This post is from the JMBzine Blog Vault, which means it is a very old blog post that I wrote at a very different time of my life. My views on religion, politics, and many other subjects have drastically changed over the years, so please bear this in mind when reading this post.
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
9:49 pm
2023: This was a website by Arianna Huffington to promote her book How to Overthrow the Government.
9:44 pm
Cowardly companies like Sears, and FedEx have convinced ABC to cancel Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” TV show. For more info on what happened, read this column by Arianna Huffington. Also the complete transcript of the show from ABC and a CNN story on Sears and FedEx pulling their ads. If you feel that this kind of censorship is wrong, then go to the Support Bill Maher website to sign the petition.
2022: Wow… how times have changed. Bill Maher still gets tons of media attention, but these days I’m not a fan, as he has moved in a pretty ugly anti-religion and Islamophobic direction. My biggest gripe about him today is conflation of all religious people with fundamentalists.
Unfortunately the links to both the transcript of the episode and the CNN story are both broken (and not archived), but wikipedia does have a fair bit of discussion of the incident and subsequent cancellation of Maher’s show.
9:44 pm
Last night stayed up late watching two very good movies.
The first one, Bulworth is one that I’ve seen before, but it is even better than I remembered. When I first saw it, I thought it was a good story, but too “liberal.” Today though, I would gladly cast my vote for Bulworth for President. (I’d settle for Warren Beaty though.)
The second one, Save the Last Dance was much better than I expected. I thought it might be cheezy, but I decided to take a chance on it since Doug Van Pelt of HM Magazine recommended it. As the commercials hyped, the dance moves were “slamming” and the sexual energy portrayed between the bi-racial couple was kick***. I also thought that this showed very accurately the anxieties that both black and white Americans have concerning inter-racial dating. Overall, I loved it. (and I don’t care if you think it is a chick flick. I dare you to watch it and see if you’re not impressed too.)
My only criticism of it was that there portrayal of the effects of sex. It didn’t make sense to me that the main character could get it on and not have the slightest concern about getting laid up, while her best friend already had a child. Somehow the movie made it seem like only the black girls get pregnant, which is silly at best, racist at worst.
2022: Bulworth gets better with age. Save the Last Dance, not so much.