In April ‘62 JFK derided steel executives for raising steel prices by $6 a ton, and thereby showing “utter contempt” for the interests of average Americans. Right now big oil is showing the same kind of disregard by using the Ukraine War as a rationale for sending gas prices through the roof. Lefties are calling them on this, but has PresidentBiden said anything? This is what the bully pulpit is for.
And by the way, on his recent trip to Europe why didn’t Biden visit Kyiv and do a walk-around with Zelenskyy, like British PM Boris Johnson has just done?
Various dino breeds leaving footprints in the snow is, I’ll admit, a striking visual concept; ditto the extra-large Gigantosaurus. But the most attractive element (for me) is the sight of dinosaurs sprinting around on the island of Malta, where some of this was filmed.
It’s my feeling that the return of the Sam Neill-Laura Dern-Jeff Goldblum trio for the first time since ‘93…I’m afraid this only reiterates what a shameless paycheck project this basically is.
Memories of June Allyson have pretty much evaporated. Only boomers remember her, and vaguely at that. Her peak movie-star decades were the ’40s and ’50s. Born in 1917, she’d aged out of romantic or loving-wife roles by the late ’50s and had shifted her focus to television. I’ve always thought of Allyson as Doris Day without the singing — a petite blonde with a warm heart, a spunky personality and a great smile.
But whenever Allyson’s name comes up (which is infrequently) I don’t think of her movie roles. I think, rather, of her extra-marital affairs with Dean Martin and Alan Ladd. I’m genuinely fascinated by the marked contrast between the spirited, bright-eyed girl from the movies and the actual woman Allyson was when temptation occasionally called.
From Nick Tosches‘ “Dino: Living High In the Dirty Business of Dreams“: “[In 1948, Martin] took up with America’s quintessential girl-next-door, June Allyson. On August 10th, the day after Allyson attended the Martin-and-Lewis opening at SlapsyMaxie’s, she and her husband Dick Powell took delivery of a two-month-old baby from the adoption agency that had long kept them waiting. It was the happiest day of their marriage. She told Dean so a few weeks later, on the night she first went to bed with him.”
Allyson and Ladd’s affair happened during the filming of The McConnell Story (’55), a reputedly schmaltzy drama which I’ve never seen and probably never will see. Ladd fell hard for Allyson. Everyone’s heard the story about him calling Powell and saying “I’m in love with your wife,” and Powell responding with “Everyone’s in love with my wife.”
Both Ladd and Allyson grappled with alcohol issues. You could see the puffiness in Ladd’s features by the mid ’50s — his appearance in Shane, when he was 38, was his most glamorous.
Allyson (her real name was Eleanor Geisman) had it rough as a kid. After Powell’s cancer-related death in ’63, her drinking reportedly became…well, noticable. She turned things around in the ’70s. She became a Depends spokesperson for a couple of decades. Allyson was a staunch Republican.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), the U.S. Senate Minority Leader, is a pure political animal, an expedient parliamentarian and a cold-blooded reptile. (Turtles, we sometimes forget, are reptiles.)
On 2.13.21, Mitch McConnell said “Former President Trump’s actions preceding the [Jan. 6th] riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. There is no question that [Trump] is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The rioters [attacked the Capitol] because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.”
Two weeks later McConnell told a Fox interviewer that he would “absolutely” support Trump if he wound up as the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.
Speaking two days ago to Axios’ Jonathan Swan, McConnell said he has “an obligation to support the nominee” of his party. And that his two statements on Trump were “not at all inconsistent…I stand by everything I said on January 6 and everything I said on February the 13th.”
