THE BACKLASH HAS BEGUN The revelations that Jussie Smollet orchestrated the “hate crime” perpetrated by him is having more than a legal backlash. Studios and projects are dropping him left and right including TNT's upcoming episode of Drop The Mic featuring Smollett.
YOUR DAILY DOSE OF ART Jurassic Aftermath by Erik Shoemaker.
DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK Wendy Williams is coming back! The superstar TV Host has been AWOL for two months over rumored health woes but as a statement from her producers masterfully puts it: “Wendy Williams is an incredible talent with the most unique voice in daytime… We can't wait to welcome her back to her iconic purple chair on the set of her show … We so appreciate all of the guest hosts and panelists who filled in for Wendy during this time. These people are, and always will be, true family to the show. And we want to thank all of the loyal and supportive fans who have been with us for 10 years now.”
WHO YOU GONNA CALL? Original Ghostbuster director Ivan Reitman's son apparently. “The last thing that Sony wants with the upcoming Ghostbusters sequel, slated for summer 2020, is to repeat what happened with Paul Feig's doomed 2016 reboot. Not saying anything about the quality of the film, as each film fan is entitled to their own opinion (unjustly biased or not), but Sony's last attempt to bring the Ghostbusters franchise back was met with some serious backlash from a vocal group of fans. And apparently, the studio learned a lesson from that, and has hired the 1984 film's original director's son Jason Reitman to bring the franchise back to a place where fans will be happy,” said Celebitchy.
NO MORE DICK DC Comics finally did it. They've modernized the original Batman sidekick Robin's (now Nightwing) secret identity from Dick Grayson to (wait for it)… Ric… sigh. Hopefully, like most things comic book related, this will last one reboot cycle, via Comic Book Resources (CBR).
NATIVISM IN THE Unite States started long before Trump. The Nation has a great essay, “How the Failure of Our Foreign Wars Fueled Nativist Fanaticism,” in the March 9th issue. “For nearly two centuries, US politicians have channeled extremism outward. But the frontier is gone, the empire is faltering, and the chickens are coming home to roost.”
“Every president from Reagan onward has raised the ethical stakes, insisting that what they called ‘internationalism'—be it murderous wars in impoverished Third World countries or corporate trade treaties—was a moral necessity. But the disillusionment generated by Bush's war on terrorism, the velocity with which events revealed the whole operation to be a sham, was extraordinary—as was the dissonance. The war, especially that portion of it allegedly intended to bring democracy to Iraq, was said to mark a new era of national purpose. And yet a coordinated campaign of deceit, carried out with the complicity of reporters working for the country's most respected news sources, had to be waged to ensure public support. The toppling of Saddam Hussein was predicted to be a ‘cakewalk,' and US soldiers, according to Vice President Dick Cheney, would ‘be greeted as liberators.' But Cheney still insisted that he needed to put in place a global network of secret torture sites in order to win the War on Terror,” the essay begins. Read the full article here.
MORMONS SWILL STAND BY and allow Utah to ban gay conversion therapy. Please give us a moment to reassess the Church of Latter Day Saints.
“The Mormon church won't stand in the way of a proposal to ban gay conversion therapy for minors in its home base of Utah, leaders said Wednesday, a position that advocates heralded as a milestone in the conservative state. ‘We are grateful that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recognizes the harms of conversion therapy and has denounced the practice,' Troy Williams with the group Equality Utah said,” according to NBC.
EVOLUTION WINS A species of giant tortoise believed to have been extinct for more than 100 years has been discovered on the Galapagos island of Fernandina, according to Ecuador's government reports CNN.
THOSE EYES Happy Thursday!
