’s resources, including props, backgrounds, extras, and technical expertise – would have probably been too prohibitive had Universal been forced to bear all those costs. The Navy also considered the question “Can we support a film without impacting our operations?” It answered for itself: “Because filming took place on top of already scheduled training events, it did not impair the exercise and there was no cost to the Navy or American taxpayers.” But the lack of any immediate or upfront costs in this one case doesn’t address the questions of why citizens should subsidize Hollywood films – since all the military expertise and materiel appearing in these films are paid for with taxes – or how Americans would benefit from publicly funded propaganda for state-supported violence. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times , an Army spokesman indirectly responded to those concerns, stating, “We [the military] get asked all the time, ‘Why do you market?’ We’re a nation at war going on 11 years, which is … the longest period of consistent conflict that the U.S. Army’s ever been involved in”. Given the recent news that military suicides surpassed combat deaths and surged to a record high in 2012 and that sexual assault remains a disturbingly frequent and unpunished behavior within the armed forces, you can expect Pentagon brass will be looking for more positive depictions of the lives of U.S. soldiers and sailors in the coming months. And as studio budgets continue to rise and military enlistment continues to decline, neither Hollywood nor the Pentagon has any reason to disengage from the military-entertainment complex. And if studios are going to continue to get into bed with the military then taxpaying moviegoers have a right to know when they are being bombarded with propaganda that they’ve essentially financed. A modest step toward greater transparency – one that’s easy and cost-efficient to boot – would be adding a disclosure tag at the beginning of movies that have involved the participation of the armed forces. The Department of Defense already mandates that all movies the military helps to produce must thank the relevant branch of service, but that acknowledgement typically occurs at the very end of the closing credits. Such a disclosure tag wouldn’t just provide a franker context for the film to come. Given the Pentagon’s less-than-stellar track record with film production, it would also serve as a warning to audiences that they should lower their expectations. Now that’s patriotism. Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. FOIA battleship Follow Inkoo Kang on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
It’s about cotdayum time ! Via The Daily Mail … With just three hours to go before the start of 2013, the White House and congressional Republicans have struck a deal to avoid falling over the looming fiscal cliff. These officials said a New Year’s Eve vote in the Senate to ratify the deal was possible later in the evening, barring opposition from majority Democrats. There was no immediate confirmation from aides to the top Republicans in Congress, Sen Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner. The measure would extend Bush-era tax cuts for family incomes below $450,000 and briefly avert across-the-board spending cuts set to strike the Pentagon and domestic agencies this week, according to a Democratic aide. Vice President Joe Biden was set to sell the agreement to Senate Democrats at a meeting at the Capitol on Monday night. The aide required anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. A White House source told Reuters that Democratic leaders Sen Harry Reid and Rep Nancy Pelosi have signed off on the deal. Earlier in the day, President Obama announced that a deal to avert billions of dollars of tax increases that will kick in at midnight is ‘within sight, but it’s not done yet.’ He lamented that he and Congress were unable to reach a ‘grand deal’ to tackle the debt and reform the tax code – but said he would settle for a plan to stop taxes from going up on all but the richest Americans. ‘Our most immediate priority is to prevent taxes from going up on middle class families tomorrow. I think that is a modest goal we can accomplish,’ he said. Think this is going to help our pockets in 2013?? Images via facebook
Racism In The U.S. Military They call it “rahowa” — short for racial holy war — and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world’s fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military. White racists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the ZOG — the Zionist Occupation Government. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the coming race war. If this scenario seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent events. Former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page opened fire with a 9 mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5, murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police. The U.S. Defense Department as well has stepped up efforts to purge violent racists from its ranks, earning praise from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has tracked and exposed hate groups since the 1970s. Page, who was 40, was well known in the white supremacist music scene. In the early 2000s he told academic researcher Pete Simi that he became a neo-Nazi after joining the military in 1992. Fred Lucas, who served with him, said Page openly espoused his racist views until 1998, when he was demoted from sergeant to specialist, discharged and barred from re-enlistment. Experts have identified the presence of street gang members as a more widespread problem. Even so, the Pentagon has launched three major pushes in recent decades to crack down on racist extremists. The first directive was issued in 1986, when Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger ordered military personnel to reject supremacist organizations. That failed to stop former Marine T.J. Leyden, with two-inch SS bolts tattooed above his collar, from serving from 1988 to 1991 while openly supporting neo-Nazi causes. A member of the Hammerskin Nation, a skinhead group, he said he hung a swastika from his locker, taking it down only when his commander politely asked him to ahead of inspections by the commanding general. “We’re very strict on the tattoo policy here within this recruiting station,” said Sergeant Aaron Iskenderian, head of the Army recruiting office in Fayetteville, the Army town next to Fort Bragg. Iskenderian cited the example of a young man who came in recently with a tattoo of the Confederate flag. The potential recruit also told Iskenderian he had a black girlfriend. Iskenderian sent the issue up the chain of command, and the young man was rejected. Academics who study white supremacists say proponents of the “infiltration strategy” of joining the U.S. military have adapted, telling skinheads to deceive military recruiters by letting their hair grow, avoiding or covering tattoos, and suppressing their racist views. For neo-Nazis who get past the screeners, as with the gang members, the military needs a comprehensive strategy, said Carter F. Smith, a former military investigator who is now a professor of criminal justice at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. “They are some of the most disciplined soldiers we have. They really want to learn to shoot those weapons,” Smith said. “The problem wasn’t just that we were opening the floodgates to let them in. We let them out after prosecution or when their time was up and we didn’t let the police know.” SMH at the guy telling them he had a “black girlfriend”… Thoughts on this? Source
The U.S. military has a history of joining forces with Hollywood. Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise and Peter Berg’s Battleship have cozied up to the military to take advantage of defense material, while the Pentagon gets to market itself to moviegoers. (To say nothing of the recent Navy SEAL showcase Act of Valor .) So how did The Avengers not make the cut? It seems that the Joss Whedon superhero spectacle was “too unrealistic” for military brass get involved. At the end of the day, it was Nick Fury’s SHIELD that clinched the decision (perhaps if they just stuck to the superheroes and alien invaders it would have been OK?) “We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” said Phil Strub, the DOD’s Hollywood liaison. “To whom did SHIELD answer? Did we work for SHIELD? It just got to the point where it didn’t make any sense. We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything [with the film].” [ WorstPreviews ]
Pop diva Kylie Minogue, who’s currently enjoying both 25 years in the music business and the 10-year anniversary of her album Fever, returned to her home country of Australia for a performance at Sydney’s annual Mardi Gras festivities. Idolator’s Mike Wass caught our favorite saucy Aussie’s gig (and snapped the above photo), which had Kylie … More » Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Idolator Discovery Date : 04/03/2012 14:46 Number of articles : 2
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