But Bird proved he could tell a terrific story way back in 1999 with the beautifully crafted animated film “The Iron Giant.”

“Giant” didn’t use computers to generate its characters, and the only bankable star in the vocal cast, Jennifer Aniston, wasn’t even atop the A-list at the time. Bird relied on an old-fashioned story leavened with the kind of mature themes that transform kiddie fare into content suitable for all ages. And he might have coaxed Vin Diesel to give the most tender performance of his action-packed career.

Young Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) is as inquisitive as any boy in ’50s era America. So when he’s not going through “duck and cover” drills at his school, he’s on the prowl for adventure. He finds plenty when he spots an immense robot snacking on spare metal at a nearby power plant.

Boy and ‘bot become fast friends, but hiding a creature that’s taller than most buildings isn’t easy. Hogarth’s Mom (Aniston) is always prying into her son’s life – with the best of intentions, of course. And a government official snooping around Hogarth’s home town wants to be the man who finds the ultimate weapon.

“The Iron Giant” certainly packs its share of anti-military sentiment, and the very notion of a gun can set the Giant off on an emotional guilt trip. Yet the government’s de facto representative (voiced with panache by Christopher McDonald) is actually the film’s biggest thug. The shrewd screenplay, which includes a few mature phrases that bumped the film’s rating up to PG, allows a key military official (John Mahoney of “Frasier” fame) to mature as the story reaches its conclusion.

The Communist paranoia of the era is also in play, as everyone assumes the clanking metallic man is a Russian weapon of some kind. What other option could there be? The “duck and cover” meme also gets woven into the narrative without a hiccup.

Bird’s film is so beautifully rendered you’d probably forgive a glaring global warming message had it slipped into the story. The animation style hearkens back to the best of Disney, with each character’s face conveying a wealth of emotions within just a few cel changes.

The vocal work is particularly appealing, especially Harry Connick, Jr. as the handsome hipster who makes art out of scrap metal. The New Orleans native never got the film career he deserved, but even while limited to just his voice he flashes charisma to spare.

The Giant itself (himself?) cannot speak at first, but he learns a few phrases thanks to Hogarth’s tutelage. Diesel provides the creature’s voice, a booming tone that sounds like it ricocheted around an iron lung’s interior before reaching our ears.

The boy’s relationship with the Giant is never forced, but when the lad confesses his love for the otherworldly being, it’s an emotional moment that transcends the medium.

“The Iron Giant” is currently available in the expected formats, from DVD to Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming services. Blu-ray owners will have to settle for those inferior, albeit speedy platforms.

“Tree of Life” grossed a pretty pathetic $13 million, “Happy Feet Two” grossed an abysmal $60 million, and “Moneyball” grossed only an okay $75 million. But in this market, where the concept of the movie star is all but dead, Brad Pitt was named the “top money-making star of the year.”

Number two was George Clooney who released two films this year that probably won’t gross $90 million combined.

Bosses at Quigley Publishing Company have asked theatre owners and film buyers to vote for their top 10 box office generators and this year exhibitors credited Pitt with bringing in more traffic than any other celebrity due to his acting and/or vocal appearances in Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and Happy Feet Two.

Coming in at number two was Pitt’s pal George Clooney for both The Ides of March and The Descendants, and last year’s winner, Johnny Depp, fell to third with The Rum Diary, Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Robert Downey, Jr., Meryl Streep and Ben Stiller, also placed on the list and in that order.

As if Hollywood didn’t already have plenty to be depressed about.

The words of his songs best describe him: “Self-assured and aware; passing on the wisdom of a life well-lived; shining a positive light on issues that affect us all; prolific out of a necessity to write about life and address the poignant issues of our ever-changing situations as members of a complex modern society.”

Nathaniel Noble, Jr. (a.k.a. Nate Smoove)

Nate’s bio describes his music as “not a seminar of right and wrong – more so, real thoughts on real issues presented in a musical setting that will make you want to move … a conversation that goes beyond pop culture slang and flavor of the week catch phrases.” His signature block in his email has the phrase “Music That Tickles Ya Intellect.” And that it most certainly does as one fan commented on his guest book:

I find it encouraging when I feel down about what is going on. Music has always been a great stress reliever, and your music is relevant to what is a major stress in life today. Great lyrics and great beats, plus the encouragement for Christians plus some humor, good for me since I take things too seriously lol. Just wanted to say I think you do great work. I hope young people are hearing your message.

As his website tells us to do, “open your heart & mind to the “Life Writer” that is NATE SMOOVE. Clean positive hip-hop mixed with a little Jazz, R & B, Gospel and even a touch of Rock. Forming a unique blend of a musical dish that could only be conjured up by this man from the “WHO DAT NATION” New Orleans.”

I asked Nate what made him decide to write political music.  This was his reply:

The reason I started doing political songs is because everything I was doing in my life was either regulated, oppressed, taxed or penalized by some arm of the government machine. So the frustration that I felt from all of that crap drove me to vent my feelings out through my songs. I write inspirational, motivational and gospel tunes, too. I started listening to conservative talk radio back in 1989, so I was getting a reality check everyday on the contrasts between conservatism and liberalism. I started realizing that all of my life I’d been living by conservative principles and the only reason I was leaning democrat is because of my family was always saying that the “Dems were for the poor and black people.” Once I started opening up my mind, thinking and analyzing politics for myself, a change of heart came for me. I am not a liberal & I do not subscribe to their way of life so conservatism is my way of life. I write about things that weigh heavy on my heart. The political songs that I write & produce are thoughts and feelings of a lot of freedom-loving Americans. Just doing my part to help save our country from socialism. So that’s the scoop on Nate Smoove’s grooves.

Nate’s brand of hip hop is exactly what our youth need to be listening to as opposed to so many of the songs being played on the radio today that often promote sexual promiscuity, “social injustice,” and disdain and even hatred for our military and law enforcement – all the things that seem to be just fine with and even promoted by liberal Democrats. It is no wonder that a decent, God-fearing, freedom-loving patriot like Nate has decided to use his gifts to speak out and shine a light on the depravity of the left. As one listener commented on one of Nate’s songs:

As a black man I was born into [the] Democratic Party. But, as I read for myself and thought for myself, I realized the Democratic party was the problem. Before the “New Deal” all Blacks pretty much were Republican. Wake up Black people. Take a look at all the cities controlled by Liberals and in Democratic control. All the proverty and crime … look at the the drop out rates in black communities which are under Democratic control.

Nate wanted to be sure to give a shout out to his “posse which consists of [his] brother G-Nazti (producer), Robbie Hunt (guitars), and Ronald Cobb (Keyboards) and said  “These three guys are my secret weapons. So when you hear Nate Smoove, you hear my crew!”

Nate’s music brings a healthy dose of the truth with a very cool groove. As Nate said, Democrats say they are “for the poor and black people” but do the research, look around, history will show that the Democrats need to keep the poor poor because it keeps them in power. With a complicit mainstream media that continues to feed their lies to the public, it is all the more critical that we use every means we have to counter those lies with the truth.

BigDawg Music Mafia salutes Nathaniel Noble, Jr. for doing just that.

You can listen to many of Nate’s songs on his BigDawg page and learn more about him at his official site. Be sure to friend him on Facebook and subscribe to his YouTube channel as he is regularly uploading great new music videos.

Whatever you do, avoid at all costs the shortened versions that remove anywhere from a half hour to a full hour from the original 180-minute television miniseries. But if you have three hours to kill and are in the mood to settle into an extremely well-paced vampire/haunted house tale, the uncut adaptation of Stephen King’s second novel (his most addictive page-turner after “The Stand”) unfolds beautifully over the course of a brisk October evening. And because it’s a television film, you can invite the whole family in for Tobe Hooper’s impressively directed story of a small town dealing with an unwelcome vampire infestation.

David Soul plays Ben Mears, a widowed novelist drawn back to his childhood home to write about the Marsten place, the local haunted house with a brand new resident – Richard Straker (an unforgettable James Mason) – a cultivated antiques dealer who wields charm as a weapon as he sets up shop for his employer, Mr. Barlow, who’s out on a buying tour in Europe and due to return any day now.

Or so we’re told.

Mears settles into Eva Miller’s (Marie Windsor) rooming house, gets re-acquainted with his former teacher and mentor Jason Burke (Lew Ayres), and fires up a romance with local girl Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia). In the center of it all, high on a hill overlooking everything is Marsten House, which Mears sees as some kind of beacon of evil that corrosively corrupts the idyllic charm of his old home town. And right he is. Soon children start to disappear and adults suffer untimely deaths. The problem is, they don’t stay dead very long.

Like he did with “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (a film that received an R-rating for its disturbing intensity, not violence) Hooper doesn’t need onscreen violence to scare us half to death. The overall story is so well structured and the individual scenes so well staged with tension and atmosphere that the mere sight of a vampire child eerily floating behind a bedroom window and hypnotically scratching on the glass and asking to be let in, is enough to keep you up all night. There are at least a half dozen scenes like this, moments that  catch you off guard with their intensity and make you want to hug yourself and chant, “It’s only a TV movie. It’s only a TV movie.”

The Mighty Geoffrey Lewis

But “Salem’s Lot” never feels like a television movie. The production values are uniformly excellent; Hooper moves his camera as though he’s shooting for the big screen (the shorter versions were eventually released theatrically), the make-up effects still hold up, and what a cast…

Besides those already mentioned, there’s also Elisha Cook, Jr., Fred Willard, George Dzundza, Geoffrey Lewis, Ed Flanders, and Kenneth McMillan – a treasure trove of familiar character actors who always deliver. But in the center of it all is the remarkable James Mason who serves up a delicious mix of the monster that is his Master-protecting Renfield character and the refined menace of his scene-stealing turn in “North by Northwest.”  His every scene pops thanks mainly to very well-written dialogue that the actor loads with all kinds of disturbing subtext.

Furthermore, there’s an extra added pleasure for old movie fanatics. Though they’re not given enough to do, seeing Elisha Cook Jr. and Marie Windsor re-teamed as a couple 23 years after Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” is just another one of those small pleasures that makes following the careers of the Golden Age greats such a treat.

Also worth noting is how the miniseries chooses to portray its vampires. Unlike today’s pretty boy bloodsuckers, there’s nothing attractive or alluring about the immortal undead in “Salem’s Lot.” These are horrific monsters, especially Barlow who looked nothing like Hooper’s nod to “Nosferatu” in King’s original novel. The themes fit the visual portrayal, as well. This is an old-fashioned, uncomplicated story of good versus evil. No one wrings their hands over the glamorous appeal of immortality in “Salem’s Lot.” You either find your faith in God or meet an unspeakable fate.

Cut to :47 to 1:10 of this…

Here’s Martin Short playing his legendary corporate lawyer sleazebag character named Nathan Thurm.

He’s being interrogated by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

It’s hilarious.

But it’s even more hilarious, that four years later, folks like Kennedy and Gore have now become the Nathan Thurms.

Tonight!

Congressman McCotter!

Jesse Joyce!

Remi Spencer!

and other glorious gunk!

My book Hollywood on the Potomac, chronicles many historic moments when Hollywood took a stand on the biggest political issues of the day — from World War 2 to Iraq, International Relief to Civil Rights.  In 1963, it was stars such as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Harry Belafonte at the Lincoln Memorial with Dr. King.

Actor Marlon Brando at the Civil Rights ‘March on Washington’ (to his right are playwright James Baldwin and actor Charlton Heston).  Brando also participated in the ‘freedom rides,’ protests that publicly tested segregation court decisions in the South.  After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Brando scrapped his upcoming movie telling The Joey Bishop Show, ”I felt I’d better go find out… what it is to be black in this country; what this rage is all about.”

Dr. King’s historic march made an impact on folk singers Joan Baez and Bob Dylan who were there.   Dylan was inspired to write “The Times They Are a Changin’” featuring a direct appeal to Washington: “Come senators, congressmen / Please heed the call / Don’t stand in the doorway / Don’t block up the hall.”  Less than a year later, the Civil Rights Act became law.

Actors Charlton Heston and singer Harry Belafonte review a speech for the crowd of 250,000 gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Heston remarked that he supported civil rights “long before Hollywood found it fashionable.”

Actor Paul Newman was there too.  Most came by bus, but Newman did what any modern day ‘A-Lister’ would do — he took a private plane from Los Angeles.

All photos Courtesy National Archives.

God-kings are not new on the stage of human history, nor do they exclusively occupy the dusty corners of the distant past. One need only look to the Japanese worship of Emperor Hirohito during World War II to see that an industrialized, modern country can still vest in its leaders supernatural authority. And there are far more subtle ways of making divinity out of men as well.

The Apostle Paul was warned two-thousand years ago that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Certainly his intention was to illuminate to the self-righteous that they do not live up to an actual standard of perfection, but perhaps there is more. For as surely as a man might be blind to his own failings, there seems to be some propensity in man to be selectively blind to the failings of others as well. This selective blindness may have many causes and find many expressions.  Some in our society carry cultural guilt and fear of accusations of bigotry that cause them to hold entire social, racial, and religious groups to different standards of judgment than others.  Still, it is the elevation of individuals above common scrutiny that creates idols of men. Whether it is a rock-star or actor, sportsman or elected leader, holding any man above reproach is folly, for in ceding to anyone our power to critique them, we grant them power man was not meant to have.

Now, to some, this double standard of generosity may seem harmless enough.  After all it might be argued that most people are far too judgmental as it is.  However it is no less sinister to apply a positive double-standard than it is a negative one. Both of these biases have the same result on the individual making the unfair judgment – by limiting the individual’s ability to accurately see the humanity of the judged, they falsely color that individual’s understanding of the human condition in general. Just as the thoughtless demonization of any person renders them sub-human to the person making the judgment, and therefore their choices, actions, and motives are no longer subject to the same thoughtful consideration as those of others, Hero-Worship creates a blindness in which it is not necessary to consider the fundamental humanity of the so-called hero, nor is it necessary to emulate their actual virtues or accomplishments. After all, if Hitler is simply the most evil creature to ever live, why question the motives, politics, or persuasions by which his actual, human evil was allowed to thrive? Similarly, if a Martin Luther King, Jr. was simply better than everyone else by design, what point is there in attempting to follow his virtuous lead?

This power that hero-worship imbues in its champions is also a narcotic that dulls the mind of the worshiper, and allows and even promotes abuses by the worshiped.

Clearly, this is the case with the current President of the United States. With so many people seeing President Obama as a super-human, almost religious figure, and placing so many of their hopes on his shoulders, they blind themselves to the reality of the man, both his better qualities as well as his more troubling ones. Any accusation of wrong-doing or hubris is instantly and angrily rejected by the faithful as an attack on a man who is simply above petty criticism. He can do no wrong, and further, no one else can do the good that he might. He is, as Evan Thomas so aptly and honestly put it, “standing above the country, above the world, he’s sort of a God.” There is nothing more dangerous than this kind of isolation of a man from the restraining power of common criticism, especially one who by his office already has so much power over so many and so much. After all, if criticism is suppressed and virtues are seen as intrinsic and not attained or attainable, an elected leader doesn’t actually answer to the will of the people at all, rather, the people exist to validate his will.

For man to truly be free, he must reject elevating any human to super-human stations, reserving such worship exclusively for the truly divine. Christ may be perfect, but President Obama is only a man. A compelling case can be made that George Washington was one of the best men who has ever lived. The Indispensable Man, he twice surrendered his sword, and almost absolute power, to the new country he had bled to create when frankly most people would have preferred he kept it. But this same great man had great failings, not least of which were his somewhat nuanced views on human slavery.

If even a man with the moral fortitude of Washington did not escape the human condition, then what man could? I can say without shame that there is no public figure alive who I hold in higher esteem than I hold George W. Bush. I realize the cultural-correctness barons who have demonized him for the last eight years will recoil at the fact, but I would rather have some BBQ or sit on a fishing boat with 43 than meet a Beatle. He was true to his convictions, and he exuded a grace and good-will to his enemies even when beset on all sides by a recklessly hostile, slandering, hate-filled media and opposition.  President Bush is as close as I have to a hero. But I am not fooled by my affection into believing he was superior to his mold. Despite the public claims of exuding calm, I have little doubt what was going through the president’s mind during those excruciating seven minutes in the school-house in Florida in 2001. Fear. We’re being attacked? Confusion. If we’re being attacked, why aren’t they pulling me out of here? Uncertainty. Am I supposed to be doing something or did I misunderstand? The sort of very human things any of us might have felt in that sort of situation. Would I have preferred that he sprung to his feet, strode to his jet, and took command of the war we did not yet know we were in? Sure. I would rather he hadn’t passed TARP, articulated conservative principles like Reagan, and defended himself against his hate-drunk critics too, but I don’t look for God-like perfection in human beings. Even Presidents. Especially Presidents. I have an actual God for that, so my admiration for Mr. Bush can survive exposure to his actual humanity expressly because it isn’t built on the false premise that he has none. It is respect, not worship, and it is a deep respect.

Because in application, worship is all a man requires to reign as a God. Hold one man to a more generous standard, bind him by a less restrictive set of rules than you do other men, and you give to him transcendent powers no matter what secular name you might call him by. If you make that man-God the leader of a country, then he is a God-King as surely as any who has gone before, and making a God-King of a man only makes slaves of the rest, no matter how he uses his authority or for what. This is what the idea of separation of Church and State was actually meant to protect us from, un-checked executives consolidating personal-religious powers. Let us direct our prayers elsewhere that we might have eyes to see this man as man.

It’s in the walk.

Think of Mae West, hands caressing her Rubenesque hips, head tilted, not just sauntering, but oozing forward, the exaggerated female.

Elbows cocked and angled at his hips, moving with concentrated energy, Jimmy Cagney looks like a coiled spring about to explode.

Joan Crawford, leading with her linebacker shoulders, like a tank on the battlefield, determined, dangerous, unstoppable.

Spine rigid, arms glued to his side, plum straight steps—no motion in the hips or shoulders—eyes nailed to the distant horizon, Henry Fonda’s walk is a combination of cool reserve and righteous indignation.

Bette Davis, nervously wringing her hands—William Wyler once threatened to chain them down—as she paces back and forth in her pathologically unstable world.

Rapid fire mincing steps, hips and shoulders swaying, Marilyn Monroe is the archetype of the sexually charged woman, and yet simultaneously a little girl who is innocent of her immense power.

And then there is John Wayne.

His walk is odd.

Distinctive, but odd.

It’s a complex, disorienting, and ultimately elegant forward propulsion: long manly strides, elbows bent and poised—like a boxer locked into position—a distinctly feminine swooshing of the hips, and a pronounced case of pigeon toe.

Was Duke’s walk natural?

Or was it part of the John Wayne image, a carefully constructed bit of acting business?

Harry Carey, Jr., in his fascinating memoir, Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company, provides invaluable and deeply private insights into the famous John Wayne walk.

First, Harry Carey, Jr. sketches in some background on John Wayne’s intimate relationship with the great character actor Paul Fix (1901–1983) Carey’s father-in-law:

…Paul Fix had almost as much to do with Duke’s success as a screen actor as did John Ford. Paul Fix literally taught John Wayne what John Wayne knew about acting. He was the man who gave Duke his first insight into forming the mold which was to be his persona. Most people give Uncle Jack [John Ford] the credit for this, but the first man to put the John Wayne image into John Wayne’s head was Paul Fix.

Carey, Jr. discusses the early days, the B westerns, and journeyman actor John Wayne’s stage appearance that turned disastrous:

Paul first worked as an actor with Duke in those early westerns. In those days, Paul had a sort of slinky, haunted look about him, like a man who might steal or lie, so of course he was usually cast as a heavy; not the head honcho, though, the sly henchman. He played a lot of gangsters, along with Sheldon Leonard or Barton MacLane. Paul was very serious about acting, and he wrote many plays. He was always putting them on in the little theaters around Hollywood. He cast Duke in one of them, but Duke was so frightened of live theater that he overdosed on booze and made a total ass out of himself. His wife, Josephine [Alicia Saenz], was so furious she screamed from the audience, “You’re a bum—a drunken bum!” What a night in the theater! Little did they know that they were looking at the man who was to become the biggest movie star of all time.

Harry Carey, Jr. reveals how Paul Fix worked behind the scenes as an acting coach to John Wayne during the most important film of Duke’s career.

Duke used to tell Paul that he felt awkward in front of the camera. He said he didn’t know what to do with his hands; that he didn’t feel natural. Not too many years later, Duke got his big break when John Ford cast him as “The Ringo Kid” in Stagecoach. Duke was overwhelmed by this good news but paralyzed with fear that he wouldn’t be able to carry it off. He went to Paul for help. Without John Ford’s knowledge. Duke went to Paul’s house every night to go over the next day’s work while they were shooting in town.

Private and not so private acting coaches are not unusual in Hollywood. Montgomery Clift was so dependent on his acting coach Mira Rostova, that he put her on salary while shooting some of his most famous films. And much to the chagrin of his directors and co-stars, Clift, after every take, would anxiously look to Rostova—not the director—for approval or disapproval of his line readings.

“Not unlike Marilyn Monroe’s walk.”

And now Carey fills us in on the birth of the legendary John Wayne walk:

Because Duke was kind of heavy-footed and used to trudge more than walk, Paul told Duke to point his toes when he walked, and the “John Wayne walk” was born. Try it yourself. Take a step and point your toe, like you’re stabbing it into the ground—left foot, right foot. Your shoulders automatically move back and forth, and the hips follow, not unlike Marilyn Monroe’s walk. When Duke first did it, it was ballsey as hell. As the Wayne legend began to form, the walk became more pronounced. Rio Bravo or any of the “Rios” are good examples.

Hollywood stardom is a mysterious thing. In the days when the studio system dominated, the moguls consciously searched for the key to a players potential image. And then, once identified, the studio system—at its best, an incredible make-over machine—created, polished and ruthlessly exploited that star’s specific persona.

No wonder L.B. Mayer alternately broke down in rage and tears when he discovered that Andy Hardy/Mickey Rooney ran off in the middle of the night and married the young and sexy Ava Gardner. Mayer was terrified that the public would reject the incredibly profitable Andy Rooney series—innocence and apple pie—when they realized that small town, all American Andy/Mickey was actually something of a dog, hooking up with a hot 17-year old actress—not to mention a host of chorus girls, hookers and vulnerable starlets.

With Clark Gable it gradually became clear to the executives at MGM that he was a man’s man, possessed of a humorous glint in his eye that turned women to jelly. For Jean Arthur it was her sandpaper voice and hesitant delivery that conveyed a woman desperate for control, but on the edge of a melt down. Jean Harlow was perfect as the sexy, vulnerable, wise-cracking tootsie who didn’t take herself too seriously.

But since the demise of the studio system, Hollywood stardom has morphed into an eerie kind of tabloid celebrity. Movie stars no longer have an identifiable movie persona, in fact most work hard at subverting a fixed image. They take pride in grabbing movie roles that go against type. Contemporary actors want to prove that they have range, that they are versatile. Hence, absent a fixed address, the post-modern actor is, with rare exceptions, fated to be excluded from the pantheon of Hollywood immortals.

For John Wayne, after a long Hollywood apprenticeship, his stardom was defined and exquisitely refined as a particular kind of rugged American individual; a man, no matter how conflicted, who recognized the difference between good and evil—and strode across the silver screen like a colossus.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

Unless I’m missing something, I don’t recall the Women’s Suffrage Revolt of 1920 where armed women stormed the Capitol, beheaded president Harding and declared their right to vote.  I also must have missed it when Martin Luther King Jr. unleashed suicide bombers on D.C. until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

No.  Great men and women brought the nation together and increased awareness of social and political injustices.  The great service of Martin Luther King, Fredrick Douglas, Susan B. Anthony and others was to expose injustice and let the powers that be know that the Constitution should and does apply to all people.

Power, they say, is taken and not given.  Except, of course, in the United States.

All of these changes have come to pass because enlightened white men, who held power in this country, saw and appreciated the injustice.  Sure, many of them opposed change, but in the end, wiser heads prevailed and the status quo was changed.

In 2008, 95% of black voters voted for Obama.  Imagine if white men truly were the racist, power clinging, exploiters that many would have you believe we are and voted the exact same way.  Obama would have lost by a landslide.  In fact, white men make up a larger voter block than all minorities combined.  Yet, we don’t vote as a group.  We have varied political views.  White men will vote for and work towards policies that are directly counter-intuitive to their own financial and social standing, simply because they believe it is the right thing to do.

So when someone claims that a “wise Latina” would make a better decision than a white man in terms of social justice, I call foul.  A little friend of mine called History says something different.

Director Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” opens Christmas Day 2009.