alec baldwin
Ed Norton (right) and Alec Baldwin star in Motherless Brooklyn. Photo courtesy Warner Bros.
Motherless Brooklyn, writer-director-star Edward Norton’s adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel, is confident enough in its own scope to begin with Shakespeare, and it certainly backs up this confidence with an argument. A quotation from Measure for Measure invites us to reflect on the nature of power: “O! It is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”
Image via Leonard Zhukovsky/Shutterstock.com
In “Black Jeopardy,” two African-American contestants play a game of "Jeopardy!" with questions geared toward black culture. The third contestant is usually a white person who’s painfully out of touch with the game's subject matter. In the latest installment, two African-American contestants compete against a Trump supporter — easily the most out-of-touch white person they have faced yet. Or so they think.
Alec Baldwin chases down a photographer. Photo courtesy of TMZ
Alec Baldwin was caught on video venting his rage against a photographer and using a homophobic slur. I actually don’t follow Alec on Twitter or keep up with celebrity news on TMZ, but apparently he’s put similar slurs in writing. In this case, however, he denies using a homophobic slur, saying he is being misquoted. And as proof that he is not homophobic, in fact just the opposite, he points to his work on behalf of marriage equality with GLAAD. In defense of his actions in the video, he insists he was only defending his family’s privacy — in the video we can clearly hear him shouting at the photographer to stay away from his wife and his baby. Here’s a brief excerpt from his blog post in which Baldwin expresses his desire to protect his family and neighbors from media harassment:
I am concerned for my family. In Bloomberg's New York, forty or fifty paparazzi are allowed to block streets, inconvenience homeowners, workers and shoppers, and make life miserable for my neighbors. Photographers have tripped and fallen on babies in strollers on my block. They have nearly struck my wife in the face with microphones. They provoke me, daily, by getting dangerously close to me with their cameras as weapons, hoping I will react. When I do, the weapon doubles as a device to record my reaction. And then, apparently, I lose every time.
And here’s what the prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan had to say. He is among many who called for accountability from Baldwin, GLAAD and his current employer MSNBC. (At this writing MSNBC has suspended Baldwin’s show for two weeks.) Here’s what Sullivan said:
Look: Baldwin’s anger… was thoroughly merited. But he continually resorts to this kind of homophobic poison when he’s angry. Just as Mel Gibson revealed his true feelings about Jews in his drunken rant, so Baldwin keeps revealing his own anti-gay bigotry. These outbursts reveal who he actually is. (Emphasis in original)
So which is it? Is Baldwin a raging (literally) homophobe or is he a decent guy protecting his family and neighbors? Whenever I encounter an either/ or choice like this, I know I am in the presence of a possible scapegoating incident for three reasons.
Old radio, adobe wall. Image via Wylio http://bit.ly/zFgPqk
Last week Alec Baldwin, host of WNYC’s Here’s the Thing, featured an interview with Rob Morris, president and co-founder of Love 146, an organization that fights sex trafficking and works to care for victims.
In this half hour conversation, Morris shares the deeply horrifying experience of going into a brothel as a secret investigator, the evils of this multi-billion dollar industry, the exploitation of children at home and abroad, preventative measures for change and education, and how his work is impacting his family.
Sign from the post office at the Hooverville (squatters settlement) in Seattle, circa 1930.
The latest news on the Occupy Wall Street movement this morning includes: Occupy Wall Street camps are today's Hoovervilles. At Zuccotti Park, police protect the 1 percent. The New OWS: Reset button or game over? Harsh NYPD action against OWS might energize the movement. Alec Baldwin on "What Occupy Wall Street Has Taught Me." Olbermann condemns Bloomberg. President Obama says each city must decide for itself how to handle OWS protests. Occupy Wall Street and the return of law and order politics. The Straw Man cometh to Zuccotti Park. Militarizing police forces from Oakland to NYC. And more.
Return of the hobbits, Alec Baldwin's radio show, a megachurch mega-graph, short documentary on women, families, and climate change, occupy Wall Street's library, Will Ferrell, and more!
Controversy at the World Scrabble Championships, President Obama's teleprompter was stolen, 40 signs of the times, the debut of "The Walken Dead," R.E.M. releases final song, unlikely Occupy Wall Street supporters, Walker Percy, and more!