Tag: CNN

Clint Eastwood is HOW old?

This and That, TV & Hollywood

So today CNN had a bit about Clint Eastwood talking-tough and badass.    Of course he would like The Donald.      Isn’t he the gun-guy of the “cold-dead-hands” comment?

They had a Clint Eastwood Marathon on   last month.   Not bad…some of them filmed in Arizona, and I do love movies with the desert and mountains in them, plenty of cactus.    And back in the day…wayyy back….Clint Eastwood was one good-looker, especially in cowboy grear—horses and all that.   Beautiful saloon gals, mean cow-pokes, sweet settler women…bad guys, rattlesnakes and the like.

But what were they talking about?   Clint Eastwood the Octogenarian!    The tone of the announcer, Brooke Baldwin, my favorite…and whomever else was commenting in gushing-gutsy admiration about OLD Clint being 86 years old.      They kept marveling at how gutsy and “feisty”—I hate that word!—the old codger was!

Clint Eastwood as Curmudgeon?    I don’t think so.    I would never consider old Clint “cute”—and its a stretch to even think of old Clint as…well…old!

I wish these young’uns would get over the thing about us … ahem… long livers … being  cute old relics.   Let’s hope THEY all live to look back on the days of their youth from elder years with fond memories.

Observations and Gossip

Commentary, Just For Fun, This and That

Wow!   Just WOW!   That’s a new IN saying, has anyone noticed?    It is a simple phrase that can be applied to most any situation.

Admiration…Wow!  Did you check the CNN anchor’s HAIR!   Wow!  I haven’t decided if I like her hair that way or not.   Between you and me, it may be a tad TOO blonde.   In fact, while on that subject…have you noticed how so many of those women are blonde?–even the brunettes are blonde.  How come there aren’t any redheads?   It used to be de rigeur, back in the day, to try to get an equal number of blondes, brunettes, and redheads.  This will probably date me, but how about Betty Grable, Hedy Lamaar, and Rita Hayworth???   Huh??? (wink wink)

Say what?    NO…I really like blondes.   I love blondes.    And furthermore, to demonstrate that I am definitely NOT sexist…I also love “blonds.”  That’s how fair-haired MEN should be described.    In my family, which is VERY-extended, there are always lots of blonde/blonds.     I always attribute that to our Viking ancestor that someone found back in the family tree.     But to be fair, there are LOTS of ancestors back there….and they all have different colors of hair.

I always ought it was a tremendous rip-off that I had brown hair…nearly black in fact…and my sisters were BLONDES.   My cousins were Blondes.  Even some of my kids are blonde/blonds.      I was always very jealous of this fact.   Once I thought of becoming a redhead, which was what I always wanted to be…but when I tried it the dye (oops…coloring)  that the beautician used produced more of a brassy copper sort-of-maroonish hue.  It was quite remarkable—and WOW! what comments I got.

To get back to the News Media people’s hair,   it always strikes me as incongruous when a striking, intelligent, educated, knowledgeable woman—especially if she is wearing a slinky cocktail dress under her flack jacket—is reporting in a serious and somber no-nonsense tone of voice the latest news about murder and mayhem and general disasters across the world.      I like the more casual hair-styles the news people are allowed out in the wind and rain….by the way, did you SEE what happened when the storm blew up and rain poured down on the CNN broadcast yesterday?      That was a great segment—wind whipping  hair and blowing chairs around?

WOW!    I LOVE that kind of stuff!

 

 

Washington Post columnist: aging a liability for women

This and That, TV & Hollywood, Writing and Blogging

https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/opinions/reaching-the-age-when-age-is-a-liability–especially-for-women/2016/05/13/a5d5389c-1922-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html

Ruth Marcus, Columnist for The Washington Post, had published this article about…well, ahem….women getting older.  Male readers may snicker if they read the article, but to women it is the same old tune.

For women getting older is NOT getting better.

Of course its fine to put on a bit of age if one is a school teacher…maturity matters.  Nurses can age, its their skill and experience that matters.  Actresses are likely to be the “Mom” or “aging-beauty” in roles dealing with those types of women–specifically “older” more settled and less-sexy women, or the hooker-with-heart-of-gold type.   OH, right…there is the “cougar” role…featuring “that sort” of women who get their hooks into delicious young men.

When if comes to women on the TV…ah! therein lies the tale Ruth Marcus and other of us wrinkle-prone chicks speak of in this sort of article.

I don’t mean to pick on CNN…heavens no!  It’s just that CNN is my internet news channel of choice, even though it often embarrasses even ME with its base and flagrant salaciousness when it comes to reporting News Trivia and even important stuff like Vladimir Putin without his shirt (!) or the North Korean leader wearing a business suit!  (Who knew?)

Another thing…HOW about those glass tables where the news anchors sit… <wink, wink…> one would think they wanted to 1) show off legs; 2) sell high heels; and 3) assure voyeurs in the audience something to look at when the news gets boring.   Ever notice how it is usually the pretty young blondes on the long-camera-shots, not the seasoned and professional “older” gals who earned their news stripes in the trenches of foreign wars (or Washington D.C.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ruth

 

Dress Code?

Commentary, Sometimes, This and That, TV & Hollywood

OK…I can no longer refrain from mentioning the emperor’s state of dress.  Go ahead, call me rude…snarky or catty, or a gossip.  Usually not adjectives that most people would apply to me.

There is a paradox which has haunted me for months.

Who are some of the most independent, and intelligent women in the  world?     Right–the female news media reporters!   Strong, opinionated, educated, well-informed, knowledgeable –these are women who know what is going on in the world and can be counted on to make sure the rest of us know it to.   They are reporters, and to get where they are in their careers one can bet they know their way around the trenches, barroom brawls, and general mayhem.

So…why do the women on CNN* (blonde women, to be specific) all have the same hairdo?  A side flip,  bottom edges that curve inward to form a frame for their faces.  Let’s call it the Picture Frame Do.    To further deepen the paradox, the camera frequently zooms out to catch views of pretty legs crossed primly,   in very high heels–even though they are sitting there for hours on end.

Not only that, why are the women all wearing red?   Or was that just a holiday thing?  And cleavage…really?…which seems superfluous  when reporting on death and destruction somewhere.

They all look to me like they are having a fancy cocktail party after work, and won’t have time to change.

The dark haired anchors seem to have more lee-way in their hair-dos, except that long, dark hair is IN.  Pony tails are out…unless the anchors are standing in the rain in the midst of a riot situation, things blowing up and emergency vehicle lights flashing.   Hurricane winds apparently make hair control exempt for women standing out in them.

To be fair, the foreign correspondents and reporters all have an air about them as having just come in from a battlefield, flack-jackets testifying to their authenticity.  Those that report on Congress  and Washington are dressed for no-nonsense, although they do have a hint of battle-scenes about them.

To belabor the paradoxical issue here, it can be said that these women who report the news are tough-cookies.  They are not party-girl fashionistas, and although they are attractive and well-dressed, there is a surreal effect having them report the news while wearing party clothes and stiletto heels.

Oh, I know it is petty and trivial to worry about what women wear and how they have their hair done.   I have great respect for the women who work in the media, and although they need to look presentable and professional it is a stretch of the imagination to believe that they get together once a week and decide what color to wear, how blonde they should be, and choose a common hair style that becomes almost like a uniform.

Not to ignore the male news anchors…but they have it easier.  They just have to pick out a suit to wear, from among fifty shades of grey, and study their tie collection.   Hmmm… red stripes, polka dots, solid red? Blue?  Serious tie?  Frivolous tie?  Right…there is the choice of shirts to make, color…even style: dress shirt? polo shirt? flannel? Western?

At least the men don’t have to suffer in high heels…

  • Not to pick on CNN, it’s just that it is the channel I watch the most.   Local news station anchors have started wearing the Picture Frame Do…but I haven’t done any systematic research into the matter.

 

 

How Stupid Can We Be? commentary on common sense

About Me, Commentary, This and That

uh…what a loaded question is that!

In the past half hour, tops, I began to wonder anew…how stupid could Stupid Be?   I turned on CNN fully expecting to get some clues to that question, and I was not disappointed.  (No dig at CNN…the competition is much worse.)

One– American fighter pilots have been told to ignore “aggressive” Russian pilots over in Syria.  Actually, I thought they had been instructed to avoid each other.   Just as an aside, has anyone else recently become of the opinion that Washington, the U.S. military…maybe even the Russians…and especially the news media led by internet news are almost giddy at the prospect of renewed Cold War hostilities?

I have seen Top Gun numerous times, it’s one of my favorites, and I saw those bad boys making obscene gestures to other fighter pilots…while flying upside down, no less!

Since the Iron Curtain lifted in 1990, an entire generation has missed out on the Cold War daily horror…may we say terror…heaped upon the American public.   I have written elsewhere about this era of watching anxiously for the world to explode.  https://mumbletymuse.com/2015/03/21/the-decade-194…my-life-part-3/      this post is written pertaining to my experiences as a child living in the shadow of Nuclear Bombs.

Two, the news is presenting shocking reports that hackers have invaded the files of the heads of the CIA and Homeland Security!   WHAT? is no one’s email or private secret records sacred? Furthermore, the alleged hacker has SPOKEN to CNN.  Good grief…  One would think that the secret service agencies could locate the hacker…maybe even recruit him to work for us.  Don’t they watch cable news?

And Three… DRONES.   CNN reported that there are now a MILLION drones in use by the private sector.  Flying around in air traffic lanes, scaring military pilots who are minding their own business…and they have managed to approach critical facilities like…almost…the White House!    And—there is no regulation or registration, or anything.   Just go in, pick out your drone, and send its on its merry way doing gosh-knows-what.  Law enforcement agencies like the police have been able to apprehend drones which have crashed or otherwise fallen into official hands–but they just have the DRONES, which remain anonymous.  If ya ask me, anything that resembles an electronic mosquito should be closely monitored by the Feds.

So that was it for the six o’clock news.   Rather amazing, I think.