Jane Harmen: too attractive to last so long in congress

It is no surprise that an attractive white woman is being attacked not just for being attractive but she is Jewish.
Jewish is not just a religion. It is a source of increasing identification with meaning where by new blogs are springing up to address this special interest group. A corrupt politician is not just potentially corrupt, but Jewish too.
Elliot Spitzer is another case in point. It is being said that his current return to the political scene is too much, too soon. Is this because he is Jewish? His crime was mostly one of personal behavior. Politically he was a whistle blower without protection

How much does prejudice control the political scene? Too much?


Linda Zises
WBAI Women's Collective

Helen Gurley Brown: The original Carrie Bradshaw

Found in: Books of The Times
April 22, 2009

Written by a Man!
DWIGHT GARNER



This article raises much to be debated. It is rift with prejudice about women, about the uneducated and those who were educated (at great cost and effort in private colleges), and the effect of the women movement on today's second sex.

Helen Gurley Brown author of “Sex and the Single Girl” (1962) and the editor of Coismopolitan for three decades was the first "tough sexy woman" to take public notice and female followers who sought out her teachings because they entertained and made life a little nicer. She helped the "single women" be single without fear of recrimination and she pushed for common sense about issues where common sense was not formerly exercised.

Certainly a woman to be studied and talked about. This book Helen Gurley Brown The original Carrie Bradshaw is well worth a read. I recommend it for selection at your next women's book or study group.



Linda Zises
WBAI Women Collective

Julia: Funny or not, that is the question

Julia is a 2008 drama/thriller film
directed by Erick Zonca with Tilda Swinton


shot in California and Mexico.

The film was inspired by:

* Gloria (film) (1980), a film directed by John Cassavetes
* Gloria (film) (1999), a remake of John Cassavetes' Gloria by Sidney Lumet
* Gloria (TV series) , an All in the Family spin-off



Julia is a confusing film with gender at center stage. The academy award winning actress Tilda Swinton did an outstanding performance in her role as Julia, an attractive alcoholic woman, who in her superficial effort to stop drinking by attending an AA meeting meets up with a scam maker who deals in money for a kidnapped eight to ten year old boy.

What ensues is a series of chase scenes and schemes replete with guns drawn and even used when the moment seemed ripe. This masculine driven behavior is contrasted with Julia's maternal striving that seem harshly hidden in the beginning of the film.

I am not as disturbed by women dressed up in clothes and behavior and general speech and demeanor to seem like men but the lack of any character in the film for me to identify with is a serious problem. I didn't like anyone and I doubt if any viewer could. What I did like was the contrast in life style between the rampant poverty in Mexico , the barren harsh desert and the affluent American life style that is afforded to even the downward mobile citizens.

Men seem to like this film, perhaps they feel titillated by it (as will some woman) because there is a playful element to the interactions.

Putting children into an intensely disturbed adult setting often yields awkward juxtaposition and amusing moments in contrast to the harsh authoritarian rule.
Julia is a case in point.

But
For a film like this to "work" there has to be a reason to care, to feel a positive emotional involvement with someone on screen and that didn't happen. Not for me.

Linda Zises
WBAI Women Collective

"TURNING POINTS" Left Forum

The Left Forum, April 17-19, 2009 conference entitled "Turing Points" was larger than years past due to he change in venue. In the post few years the weekend event was held at Cooper Union. This year the "left" community or those who just want to know piled into Pace University the third and sixth floor to hear "what is going on " and what the alternative media and academicians have to say on current events.

Current events of note abound.

From one session to another three to five men stood on their small podium to discuss the depression (here there is no illusion of a repression or slow down of economic malais) with tentative offerings of an assessment of what use we, not them, can make of the moment and where do we go from here.

Where we go from here is an endless topic with lively criticism of the current policies and forecast of doom and gloom for the "risk and speculation" debt driven world that has dominated the economy known as Capitalism.

The grass roots movements seemed small but notable challenges for the rights of people to get what they think government should provide (food, clothing, shelter and the ability to fulfill their potential) while others debated the forecast of another "Bubble" or the dimensions of the crisis and if the crisis is good, leading towards another kind of economic system or bad, leading to a fascistic society where more members of the ruling elite separate themselves further and further from the crowded working/lower class citizens.

Of course there is still debate on if there is a working class and how will this huge debt be paid and by whom and will China loom large or will 'China come down into the mire of the world economy

It was lively, even enjoyable conference with plenty of books and ideas to take home. But the overall complaint as to why Men must be in the forefront and women so neglected as speakers remains in the minds of those who care about such things. Does gender matter?, was not one of the titles of the more than sixty sessions and vegetarianism was frowned upon as being off the map, irrelevant And if one looked around at the participants at the conference it is easy to see why Vegetarianism hasn't taken hold, at least, not for this group of high thinkers and poor eaters.



Linda zises
WBAI women Collective

FOREVER Heddy Honigmann's 'expressions of lasting love'

What a romantic title, an eye catching approach to a delicate subject, a cemetery in Paris.

I went to Paris, to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. After looking for housing I stepped inside its gates because I was in the vicinity. I thought an hour or so and I would be back on the streets looking for a place to stay.

But cemeteries, even Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn New York were not designed for only the no longer living in this world. They were formerly Parks, places to bring your picnic basket and partake of a family Sunday afternoon meal.

Perre Lachaise kept my interest for the entire day and to see this experience duplicated/preserved through the eyes of a master documentary maker is a rare and precious experience.

This film captures both the emotional moments of those who join in the celebration of life past and those who cherish the quiet world sans cars, where maps to find particular sites are a requisite in this beautiful, emotionally gripping retreat.

I have not been back to Paris in years and years but the sculptural creations in celebrated remembrance of each Nazi Concentration camp lingers in my mind, revisited in memory because they are what the best of Art is all about. To take what is and elevate it to a new configuration, a new memory stacked one upon the other.

That is the genius of Heddy Honigmann. She knows how to take a place, a moment, draw upon her ability to capture the essence as she sees it and create a work of Art with layer upon layer of meaning. The impact is as riveting as the Cemetery itself.

A necessary addition to our human experience.

Forever.

Grave sites of Note:

Jim Morrison
Oscar Wilde
Frederic Chopin
Marcel Proust
Maria Callas
, Guillaume Apollinaire,
Amadeo Modigliani,
Jean-Auguste Ingres,
Georges Méliès,
Yves Montand
Simone Signoret

And
their music,
their art,
their written words
preserved!

APRIL 21st
HOME-VIDEO RELEASE FROM ICARUS FILMS (DVD)


LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

Cookies & Cream

------------------
Linda

Thank you for a very well written, thought out, and honest review. It is refreshing to see the female point of view on a film like this, and its because you have managed to find the intricate details of the character and the story, where sometimes male critics or reviewers missed it. Its refreshing. Thank you sincerely, for your interest. We will make sure to blog about it at our site, and let the world know about it and your writing. If there are any more films in our catalog that may be suitable to your tastes and sensibilities, we will definitely not hesitate to contact you.

Sincerely,

Princeton
www.onewaytv.blogspot.com

Cookies & Cream: Sex industry with a human twist

Written and Directed by Princeton Holt

Cookies and Cream: Another way of life, other options, other ways of finding independence, financial security and a home life.

Maybe not the American dream home life but a life where shopping is not a financial drain and care of one's body is an art, not an option.

Being a sex worker in America is not quarented work on the fast track to success. But Cookies&Cream and Candy too(Carmen's very young daughter) is a tale where Carmen a young woman, headed for pre-law classes at a local New York, maybe Brooklyn high school, is intercepted by three men on the hunt for another victim, another young woman ripe for the picking.

Camen (Jace Nicole) is their new recruit, their fish plucked out of the mainstream of American life headed for the underground sex world, a successful woman hungered by men(and enjoyed by women) world wide.

A fighter in the real world, Carmen's promoters don't ask her height, her weight, her age. They want to know her roots, her ethnic origin but what does this answer mean? If she said, American Black, Puerto Rican, French, Africans what difference does this label make? "I'm all mixed up", she confesses.

Her parents made no sense to me and her daughter, Candy, was so sad. There is a constant theme of don't cry, don't feel what you really feel. Be false to yourself, be strong, cruel in the moment of potential tenderness.

Love is so thin, so tender that when Carmen walks away from an attempt at honest integrity with a man who seems to like her, not for her body alone but for her personality, her strength of mind and feeling, there is a moment when even I wanted to yell at the screen, cry , cry, cry for us all.

For inquiring minds, for people who might not want to go up on the Web to play voyeur to scenes from the money minded people who proliferate handsomely in the underworld of sex, this film will open your eyes and mind to what it is to be successful in the sex industry. What it means to fail can only be far worse.

This human tragedy unfolds with great acting and musical scores of serious excellence.

We need more films like Cookies & Cream.

One Way or Another Productions

WWW.Cookiesncreammovie.com
A web sight well worth viewing.

LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

State of Play (2009): An Horror Film

without the traditional horror of bizarre distorted images.

State of Play is a 'twist and turn' thriller about a rising U. S. congressman and an hippy type investigative journalist embroiled in a case of seemingly unrelated, brutal murders. The saga is sprinkled generously with political ideas and Google rich images that identify it as a film designed to make money but to do it with style, with an intent to entertain and to speak to its audience with hopes of a huge largess.

Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Jason Bateman, Helen Mirren, Jeff Daniels, Josh Mostel, Michael Weston, Barry Shabaka Henley, Viola Davis

Screenwriter: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, Billy Ray

There are films that seem bigger than life. As they unfold the bigger than life images, the sound, the strength of the music and voices and the extraordinary acting seem to rise to a level that is new, different and so engaging the entire real world disappears in the viewing moments. The creation of another fantasy Universe takes over and we forget where we are or why.

This out of life/self experience is even more true for State of Play because we are allowed to see people(actors) who have faces we can recognize and bodies! It isn't just a film with a huge number of heads talking without benefit of shoulders, torso or extremities of note.

As the story unfolds with all the twists and turns of a good tale, there are moments worth laughing at and moments when the horror of today's world is on the enlarged screen and we can't escape even though we may want to. This is a film of today, in content, in the production and expertise of creation It is a film that forces us to examine our own personal prejudices.

From the opening scene we would think, although we may not want to, that this is another black drug addict victim crime with all the preconceived notions that are so very familiar to us all. There is a list of credits and then the film starts and we see how wrong, how painfully wrong we are. This is a film that brings out not the petty black male drug pusher but the white male criminal of today, the white collar "powerful" who know only the moment of their potential self worth, without the ability to cherish those who love, those who understand that we are a people united by the quality of our connection to one another, our ability to procreate with love, not by the size of our net worth.

Once seen the film promises to remain in clear focus for years to come

Opens Friday in theaters everywhere

LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

In a Dream: Jeremiah Zagar

and Ross Kauffman, executive producer (Born into Brothel)
A family saga featuring, wife, two sons and the "famous father" who plays himself. Anal expulsive man brings life, color. texture, images into consciousness if we want it or not.

Participate in the launching of the film, the magic garden tour and extravaganza. Become a member of the family or feel as if you are and be grateful that you can walk away, even if you can't forget.

FRIDAY, APRIL 17TH, 2009
"In A Dream" opens at the Landmark Ritz at the Bourse in Philadelphia The Magic Garden Party commences
April 18th! and April 18, 2009
12:00pm
The South Philly Mosaic Walking Tours
April 18th, 12 – 4 pm
Food, music, crafts and more!
$4 entry; $6 for tour
And I am certain there will be more to follow.

This is a film that reflects the mind set of a man who is not shy with self advertisement, with spreading the word, with getting the self displayed in all its ugliness and all its beauty.

Personally i could not live with this man/artist Isaiah Zagar His work over whelmes me. I need peace and quiet and blank white walls to feast my eyes upon. Isaiah knows no quiet and yet he seldom talks except to his cement.

But when he does speak, the people in his inner circle (of which there are few) listen, obey, take note with more than a passing fancy and perhaps you will too.

The music is special, the art is fantastic, the love of texture, color, feel, is great. The connection to people is slime but Isaiah holds on, keeps going and I guess that is what he wants to inspire in others. To persevere in this moment called life.

Note: There is a strong similiarity between this film and the work of Ross Kauffman(executive producer) of "Born into Bothel" fame. A similarity in the love of art and art shows and the predominance of confusion, the almost 'too much'. For me these films create an intensely interesting experience until I shut down. Stimulous overload and i give up and walk away.

The best moment in In A Dream was when Isaiah brings out an orange cavas folding chair, a color he does not work with. An obvious addition from his wife. He opens it up in the middle of an empty oversized room replete with walls filled with his artistic creations and sits down. He is smling. So am I.


If you are a art lover, a lover of documentary film, this film is for you. And the Magic Garden party? It promises to be an extra family delight.


LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective

WBAI Discussion: The downside of the Women Revolution

WBAI Women Collective:
On the air discussion can be heard on the internet at WBAI.Org

On March 9th Linda Zises hosted two guest, Andrea Fishman from the Local Station Board and LaVarn Willians, the financial officer from the Pacifica foundation in Berkeley California. Pacifica is the parent organization of which WBAI is one of its five member stations.

The guests spoke to particular issues of concern to WBAI listeners which is of particular importance as
WBAI radio(99.5 F.M. N.Y.) is operating at a deficit that is threatening its continuation as a radio station and internet community voice


Linda Zises spoke on the topic: Rethinking women liberation. The downside of liberation

Who is doing the work women used to do? Women in the armed forces raises the question, who is taking care of our children?


Who does the in the house tasks, the "untouchable" work. Whose voice is behind the man who goes to work and makes a public reputation for himself

Clearly this question can not be adequately answered in the brief format of an half hour radio program however............

The point is to raise consciousness about women and the women movement; the personal price of success for women, for their families and for society.

In particular, without volunteer women groups and work to keep WBAI fluid, WBAI has been pauperized both in quality of WBAI work environment and its financial health.

Who brings food into the the station when needed, who answers the phones and fills out pledge cards? Who sends out the premiums, who cleans up paper clips and rubber bands. And who has the time to conduct a detailed examination of phone usage, the cost of supplies and the value of the products purchased.

The loss of "women work" as it was once called translates into money lost, and an atnosphere of all stars or masters of the art of radio and no one to do the work needed to continue to put the WBAI voice into the ears of community listeners

What do you think?

Is there a backlash, a downside to the women revolution.

LindaZises
WBAI Women Collective