Golden Globes 2011: Party At Balboa Theater in San Francisco

The Golden Globes 2011 Weekend is near and San Francisco's Balboa Theater at 3630 Balboa Street (at 37th Avenue) joins the ranks of venues holding major parties up and down the California coast.

Gary Meyer, who runs the Balboa Theater, sent an email which reads:

Join the Golden Globes Party at the Balboa Theatre on Sunday, January 16. Cheer and jeer. Come dressed up or dressed down or as your favorite nominated movie or TV show.


Doors open at 4:45pm and the show starts at 5pm sharp.


The Golden Globes will be projected in High Definition with Dolby Stereo through the Meyer Sound system.


There will be some great prizes and surprises.


All seats only $5.00. Advance tickets available at Brown Paper Tickets
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/146439


Come early or stay late and see BLACK SWAN or THE FIGHTER (separate admission required)

For more information call (415) 221-8184.

Academy News: Oscar Voting Ballots DUE THIS FRIDAY

Just a warning blog post, courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ballots sent out to the 5,755 voting members of AMPAS must be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, January 14.

AMPAS says that ballots received after that deadline will not be counted.

AMPAS is using a preference voting system to count the ballots for the "majority of categories."

Again, that's 5 PM PST, which is 8 PM EST.

Hurry up!

Congresswoman Barbara Lee Joins Candlelight Vigil For Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D - 9th District, Oakland) will join others in tonight's candlelight vigil for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. It will be held tonight, Wednesday, January 12th from 5 PM to 6:30 PM PST at 14th St at Broadway, Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland.

99ers Call to Action January 13th 2011 - Target : Rep Sheila Jackson Lee

This is a 99ers call to action for January 13th 2011. The target is Rep Sheila Jackson Lee and the reason is her remarks in the video below, in which she announces her intention to tie help for the 99ers to some appropriations bill that will be debated in March of this year.

HELLO Congresswoman - EXCUSE ME but the 99ers have already been out of benefits since LAST February/March. Exactly how long do you think we can hold on? Please tell the millions of suffering Americans in the 99er Nation WHY their hunger, homelessness and deaths are not as big a priority as those lives tragically taken last weekend in Tucson, AZ! I noticed immediately upon the return of Congress the House is engrossed in resolutions and speeches that do little more than offer you and your colleagues comfort and sound bites for the cable news coverage.

Why not honor your colleague Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by actually doing something that would immediately save American lives? Why doesn’t Congress stop stalling and griping about how the GOP will make it hard to get any help for the 99ers and start doing something NOW instead of the endless excuses, rhetoric and pontification?

We need every member of the 99er Nation (NOT just residents of the 18th district in TX) to contact her offices or her Chief of Staff: Yohannes Psehai in droves!!!!

http://www.jacksonlee.house.gov/Contact/ use the zip code 77002 when emailing her via her website.

Congress Toll Free: (877) 762-8762


Washington Office
2160 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-3816 Phone
225-3317 Fax

Houston Office
1919 Smith Street
Suite 1180
Houston, TX 77002
(713) 655-0050 Phone
(713) 655-1612 Fax

Heights Office
420 West 19th Street
Houston, TX 77008
(713) 861-4070

Acres Home Office
6719 West Montgomery
Suite 204
Houston, TX 77091
(713) 691-4882

Fifth Ward Office
4300 Lyons Ave.
Houston, TX 77020
(713) 227-7740 Phone
(713) 227-7707 Fax

It is time they stop putting off saving the 99ers and all exhaustees. We count. We Matter! They work for US!!!!!! Let’s go Nation - Tell her staff the 99ers cannot wait until March we need help NOW!!!! Let her know you caught her diatribe on YouTube and it is unacceptable even unrcontionable to wait until March. Call her now, call her often and keep calling, faxing and emailing her until she gets the message.




[The donation button below is for me, Paladinette. If you like what I write please donate so I can keep on fighting for the 99ers! Thank You!]

Blood Libel: Sarah Palin Tops Crosshairs Map By Upsetting Jews

Blood Libel? Former Governor Sarah Palin sticks her foot in her mouth again.

On the heels of accusations that she helped fan the flames of hate against Democrats supporting President Obama's Health Care Initiative - which led to Jared Lee Loughner's shooting of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 14 people, killing six of them - Palin causes a new firestorm by launching a speech which included this statement:



Or, in text:

Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

This is the definition of "blood libel" from Wikipedia:

Blood libel (also blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, in European contexts almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays. Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.

Considering that Palin herself was the focus of much criticism in the wake of her use of crosshairs to mark Tucson, Arizona as a "target" to oppose U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords support of Health Care Reform, then referring to those same images as "bullseyes," now it looks like Palin's trying to compare herself to persecuted Jews.

Of course, this isn't sitting well with Jews - or anyone else.

Sarah Palin is classic for using terms and symbols without thinking about the consequences - the crosshairs map and blood libel are the latest examples. In her rush to get out a message and try to keep herself relevant on the day of the night of President Obama's trip to Tucson, Palin, perhaps due to an act of God, stuck her foot in her mouth.

The message is for Sarah Palin to just chill on this day when America, the President, elected officials and friends and families of the victims are gathering to mourn.

Sometimes it's better to just lay low for a while.

But where did she get it in her head to use the term?

My guess is Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blowhard, who used the term in this tweet:

And to the gutless GOP establishment who watches in silence the blood libel against @SarahPalinUSA. We will remember. #TeaParty

That too, was ill-advised. But Breitbart has never hinted that he's running for President either.

Stay tuned.

Megyn Kelly, Phil Bronstein, Jared Loughner Is "Political"

I had to stop and read San Francisco Chronicle Editor At Large Phil Bronstein's column on how he says Fox News Megyn Kelly "dismembered" Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. I came away rather disappointed with his take, but entertained nonetheless. So, since Phil has referred to me as an "insurgent" in the Old Media World, a tag I love, it's time to strap on my helmet and have at it yet again.

First, let's get some things really straight here.

Megyn Kelly represents the ultra conservative Fox News. That means Republican. So here, into that Fox News den comes the Democratic Sheriff Dupnik. Anyone would expect Kelly, who's carrying Fox News boss' Roger Ailes' water, to try and attack Dupnik for telling it like it was: the hard rhetoric from the far right in Tucson - where Dupnik works and the shooting happened so he should know - did create a climate that triggered Jared Loughner's violent actions.

As I say here:



Second, Jared Loughner has all the marks of an anti-government type like Joe Stack. Remember him? I guess memories are short. Stack was the Austin, Texas man who crashed his plane into the IRS Building, and left behind hand-written trail of crazy thoughts against the government.  Big goverment. While Jared doesn't have that "smoking gun" document around (so far as we know), there is a growing picture of the politics of the man, as listed by Wikipedia:

Loughner was a believer of numerous conspiracy theories, and espoused views such as that the United States Government was responsible for the September 11 attacks, a New World Order would bring about a one world currency, there would be a 2012 apocalypse, NASA had faked spaceflights, and the government was using mind control to brainwash people by controlling grammar. He was a member of the online conspiracy theory message board Above Top Secret, though members of the site did not respond warmly to his posts.[15][16][17] Reports appearing after the shooting noted similarities between the statements made by Loughner, concerning grammar and mind control, and the views of conspiracy theorist David Wynn Miller.[18] Miller himself stated “I expect he’s been on my website... He’s just repeating things I’ve had up on my site the past 11 years.”[19][20]

Now that's a picture of Jared Loughner as essentially a libertarian. Add to that the overall climate of a Tucson, Arizona that has a healthy number of conservatives and anti-government types issuing all sorts of protests specifically against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and then the fact that Loughner was mentally-ill and you have the perfect brew for the trajedy that ocurred.

All of this has to do with politics. Sorry Phil Bronstein, but if the job of a reporter is to question assumptions, the job of the blogger is to question the reporter's approach. That's what I'm doing.

Why take up the matter of defending Fox News at this time? Why not piece together the information we have and fill in the blanks where necessary with some syllogistic reasoning?

Everyone knows that young voters in the West have been more likely to register as independent because they're new to the political process, so Fox News parroting the idea that Loughner's really independent as if to say he's apolitical, is so silly it's unbelievable.

But here we are.

With Phil defending Fox News.

Or is it really Phil taking up for the hot, smart, leggy blonde TV anchor in Megyn Kelly? Easy it is to be blinded by a curvy body, even if she's the darling of conservative bloggers.

 I'll give Phil a half-pass, but that's it.

Jared Loughner was the extreme product of a Tucson society mostly against President Obama Health Care Initiative, yet stuck with a Democratic fighter for it in Gabrielle Giffords. His mental illness took him to a place we only talked about, with all of the nastiness coming out of the Health Care town hall meetings, but never thought we'd actually see.

Until last Saturday.

The Green Hornet's Director Michel Gondry To Helm Jimmy Kimmel Live

The Green Hornet's Director Michel Gondry has been tapped to helm a special episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday, January 13th at 12:05 AM ET / PT on ABC Television.

Gondry, who's film The Green Hornet comes out Friday and I'm really excited to see, won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, which is also directed, in 2005.

Gondry's also one of a few music video directors to make the transition to feature film work.

Gondry joins Quentin Tarantino and J.J. Abrams as part of a select group of directors who have taken the guest-directorial position at Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Kimmel will have Somewhere star Elle Fanning as his guest and to talk about that film which also opens this Friday. Fanning will be joined by a musical performance by The Damned Things to spice up this special episode.