Watching The View

Laura Ling, the sister of former View host Lisa Ling, has been detained by North Korean officials on the border of North Korea and China. According to the AP, Laura, along with another journalist, Euna Lee, were “detained by North Korea for ignoring warnings to stop shooting footage of the reclusive country.”

I am familiar with Laura’s work on the Current TV channel and she was likely filming something for them at the time of her detention. According to the organization “Reporters without Borders,” Ling and Lee were last seen on March 17th and the North Koreans claim that they “illegally crossed into North Korea from China while shooting video along the river.”

I first was alerted to the story on Twitter, where Sherri Shepherd posted, “Lisa Ling’s sister is being detained in Korea - they’re hoping Clinton can intercede - please pray for Laura Ling’s safe return home.”

The View, Lisa Ling, Laura Ling

Today on The View, all five hosts were present. Barbara Walters interviewed Patrick Swayze over the weekend. He has pancreatic cancer. He sent Whoopi Goldberg a hug. Then Barbara talked about her “fascinating” special and Joy mentioned the high ratings. Barbara said it was the highest rated since 2004. She said that everyone knew that Barack Obama would be the most fascinating. Sherri and Whoopi said they didn’t know. Then Barbara renamed some of the other people in the special, as though we forgot. Elisabeth said that she did not vote for Obama in the election, but voted for him for most fascinating. Then they showed the clip of Joy Behar’s appearance at the end of the special where she asked Barbara what she had to do to make the list. My favorite suggestion Joy had was “breastfeed Cha Cha.” Tom Cruise called her after the special, as did Will Smith.

Elisabeth tried to “get all Christmas-y” this weekend and make a gingerbread house with Grace. They showed a picture of it and Whoopi said it looked like the gingerbread projects. Joy said it is lopsided because there is a housing crisis. Elisabeth said it was pathetic because she has an industrial design degree. Whoopi said that her gingerbread cookie supplier died and she cannot find a good replacement. She likes the cookies chewy, but likes to set them out so they get a little crisper. Barbara said that on Wednesday they will bring her a selection of cookies to choose from.
(more…)

As part of my efforts to de-clutter my home, I am going through all of my old VHS tapes to see which ones I should hang onto and which ones should be discarded. I was not very diligent with my labeling, so I have to watch each of them to see what exactly is on each. It is like a journey back in time with each tape I put in the VCR.

Last night, I found an old episode of The View from 1999. I had recorded it (and saved it) because Kevin Spacey was one of the guests on the show. He was on there to promote American Beauty, which had just been released and was getting Oscar buzz. It was funny to know how that all turned out.

From a production standpoint, there were many differences between the 1999 View and the 2008 View:

There were also some things that were exactly the same as they are now:

They also talked about how some stars have clauses in their contracts where they have to portray a certain image. They were specifically talking about Melissa Joan Hart posing for men’s magazines getting her in trouble with the creators of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Barbara said that her contract forbids her from endorsing a candidate. Meredith said that Barbara could sit there bare-breasted and not get fired. Barbara agreed that she could sit there bare-breasted, so long as she doesn’t endorse a candidate while doing it.

They were talking about endorsing candidates because several celebrities had recently expressed a desire to run for public office, including Warren Beatty, Cybil Shepherd, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump. Both Meredith and Star said if they were force to pick one it would be Donald Trump, which I thought was funny. Joy made a joke that if Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected then we would know what it would be like if Germany had one the war. Barbara scolded her for making an inappropriate joke. Some things never change I guess.

As an aside, the next thing on the tape was a 1999 episode of The Rosie O’Donnell Show which I had saved because Jesse L. Martin was on it. He had just gotten the role on Law and Order. Rosie convinced him to sing a little bit of a song from Rent, even though he was embarrassed. Her show still made me laugh all these years later.

Former View co-host Lisa Ling will return to The View for a guest appearance on March 27th. She will be on the show to promote her new special about underage prostitution entitled “Who Cares About Girls: Sex Workers or Victims?” which will air on Oxygen on March 30th.

Here is the information from the press release:

Lisa Ling reports on the underage prostitution crisis in the U.S. with in-depth coverage on cases in New York, Dallas and Las Vegas. She speaks with current and former juvenile prostitutes, rides along with law enforcement officers trying to stop the traffickers and goes behind-the-scenes at innovative programs committed to giving these girls an opportunity to build a better life. Of the estimated hundreds of thousands of juveniles involved in domestic sex trade in the U.S., most are victims of rape, abuse and torture. While girls trafficked from other countries are protected under the law and entitled to medical treatment and social services, there are few such policies for American girls. United States law often sees them as juvenile delinquents and they are prosecuted as criminals. “Who Cares About Girls: Sex Workers or Victims?” airs Sunday, March 30 at 9 pm ET on Oxygen.

Former View host Lisa Ling has partnered with Uber.com to create a website where she will share with the public all of the people and organizations that she has encountered in her travels that are “doing good work.”

The site includes photos and reports from her worldwide work with the National Geographic Channel and the Oxygen network. The site is described as “part resource, part news source, part travelogue, part blog and part call to action.”

Lisa will also be giving the keynote address at the Leadership Symposium in Burns Backcourt at Loyola Marymount University on Monday January 28th.

Ling will be discussing her own experiences as an investigative journalist while addressing leadership as it relates to social justice - central concepts of the newly founded Leadership Institute created by the Division of Student Affairs last year.

source