As all of Hollywood gears up for the uber-expensive glitter of the Academy Awards, plus the oh so fancy pre- and post- parties,  100 aging entertainment industry veterans face eviction as the Motion Picture & Television Fund long-term care nursing home and the acute-care hospital close down over the next few months.  The closure will also cost 290 employees their jobs, representing roughly a third of all MPTF’s hourly workers and a third of its managerial staff.

Thursday residents who were able to leave their rooms, some in wheelchairs, joined nurses in scrubs and family members at a union organized rally outside the hospital located in Woodland Hills.  Myra Torres, who works at the facility said:

Many residents have stopped eating. They’re scared in there. They’re scared they won’t have anywhere to go to and that they’re going to be separated from their family and friends.

Anger, frustration and despair was leveled at super-producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation Board, and other board members who decided to close the nursing home and hospital after revealing last week they had lost $10 million annually for the past four years. Um, what no one noticed? Oh wait they undertook 

more than three years of study and analysis by MPTF staff and outside experts 

and came to the conclusion that the oldest, frailest patients had to be cut loose. John Schneider, who played Bo Hazzard on the television series Dukes of Hazzard fumed:

This decision was indeed a fiscal decision made in a vacuum.We didn’t lose the debate. We weren’t even invited to the debate.

Opened in 1948, the facility–known as the Country House with buildings designed by William Pereira–will continue to maintain independent- and assisted-living facilities which house 185 clients and six health care centers, as well as its Harry’s Haven memory care facility, named for Kirk Douglas’ father in recognition of the actor’s support of the MPTF. Additionally the fund provides financial aid, healthcare, health plans, childcare and wellness programs.

Just last year a new $20 million Saban Center For Health And Wellness opened on the facility’s grounds, funded in part with a $10 million donation from Jodie Foster, for whom the therapy pool is named. Yvette Simoneau, whose father–suffering from dementia and Parkinsons disease–has lived in the in the nursing home for five years and will have to leave in April, wondered:

If one person can donate $10 million and that’s how much the fund is losing running the hospital and long-term care facility, then why not give us the chance to raise the money, to find donors to help? A lot of us feel betrayed and feel lied to.

Katzenberg’s original statement citing "declining demand and challenging economic outlook" said in part:

The decision to close the hospital and relocate patients was only reached after a great deal of analysis and discussion. It was determined that this course of action was the only one that would preserve the long-term health and viability of MPTF…The problem is that the vast majority of hospital and LTC patients are covered by government insurance programs whose reimbursement rates have not kept pace with fast-rising operating cost.

A follow-up statement issued to the press carried this cruel gem:

MPTF is a leader in the development and implementation of services and programs for senior citizens. Charity has always remained at the heart of the Motion Picture & Television Fund…

 A job fair for those laid-off in the closures and referrals for the elderly patients to other care facilities are planned. 

The nonprofit fund was founded in 1921 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith. To qualify for a place at the Country House, clients must have worked for twenty years in the industry. Fees are based on an ability to pay and covered part or whole by insurance, pension and Medicare.  

The MPTF is supported by donations and investments (some of their individual donors were affected by Bernie Madoff, though that doesn’t offset the $10million a year shortfall annually for the past four years, a hideous hemorrhage). Some families protesting the closure stated their parents and loved ones had donated to the fund anticipating that it–in concert with their own money–would support them in their old age.  Said Schneider:

Many people look forward to coming here, and I’m one of them. They all paid for their rooms in there, and they shouldn’t be forced to move out. There’s still time to do something about this.

In their statement, the board said the LTC facility and acute-care hospital

will be phased out in favor of community-based programs aimed at assisting the growing number of seniors who prefer to “age in place”—that is, live safely and independently in their own homes for as long as possible.

But then what? The people living on MPTF long-term care have lived in their own homes for as long as possible. And what happens when current residents of the independent and assisted living facilities need long term or acute care? Under the new plan, they’ll be moved away from familiar surroundings, away from their friends and staff they have known, and in the words of Schneider, sent to

a frightful death, rather than the peaceful one they envisioned.

 Now comes the big question, if Hollywood can raise millions for political candidates and causes, can it raise money for its own senior citizens? 

Like every state in the union, Nevada faces a financial crunch, but that state has a unique revenue stream: Brothels. In-house prostitution is legal in counties with fewer than 400,000 residents. Currently 11 counties allow licensed brothels.

 While the $50-million-a-year industry–which has an economic impact of about $400 million on the state–pays hefty taxes to the rural counties in which they operate, individual bordellos only pay $100 a year to the state for their business licenses.

Las Vegas’ mayor, the outspoken Oscar B. Goldman supports legalizing prostitution in Sin City, pointing out that many travelers believe sex-for-sale is legal throughout the state anyway:

They tell me we’re missing tens of million of dollars that could be used for the school system, to keep jail guards employed, to provide mental health services.

Currently Nevada faces a $1.8 billion shortfall caused by flaccid tourist trade and a limp housing market. This month Republican Governor Jim Gibbons submitted a budget that included 6 percent pay cuts for teachers and a 36 percent reduction in all higher-education financing. The budget was rejected by the Democratic-dominated House and Senate.

Sen. Bob Coffin, chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee, is willing to hold a hearing on a proposal to legalize and tax prostitution in Las Vegas and other urban areas of the state. Coffin, a  Las Vegas insurance broker and book dealer, is also open to taxing strip clubs and escort services. And he has harsh words for critics of the proposal:

When you’re talking about cutting funding for the mentally ill and increasing class sizes for little kids . . . and someone tells me they don’t want to tax prostitution, I’m going to call them a hypocrite to their face.

But as fiscally exciting as the idea seems, some brothel owners–several who claim business is down so much so they’ve been offering incentives (though the Bunny Ranch boasts they’ve seen a rise in action) and that they already pay plenty in county taxes and to the local health departments to certify their employees–and the mayors of other cities are opposed to the idea. Sparks Mayor Geno Martini told the Reno Gazette-Journal:

We’re too much of a family community for that. We went through a lot of generations just getting rid of the topless bars. It wouldn’t be the right thing for us.

Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell is also opposed to statewide legalization:

There’s no appetite on my part and I don’t think there’s an appetite in Carson City.

Actually, brothels are illegal under Carson City’s municipal law, so it’s sort of moot point anyway.

However, there has been a surge in applications to existing brothels, with arguments that legalizing prostitution statewide could provide legitimate safe employment for women who are so inclined. (No county allows brothels to have men who sell sexual services as there is no way for a male prostitute could meet the requirement to submit weekly cervical specimens, and the language of regulations refer to prostitutes in the feminine only–more reasons why Heidi Fleiss’ Stud Farm never achieved lift off…).

All women working in bordellos are licensed and must submit to an criminal background check and sign a waiver of release of medical records.  Condom use was mandated by law 1988 for all forms of sex; since 1986, when HIV mandatory testing began, not a single brothel prostitute has tested positive for the virus.

Says Las Vegas’ Mayor Goldman about statewide legalization:

I also believe that by regulating and controlling this business, we could make it much safer for the customers as well as the prostitutes. We kid ourselves and we’re very disingenuous if we pretend that there isn’t rampant prostitution now that is unsafe for which we get no tax revenue.

How noble.

And while the state of Nevada debates their financial future we can look forward to radical vs liberal feminists and moralists debating the pros and cons of the sex trade.

One more reason to not get your "news" solely from talk radio:

Over Halloween, designer ChadMichael Morrisette and his partner Mito Aviles raised a bit of stir with their rooftop display featuring a dummy John McCain in flames and a Sarah Palin mannequin dangling from a noose. Google News shows over 400 news references to the mannequin from October 2008. The story about the mannequin was featured The View and Inside Edition, as well as on Fox News and the other major networks.

In honor of Obama’s inauguration, this month Morrisette and Aviles dressed another mannequin as Superman, placing him on their West Hollywood rooftop, and put the McCain and Palin effigies up for sale on EBay. The auction house yanked the couple’s first attempt at selling, as reported in several newspapers, possibly, says Aviles in an email to the LA Times, because of the listing picture:

We think it was the noose in the picture that they deemed as glorified hatred.

Morrisette re-listed the items, though they were taken down again by EBay because of another accessory. Morrisette told LAist:

The second time was because we had her glasses as tortoise shell glasses and eBay said we can’t sell anything tortoise shell because they are endangered and protected. Really pushing it there.

The third time, they got lucky and the items sold Wednesday for $2,247.22, plus shipping.

But now the buyer is having remorse. According to Morrisette, the buyer–a Los Angeles County-based McCain Palin supporter

thought he was bidding on a pro-Palin and pro-John McCain item and didn’t realize its true nature until he heard about the auction on talk radio.

The auction listing read:

PLEASE NOTE: YOU ARE BIDDING ON THE FAMOUS SARAH PALIN HALLOWEEN DISPLAY MANNEQUIN. AS SEEN ON THE TODAY SHOW, INSIDE EDITION, THE VIEW, FOX NEWS, KEITH OLBERMAN, EVERY MAJOR NEWS NETWORK, AND READ ABOUT IN EVERY NEWSPAPER WORLDWIDE.

Um…live in a vacuum much? EBay says changing your mind isn’t an excuse for non-payment, so looks like the Southern California resident who doesn’t read the LA Times or watch the teevee is stuck with a reminder to read the auction listings, pay attention to the "drive-by media" and caveat emptor.

Caroline Kennedy wanted to replace Hillary Clinton as NY senator, then she didn’t. Kristen Gillibrand, who boasts that her voting record was "one of the most conservative in the state" got the gig, and along the way voiced a changed mind about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and civil unions.

In 2007  Gillibrand received the lowest score out of New York’s Democratic representatives from the Human Rights Campaign for her stance on LGBT issues, including her desire to see DADT stay in place. She also voted against legislation to grant same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and permanent residents the same immigration status of married couples. 

And she opposed legislation to permit state Medicaid programs to cover low-income, HIV-positive Americans before they develop AIDS, which is short-sighted, horrific and appalling.

But now Gillibrand has expressed her full support for a repeal of DOMA and DADT.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, an armed robber changed into a goat to avoid arrest for stealing a Mazda. The goat was capture by vigilantes, turned over to the police, and remains in custody.

As people were trying to get seated at the Inaugural swearing-in dealing with the crowds, the lack of information, gates being slammed in their faces and too many puffy winter coats, Mariah Carey was spotted by a figgy friend "unprotected in the throng"  (Ben Vereen was there too, and very nice, says my source).

But Mariah–who had VIP seats with Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Mary J. Blige, and Alicia Keys and later performed at the Neighborhood Ball with Blige–wasn’t happy with her choice location. A source tells Page Six:

But somehow she thought she’d be up with the Obama family. When she realized she wasn’t, she bailed.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque praised President Obama for signing executive orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center saying:

The Guantanamo naval base remains against the will and desire of the people and the government of Cuba.

Speaking Friday at a press conference in Guatemala City, where he was attending a meeting of foreign ministers from the Non-Aligned Movement, Roque called on Obama to carry out "a profound revision" of US policy toward Cuba. However, he wants the US to begin the process:

We are ready to sit down at a table and talk in a civilized manner, but it is not up to Cuba to take the first step…Cuba aspires to having normal and respectful relations with the United States.

  In an interview last year with Sean Penn, Cuba’s president Raul Castro told the actor that said he would like to meet President-elect Barack Obama on "neutral ground," suggesting Gitmo as a possible location:

We must meet and begin to solve our problems, and at the end of the meeting, we could give the president a gift … we could send him home with the American flag that waves over Guantanamo Bay.

Yesterday President Obama overturned a ban on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas.

And predictably, the Vatican got upset. Papal spokeshole Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told the Corriere della Sera daily that Obama’s act was:

 the arrogance of someone who believes they are right, in signing a decree which will open the door to abortion and thus to the destruction of human life…What is important is to know how to listen to all the requests of the country without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death.

Obama overturned the so-called "global gag rule" which cut off US funding to overseas family planning clinics which provide any abortion services whatsoever, from the operation itself to counseling, referrals or post-abortion services. Family planning includes birth control and other women’s ob-gyn care, including pre-natal care and counselling and the prevention of STDs.

AFP reports that

More than 250 health and human rights organisations from around the world sent Obama a letter, thanking him for ending a policy "which has contributed to the deaths and injuries of countless women and girls." 

Meanwhile, the Pope lifted the ex-communication ban on four bishops consecrated without papal consent 20 years ago by the late French ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. One of the bishops, Richard Williamson, denies the Holocaust and this week was shown in a Swedish state TV interview saying that historical evidence

is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi explained  that Bishop Richard Williamson’s views had no impact on the decision to lift the excommunication decree which is based on interpretation of church doctrine. The ANSA news agency quoted Lombardi as saying that the Ill Papa’s decision by no means implies the Pope shares Williamson’s ideas or his comments

which will be judged on their own.

Monsignor Robert Wister, professor of church history at Immaculate Conception School of Theology at Seton Hall University in New Jersey elaborated:

To deny the Holocaust is not a heresy even though it is a lie. The excommunication can be lifted because he is not a heretic, but he remains a liar.

So you can lie and be a bishop? Isn’t lying a sin? 

Let’s revisit what Archbishop Rino Fisichella just said about Obama, as it certainly applies to Williamson:

the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death

Williamson has decided that the deaths of 10 million people, 6 million of whom were Jews, at the hands of Hitler, never happened. That’s a lot more arrogant than pro-actively saving women’s lives.

Hartmarx, the Chicago based menswear manufacturer which supplied President Obama with his nomination suit for the Democratic Convention, his navy blue election night suit, his top coat, Inaugural suit and his tuxedo for the Inaugural night balls has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing an overall decline in sales.

The company is the maker of menswear labels Hickey Freeman and Hart Schaffner Marx, as well as a women’s wear line. They also design and manufacture the Bobby Jones label of luxury golf wear and license golfer Jack Nicklaus’ sportswear and Sansabelt pants.

Hartmarx, in business for 121 years is the largest U.S.-based menswear maker and one of the few, if not the only, men’s topcoat manufacturers in North America. Obama owns a total of nine suits from the company which retail under the Gold Trumpeter collection for $1,500 apiece.

His custom black tuxedo for the Inaugural balls was made by union workers at the Hart Schaffner Marx plant in Des Plaines, and is carried at Nordstrom department stores for under $1000.

In December Brett Schenck, president of Hart Schaffner Marx told the Chicago Sun Times:

We are thrilled at the opportunity to create a wardrobe for someone as dynamic as President-elect Obama and to participate, in however small way, in our nation’s civic activities. Equally positive is that we are being embraced as an American, union-made manufacturer that prides itself on quality, value and fit.

Actress/writer Carrie Fisher and hostessed a party–with co-hosts Ewan McGregor and Colleen Camp to celebrate Milk‘s Oscar nomination Friday night at her charming Coldwater Canyon home where a who’s who of Hollywood feasted on salmon, fried chicken, mac’n'cheese, meatloaf and salad. 

Spotted: Mick Jagger, Paris Hilton, Sean Penn, Gus van Sant, Brandon Boyce,producer turned Milk actor Howard Rosenman, Catherine Keener, songwriter Diane Warren, party wits Bruce Wagner and Buck Henry. 

And someone brought a copy of  the San Francisco Chronicle front page extra from November  27, 1978 for the entire cast and creators to sign, which they graciously did.

David Berman, founder of the indie cult band Silver Jews has dissolved the group and in a statement on his label’s website reveals a dark secret straight out of Star Wars: His father is anti-union smear merchant Rick Berman. Here’s what David has to say about his strange and ugly relationship with his father and how it shaped his life and art–and the lives of his fans. David’s pain and sense of social justice and moral outrage is palpable in this moving statement:

Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction:

My father.

You might be surprised to know he is famous, for terrible reasons.

My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor.

An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherfucking son of a bitch. (sorry grandma)

You can read about him here.

www.bermanexposed.org

My life is so wierd. It’s allegorical to the nth. My father went to college at Transylvania University.

You see what I’m saying.

A couple of years ago I demanded he stop his work. Close down his company or I would sever our relationship.

He refused. He has just gotten worse. More evil. More powerful. We’ve been "estranged" for over three years.

Even as a child I disliked him. We were opposites. I wanted to read. He wanted to play games.

He is a union buster.

When I got out of college I joined the Teamsters (the guards were union organized at the Whitney).

I went off to hide in art and academia.

I fled through this art portal for twenty years. In the mean time my Dad started a very very bad

company called Berman and Company.

He props up fast food/soda/factory farming/childhood obesity and diabetes/drunk driving/secondhand smoke.

He attacks animal lovers, ecologists, civil action attorneys, scientists, dieticians, doctors, teachers.

His clients include everyone from the makers of Agent Orange to the Tanning Salon Owners of America.

He helped ensure the minimum wage did not move a penny from 1997-2007!

The worst part for me as a writer is what he does with the english language.

Though vicious he is a doltish thinker

and his spurious editorials rely on doublethink and always with the Lashon Hara.

As I studied Judaism over the years, the shame and the shanda,

grew almost too much. my heart was constantly on fire for justice. I could find no relief.

This winter I decided that the SJs were too small of a force to ever come close to

undoing a millionth of all the harm he has caused. To you and everyone you know.

Literally, if you eat food or have a job, he is reaching you.

I’ve always hid this terrible shame from you, the fan. The SJs have always stood autonomous and clear.

Hopefully it won’t contaminate your feelings about the work.

My life has been riddled with Ibsenism. In a way I am the son of a demon come to make good the damage.

Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world.

But there is the matter of Justice.

And i’ll tell you it’s not just a metaphor. The desire for it actually burns.

It hurts.

There needs to be something more. I’ll see what that might be.

DCB

if you want to know what evil Herr Attackdog is currently up to look here:

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