While I agree with his politics, Sean Penn is just as annoying and every bit as much an underinformed loudmouth as the radiorightists he harps against and the Fox News ‘Unfair and Unbalanced’ machine. Being an actor doesn’t make you an expert on media and politics.
I am a serious film fan who has a collection of hundreds of DVDs and has seen most of his roles as well as his four directorial efforts including ‘Into the Wild’ last year. Penn is an above average talent given the right scripts, but should study up and get a degree before becoming the voice of our generation.

Salvaging Sean Penn’s Boat
By Joal Ryan
Fri, 9 Sep 2005 04:45:00 PM PDT

Sean Penn is a big target. But to dozens stranded in flooded New Orleans, he was said to be an even bigger help.
“I witnessed him rescuing up to 40 people,” presidential historian and author Douglas Brinkley told the New York Daily News. “He was up to his waist in toxic muck…I’m not going to comment on Sean’s trips to Iraq or Iran, but in this case, he was an American hero.”
On CNN’s Larry King Live, Penn, 45, said he was just another person watching Hurricane Katrina coverage on TV, except owing to the fruits of his Oscar-winning fame, “I could afford to get on an airplane and get down there.”
“It became easy to get out, for me to get a boat, and get out on the water with some other people, and try to get people out of the water,” Penn said.
Penn’s CNN appearance was his first since Australia’s Herald Sun ridiculed the actor’s rescue work, claiming it “foundered badly” due to a leaky boat “loaded with members of [the star’s] entourage, including a personal photographer.”
Brinkley, a professor at New Orleans’ own Tulane University who accompanied Penn on his voyage through the under-water city, was among the first to denounce the report. “There was never a leak,” he said in the Daily News. On Larry King Live, Penn concurred: “The boat never sank.”
According to Brinkley, the boat did take on water—because it was “overloaded” with storm survivors. According to Penn, his “entourage” consisted of “a couple of friends.” (The actor’s camp denied the existence of the “personal photographer.”)
Penn said he spent about nine hours in the water. In that time, he told Larry King, he saw only three military-helmed boats.
“Most of the National Guard presence was in the air,” Penn said. “They were doing a great job, those that were there. But there weren’t enough there.”
Celebrities, like Penn, who have been there—the Gulf Coast cities destroyed by Katrina—have come under the requisite fire. Conservative news site NewsMax.com accused “Hollywood’s elite” of using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to bash President Bush or “seek publicity for themselves.”
Penn, who took heat in recent years for his tours of Iraq and Iran, said “it doesn’t really matter” if people think he took to the flood waters for publicity. (His upcoming film, a remake of All the King’s Men, was largely shot in New Orleans.)
“We got a lot of people out of the water,” Penn said on CNN. “The rest is for people to talk about.”
Other stars who have given people something to talk about by diving in with hands-on relief work include: Julia Roberts, hugging evacuees at a shelter in Alabama; Chris Rock, helping staff a food bank in Houston; John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston, flying in supplies to Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Matthew McConaughey, lending a hand in Waveland, Mississippi; Lisa Marie Presley, trucking in food and toiletries to Mississippi; Faith Hill, doing her own Mississippi run with three rented semis; Jamie Foxx, visiting Katrina survivors at the Houston Astrodome; and Macy Gray, volunteering at the Astrodome and offering to “adopt” 10 families made homeless by the disaster.
With the exceptions of Gray and Penn, all were pitching in for Oprah Winfrey’s so-called Team Angel effort. Wrote columnist Maureen Ryan in the Chicago Tribune: “Can someone tell President Bush to call Oprah?”
Even more celebrities, Oprah-affiliated or no, were expected to participate in a trio of hurricane-relief telethons being mounted this weekend by the big six broadcast networks, BET and MTV.
Penn, meanwhile, has challenged the Herald Sun to get involved, too.
“If they’d like to stand up to the plate, and help some of the people,” Penn said on CNN, “I would be right with them on it.”

http://katrinacoverage.com/2005/09/13/a-correction-for-sean-penn.html

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=37295

Must have a movie coming out
EFFORTS by Hollywood actor Sean Penn to aid New Orleans victims stranded by Hurricane Katrina foundered badly overnight, when the boat he was piloting to launch a rescue attempt sprang a leak.

Mr Penn had planned to rescue children waylaid by Katrina’s flood waters, but apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of the vessel, which began taking water within seconds of its launch.
The actor, known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup.

When the boat’s motor failed to start, those aboard were forced to use paddles to propel themselves down the flooded New Orleans street.

Asked what he had hoped to achieve in the waterlogged city, the actor replied: “Whatever I can do to help.”

With the boat loaded with members of Penn’s entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: “How are you going to get any people in that thing?”

pure poetry..

Faux has come to San Diego, let’s see what channel Six News does now.  Funny, just yesterday McSame was here.  And just today, I read in the Union Tribune, that the Fox was sneaking into our TV’s, and the channel six news team was wondering where they stood..

Hey folks watch out! Is it a coincidence or what?  Beware when McSame comes politicking in your town, your local news station may becomoe Foxed!

Yes, they do. Just because some people who believe as I do are less sophisticated in their rejection statements does not mean my point is any less valid.

Please refer to above comment left for ‘Marshall’.......

“They” .......act like children…..?

...subjective conjecture, speculation, and opinion from a small, sadly simplistic and muddy world view in which no good deed goes unpunished…

What is significant about this, perhaps, is that Fox may have gotten some light shown on it for what it is—crass entertainment and not news. (Fox, the Un-News: Un-Fair, Un-Balanced.)

Celebrities get attention—deserved or not—precisely because they are celebrities. The Media point their cameras at (or otherwise and put their attention on) them because they think it will get people to watch (or read).

It is the fault of the media and not the celebrities. There are far more intelligent and much better informed people in this world that the media should be bring to people’s attention. But that’s a different issue.

(Of course, as celebrities are usually getting attention, some may be inclined to take the opportunity to make a political statement; as they have the opportunity.)

Penn is not, as his normal self, as many actors are, so erudite as his movie roles may indicate. Bondi10001 makes a good point. Penn is no scholar.

But any prominent anti-Fox news is good news.

You mean among the thousands of others, including those who risk lives and rescue daily?  Sure - he can afford to take off from his “day job” to rush out for a Katrina photo shoot and make himself feel less guilty for living the privileged life while he’s at it.

No one said celebrities don’t make charitable gestures; just that they typically do it for tax, self-promotional, and guilt-assuaging purposes… often while still managing to remain woefully ignorant of the very causes they address.

I am remembering some footage I saw of Sean Penn in a boat helping to rescue flooded-out people after Katrina…

Sean Penn gives a speech about gay acceptance and then uses an inherently anti-gay pejorative “butt boy” to describe Sean Hannity.  Some of us actual butt-boys are not amused.

That’s a lie perpetuated by Hollywood to try and martyrize their blundering and stupidity. Just how they try and pretend when they give speeches or show up at a protest they are helping us succeed. Well, if that were true, we’d be out of Iraq wouldn’t we?

The fact is, it is only self-righteousness and self-worship which motivates most of these Hollywood actors to make any kind of public statement. Often, they are under-informed and do our movement a disservice by spouting ignorant rhetoric, which has little basis in reality.

If we are going to hold the righties and the neo-conservatives who lie to a standard, we have to hold the same standard for those on “our side.” We don’t hold celebrities to that standard, though. It’s disgusting what they say sometimes. They act like children.

I find it amazing that actors are told to shut their mouths and act, as if those doing the telling have much better, sounder opinions which they simply choose to keep to themselves.  In America, free speech is an entitled freedom regardless of your occupation.  The fact that celebrity expands the stage on which actor’s thoughts are heard and seen says more about the society that elevates celebrity than it does about celebrity opinion.

Agreed. I too wish everyone didn’t accept Faux News pundits words as fact, when in most cases it’s just glorified fiction. There is a reason the sheeple are “instructed” to get their news nightly when they are tired from a long days work and critical thinking is the last thing on their mind.

I’m also on a mini mission to remove the work “Democracy” when referring to the way our American government was intended to be setup. Our founding fathers intended for the US to be a Constitutional Republic not a Democracy. I, for one, never want to live in nor spread Democracy.

I am all for the American Right to make an Ass of yourself in Public.so I encourage BillO,Rush & Hannity to keep moving their mouths- It helps the rest of US ...Remain Silent and be thought a Fool or open your mouth and dispell All Doubt.
But it is time we Clearly mark Show as editorials (OpEds)and repeat the warning during every commerical break. funny how Cable was supposed to b ecommercial Free- anyone else remember when MTV had no commercials- makes you wonder why we need to pay a cable fee ah (Profits and Propaganda)
The Term Cable “News’ is false advertising, plain & simple…Commentaries and Viewpoints determined by the media Moguls- Free Press was to include all forms of Mass Communications. To aid insult to injury these ‘news’ outlets have the audacity to hold ‘Democratic’ (or Republican) Presidential Debates but are NOT required to invite All Candidates..Should there still be some truth in advertising- esp on this matter? MSNBC (which I watch for my slanted coverage) should have called it the ‘Hand Picked, Corp Approved Presidential Debates’?
Butthen again if we truely lived in a Democracy all candiates would be on every states ballots from start to finish- not having to ‘drop out’ because of lack of funds. Of course that would require we start using the Technology available to US to allow everyone to vote on the same Day, Since Mass communication makes it no longer necessary for candidates to “Stump’ to be seen & heard by the People.As usual ‘Gifts’ to mankind are seized and hoarded by those who aim to control the massses.

Well, Gomers, I believe these people have the rights to their opinions like any other American citizen. Just would like the self-righteousness to get snuffed out before they open their mouth.

Pfft, all these Hollywood folk are irrelevant. Sean Penn is not a hero. He’s not even very courageous. He’s just someone with celebrity status, which pulls dumbass stunts and says controversial things to get young independents to watch his crappy films.

No. Jack Nicholson is irrelevant.

And Fox news will be fine if Hillary has her say, but one can only hope. It’s all we have left.

Sean Penn is ridiculously irrelevant. All his shrill rabble-rousing is about as effective as Hillary Clinton’s campaign with twice the irritation factor.