Page 2 December 27, 2018
How Women Business Owners Entertainment
Cracked The Glass Ceiling
Film Review
Vice Review: Beware the Quiet Man
By Morgan Rojas
for www.cinemacy.com
Mystery has always surrounded the life and
legacy of Vice President Dick Cheney, second
in command to then-President George W.
Bush, as he stood seemingly in the shadows
during a divisive eight-year term. In Adam
McKay’s Vice, already a frontrunner in the
awards chatter, Cheney’s life is examined
in a “true-ish” fashion, along with some
admittedly creative liberty. Cheney was a
very secretive man after all, before and during
his political reign -- and with little concrete
material to work with, McKay and company
tell us from get-got go, “We did our best.”
At the time of this review, Vice holds the
record as the most nominated film this year.
Christian Bale transforms both literally and
figuratively into the overweight social climber
Richard “Dick” Cheney, who jumped on an
opportunity to attach himself to Donald
Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) and ride the
political wave into the White House. The
film begins on the morning of September
11, 2001, with Cheney and other Washington
heavyweights watching the horrific events
unfold. Surrounded by chaos, commotion,
confusion and fear, Cheney remains as cool
as a cucumber and, if we are to believe
McKay’s rendition, is the one who truly leads
this country to war. With George W. Bush
(Sam Rockwell) as the nation’s figurative
leader, Cheney is portrayed as the silent
mastermind quietly controlling the strings and
loving his position of absolute power while
he pushed political (and ethical) boundaries.
“Beware the quiet man,” goes the saying,
and Cheney proves this warning to be accurate.
A booze-loving partier in his earlier years,
which resulted in getting him kicked out
of Yale, Cheney was forced to rein it in by
his steadfast and loyal wife Lynne (Amy
Adams). Together, they would raise two
daughters Mary (Alison Pill) and Liz (Lily
Rabe) and live a comfortable life, but it
was Cheney’s power-hungry personality that
eventually landed him in the White House.
His career trajectory is fascinating, while at
the same time horrifying, as a tangled web
of politics is exposed (it’s crazy to think
how Watergate seemed like a simpler time
in comparison to today’s political climate).
Vice feels much like director Adam
McKay’s previous praiseworthy governmental
introspective drama The Big Short, which is a
multi-dimensional moving collage instead of
a straightforward drama. I wish McKay had
taught my history class. I learned so much
more about the happening of our government
watching The Big Short and now Vice than
during my 16 years of schooling. I credit
this to McKay’s unmatched way of using
humor and unconventional film techniques
-- like running credits halfway through the
film as a “gotcha” moment or breaking into
a Shakespearean soliloquy -- to shake up the
narrative. Speaking of which, Jesse Plemons
acts as the film’s narrator and further explains
important plot points with the help of infographics
(his mysterious relationship to
Cheney is explained later).
For a political film, Vice isn’t pushing an
agenda too hard one way or the other. Some
facts can’t be disputed, like the incredibly
thin margin of 537 votes that tipped Bush
and Cheney into the White House. There is,
however, no denying the uncanny control
Cheney was able to obtain through smoothtalking
and self-confidence. From being
the youngest chief of staff in history to
essentially controlling the United States of
America, Vice shows that Cheney’s quest for
power was silent... and deadly.
Vice is rated R for language and some violent
images. 132 minutes. Opening everywhere
this Christmas. •
Vice, Courtesy of Annapurna Pictures.
Finance
(BPT) - Today there are nearly 12 million
women-owned small businesses in the United
States that generate almost $1.7 trillion in
revenues. But 30 years ago, it wasn’t the same
story - these business owners’ financial futures
could have been out of their hands due to sexist
lending practices, incomplete government data
and limited advocacy on their behalf.
In 1988, women owned just 4.1 million
businesses in the U.S - which may have been
partially because acquiring financing was so
difficult. Up until 1988, lenders could require
women business owners seeking financing
to have a male cosigner. This shocking and
unfair practice made it difficult for women
business owners to get the funding they
needed to grow - limiting their ability to do
everything from open a new location to make
payroll or even just refinance other debt.
That all changed with the passage of H.R.
5050, also known as the Women’s Business
Ownership Act of 1988. This legislation is
considered a landmark for women in business,
changing the landscape of business financing
for women in the United States forever.
H.R. 5050 went on to shape the future of
women and business in three critical ways:
It Banned Lenders from
Requiring a Male Cosigner.
One of the many witnesses to the H.R.
5050 hearings was a woman who didn’t have
a husband, father or brother available - so
she had to ask her 17-year-old son to cosign
a business loan for her, which sadly was not
an unusual story. By making this practice
illegal, the bill helped level the playing field
for women in business.
It Created the National
Women’s Business Council.
This council was established as an independent
and nonpartisan federal advisory
council. Today, it advises on issues of impact
and interest to women business owners by
providing data and research to the White
House, Congress, the Small Business Administration
and the public.
It Required The U.S. Census
to Track Women-Owned
C-Corporations When
Reporting Data
In the 1980s, the Small Business Administration
released a report that mistakenly
claimed almost all women-owned businesses
were home-based and had sales of under
$10,000 per year - largely because data to
the contrary wasn’t available. Knowing this to
be a factually misleading report, the National
Association of Women Business Owners’
then-president, Gillian Rudd, held a press
conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol
to publicly call out the misguided report,
which kicked off the call for H.R. 5050.
With the belief that knowledge is power, this
bill mandated that the government collect
more complete information on the state of
women-owned businesses.
Together, these pillars helped pave the road
for women business owners - and over the
past 15 years alone, women-owned enterprises
have grown 1.5 times faster than other small
enterprises. Access to capital is crucial for
any business, and this legislation helped
evolve long-outdated practices and beliefs
that unfairly favored men. In recent years,
online lending platforms like Funding Circle
are helping to create opportunities for all.
There still may be miles to go in continuing
to equalize credit opportunity for everyone,
but this significant step in women’s business
history is surely worthy of celebration. •
Morgan Rojas.
Obamacare from front page
coverage, but many pay far less, officials say.
One out of every three Covered California
consumers who receive financial help can
purchase a Silver plan — which provides
the best overall value — for $50 or less
per month. Nearly three out of five of these
consumers can get a Silver plan for $100 or
less per month.
Consumers trying to make the Jan. 15
deadline can reach the Covered California
service center by calling (800) 300-1506.
Available health plans for consumers are
explained in detail at www.CoveredCA.com.
The website features a shop and compare tool
for exploring coverage options and learning
whether an individual or family can qualify
for financial assistance for 2019.
Private health plans aren’t the only
component of Obamacare. Covered California
has enrolled more than five million people
in the Medi-Cal since the exchange opened
for 2013. Congress also boosted funding to
the CHIP program for low-income families
with children, which has contributed to falling
uninsured rates across the nation.
Proponents of Obama’s health care
expansion law worry that more Americans
could stay on the sidelines in 2019 without
coverage because of recent events surrounding
Obamacare. Those include lowered federal
spending on advertising and outreach,
the congressional repeal of the individual
mandate, and the Trump administration’s
rule change making alternative health plans
more available for consumers who say that
Obamacare priced them out of the market. •
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