REHEARSALS (Video)

John Cullum is getting ready to rejoin the cast of "Scottsboro Boys," the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical which was developed, and performed at the Vineyard Theater, last spring. The show is re-opening on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater, starting previews October 7th.

Emily Frankel enjoys John's pre-rehearsal process, and gets John to explain what he has to do in order to remember lines and choreography. John, of course, wants to keep his role "fresh," not just repeat what he did before, but recreate his part as the Interlocutor of the minstrel show, which is the theme, the concept of this musical.

One of his songs, though cut for a good reason (the producers and Kander felt it distracted from the end of the drama), is a favorite of Emily's. She asks John Cullum to sing a bit of it.

It's a special treat in this video on how Broadway Star Cullum prepares to open again on Broadway.

STONED TO DEATH

It's a vision, a horror, that I can't get out of my mind.

You Tube has videos of a 17-year-old girl being stoned to death in Iran. There are warnings before you click "start," that say the video is shocking.

It is shocking, but not very, very unbearably shocking.

Perhaps it would be more shocking if we saw the people who watched the stoning, the looks on their faces, the reaction of woman's family, the rocks -- someone picking up a rock and throwing it -- the look on his/her face. Maybe if we saw the family related to the man with whom the girl sinned -- if we saw their faces, their hands clenched or unclenched.

We just see a slender girl/woman -- no face -- no details. She appears to be sitting on the ground. Then, we see her stretched out on her side with an elbow bent -- we wonder if she's still alive. There's no movement. She's probably dying or dead.

What I saw left me empty, very, very tired.

Earlier this month, the Court in Tehran, Iran ruled that a 25-year-old woman, Maryam Ghorbanzadeh, convicted of adultery, must be executed despite her pregnancy.

Well ... there's good news -- her lawyer hopes to have the sentence 'commuted' to lashing.

At Tabriz prison, alongside Ghorbanzadeh, is Azhar Bakri, 19, who was also sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of adultery. Bakri was jailed four years ago after her husband, whom she married at 14, accused her of having an extramarital affair.

Well ... there's good news -- she's still alive though according to various reports, she's suffered massive abuse by the guards.

For many months, the case of 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has made headlines. Convicted of adultery in 2006, sentenced to death by stoning, she may, reports say, be lashed instead. There were reports saying she already received 99 lashes. Then, more recently, there were reports denying that she has been lashed.

The Islamic Republic's embassy in London says Ashtiani will not be stoned. The stoning reports are "false news," says Iran's embassy in London, according to Amnesty International-Associated Press.

Good news -- Ashtiani's lawyer says there is a chance the sentence would be changed into death by hanging.

The International Committee Against Executions (run by Iranian ex-patriots), vehemently denounced the verdicts and called for the immediate rescinding of all similar death penalties. They claim Tehran has rescinded 13 death sentences against women.

Ashtiani's cause was taken up by prominent figures as varied as Sen. John Kerry, Lindsay Lohan, the Norwegian office of Foreign Affairs, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, and British foreign secretary William Hague, who called stoning a "medieval punishment" that, if carried out, would "disgust and appall the watching world."

Ashtiani's children, 17 and 22, have sent letters to other Iranian human-rights organizations and received more than 10,000 e-mails about the case.

Google --Google offers searches related to stoning video: beheading video; execution video; hanging video; flogging video; public stoning video.

Talk ... Headlines ... "Do something" committees ... Protests ...

Yes, we have to protest, send emails, find ways to stop it, argue, discuss -- in our civilized clothes discuss with Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his civilized clothes -- things nuclear, American tourists jailed as spies, and his "there was no holocaust" theories.

I am unable to think or feel anything but a huge weight -- that we live in the 21st century, and women are stoned to death -- that women, like some poor animals, not humans who stand side-by-side with men, are destroyed brutally, horribly in a way that gives some kind of pleasure to others -- that a woman is a disposable creature.

EXERCISE (Video)

While writing a post for today about exercise, Emily got stuck.

The writing sounded too negative. Though exercise is a vital part of her daily routine, quite often she finds it boring, and a chore she postpones.

John jumped in, and reminded Emily how exercise saved her life after a car accident.

John Cullum's memories, John's questions, and Em's answers became a discussion -- and turned, unexpectedly, into this video blog on how to make boring exercise less boring.

CHENEY

I wonder how Cheney is doing, how his family is doing. Not because he's a favorite person of mine -- on the contrary. He and President George W. Bush changed America in ways that still reverberate, that still need to be fixed.

But he was our vice president for eight years, part of today's world, and not a person to ignore.

On September 2nd, Cheney's daughter, Liz, told Marie Stroughter, a host on African American Conservative radio, that her dad was doing a lot of physical therapy, hoping to go fishing real soon.

Now that the doctors have implanted a pump in Cheney's heart to compensate for increasing congestive heart failure, the 69-year-old former vice president is, according to his daughter, "Hard at work on his memoirs, putting his legacy with the George W. Bush administration into perspective."

Liz said: “He’s doing really well. He is back at home here in Virginia and he’s hoping to get back to what we really consider home, which is Wyoming, as soon as he can. His left-ventricular assist device is essentially a pump that helps his heart function, helps his heart to pump more effectively. And that’s working wonderfully. He’s doing a lot of physical therapy. He was in the hospital for about five weeks. So when you’re in the hospital for that long, it does take time to recover and come back. So that’s what he’s focused on very much now.”

Liz, an attorney who's had held key roles in the State Department under President Bush, explained further: “We’re looking forward to having the book come out, and also to having him get back to Wyoming. I think what he’d really like to do is get back on a drift boat on the Snake River and do some fishing. Hopefully that’ll come soon.”

Will Dick Cheney, once again, be giving comments to the media and offering advice to the White House about terrorism, war, and taxes? Or will lawyer Liz find ways of representing and promoting her father's ideas, as well as her own?

I have to say I HOPE NOT. The media grabbed onto anything they said, the more negative the better, and by repetition and news alerts, made Dick and Liz Cheney's remarks important, when they were NOT.

Yes, there's a part of me that revengefully hopes that book will never get written.

I can't help thinking that Cheney chatter/opinion helped to make Palin chatter/opinion muddier, messier, and therefore have some value. And Liz is a clever, ambitious politician -- she'll come up with new anti-Obama attacks and wedge herself into Republican no-saying, negative politics.

All I can do is hum the "September song."
...Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game ...

Oh dear ... I have to say it.

I find myself waiting for bad news about the Cheneys, both of them fading, fading away.