After unmastered demos from her latest album, Rebel Heart, dropped online, Madonna offered six album cuts to curb downloads and please fans. And it seems one of the fans was Ariana Grande, who tweeted “thank u santa” in gratitude.
Photo: Instagram Hate speech disguised as “Southern Pride?” Is The Confederate Flag As Hateful As The Swastika? Confederate flags flew as the South fought in defense of slavery, while Swastikas were the symbol of the Third Reich as they terrorized Jews in Germany. Do you think the flags are equal in the shameful bits of history they represent? Many Southerners (of many races) fly the flag in their yards, on their cars, or rock in on their clothing as a “symbol of their history.” But are they sending a racist message regardless of what they say their intention is? Peep this writer’s take on the flag as a hate symbol. Via WashingtonPost : Hubert Wayne Cash, 65, a Navy veteran and retired phone company worker, spent an hour at his home Tuesday explaining why he allowed the recent erection of a giant Confederate battle flag in his wooded back yard north of Fredericksburg overlooking busy Interstate 95. “I’ve got 50 ancestors who fought in the Civil War,” Cash said. “I honor their heritage.” The gray-bearded Cash was gracious and thoughtful. I applaud his willingness to answer skeptical questions from an incorrigibly pro-Yankee news columnist. But I still think Cash and his allies are wrong to display the flag. It’s the principal emblem today of a hateful cause — the protection of slavery — from which it cannot be divorced. Germans don’t use Nazi swastika flags to honor their dead from World War II. The same logic applies to the Confederacy, even if the Nazis’ sins were worse than those of Jefferson Davis and company. Of course, the United States can’t ban the Rebel banner outright, as German law prohibits the display of swastikas. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech. But the public can and should try to shame the Confederacy fan club into scrapping the emblem of a wicked purpose and leaving it to be displayed only in museums and history books. There are plenty of other ways to commemorate one’s Rebel ancestors. What about plaques, flowers or the Virginia state flag? The Confederacy was big on states’ rights. Here’s my main complaint about the flaggers, which Cash did little to dispel: Like many in the “Southern heritage” movement, they aren’t just committed to honoring individual Rebel soldiers. They insist also on trying to whitewash the Confederacy by saying the Civil War was about something other than slavery. Do you automatically assume those who fly the flag do so with racist intentions? Or…is there a way for Southerners to display the flag as a part of their heritage — separate from it’s association with slavery?
The film: Red Scorpion (1988) Why It’s an Inessential Essential: Co-scripted and produced by Jack Abramoff, Red Scorpion is a starring vehicle for Sweden’s own living action hero, Dolph Lundgren. Being the modest gentle giant that he is, Lundgren has nothing but good things to say about the film during the interview segment he shot for Synapse Films new release of the movie. But that says more about Lundgren’s personality than it does the crackerjack B-movie. As self-styled Lundgren expert Jeremie Damoiseau remarks in his annotated(!) liner notes, Red Scorpion nearly ruined Lundgren’s career (more on this shortly). Lundgren plays Lieutenant Nikolai Rachenko, a Russian “killing machine” that is tasked with murdering the leader of a group of rebel insurgents leading a coup in Africa. The Russians want the rebels stopped so they hire Rachenko to cozy up to the rebel leader’s advisor, now imprisoned by the Russians. In spite of repeated warnings from a smug, four-letter-word prone American journalist (M. Emmett Walsh, scowling up a storm), the rebel leader’s advisor grows to trust Rachenko, who in turn starts to see the murder and destruction caused by his comrades. Rachenko inevitably changes sides and becomes a hero, but only after being tortured by needles, attacked by scorpions, shot at, assaulted by a tank, thrown onto a moving motorcycle and berated repeatedly by the inimitable Walsh. How the DVD/Blu Ray Makes the Case for the Film: In his liner note, Damoiseu gives a stirring and comprehensive history of Red Scorpion that reveals how the film’s freaky production history helped to make it a memorable role for the charismatic–look at him pout!–athletic–thighs as big as a Rob Liefeld comic book character!–and smart–has a master’s degree in chemical engineering!–Swede. According to Damoiseau, Red Scorpion was a vanity project for Abramoff, who Lundgren describes during his supplementary interview as “patriotic,” and, “fiercely anti-Soviet.” Case in point: the film’s budget more than doubled from its original $8 million. Furthermore, production on the film continued even after the New York Times reprinted a story that revealed Abramoff and director Joseph Zito were disrespecting the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 by shooting in South Africa. That article stirred up considerable controversy, like when, to quote Damoiseau, “Sweden’s own Isolate Africa Committee called for a boycott of all films starring Dolph Lundgren.” The controversy surrounding Red Scorpion, which got a meagre first-run domestic release in America of 1,200 screens and grossed $4 million in its first two weeks, also made it difficult for the Lundgren-starrer The Punisher to be released in American theaters one year later in 1989. But at the same time, what makes Red Scorpion so fun is the fact that everyone was clearly throwing caution to the wind when they made it. The film could have been shot anywhere but instead it was shot in the desert, causing the film’s shooting schedule to distend from its original 2 1/2 months to 4 1/2 months. The film’s crew similarly used real guns and real dynamite for stunt-work. And while Tom Savini’s make-up effects certainly wasn’t real, Lundgren did many of his own stunts. Several live black scorpions were let loose on his back in one scene (their stingers had rubber tips put on them) while a P.O.ed hyena took a bite out of Lundgren after the filmmakers shot a deleted scene that’s not featured in Synapse’s release but is alluded to in Damoiseau’s essay. Other Trivia: Lundgren is such a generous and kind raconteur that it’s pretty funny listening to him reflexively trying to defend some things that any other star else would either conveniently gloss over or dismiss. He praises Sylvester Stallone’s detail-oriented direction of Rocky IV but also commends Red Scorpion director Zito for his zeal: “Zito was very postitive and had full momentum all the time rather than focussing on the individual scenes.” Furthermore, Lundgren’s not even sure why he did some of the stunts that he did for Red Scorpion , saying about a stunt where he jumps onto a speeding motorbike: “I don’t know if I was just stupid or if Zito wanted it.” He added, “Crazy! I would never do that today.”
Today, in Madison, WI, licensed physicians were handing out fake ’sick’ forms to union protesters, to provide cover to teachers and others who skipped work to protest. In this video, from RebelPundit, Andrew Breitbart gets a ‘doctors note.” Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Big Government Discovery Date : 20/02/2011 04:02 Number of articles : 2
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