Does It Take a Genius to Discover Poverty?

Yesterday, David Simon, creator of HBO’s The Wire won a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. That’s great news for him, but it makes me question how someone gets slapped with the genius label for highlighting poverty. You do know right that poverty’s been around for a long time? Are we so immune to poverty (maybe, perhaps because of The Wire) that we can watch each scene unfold and not be prompted into action to find solutions to the poverty? Are the viewers of The Wire so immune to society’s ills that we can actually enjoy crime and poverty for an hour, then change the channel and pretend it’s not real?

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Why Congress should have gone Gaga

When not rocking out, Lady Gaga speaks out. Yesterday, in Portland, Maine, the pop sensation spoke at a rally sponsored by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which supports repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Like Wyclef Jean’s activism in Haiti, and Alicia Keys’s anti-AIDS activism, Lady Gaga works hard whether or not cameras are on.

Read the rest at The Loop.

Wyclef Jean survives criticism, works to uplift Haiti

During election seasons, Republicans love to blast liberal, Hollywood actors for spouting off their political beliefs. In reality, it’s quite hypocritical, but that’s another story. Yet, Wyclef Jean and Sean Penn continue to make mincemeat of conservative critics that claim that Hollywood entertainers are dim-witted glamour hounds. Our collective thanks should to these two, who continue to toil away even when there are no cameras around.

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Steven Spielberg to make biopic on Martin Luther King, Jr.

This has been brought up several times in the past couple of days by astute posters.

Steven Spielbeg has aquired the rights to make a biopic of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But, of course, there are problems.

MEDIA ALERT INSIDE.

From the Los Angeles Business Journal:

Posted date: 5/20/2009
King Family Fighting Over Spielberg Film Deal
By DEBORAH CROWE
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

Two of Martin Luther King Jr.’s children are threatening to throw a wrench into Steven Spielberg’s plans to bring the late civil rights leader’s life to the big screen.

Bernice King and Martin Luther King III told the Associated Press that they had no input in the film deal brokered by their brother, Dexter King, who is chief executive officer of King Inc. The siblings have been involved in several legal disputes with their brother for more than a year over his handling of the intellectual property of their parents’ estate.

King, who was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., was careful to copyright his speeches, books and famous works.

Bernice and Martin have not yet filed suit to block the project. "This is a deal that Mr. Spielberg and his people ... have entered into believing that they have the blessing of the King Estate. They don't have the blessings of Bernice and Martin King," Bernice King told the Associated Press.

DreamWorks SKG on Monday announced it had acquired the rights to King’s life and planned a theatrical release that would be produced by Spielberg, Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones. The production company would not say how much the deal is worth.

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