SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD? – FROM FOX:  James Woods has been dropped by his talent agent, and received the announcement in an email sent during the Fourth of July holiday.  The Oscar-nominated actor shared a screenshot of the email with the subject line “Well…” on his personal Twitter account.  The talent agent, Ken Kaplan, said that he’d come to the decision to no longer represent the outspoken conservative star because he was “feeling patriotic.”  “It’s the 4th of July and I’m feeling patriotic,” Kaplan wrote. “I don’t want to represent you anymore. I mean I can go on a rant but you know what I’d say.”  Woods, in return, tweeted his response to Kaplan, who he described as a “political liberal.”  “Dear Ken, I don’t actually. I was thinking if you’re feeling patriotic, you would appreciate free speech and one’s right to think as an individual,” Woods replied.  “Be that as it may, I want to thank you for all your hard work and devotion on my behalf. Be well.”  Fear dominates Hollywood.  This is a second McCarthy era, but, because the victims are conservatives, Hollywood doesn't much care.

AND SOME IN THE FILM BUSINESS CARRY ON, WITH COURGE – FROM HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:   Nick Loeb, famous for battling ex Sofia Vergara over frozen embryos, is co-directing a pro-life story of the landmark Supreme Court case, with a cast including conservative stars Jon Voight, Robert Davi and Stacey Dash.  As Nick Loeb walked to his car with a production assistant during a day of shooting his upcoming feature film, Roe v. Wade, outside Tulane University last week, a woman wearing a headset approached and asked: “Are you the director?”  “When I told her I was, she told me to go f... myself," Loeb recalls. "Then she threw her headset on the ground and walked off. I found out later she was our electrician."
Anecdotes such as this have become fairly common since Loeb and his production partner, Cathy Allyn, began shooting their pro-life feature film June 15 in and around New Orleans. The industry must end its hypocrisy, and offer support to those who make controversial films.  Otherwise, freedom of expression will be badly, perhaps fatally, damaged, and the industry will be on permanent life support.

REMARKABLE – FROM LMTONLINE:   Seventy may be the new sixty, eighty may be the new seventy, but 85 is still pretty old to work in America. Yet, in some ways, it is the era of the very-old-worker in America.  Overall, 255,000 Americans, 85-years-old and over, were working over the past 12 months. That's 4.4 percent of Americans that age, up from 2.6 percent in 2006, before the recession. It's the highest number on record.  They're doing all sorts of jobs - crossing guards, farmers and ranchers, even truckers, as my colleague Heather Long revealed in a front-page story last week. Indeed, there are between 1,000 and 3,000 U.S. truckers age 85 or older, based on 2016 Census Bureau figures. Their ranks have roughly doubled since the Great Recession.  America's aging workforce has defined the post-Great Recession labor market. Baby boomers and their parents are working longer as life expectancies grow, retirement plans shrink, education levels rise and work becomes less physically demanding. Labor Department figures show that at every year of age above 55, U.S. residents are working or looking for work at the highest rates on record.  I like this.  If people want to work into old age, and can, let 'em.

July 5, 2018