News & Current Events

[brokebacktom]

Read about whit militia's attacking black during Katrina. Really no surprise to me.


The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs--Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins--in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090105/thompson

[BayCityJohn]

You Can't Make This Shit Up!


S.F. fliers may pay their way in carbon usage

Environmentally conscious travelers flying out of San Francisco International Airport will soon be able to assuage their guilt and minimize the impact of their air travel by buying certified carbon offsets at airport kiosks.

The experimental program, scheduled to start this spring, would make SFO the first airport in the nation - possibly the world - to offer fliers the opportunity to purchase carbon offsets.

"We'd like people to stop and consider the impacts of flying," said Steve McDougal, executive vice president for 3Degrees, a San Francisco firm that sells renewable-energy and carbon-reduction investments and is teaming up with the airport and the city on the project. "Obviously, people need to fly sometimes. No one expects them to stop, but they should consider taking steps to reduce their impacts."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/24/MNIR14PSQF.DTL

[CellarDweller115]

sad news on the holiday!

 




Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies

By POLLY ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer


Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.

Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.

Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.

Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_en_tv/obit_eartha_kitt

[jack]

oh that is a shame.  another iconic figure of my life gone.  oddly, i just spoke of her today as some muzaky white girl singer murdered "santa baby" at my mother's abode.  i could hear her singing it, or should i say purring it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51jD859fEsE

[CellarDweller115]

Hiya Jack!

I know that Madonna did a version of Santa Baby.....don't know if anyone else has covered it as well.

If you are interested, there are a number of recent posts in the "What are You Listening to Now" thread with links to Eartha's music.

I posted two of her 80s gems "Where Is My Man" and "I Love Men".

[jack]

Hiya Jack!

I know that Madonna did a version of Santa Baby.....don't know if anyone else has covered it as well.

If you are interested, there are a number of recent posts in the "What are You Listening to Now" thread with links to Eartha's music.

I posted two of her 80s gems "Where Is My Man" and "I Love Men".

one of eartha mae's introductory lines in here latter years concerts to SANTA BABY was a rather snarky "ï used to have a lot of fun with this song............... and then madonna recorded it."   

[michaelflanagansf]

=
one of eartha mae's introductory lines in here latter years concerts to SANTA BABY was a rather snarky "ï used to have a lot of fun with this song............... and then madonna recorded it."   

I don't know if I'd call that snarky - perhaps 'accurate' is a better term.

Currently (on allmusic.com) there are 117 versions of 'Santa Baby' - including versions by Lynn Anderson, Sheila E., Macy Gray (I'd kind of like to hear that version), Julie London, Freda Payne and RuPaul.  It was written by Joan Ellen Javits (the niece of Senator Jacob Javits) and was first recorded by Eartha Mae in 1953.

http://www.interfaithfamily.com/arts_and_entertainment/movies_theater_tv_and_music/The_Jews_Who_Wrote_Christmas_Songs.shtml

[michaelflanagansf]

She certainly was someone who believed in speaking truth to power:

Eartha Kitt versus the LBJs

by Frank James

Say what you will about Eartha Kitt, the American original of a performer who died at 81 on Christmas Day, she certainly knew how to disrupt a White House event.

One of the best Kitt stories ever has to be how she gave First Lady Lady Bird Johnson the blues in 1968. A petite woman, Kitt had an out-sized ego and just as sizable chip on her shoulder, the latter the result of an unhappy childhood she often talked of (a biracial child born out of wedlock in 1927 small-town South Carolina. You get the picture.)

The White House story was captured by David Murphy in a biography of Mrs. Johnson called "Texas Bluebonnet: Lady Bird Johnson."

As the president was contemplating his future, Lady Bird went on with her official duties and hosted a Women Doers lunch on Jan. 18, 1968 that was to focus on crime. Singer and actress Eartha Kitt was invited upon the recommendation of Sharon Francis and Liz Carpenter since Kitt had testified to Congress in favor of the President's anti-crime legislation. When President Johnson entered the room, Kitt confronted him, "Mr. President, what do you do about delinquent parents, those who have to work and are too busy to look after their children?" He told her that Social Security legislation was just passed that provided millions of dollars for daycare centers. Kitt was not pleased but Johnson told her those were issues for the women to discuss at the lunch.

During the question period, Kitt stood up and confronted Lady Bird, "Boys I know across the nation feel it doesn't pay to be a good guy." She moved into (sic) closer to the First Lady and said that boys don't want to behave for fear of being sent to Vietnam saying, "You are a mother too though you have had daughters and not sons. I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my guts. I have a baby and then you send him off to war. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot. And Mrs. Johnson, in case you don't understand the lingo, that's marijuana.

continues:

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/12/eartha_kitts_versus_the_lbjs.html

[michaelflanagansf]

Of course that encounter between Ladybird and Eartha inspired the Cockettes film 'Tricia's Wedding' 

http://www.noehill.com/cockettes/tricia.asp

[WhenPigsFly]

She certainly was someone who believed in speaking truth to power:

That's why  I was so surprised to see her performing for Bush 43 and Laura (in that clip that Jack mentioned).

Don't tell me she mellowed with the years.

[michaelflanagansf]

That's why  I was so surprised to see her performing for Bush 43 and Laura (in that clip that Jack mentioned).

Don't tell me she mellowed with the years.

I don't think she did.  I don't know what to say about her being with Bush besides that it's tough being an older performer in the U.S.

[Ennis Del Mark]

I always thought that Kitt was a tad tactless in the way she handled this.  You don't cause a scene with your hostess when you're invited to a gathering.  Kitt certainly was correct in what she said but I guess she couldn't tone down the flamboyance with which she said it.  (Of course with that voice, "please pass the salt" has an erotic charge to it.)  I've always liked Lady Bird and thought she handled the situation gracefully and I've always liked Eartha, too.  Maybe a private chat would have been better.
Who knows?

Mark

[michaelflanagansf]

I think that it's pretty unlikely that Ladybird would have granted Eartha a private audience.  Plus, it's important to realize this in the context of the times.  This was the year of the Prague Spring and the Paris student riots...and the year 'Hair' opened on Broadway.  I believe that what Eartha was doing there was as much political theater as anything else - I don't think she deluded herself for a moment to think that Ladybird was interested in what she had to say - or that saying it to her in private would have any effect.  Part of the message was to express in public to the first family that the American people were sick of the war.  And given that people were blowing up draft boards to get that point across, I think Eartha's message was rather peaceful.

[jack]

and tact and manners make really poor change engines...

[Ennis Del Mark]

So do tactlessness and no manners at all...there's got to be a happy medium.