Gloria Cain

On Monday night, when the Fox News program “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren airs an interview with Herman and Gloria Cain, it will be the first time most in the country will have a face to go with the name of the Republican presidential candidate’s wife. It will be the first time most hear her voice or anything she has to say — about who she is, what she does with her time.

And, according to excerpts from the show, Gloria Cain addresses the sexual harassment allegations that have put her husband on the defensive for the past two weeks, allegations dating to the 1990s when he was head of the National Restaurant Association.

“I’m thinking he would have to have a split personality to do the things that were said,” Gloria Cain tells Van Susteren, according to an excerpt from the transcript. She also says: “You hear the graphic allegations, and we know that would have been something that’s totally disrespectful of her as a woman. And I know the type of person he is. He totally respects women.”

The interview turns the preternaturally silent political spouse from meta-story — about how tough it is to come by information on Gloria Cain — to story.

And, presumably, it will settle any questions about her height.

As Herman Cain has defended himself against charges that he made unwanted comments and advances toward several women, he has said that it was comparisons to his wife’s height that led one woman to make allegations against him in a claim that was settled.

He has also said that his wife of 43 years — the two met as college students in Atlanta, where he attended Morehouse and she went to Morris Brown — remains “200 percent supportive of me,” and is “still 200 percent my wife.”

After Chicagoan Sharon Bialek’s news conference last week detailing harassment allegations, including that Cain groped her, he recalled what his wife told him over the phone: “The things that woman described, she said that doesn’t even sound like you, and I’ve known you for 45 years.” Cain said, “My own wife said that I wouldn’t do anything as silly as what that lady was talking about.”

For all her husband’s repeated invocations of her, Gloria Cain has remained the campaign’s mystery woman. Their hometown newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, says that aside from appearing with her husband as he announced his presidential run in May, she’s been “largely absent since.” The photo most of the media uses of her is from that announcement, and there appear to be no quotes from her in circulation. According to the paper, local voting records show she voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primary.

The few details about her come from the candidate’s new biography, “This Is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.” Chapter 3, entitled “Gloria,” begins with a passage from Proverbs about “a virtuous woman.” He talks about being first drawn to her good looks: “Gloria Etchison was beautiful. Let’s face it; I was first attracted by her looks. And then I figured out she was also smart.”

frank gore

How’s this for a compliment?

When asked on Friday about San Francisco back Frank Gore, Osi Umenyiora said, “Outside of Adrian Peterson, he’s probably the best running back in football. He’s very good.”

So just how do the Giants, who rank 24th in the league in yards allowed per game (127.1), plan to stop Gore. Read more on that here, courtesy of Giants beat writer Ohm Youngmisuk.

In the meantime, do you agree with Umenyiora? Is Gore the second-best back in football? Let us know in the comments section below.

Rumpelstiltskin

Judging by what I’ve heard in my office (I work with a couple of sixty-year-old ladies who live well beyond the reach of online buzz), Once Upon a Time is getting some pretty good word-of-mouth. And since the premise is a bit convoluted, it’s no surprise that the second episode had to reiterate most of the copious exposition from the pilot, just to make sure that newcomers are welcome. This could have made the episode a bit boring for us old hands, but luckily the episode is saved by some much-needed flashing out of the show’s villain.

We open this week right where we left off: with the clocks in Storybrook finally moving. Everyone’s happy! Except Regina, the town’s sinister mayor, who is actually the Evil Queen. She realizes that there are pages missing from Henry’s fairy tale book, and she needs them so she can figure out what is going wrong with her plan. She goes to visit Emma at the Storybrook Bed and Breakfast, where she brings her some lovely apples that she picked from her tree. Subtle, Queenie. Emma realizes she’s being threatened and refuses to leave town.

Meanwhile, a flashback fills out the details of how The Evil Queen put the Enchanted Forest under a curse. Turns out when she was threatening Snow and Charming at their wedding, her words were empty: as her faithful servant and Magic Mirror remind her, she doesn’t even have the curse anymore. She traded it away to her friend Maleficent to get the Sleeping Curse she placed on Snow White. So she pays Maleficent a visit to get the curse back. First she asks nicely, but Maleficent insists the curse should never be used (which raises the question of why she ever wanted it in the first place, but whatever). So Queenie gets a bit rough and takes it by force. She convenes a council of evil fairy tales to help her with the curse, but the darn thing doesn’t work. Turns out that in order to get the thing working, she’ll need to consult the man who gave the thing to her in the first place– Rumpelstiltskin.

Meanwhile in Storybrook, Regina has had Sydney (the Storybrook version of her Magic Mirror) dig up some dirt on Emma to print in the local paper (The ‘Daily Mirror,’ get it?), but all he’s got is the fact that she crashed into the sign on her way out of town last week. She’s unhappy, but at least it’s getting Emma some dirty looks in the local café. Someone buys her a hot cocoa with cinnamon, and she looks over and sees the sheriff, who flirts with her. But no, it wasn’t him who bought it: in was Henry. She asks how he knew she liked cinnamon in her cocoa, and it turns out he does too. Aww. Emma walks him to school, where she meets Henry’s teacher Ms. Blanchard. She mentions that Henry thinks she’s Snow White and asks Emma who she’s supposed to be. This makes things awkward, so Emma doesn’t answer.

Emma goes looking for Henry’s therapist, Dr. Hopper (A.K.A. Jiminy Cricket), who explains that Henry is using the fairy tale book to deal with the very real problems in his life. Due to Emma’s interest, he offers to give her Henry’s file to look through. I guess there’s no confidentiality in Storybrook, and Emma doesn’t even question it. But it turns out that he only gave it to her on Regina’s orders. Later, the sheriff comes looking for Henry’s file, telling her that Dr. Hopper reported it stolen. Although he believes that she’s innocent, he places her under arrest. Regina tries to use this to demonstrate to Henry that Emma is no good, but Henry only goes down to the station with Ms. Blanchard, who pays her bail. Emma gets back at Regina by taking a chainsaw to her apple tree. Great idea, wrecking havoc in the mayor’s garden right after you get out of jail.

Back in flashback, when the Evil Queen visits Rumpelstiltskin in prison, he admits that he told Snow and Charming everything they needed to know about how to break her curse. But since he clearly has no allegiance to them, Rumpy is willing to deal with the Queen as well. He tells her everything he told them, and also tells her all she needs to know to make the curse work: she has to cut out the heart of the one she loves the most. The Queen insists that she can’t do this, because Snow White took that person away from her forever, but Rumpelstiltskin says that there must be someone she has in mind. In return for this information, Rumpelstiltskin demands that in this new world, he will be someone rich and powerful, and also that as long as he says “please,” the Queen will have to do anything he asks. Dismissively, the Queen allows this, thinking that Rumpelstiltskin will not even remember this encounter. Uh oh, Queenie. Bad call.

Anyhow. Present day. When Emma returns to the B&B she’s told to leave because they can’t house a felon. Regina calls offering a truce and Emma goes over to chat. It’s nice and pleasant, until Emma casually refers to Henry’s story about the curse as “crazy.” Henry was right outside the room and heard. He gets angry and storms off. Oh, no. It was a setup! Regina admits as much.

Back in the Evil Queen’s castle, she agonizes about whether she should go through with killing the person she loves the most. It turns out that the one she loves most is her servant, because he’s not actually her servant… it’s her father. He tries to talk her down from the dark path she’s taking, but despite her reluctance, she’s determined to get back at Snow White for what she did. So while her father embraces her, she stabs him and takes his heart. Sorry, dad. That’s what you get for naming your daughter “Evil Queen.”

In the present, Emma goes to visit Ms. Blanchard, who also likes cinnamon in her cocoa. After alienating Henry, Emma is thinking of leaving, but Ms. Blanchard convinces her that she needs to stay, so she can protect Henry. Emma then goes and barges in on Henry’s therapy session with Dr. Hopper and convinces him that she is willing to believe him: just because his story is “crazy” doesn’t mean it’s not also true. In order to fight the Evil Queen, they’ll need to pretend that they don’t believe in the curse… and they’ll need to burn the missing pages of the book so Regina can never figure out their plan. They do this. Meanwhile, the writer and director of the episode forget that Mr. Hopper is also in the room.

Back in the flashback, the Evil Queen finally uses her father’s heart to put the curse in place. We then see a shot of his grave, and learn that his name was Henry. Hmm. Interesting. In the present day, Regina is cleaning the damage from Emma’s aggressive gardening, when Mr. Gold (A.K.A. Rumpelstiltskin) enters her yard and begins chatting. It turns out that he was the one who arranged Henry’s adoption. Regina suspiciously asks Mr. Gold where he found Henry, and Mr. Gold does not answer, asking her instead where she got the name Henry. When she realizes that he knows more than he should, she starts to demand answers, but he responds by saying she’ll have to let him go… “please.”

That last scene is kind of intriguing. But while it’s interesting to know a little bit more about the Queen’s relationship with Rumpelstiltskin, nothing there is really all that surprising. For the most part, not much happens in the Storybrook half of this episode that didn’t already happen in the pilot. Emma realizes that Regina is an untrustworthy, conniving bitch, and considers leaving Henry and his problems in Storybrook but decides to stay at the last moment. It’s all a bit same-y so far, and it leaves me wondering what the week-to-week plots are going to be like in Storybrook.

But the Fairy Tale flashback portion of the episode is immediately delivering on the potential of the pilot. Once again I have to draw comparisons to Lost, whose blood pumps through the beating heart of this show’s writer’s room. This episode follows the blueprint of the best early episodes of Lost, following one character in flashbacks that illuminate that character’s present behavior in interesting ways. While Regina/The Evil Queen seemed like a remorseless villain in the pilot, who did evil for no reason other than to live up to her name. Here she gets a welcome injection of humanity… maybe even complexity. And it doesn’t hurt that the action scene where she fights Maleficent is pretty cool too.

I came to this show hoping for lightweight fantasy fun, so the little glimpses of depth we’re getting are a nice surprise. After seeing how much this has benefited the Evil Queen, I can’t wait to see the rest of the denizens of Storybrook get fleshed out as well, one at a time.

Election results 2011

In an election that may offer an early glimpse of the political climate for next year’s presidential contest, American voters showed they are frustrated but cautious – not moving sharply left or right.

Voters who cast their ballots Tuesday dished up big servings of humble pie to both major political parties.

Mississippi voters, in a surprise reversal of expectations, defeated conservatives’ efforts to win America’s first “personhood” law relating to human embryos. The ballot initiative would have declared that life begins at the moment of fertilization – a challenge to abortion rights that for a time looked set to pass in the Bible Belt state.

Election 101: What’s the Republican primary calendar for 2012?

And in Ohio, a key swing state for the coming presidential race, voters overturned a Republican-backed law curbing the bargaining power of public-sector labor unions.

It was a major win for liberals, indicating that voters have limits when it comes to embracing Republican prescriptions for curbs on union power and related cuts in government spending as a solution for budget deficits. The outcome ripples beyond Ohio, energizing the spirits of labor unions and their supporters nationwide.

If those outcomes signal that many voters believe Republicans overreached coming out of their victorious 2010 midterm elections, it’s hard to read Tuesday’s overall results as giving any major boost to President Obama’s bid for reelection. He will be battling high disapproval ratings over his own performance and public frustration over the weak economy. Traditionally, high unemployment rates pose a big obstacle to retaining the White House.

“Based on the likely state of the economy in 2012, President Obama faces a steep uphill task to secure reelection,” said a recent analysis by economists at the forecasting firm IHS Global Insight, based in Lexington, Mass. “A Republican opponent lacking broad appeal could tilt the balance back in favor of the president. But it does appear that this is an election that is the Republicans’ to lose.”

In fact, even as Ohio voters handed Democrats a win on union bargaining power, those same voters passed a ballot initiative to prohibit people from being required to buy health insurance as part of the national health-care overhaul. The vote was mostly symbolic, but Republicans hope to use it in a legal challenge to Obama’s health-care reform law.

The Republican Party also picked up at least one seat in the Virginia state Senate, a litmus test of voters’ mood in another vital swing state that Mr. Obama won in 2008. A second Virginia Senate seat hung in the vote-counting balance early Wednesday, which could potentially give Republicans effective control of the legislature, as well as the governorship.

Recent nationwide opinion polls reveal a frustrated electorate, with a large majority seeing the nation going down the “wrong track.” Yet that frustration is fueled partly by a desire among independent voters for more moderation in policies – such as compromises by both parties on core issues such as taxes and spending.

The votes on Tuesday reflected a certain caution about radical change. Many Ohioans sympathized with core elements of the Republican law restricting public employee unions, yet overturned it because of concerns that it went too far.

The Ohio law called on public employees to pay more for their health care, and to have their pay and job security tied more to performance rather than seniority. But it also would have stripped unions’ rights to strike and the ability of unions to collect dues from public employees who benefit financially from collective bargaining but do not join the union.

drake take care album

Drake’s “Take Care,” is one of the most anticipated albums of 2011 and it has found its way on to the Internet a week before its release. At first it was just a pair of tracks — “Lord Knows,” featuring Rick Ross and the title track, featuring Rihanna — that leaked from the hip-hop star’s sophomore album. Now the entire thing is “out there,” prompting him to tweet, “Listen, enjoy it, buy it if you like it…and take care until next time.” While most albums inevitably leak, Drake and his management were hoping to follow in the footsteps of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s summer blockbuster “Watch the Throne,” which reached its official release date without leaking.

“Take Care” will be officially available on Nov. 15, the same day Drake was scheduled to play a since-canceled concert at the Patriot Center. Last year’s “Thank Me Later” checked in at No. 8 on our Chris Richards’ list of top 10 albums of 2010.