Thursday, September 27, 2018

Cher sings ABBA



Cher's new album DANCING QUEEN comes out tomorrow.   She's covering ABBA songs including my favorite "S.O.S." Also?  "The Winner Takes It All."  I had no idea this was so popular but we were mentioning it where we were speaking today -- speaking over and over -- and C.I. would note her favorite song and others would start singing it.  Turns out, it's one of ABBA's four top ten hits in the US.  It charted higher than a lot of songs I thought were better known.

So between ABBA fans, Cher fans and people interested due to curiosity, it should be Cher's biggest album in some time.

I’m thrilled if the music lifts you up, makes you want to sing & dance around your room....Or helps you cry & not feel completely alone. These can be strange times. I was beyond excited singing these songs, & I hope You’re HAPPY🎉listening to them 💋 Me



Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Thursday, September 27, 2018.  Confront the fake asses -- and is there a bigger fake ass than Barbra Streisand?


Love Cher to death but never felt the urge to emulate her use of the c-word.  That said, if ever someone earned the term, it would be Granny Streisand.  Some of you may not recognize her under that heavy wig and with all those fillers in her face, but that's Barbra Liar Streisand.  The EGOT winner?  No, she didn't win a Tony.  Broadway kissed her ass with a "Star of the Decade" award they made up for her and that they haven't given since.  She didn't win a Tony.  She got a special prize.

Rita Moreno?  She's an EGOT who won awards.

But Barbra's used being ugly as an excuse to shut down any criticism almost as much as she's used her gender.

'If you're a strong woman, they call you a bitch.'

Well, Barbra, they call you a bitch because you do bitchy things.  You, for exzample, steal Cher's role in A STAR IS BORN.  Or you go out of your way to treat Madeline Kahn like dirt on the set of WHAT'S UP DOC?  You've earned your reputation -- good and bad.  And that's why you're considered a bitch.

You're also a liar who really needs to stop recording.  Your new album?  Teams of dogs pulling sleds in the iditarod have less husky voices.


No one was ever nastier about their fans being gay than Babsie.  She called them "f*gs" and much worse.  They're the only ones who supported her career and that was how she rewarded them.  Not only do UP THE SANDBOX and FOR PETE'S SAKE exist -- both are homophobic -- but so does Babs visiting a film set and hissing "f**got" at Harrsion Ford in what she thinks is a funny bit.

No, it wasn't funny.

But Jason Gould being gay was karmic.  Nothing wrong with being gay.  But when the Phyllis Schafly of the left ends up with a gay son, that's karma.  And she is Phyllis.  She's such a liar that when she decided feminism was the blanket to cover her bitchy ways, she pretended she was one.  But those of us not born in 1999 are aware that she trashed feminism, that she wasn't a feminist, that UP THE SANDBOX (a huge box office disaster) was her response to feminism.  A huge box office disaster.  American women weren't going to pay to see themselves portrayed a pathetic wife who didn't work outside the home but did fantasize about her husband's lover being jealous.  Poor Barbra, I feel like another 'Streisand effect' is about to take place.

So, let's get the laughs going.



That's her new single.

It's hideous.  And it's so bad, you know she had to have written it.

Really written it.

Not just put her name to it so she could get publishing royalties.

Remember when she wrote her 'first' song.  She kept on and on about how great it was to write a song, "Evergreen."  She was so proud of herself.

Barbra, like Donald Trump, thinks if she says it, it makes it true.

Doesn't work that way for either eogmaniac.  And what Barbra forgot was that before "Evergreen," she'd taken songwriting credit.

But there she is -- check the videos, check the print reports -- promoting A STAR IS BORN -- where the crew hated her so badly, they mixed s**t with the mud so Barbra was rolling around in s**t.  And what's she saying, she just wrote a song!  "Evergreen!"  She felt so inadequate before that because all the other "girls" were writing songs.  But she wasn't able to.  Until "Evergreen."

So why don't you get honest and admit you didn't write the earlier songs you put your name to?

How do you sleep, Barbra?

Like a wealthy whore?

I don't like Barbra, I never have.  I've defended her from time to time because even monsters like her have a good side or two.

But she's the epitome of trash.  She always has been.  That she took offense at Madonna is hilarious because she was the worst.  She felt Madonna was trash but no one ever talked about Madonna smelling.  By contrast, she was "B.O. Barbra" -- and, no, Mike Wallace wasn't referring to box office when he would tell that story (over and over).  He meant body odor.  She had bad habits -- refusing to bathe -- before she finally landed on Broadway.  She stunk.

In her song, she's having a dialogue with Donald Trump.  It's hilarious on many levels and not just the fact that she's relating to him in what can only be described as sexually.  Why not?  They're both damaged goods who never recovered from bad childhoods.

It's also hilarious because Tire Kingdom long ago shut down but I can't imagine "Don't Lie To Me" over the p.a. system anywhere else.  Yes, it's that dated.

"How do you sleep?" asks Babs in the song forgetting that ripping off John Lennon deserves its own form of hell.  She really thinks she can get away with anything at this point.

Piss me off, Babs, I know all your dirt, remember, I had Kay fired from my set because I couldn't take another story about how awful you were.  Didn't disagree with your hair dresser, just didn't need to spend every day hearing about you.

It's difficult to identify the worst part of  "Don't Lie To Me" -- in part because there are so many awful things about it.  Love the tempo change with these hideous lyrics:


Kings and Queens
Cooks and thieves
You don't see the forest 
For the trees


That's like ISHTAR bad songwriting -- only those songs were supposed to be bad.


Yeah, Babas has been rising on my s**t list since she took to trashing Laura Nyro -- an actual artist, unlike Las Vegas Babs.  Laura, of course, gave Babs her second hit single -- at a time when she needed a hit badly because, as Clive Davis told her, the albums weren't selling and the kids didn't like her.  It was make it or break it time for Babs.  And "Stoney End" provided her with a recording career (had it not hit, she would have been dropped by Columbia -- and that decision was out of Clive's hands).  So how sweet of her, after Laura's died of cancer, to show up on a recent tour mocking the song.

But I probably wouldn't be writing any of this if she didn't write a song with these lyrics:

How do you sleep when the world keeps turning
All that we built has come undone
How do you sleep when the world is burning
Everyone answers to someone.

Did that bitch just say the world is burning?

Because it is and it has been.

Now maybe the woman dubbed Jewcifer by her YENTYL crew  (Jewish Lucifer, get it?  I don't but it was about what an ass she was and they came up with it after she made them sign  a statement swearing she was the best boss in the world) doesn't get the problem?

This is Barbra Streisand, after all, the woman who loathes Palestinians and basically all Arabs.  (Her films were banned in the Arab world starting with FUNNY GIRL.)

I loathe her but most people don't know it.  I don't make a point to note it.  I do try to give her credit when she deserves it.  THE SECOND BARBRA STREISAND album is a classic album.  Otherwise?  Like most Americans, if I want to hear music from that time period, I'm going to go with Diana Ross who doesn't have the anti-Arab nonsense and who also has actual hit songs -- none of which sound like the theme to a Linda Lavin sitcom.  In terms of film, she gave a strong performance in her last comedy and I would've voted for her if she'd gotten an Academy Award nomination.  Other than that?  This is the woman who still trashes WHAT'S UP DOC? -- the funniest film she has ever been in and an American classic.  Maybe when you've made FUNNY LADY, you've confessed that you have no taste.  (And those rooms, they're overdone.  She's never undestood simplicity and all she ever does is do a room in an overstylized version of how it would have been decorated ten to fifteen years prior.  She's a cookie cutter, she's not a designer.)

Joe Queenan did a very strong essay on how middle of the road and how disappointing all of Barbra's 'artistic' choices have been.


But, again, I usually bite my tongue. 


I don't bite it today because she's worried about the world burning.

"Stranger In A Strange Land."

That was 2005.  That was Babs trying to sing against war.

Now the Iraq War didn't end but, damn, didn't Babs' sudden interest end?  Why, yes, it did.  It's almost as though -- say it ain't so! -- Babs was attempting a comeback -- to the top forty (she failed) -- on the back of the Iraq War.

And I'm sorry to break it to the wealthy woman who hates Arabs but the world's been burning all this time for people in Iraq, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Syria . . .

And it's been burning with no attempt by her to leave her own private mall.

Now she wants the world to listen up, to hear her.

Why?

So she can demonstrate that she's lost her singing voice?  She could have it back.  I'm sure the man who taught her to sing could rescue it if he's still alive.  A qualified vocal coach could as well and I could explain it to her in one sentence.  Thing is, though, I do care about the Arab world and I'm not here to enable Yionism.


This album will come and go, yet another unmemorable release in Barbra's pedestrian discography.

It won't get airplay because she has no voice and she has no audience.

I don't get why women would support her.  Not today.  Jon Peters' actions were known -- widely known.  And it was full blown by the time Barbra moved in with him.  She was fine with it then and she was fine with it after they broke up.  She's no defender of women despite posing as one for the Kavanaugh press coverage.  When will Babs get honest?

I don't get the gay men who buy her albums still.  Her screaming "f**got" at Harrison Ford can be seen on YOUTUBE.  Yes, Jason being gay forced a change in her but is that really reason to continue to buy her albums?

Certainly, her voice isn't.  And I honestly think her Zionism doesn't work with most Americans.  We've matured as a country and aren't so knee jerk today.

I will not forget -- or forgive -- her use of the Iraq War to try to have a hit single.  If it had meant anything to her, if she'd protested the war or if she'd supported it, I could let it go.  But she just used it to try to make a buck.

And now she's telling TIME that she's friends with Colin Powell.  Okay, the bitch is worse than the c-word, much, much worse.  "Republicans who are decent people," she tells TIME of Colin Powell and the George H.W. Bush.


There is nothing decent about Colin Powell.  Even someone as educationally challenged as Barbra Streisand should know better.

Colin lied to the UN and lied to the world.

Her being friends with him -- and praising him -- proves her opposition to the Iraq War was a joke.

But she proves she's a joke.  Did anyone trash her more than Frank Rich?  One critic, yes.  They send him up in WHAT'S UP DOC?  But after that critic, it's Frank Rich.  And yet 'liberal' Babs has made her online life all about linking to and praising Frank Rich.  That's how stupid she truly is.


The Iraq War continues and that's a-okay with Barbra.  Threaten her beloved Israel and she'll show the fangs but kill Arabs and she's fine with it.

Government forces forcibly disappeared scores of Arab Sunni men in . That is no way to fight ISIS. A new report says more:


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HRW:

Iraqi military and security forces have disappeared dozens of mostly Sunni Arab males since 2014, including children as young as 9, often in the context of counterterrorism operations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 78-page report, “‘Life Without a Father is Meaningless’: Arbitrary Arrests and Enforced Disappearances in Iraq 2014-2017,” draws on research Human Rights Watch has published on enforced disappearances in Iraq since 2014, when Iraqi forces launched anti-ISIS operations, and documents an additional 74 cases of men and four cases of boys detained by Iraqi military and security forces between April 2014 and October 2017 and forcibly disappeared. The enforced disappearances documented are part of a much wider continuing pattern in Iraq. Iraqi officials have failed to respond to inquiries from the families and Human Rights Watch for information about the disappeared.
“Families across Iraq whose fathers, husbands, and sons disappeared after Iraqi forces detained them are desperate to find their loved ones,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite years of searching, and requests to Iraqi authorities, the government has provided no answers about where they are or if they are even still alive.”





Infograph
The International Commission on Missing Persons, which has been working in partnership with the Iraqi government to help recover and identify the missing, estimates that the number of missing people in Iraq could range from 250,000 to one million people, with the International Committee of the Red Cross stating that Iraq has the highest number of missing people in the world.
Human Rights Watch drew on research it has published on enforced disappearances since 2014, and carried out additional interviews from early 2016 to March 2018 with the family members, lawyers, and community representatives of the 78 currently identified as forcibly disappeared, as well as three who had themselves been disappeared and were subsequently released. Researchers reviewed court and other official documents relating to the disappearance cases.
Enforced disappearance is defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or by agents of the state or by people or groups acting with the state’s authorization, support, or acquiescence, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the arrest or to reveal the person’s status or whereabouts. The prohibition also entails a duty to investigate cases of alleged enforced disappearance and prosecute those responsible.
The enforced disappearances documented were carried out by a range of military and security entities, but the highest number, 36, were by groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), units under the prime minister’s command, at checkpoints across Iraq. Witnesses said at least 28 of these were carried out by the Hezbollah Brigades.



HRW's Kenneth Roth Tweets:


Iraq is "disappearing" dozens of mostly Sunni Arab men under the guise of combating ISIS, ignoring the fact that such serious abuse helped give rise to ISIS in the first place and could revive its next incarnation.


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These abuses were ignored by the western governments -- including the US -- and that also helped give rise to ISIS.


So let's recap -- Barbra Streisand is all about targeting Arabs.  So skip her latest bad album and instead go with Cher's DANCING QUEEN album which is fun and lacks Babs' heavy pretensions.




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