Monday, July 27, 2015

TIME-WARNER CABLE YOU ARE DEAD TO ME



TIME-WARNER CABLE----------------











I'M FINALLY TIRED OF SPEAKING TO CUSTOMER SERVICE PEOPLE WHO MUST LIVE ON OTHER PLANETS BECAUSE THEIR ACCENTS ARE UNINTELLIGIBLE

I'M TIRED OF SPELLING EVERYTHING FOUR TIMES EACH

I'M TIRED OF INTERRUPTED SERVICE

I'M TIRED OF SUPERVISORS WHO WOULDN'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SUPERVISE THEMSELVES IN THEIR OWN BATHROOM

ENOUGH ALREADY. WHY GO ON LISTING WHAT WE ALL HAVE EXPERIENCED?

CONGRATULATIONS TO SHERRI SHEPHERD AND KIM NOVAK


SHERRI SHEPHERD IS COMING BACK TO THE VIEW AS A ROTATING HOST. SHE IS GUARANTEED 50 APPEARANCES THIS COMING SEASON. I HOPE THERE ARE MANY MORE THAN THAT. I LOVE HER SO MUCH AND THE VIEW LOST HUGE AUDIENCES BECAUSE SHE WASN'T THERE.









AND AS SMART AS THE VIEW CAN BE ABOUT BRINGING SHERRI BACK, THAT IS HOW STUPID THEY ARE FOR LETTING NICOLLE WALLACE GO. I LOVED HER. THE PRODUCERS FELT SHE WAS TOO REASONABLE A REPUBLICAN AND DIDN'T CAUSE ENOUGH TROUBLE. YOU IDIOTS. I THINK YOU ARE TRYING TO NEGOTIATE SOMETHING WITH HER SIMILAR TO SHERRI'S DEAL, BUT I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S TRUE.



IF IT IS TRUE, I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF NICOLLE TURNED YOU DOWN.



----------------------------------------------------

SPECIAL CONGRATULATIONS TO KIM NOVAK AND VERTIGO. LAST YEAR THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE NAMED IT THEIR NO. 1 FILM OF ALL TIME. THIS YEAR ANOTHER GROUP CALLED BBC CULTURE DID A TOP 100 LIST OF BEST AMERICAN MOVIES.

CITIZEN KANE--FIRST PLACE
THE GODFATHER--SECOND PLACE
VERTIGO--THIRD PLACE.

TERRIFIC.



BACHELORETTE ENDING TONIGHT: HERE'S MY CHOICE







I HOPE SHE CHOOSES NO ONE!!!

BOTH NICK AND SHAWN ARE LOSERS.    SHAWN'S TEMPER IS OFF THE CHARTS. HE IS A RAGER AND A JEALOUS MAN. STAY AWAY

NICK IS JUST A WUSS.  KAITLYN WILL BE BORED IN TWO WEEKS.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

I AM CAIT----YES YOU ARE AND YOUR SHOW IS GREAT.



BRAVO, CAITLYN!!!!!!








NOW THIS SHOW IS THE GOOD SIDE OF WHAT REALITY TV CAN ACTUALLY BE!

Instead of going for exploitation or sensationalism, I AM CAIT was sensitive, honest, and will be a tremendous help toward saving lives of transgendered people who may want to kill themselves.
Congratulations to everyone involved.





IT WAS FOLLOWED ON E! BY THE STEWARTS AND HAMILTONS REALITY SHOW. As good as I AM CAIT was, is as bad as Stewarts and Hamiltons is.

Alana

Sean

Kimberly


This was a boring show featuring the blended families of Rod Stewart and George Hamilton and Alana Stewart. There were also tons of children in it who belonged to one of both of the parents.

The kids are addicts both current and recovering (not all), super NOT BRIGHT, who are party boys and girls. Their parents are uneducated, ignorant people who came into money, men by earning, women by marrying. The show was garbage.

BOBBI KRISTINA'S DEAD--AND HER DRUGGIE PARENTS KILLED HER



THIS SWEET, INNOCENT CHILD WAS DEAD THE MINUTE SHE WAS BORN. SHE NEVER STOOD A CHANCE.

HERE ARE HER KILLERS:  MOMMY AND DADDY




MY HEART BREAKS FOR MANY REASONS. I loved Whitney and was inspired by her talent. I'm so sad that Bobbi K followed in her example. But what else could Bobbi K do? Babies, from the moment they are born start imitating the behavior they see. And what she saw was a couple of drug addicts who were throwing away their lives. Even if Nick Gordon was the one responsible for pushing her in the tub, etc., he would never have been in her life had Whitney decided to NOT bring him home. It all goes back to the parents. Some kids have the strength to save themselves and some don't.

I'm glad Bobbi K is gone early. At least she will be saved from a longer horrible life. May Whitney and Bobbi spend the rest of time in each other's arms. Whitney was an innocent baby, too.

As for Bobby Brown............don't get me started. I wish he could be arrested and convicted of murder.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

DO NOT GO TO ANY OF THESE VACATION SPOTS----TOO DANGEROUS FROM YAHOO TRAVEL

Tourist Destinations That Are More Dangerous Than You Think

A group of twenty travelers were arrested by Chinese authorities last week in Mongolia on suspicion of having links to a terrorist organization. 
The wealthy, mostly retired group of tourists, who are British, Indian and South African, were part of a 47-day organized tour of “Ancient China,” and were arrested on Friday morning as they boarded a plane in the city or Ordos. 
They had been visiting a nearby mausoleum dedicated to Ghengis Khan. 
While Mongolia is known for its petty street crime towards tourists there has been little reason in recent years for travelers to avoid the region due to security concerns. Especially when on a guided tour. 
The US currently has five citizens being detained abroad with dozens of others held without proper legal justification in the past decade. In many cases, the prisoners were merely tourists in the country where they have been held captive, whether by police or extremist groups. 
While some places are unsurprisingly dangerous for tourists to venture, many high-risk countries may surprise you. 
Tourist Destinations That Are More Dangerous Than You Think
The beautiful beaches of the DR attract thousands of visitors each year, but tourists are often easy targets for various crimes including murder. (Photo: Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis)

Dominican Republic 
Stunning white sand beaches and warm crystal clear waters attracts thousands of tourists to this Caribbean paradise each year. However the Dominican Republic can be a very dangerous place for visitors. Foreigners are frequently targeted in criminal acts with reports of as many as 39 tourists being murdered over the past three years. The US State Department warns that the levels of professionalism within the local police is likely to vary wildly from that of the US, with common attempts to solicit bribes being reported along with incidents of them using excessive force. 
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Police patrol the streets of a gang ridden neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Honduras now has the highest per capita murder rate in the world and its capital city, Tegucigalpa, is plagued by violence, poverty, homelessness and sexual assaults. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Honduras
This beautiful, tropical and historically rich country is located on the Caribbean coastline of central America. It is a big draw to American tourists due to its white sand beaches, turquoise waters, lush jungles and ancient ruins, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from the US each year. But the country has incredibly high crime rates with 50% of the population (around 3.5 million people) living below the poverty line. In 2012, the UN office on Drugs and Crime rated Honduras as the country with the world’s highest per capita murder rate. Just last year, a Canadian tourist and his stepson were shot and killed while visiting the country. 

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In this April 24, 2015 file photo, an Egyptian youth carries a lit flare as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood gather in the El-Mataria neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt, to protest the 20-year sentence for ousted president Mohammed Morsi and verdicts against other prominent figures of the Brotherhood. Egyptian police are increasingly detaining activists and students in secret, snatching them from homes or the street and holding them for weeks as their families scramble to find them. (Photo: AP Photo/Belal Darder, File)            

Egypt 
Despite Egypt’s long standing reputation as a popular tourist destination,largely due to its spectacular ancient landmarks, the country has become more and more dangerous in recent years for visitors. With the high threat of terrorism and political instability leading to frequent violent protests, the country’s main cities have become unsafe for locals and tourists alike. It has become illegal to photograph police stations, military facilities and other public buildings and law enforcement is indiscriminate during times of protest regarding who they arrest. In November 2011, three American study abroad students, were arrested and accused of being involved in the protests. The three young men were detained in an Egyptian jail for over a week before their release and deportation back to the US. The US State Department advises against travel outside of the city of Cairo. 

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The mother of one of the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa college, holds a banner with the portrait of her son during a rally to ask Mexican authorities to continue the search for the 43 students kidnapped  by local police officers since September 26, 2014 in southern state of Guerrero on March 26, 2015 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo: Miguel Tovar/LatinContent/Getty Images)

Mexico 
Almost 40 million tourists head to Mexico each year for it’s year-round warm climate, spectacular beaches, turquoise water and ancient landmarks. But the country is one of the worst on earth for kidnappings. Violent, organized crime groups operating throughout the country have been responsible for multiple car jackings, kidnappings, robberies and even murders—many of which have involved US citizens. In May this year the US State Department issued a Travel Warning to tourists contemplating a trip south of the border, advising them to be extremely cautious when traveling within the country. Last year almost 1600 kidnapping cases were reported to authorities. 

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Security forces secure the scene at the site where two blasts detonated, one in a mini-van used for public transportation, in a market area of Nairobi, Kenya on May 16, 2014. (Photo: AP Photo, File)

Kenya 
With it’s spectacular savannas, snow-capped mountains and unrivaled wildlife, Kenya draws visitors, especially safari seekers, from all over the globe. In January, the US Government issued a worldwide caution about the continued threat of terrorist attacks from Islamic extremists across the globe and Kenya was one of the countries highlighted. Terrorists in Kenya have been responsible for bombings and kidnappings involving US citizens in the past couple of years and visitors are advised to be extra cautious when traveling to the country. In April 2014, ISIS militants attacked a convoy in an attempt to kidnap a foreign humanitarian worker and in 2011, two European tourists were kidnapped and another killed within a month of each other. 
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The Paharganj district is a popular tourist area packed with backpacker hotels and restaurants near New Delhi railway station. In January 2014, the Paharganj neighborhood made national news when a 51-year-old Danish tourist was gang-raped and robbed in the area. (Photo: Vijay Mathur/Reuters/Corbis)

India 
Tourists to India are expected to abide by strict local customs and etiquette. As a visitor you are at risk from aggressive retaliation if these guidelines are not followed, especially in more rural areas. The country also struggles with anti-western terrorist activity that targets tourists. Past attacks have targeted public places and tourist attractions. In February 2013, a bus bombing in a commercial area of Bangalore killed 17 and injured 119 bystanders included many foreign nationals. Frequent reports of sexual assault on foreigners have plagued the country and the US State department strongly advises against its female citizens traveling alone there. “Western women, particularly those of African descent, continue to report incidents of verbal and physical harassment by individuals and groups of men,” reads the State Department advisory. “Known locally as ‘eve-testing’, these incidents of sexual harassment can be quite frightening and quickly cross the line from verbal to physical.”  

Monday, July 13, 2015

MY FRIEND, WENDY BURCH'S HEART-WARMING STRUGGLE FOR MOTHERHOOD



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wendy burch
Before the sun even rises in Los Angeles, television news reporter Wendy Burch is often rushing down a freeway in her car, headed to report live at a developing scene. She is accustomed to working on the fly and pushing past yellow tape. She often ad-libs her report if there’s not enough time to write a script.
But these days, if she’s waiting around before going on the air, instead of talking to her peers about the crime investigation at hand, she says she talks to them about egg freezing.
Burch is 46-years-old and spent five years trying to conceive -- first the old fashioned way starting when she was 41, and then with the help of traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF). But she was unsuccessful.
“When you go through the world of fertility, you start off with a preconceived idea. You think you will maybe do one or two IVF rounds and before you know it, you will be pushing the baby in the stroller,” she told The Huffington Post in an interview in L.A.
“And then it doesn’t work. I don’t think any woman walks into a fertility clinic and says, ‘You know, I think I’ll have a donor egg and a surrogate.’ It’s a process of elimination.”
Despite discussing her long, frustrating process, Burch is outrageously funny. She jokes about hair extensions and breast augmentation and Botox. She is tall and has a deep laugh. The cadence of her voice gives away her 20-plus years on the air -- she speaks for a living.
When she arrives at The Huffington Post offices she is dressed in chic, black pants and black and gold high heels, but carries something much more expensive with her: her five-month old son, Brady.
brady
Wendy Burch's son, Brady, at 16 weeks old.
Adopted as an infant and raised Mormon in Salt Lake City, Burch was a pageant girl. She was crowned Miss Salt Lake City in 1989 when she was 20-years-old but did not go on to win Miss Utah.
“I lost out to the bitch that played the classical harp. How do you beat the classical harp? You don’t,” she said.
Her true talent was always storytelling. Long before she visited a local television station with her high school class, Burch was at the dinner table giving her family a full daily report on the neighborhood. “I was probably the only 12-year-old who used the word ‘allegedly,’” she said.
Touring the local TV station as a teen only strengthened her passion. She remembers walking away knowing that it was what she wanted to do for a living.
Fast forward 24 years and Burch has had jobs reporting the news in Salt Lake City, Eureka, Reno, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, New York and Los Angeles. She was 22-years-old in her first job when the news director of the station quit, making her one of the youngest news directors in the country.
wendy fire
Burch reporting on the California wildfires for KABC in Los Angeles, 2002.
Having children was always part of the plan. “It was just a matter of meeting the right guy and having the right job and the perfect life,” she laughed. “But there was never a moment that I thought, 'I’ll be one of those ladies that has nice shoes and no children.'”
When her doctor talked to her about freezing her eggs at 36, Burch considered it but ultimately decided against it. It was much more expensive at the time and the success rate for pregnancy with frozen eggs a decade ago was only about 20-25 percent, she said.
She kept working and kept dating. She met Brady’s father soon after she turned 40. He was tall, handsome and even though he was already a father, he was open to having more children.
When she was 41, they began trying to get pregnant -- but to no avail. Burch eventually started traditional IVF treatment, which is a procedure that uses the woman’s own eggs and either the sperm of her partner or the sperm of a donor to conceive. She was determined to make it work. But after a few years, money stretched thin.
in vitro
An embryologist works on embryo at the Create Health fertility clinic in south London.
IVF fertilization can cost $12,000 or more per round. That’s before the necessary medications, which can be an additional $3,000 or $4,000.
“I had very little left. I quit counting how much money I’d spent after $50,000,” Burch said. At this point she was 45.
According to Burch, the odds of a successful pregnancy using her own 45-year-old eggs were 2-3 percent. The odds of having a child with Down Syndrome was 1 in 30, and the odds of a miscarriage were 40-60 percent.
Adoption is something she thought about, but couldn't commit to.
Burch was adopted when she was only five days old. As an adult, she attempted to find her biological mother but with no success. Having a baby with her genes was something she had always craved. “I wanted to feel that connection and I wanted it to be a part of me,” she said. “I wanted the baby bump, the ultrasound and the first kick. I wanted the terror of labor and delivery. I wanted the whole thing.”
One of the biggest problems Burch sees in the way that our society deals with fertility today is the silence.
“I would look at a cover of a magazine with celebrity X, Y or Z at age 40-something and the headline would say: ‘Miracle babies!’ I would think if it can happen to them, it can happen to me,” Burch said.
“Never in those articles did they mention IVF, frozen eggs or a donor egg. The odds are it wasn’t just a miracle conception but that she sought out fertility specialists. There shouldn’t be shame in that.”
wendy camera
The donor egg entered the picture as a last resort. If she couldn’t have a baby with her own eggs, Burch was warming up to the idea that she could still carry and give birth to a baby with the help of a donor.
There are two main ways to go about getting a donor egg. Egg donation agencies actively recruit young women who are willing to donate their eggs -- this is common on college campuses and there is a strong screening process in place.
Once the young woman decides that she wants to proceed, she goes through an in vitro cycle and has her eggs removed. They are either kept fresh or frozen. The person buying the eggs (usually in lots of six) covers all of the costs of the drugs and procedure. The donor is paid anywhere from $8,000 and $12,000.
If a woman buys the eggs fresh, the whole process can cost up to $30,000. Burch simply did not have that money. Buying a set of six eggs that have been frozen, however, was significantly cheaper. It would cost $10,000.
At this point, Burch’s relationship was strained. She felt her fiancé was running out of patience after nearly five years of trying to conceive. “He had been through the weight gain and the shots and the hormones that made my head spin around. Anyone who has tried to get pregnant aggressively knows it is a huge strain on any couple,” she said.
She scraped together the last $10,000 and promised her partner that this would be the last time they tried. She thought of it as her Hail Mary.
Choosing an egg is a lot like online dating, she joked. “You go online and look at profiles but in this case, someone is definitely getting knocked up.”
She looked through the profiles, sorting by height and ethnicity so that the baby would hopefully look like her -- but said she was looking for a more powerful sign.
She found a 22-year-old donor who was 5 feet 11 inches tall. When she read that the donor was studying to be a broadcast journalist, just like Burch, she felt that it was her sign. She compared the donor’s provided baby photo to her own and saw a sweet resemblance. Burch remembers feeling an “overwhelming sense of peace” and did not look at another profile.
She placed her order for six frozen eggs over the phone with a receptionist in Atlanta, Georgia, and they shipped out right away. But when they arrived, instead of finding six in the lot, there was one extra egg with no explanation. This would turn out to be lucky number seven.
The doctor fertilized all seven eggs with the male sperm and then monitored them over the next five days. Typically not all of the eggs will successfully fertilize. In Burch’s case, six died off. And only one remained.
Today that one Hail Mary sits cooing in her arms and occasionally puts his whole mouth around her chin -- she is his favorite teething toy.
wendy vegas
Wendy and Brady on a family trip to Las Vegas in June 2015.
"I look at him and no one can tell me he’s not mine. I carried him. I gave him life,” Burch said. “Yeah it’s not my genes, but it doesn’t matter. He was inside of me. Maybe his chin is going to be hers, but those are the things that are going to make him unique and will make me remember this person who I never knew who gave me the greatest gift I’ll ever have.”
Burch and her fiancé split shortly after she became pregnant and she is raising Brady on her own.
"Is it perfect? No. I’m a 46-year-old single mother who gets up at 3 a.m. and is on the air at 5 a.m. But I’m home with Brady before noon. People always talk about motherhood turning their lives upside down. I look back now and I think my life was upside down. Brady and motherhood turned it right side up. Everything is where it’s supposed to be," she said.
The decision to have children is something every woman has to consider on her own. For Burch, the answer was easy -- but the journey certainly was not. Her biggest mission today is helping to educate young women about the benefits of freezing their eggs when they are young.
The cost of freezing eggs can vary greatly from doctor to doctor and amongst fertility centers. The Southern California Reproductive Center, where Burch was a patient for five years, says the general ballpark for freezing eggs runs just under $10,000 and that the medication required for treatment can cost an additional $3,000-$5,000.
Companies like Apple and Facebook made headlines in 2014 when they announced that the cost of egg freezing would be a covered benefit. While many celebrated the decision and what it means for women in the workplace, many critics summarized the decision as just a way to keep women working tirelessly through their childbearing years.
Others wrote about the risks associated with the procedure and the factors that people aren't talking about.
Two years ago, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), an organization representing hundreds of fertility clinics in the U.S., lifted the “experimental” label from the procedure, but stated that “there was still not enough known about the egg freezing procedure’s safety, efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and emotional risks.” They suggested that widespread use may "give women false hope and encourage women to delay childbearing."
Despite the conflicting reports, Burch still wishes she had frozen her eggs -- even at age 36, even when it was more expensive and often less successful than it is today.
“The hope is that one day, when ambitious career-driven women graduate from college, the gift from their families isn’t going to be a nice watch or a car. It’s going to be a gift certificate to go freeze their eggs,” she said.
“As women, we are afforded so many more opportunities now. We should take advantage of each one. But the thing that hasn’t changed is our internal mechanical engine. Your body hasn’t changed to keep up with the opportunities out there. This can give everyone a little bit more time.”

Sunday, July 12, 2015

'CELEBRITY" CAN KILL----THE AMY WINEHOUSE DOCUMENTARY--MUSIC BUSINESS, NOT ACTORS THIS TIME

  






Seeing the new Amy Winehouse documentary is devastating. It is also beautifully done. It's devastating because that life/death cycle never seems to go away where celebrities who make it fast and BIG are concerned. There's no new information in it because it's always the same---parents who want the money, record companies who want touring, evil boyfriends using them for money and dragging them down with them.

This isn't a new phenomenon, of course. I'm only going to go back to the Sixties with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. Same flame-outs, but a slightly different time.

JANIS

JIMI

JIM

I knew all three. Without tipping off all the stories from the book I'm writing, Janis wanted to screw society because of her childhood, Jimi was a serious addict from a very young age and I believe he would have od'd whether he was famous or not (he actually passed out during an interview I was doing with him in his bedroom!), and Jim was simply too sensitive an artist to deal with the real world. (Jim used LSD so much, one night I ran into him in a market and he was so high he was just staring at colors on cereal boxes all night).

But the people from the Sixties were not subjected to the internet and the brutal papparazzis. If they had been, I believe they would have died earlier than they did.






Michael Jackson was the first, more contemporary celebrity to die of fame. One could have just substituted his face for Amy's in the documentary. Same arc, different faces. Michael's life was worse, though, his parental abuse started really young. But the money force was the same in both the Jackson and the Winehouse households.

ALL OF THESE EXTRAORDINARILY TALENTED, FRAGILE CELEBRITIES WANTED OUT. TO THEM, DEATH WAS THE ONLY WAY. THEY HAD NO SUPPORT.




A SEPARATE CASE OF HORROR:


I couldn't help but think of sweet Diana, used and then spit out by the monarchy. Too young, too much unavoidable publicity, too fragile....gone in a blaze of camera flashes. She couldn't sing, but she may as well have.

I hope this ANY documentary can help this pattern, but I doubt it. There will always be fragile talents and greedy people.


HONORABLE MENTION:






I REST MY CASE.