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A sad end to a life that had it’s share of ups and downs:

Gary Coleman, the actor who as a child star of the television comedy “Diff’rent Strokes” made “What’choo talkin ’bout, Willis?” a catchphrase of the 1980s, has died. He was 42.

The death was reported by CBS News, citing the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, where Mr. Coleman had been hospitalized after an injury.

A diminutive actor who stood at 4 feet eight inches, Mr. Coleman became a star at age 10 for his role on “Diff’rent Strokes.” The show, which had its debut in 1978, cast him as Arnold Jackson, the younger of two children adopted by the millionaire Philip Drummond (played by Conrad Bain). The show ran for eight years on NBC and ABC.

After the show went off the air, and Coleman grew up, the stardom and his acting career to an end. There were financial problems, including a lawsuit against his parents who he accused of mis-manging the money he had earned while on television, and a few run-ins with the law and even, in 2003, a run for Governor of California in the 2003 recall election that put Arnold Schwarzenegger in the statehouse.

If you were of a certain age, though, when Diff’rent Strokes first came on the air, he was Arnold Jackson:

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In 1948, this article appeared in the pamphlet, Red Betrayal of Youth, written by Kenneth Goff…….It concludes that Sinatra was, in a memorable (and laughable) turn of phrase, “swooning the youth of America into the arms of atheistic Communism.”

Here’ an excerpt from the article:

One of the outstanding young Reds in Hollywood is Frankie Sinatra, the young man who expects every young maiden to swoon at the sound of his rasping voice. Yet behind that Dr. Jekyl voice is the voice of Bloody Joe enticing our youth into his deadly Marxian philosophy. Sinatra co-operates closely with the American Youth for Democracy and the C.I.O.-P.A.C. Early this year he was one of eight who was awarded medals from the A.Y.D. for “major contributions to democracy and to the war effort.” He has been active in appearances in racial troubled zones. Other awards were to Peggy Ryan, entertainer; Bill Mauldin, left-wing cartoonist; Slim Aaron of “Yank” magazine; At. Edvina Todd, navy nurse; Edward Carter, Negro service man, and Harry Tannye, Japanese American. Frank Sinatra, commonly called “the voice,” is one of the star performers at A.Y.D. rallies where young people are recruited into the Communist party.

His bold promotion of “bobby sexism” has added to the great waves of juvenile delinquency in America. In San Francisco on March 23, 1946, fifty-six adolescent Sinatra fans were taken into custody by police as they stood shivering in a waiting line in front of the Golden Gate Theater at 4:30 in the morning, six hours before the “voice” was scheduled to appear. The police hauled 53 indignant bobby soxers and three boys to the juvenile home on technical charges of violating the curfew law which prohibits anyone under 18 from being on the streets between 11:00 p. m. and 6 a. m. Most of the children were from Oakland.

One father said, “The police were well justified in picking up the girls. I think Sinatra should be run out of town.”

It’s all pretty laughable now, of course, but there were many on the right in the 40’s who lumped Sinatra, who was a Democrat back in those days, in with the rest of what was then considered the Hollywood left, especially when he made a short film called The House I Live In:

The House I Live In (1945) is a ten-minute short film written by Albert Maltz, produced by Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Frank Sinatra. Made to oppose anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at the end of World War II, it received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe award in 1946.

(…)

In the film, Sinatra sings the title song, and his recording became a national hit. The lyrics were written in 1943 by Abel Meeropol under the pen name Lewis Allen. (Meeropol later adopted Michael and Robert, the two orphaned sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after the 1953 execution of the couple.)

Meeropol was enraged that in the film, the second verse was cut. Meeropol protested against the deletion of the verse referring to “my neighbors white and black” when Sinatra’s movie was first shown.

The lyric was allegedly cut by studio executives because of concerns about how it would be received in southern states.

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She’s being celebrated by the residents of her hometown, but the Hezbollah militia that controls it isn’t thrilled about Rima Fakih becoming Miss USA:

Newly-crowned Miss USA Rima Fakih may be the pride and joy of her native Lebanese village, but the 24-year-old beauty contestant is far less popular among some leaders in the Middle East.

In an interview Tuesday with Lebanese television, Hezbollah official Hassan Fadlallah reportedly had few glowing words to describe Fakih, who became the first Muslim American on Sunday to secure the crown.

“The criteria through which we evaluate women are different from those of the west,” Fadlallah told the television station, AFP reported.

Because it typically involves the ability to strap on an explosive vest an walk into a crowded cafe.

But, the rest of the town has other feelings:

[R]esidents have reportedly hailed Fakih as an “honor” to the region.

“She is an honor to us, a honor to all of southern Lebanon,” her aunt Afifa Fakih told AFP.

“We are so often described as terrorists and killers, but we Shiites love life and beauty — and mainly the beauty of the soul, which is what is so special about Rima,” the aunt reportedly said.

Good for them.

H/T: Melissa Clouthier

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Woody Allen has a strange take on the democracy that allowed him to become rich and famous.

The “Scoop” director said it would be a cool idea for President Barack Obama to be dictator for for a few years.

Why?

So he could get things done without all the hassle of opposing views getting in the way.

In an interview published by Spanish language newspaper La Vanguardia (that we translated), Allen says “I am pleased with Obama. I think he’s brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him.”

But wait – there’s more!

The director said “it would be good…if he could be a dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly.”

Funny thing is that, in a dictatorship, people like Allen would likely be among the first rounded up by the secret police

That’s the great thing about Freedom of Speech, though, you can be a total asshole like Woody Allen, and still have the right to speak your mind.

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Once again, the Miss USA Pageant has become the subject for over-the-top commentary in the blogosphere. Last year, it was Carrie Prejean’s answer to a question about gay marriage allegedly costing her the crown. This year, it’s because a Muslim-American won:

LAS VEGAS – Lebanese immigrant Rima Fakih says it was a certain look from Donald Trump that tipped her off that she had won the 2010 Miss USA title.

The 24-year-old Miss Michigan beat out 50 other women to take the title Sunday night, despite nearly stumbling in her evening gown.

She told reporters later that she believed she had won after glancing at pageant owner Trump as she awaited the results with the first runner-up, Miss Oklahoma USA Morgan Elizabeth Woolard.

“That’s the same look that he gives them when he says, ‘You’re hired,’” on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” she said.

“She’s a great girl,” said Trump, who owns the pageant with NBC in a joint venture.

Fakih took top honors at the pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip after strutting confidently in an orange and gold bikini, wearing a strapless white gown that resembled a wedding dress and saying health insurance should cover birth control pills.

Fakih, an Arab-American from Dearborn, Mich., told pageant organizers her family celebrates both Muslim and Christian faiths. She moved to the United States as a baby and was raised in New York, where she attended a Catholic school. Her family moved to Michigan in 2003.

Good for her, you might say, right ?

Well, not if your name is Debbie Schlussel:

It’s a sad day in America but a very predictable one, given the politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate in which we’re mired. The Hezbollah-supporting Shi’ite Muslim, Miss Michigan Rima Fakih–whose bid for the pageant was financed by an Islamic terrorist and immigration fraud perpetrator–won the Miss USA contest. I was on top of this story before anyone, telling you about who Fakih is and her extremist and deadly ties.

Schussel also claimed prior to the pageant that Fakih was part of some vast terrorist conspiracy:

Rima Fakih, Miss Michigan USA, who will compete in Sunday Night’s pageant broadcast on NBC, is a Dearbornistan Shi’ite Muslim who is a supporter of Hezbollah and used the pageant name at a forum promoting Islamic subjugation of women. She was born in the Hezbollah stronghold of Srifa in South Lebanon, which Israel was forced to attack in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war because it was a site of Hezbollah weaponry. Her devout Muslim family comes from the Hezbollah-controlled South Lebanon. Intelligence sources confirm that at least three of Fakih’s relatives are currently top officials in Hezbollah and that at least eight Fakih family members were Hezbollah terrorists killed by the Israelis in past Israel-Lebanese wars and interventions. Some of her family members were originally in Harakat Amal [the Shi'ite Amal militia], which is now essentially a part of Hezbollah. There’s a reason that even Al-Manar TV–Hezbollah’s official TV network–is high on Fakih in the Miss USA pageant.

Jim Hoft and JammieWearingFool both contend that it was Miss Oklahoma’s response to a question about Arizona’s immigration law that guaranteed that Fakih would win:

Morgan Elizabeth Woolard, ladies and gentleman, 2010’s Carrie Prejean. Let’s just hope she got rid of the nude photo spread.

Michelle Malkin picks up on the “political correctness” claim, and of course the Freepers chimed in soon after the winner was announced:

The fix was in, folks. Don’t believe for a second she won on merits. Everything since Obama has taken office has been about appeasing Muslims. This just falls right in line with it all.
by rintense

The Islamic concept of deceiving infidels–taqiyyah–is employed here, just as Mohammed Atta employed it when he patronized strippers and prostitues, drank alcohol in bars, and gambled in Vegas–most of that against Islamic law.
It is their creed and is exactly why they should never be trusted in this country.
by The_Media_never_lie

I’m sorry, but Hezbollah monkies don’t do it for me … LOL …
by Star Traveler

Maybe the IDF/Caterpillar can pancake her like St. Rachel Corrie.
by skimask

Jonathan Turley pretty much sums up how I feel:

It is a sad commentary on our contemporary politics that an Arab-American cannot simply win such a pageant without unleashing such a torrent of hateful conspiracy theories. I do not even like such pageants but it is astonishing how little it takes to vent such anger and prejudice. Of course, even a scarf on a donut commercial in enough to trigger a national boycott today, here.

Indeed.

Personally, I agree with The Jawa Report, there’s really only one thing that matters; she’s hot:

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CANNES, France — Woody Allen has restated his support for fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who is in house arrest in connection with a 33-year-old sex scandal.

Allen said Polanski “was embarrassed by the whole thing,” “has suffered” and “has paid his dues.” He said Polanski is “an artist and is a nice person” who “did something wrong and he paid for it.”

Umm…………..

Oh, never mind, it’s already obvious.

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Los Angeles, California (CNN) — A British actress says she was sexually abused by Roman Polanski when she was 16, after she was cast in a Polanski film in Paris, France.

“He sexually abused me in the worst possible way when I was just 16 years old,” said Charlotte Lewis, now 42. She said the incident happened in 1983.

Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 but fled to Europe before he was sentenced.

Lewis said she was coming forward now because Polanski’s “legal team is portraying his previous offense against a minor as an isolated incident.”

Polanski, 76, has been the subject of an international extradition battle since he was arrested in Switzerland in September on a U.S. fugitive warrant.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing Lewis, said they met with Los Angeles police investigators and a prosecutor on Thursday because she thinks the judge can “consider credible claims of predatory conduct” by Polanski when sentencing him on the older case.

This occurred just four years after Polanski fled the United States to avoid serving his sentence for raping another underage girl in Los Angeles.

Video:

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Definitely not:

Danica McKellar has taken her clothes off for Maxim. More here. The former ‘Wonder Years’ star and author/mathematician is now in her second trimester of pregnancy so she must have done this shoot a few months ago.

“I’ve always been really cautious about guys who have a Winnie Cooper fantasy, and I’m so glad about that,” she told the magazine. “I mean, I can count on one hand the guys I’ve been with. It was really challenging, but I never gave it up too soon, if you know what I mean.”

Rest of the photos here.

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Even Jay-Z worships at the altar of Betty White. And why wouldn’t he?

At the end of his second song on this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live,” the appropriate “Young Forever,” Jay-Z dedicated his performance to the host, “the most incredible Betty White.”

Saturday’s whole show was one big celebration of White, from the commercials featuring the actress to her game presence in every sketch. A number of the skits didn’t do much more than trade on her saucy-grandma image, and there wasn’t necessarily a classic moment in the 90-minute show.

Still, White proved why she’s getting work at age 88 — her comic delivery is still formidable. Of course she nailed all the naughty stuff, but given enjoyably silly material, as she was in sketches with Kenan Thompson, Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey, she killed. The show would be smart to extend an open invitation to White to return as host any time, but given how in demand she is, who knows if she’d be able to make it back?

If there wasn’t a sidesplitting “Hamm & Buble” moment (and how I wished for a Jay-Z-Betty White collaboration, a la Jon Hamm and Michael Buble’s 2009 “SNL” skit), White at least had some effective zingers in her opening monologue.

Back when the campaign to get her on “SNL” began, she didn’t know what Facebook was, White confessed. “And now that I do, I think it sounds like a huge waste of time,” she said

You can watch the whole show on Hulu if you missed it, but here are my favorites:

The monologue:

The “muffin” sketch:

And the census sketch with Tina Fey:

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