IN THE NEWS

Cameron Crowe’s ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’ To Be Released This Year
If film fans felt lucky that 2011 held not one but two Steven Spielberg movies, they’re going to be ecstatic that it’ll also hold two Cameron Crowe movies. We know the musically-inclined director is hard at work on production of “We Bought a Zoo”, which stars Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning and Thomas Haden Church and is scheduled for release December 23, but now it turns out that a documentary he’s been working on for several years about the Seattle grunge band PEARL JAM will also be released this year. According to the band’s official website, “Pearl Jam Twenty” will be released during 2011 to help commemorate the band’s twentieth anniversary.

The Pearl Jam website http://pearljam.com/news/happy-pj20-ten-club only says that the film will be released this year, accompanied by a book and soundtrack. The Playlist, however http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/cameron_crowes_pearl_jam_documentary_pearl_jam_twenty_to_get_released_in_20/, has some more info.

As briefly reported in 2009 http://www.slashfilm.com/page-2-50/, Crowe has been working on the film for a while all aiming at this 20th anniversary. At the time, guitarist Mike McCready said the director would have access to “all our footage, with all of our existing footage that we have” so one can assume the film will be almost a historical document of the rise of Pearl Jam. Plus the title nicely mirror’s the title of the band’s first album, TEN.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of Crowe working with Pearl Jam. He directed
a music video http://www.slashfilm.com/cameron-crowe-directed-pearl-jam-music-video-the-fixer/ for the band in 2009 (which you can watch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRxGBQubooA and used a bunch of the band’s music not only as part of his screenplay http://www.slashfilm.com/cameron-crowes-we-bought-zoo-script-soundtrack-eddie-vedder-neil-young/ to “We Bought a Zoo”, but also as a big part of the soundtrack to his 1992 film “Singles”.

Quote of the Day – “We want soul mates, good health, and prosperity. We're ready in our minds, but on a physical level, we don¹t always get it. Layers of me sever connection to soul - source of all our fortune. Today, close the gap between intention and manifestation. Forget about what I think, I believe, I know. Pull the plug on ego.” – Yehuda Berg

Goldman Defies Public Fury With Another £10bn Bonus Payout
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4068?akid=350.19616.d_EYmr&t=10

GOP Spending Cuts Would Affect Millions of People
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4069?akid=350.19616.d_EYmr&t=12

Robert Scheer: Obama Pulls a Clinton
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4073?akid=350.19616.d_EYmr&t=20

Jim Hightower: Republicans Give Government Back to Their Corporate Paymasters
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4076?akid=350.19616.d_EYmr&t=26

Raj Patel: Food Crises Pummel the Poor, Austerity Multiplies Pain
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4077?akid=350.19616.d_EYmr&t=28

Glenn Greenwald: Obama Officials Caught Deceiving about WikiLeaks
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4078?akid=350.19616.d_EYmr&t=30

The GOP’s 5 Most Absurd Lies About Health-Care Reform, Debunked
Lauren Kelley, AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/149598/the_gop%27s_5_most_absurd_lies_about_healthcare_reform%2C_debunked

Sorry Tea Partiers – The GOP Only Cares About Their Corporate Paymasters and Wealthy Elites Like the Kochs
Jim Hightower, AlterNet
While tea party regulars are giddy with the thought that their movement took over the US House, they were actually a Trojan horse for powerful corporate interests.
http://www.alternet.org/story/149585/sorry_tea_partiers_--_the_gop_only_cares_about_their_corporate_paymasters_and_wealthy_elites_like_the_kochs

Sarah Byrnes and Chuck Collins: Rocky Times Ahead: Are You Ready?
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4116?akid=353.19616.G-Rjsw&t=22

Les Leopold: Financial Socialism by and for Wall Street Elites?http://act.commondreams.org/go/4117?akid=353.19616.G-Rjsw&t=24

John Pilger: WikiLeaks Defies the “War on Hi-Tech Terror”
http://act.commondreams.org/go/4118?akid=353.19616.G-Rjsw&t=26

Letter to Michah Kellner of NYS Assembly from NY Metro Progressives
“Closing the Budget Gap”
January 20, 2011

Dear Michah,

I disagree with your unabashed support in your recent newsletter for Governor Cuomo’s brutal expense cutting program to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the middle class—with deteriorating schools, roads, bridges, water, health services. New York is becoming a second class state with a greater disparity between rich and poor than any other state in the US. (See yesterday’s Daily News story at P. 19, Towering $$ Gap, 1-19-11)

What’s wrong with increasing taxes on the wealthiest among us? According to the Daily News article, NY’s top 1 % about 90,000 households had average incomes of $3.7 million. When Eisenhower was president we had a 91% tax bracket and I went to Queens College for $5 per semester!! Today, all money over 35% of one’s income is untaxed, giving the greatest earners among us a free ride! There’s been a huge upward distribution of wealth since Reagan and enormous tax benefits to the rich.

How could Democrats, like you and Cuomo, support a continuation of this unfair policy which is killing the middle class and the poor? Shame on you if you don’t support a modest tax increase on the wealthiest among us to meet our human needs without sacrificing plain people to the greedy moneybags among us. Illinois’ Democrats are raising the state income tax rate from 3 to 6% to close its budget gap. Why can’t we do that in NY and not need to fire thousands of government workers, put their pensions at risk, short change our schools and healthcare systems and all the other ills contemplated by this Republican royalist plan to close the budget gap? Please do the right thing!! Ordinary citizens and working people have always counted on the Democrats to take care of their interests. Don’t fail us.