Category Archives: entertainment news

entertainment news, national news, political news

Sen. Thompson made his mark early

BBmHuKG

There will be tributes a-plenty in the next few days and weeks as politicians — and actors — remember one of their own: former U.S. senator and former TV and film actor Fred Dalton Thompson.

The Tennessee Republican was a larger-than-life guy who died today at his home after battling a recurrence of lymphoma.

He ran for president once. Served in the Senate. Acted in some pretty good films and had a good run as the district attorney in the hit TV show “Law and Order.”

I want to remember this man in another fashion.

R.I.P., Sen. Thompson

The first time I saw him was in 1973. It was on TV. I was a college student majoring in political science at Portland State University in Oregon and Thompson was serving as chief counsel for the Republican senators serving on the Select Senate Committee on Watergate.

Its chairman was the late Democrat Sam Ervin, the self-described “country lawyer” from North Carolina.

Thompson’s role in that committee was to provide legal advice for the Republicans on the committee. The panel was investigating the Watergate scandal that was beginning to metastasize and eventually would result in the resignation of President Nixon.

Fred Thompson had really bad hair, as I recall. But appearances aside, he was a tough interrogator, as was the Democrats’ chief counsel, Sam Dash.

My memory of Thompson was jogged a bit the other day by MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell who opined — after the daylong hearing of Hillary Clinton before the Select House Benghazi Committee — that senators and House members shouldn’t be allowed to question witnesses. O’Donnell cited the work that Thompson and Dash did in pursuing the truth behind the Watergate scandal.

Leave the questioning of these witnesses to the pros, O’Donnell said. The Benghazi committee congressmen and women, he said, made spectacles of themselves.

Thompson, indeed, was a tough lawyer. My memory of him at the time was that he questioned anti-Nixon witnesses quite hard and didn’t let up very much on those who supported the embattled president.

He did his job well.

That is what I remember today as the nation marks Sen. Thompson’s passing.

May he rest in peace.

 

entertainment news

‘Friends’ can become ‘foes’ on Facebook

1 Comment

facebook-banned

This is no big flash to most of you, I’m sure … but Facebook can be a pain in the backside.

Here’s what I mean.

I have a longtime friend who recently “unfriended” me from Facebook. I noticed his absence, so I asked him: Was it something I said?

No, not all, he responded. The issue, he said, was with some of my Facebook “friends.”

You see, my friend — and he’s a real friend, not a Facebook “friend” — and I have differing political slants. I tilt left, he tilts right. I distribute this blog through several social media outlets; Facebook is one of them.

My friend — who I’ve known for more than 20 years — occasionally would respond to my essays with a negative comment. I’m all wet, he would say. I don’t know what I’m talking about, he would declare. He’d lecture me on occasion about where I’m wrong and how he knows better.

That’s all well and good. Then some of my other friends and “friends” would challenge my pal. He’d respond to them. They’d fire back. He’d return another volley.

Back and forth they would go.

Finally, my friend said, he’d had enough. He said his inability to refrain from responding to the critics made him feel “like a crackhead.” He became addicted to the need to answer them all.

So, he quit cold turkey.

I have no answer for that.

Occasionally, I engage in exchanges with individuals who read this blog regularly. I appreciate their interest and I appreciate their passion in speaking out on issues that push their hot button.

However, some of ’em do get a little too personal for my taste — particularly when they go after each other. It doesn’t bother my sensibilities if they aim their fire at my direction. I’ve been taken down by the best. After spending most of my nearly 37 years in daily journalism writing opinions, well, you kind of get used to it.

It does make me feel badly, though, for my friends — namely my actual friends — who get run off by what they perceive to be rude behavior.

 

entertainment news

Odom: ‘a colossal dumbass’

odom

Unlike my friend Bill Perkins, a journalist in Dothan, Ala., I actually had heard of Lamar Odom before he passed out in that Nevada brothel.

But this social media post from my friend is just too good not to share:

“Never heard of Lamar Odom before he whorehoused himself into a coma. Now it’s all you hear about.

“It might be different if what we heard was ‘Boy, what a dumbass that guy must be.’ Instead, it’s all, ‘Omigod, he opened an eye!’ As if he won’t still be a colossal dumbass when he fully recovers.

“How many homeless people could have been fed with the $75,000 he spent on prostitutes and whatnot over three days?

“A helluva lot, that’s how many.”

I happen to want Odom to recover. I’m guessing my pal Bill does, too.

My other hope is that this near-death experience teaches the young man a valuable life lesson. And that he learns from it and changes his life for the better.

Hey, sometimes miracles do occur.

entertainment news

Odom saga … amazing in the extreme

1 Comment

odom

Allow me this brief comment on the saga of Lamar Odom.

He’s married — in a fashion — to Khloe Kardashian, yes, one of those Kardashians.

He once played pro basketball. He was quite good at it. He made millions of dollars. He married the young reality TV “star.” Got his face plastered on tabloids all over the country. He was a fixture on that E! network TV show featuring his in-laws.

Then the marriage hit the skids. He and his wife split up, sort of. Then he goes on his way.

Odom this past week was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel. I presume he went there to pay for a good time with one — or more — of the hookers. He took some illegal drugs and passed out.

The reaction from his still-wife? She’s at his bedside, telling the media how much she supports him.

Maybe there’s something I don’t get. If I had done that while married to my wife … hmmm. Let me think. She’d wait for my recovery — probably from some distance — and then file divorce papers on my sorry behind.

There’s something really and truly amiss with today’s popular culture.

Don’t misunderstand me. I want Odom to recover. I just don’t get the family reaction to what this guy was caught doing.

Your thoughts?

 

entertainment news, local news

Let’s think big about the MPEV

Amarillo MPEV

Let us take a moment — or maybe two — to consider some possibilities for a venue that Amarillo officials want built in the city’s downtown district.

It’s called a multipurpose event venue, but “MPEV” has become its signature.

The MPEV is on the Nov. 3 ballot. The ballot language gives voters a narrow choice: whether to allow it to proceed with a “ballpark” included in it design. We will be asked to vote “yes” or “no.”

Critics of the MPEV, estimated to cost about $32 million, say the ballpark element restricts its use. I believe that’s nonsense.

So, we could move the baseball activity that’s been occurring at the Potter County Memorial rat hole, er. stadium for the past few years into a gleaming new downtown stadium.

That’s it? That’s all we can see for this venue? Hardly.

The weather, contrary to many other naysayers, shouldn’t detract from other activities. Why, for example, can’t we have outdoor concerts? Don’t other communities welcome acts to perform outdoors? Aren’t there sufficient numbers of entertainers who would like to play outdoors in downtown Amarillo on a cool autumn evening?

And let’s get real here. We all have appreciated the pleasant temperatures we see even during the summer when the sun goes down along the High Plains. Our altitude — nearly 3,700 feet above sea level — helps make those evenings a reality.

OK, so the winters get chilly around here. And yes, spring can be a bit unpredictable — weather-wise.

The planners who’ve proposed this project haven’t re-invented the wheel. Other communities have enjoyed success with downtown ballparks that have been used for various other activities when they aren’t hawking hot dogs, peanuts and cold beer at ballgames.

What they’re pitching, though, is a new concept for this city. The MPEV will work if it’s given the chance — and if we start thinking expansively about the many uses available to it.

 

entertainment news

Young man pays the price for his fame

duggar

Josh Duggar has admitted to cheating on his wife.

Why is that a big deal?

The young man is part of a very large and very over-exposed family. They were the center of a reality TV show, “19 Kids and Counting.” They espoused their deep Christian faith and thrust that belief into the homes of millions of TV viewers regularly.

They presented themselves as the perfect family. What’s more, they became active politically off the screen. Duggar, particularly, became a voice for “traditional family values” while working for the Family Research Council.

Then Josh was revealed to have touched young girls inappropriately while he was a teenager. Some of his victims were his own sisters.

TLC, the network that broadcast the TV show featuring the Duggar clan, ended the series. Duggar no longer works for the Family Research Council.

Now we hear that Josh Duggar has cheated on his wife using a website — AshleyMadison.com — that was created for those who want to break their sacred marital vow.

It’s all tawdry and quite sickening.

I am not going to condemn Josh Duggar today. He’s begging for forgiveness. His statement of contrition sound quite sincere. It included this: “I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on theIinternet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife.”

I guess one of the tragedies of this bizarre story, though, is watching a young man being revealed as being someone quite different from the “reality” he presented on a TV show.

And I suppose it’s fair to ask: How much “reality” on the plethora of these shows is as fake as what’s been revealed about Josh Duggar?

 

entertainment news, local news

How to sell the event venue …

Amarillo downtown

My friend and I had a brief, but animated, discussion early this afternoon about the upcoming vote on Amarillo’s proposed multipurpose event venue.

We are on the same page. We both support what the city has proposed. We both think it will work wonders for the city’s economic well-being.

Three of the five members of our City Council disagree with us. They seem to want it to fail. They decided this week to put the issue to a citywide vote.

But as we visited today at her place of employment, I found myself getting worked up.

My fear is this: The voters are going to say “no” to the MPEV because they don’t understand what it can do; they are “afraid,” I told my friend, of trying something new, of thinking beyond their comfort zone, of looking at the immense possibilities that lie ahead.

My hope is this: Those who support the MPEV and believe in the city’s project — as I do — will organize a grassroots effort designed to lay out in detail how to market a sports and entertainment venue that can become the draw its supporters claim it will become.

The MPEV can be far more than a “ballpark.” Yes, we have this independent minor-league baseball team — now called the Thunderheads — playing in a rat hole of a stadium at the Tri-State Fairgrounds. MPEV critics keep reminding us that the Thunderheads cannot fill that place up, even with the generous ticket giveaways they offer.

Gosh, I wonder why. Oh yeah. The place stinks. It’s been patched up with the construction equivalent of Band-Aids. It really and truly needs to be torn down. With a gleaming new baseball venue in the heart of downtown Amarillo, I hope the razing of the dump formerly known as the “Dilla Villa” can — and will — reduce it to so much trash.

As for the MPEV, there needs to be some seriously creative marketing brought into play.

Can we not find some creativity in this community that is capable of putting together a 21st-century promotional campaign designed to attract events to a venue that its supporters hope will help reshape the downtown district?

I remain squarely committed to this venue. I’m not a marketing guy. I merely believe in thinking big. It’s time we thought bigger than we have in this city.

What’s more, let’s not be coy about what a defeat of the MPEV will mean to the rest of the downtown revival project. The downtown convention hotel won’t be built and without the hotel, there goes the need for the proposed parking garage.

Sure, Xcel Energy has begun work on its new office tower. The rest of it, the work that’s supposed to attract more people in search of something to do after hours? It’ll be gone.

And do we really and truly want to start over after we’ve gone so far already?

entertainment news

The Hulkster says he’s sorry … now

Hulk

Et, tu … Hulk Hogan?

The list of big-mouth celebrities who say things they shouldn’t say has grown by one very intriguing personality.

Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, said some things years ago that have just come out. The pro wrestling association that hired Hogan, World Wrestling Entertainment, has essentially terminated him. It’s taken the Hulkster’s image off its website.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/07/24/wwe-erases-hulk-hogan-mentions-from-web-site/

Hogan says he’s sorry.

Granted, it wasn’t one of those “If I’ve offended anyone … ” apologized straight out. He said he’s sorry. No qualifiers. No mealy-mouthiness about it.

I’m glad about that. Then said this, in a statement to People magazine: “This is not who I am. I believe very strongly that every person in the world is important and should not be treated differently based on race, gender, orientation, religious beliefs or otherwise. I am disappointed with myself that I used language that is offensive and inconsistent with my own beliefs.”

This is not who I am?

You hear that occasionally from celebrities who say offensive things. They disavow the comments, as if someone put them into a trance and put some sort of post-hypnotic spell on them to make them say things they otherwise wouldn’t say.

I fear that whatever Bollea-Hogan said — and I haven’t seen precisely what it was — that he meant it at the time.

Did he change his view of individuals, or groups of individuals?

I have no idea.

But when you make patently offensive statements and you sully the reputation of your employer — which might sound strange when referring to an organization that promotes fake “wrestling” and showcases women as sex objects — well, then you pay the price.

As an old friend and colleague once told me: You cannot unhonk the horn.

entertainment news

So long, ’19 Kids and Counting’

Well, that was a big surprise … not!

The Learning Channel has canceled “19 Kids and Counting” in the wake of an admission by one of the “19 kids” that he molested young girls when he was a teenager; some of the girls were his own sisters.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/tlc-cancels-19-kids-and-counting/ar-AAd30kF

Josh Duggar’s been missing from family publicity photos. He’s become a sort of persona non grata while TLC decided what to do with the popular reality-TV series.

This cancellation had to occur. The Duggar family portrays itself as a group of deeply religious individuals. No, they aren’t “perfect,” as one or two of the daughters have sought to remind us. Then again, Mom and Dad Duggar have become politically active, supporting candidates who purport to stand for strict morality and, um, “family values.”

Well, young Josh messed up. He tarnished his very public family’s name and reputation.

TLC has decided it cannot continue the charade. The Duggars can now continue their rehabilitation in private, away from the TV cameras’ glare.

Good. So long, Duggars.

entertainment news

This is in ‘defense’ of a philanderer?

Holy bleeping mackerel! I need to catch my breath over this one.

Bill Cosby has been accused by several women of drugging them and then assaulting them sexually. The comedic icon and symbol of upstanding moral behavior hasn’t denied doing these things, at least not publicly.

Now we hear from his wife of many years, Camille, who has said that the women “consented” to the drugs and to having sex with her husband.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/bill-cosby-accusers-blast-his-wife-camille-over-claims-women-%e2%80%98consented%e2%80%99-to-drugs-sex/ar-AAcWgk6

Someone has to help me understand this one.

This is Mrs. Cosby’s defense of her husband? Am I to understand, based on what she’s said, that Camille Cosby believes her husband had sex with other women but that it’s somehow OK because they gave their consent?

It’s like the spouse of a murderer saying, “It’s OK that my husband/wife killed that person. He just needed killin’.”

According to the New York Post, Mrs. Cosby is “well aware of his cheating, but she doesn’t believe that her husband is a rapist.”

What in the name of all that is holy am I missing here?