In Entertainment...
-The New York Times runs through a list of celebrity profiles that, similar to Miles Teller recent one for Esquire, make the artists look like jackasses. It's a fascinating run of the gamut from Courtney Love's heroin use while pregnant to Cara Delevingne's penchant for high-level diva behavior (which was proven recently again by the Paper Towns tour). As a general rule these sorts of stories don't bother me (if the artist is good, I don't care if they're a good person provided they aren't behaving in criminal ways like Love was), but this is a good place to remember that celebrity is not eternal and you should watch what you say. Just ask Mira Sorvino.-Not sure yet whether this should count as entertainment or politics (I guess it depends on how well she does), but former Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert will be running for Congress in Michigan. Gilbert doesn't go into this entirely without experience, it should be noted-she was the President of the Screen Actors Guild, a position once held by former President Ronald Reagan. Speaking of which, the race for the SAG president, which should be decided August 20th has turned nasty as incumbent Ken Howard is getting a very spirited challenge from Emmy nominee Patricia Richardson, who is running under the more progressive banner for the position. Finishing off our political/entertainment segment, Cheryl Boone Isaacs has won a third-term as the President of AMPAS, which I am excited about (I generally think Boone Isaacs has done a very strong job in the position, and am particularly excited for the Academy Museum to launch in a few years).
-The Oscars won a major fight over sales of the Academy Award, as a bid to sell the Best Art Direction Oscar won for My Gal Sal was halted by a judge. For those unfamiliar, winners are not allowed to sell their Oscars-if they want to discard their trophies, they have to give the Academy the option of buying them back for $10. This is a practice that started in 1951, so Oscars won before this time period (such as Bette Davis's, Vivien Leigh's, and Orson Welles'), have frequently gone up for auction, but this is a step in the right direction in my opinion-I am opposed to the idea of cheapening this high honor by watching the Oscars go up at auction, and am hopeful this will put an end to such sales.
In Politics...
-Heather Digby Parton has a scathing article about Carly Fiorina on Salon. In it she gets to the heart of why Fiorina infuriates so many who try to look at politics objectively; principally, it's that she seems to just be in the race to be a woman attacking Hillary Clinton. As has been pointed out repeatedly, Fiorina, while initially impressive in her career (working her way up through the rungs to become the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company), has been an abject failure since achieving that feat. Her tenure at Hewlett-Packard is the equivalent of Ryan Leaf's with the NFL and her Senate campaign in 2010 was nasty and extremely tacky (remember the hot mic moment where she slammed Barbara Boxer's appearance-click that link immediately if you don't). She apparently didn't even pay her employees from her campaign despite having $120 million in the bank. All-in-all, it has to be said that if Fiorina weren't a woman we wouldn't be talking about her; even Donald Trump and Ben Carson have had successful careers in their chosen profession. I'm already internally vomiting over the fact that she's going to be considered a VP choice despite women like Kelly Ayotte, Susana Martinez, and Nicki Haley all seeming like better options for the GOP.-Politico has a fascinating look at what would happen if Congress overrides President Obama's veto on the Iran deal. While this seems increasingly unlikely to happen (I suspect that Obama will be able to form a veto-proof minority in either the House or the Senate, if not both), it's a little terrifying to think that this could unfold. I'm a strong Obama supporter, but circumventing Congress like this would be an abuse of power, plain-and-simple. It's worth noting, of course, that the president has not publicly speculated that he would do the things listed in the article (basically ignoring Congress and using executive branch authority to lift certain sanctions), but I think that if he did the backlash would be hugely overwhelming-Republicans would talk impeachment and it's likely he would be giving up the White House in 2016 for his party. Still, it's an interesting look at what could be the fallout of overriding his veto.
-On Thursday we looked at the odds of Joe Biden getting into the race, but the big news late this week was surrounding Vice President Al Gore potentially getting into the race. While pundits are doubtful that this could happen (the phrase "pour lukewarm water on the rumors" was used), it does make sense to me, as I pointed out in my article that Gore has a constituency that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders don't have (and quite frankly might be considered a blessing to Clinton who needs someone to take the liberal heat away from Sanders). I personally believe vice presidents never quite get over the fact that they were a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, and I'm sure Al Gore (much like Walter Mondale, Dan Quayle, and Dick Cheney) doesn't have a day go by where he doesn't think about what he would have done as president, so I'm positive the fire is still there even if it still seems unlikely he'll make a go at the election.
Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...
-I could not agree more with Benedict Cumberbatch-stop the cell phones and video-taping in movies and theaters!
YouTube Video of the Week...
-My favoritest of YouTubers Mamrie Hart finally hit 1 million subscribers this week, and while Mamrie didn't make a video quite yet (though I'm a little bit excited that she may have filmed with Sprinkle of Glitter for a YDAD based on Louise's vlog channel), she did do one of her classically hilarious videos with Tyler Oakley this week (I am admittedly not a fan of the Insane Clown Posse and could not tell you anything about them other than they were featured in an Always Sunny episode, but these two make anything better):
Just One More...
-Did anyone else hear about this really cool story? Meagan Abell, a photographer, found copies of photos that appear to be from the 1950's and 1960's that look like they are from a magazine spread or professional art photo shoot (they're just gorgeous-take a look), but the women in the photo and the photographer are completely unknown, so Abell has launched a quest on Twitter to identify one of them. Twitter has pinpointed the exact beach where the photos likely took place, but are still on the hunt for one of the women and the photographer-check it out to see if you might know!
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