Sherwin-Williams‬, ‪Sở giao dịch chứng khoán New York‬‬

Louisiana (LPX) Holding Boosted by Quantitative Investment Management Llc; Sherwin Williams Co (SHW) Stock Price Rose While Lombard Odier Asset Management Usa Has Raised Holding

August 18, 2017 - By Vivian Park

Quantitative Investment Management Llc increased its stake in Louisiana (LPX) by 104.07% based on its latest 2016Q4 regulatory filing with the SEC. Quantitative Investment Management Llc bought 35,800 shares as the company’s stock declined 7.61% while stock markets rallied. The hedge fund held 70,200 shares of the forest products company at the end of 2016Q4, valued at $1.33M, up from 34,400 at the end of the previous reported quarter. Quantitative Investment Management Llc who had been investing in Louisiana for a number of months, seems to be bullish on the $3.43 billion market cap company. The stock decreased 1.45% or $0.35 during the last trading session, reaching $23.72. About shares traded. Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX) has risen 29.07% since August 18, 2016 and is uptrending. It has outperformed by 12.37% the S&P500.

Lombard Odier Asset Management Usa Corp increased its stake in Sherwin Williams Co (SHW) by 112.28% based on its latest 2016Q4 regulatory filing with the SEC. Lombard Odier Asset Management Usa Corp bought 20,095 shares as the company’s stock rose 6.75% with the market. The institutional investor held 37,993 shares of the building materials company at the end of 2016Q4, valued at $10.21M, up from 17,898 at the end of the previous reported quarter. Lombard Odier Asset Management Usa Corp who had been investing in Sherwin Williams Co for a number of months, seems to be bullish on the $30.78B market cap company. The stock decreased 1.16% or $3.87 during the last trading session, reaching $329.56. About shares traded. Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW) has risen 15.27% since August 18, 2016 and is uptrending. It has underperformed by 1.43% the S&P500.

Lombard Odier Asset Management Usa Corp, which manages about $3.79 billion and $683.66 million US Long portfolio, decreased its stake in Callon Pete Co Del (NYSE:CPE) by 39,756 shares to 232,229 shares, valued at $3.57 million in 2016Q4, according to the filing. It also reduced its holding in Summit Matls Inc by 419,433 shares in the quarter, leaving it with 230,567 shares, and cut its stake in Pieris Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Since May 3, 2017, it had 0 insider purchases, and 4 insider sales for $8.18 million activity. KROPF SUSAN J sold $677,860 worth of stock. Another trade for 10,500 shares valued at $3.52M was sold by Davisson Robert J. Baxter Joel D. also sold $1.84M worth of Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW) on Monday, May 15.

Investors sentiment decreased to 0.95 in Q4 2016. Its down 0.15, from 1.1 in 2016Q3. It turned negative, as 64 investors sold SHW shares while 237 reduced holdings. 86 funds opened positions while 200 raised stakes. 66.23 million shares or 0.25% less from 66.39 million shares in 2016Q3 were reported. Exxonmobil Inv Inc Tx holds 18,709 shares or 0.11% of its portfolio. Hbk Investments Limited Partnership holds 36,646 shares. Hudson Bay Capital Mgmt Ltd Partnership has invested 0.04% in Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW). Moreover, Gilder Gagnon Howe & Com Limited Liability Corporation has 0.01% invested in Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW). 45,711 were reported by Raub Brock Mgmt Limited Partnership. Chartist Ca stated it has 237,967 shares. 21,200 are held by Gabelli Funds Ltd. The Illinois-based First Midwest National Bank & Trust Trust Division has invested 0.19% in Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW). East Coast Asset Limited, Massachusetts-based fund reported 1,575 shares. Alpha Windward Limited reported 815 shares. Hilltop Hldg Inc owns 1,250 shares. Gideon Capital Advsr Inc invested in 969 shares. Bp Public Limited Co accumulated 4,000 shares. Central Commercial Bank & Tru has invested 0.06% in Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW). Brown Advisory has invested 0.02% of its portfolio in Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW).

More recent Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW) news were published by: Crainscleveland.com which released: “Sherwin-Williams declines as consumer paint demand fizzles” on July 21, 2017. Also Seekingalpha.com published the news titled: “Sherwin-Williams: Strong Q2 Thanks To Newly Acquired Valspar” on July 23, 2017. Nasdaq.com‘s news article titled: “Sherwin-Williams Becomes Oversold” with publication date: August 01, 2017 was also an interesting one.

Among 21 analysts covering Sherwin-Williams Company (NYSE:SHW), 14 have Buy rating, 0 Sell and 7 Hold. Therefore 67% are positive. Sherwin-Williams Company had 36 analyst reports since July 22, 2015 according to SRatingsIntel. The firm has “Buy” rating by Northcoast given on Wednesday, July 22. On Tuesday, April 4 the stock rating was upgraded by KeyBanc Capital Markets to “Overweight”. The stock of Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW) has “Buy” rating given on Friday, July 21 by Credit Suisse. On Tuesday, June 13 the stock rating was upgraded by Longbow to “Buy”. The stock of Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW) earned “Buy” rating by Longbow on Wednesday, March 16. Citigroup initiated it with “Buy” rating and $410 target in Friday, June 23 report. The stock of Sherwin-Williams Co (NYSE:SHW) earned “Outperform” rating by RBC Capital Markets on Friday, October 30. RBC Capital Markets maintained it with “Buy” rating and $39000 target in Thursday, July 13 report. Seaport Global downgraded the stock to “Neutral” rating in Monday, July 11 report. The firm earned “Outperform” rating on Friday, January 29 by RBC Capital Markets.

Investors sentiment increased to 1.3 in Q4 2016. Its up 0.07, from 1.23 in 2016Q3. It is positive, as 24 investors sold LPX shares while 66 reduced holdings. 42 funds opened positions while 75 raised stakes. 128.36 million shares or 3.91% less from 133.59 million shares in 2016Q3 were reported. Blackrock owns 0% invested in Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX) for 66,207 shares. Nomura Inc reported 26,265 shares or 0% of all its holdings. Aqr Capital Mgmt Ltd Liability Com invested in 40,062 shares or 0% of the stock. Retirement System Of Alabama holds 183,662 shares or 0.02% of its portfolio. Ubs Asset Mngmt Americas has 80,034 shares for 0% of their portfolio. Tennessee-based First Mercantile Tru has invested 0.07% in Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX). Numeric Invsts Limited Liability Com stated it has 569,600 shares. Jpmorgan Chase has invested 0% of its portfolio in Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX). California Employees Retirement Systems accumulated 0.01% or 309,200 shares. Oakbrook Investments Ltd Liability Company holds 0.01% or 11,800 shares. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management Ltd Liability Co reported 0.01% of its portfolio in Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX). Gendell Jeffrey L holds 30,474 shares. Parametric Port Ltd Liability Com reported 508,721 shares or 0.01% of all its holdings. Oregon Pub Employees Retirement Fund has invested 0.02% in Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX). Gam Holding Ag holds 10,000 shares or 0% of its portfolio.

Among 8 analysts covering Louisiana-Pacific (NYSE:LPX), 3 have Buy rating, 1 Sell and 4 Hold. Therefore 38% are positive. Louisiana-Pacific had 18 analyst reports since August 26, 2015 according to SRatingsIntel. The rating was upgraded by RBC Capital Markets on Friday, September 4 to “Outperform”. The firm has “Buy” rating by RBC Capital Markets given on Wednesday, April 19. The company was downgraded on Wednesday, April 12 by Buckingham Research. The firm has “Buy” rating given on Friday, October 14 by Vertical Research. On Wednesday, July 26 the stock rating was maintained by BMO Capital Markets with “Hold”. The stock has “Top Pick” rating by RBC Capital Markets on Thursday, February 9. RBC Capital Markets maintained Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX) on Sunday, July 30 with “Buy” rating. On Wednesday, April 12 the stock rating was downgraded by Vertical Research to “Hold”. As per Thursday, June 22, the company rating was maintained by BMO Capital Markets. The rating was downgraded by Bank of America on Wednesday, December 7 to “Underperform”.

More recent Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX) news were published by: Marketwired.com which released: “International Barrier Enters Agreement to Combine with Louisiana-Pacific …” on July 31, 2017. Also Nasdaq.com published the news titled: “Louisiana-Pacific Unveils LP SmartSide Perfection Shingle” on August 16, 2017. Seekingalpha.com‘s news article titled: “Louisiana-Pacific Corporation’s (LPX) CEO Brad Southern on Q2 2017 Results …” with publication date: August 01, 2017 was also an interesting one.

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source: (https://bzweekly.com/louisiana-lpx-holding-boosted-by-quantitative-investment-management-llc-sherwin-williams-co-shw-stock-price-rose-while-lombard-odier-asset-management-usa-has-raised-holding/)

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Taney statue removed from Md. state house grounds overnight

Taney statue removed from Md. state house grounds overnight

Workers dismantled a statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney outside the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Md.

Workers dismantled a 145-year-old statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney outside the Maryland State House shortly after midnight Friday, the latest ripple effect from last weekend’s deadly violence at a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said his revulsion at what happened in Charlottesville — at a demonstration purportedly in defense of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — prompted him to change his mind about the Taney statute and push for its removal, an act long sought by civil rights groups.

The State House Trust board voted Wednesday to remove the memorial to Taney, a former chief justice who defended slavery in the court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision. Taney’s ruling said blacks, whether slaves or not, could never be U.S. citizens.

Police blocked off the streets around the State House complex Thursday evening. A crane and two flatbed trucks arrived shortly after midnight, and a crew soon began the process of removing the memorial from its base, with more than two dozen bystanders looking on, mostly local residents who figured the road closure must have been a sign that the monument would be coming down soon.

Some witnesses commented that Taney’s likeness, gazing slightly down, appeared to be bowing its head in shame as workers pulled straps around his frame.ew Photos

“It’s just a bad statue overall,” said Robb Tufts, 43, of Annapolis. “He’s all hunched over like Ebenezer Scrooge . . . we deserve to celebrate the heroes of Maryland, not the villains of history.”

[Trump embraces culture war with call to preserveConfederate statues]

As the crane’s arm started extending toward the monument shortly after 1 a.m., sprinklers erupted on the State House lawn, sending crew members scrambling and briefly disrupting their work, as though Taney was making a last stand atop his perch.

After work resumed, the crane lifted the statue and maneuvered it to a flatbed truck, where the memorial was wrapped in a tarp and driven away around 2:20 a.m.

Hogan’s spokesman, Doug Mayer, said the monument would be placed in an undisclosed state storage facility. The perch remained on the lawn, covered by a wooden box.

A different statue of Taney and three Confederate memorials in Baltimore were taken down under cover of darkness early Wednesday.

President Trump, who has made conflicting statements about who is to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, has decried the removal of monuments, saying on Thursday that the “history and culture of our great country” was “being ripped apart.”

Cookie Washington, an African American who turned 59 on Friday and has lived in Annapolis since childhood, said seeing the demise of Taney statue “felt like a birthday treat.”

“With what’s happening in this country lately, it doesn’t feel welcoming for everyone,” she said. “I’m glad to see this.”

The removal of the memorial in Annapolis came hours after Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) lashed out at the governor for not holding a public hearing on the issue before the State House Trust board voted.

[Removing a slavery defender’s statue: Roger B. Taneywrote one of Supreme Court’s worst rulings]

In a letter to Hogan, Miller defended Taney’s legacy and long record of government service, and said the memorial should stay put to help educate people about the past. He also criticized Hogan for pushing a vote on the matter “outside the public eye.”

Hogan is chairman of the State House Trust board, which voted by email — its traditional method — to remove the Taney statue and make plans for storing or relocating it. Miller, House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) and Maryland Historical Trust chair Charles L. Edson are also members of the panel.

Mayer said Thursday that Miller is “completely within his right to continue defending Roger Taney,” adding that Hogan and the Senate leader would have to “agree to disagree.”

Busch called for removal of the statue on Monday, saying that “the time has come for Taney to come down.” A spokeswoman for his office said the speaker’s decision was influenced by Saturday’s deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville and the racially motivated 2015 mass shooting at an African American church in Charleston, S.C.

[Baltimore hauls away four Confederate monuments afterovernight removal]

Hogan announced on Tuesday that he would take action to remove the monument, saying it’s “the right thing to do.”

Busch, Edson and Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford (R), who serves as Hogan’s designee on the board, voted infavor of taking down the monument. Miller did not vote.

The Senate president said in his letter that voting by email was “just plain wrong” and that the matter was “of such consequence that the transparency of a public meeting and public conversation should have occurred.”

Miller, who is known to be an avid reader of history, credited the former chief justice for “anti-slavery words and actions,” saying that “unlike George Washington who freed his slaves upon his death, Taney freed his slaves early in his life.”

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He also noted Taney’s many roles in public service, including state lawmaker, Maryland attorney general, U.S. secretary of war, U.S. attorney general and U.S. treasury secretary.

The state placed the Taney statue on the lawn of the capital complex in 1872. Since then, it has added interpretive plaques explaining the controversy over his divisive Dred Scott opinion and erected a statue of Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native who was the first African American Supreme Court justice, on the opposite side of the State House.

The trust also agreed last year to erect statues in the State House honoring abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.

Benjamin Jealous, the former NAACP president who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Hogan in 2018, said Monday that he would push to take down all Confederate statues in the state if he is elected.

Responding to news of Miller’s letter, Jealous said he was “disappointed to hear there would be any opposition to this issue.” State leaders, he said, “should be setting the right example for our children, who should know that when the time came, we had the courage to say there’s no room for symbols of hate in our state.”

Read more:

Hogan: Trump ‘should probably stop talking’ aboutConfederate monuments

Dvorak: Confederate monuments and excuse to spew hatredand nonsense

Trump strains Gillespie’s efforts to focus on Virginia issues

source: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/md-senate-president-slams-hogan-for-fast-vote-to-remove-taney-statue/2017/08/17/41833b12-8390-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.260074d4470c)

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Chris Long on anthem protest support: 'Time for people that look like me' to step up

Chris Long (56) supports Malcolm Jenkins (27) during his protest Thursday night. (AP)More

The Philadelphia Eagles’ Malcolm Jenkins has been offering his own statement during the pregame playing of the national anthem, raising a fist to protest racial injustice. Teammate Chris Long joined Jenkins on Thursday night, placing a hand on Jenkins’ shoulder. It was a small gesture in the moment, but it could have significant impact on the ongoing anthem debate.

Why? Very simple. Jenkins, like Colin Kaepernick and most — if not all — the anthem protesters in the NFL to date, is black. Long is white.

“I think it’s a good time for people that look like me to be here for people that are fighting for equality,” Long said after the game. A graduate of the University of Virginia who considers Charlottesville his home, Long spoke out in no uncertain terms about President Trump’s “both sides” equivocation in the wake of last weekend’s fatal riots.

“It’s been a hard week for everybody,” he continued. “I think it’s not just a hard week for someone being from Charlottesville. It’s a tough week for America. I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘You need white athletes to get involved in the anthem protest.’ I’ve said before that I’ll never kneel for an anthem because the flag means something different to everybody in this country, but I support my peers.”

Long then directly addressed the critics he knew would be rising out of the comment sections and sports-radio call-ins of the world: “If you don’t see why you need allies for people that are fighting for equality right now, I don’t think you’ll ever see it,” he said. “My thing is, Malcolm’s a leader and I’m here to show support as a white athlete.”

Jenkins is one of a growing number of athletes taking a strong stand against racial injustice, using the nonviolent symbolism of silent anthem protest to draw attention to their cause. Kaepernick, of course, is out of a job at the moment; whether that’s because of his political protest or his lack of skills is a matter of some dispute. But Jenkins, a highly regarded safety, ranked 90th on the NFL’s Top 100 list earlier this year. Like fellow protester Michael Bennett of Seattle and (possibly) Marshawn Lynch of Oakland, he’s not so easy to brush aside from a football perspective.

“Stepping out in front of all those people and the obvious attention that is going to be brought to it is not an easy thing to do,” Jenkins said after the game. “I think looking at the atmosphere last year compared to this year, so much has transpired, and in a negative direction, that I think the stakes are almost higher now.”

“When you get in the position on a platform where you get a chance to give back and create opportunities for others, that’s where I want my legacy to be,” Bennett told YahooSports earlier this week. “I want to create opportunities for others. I want to raise the bar about what we can do as athletes and people.”
____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

source : https://sports.yahoo.com/chris-long-anthem-protest-support-time-people-look-like-step-123338919.html

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“Logan Lucky” and “Marjorie Prime”

Adam Driver and Channing Tatum star in Steven Soderbergh’s heist movie.

The good news about the new Steven Soderbergh film, “Logan Lucky,” is that, although it’s about a heist, it contains not a single person named Ocean. George Clooney in a well-pressed suit, his bons mots tumbling like dice, is never going to be an eyesore, but even the proudest Las Vegan will have tired of the spectacle by now. That explains why Soderbergh, who directed “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) and its two sequels, begins the latest movie with so sweaty a statement of intent: Channing Tatum, busy with his tools, under the hood of a truck. Sitting nearby is his young daughter, Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie), who passes him the wrenches that he needs. Caesars Palace seems a long way off.

Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, who lives in Boone County, West Virginia, and drives an excavator at the mine. As befits a lover of country music, he has an ex-wife named Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes), who wears a fringed white top and rhinestone-studded jeans, and a sister, Mellie (Riley Keough), who works as a hairdresser. Stopping by Mellie’s salon, Jimmy admits to one of her clients that he doesn’t like cell phones. “You one of those Unabomber types?” she asks. Jimmy also has a brother, Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost half an arm in Iraq. Despite being, in physical terms, the least plausible siblings since Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in “Twins” (1988), Jimmy and Clyde are conjoined in mental sloth. In the words of one onlooker, “You Logans must be as simpleminded as people say.”

Yet the movie doesn’t always bear out that verdict. For one thing, the brothers show a casual proficiency that borders on cool. Clyde pours drinks, with a conjurer’s grace, at a local bar; Jimmy takes off his hard hat and skims it backhanded into a storage locker, yards away, like 007 tossing his trilby onto a hat stand. Then there’s the plan. In Jimmy’s kitchen is what Clyde describes as “a robbery to-do list,” the idea being to steal a cornucopia of cash from the Charlotte Motor Speedway, in Concord, North Carolina—or, more precisely, to suck the cash from a vault beneath the track, through a network of tubes. The boys enlist the aid of a safe-blower named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), the only hitch being that he’s in jail. No problem. Clyde gets himself arrested, by driving briskly through the window of a store, and thrown into the same prison. He and Joe must break out for the day, hook up with Jimmy, pull off the theft, and break back in without being missed. All of which sounds wacky enough, but is it simpleminded?

That question meanders through “Logan Lucky.” What we have here is a filmmaker of proven liberal credentials (a few years ago, he made a two-part, four-and-a-half-hour bio-pic of Che Guevara) addressing himself to a patch of America where those credentials don’t mean jack. Such is the merriment of the new movie, and so spirited is its pace, that you barely notice the wavering of the tone. On the one hand, Soderbergh and his screenwriter, Rebecca Blunt, set up various characters as ninepins—folks like Joe’s brothers, Fish and Sam, played so broadly by Jack Quaid and Brian Gleeson, and with such raw redneckery, that they’re begging to be knocked down. Roll up, the movie cries, watch the hicks toss toilet seats instead of horseshoes! Listen to them mangle the lingo of the modern age! (“All the Twitters, I know ’em.” “I looked it upon the Google.”) Soderbergh reinforces this overkill with leering closeups; we’re crotch-side with Joe as he does pushups in his cell, and Clyde slides a cocktail so near to the lens that he might as well be offering the cameraman a swig.

On the other hand, check out race day—which, wouldn’t you know it, happens to be heist day, too. Some of the speedway footage was shot live during the Coca-Cola 600, one of the premier Nascar events of the year, and Soderbergh doesn’t just give us the hullabaloo that surrounds it. He gives it to us straight. As LeAnn Rimes sings “America the Beautiful” and fighter jets fly in formation above, all the spectators (barring Joe Bang, who needs to stayincognito) bare their heads, and you can feel the film following suit, as you can when Sadie, shimmering with hairspray and fake tan, carols a John Denver song at a beauty pageant, with her audience crooning along. What Soderbergh implies at such moments is that for countless Americans this is the life, and that you mock it at your peril. And yet, elsewhere, the movie points and snorts. When historians come to tell the tale of the Trumpian epoch, and of confused cultural attitudes toward the heartland, “Logan Lucky” will be part of the evidence.

Then again, many people will leave the cinema with nothing more profound—or more enjoyable—than the image of Daniel Craig, adorned with a garish blond buzz cut that makes his blue eyes madder than ever. In jail, he wears a traditional inmate’s uniform, with black and white stripes. Asked by Clyde and Jimmy how it’s going when they pay a visit, Joe replies, “I’m sitting on the other side of the table wearing a onesie. How d’you think it’s going?” The laugh that met this line when I saw the movie seemed to unlock its good cheer, and so liberated does Craig appear, on a hollering vacation from his stern-visaged duties as James Bond, that his mood exalts the whole enterprise. “I’m about to get nekkid,” Joe says, sprawled on the rear seat of a Mustang V-8, and he takes great joy in cooking up explosives from gummy bears and bleach. Soderbergh refuses to get wonkish about the crime; he drops in a few rum details—for what possible purpose, you wonder, is Mellie painting live cockroaches with nail polish?—and stands back, as if to say, Let the games begin.

Once they’re done, we get a late twist that I failed to understand, plus some wary sleuthing from an F.B.I. agent (Hilary Swank). Neither addition is necessary, but, then, “Logan Lucky” delights in superfluities; it’s more about the trimmings than the meat. Not all of them succeed. Seth MacFarlane isn’t much funnier or more believable as a British racing driver than Don Cheadle was as a British thief in the “Ocean’s” saga; whatever strange fixation Soderbergh has on Cockneys, or fake Cockneys, should be laid to rest. But Katherine Waterston does wonders with a brief role as Sylvia, a woman who went to high school with Jimmy and wound up as a medic. In a few minutes, she gives you a hint of the startling ways in which lives can peel apart and come together again, and she sets Jimmy thinking. He and Clyde used to fear a Logan family curse, but their exploits here—not the plunder alone but the patent elixir of hope, savvy, and silliness—break the spell.

If you are feeling especially dumb, or hungover, steer clear of “Marjorie Prime.” Michael Almereyda’s film is so subtly smart, and veiled in such layers of suggestion, that you need to be on your toes from the beginning.

In a beautiful house by the sea, an elderly woman, Marjorie (Lois Smith), talks to a more youthful man, named Walter (Jon Hamm). He sits erect on the couch, unflappable and neatly groomed, like Don Draper crossed with a robot; there’s something not quite right about him, and it’s only at the end of the scene that the something becomes clear. As Marjorie brushes past him, she walks through his shoes as if they weren’t there at all. And they’re not. Walter is a Prime—a computer program, providing a 3-D facsimile of a deceased person. In this case, the true Walter was Marjorie’s late husband, and she has chosen to have him return as an earlier self, thus setting an immediate moral test: if you could summon up those you have loved and lost, at what stage would you capture them? In their heyday? Or as they were in yours?

Almereyda’s movie, adapted from a stage play by Jordan Harrison, is technically science fiction, picking through the thorny issues of identity that grew in “Blade Runner,” yet it looks only lightly futuristic. We never find out how you order a Prime, or whether it’s just the well-to-do who can afford one; will the poor continue to mourn as before? At one point, we gather that Marjorie herself must have passed away, because it’s a reboot of her—not younger, but more kempt—who chats with her daughter, the sorrowful Tess (GeenaDavis), politely asking for details of the departed Marjorie, so as to become a more accurate copy. (“I’m vain?” “A little.” “That’s helpful.”) Then we have Tess’s husband, Jon (Tim Robbins), fond of his Scotch; we wonder whether he, in turn, will bring forth a substitute Tess, once she is no more, and whether, like all the humans in the movie, he will be tempted to arrange for an improved or happier model. “Marjorie Prime” could use a trim, as some of the exchanges linger too long, but Mica Levi, who worked on “Under the Skin” (2013) and “Jackie” (2016), contributes another searching score, and the film, with its coastal haze and its fickle gusts of rain, is likely to lodge in your memory. Or, as it will soon be called, your hard drive. ♦

source: "http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/logan-lucky-and-marjorie-prime"

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Trump said to study General Pershing. Here’s what the president got wrong

Trump said to study General Pershing. Here’s what the president got wrong

Gen. John J. Pershing is shown on horseback in front of his summer home and general headquarters at Chaumont, Haute-Marne, France, in 1918. (AP)

A sordid tale of Gen. John J. Pershing executing Muslim insurgents in the Philippines at the turn of the century is a favorite of President Trump.

“They were having terrorism problems, just like we do,” Trump told a throng of cheering supporters in South Carolina in February 2016.

Pershing “caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem.”

It’s a story Trump has repeated, and echoed again Thursday after what authorities have called a terrorist attack in Barcelona that killed at least 13people and left many more wounded when a driver smashed his van onto a busy sidewalk.

 [Trump recycles discredited Islamic pigs’ blood tale afterterrorist attack in Barcelona]

“Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” he tweeted.

Brian M. Linn, a history professor at Texas A&M University, did just that nearly two decades ago when he published “Guardians of Empire,” a book on the U.S. military presence in Asia from 1902 to 1940.

His verdict on Trump’s claim?

“There is absolutely no evidence this occurred,” he told The Washington Post.

“It’s a made-up story. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times people say this isn’t true. No one can say where or when this occurred.”

But Trump’s claims, and the wider belief in a routinely debunked story, has far-reaching effects. Not only is the story untrue, but the convenient twist — of an insurgency defeated only with the use of brutal war tactics — points to precisely the opposite lessons Pershing and his troops learned in the Philippines campaign from 1899 to 1913, Linn said.

“The U.S. military learned escalating counterterrorism was not effective, and they took great steps, including Pershing, to de-escalate,” Linn said.

Who was John J.Pershing?

Pershing was a U.S. Military Academy graduate who first earned distinction in the Indian-American Wars, and later his nickname, “Black Jack,” after commanding the all-African American Buffalo Soldiers unit.

He was an astute and battle-experienced captain who in 1899 first arrived in the Philippines, where he learned the value of defusing tribal grievances among the Moro, the followers of Islam on the archipelago engaged in tribal violence and insurrection against the United States. The Philippines were acquired after the United States won the Spanish-American War in 1898, and an insurrection arose following attempts to pacify the country as it sought independence from colonial rule.

Pershing studied the Koran and drank tea with tribal leaders to emphasize he was there to put down violence, not continue a religious war the Spanish had waged for centuries.

“He did a lot of what we would call ‘winning hearts and minds’ and embraced reforms which helped end their resistance,” Lance Janda, a military historian at Cameron University, told PolitiFact. “He fought, too, but only when he had to, and only against tribes or bands that just wouldn’t negotiate with him.”

In one series of campaigns between 1902 and 1903 around Lake Lanao on the southern island, Pershing would focus on more violent religious groups in fortified positions, allowing them room to escape, Linn said.

Pershing then bypassed other factions in the area to show he could easily move his forces around but would not deliberately attack, demonstrating to other tribes he understood which groups posed a threat.

But Pershing was also the commander of aggressive offensives that killed women and children after insurrectionists occupied positions with their families. Still, Pershing was made an honorary Moro chieftain, Linn said.

Other atrocities were committed by U.S. forces during the conflict. After a garrison of Army soldiers was overrun and massacred, a unit of Marines was dispatched in September 1902 to root out insurgents on the island of Samar on the central coast. Major Little Waller, who led the Marine unit, arrived from China and was unfamiliar with the terrain. Fever overtook him, his men panicked and the Filipino porters carrying his equipment mutinied.

Eleven porters were executed in a remote area, but news of the act quickly spread. “Dead men tell no tales, but they leave an awful smell” became a common American saying afterward, Linn said. Waller was later acquitted in a court-martial.

But the episode points to an example of what happens when news of deliberate killings spreads, Linn said, and if Pershing had committed a theatrical massacre, a similar result would have been likely.

Rise of the Pershingmyth

Linn began to encounter the Pershing pig blood bullet story after Sept. 11, 2001, when Internet users searched for religious-themed military operations in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States.

“It seemed to me to be coming from sources that were strongly anti-Muslim, not military historians or scholars,” Linn said.

Concerned faculty at the U.S. Military Academy asked him to disprove the story of arguably one of its most storied graduates. Pershing would later head the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I as Commander of the Armies, a rank held only by two generals in U.S. history — Pershing and George Washington, who was posthumously awarded the rank in 1976.

[Gen. George Patton’s wife put a Hawaiian curse on hisex-mistress. She was dead within days.]

Linn told the U.S. Military Academy, along with fellow Texas A&M professor Frank Vandiver and author of Pershing’s biography, that no evidence existed to back up the story.

Still, the myth persists with another twist of burying insurgents with dead pigs. In Pershing’s memoir “My Life Before the World War, 1860 — 1917,” he says fellow officer Col. Frank West told him at least one Muslim fighter was “publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig.”

“It was not pleasant to have to take such measures, but the prospect of going to hell instead of heaven sometimes deterred the would-be assassins,” Pershing wrote about juramentados, knife-wielding religious extremists who targeted Christians.

Linn said it probably did happen at one point, but he doubts Pershing was involved or ordered subordinates to commit religiously insulting acts. Other artifacts, such as letters and memoirs from soldiers there describing similar events, do not point to credible claims of Pershing’s involvement, Linn said. A 1939 movie about the conflict starring Gary Cooper, “The Real Glory,” also includes a scene that resembles those moments and likely fuels the myth, the historian said.

The Philippine-American War ended in 1902, with the death of more than 4,200 American and 20,000 Filipino combatants. As many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died of violence and widespread famine and disease, according to the State Department. The Moro Insurrection continued for years.

Pershing served as governor of the mostly Muslim Moro Province from 1909 to 1913, as the rebellion festered. Pershing’s decision to disarm the Moro in 1913 triggered more unrest, culminating in the Battle of Bud Bagsak in the south.

Pershing annihilated the Moro, but Trump’s suggestion of a fabled mass execution leading to peace is incorrect, Linn said.

“There was still lawlessness, homicide and banditry” that arguably continued for decades up to now, he said, as the government continues its brutal crackdown over drug traffickers and users.

Lost in Trump’s falsehood, Linn said, is the distortion of an officer who dedicated his life to a certain code of conduct.

“It’s a terrible defamation of the American soldier,” Linn said. “What does it say about Americans that they would take 50 people and shoot them? It’s a major war crime.”

Read more Retropolis:

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John McCain faced death twice as a Navy fighter pilot andsurvived brutal years as a POW

source: "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/18/after-barcelona-attack-trump-said-to-study-general-pershing-heres-what-the-president-got-wrong/?utm_term=.3241396409a4"

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UVA alum Tina Fey returns to SNL armed with cake to take down Trump and 'chinless turds' in Charlottesville

Tina Fey, a former "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update co-anchor, returned to the studio Thursday night to offer her thoughts on President Donald Trump and the violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Fey graduated from the University of Virginia, which is in Charlottesville, in 1992. The college town was the site of a white nationalist protest that turned deadly last Saturday.

"It broke my heart to see these evil forces descend upon Charlottesville," Fey said, appearing with current Weekend Update co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che.

After seeing Trump public ally condemn violence "on many sides," Fey said she felt "sick."

"I'veseen 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and I wasn't confused by it," Fey said."No, Colin, Nazis are always bad, I don't care what you say."

In the face of upcoming rallies this weekend, Fey's advice is to avoid the "screaming matches and potential violence," and instead, order a cake with the American flag on it and "just eat it."

"Then next time when you see a bunch of white boys in polo shirts screaming about taking our country back and you want to scream, 'It's not our country, we stole it. We stole from the Native Americans. And when they have a peaceful protest at Standing Rock we shoot at them with rubber bullets, but we let you chinless turds march the streets with semi-automatic weapons,'" Fey said.

"Andwhen you want to yell that, don't yell it at the Klan, Colin, yell it into thecake."

Fey explained that "sheetcaking is a grassroots movement ... Most of the women I know have been doing it once a week since the election."

Her final advice to "all sane Americans" is to treat the upcoming rallies "like the opening of a thoughtful movie with two female leads."

"Don't show up. Let these morons scream into the empty air," she said.

Watch Fey's full Weekend Update appearance below:

FULL VIDEO NOW>>

SEE ALSO: Trump's top advisers are reportedly 'despondent and numb' and unsure how his presidency will recover after Charlottesville >>

NOW WATCH: Golf legend Greg Norman reveals the truth behind President Bill Clinton's late-night 1997 injury >>

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'The Hitman's Bodyguard' review: Assassin meets boy scout; corpses ensue

'The Hitman's Bodyguard' review: Assassin meets boy scout; corpses ensue

Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds take aim for the umpteenth time in "The Hitman's Bodyguard." (Jack English/Lionsgate)

Commercial moviemaking is often a matter of crossing your fingers and worrying about the same thing Gene Kelly did in “Singin’ in the Rain,” when, at the last minute, Monumental Pictures turned “The Dueling Cavalier” into a musical. “You think it’ll get by?” Kelly wondered. Are movie stars enough to sell a breathlessly rewritten paste-up job?

So it is with “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” which is not a musical but is, according to reports, a breathlessly rewritten paste-up job. Once Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson agreed to star in this thing, about a fastidious bodyguard assigned to an “unkillable” hired assassin traveling from England to The Hague to testify against a brutal dictator, a straight-up action picture became a crooked sort of action comedy, massively violent but full of wisecracks in between the head shots.

The result is passable stupidity leaning hard on its wily leading men. The movie’s also pretty galling in its unceasing brutality for laughs. Right now some of us may find ourselves disinclined to see a movie like “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,”with terrorist attacks as sight gags and bodies flying all over London and Manchester and Amsterdam and points in between. (There’s a considerably better diversion with a little less blood on its mind, “Logan Lucky,” also opening this week.)

After a fatally botched job, “executive protection agent” Michael Bryce (Reynolds) finds himself scrounging for work. His ex-lover, an Interpol agent (Elodie Yung), guilts him into accompanying Darius Kincaid (Jackson) from a Manchester prison to The Hague to testify against the dictator. Meanwhile wave upon wave of Belarusian thugs in league with their murderous former president (Gary Oldman) attempt to kill, and kill again. Let the insults beginning or ending with Jackson screaming “m-----f-----” commence!

The bodyguard and his hit man have a weird history together, which screenwriter Tom O’Connor details in flashbacks recalling the worst of Guy Ritchie’s movies, where the visual footnotes and hyperlinked jumps back in time play like lazy storytelling rather than clever or surprising reveals. Salma Hayek, who usually slums it more effectively in roles and movies like these, overacts like a fiend as Darius’ imprisoned wife, who goes free once her husband testifies.

Director Patrick Hughes (“The Expendables 3”) manages one enjoyably frantic Amsterdam chase sequence, with Jackson and his busy stunt double speedboating along the canals while Reynolds (and his stunt man) zooms up and down streets on his motorcycle, with Belarusian thugs in hapless pursuit. The ultraviolence (faces held against hot griddles, etc.) I can do without; I don’t care if “that’s how action is these days.” Tellingly, the best laugh in the picture is a bit involving an aborted getaway and a couple of air bags, not a drop of fake blood or cartoonish digital effects.

At one point Oldman decries the “ludicrous charade” of his criminal trial, and the actor pronounces “ludicrous” with six or seven u’s, i.e., “luuuuuuuudicrous.” With that one vowel sound, a bored actor earns his paycheck. The movie persistently blinds the audience with flare-intensive, cheap-looking digital lensing by Jules O’Laughlin.

No matter; the film will likely make its money. In a recent interview with Vice, Jackson said he and Reynolds told the filmmakers: “If people get out of the way and let us do what we do, we can fix f---ed-up s--- that's on the page, and they'll look like superstars.” This is how things are today. The better and more ambitious the writing becomes on the small screen, in every genre, the more things stay the same at the multiplex.

Michael Phillips is a Chicago Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @phillipstribune

“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” — 2 stars

MPAA rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout)

Running time: 1:58

Opens: Thursday evening

source: http://www.latimes.com

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