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Oscars 2011: The Anti-Social Network – Least-Political Least-Gay Ever?

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The Oscars, the Academy Awards — whatever you like to call them — almost since their inception have been an opportunity for the greatest stars of the silver screen to share their socio-political views, offer a glimpse into their hearts, and possibly their souls. But not this year. Not at the 83rd annual Academy Awards, where there was little, if any mention of the political struggles in Wisconsin, Libya, Tunisia, or Egypt, the life and death struggles after New Zealand’s earthquake, or the civil rights struggles for equality in LGBT households across the country.

Who can forget Michael Moore’s 2003 anti-Bush Oscar acceptance speech that culminated with the highly critical — and highly criticized — “we live in a time when a man is sending us to war for fictitious reasons!” Was Moore’s statement the last, greatest political commentary at the Oscars? Has the Oscar activism prevalent in the ’60s and the ’70s passed forever?

Perhaps not, but this year’s Academy Awards were unacceptably bereft of loud shout-outs to the people giving their lives for liberty in the Middle East, unacceptably devoid of any mention of climate change, and contained just two hints each of union solidarity and same-sex spousal support.

Wally Pfister, who won “best cinematography” for “Inception,” staged a tiny though solid show of support to his union friends. “Much thanks to Emma Nolan, to Warner Brothers, to my fantastic union crew, and my family, Anna, Nick, Claire, and Mia and to my Mom and Dad. Thanks so much!”

Did you catch it? There, wedged in-between “Warner Brothers” and “family.”

Does anyone know how many of the attendees and winners were union-workers at this year’s Oscars? Yup. Almost all. So much for solidarity.

Another “Inception” Oscar-winner, Gary Rizzo, (photo, right, in the center,) thanked “all the hard working boom operators and utility sound people that worked on the production crew. Union, of course.”

So a real-live lesbian just won for sound mixing Inception. #... on Twitpic

Rizzo’s Oscar co-winner, Lora Hirschberg (above, left, and left, left,) at least had the good sense to kiss her wife as she stood up to go on stage.

The only other same-sex mention came late in the show. “The King’s Speech” producer Iain Canning thanked his boyfriend, Ben.

One of the few other political statements at this year’s Oscars was Charles Ferguson’s impassioned statement: “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.”

Ferguson, director of “Inside Job,” won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary Feature,” along with Audrey Marrs.

And, yes, so what about gay rights?

Before you suggest that perhaps there weren’t many gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender winners this year as reason for scant mention of same-sex spouses or the fight for marriage equality, last year’s winner of the “Best Actress” award, Sandra Bullock, said upon receiving her Oscar, “There’s no race, no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no sexual orientation, that makes us better than anyone else.”

This year, there was no grand mention of marriage equality, the fight for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the fight against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), or the win against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). None.

Were last September’s anti-gay bullying teen suicides so far away from Hollywood that they’ve been forgotten?

Two years ago, thanks to the film “Milk” winning two Oscars, there were many mentions of marriage equality and much hope spoken to same-sex couples.

“To all of the gay and lesbian kids out there who have been told that they are less-than by their families or by the government or by their churches, you are beautiful and wonderful creatures,” said Dustin Lance Black, as he accepted the Oscar for “Best Original Screenplay” for “Milk.” “And very soon I promise you that you will have equal rights across this great nation of ours.”

That same year, Black’s co-star, Sean Penn, in his acceptance speech — commenting on California’s vote for Prop 8 — added, “I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone. And there are, and there are, these last two things. I’m very, very proud to live in a country that is willing to elect an elegant man president and a country who, for all its toughness, creates courageous artists.”

Maybe it was because “The Kids Are All Right” was nominated for four Oscars but won none, (there was no “gay gold,”) that there were no great, impassioned speeches for gay rights at this year’s Academy Awards.

Or maybe it was because, for the most part, this year’s winners, much like this year’s show, just didn’t have any passion in them.

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Carville Says There’s Only ‘One Thing’ Trump Is Thinking About on His China Trip

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Democratic strategist and political commentator James Carville is blasting what he says is the “one thing” President Donald Trump is thinking about on his trip to China, and it has nothing to do with diplomacy, the U.S. economy, or the war in Iran.

Carville told Al Hunt on their Politicon podcast that it was “really interesting” that all the people he took to China were essentially the people who were in the “first three rows” from his inaugural address. He “put them on Air Force One, and he took Eric — who handles the business end of his business.”

“You’re going to watch a grift and graft over there, like you can’t imagine,” Carville continued. “That’s all this trip is about, and I got news for you, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sixpack, or whoever you are out there, he doesn’t give a s—— about you, your future, your finances, your retirement, your anything.”

“He just cares about making all the money he can as fast as he can, and people [who] don’t realize that are just, just woefully stupid.”

Hunt reminded Carville that earlier this week Trump said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.”

READ MORE: Republicans Are Now Doing to Trump What Few in the GOP Have Ever Dared to Do

“Oh, you don’t, Donald,” Hunt responded. “Well, you know something? I think a lot of Americans think about their financial situation, and I’m sure those billionaire oligarchs you’re traveling with don’t, but a lot of voters do, and, uh, you’re gonna pay, you’re gonna pay a price.”

Carville added that Trump also said that he doesn’t even think of Iran.

“I think there’s only one thing that he’s thinking about in his trip to China. And that is a big grift,” Carville said. “Look at who he’s taking with him.”

Carville said there would be “economic exchanges” and “investment opportunities” during the China trip.

“You can see, this is where this is going,” he continued. “They just buy him off. He does not care.”

“He doesn’t care if he, as long as he can go there and make as much money, as fast as he can make it, that’s all what he cares about.”

READ MORE: ‘Rededicating the Country to God’: Trump White House Hosts Evangelical Christian Festival

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Christian Content Creator Fighting Sin Is Teaching Others How to Eat Biblically: NYT

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27-year-old Michigan-raised Kayla Bundy is a Christian content creator who turned to the Bible for ways to eat healthy — but her lifestyle is also part of a “higher calling,” The New York Times reports, explaining that she is “a biblical eater, someone who consumes mostly foods mentioned in the Bible.”

“Sin entered into the world through food,” Bundy told the Times, “and Satan doesn’t stop there. Food, for me, is really like a weapon of how I can fight back.”

According to the Times, a “diet inspired by the Bible has found new audiences online in the Make America Healthy Again era.”

Bundy, who has over 500,000 followers on TikTok, and has been eating biblically for eight years, “claims that her diet ‘fixed’ her skin, her hair and her depression, and she sells coaching sessions to help others with their diets,” The Times reports. She “is open about not having nutrition credentials, but she sells a $28 digital guide to biblical superfoods, as well as coaching sessions that start around $700 for a month, she said.”

READ MORE: Republicans Are Now Doing to Trump What Few in the GOP Have Ever Dared to Do

She buys raw milk, eats sardines and authentic sourdough bread without commercial yeast, and tries to cook with locally sourced foods.

“I had never really thought to look to the Bible for a recipe book,” said Bundy, who now lives in Bali. Cutting out refined sugar made her feel good, and she started “studying scripture from that lens of noticing what they are eating.”

32-year old Georgia stay-at-home mom Annalies Xaviera “posts biblical eating tips,” and “said her Facebook following had jumped from scant thousands to over 300,000 in just a few weeks this spring. She sells a digital cookbook.”

“The Bible says that God appreciates and celebrates small steps of obedience,” Xaviera told the Times.

“When you’re in a craving,” she said, “have you ever thought to stop and pray?”

READ MORE: ‘Rededicating the Country to God’: Trump White House Hosts Evangelical Christian Festival

 

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‘Rededicating the Country to God’: Trump White House Hosts Evangelical Christian Festival

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The Trump White House is hosting an unprecedented Christian prayer festival Sunday on the National Mall — a nine-hour event that a Trump advisor describes as “rededicating the country to God.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and House Speaker Mike Johnson are all expected to appear.

The funding for “Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” comes in part from taxpayer dollars earmarked for America’s 250th birthday celebration, organizers say, according to The Washington Post.

The speakers are almost all Christian, and expected to largely be evangelical Protestant leaders and members of the Trump administration, “many of whom have embraced the message that America’s founders wanted the country to be explicitly Christian,” the Post reports. The event will have a “focus on American identity as aligned with a specific slice of conservative Protestantism.”

Pastor Paula White-Cain, Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office who delivered the invocation at President Donald Trump’s first inauguration, said the Jubilee “is about the history and the foundations of our nation, which was built on Christian values, on the Bible.”

“This is really truly rededicating the country to God,” she added.

READ MORE: Republicans Are Now Doing to Trump What Few in the GOP Have Ever Dared to Do

According to The Guardian, the invited speakers include those who experts have been “characterized as Christian nationalist or extremist.”

Among them, a pastor who has called the Democratic platform “demonic,” the Guardian says, along with “a rabbi who has defended the use of torture,” and “a Christian author and radio host who said in 2020 he would die in the fight to keep Joe Biden out of the White House and was later named in a defamation suit over 2020 election fraud claims.”

Scholars have deemed the event unprecedented in the modern era.

“I’m unaware of anything like this, with this involvement of senior government officials, on this scale, trying to paint this false picture of the United States as a quote unquote Christian nation,” Amanda Tyler told the Post. Tyler is executive director of BJC, a Baptist group that promotes religious liberty through church-state separation. “Trump’s rhetoric in the past 18 months is how he’s ‘going to make America Christian again,’ that it’s his job to push religion. This is all part of that piece.”

Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse told the Post, “There’s a difference between saying America is a nation with many Christians in it and that America is a nation dedicated to Christianity and defined by it.”

“Those are very different things,” he said.

Kruse also noted that the only rules about religion that the framers of the Constitution wrote “were ones that keep religion at arm’s length. No establishment, no limits on free exercise, no religious test for office.”

But the Trump White House defended the event, its focus, and its list of speakers.

Brittany Baldwin, executive director of the White House’s 250 Task Force, in an April webinar, said: “We worked very hard with the faith leaders we trust … to ensure that we hear their concerns and we have the right focus for our community of believers, across the country. So I think if you do see another religion represented, it would probably be in a modest way.”

Paula White-Cain went even further, saying that the jubilee would not include leaders “praying to all these different Gods.”

READ MORE: Republicans Are Using a Secret Super PAC to Pour $1 Million Into Democratic Primaries

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

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