Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

Anyone else having a good weekend?  I know I sure am, and even though it's Sunday afternoon and there's a presentation I should admittedly be working on on my dining room table, I figured I'd get the link roundup out for you fine people instead.

In Entertainment...

-Bradley Cooper joined the conversation started by his costar Jennifer Lawrence regarding pay and income inequality, and where women are getting paid less than men.  Cooper stated that he will start teaming up with his female costars to ensure that they are getting paid an equal amount, which is a cool and interesting concept, though it also begs a few questions.  For starters, while I have argued in the past that movie stars complaining about this issue makes the issue easier to explain (it's easier to use examples of someone everyone has heard of like Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Adams, rather than a random teacher or office employee), there are limitations here.  For starters, Cooper's argument that Adams made "nothing" on American Hustle is kind of ridiculous and risks being the story here rather than the pay gap.  Adams made $1.25 million plus 7-points off the back-end (assuming that's international gross, it would amount to roughly $10 million, if it's points off of profit, probably closer to $7-8 million).  Either way this is more money that most people could ever dream of, and so while she clearly deserved equal footing to at least Jeremy Renner, and perhaps Cooper, she made more money than any normal human could ever hope to have and calling that nothing makes this look like an ivory tower argument.  Secondly, movie stars are about bankability as much as work, and Bradley Cooper is one of the biggest stars on the planet right now-his costars aren't really guaranteeing the box office insurance that he carries.  Sure, Jennifer Lawrence is also box office dynamite, but Amy Adams isn't.  Neither are Sienna Miller, Emma Stone, or Abbie Cornish.  They're all stars, yes, and this is a noble idea of Cooper's, but one wonders if he's the best person to be making this argument.

-Is anyone else interested in tonight's premiere of Oprah Winfrey's Belief, a 7-part documentary miniseries on her channel that seems very similar to the critically-lauded Planet Earth?  I have become, I must admit, extremely disenchanted lately with television-it's too repetitive, there's nothing new that's interesting to me anymore, and I find that the same plots and ideas are constantly celebrated without anything new (I go through this with film, music, and books from time-to-time as well, but I have to admit that there it's usually a much shorter term and I've felt this way about TV for months now).  I've been trying to research more non-fiction television that I think is worthwhile, and this seems like a possibility-anyone know of anything else?  I don't want Amazing Race or Kardashian style stuff, but documentary-style series that are of worth-share your recommendations in the comments!

- Who else has played the leaked Adele commercial at least a dozen times today?  The Oscar-and-Grammy winner, whose elusive third album is rumored constantly, apparently leaked a snippet of a song during a commercial during The X-Factor yesterday, causing Twitter to erupt not only because the song seems amazing, but perhaps she's finally going to drop the album?!?  I am such a fan, and cannot wait.  And am going to listen once more...

In Politics...

-In a story that just broke this morning, CNN news anchor Jake Tapper grilled former Gov. Jeb Bush about his attacks on Hillary Clinton about Benghazi, particularly going after him because he doesn't give Clinton the same sort of leeway that he gives his brother in terms of 9/11.  While Bush made a few attacks on Trump, the analogy to his brother was a blistering one, particularly considering it's an apt argument and one I haven't really heard a journalist make, and could be a very sore subject during the next GOP debates as I suspect Rubio, Cruz, and Carson will also be weighing in shortly.  While Bush does state that Ambassador Stevens was asking for more security, there were numerous pieces of evidence uncovered by the 9/11 commission that could have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and while Jeb admits that it was the terrorists that perpetrated both acts, to cite Clinton exclusively and not his brother is cherry-picking in a way that I don't think will fly.  It will also be an interesting thing to see if this becomes a major talking point, period, in the election, as attacking President Bush over 9/11 has been something that most politicians have steered clear of in the wake of the tragedies, instead focusing on the Iraq War for fear of appearing insensitive and not taking the political risk that results from such a move (as President Bush's initial reactions to the 9/11 tragedies were the high-point of his popularity as POTUS).

-Stuart Rothenberg wrote a provocative piece about whom the Republicans should nominate for the presidency.  This is a-characteristic of Rothenberg, who is usually slightly more conservative than this (or at least more blatantly non-partisan), but seems to reflect an exhaustion with the Tea Party elements of the GOP that others have also shared (see also the current debacle in the Speaker's race).  Rothenberg claims that Cruz is the only person who could prove to conservatives whether running a "true conservative" would actually help them win, or as logic would dictate, likely lead to their defeat.  Part of me wonders if some Chamber of Commerce types, realizing that the Democrats can't win the House so they'd still have a seat at the table and that the Senate is up in 2018 with a lot of opportunities (even if the Democrats sweep the competitive seats in 2016 they'll still have a rough go two years later with Heitkamp, McCaskill, Donnelly, and Manchin all headed to the polls) and finally with a Democrat that's relatively moderate like Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office (and the strong likelihood that she'd be a one-termer as it's difficult to see the Democrats winning the White House 16 years in a row), might be willing for the trade of a loss in 2016 if it meant that the Freedom Caucus would get back inline and they could reclaim the party.  They'd never say so out loud, but I think it'd be something they'd discuss behind closed doors.

-In one of the coolest things I've seen in the world of politics in a long time, President Obama met with award-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson (whose book, Housekeeping is currently on my nightstand right now as I have been longing to read it for years and this is my excuse) to discuss his passion for her books.  What I love about this is not just that it's the President asking the questions here, not the other way around, but also that Obama has placed such a value on the written word and on the arts.  For a president that I didn't think would do such a thing eight years ago (I never really saw Obama as an arts guy based on conversations surrounding the subject when he was a candidate), he's definitely found a way to have a strong connection both with pop culture and with culture in general during his terms in office, and this is just one of many ways that he's shared his passions for the arts.  Bravo!

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-Gov. David Ige makes a laudable push to fight homelessness in his state of Hawaii, the state with the highest homelessness rate in the country.

YouTube Video of the Week...

-The other video I watched on loop this week, I'm still impressed by the Sanders/Clinton moment coming out of the first debate.  Great to see the political opponents on the same side of a contentious issue:

Just One More...

-In your "climate change is still a thing we should be all worrying about" news byte of the week, Climate Central stated this past week that cities like Miami, New Orleans, and potentially even New York are all likely to be submerged by water in the near-term regardless of whether or not we solve the climate crisis.  The study stresses that New York is still salvageable, but action needs to be taken soon.  Keep that in mind when you are looking at the upcoming presidential elections.