Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

I am running off to a Mother's Day brunch in a few hours, so up I'm early for our linking today!  Let's see what we missed this week!

On Entertainment...

-Katherine Heigl's show State of Affairs has been cancelled, posing the question of what's next for the (former, let's be honest here) movie star.  At only 36, she's hardly past her prime in terms of still landing movies and has a gay-themed comedy out later this year, but I wonder if the star of hits like Knocked Up and 27 Dresses can actually make it to a second phase in her career-her public battles with Shonda Rhimes, the high-profile cancellation of her NBC series, and perhaps most critically, the major tanking of the Stephanie Plum franchise (which could have been HUGE if the film had been successful as there's a major fan-base for the Janet Evanovich series, particularly amongst middle-aged women), have left her with no major hit in four years.  Very few actors can go that long (save Ryan Reynolds) without Hollywood starting to pull-back.  If I were her I'd take a year off and then try my hand at an Indie drama or something of that ilk where she's working for scale but might win back the critics.

-Legendary R&B singer Ben E. King passed away this week.  King didn't always receive the same sort of plaudits that some of his contemporaries like Smokey Robinson did, but he had a dynamite voice and had some of the finest songs of the era, first as lead singer of The Drifters ("There Goes My Baby," "Save the Last Dance") before embarking on a solo career with "Spanish Harlem" and the picture-perfect "Stand By Me."

-As my brother put it, "do we have another Grey Gardens on our hands?" with the news that Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman will costar in an adaptation of Liane Moriarty's Little Big Lies.  For those of you who don't partake in constant conversations about show business awards, this is an allusion to the Emmy/Globe/SAG battles that took place between Grey Gardens' stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore.  The two Oscar winners will be joined by a third actress considering the book has three key roles for women-wonder if they'll go with the theme of blonde Oscar winners and pick Charlize Theron?  We shall see!

On Politics...

-One of the principle reasons I'm excited for debates in the presidential elections for the Democrats is that it will push Hillary Clinton to talk about a few pet issues of Democrats that we definitely want amped up in the next administration, principally surrounding climate change.  As we learned this past week, we had yet another warmest quarter on record, and California's tragic drought continues to ravage the state (thankfully Gov. Jerry Brown has realized the correlation and started to pass massive environmental law changes, but we need all 49 other states to get on board as well).  In other related environmental news, we saw another reason for Gov. Brown's need for change to California laws: air pollution.  A list of the ten most air-polluted cities in America included four in the Golden State.  It's worth noting that these cities are almost certainly getting more air pollution due to the increased amount of dust in the air, causing in some cases an entire month of unhealthy breathing.  Like almost every environmental cause, getting climate change under control would solve this, but instead we get presidential candidates like Marco Rubio who think it's no big deal.  And for the record (this link should always be shared), here is a link to the list of senators who think that Climate Change is real and man-made.  If your senator voted no, I suggest you write them or at the very least don't vote for them the next election.

-The United Kingdom had what was one of the more shocking election results in recent history, when David Cameron, after running neck-and-neck in polls, saw his majority increase and defied all of the polling.  After rather abysmal results in the Midterms in November and in Israel earlier this year, one has to wonder if polling, at least in its traditional model, is going the way of the dodo.  Honestly, I don't recall three elections being so out-and-out wrong, and political insiders ranging from Nate Silver to David Axelrod all seem to agree.  Labour will also have to do a lot of soul-searching.  Ed Miliband, who hasn't been able to unify the English and Scottish elements of his party, ended up losing both and had to resign as leader, while Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats learned five years later how much the members of his party hated his deal with the Conservatives, watching his party all-but-evaporate from Parliament.  Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, and perhaps even Ed Milband's brother David (whom he had a famously public battle with for the leadership position in 2010) all are the leading contenders, but after the shellacking they received this past week, they have their work cut out for them.

-The Providence Journal eviscerated former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee over his purported plans to run for president, and I have to say that I agree, and I wish that the press would have such a discerning eye when it came to the Republican side of the aisle.  Chafee, who has been a member of three different parties in recent years, has an unimpressive tenure as governor (he wouldn't even have won the primary) and his term in the Senate was as a Republican-in what universe does that translate into a Democratic nominee?  That being said, people like Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina continue to inexplicably get press coverage.  Carson is famous for giving one speech in 2013 and for filling the Pat Robertson-void in the Republican primary (which, let's face it, is already being filled by Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee).  Carly Fiorina's two most public endeavors were universal failures (her tenure at Hewlett-Packard and her 2010 Senate bid).  These people have absolutely no right to the press coverage they are receiving, and have the same shot at being president as I do.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

The Harries brothers need to stop getting so attractive, as it's going to create conspiracy theories.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-Rupert Everett shares a rather hilarious story about a night out with Princess Margaret on The Graham Norton Show

Just One More...

-Time magazine has a fascinating look at the political views of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who was a Libertarian before that became a thing, and has finally seen her autobiography come to life on the Bestseller list.  In fact, I recommend you also read this article to get the full picture, as the memoir has become one of the hottest books of the season and is being printed. by a seven-person team in the middle of South Dakota (hardly what you'd typically consider a publishing hotspot).