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John Boehner’s Wife

March 8, 2012 by · Comments Off on John Boehner’s Wife 

John Boehner’s Wife, For someone who fashions herself a Washington outsider, Debbie Boehner sure knows how to stay on message. Mrs. Boehner, wife of the newly elected speaker of the House, the Ohio Republican John A. Boehner, in an interview Tuesday kept hitting on the theme of how she and her husband are “just normal, average people.”

She talked about how she had no plans to move to Washington, worked part-time as a cashier, helped mow the family lawn and ironed Mr. Boehner’s shirts when she was in town — “even though he says he does them all,” she added, laughing.

“I’m just me, I’m just approachable — I’m not going to change,” she said.

Her husband added, “She’s about the most down-to-earth person you’ll ever meet.”

Mrs. Boehner, 62, watched Wednesday from the House gallery, flanked by the couple’s two grown daughters, as her husband assumed his new role. He swept into power on an anti-establishment wave of conservative change, and is working to cast himself as an outside-the-Beltway crusader even though he has served in Congress for two decades.

But it is Mrs. Boehner — sandy-haired, lightly bronzed and plain-spoken — who is truly not a creature of Washington or immersed in politics. She was a limited presence on the campaign trail, has never lived in the District of Columbia — she said she came to town “if there’s a fun event” — and has no plans to become a Washington figure.

“His job is to do this job, and I’m just going to do whatever I can to stay out of the way,” Mrs. Boehner said, wearing a chunky pearl necklace and cream-colored vest in the interview near her husband’s Capitol office. “I just live the life at home that he would be living if he was there.”

Most days, she said, that means “Pilates in the morning, and then I just try to keep up with him.” Mr. Boehner calls every day at 8 a.m. to update her on his schedule, and then they go their own ways, checking in from time to time.

Mrs. Boehner is a real estate agent in suburban Cincinnati — her current listings include a condominium for under $100,000 and a house for more than $3 million. The job requires some of the same skills her husband’s post does — making a sales pitch, reassuring the wary, bringing a deal to a close.

She serves on the board of directors for the Community Foundation of West Chester/Liberty, a philanthropic group, and also works at the Delhi Flower and Garden Center, where she handles the cash register and occasionally does some pruning.

“Everybody was like, ‘What are you doing working here?’ And I go, “Well, I get a good discount,’ ” she said, adding that her daughter Tricia, 30, is getting married in March and that Delhi will be doing the flowers. “I’m working, just like everybody else.”

By the standards of Congress, the Boehners are neither superrich nor just scraping by. Last year, Mr. Boehner listed his minimum net worth at $1.8 million. Mrs. Boehner said she was “not a frivolous person” and described buying a $100 beige dress from Dillard’s to meet Queen Elizabeth II at a state dinner in Washington in 2007.

“I was in a room with people who buy $10,000 gowns, and I can’t do that kind of stuff,” Mrs. Boehner said. “Would I wear it again? Probably not. It worked. It was fine.”

Though she is getting more comfortable in Washington and feels like she is “part of the team,” she said she had “a great support group” of friends and fellow golfers back home.

“That’s probably why I stay there,” she said.

Wives Of Politicians

March 8, 2012 by · Comments Off on Wives Of Politicians 

Wives Of Politicians, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Callista , then a congressional aide and now his third wife, while he was married to his second wife.
Political wives have been at the top of the news this week.

There’s Maria Shriver and her husband’s infidelity; Callista Gingrich, the third wife of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich; and Cheri Daniels, the politically reluctant spouse of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels who, years ago, divorced her current husband, married another man, then came back.

It’s striking, really, considering it wasn’t so long ago that the private lives of politicians were considered off limits, and even protected by the media.

Not so today. The question is asked every election: What right to privacy does a candidate’s family have – and what’s fair game?

Connie Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, watches as her husband, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, gives his victory speech after being elected senator in 2006.

Jamie Rose/Getty Images
Connie Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, watches as her husband, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, gives his victory speech after being elected senator in 2006.

‘A Mere Appendage’

“There is no definition of ‘fair game,’ ” says Republican political consultant Mary Matalin. “So whatever you think it is, you can disabuse yourself of any of that notion.”

Matalin has worked with some of the most powerful politicians in the country. She says being the wife of a high-profile candidate – along with the accompanying media exposure and the combing through your past – is just awful.

“It’s unfair, it’s irrational, it’s pain that’s relentless,” she says. “And if you can develop a defense for yourself, you can never develop a defense for your loved ones.”

When a nasty campaign hurts the family’s children, says Matalin, even the most steeled political wife breaks down.

There is no definition of ‘fair game.’ So whatever you think it is, you can disabuse yourself of any of that notion.

– Republican political consultant Mary Matalin

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and for the past seven years, the wife of Ohio politician Sherrod Brown.

“I was not prepared for morphing into a mere appendage of my husband’s campaign,” she says.

Schultz campaigned with her husband when he ran for the Senate in 2006. She says young staffers, or even just bystanders at political events, would tell her to cut her hair, wear other clothes or act differently onstage.

Schultz thinks this is, at least in part, plain old-fashioned sexism. “I wanna buy tickets to that show if anyone thinks they’re going to start lining up husbands and telling them how to behave,” she says.

Schultz believes that it’s up to the individual candidate and spouse to set the boundaries of their privacy, and that they should then defend them vigorously. The voracious appetite for private details, she says, doesn’t do anybody any good.

“Marriages are complicated things,” she adds. “The healthiest of marriages are complicated. And yet we want to make them caricatures.”

Schindler’s List

February 6, 2012 by · Comments Off on Schindler’s List 

Schindler’s List, Schindler’s List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler’s Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally.

It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS)-officer Amon G?th, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler’s Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

The film was a box office success and recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards (7 BAFTAs, 3 Golden Globes). In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time (up one position from its 9th place listing on the 1998 list).

Schindler’s List won seven Oscars at the 66th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It was the first black and white film since The Apartment to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively, but did not win.

At the British Academy awards, the film won Best Film, the David Lean Award for Direction, Best Supporting Actor (Ralph Fiennes), Cinematography, Editing and Score. Schindler’s List won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Director and Best Screenplay, with John Williams awarded the Grammy for the film’s musical score.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

February 6, 2012 by · Comments Off on E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial 

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (often referred to simply as E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote.

It tells the story of Elliott (played by Thomas), a lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed “E.T.”, who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help the extraterrestrial return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.

The concept for E.T. was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents’ divorce in 1960. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the stalled science fiction/horror film project Night Skies. The film was shot from September to December 1981 in California on a budget of US$10.5 million. Unlike most motion pictures, the film was shot in roughly chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast.

Released by Universal Pictures, E.T. was a blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for 11 years. Critics acclaimed it as a timeless story of friendship, and it ranks as the greatest science fiction film ever made in a Rotten Tomatoes survey. The film was rereleased in 1985, and then again in 2002 to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary, with altered shots and additional scenes.

Schindler’s List Director

February 6, 2012 by · Comments Off on Schindler’s List Director 

Schindler’s List Director, Cast: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Embeth Davidtz, Jonathan Sagalle
Director: Steven Spielberg
Producers: Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig
Screenplay: Steven Zaillian based on the novel by Thomas Keneally
Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski
Music: John Williams
U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures

There have been numerous documentaries and dramatic productions focusing on the Holocaust, including a television mini-series which many consider to be the definitive work. As a result, in deciding to film Schindler’s List, director Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park) set an imposing task for himself. His vision needed to differ from that of the film makers who preceded him, yet the finished product had to remain faithful to the unforgettable images which represent the legacy of six million massacred Jews. Those who see this motion picture will witness Spielberg’s success.

The film opens in September of 1939 in Krakow, Poland, with the Jewish community under increasing pressure from the Nazis. Into this tumult comes Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a Nazi businessman interested in obtaining Jewish backing for a factory he wishes to build. He makes contact with Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), an accountant, to arrange financial matters. For a while, there is no interest and nothing happens.

March 1941. The Krakow Jewish community has been forced to live in “the Ghetto”, where money no longer has any meaning. Several elders agree to invest in Schindler’s factory and the DEF (Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik) is born – a place where large quantities of pots are manufactured. To do the work, Schindler hires Jews (because they’re cheaper than Poles), and the German army becomes his biggest customer.

March 1943. Germany’s intentions towards the Jews are no longer a secret. The Ghetto is “liquidated”, with the survivors being herded into the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp. Many are executed, and still others are shipped away by train, never to return. During this time, Schindler has managed to ingratiate himself with the local commander, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), a Nazi who kills Jews for sport. Using his relationship with Goeth, Schindler begins to secretly campaign to help the Jews, saving men, women, and children from certain death.

Spielberg elected to film this motion picture in black-and-white, and it’s impossible to argue with his choice. Director of Photography Janusz Kaminski has made effective use of shadow and light, meticulously limiting the application of hue. The opening scene is in color, as is the closing sequence (which features the surviving “Schindler Jews”, each accompanied by the actor who played their character, placing a stone on their savior’s grave). There are also two instances when color is allowed to bleed into the blacks, whites, and grays. One little girl’s jacket appears red so that she stands out from the masses, and a pair of candles burn with orange flames. When color is used, it makes a point and an impression.

Schindler’s List gives us three major stories and a host of minor ones. First and foremost, it tells the tale of the Holocaust, presenting new images of old horrors. These are as ghastly and realistic as anything previously filmed, and Spielberg emphasizes the brutality of the situation by not pulling punches when it comes to gore. The blood, inky rather than crimson in stark black-and-white, fountains when men and women are shot in the head or through the neck.

The second story is that of Oskar Schindler, the Nazi businessman who saved 1200 Jews from death. Schindler starts out as a self-centered manufacturer, concerned only about making money. He hires Jews because they’re cheap, not because he likes them. But his perspective changes, and he risks losing everything to save as many lives as he can. His eventual lament that he couldn’t save more is heartbreaking.

The third story belongs to Amon Goeth, the Nazi commander of Krakow, a man who teeters on the brink of madness. Despite his intense hatred for Jews, he is inexplicably attracted to his Jewish housekeeper, Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davidtz). Disgusted by his feelings, he lashes out at her with a display of violence that is almost Scorsese-like in its blunt presentation. As written, Goeth could easily have become a conscienceless monster, but Spielberg works carefully to show unexpected depth and complexity to his character.

Often, the experiences of the minor characters provide the most lasting images. Helen’s story is memorable, as is the plight of young Danka Dresner and her mother as they strive to avoid death while staying together. There’s a Jewish couple that marries in the Plaszow camp, even though their chances of survival are dim, and a Rabbi who survives a close encounter with a Nazi gun.

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