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A press release from the WGA today demonstrated how the Guild has the potential to be a merciful awards-show-waiver-granting Hollywood entity, announcing that they have reached a pact with the NAACP allowing the Image Awards to proceed as planned:

The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) announced today at a press conference that it will sign an interim agreement with the NAACP for The 39th NAACP Image Awards, which will take place on February 14, 2008, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

The agreement will allow the hiring of WGA writers to script the show and means that there will be no picketing of the event by striking writers. In addition, the Guild has granted a waiver permitting the use of clips from motion pictures and television programs.

"The NAACP would like to thank the leadership of the WGA and its members for demonstrating their support of the NAACP and its historic mission by granting The NAACP Image Awards an interim agreement," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. "The NAACP stands in solidarity with the Writers Guild in its fight for meaningful collective bargaining and the rights of all workers to make an honest and fair living."

This happy news during our drought-plagued awards season means that high profile nominees like Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and America Ferrera can arrive at the ceremony free from worry that they'll be greeted by a horde of deeply conflicted, placard-hoisting red shirts, whose angry heckles of, "We hope you rot in hell, you picket-line-crossing scumbags whose brave and lauded performances have done wonderful things for the advancement of America's visible minorities!" will surely put a damper on the evening's festivities.