Dolly Parton on Gay Marriage
Singer, entertainer, and in some cases gay icon, Dolly Parton, came out with a few strong statements about gay marriage recently.
“I didn’t know any gay people in my childhood. I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out,” the singer, who was one of 12 children in a Pentecostal family living in Locust Ridge, Tenn., told Britain’s Event magazine, per an article featured on the Daily Mail’s website.
“I think everyone should be with who they love,” Parton, 68, continued. “I don’t want to be controversial or stir up a bunch of trouble but people are going to love who they are going to love. I think gay couples should be allowed to marry. They should suffer just like us heterosexuals. Ha ha ha!”
I would bet that if you ask most gay men who Fred Karger is and how hard he’s fought for gay marriage they wouldn’t have a clue. But I can hear the sighs of relief from one end of the rainbow to the other with this one statement from Dolly Parton. Don’t get me wrong. I love Dolly, too.
Author Scams; James Strauss
A writer with a fairly high profile in some circles who has been asked to speak at “cons” and offers to teach courses for a fee has allegedly been lying about his publishing credits and past publishing work experience. In this case, from what I can gather, this one really took a few strong chances that may or may not be legal. Even more interesting, chances that could be researched with just a few simple clicks and taps.
James gets gigs teaching screenwriting courses based on his experience writing episodes on the TV shows HOUSE, DEADWOOD, SAVING GRACE and ENTOURAGE. The problem is, according to the Writers Guild of America and writer/producers on those shows, James Strauss never worked as a writer on any of those series. So beware. If you run across any conference or seminar programs where he’s fraudulently claiming those credits in his biography, please alert the organizers and have them contact Lesley McCambridge in the WGA West credits department. Okay, so here’s the April 2013 post that tells how I first encountered this fake, James Strauss:
You can read more here. It gets much more involved. Side note: these “cons” make a lot of people a lot of money. So the next time you decide to spend your hard earned money on any publishing “con” please take that into consideration…and take into consideration that by going to a “con” the odds are you won’t get any further along in publishing than if you remained at home and worked a little harder.
The web site where I read all this is interesting, too. Lee Goldberg is like a sort of vampire hunter but he’s chasing scammers instead of vampires. Bravo. We need more like him.
And here’s a link to a commentary about author scams in general. It’s insightful from a legal POV. Among other things, it talks about the author to whom I fell victim a few weeks ago who cried bully, and it mentions a trend where certain authors are associating themselves with well known celebrities in order to gain attention and sell more books. There’s an interesting mention about using celebrity images without permission. I’ve seen authors do this, too, without taking into consideration they may be violating someone’s rights. A few times I’ve tried to warn these authors and they’ve ignored me completely. Remember my post about how Sarah Palin’s S PAC got sued for using a photo without permission? It’s the same thing.
In any event, it’s a commentary post about frustration. Unfortunately, unless there are a few examples made about stealing likeness, illegal contests, and all those good things we see we’re not going to stop this any time soon.
Limbaugh Attacks Don Lemon
Good old Rush Limbaugh is at it again. The wealthy conservative pundit who will say or do anything for attention (and money) responded to a comment made about him on CNN.
Limbaugh recently went after CNN’s Don Lemon for being gay.
“Well, over at CNN, they interpreted that to mean that I was defending Sterling!” he said on Tuesday. “How did they get there? I don’t know how they get there. Erin Burnett played the sound bite and then went to Mr. Black Hole himself, Don Lemon—who sleeps with men, proudly—for comment.”
My only comment, again, is that I hope people know all this is about as real as a sideshow at the circus. Or Joan Rivers’ reality show. You don’t really think Melissa is dating that hot British guy, do you? Or as Melissa would say, “SRSLY, Mom!!”