Am I Broadway Bound?

Ken AshfordTheatreLeave a Comment

Having told a few people that I am in the world premiere of a new play called "The Nebula of Georgia", and that the play is in development for a limited Off-Broadway run by the Abingdon Theatre (in NYC), and that the director of my little production might be the same one who is going to direct it in New York….

I am frequently asked, "Well, is there a possibility that you might be tapped to play the role in the New York production?"

My answer: "Right.  Because that’s how it works.  I move from New York (where I never tried to be an actor anyway) to Winston-Salem, where I work as a lawyer while doing community theatre, and that’s how I end up on the legitimate New York stage, bypassing the countless thousands of younger actors who are standing in long lines auditioning and auditioning."

Shorter answer: "Only in fantasyland."

Even shorter answer: "Uh, no."

Sssshhhhhh!

Ken AshfordIraq, War on Terrorism/Torture1 Comment

You know that Pentagon study I mentioned yesterday?  The one where the Pentagon concluded, after scouring Iraq for evidence, that there was no link between Saddam and Al Qaeda?

The Bush Administration is trying to keep it quiet.  ABC News reports:

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report’s release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won’t be emailed to reporters and it won’t be posted online. Read the report’s executive summary HERE.

Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We’re making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we’ll send it out via CD in the mail."

Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."

Just another attempt to keep America pig ignorant.

The Nebula Of Georgia

Ken AshfordTheatre1 Comment

Well, for those people following my theatrical goings-on (and I flatter myself to think I have any), I have some news.

I will be appearing in the world premiere of "The Nebula of Georgia" at the Open Space Theatre in Greensboro.  The playwright is Joe Nierle.  The play centers around a quirky family in Georgia trying to keep past family secrets from impacting the present.  A state senator has died, Jamie along with her husband returns to Georgia for the funeral… and so it goes.

Want to know more?  Me, too.  But it sounds interesting.

The play will debut in Greensboro, although it is in development for production at The Abingdon Theatre in New York.

Show dates are April 10-19, 2008, so it’s a quick rehearsal schedule.  Hope y’all can come out and see it.  Also features Kelly Wallace and Lee Huggins.

Heh

Ken AshfordSex ScandalsLeave a Comment

Amid Charges of Spitzer Tryst, Embattled Prostitute "Kristen" Expected to Resign

New York – At a hastily scheduled morning press conference at the headquarters of New York’s exclusive Emperors Club prostitution ring, high priced call girl "Kristen" announced that she would  temporarily step aside in the wake of charges that she had engaged in sex with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

"I made a serious mistake and betrayed the trust of my co-workers, my many clients, and my pimps," she said in a quiet voice cracking with emotion. "I will be taking a leave of absence to earn their forgiveness, and redeem myself in the eyes of the entire expensive whore community."

The embattled prostitute did not mention Spitzer by name, and stopped short of offering an official resignation. But longtime sex industry insiders say that it will be difficult for Kristen to return to her post in light of mounting federal wiretap evidence that she had sexually serviced the Governor on at least two occasions.

"It will be hard for her to spin her way out of this," said Destinee Rizzo, editor of the trade journal Executive Concubine."After taking on clients like that, her days as a five diamond, high-roller suite call girl are over. Frankly, with all the press coverage she’ll be lucky to get a job as a $5 truck stop lot lizard in Kentucky."

"The big problem now is to keep this incident from threatening the whole expensive whore industry," added Rizzo.   

— excerpt from here

P.S.  Balloon Juice reports:

He just resigned, and the SOB dragged his near sobbing wife, who looks like she hasn’t slept in 5 days, up to the podium to look like she was about to have a breakdown and then give a two minute speech which featured the word “I” thirty seven times.

The Politics Of David Mamet

Ken AshfordTheatreLeave a Comment

In the Village Voice, Mamet explains "Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’".

While it may appear at first blush like Mamet has jumped the aisle from being a liberal to a conservative, that’s not my take.  I think instead he’s gone from being a non-thinking liberal to a thinking independent, having realized that government intervention isn’t always the best, and leaving things to the free market isn’t always the best.

That’s fine.  I don’t agree with him though, especially when he writes this:

I found not only that I didn’t trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

I don’t think you can compare Bush/Iraq with JFK/Vietnam.  Kennedy got us in, initially, but he was also very concerned about it being a limited involvement.  Johnson, not Kennedy, turned it into a full-scale war.  Whereas Bush, of course, was for the full-scale war right away.

Anyway, it’s an interesting read.

UPDATE:  Sadly, No weighs in:

A quick history review for Mamet is in order. Eisenhower arguably started the Vietnam debacle by sending Diem to Vietnam and funding and training his armies there. The first U.S. ground troops were sent there by LBJ. Kennedy won the Kennedy-Nixon election by a margin wider than the number of electoral votes from Illinois. There is no evidence that any CIA agents were among the Cuban exile force that invaded Cuba, much less “hundreds” of them. Sorenson always said that Kennedy had significant input on the book. (Bonus question: tell me, David, if I reveal to you that Brent Bozell wrote The Conscience of a Conservative for Barry Goldwater, will you become a liberal again?) And if Kennedy was in bed with the Mafia, what on earth was Bobby Kennedy doing going after all those mob members?

At best Mamet’s claim to no longer be a “brain dead” liberal would appear to be only half true.

Clinton Has An Edge?

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Can someone explain to me why Rick Klein had ABC News thinks that "Clinton Might Have An Edge"?

Obama won the last two primaries.  He trounced Clinton in Mississsippi last night, getting six to seven more delegates than Clinton.  And before yesterday, he was 600,000 votes ahead of Clinton in the national popular vote.  That has since expanded to 700,000.

So why does Clinton have an edge?

Well, according to Rick Klein, because she has "time".  There are no primaries until April 22, when the Big Penn holds its primaries.

But what, might I ask, is time going to get Hillary?

First of all, she’s already ahead in Pennsylvania.  And she’ll probably win that.  So time gets her nothing that she doesn’t already have.

If anything, time gives Obama the chance to close that gap in Pennsylvania.

But according to Klein, this six week gap will allow Clinton to make an orchestrated attack on Obama, attacking (most likely) his supposed lack of experience.

Huh?  Like Clinton hasn’t done this yet?

Look, here’s the deal.  Obama leads in pledged delegates.  He leads in popular vote.  When the convention rolls around, and he still has both those things, the superdelegates — most of them — will unite behind him.  There’s no way on God’s green earth Hillary will pull ahead in the pledged delegate count number.  She has a chance to win the overall popular vote, and then make her case to the superdelegates.  But "time" is just as much his friend/enemy, as it is hers.

Fallon Out; War With Iran In?

Ken AshfordBreaking News, IranLeave a Comment

In a recent article in Esquire, CENTCOM Commander Adm. William "Fox" Fallon openly criticized the idea of a possible war with Iran, which Fallon called an "ill-advised action".  Fallon implied that he would resign rather than go to war against Iran.  (Fallon is not alone on this; most military leaders are opposed to war with Iran).

Breaking news out of the Pentagon (so new there’s no link) — Fallon is stepping down as CENTCOM cammander.

Uh oh….

UPDATE:  Here’s a link; Fallon asked to resign, supposedly….

The New And Improved Seven Deadly Sins

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

I guess because the old ones were sooooo passe, the Vatican released a list of new seven deadly sins.

I’ll cut to the chase, and give them to you (they’re not in any order).  But first, let’s review the old seven deadly sins.

  • Lust
  • Gluttony
  • Greed
  • Sloth
  • Wrath
  • Envy
  • Pride

And now the new ones:

  • Polluting
  • Genetic engineering
  • Being obscenely rich
  • Drug dealing
  • Abortion
  • Pedophilia
  • Causing social injustice

It should be stressed that these are deadly sins, meaning that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell."  These are not venial sins — sins which "threaten the soul with eternal damnation unless absolved before death through confession and penitence."

So in other worse, this is pretty serious stuff.

Right off the bat, you gotta give props to the Pope for being more specific this time around.  I mean, with the old list (whichi, as far as I can tell, is still operative), you have all kinds of wiggle room.  I mean, pride is a sin?  What’s wrong with pride?  Now, excessive pride — that I can see being a mortal sin.  But just common pride?

Then again, the new list is harsh in its own way.  What is so bad about genetic engineering, like when you create new strains of wheat that can save millions, even billions, of lives? 

And being obscenely rich?  I guess that begs the question about what is "obscene".  But suppose I inherit a billion dollars.  Why should I go to hell for that?  Suppose I inherit it three days before I die.  Man, that’s kind of harsh.

The Fashion of Faux Pas

Ken AshfordSex Scandals2 Comments

I have little to say about the whole Spitzer-prostitute scandal.  Seems he got caught with his pants down, seems he’s going to resign.  I have little interest for the details, or the theory that he was "targeted" by Republicans in the FBI, or other such nonsense.

However, what I don’t get are these women — in Spitzer’s case, in Vitter’s case, in New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey’s case — who come out and stand behind their husband when these things happen.  Ladies, have some dignity.  Beat his ass.

And what I really really really don’t get is the uniform they all seem to wear when they do.  Blue business suit and pearls on the women.  Red striped tie for the guys.  Does that mean something now?

Below:  James McGreevey apologizes for his gay sex scandal, wife at his side

Us20news20njgovernor20120ph

Below:  Eliot Spitzer apologizes for his prostitution sex scandal, wife at his side

Aptopix20spitzer20prostitutio

OTHER POINTS OF VIEW….

TAPPED‘s Dana Goldstein complains:

"When politicians are caught cheating, I wish they’d leave their wives in the green room while they address the press. You’re in the dog house, and it should look that way. Those ‘stand by your man’ visuals are tired and demeaning."

The New Republic‘s Michelle Cottle agrees:

"How many men do you think would really do the same for their wives? Consider it: You wake up one morning to discover that the papers are awash in juicy details (and even juicier innuendo) about how you are such a loser that your woman went out looking to pay some young stud to scratch her itch. You are utterly humiliated. You want nothing more than to phone the meanest divorce lawyer in the state. Instead, you get to shower, shave, put on your special-occasion tie, and try your best to look aggrieved yet supportive while standing two-steps behind your lying, cheating tramp of a wife — possibly even holding her hand — in front of God and 10,000 drooling reporters all thinking that you must be the most pitiful creature on the planet. Riiiight. That’s gonna happen a lot."

No Saddam And Al Qaeda Link

Ken AshfordIraq, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

Not news to most of us, but there are — amazingly — still people who believe that Saddam has something to do with bun Laden and 9/11:

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn’t due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

President Bush and his aides used Saddam’s alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam’s secular dictatorship.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.

As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq. "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims," he said.

The new study, entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents", was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review.

Confessions Of Ex-Religious Righters

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

Interesting article here about Frank Schaeffer, John Whitehead and Cal Thomas — three men who were once part of the Religious Right/Moral Majority movement, and who have now repudiated it.  An excerpt:

Frank Schaeffer spent several years making a good living writing books promoting the Religious Right’s worldview and speaking before rapturous crowds of fundamentalist Christians.

Schaeffer, the son of evangelical guru Francis Schaeffer, was the closest thing to a rock star that politically conservative fundamentalism can offer. As the Religious Right soared in the 1980s, Schaeffer was there to ride the wave. Young, bright and charismatic, he could have founded his own Religious Right group or perhaps even launched a political career.

Twenty years have passed. What does Schaeffer think of the Religious Right today? He wouldn’t touch it with the proverbial 10-foot pole — and the feeling is mutual. A spiritual and professional crisis brought Schaeffer to the understanding that the Religious Right has it all wrong.

"My doubts really began when I realized that the people we were working with on the Religious Right were profoundly anti-American," Schaeffer said in a recent interview. "I began to get the same vibe from them I got from my friends on the far left during the Vietnam War. They seemed to be rooting for North Vietnam. When I was working with the Religious Right, they seemed be rooting for the failure of America. Bad news was good news for them."

Read the whole thing.

I, for one, am encouraged by stories like this.  The fabric of America has been tainted by fundamentalist Christians — meaning, those who would blend Jesus and politics in such a way as to distort both.  I’m glad they finally seem to be relegated to the historical trashbin.

Obama’s Week From Hell

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Well, Clinton can’t complain anymore about media bias.  It seems they have swallowed, and are parroting, her narrative — hook, line and sinker.

Everybody is saying how the Obama campaign went off track, how he’s losing, etc.

But Kos explains:

Let’s see just how horrible the week was:

Per Obama’s count (if Clinton had a similar count, I’ll happily link to it), Obama started last week with 1,203 delegates, Clinton with 1,043. Since then:

     Obama  Clinton
OH     66     75
RI      8     13
VT      9      6
TX     99     94
WY      7      5

Total 189    193

So that’s a four-delegate gain for Clinton.

But that wasn’t all. Obama also picked up three more super delegates last Tuesday — Texas Democratic Party Vice Chair Roy Laverne Brooks, DNC member Mary Long of Georgia and South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler.

So, in terms of delegate count, Obama won 3 of the past 5 states — all that following an 11-state streak of wins.

The media wants to make this a tighter horserace than it actually is.  And to be sure, it is tight.  But some of the calls saying that Obama is over — ridiculous.