The shortest month of the year is almost over and that means spring is right around the corner!
Thank you for taking time to check out what I’m thinking about this week!
I always value your opinions even if we disagree. Just do it diplomatically!
DOGNAPPING AND SHOOTING!
UPDATE: A woman brought the two missing dogs into the LAPD’s Olympic station in Koreatown Friday night UNHARMED!
Two of Lady Gaga’s French Bulldogs were stolen and the other one, Asia, escaped after the dog walker was shot in West Hollywood early Wednesday night.
The 30-year-old victim was taken to a local hospital and CNN reports that he is recovering well.
While they were missing, TMZ reported that Gaga was offering a “no questions” asked $500,000 reward for Koji and Gustav’s safe return!
FORGIVING STUDENT LOANS
Many in Congress want President Joe Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt.student
Biden told a town hall group in mid-February that he was prepared to write off $10,000, but not $50,000.
He added that community colleges should be free and that “any family making under $125,000 whose kids go to a state university they get into, that should be free, as well.”
I’m totally against forgiving $50,000 of debt! Why?
When I went to college and earned my degree in 1989 and I went back to school for three more years in the early-2000s for another certification, I paid for my education both times all by myself. My parents didn’t assist me financially and the government definitely didn’t erase my debt.
And, once I got my degree, it took more than a year (fall 1990) before I was offered a job in my field of study (television news). I wasn’t even able to take that job, which would have only paid a measly $13,000 a year!
After that, it wouldn’t be until the summer of 1996 that I was finally able to start my career. The offer, again, was $13,000!
With that being said, you can see why I have a problem just forgiving student loan debt!
ONE MORE THING…
Did you know that only 1.25 million students were enrolled in college in 1938?
With the G.I. Bill following World War II, nearly 7.8 million of the 16 million veterans that served in the armed forces decided to take advantage of the bill and go to college!
“ARMY OF THE DEAD” IS FINALLY COMING!!!!!!
“Army of the Dead”, Zack Synder’s highly anticipated zombie heist movie, finally has a Netflix release date of May 21st and the first trailer dropped Thursday! I’m so excited because it takes place in my favorite U.S. city!
It follows a group of mercenaries plotting a Las Vegas casino heist during a zombie outbreak.
The ensemble cast includes Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy” series), Garret Dillahunt (“Fear The Walking Dead” and “Justified”), and Raúl Castillo (“Looking”).
While I wouldn’t want it to happen with the real places, it’s fun seeing Planet Hollywood, Paris, and the iconic “Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas” sign crumble in a disaster flick!
“THE HUNT”
This is the movie that got Republicans and Donald Trump in an uproar — before any of them even saw it!
It’s a very sadistic and crazy survival story!
If you love “The Purge” series, you’ll enjoy it and Betty Gilpin (“Glow”) was amazing.
It was my #11 movie of 2020.
GRADE: B
“MRS. AMERICA”
This nine-episode FX on Hulu miniseries focused on the fight for women’s rights in the early-1970s with an all-star cast.
Uzo Aduba won an Emmy Award for her Shirley Chisholm, the first black candidate for a major party’s nomination for President of the United States.
Cate Blanchett was incredible as the mean, close-minded Phyllis Schlafly. (Her Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations are pending!)
I know it was the ’70s, but I still can’t understand how women (a lot of homemakers) could be against equal rights for women. And, about Schlafly again, it shocks me that she’d be opposed to gay rights with a gay soon. Sadly, she’s not alone. It still happens today!
One complaint I had about the series (unless I missed it somehow), how can you have a series about women’s rights and the ERA and not mention Helen Reddy and “I Am Woman”?
GRADE: B
THEY SAID WHAT???
Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd U.S. President (in 1807): “The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I.”
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley (in 1873): “The paramount mission and destiny of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”
“GROCERY”
All month long, in February, I’ve been sharing fun things from Michael Ruhlman’s awesome 2017 book, “Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America”.
Here are the final mind boggling or interesting things I learned:
Sugar Crisps cereal was introduced in 1949 by Post. It was the first cereal to be covered in sugar and now some cereals are more than 50% sugar!
Frito-Lay started putting 5% fewer chips in the bag and this added as much as $80 million dollars to the company’s bottom line since chips are a $1.6 billion a year business.
Apples are held in vast warehouses filled with oxygen and carbon dioxide, which puts them “to sleep”. When needed, companies “break the room”, thus “if you’re buying a ‘fresh’ American apple in August, it was harvested late last year.”
Between December and May, as much as 90% of fresh domestic tomatoes come from south Florida.
Americans eat 10 billion pounds of cheese each year!
And, one more fun fact!!!!
A 200-pound man uses 30% of his calories to feed his three-pound brain!
STORMY DANIELS BARES IT ALL
“Full Disclosure”, Stormy Daniels’ autobiography, came out in the fall of 2018 to critical success.
What a compelling story!
I’m not talking just about the encounter with Donald Trump and the subsequent threats on her life after her involvement with 45 came out.
From her very painful childhood to working in a strip bar while still a teenager in high school, Daniels is an incredible story teller.
While the book is a great read, her Twitter account is even better and wittier!
And, speaking of that…. In November, I tweeted Stormy to let her know I enjoyed reading her story and she “liked” it!
(By the way, while thunder and lightning are weather terms, it’s also what she calls her boobs!)
“AFTER VISITING FRIENDS: A SON’S STORY”
I just read this 2013 book by “GQ” editor Michael Hainey’s, which tries to find answers about his father’s death.
As a six-year-old, Hainey always believed that his 35-year-old father died of a heart attack in 1970.
However, as an adult, reading the three Chicago newspapers obituaries of his journalist father didn’t add up, so he started inquiring about the mystery decades later.
Great book!
“THE WOMAN WHO LOST HER SOUL”
Bob Shacochis’ 2013 book is fiction, yet it covers five decades of tragedies based on real-life events — rape and murder in World War II Europe as the Germans invaded small countries, murder in the Middle East and Turkey in the 1980s, to destitution in war and hurricane-ravaged Haiti in the 1990s.
It was interesting to see how the story would be weaved together with Haitian voodoo.
The book is a lengthy one at 715 pages and it’s definitely not happy feely with only one semi-redeeming character!
And, I wouldn’t call it a “masterpiece” as is quoted on the cover!
THAT’S IT
With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!
Anthony