Showing posts with label Big Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Apple. Show all posts

Monday, August 31, 2015

Trump Questions Hillary Campaign about Huma Abedin and husband Anthony Weiner, Master at Wiggle Room Antics

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Weiner campaign fleet
It did not take long for Trump to add Huma Abedin and her husband Anthony Weiner to his list of why Washington, D.C. has lost touch with America.  This time he focused on the fact she, like Hillary, worked for the government yet also used the Clinton private email server for sensitive business.



Of course this always makes the story more interesting and did not even mention Huma might have been working for the Secretary of State and the Clinton Foundation at the same time, a potential conflict of interest.


The following was a report in the Coltons Point Times on Anthony Weiner from 2013.

So he had so much pride in his rather limited physique that he lit up the Internet with his nude self-portrait photos.  That was when he was a Congressman from New York.  When the photos, hardly an asset for such an ass, were exposed so to speak he was forced to resign from Congress.



A year later, knowing what the people were missing not having him in public office, the Weiner man is running for Mayor of New York City and his campaign slogan must be "It's time for change - make the Big Apple the Bigger Banana" or some such nonsense.

Once again he gets caught when his I phone again gets fascinated with his perceived Rambo body and he can't resist the empowerment of sharing his joy with the women of the world.


So once again we have a mea culpa for a mea big opinion of ones' own self.  This time he had to recruit his wife.

In a public statement that one political strategist said hearkened to the Hillary Clinton days, Huma Abedin said Tuesday she’s forgiven her husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, for his sexting scandals — including the latest, which went public this week — and said most marriages encounter difficulties and challenges.


“Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs,” she said, in what The New York Post reported was her first speaking engagement at a press conference. “It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony.”

Huma Abedin is a well respected aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and this time her awkward defense of her goofy husband seemed far more political than personal.  One could only wonder how she could let herself become such a ripe subject for yet another tragic country song and not kick his skinny butt out the door.

It is sad.

Sad for his well meaning wife.  Sad for his son who was born between his two disgraceful episodes of cyber sex simulation or whatever you want to call it.  Sad for the Jewish community of New York City he claims to represent and sad for the voters of New York City who hardly need another ego driven sex freak on the public dole.
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Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Emma Freud and Richard Curtis are moving their family to America - for a while at least.

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My year of saying yes: why Emma Freud and Richard Curtis are moving their family to the United States

In the first of her weekly diary entries chronicling her New York adventure, Emma Freud reveals how the plan was hatched and ponders what to do with the pets and her inlaws' ashes

6:40AM BST 30 Jun 2015

I’m starting at the beginning here. Richard, who I live with, co-founded Comic Relief and I am now the director of Red Nose Day – yes, I know, I literally slept my way to the top.

2015 has so far been a mighty year. In March we mounted our biggest Comic Relief campaign so far, where we passed a total of a billion pounds raised since the organization began 30 years ago. In May we held the first ever Red Nose Day USA, which was the single toughest campaign of our lives.

In September Richard is working on the launch of the new Global Goals with The United Nations.
I am definitely fond of my boyfriend (it’s been 25 years, though I still won’t marry him in case someone better comes along.) But the workload this year has nearly killed him, and I can’t pretend there haven’t been rows, because there have.


I know, you aren’t supposed to argue with someone who is busy trying to save a life or two - but what about the fricking school run? After a year of 16-hour working days and an average of 30 meetings a week things got a bit shouty (a lot shouty) and a radical change became inevitable.

One night he finished work at 2 am and we discussed it seriously. I said I’d love to become one of those families who do brave and amazing things – like living abroad and having adventures instead of staying up all night re-editing fundraising films about mosquito nets. Richard said he promised to stop campaigning once these three events were done.

"I don’t believe you," I said, quietly (it wasn’t very quiet).

"It’s true," he said, tentatively.

"Let’s move to America in September for a year then," I said.

“What?” he said.

"Say ‘Yes’," I said.

“Yes”, he said.

It was a deal.


As a result, in nine weeks' time we’re taking our two youngest children out of school, swapping our mobiles for cells, packing one large suitcase each, renting out our West London house and moving to the West Village of Manhattan for a year of saying yes.

As yet, I’m not quite sure what we’re saying yes to, so last week we wrote a list of 10 things we’d like to embrace in this grown-up gap year. It read:

1. In a town with 24,000 restaurants, let’s never go the same restaurant twice even if we love it.

2. Let’s try to become movie experts – go to old films, festivals, talks and debates, not just films featuring the complete oeuvre of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

3. We should embrace American sports culture – baseball, basketball, American football, bowling, hot dogs.


4. Let’s forget TV (too many adverts) and go to a lot of music concerts and comedy nights instead – the smaller the venue the better.

5. Let’s be brave about weekends, go to places like Vermont and Woodstock, stay with people we hardly know, make fires and do foraging or rummaging or snuffling or whatever it is they do there.

6. We should be a screen-free family every evening, even though the last time we tried this we lasted about 13 minutes.

7. Let’s rent an RV truck during a school holiday – drive somewhere, camp and try not to argue in it like last time.

8. Let’s definitely and definitively finally find out whether my brother’s American wife’s name is "Patty" or "Paddy".

9. Let’s form a family band and perform songs like Edelweiss without even a hint of irony.

10. And let’s say YES to almost everything that is suggested at almost all times.

I emailed it to the children and asked them to send us their responses. Bizarrely only one of them replied: it was the youngest, 11-year-old Spike. and he wrote one word - it was "No". Good start, I thought, something to build on.

The hardest decision has obviously been what to do with the pets. We have four children, a dog, two cats, two guinea pigs, two rabbits, about nine fish depending on the time of day you are checking their tank/graveyard and several hundred nits.

After endless discussions, we have decided to take our three sons with us (the fourth child has already left home), put the rabbits, guinea pigs and fish up for adoption, exterminate the nits and take the dog and cats with us on the plane as cargo. However one of the felines, Badger, has become something of a problem.

The airline has said it’s happy to have any animals in the cabin as long as they weigh 6kg including their basket. The dog and The Normal-Size-Cat are laughing – but Badger is a big lad: he’s closer in size to a puma, measures around twice the girth of our dog, and has very clearly eaten all the pies.

He’s currently coming in at an embarrassing 7kg without the basket, so he’s been put on a diet which has so far been entirely unsuccessful. Every morning he gets the cat equivalent of a small bowl of 
Special K. And I’m beginning to suspect every morning when he has finished his food he goes to each of my neighbours' houses and eats the entire contents of their fridges. They probably don’t stop him because they assume he is a puma and may be dangerous.


Less of a problem but still an issue are our books. The new tenants don’t want any of them in the house. I would happily send most of them to Oxfam (if I haven’t read them by now, I’m not going to) but the Curtises are sentimental and like keeping everything they have ever enjoyed.

We have shelves of unread novels, boxes of read novels, and skip-size storage trunks of yellowing newspapers each one kept for decades because it contained an article that had once been savoured.
Unfortunately I am no longer allowed to be in charge of book disposal since a day in 2002 when I gave to Oxfam a pile of books containing a first edition of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, signed by the author. I admit it wasn’t my finest hour – I thought it just looked old and scruffy - but think how lovely it would have been for the purchaser who snapped it up for 50p.

We are also not sure whether to bring Richard’s parents with us. They currently live in a pair of urns in our study. His mum wanted to be sprinkled on the waters of the Varanasi, but we have yet to make the trip there. (NB we will never make the trip there).

And nobody can remember where my father-in-law said he wanted to be scattered so he is still residing in his urn. The current options are: they go into storage like our books (heartless); we donate them to Oxfam like the outgrown toys (weird); we leave them to be enjoyed by the new tenants in our home (weirder); we turn them into an hourglass or fireworks or paint or a diamond (those are all now a thing); or they come with us (insane).


I will let you know when an ashes decision is made because every week for the next 12 months I will be sharing the joys of this adventure: the horror on the face of my daughter who is a student in New York when she realises her parents are moving to within six blocks of her apartment, the rows about what (or who) to bin as we pack up the house, and the heated family debate about my decision to share the joys of this adventure with the readers of The Telegraph. It’s going to be an interesting year. 
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Monday, June 22, 2015

Taylor Swift for President - Taylor does what politicians cannot do - stand up to corporate America!

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I have been writing about Taylor Swift since we first became "friends" on MySpace back around 2006.  At the time her first album and single had just been released and she was a sixteen year old veteran performer being introduced to America.


Since then, well you know the story, Taylor soon became a hit, then a superstar, and now, at the ripe old age of 25, is a legend in the music industry.  Since that first album in 2006 released through a small, start up Independent record label Swift has swiftly become the reigning Queen of country music, then Queen of the pop-rock genre.


This year the granddaddy of financial magazines, Forbes, says Taylor is worth over $200 million and named her as one of the Most Powerful Women in the World, at number 65.  In fact, Taylor has sold over 40 million albums and over 100 million single downloads her first decade in the public eye.


In the process Taylor parlayed the Internet potential to become the first true sensation in the music industry to use the Internet to bypass the record labels through her sophisticated use of music videos, on line concerts, social media, Internet promotions, and about every other innovation discovered in this age of the Internet.


Did I mention she earned a 4.0 grade point in high school?

When I wrote how Taylor was far too big for country music, I received a flood of Country Swifties' emails blasting me for such an idea.  Then she released her newest album, 1989, in the fall of 2014, and crushed all singers in country, pop, rock, you name it.  By the way, it was her first pop album - in her own words not mine, and sold over 8.6 million copies.


So why Taylor Swift for President when so many are running already?


Before history buffs mention that she is too young to be president since our Constitution says you must be 35 to be president, I know and I am not talking about 2016.  Taylor has already demonstrated more guts than most politicians taking on the recording industry but she will be 35 when she takes office, if she runs for President in 2024.


Why start drafting her to run almost ten years ahead of time?  Because it gives Taylor the same amount of time to do things to help prepare for her future in politics as president. However, in the past year she has single-handed stood up to the largest music streaming company in the business, Spotify.  Then yesterday, she stood up to one of the most powerful corporations in the world, Apple.


Most consumers pay little attention but most people in the music industry make their money in the form of royalties paid for record sales and plays in the entertainment media.  Streaming services for audio, like Spotify, have to pay royalties to writers, artists, and producers, if they sell ad free subscriptions for around $10.00 a month.


Unfortunately, most streaming services do not have many subscribers.  What they do have are free members who get free music with a thick dose of commercials.  There are no royalties paid for the free service, even though ad sales generate money.  To illustrate the problem, Spotify has about 80 million users but only 20 million subscribers.  Thus, artists get a royalty on just 25% of their music on Spotify.  Taylor said it was not fair and pulled her music.


This weekend Apple announced the new Apple music streaming company and said no royalties would be paid to the artists for free trial members.  Taylor responded the same day that it was not fair to all those young artists and retired artists who would earn no royalty and said she would not allow her new record-setting album, 1989, to be part of Apple.


Here is what Taylor wrote to Apple.

To Apple, Love Taylor

I write this to explain why I’ll be holding back my album, 1989, from the new streaming service, Apple Music. I feel this deserves an explanation because Apple has been and will continue to be one of my best partners in selling music and creating ways for me to connect with my fans. I respect the company and the truly ingenious minds that have created a legacy based on innovation and pushing the right boundaries.

I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.

This is not about me. Thankfully I am on my fifth album and can support myself, my band, crew, and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt. This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field…but will not get paid for a quarter of a year’s worth of plays on his or her songs.


These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.

I realize that Apple is working towards a goal of paid streaming. I think that is beautiful progress. We know how astronomically successful Apple has been and we know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the 3 month trial period… even if it is free for the fans trying it out.

Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing. I say this with love, reverence, and admiration for everything else Apple has done. I hope that soon I can join them in the progression towards a streaming model that seems fair to those who create this music. I think this could be the platform that gets it right.

But I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.


Taylor



Taylor used the Internet site Tumblr  to send her message to Apple, signed Love Taylor, and in minutes the social media airways lit up when the tens of thousands of Taylor Swifties started tweeting, re-tweeting and burning up the Internet.
  


Mind you, Apple's stock this week passed $700 billion in value and sophisticated investors say it should reach $1.26 trillion in value soon.  Amazingly, in less than 24 hours and after executive sessions and trying to reach Taylor, Apple became the first music streaming company to reverse itself and say, ooops, now they will test paying royalties for all free trial subscriptions.


Everyone's favorite sweetheart became a mighty lioness and brought the behemoth mighty Apple to their knees just to protect those artists, dedicated musicians, and technicians with no voice in our capitalist system.  That skinny country kid from Pennsylvania and Nashville grew up in a hurry, is now based in NYC, the really Big Apple, and is guiding fellow writers, musicians, and producers through some trying times in the music industry.   

When Taylor said enough is enough - Apple blinked, then cracked.


We need good hearted, intelligent, and strong women in politics who are young, successful outside of politics, and ready to rumble.  I urge the Swifties to start a draft Taylor Swift movement now so Taylor and the nation can be ready for her in just ten years.


Remember all those bankers who nearly bankrupted America and lost trillions of dollars in money from the little people?  Well no one in the Obama Administration, in fact no one in the Democratic or Republican party except for Senator Elizabeth Warren, has stood up to them, let alone got them to back down.

Perhaps Taylor can finally start throwing the crooks in jail since she is not a politician and is entering the race with no strings attached.


Taylor Tells the Truth!


Swift Justice to Crooks!


Swift says Stand up for Someone!


Taylor Swift will Sweep the Politicians Out!

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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Trump Shines Light on Clinton Aide Huma Abedin & Anthony Weiner - Master at Wiggle Room Antics - Bing, Bing, Bing!

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Anthony Weiner campaign fleet
In case you do not remember, Anthony Weiner is back in the spotlight thanks to Donald Trump talking about the Hillary Clinton top aide who is also the wife of the disgraced Weiner man.  While Trump focused on her access to all Hillary documents on the private email server, other questions remain as well.


One is whether she is being investigated for being paid by both the State Department and Clinton Foundation, perhaps at the same time, as she was handling classified documents for Hillary. By the way, Huma also had a private email account on the server in the Clinton closet or Colorado bathroom.


This was the last report on the antics.  
  
So Anthony had so much pride in his rather limited physique that he lit up the Internet with his nude self-portrait photos.  That was when he was a Congressman from New York.  When the photos, hardly an asset for such an ass, were exposed so to speak he was forced to resign from Congress.




A year later, knowing what the people were missing not having him in public office, the Weiner man is running for Mayor of New York City and his campaign slogan must be "It's time for change - make the Big Apple the Bigger Banana" or some such nonsense.

Once again he gets caught when his I phone again gets fascinated with his perceived Rambo body and he can't resist the empowerment of sharing his joy with the women of the world.


So once again we have a mea culpa for a mea big opinion of ones' own self.  This time he had to recruit his wife.

In a public statement that one political strategist said hearkened to the Hillary Clinton days, Huma Abedin said Tuesday she’s forgiven her husband, former Representative Anthony Weiner, for his sexting scandals — including the latest, which went public this week — and said most marriages encounter difficulties and challenges.


“Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs,” she said, in what The New York Post reported was her first speaking engagement at a press conference. “It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place where I could forgive Anthony."

Huma Abedin is a well respected aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and this time her awkward defense of her goofy husband seemed far more political than personal.  One could only wonder how she could let herself become such a ripe subject for yet another tragic country song and not kick his skinny butt out the door.

It is sad.

Sad for his well meaning wife.  Sad for his son who was born between his two disgraceful episodes of cyber sex simulation or whatever you want to call it.  Sad for the Jewish community of New York City he claims to represent and sad for the voters of New York City who hardly need another ego driven sex freak on the public dole.
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