OscarsSoDiverse

English: Chris rock at the Madagascar 2 premiere in Israel. עברית: כריס רוק בבכורה של מדגסקר 2 בישראל (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To make up for the glaring fact that the Motion Picture Academy failed to nominate a single person of color in any of its acting categories for the second consecutive year (and for the third time since 2011), the 88th Academy Awards ceremony telecast on ABC (whose parent company, Disney, has had its own history of racial insensitivity) was sprinkled with African-Americans in the audience, as stage presenters and in those movie montages to show how inclusive they are in the face of threatened boycotts.

The host this year was Chris Rock, whose opening monologue succeeded in making anyone in the Dolby Theater audience and those watching on TV who wasn't black uncomfortable with his edgy jokes.  The president of the academy is Cheryl Boone Isaacs.  The Oscar telecast had bent over backwards so much to show how diverse they were that it felt patronizing to watch, given that this came on the next-to-last day of Black History Month..

Those who took home the silver statuettes Sunday certainly deserved their honors.  But it is also instructive to know that African-Americans have waited a long time to take home Oscar themselves.

"Spotlight", a film about the making of the Boston Globe's newspaper investigation into a child sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic priests, was the surprise choice for Best Picture.  "Twelve Years a Slave" won the honor in 2013.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who was mauled by a bear in his role in "The Revenant", won for Best Actor.  Though it was pretty much a lifetime achievement award for all the roles he was nominated for (and lost), DiCaprio used his acceptance speech to call attention to the threat of climate change.  Forest Whitaker won the award for "The Last King of Scotland" in 2006.

Alejandro G. Inarritu won a second consecutive Best Director Oscar for "The Revenant".  An African-American has yet to win in this category.

The Best Actress Oscar went to Brie Larson for her role in "Room".  Halle Berry was the first (and so far only) African-American to receive this honor in 2001 for "Monster's Ball".

Mark Rylance won his Best Supporting Actor award for "Bridge of Spies", beating out Sylvester Stallone, who reprised his Rocky Balboa character in "Creed", which was about an African-American boxer.  Morgan Freeman, who won this award for "Million Dollar Baby" (also about boxing) in 2004, returned this year to announce "Spotlight" as Best Picture.

The Best Supporting Actress Oscar went to Alicia Vikander for her role in "The Danish Girl".  Lupita Nyong'o also won in this category for "Twelve Years a Slave".  Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Oscar of any kind in 1939, playing a servant in "Gone With The Wind".

Among other things . . .

• Current Awards Show Diva Lady Gaga nailed it with her angry performance of "Til It happens to You" from "The Hunting Ground", a film about campus sexual violence.  She lost the Best Original Song Oscar to Sam Smith, who performed yet another theme to yet another James Bond movie.  Smith dedicated his award to the LGBT community, of which he says he's a member.
• "Mad Max: Fury Road" won most of the technical awards (six), proving that the Academy can reward apocalyptic science fiction movies as long as there isn't any acting involved.
• The Thank You scroll that rolled along the bottom of your TV screen as if this were ESPN or CNN, was intended to spare us from some Oscar winners' interminable laundry list of them thanking God and their agents.  It backfired because some of them still insisted on thanking people verbally from the stage, before the orchestra serenaded them off.
• This year's Academy Awards telecast was seen by 34.5 million viewers, the lowest number in six years.  Would it be too much to ask if they could move the announcement of the major awards to an earlier hour?  Like sometime before midnight in the East and Midwest?

While this year's awards ceremony was a knee-jerk reaction to the Motion Picture Academy's lack of diversity, it is only part of the problem,  As long as Hollywood is run mostly by white men who see the success or failure of a project not in terms of black or white, but in how much green they can make, women and people of color will continue to find it difficult to succeed in show business.  And that will continue to be reflected every time the Oscar nominations are announced.

Trump, Clinton Lead White House Derby

English: Trump International Hotel and Tower and the Chicago River (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been leading in the polls for the past few weeks, and have taken the early leads in the race to secure nominations for their respective parties to the point where--if something doesn't happen soon--they could face each other in the general election.

Trump dominated the Republican primary in South Carolina on Saturday, just as he did in New Hampshire.  Senator Marco Rubio of Florida finished second, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was third.

Former Secretary of State Clinton overcame her nervousness about Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont's upstaging her to win the Nevada caucus. also on Saturday.

In the GOP delegate count (according to Real Clear Politics) Trump has the early lead with 67, Cruz with 11, and Rubio with 10.  To gain the nomination, 1237 delegates are needed to win.

Clinton had 502 delegates on the Democratic side (Real Clear Politics includes so-called "superdelegates" here) to Sanders' 70. She needs 2382 to win.

We all know by now that every time Trump opens his mouth, he's bound to offend someone.  That person right now is none other than Pope Francis, who said that Trump's plan to wall off the U.S.-Mexican border is what he considers to be un-Christian behavior.  The Donald, going where other politicians fear to tread when it comes to dealing with certain religious leaders, called the remark "disgraceful".  Besides, isn't the Vatican itself walled off?  This is just one reason why Trump is where he is.  You've heard people complain that politicians will say and do just about anything to get elected?  This guy does that, and the public and media just lap it up.

The GOP field is down to five candidates following the departure of Jeb Bush.  In any other election, the former Florida governor would have been the favorite, being rich, powerful and connected.  He just ran up against someone just like him, but without the political history and reserve.  Does this mean that the Bush political dynasty is over, or is it just taking a break?

Rubio may not have won a single primary thus far, but by default he's being seen as the choice of mainstream Republicans now that Bush is gone.  They believe Cruz is too extreme and Trump is too . . . too much to be taken seriously as credible conservatives.  One wonders if it's already too late to stop Trump, despite the GOP's best efforts.  If they're putting in an effort at all.

The next biggie on the campaign trail (not counting the South Carolina Democratic primary this Saturday, where Clinton is expected to win) is Super Tuesday on March 1, where 11 states with primaries or caucuses will help decide the fate of the field.

No doubt you have seen ads for the candidates bombard your TV screens in the more highly-contested states.  Not so much in Minnesota, where Clinton and Sanders have had their messages on local stations.  But where's the GOP?  Do they think this state isn't important in the grand scheme of things politically?

The next few weeks will tell a lot about who's going to be the nominees for both parties.  The way things are going, however, this race may just have been decided.

The Grammys 2016: A Night of Tributes

English: Gaga opening the Monster Ball with Dance in the Dark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe the theme for the 58th Grammy Awards should have been "Taps".  There were so many musical tributes to recording artists who have died since the last Grammys that the "In Memoriam" segment on the CBS telecast was hardly necessary.

The Eagles (minus Don Felder) and Jackson Browne performed "Take It Easy" in Glenn Frey's honor.  Lady Gaga channeled David Bowie in between ads for a certain computer chip.  Stevie Wonder and Pentatonix saluted Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire.  Even B.B. King, Michael Jackson and that guy from Motorhead got their big Grammy sendoff before the official roll call of those artists and music executives who didn't get their own tributes.  Unfortunately, that included Natalie Cole.

Lionel Richie is still among the living, but he got a tribute anyway as recipient of a major music industry honor.  With an all-star cast that included John Legend and Demi Lovato, Richie had to step in and save it from totally tanking.

Beyond the nostalgia, it was a big night for Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift.  Lamar won five Grammys, including one for Best Rap Album, which was "To Pimp a Butterfly".  On the telecast, he performed an acclaimed medley of "The Blacker The Berry" and "Alright".

Swift won three Grammys including Album of the Year for "1989", which was her declaration of independence from country music.  Swift's acceptance speech was a thinly veiled rebuke to Kanye West's (who didn't show up this year) misogynistic comments about her, dressed in the message that girls and women need to own their accomplishments instead of waiting for men to validate them.

Record of the Year went to "Uptown Funk", the Mark Ronson collaboration with Bruno Mars that was heard everywhere last year.  Trouble is, DJ/producer Ronson will end up lumped in with Santana and Quincy Jones for having hits under their name that are better remembered for somebody else's vocals.

Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud", which he co-wrote, was named Song of the Year.  Meghan Trainor took home the Best New Artist award, even though "All About That Bass" was two years ago.

Other Grammy takeaways:

• The hip hop-meets-history production of "Hamilton" won a Grammy for Best Musical/Theater Album.  This is noteworthy only because CBS brought its cameras inside the Broadway theater where the musical was playing, televising the opening number.  They wouldn't have done that if another musical had won, would they?
• If you had paid close attention to Gwen Stefani's live music video with its red hues and a huge bulls eye prominently featured, you would have known it was a commercial for Target.
• You'll also notice that the Grammys have become just like every other awards show on TV:  a Red Carpet pre-show, celebrities (some of them from the network's own shows) either announcing awards or introducing other acts, and so much Oscar-worthy bloat that three and a half hours just aren't enough.  Maybe that's why ratings are down.

After Antonin Scalia (1936-2016), Turmoil In The Court

photograph of the justices, cropped to show Justice Scalia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the beginning of Saturday night's Republican debate in South Carolina, the six remaining presidential candidates put down their pitchforks long enough to pay their respects to Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who just hours before had died at 79.  After imploring the necessity of keeping a conservative majority on the Court, the candidates resumed their regularly scheduled train wreck of a debate.

Scalia, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, was one of those justices whose controversial actions and decisions in defending the Constitution made him beloved among his conservative supporters while being extremely disliked by his detractors.  He helped move the Court to the right, sometimes to the point of alienating other conservatives with his judicial opinions.

The death of Scalia leaves the Court with eight justices, at least temporarily.  Because of this, several decisions this term may either end up deadlocked or postponed until a new justice is confirmed.

This could take awhile.  President Barack Obama has said he would make his choice soon, making it the third time he has performed this task, which has previously resulted in confirmations for Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.  But this is an election year, and Republicans would rather that the next President decide the next justice.  It might happen anyway, given the hard feelings between Obama and the GOP-dominated Senate which must approve his nominee.

While you were watching the squawking and finger-pointing among the GOP candidates, it should have occured to you that one of these guys (along with Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton) will have the power over the next four years to nominate their own Supreme Court justice.  If not a replacement for Antonin Scalia, then it's for whoever else steps down along the line.  Then the new President will have his or her own ideological battle with the Senate before they turn thumbs up or down on the nominee.  After that, it's anyone's guess as to how the new justice will rule once that person takes a seat on the Supreme Court bench.

In other words:  America, choose wisely.

New Hampshire: Outsiders In

Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator from Vermont (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New Hampshire primary voters have been known to choose the presidential candidates who clearly match their independent and iconoclastic streak.  It also helps if you're from the area and look a lot like them.  This year, that description fits Republican Donald Trump of New York City and Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who won their respective primaries by overwhelming margins.

Trump's and Sanders' victories came as no surprise, so the real race was in the GOP among the also-rans.  Governor John Kasich of Ohio took second, while Iowa caucus winner Senator Ted Cruz of Texas finished third.  Florida senator Marco Rubio followed up his lousy debate performance with a fifth place showing.  Two are dropping out:  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former HP executive Carly Fiorina. 

Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State. finished a distant second to Sanders on the Democratic side, and you could hear the cracks sounding in her campaign.  She appeals to many voters because of her familiarity and governmental experience.  Many, that is, except to millenials--particularly women--who seem to prefer Sanders and his democratic socialism.

Can you blame them?  The Clintons (Bill and Hillary) have been in our lives since before these new crop of voters were even born.  All they know of Hillary are the accomplishments and scandals that have marked her (and Bill's) career.  Millenials seem to want a fresh face that speaks to them, much like Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy did for an earlier generation.  Right now that face belongs to Sanders, who's old enough to be their great-grandfather.  By comparison, the Clintons just remind them of their parents.

Some of Hillary Clinton's supporters, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who served under President Bill), are of no help to the campaign when they suggest to young women that "there's a special place in hell" for them if they don't vote for Hillary as the first female President.  Last we checked, women were allowed to make up their own minds about who they want in the White House, regardless of gender.

Hillary Clinton is still considered the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination, and the next batch of primaries look good for her.  But if she doesn't get her act together, a lot more folks will be "feeling the Bern" pretty quick.

As for the GOP, the next few weeks will say plenty about Trump's staying power, Cruz' leadership ambitions, Rubio's ability to make any sense, Jeb Bush's money and connections, and Kasich's pipe dreams.  All the candidates of both parties are about to pass through God's Country--conservative states with more churches, military bases and fewer white people than in Iowa or New Hampshire.  Then we'll see if outsiders really belong inside the White House.

Iowans Select Their "Music Man" (and Woman)

Photo of Forrest Tucker as Professor Harold Hill from the play The Music Man. The Lowell State Teachers College submitted this photo when they gave Tucker an award for his interest in young people and in music educators. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every four years, the state of Iowa is inundated with as many presidential candidates as there are acres of corn.  They all resemble Professor Harold Hill from Meredith Willson's musical "The Music Man", trying to convince the locals that there's trouble in River City and they're the ones who are going to solve them by promising more than 76 trombones for the big parade.  Then the good folks of River City and other burgs gather on a cold February night to determine who made the best impression.

This year's beneficiaries of the Iowa caucus system were Texas Senator Ted Cruz for the Republicans and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democrats.  Afterwards, it was announced that Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Martin O'Malley are no longer in the race.

Cruz edged out businessman Donald Trump and Florida Senator Marco Rubio by a few points, but none of them had a majority in the crowded GOP field.  Cruz appealed mainly to evangelicals and other "true conservatives" by being better in the grass roots than any other candidate.  Rubio finished well enough to gain traction with whatever mainstream Republicans are left.

But neither Cruz nor Rubio won this caucus as much as Trump lost it.  The real estate mogul was the front-runner, dominating the polls and news coverage with his version of why America needs to be great again.  Trump's big mistake was in blowing off the final GOP debate before the caucuses in a dispute with Fox News Channel over the use of his least-favorite interviewer Megyn Kelly, though Fox claimed Trump wanted too much money to put in an appearance.  He tried that same bit of extortion for "charity" on other networks who wanted him for their debates, and it's worked because Trump=Ratings.  Not this time.

While Trump was "honoring" wounded veterans in a hastily put-together event in another part of Des Moines, Rubio and Cruz and the other GOP candidates were left to debate in the shadow of the mogul with the bad hair.  But the debate got a better rating than Trump's event, mainly because Fox News viewers are usually too lazy to change the channel.

For the Democrats, Clinton almost got "Berned" by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in eking out a narrow victory.  As this year's designated Don Quixote candidate, Sanders has been making great strides at tilting the windmills of Wall Street, political corruption and Clinton's so-called 'inevitability'.  The fact that he isn't so much a Democrat (registered as an independent) as he's a self-described "democratic socialist" doesn't seem to matter much to his base of college students and progressives who aren't impressed with Clinton.

Again, as in the GOP race, it's not how Sanders nearly pulled an upset as in how front-running Clinton nearly imploded.  Besides not taking Sanders seriously, she had some other self-defeating issues:  Some of her e-mails while serving as Secretary of State, which came from a private server instead of the government's, had to be classified "top secret".  Ties to the Obama administration.  Past scandals involving her and husband Bill.  Nagging questions about what happened at Benghazi.  All or some of these issues may have given voters in Iowa pause before giving Clinton the benefit of the doubt about her "experience".

Still, if there's one thing Clinton desperately needs in this campaign, it's competition.  She hasn't had much of that before Sanders came along, with the Democrats going out of their way to gift-wrap her nomination.  Well, now she has to earn it.  If Clinton does hold off Sanders, she might be better off for it going into the fall.

The big parade has moved on to New Hampshire and points south.  Oh, the political descendants of Professor Harold Hill might be back in Iowa before Election Day for one more crack at convincing folks that they should replace the pool room with a band.  But this time, if they're elected, they might leave some shiny instruments behind.

UPDATE (2/3/16):  Republicans Rand Paul and Rick Santorum have exited the race.