R.I.P. Lena Horne. Ninety-two is a fair old age, but there are still those who will miss her…
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R.I.P. Lena Horne. Ninety-two is a fair old age, but there are still those who will miss her…
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cat48
Very sad to see Lena Horne leave the world. A great talent.
stuckinred
I’ll always remember when Fred Sanford met her, there are 3 clips here.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Wow. Great side.
RIP Lena Horne.
stuckinred
The original Stormy Weather
donnah
Smart, strong, talented, beautiful…of course she’ll be missed.
Ruckus
She was very good, actually much better than just very good.
The money quote from the link.
Looking back at the age of 80, Ms. Horne said: “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”
That she was.
Shalimar
Per a report on the oil spill from Louisiana on CBS’ Up To The Minute (early morning news show): “In the meantime, struggling fisherman are getting some help here, BP is handing out checks for up to $5000 for those losing business from the spill.”
They made that sound like a great thing that BP didn’t have to do just so they could help these poor people. I haven’t heard whether BP has altered their strategy, but I do know that in Bayou La Batre, Alabama last week they were asking shrimpers to sign agreements waiving their right to sue before they could get these checks.
I’m not sure what the shrimping industry looks like now since I don’t know anyone from there anymore. There has been alot of competition from China in the last few decades so I doubt it is as lucrative as it used to be. But I did know lots of people from there in the 1980s, and back then you could make $5k in 2 weeks just from being a crew member on a shrimp boat.
So this bribe money is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what most people in the region used to make. Not that you could tell that from the very sympathetic-to-BP CBS report, which showed many people waiting outside a Louisiana building for their wonderful checks from BP.
stuckinred
@Shalimar: Uh, not too up on the news huh? This is from LAST Sunday:
Napoleon
I recall the first I became aware of her in my mid teens in the mid 70’s and thought she was around my mom’s age. I was stunned to find out she was 20 years older then my mom.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Oh christ, the stupid mod filter. Fuck You Word Press.
repost:
Speaking of strong and influential women …
Elena Kagan, your new Supreme Court nominee.
I really like this nomination, but then, I am a commie pinko sociaIist bleeding heart liberal, so what the hell do I know?
Shalimar
@stuckinred: I know about that. It’s one of the few things Troy King has ever said that I agree with, so it sticks in the mind. But the news crew was in Louisiana, and I haven’t heard of anything similar from their government. In the absence of contrary evidence, it seems like BP didn’t get what they wanted in Alabama but did find a far more receptive audience in Louisiana.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
clearing throat
BR
If you run into a Greenwald-based anti Kagan screed elsewhere, you might fire back with a little Lawrence Lessig:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/a-case-for-kagan_b_551511.html
To be frank, I trust Lessig’s (and Obama’s) judgment on judges far over Greenwald’s.
MikeJ
Heh. BBC doing a story on Tory-LibDem talks and interviewing Billy Bragg.
stuckinred
@BR: Just pop over to Firedog Lake, they are squealing like stuck pigs. Oh, Jane is so pretty and she is the ONLY one that tells the truth.
MikeJ
I’m very torn on Kagan. Campos is against her, so that’s in her favour, but Marty Peretz was defending her which is a horrible, horrible sign.
BR
@MikeJ:
I’m going to go with Obama picked her, and picking judges is probably the part of his job he’s most qualified to do vs. the last ten guys who were president.
WereBear
@BR: Thanks, great article.
Which confirmed my own vague hunches.
I’m psyched. She sounds like just the right person.
rootless_e
Kagan’s hero is her former boss Thurgood Marshall. That gets her a lot of points in my book.
Of course, Marshall had no judicial experience, Douglas either and he was a political hack just like Burger. Ahem.
scav
@Ruckus: I like the bit where she said “So from then on I was labeled a bad little Red girl.” It’s a goal we can all share.
Ash Can
Was so sorry to wake up to the news about Lena Horne this morning. She was fabulous.
Bad Horse's Filly
That news made a cloudy, dreary day, just a bit drearier. RIP Ms. Horne.
Persia
I’m glad she had a long life, but she’s still a loss. What a voice.
Carol
Three years older than my mom (thankfully still with us), who lived in a time when black women weren’t allowed much more than cleaning and cooking and housewife work for other women. She was the first to star in Hollywood as well as the clubs, and she proved black woman can be elegant, graceful, and stylish-and was a long-needed antidote to the “Gone With the Wind” and “Sapphire” images. And it was long needed-for about 30 years until “Julia” and the Supremes came along, she was about the only black woman of elegance allowed on tv-and there certainly weren’t any-elegant or otherwise in the movies.
Of course, by the time I was old enough to remember her in movies the movies were reruns at night. But they were still special-about the only dignified depiction of black people I could find in all those old movies-the ones that even bothered to show any.
I I also remember Eartha Kitt, who was the fierce side to the elegant side Lena would show. All older black women who had style and sass and who were relegated to support roles instead of having the starring roles they deserved.
I just wish that she had had that starring role in a movie she deserved, just once… A movie that would have showcased all her talents. But American pop culture until the Beatles (who gave a rap about what the South thought) was terrified of offending a bunch of white-sheeted stump jumpers who would have rioted at a movie starring a black woman, even if it was never shown anywhere south of the Mason -Dixon line.