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 Where do you begin...
9/23/07 06:33:48
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...to write about this Phil Spector story? How is it that a so-called "jury of his peers" is still deadlocked in reaching a decision, one which is so clearly obvious that even jury selected in Los Angeles should be able to determine that this man belongs safely off the streets and away from firearms?
It appears that as long as you’re rich and famous in Los Angeles, the law can’t touch you. Just ask John Landis. Or OJ Simpson. Or Robert Blake. OK, so you had jury nullification or people wowed by the sight of Stephen Spielberg in the courtroom or Baretta fans doing their own jury nullification thing. Fine. But Jesus Christ, what is there to puzzle over here?
Everything that’s wrong with L.A., those who judge its celebrity defendants and who write about the subsequent trials can be found at the same place. Yes, of course I’m talking about the name-dropping bullshit "column" written by professional sycophant Dominick Dunne. Consider the August offering:
I remember him as brilliant, fascinating to talk to, and sometimes scary. It was a well-known fact at that time that he had pulled guns on people; there were many stories to that effect. I personally knew two of the women who claimed they had been held prisoner in his house for several days. He carried a gun when we saw each other, but he never pulled it on me.
Oh, well that makes all the difference. Never mind that Spector’s MO is to pull guns on women...as long as he’s "brilliant" and "fascinating to talk to", that makes up for the "scary" part I guess, if by "scary" you mean "someone who would have been committed to a high security mental facility years ago if he hadn’t been so famous and wealthy".
But there’s more:
On the night before I came out to Los Angeles for this trial, I was at a party in New York, where I ran into Yoko Ono. One of the most enduring stories about Phil Spector involves the time he pulled a gun on John Lennon at a recording session. I told Yoko I was leaving the next day to cover Spector’s trial. She smiled sweetly and said, "Oh, Phil," in the most affectionate manner. I said, "What do you mean, ’Oh, Phil’? He pulled a gun on your husband." Yoko said, "Oh, that story has become so exaggerated. He took out the gun and shot it in the ceiling." Oh.
Do you feel like you’re losing your mind right now? A certifiable lunatic has been walking around Los Angeles for years. He drinks heavily. He lives in a fortress with a collection of guns. He takes hostages. He shoots bullets into ceilings. And when a woman turns up dead in his home, presumably because she decided to commit suicide in the home of someone she’d never met - just imagine if her dead body had shown up in the home of a poor nobody - a jury can’t come to a decision.
As of today, I say no more celebrity trials in L.A. ever again, please. It’s a joke. Come on, Phil Spector jury, prove me wrong.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Yes Prime Minister and who runs the country
9/23/07 06:06:57
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The following classic exchange from the brilliant Yes Prime Minister got me thinking:
Jim Hacker:Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; And The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey Appleby:Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard Woolley: Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.
There are times when certain countries need to take an honest inventory of who runs their internal affairs. All jokes aside, who is actually running the show to the west of us, in the country often cited as our Super Great Ally in the Big Fat War On Terrah?
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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I’ve fought the urge to desist...
9/16/07 07:53:21
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...a post about Britney Spears.
Good Lord, you’d think that her horrendous VMA performance just fell out of the clear blue sky. I mean, who woulda thought?
How about this: Just about everyone in the world who’s logged onto the Internet or stood in line to buy groceries for the past, oh, year.
Wow, Britney gave a horrible performance? Britney looked chunky? Britney spent the time leading up to the show boozing, quarreling with her hairdresser and not rehearsing? Whatever is the world coming to? And is she finished?
Look people, it’s time to face facts, and I’m specifically talking to the crowd that’s pushing the "poor Britney, she’s had to live up to an unrealistic image of what a woman should look like" crowd.
I would remind that crowd specifically that Britney Spears helped CREATE that unrealistic standard for women throughout her short career. It was Britney Spears, with her washboard abs achieved by crunching out hundreds of situps a day (which she claimed to LOVE doing, by the way) who made women of all ages feel lumpy dumpy. It was Britney Spears who laughed all the way to the bank by cultivating the image of the sexually overheated schoolgirl while claiming to be a virgin despite her long-term relationship with Justin Timberlake (said virginity was, not surprisingly, revealed to be a lie, but only when the pretense of this absurdity outweighed her representatives’ inability to milk that image anymore). It was Britney who set the example for millions of girls around the world to pierce their navels and proudly bare their midriffs. It was Britney who chose to sell her young body on MTV, writhing and wriggling in heat, for the pleasure of those whose tastes tend to skew to the very young.
Sure, blame her parents. Blame her manager. Go ahead, I won’t stop you. At some point, a responsible adult should have told her "people" to stop counting the money and start taking a good look at the trainwreck that was approaching. But ultimately, a girl/woman with negligible singing and dancing talent whose chief claim to fame is exposing her young, tought flesh to horny onlookers shouldn’t be surprised that when her thighs start to wobble and her belly starts to wiggle, those "fans" will desert her in droves, howling in disgust as they run for the exits. Just ask an old stripper how her tips compare to what they were when she was younger.
Welcome to the world you created, Britney. We all just live in it.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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More entertainment for your Sunday
9/9/07 07:37:42
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When Christopher Hitchens is wrong, he’s really really wrong (Iraq, anyone?). But oh, when he’s right, goddammit the man can express himself. Examples here and here. Not that recent but worth revisiting.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And on the subject of Pakistan, India and bombs away...
9/9/07 07:36:23
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Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a president who understood the implications of Kashmir, or even knew what the hell you were talking about when you informed him it’s what those smarty-pants foreign policy guys call a "flash point"? Would that we had a president who understood that there are two countries, allies of the US both, who have been squabbling over this piece of territory for 60 year or so, and aren’t exactly close to finding a resolution to this thorny issue. Does he realize that a nuclear war could erupt over who controls this piece of land, considered by many to be the loveliest real estate in the world?
Something tells me that if you asked this president about Kashmir, he’d either try to impress you by having someone run to fetch him a copy of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti album or tell you that he’s bought his wife plenty of those sweaters and they darn well cost him a lot of money, goddamit.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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But just to prove that it’s not all gloom and doom today..
9/9/07 07:21:07
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..I ask the group, what would you do if you worked with someone with the brains and personality of Ted Baxter who ran around the office dressed like this:
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Our frenemy Pakistan
9/9/07 07:04:05
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For the past several days, the ’girl has been suffering from a mystery ailment, the symptoms of which are too revolting to share. I write this not to glean sympathy but rather to say I’m tired and testy and my patience is at the breaking point. Which is why this article featuring John Edwards as the latest Democratic contender to pull out his manhood for display has set me over the edge. To review:
"I want to be clear about one thing: If we have actionable intelligence about imminent terrorist activity and the Pakistan government refuses to act, we will," Edwards said during what his campaign billed as a major policy address.
Edwards’ comment seemed to echo one made early last month by rival Democrat Barack Obama, who said: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President (Pervez) Musharraf will not act, we will."
At the risk of sounding critical, would it be too much to ask that the people running for the Democratic nomination cease and desist from making such fucking stupid statements? And haven’t things gotten utterly pathetic when John Edwards (who is now, as he was in 2004, the ’girl’s choice for the nomination) waits a month to plagiarize a comment which, when made by his opponent, resulted in widespread condemnation and a big fat "fuck you" from the Pakistani government.
Like any normal, sentient human being, I don’t much like terrorists and believe that they should be taken out wherever they are. But for me to write this is sort of like feeling compelled to go around saying "George W. Bush isn’t very well read" or "the US isn’t viewed favorably in the world these days". Some things are just obvious. So thanks John and Barack, we believe that terrorists should be done away with. Thanks for allowing Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh and right wing commentators convince you that the American public thinks Democrats are weak on terror and unpatriotic, thereby causing both of you to make these statements that are not only breathtakingly obvious (terrorists, boo!) but also tend to piss off people in, oh, Pakistan.
Setting aside the issue of whether or not the US should be able to attack a sovereign nation that has not attacked us (cough cough Iraq cough cough), has anyone noticed that Edwards, like Obama, used the word "actionable"? That one little word is so fraught with importance. Christ, if actionable intelligence existed, do you think that any clearheaded, responsible person WOULDN’T act on it? But clearly we don’t. So before getting our panties in a bunch and NATO on the alert, why don’t we make sure that we have, oh, let’s say, actual targets to go after and not some vague "there are bad people in Pakistan who want to do bad things. We should go get them....if we find out where they are and what their plans are, of course. But even though we have no clue and could be sending planes to bomb random mountains in a sovereign nation, hell, let’s go get ’em anyway!"
And by the way, what ever happened to Afghanistan? Isn’t that where the bad people were supposed to be training to carry out these attacks? Isn’t that where the 9/11 hijackers got their fine learnin’? Oh, sorry, our buddy Karzai, who’s been mockingly nicknamed "the Mayor of Kabul" as a way of demonstrating his complete lack of power in the rest of the country, is in charge (and some serious questions could be raised about whether he’s actually running Kabul, but that’s a topic for another day), so everything must be under control if we’ve given it our seal of approval. The US has turned Musharraf and Karzai into the Goofus and Gallant of the region, lavishing favor and praise on Hamid Karzai, who "governs" a country which is actually run by warlords, brigands (and soon, the Taliban again) and whose economy is based on the poppy biz, while alternately bitchslapping and salving the wounds of Pervez Musharraf, who’s our friend but scary because he has nuclear weapons. And there’s nothing that scares people more than a Muslim with a nuke, is there? Better play nice to the butcher to keep the mullahs from getting their radical little fingers on the trigger. So if that means that little things like human rights, democracy, a free and fair justice system and freedom of the press have to suffer, well, it’s for the greater good. Just keep telling yourself that if you’re a torturee languishing in a Pakistani prison for speaking out. It’s for the greater good, yahr. Besides, we’re still bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq, so we’re a little busy right now. But don’t worry, Pakistan, your turn will come..when it’s convenient for us.
So we in the US continue our fine tradition of propping up dictators in Pakistan, bankrolling them, and then feigning horror at what’s sown from what we reap. And our other supertrustworthy allies, the Saudis, whose attitude towards democracy, freedom of the press, human rights and a free and fair justice system are known the world over, continue to bankroll the odious madrassa system in Pakistan, since that country’s government spends an embarrassingly paltry sum on education, preferring to bulk up its military to butcher its own citizens on our dime. Brilliant.
There is perhaps no better example of our enabling culture than this article in today’s WaPo, which made me want to hurl. Pakistan, the US’s current favorite frenemy and whipping boy, must be suffering whiplash these days. On the one hand, they’re our great ally in the War on Terrah, so much so that we continue to fund and enable dictatorship after dictatorship and turn a blind eye to some of the excesses of some of its more loathsome dictators like Zia ul-Haq, to get what we want out of that poor, tortured country. On the other hand, we’ve now begun to threaten and bully Pakistan for its lax attitude towards the terrorists in their midst. What an irony. The US on the one side and the Saudis on the other, turning Pakistan into a nuclear-armed taffy pull.
If only Zinni had also pointed out that the Pakistani military of which he is so fond is the same group that willingly and gleefully turned into bounty hunters after 9/11, selling innocent Pakistani men and boys to the US and labeled them terrorists, men and boys who now languish at Guantanamo, wondering whether they’ll ever be released. Now that’s a subject the Democratic contenders should be talking about....a promise to return America to what it used to stand for - due process, innocent until proven guilty, competent legal representation, and an end to the misery of human trafficking enabled by soldiers and warlords to provide this country with a steady stream of people whom we lock up, throw away they key and "screw you, you’re not entitled to a fair trial you..you...enemy comabatant you".
But no. I guess that would mean that these types of promises would prove once and for all that the Democrats are "soft on terror".
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And the Hutzpah of the Year Award goes to
9/9/07 07:00:09
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..the cast of Australian comedy troupe "The Chaser’s War on Everything", who in a phony motorcade festooned with Canadian flags and a member disguised as Osama bin Laden managed to make it past two security checkpoints and made it to, ahem, throwing distance of Bush’s hotel in Sydney. Hats off to our brave Australian friends.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Just wanted to point out...
9/6/07 07:30:03
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...that Larry Craig was arrested in the very city the GOP is holding their convention in next year. This stuff just writes itself.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Another country heard from
9/4/07 07:47:38
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Lest you imagine that the ’girl is willing to overlook idiocy on the left side of the aisle, please rest assured that hypocrisy is hypocrisy and misuse of power is inexcusable. Exhibit A:
But being in the closet uniquely assisted me in politics. From my first run for the state legislature until my election as governor, all too often I was not leading but following my best guess at public opinion. Politics was for me a way to secure the crowd’s approbation while maintaining a busyness that obfuscated the desires of my heart. Despite being a moderately liberal governor, my stance on marriage was: "between a man and a woman." The position, in my mind, created a tension with the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community that affirmed my bona fides as a "straight." Only after the crisis that resulted in my resignation, when public opinion no longer mattered, did I realize the importance and legitimacy of same-sex marriage.
Let’s look at that again:
Only after the crisis that resulted in my resignation, when public opinion no longer mattered, did I realize the importance and legitimacy of same-sex marriage.
So in other words, it was only AFTER leaving a position where he could have made a difference that he realized the error of his ways. Shorter version: The pollsters are to blame. Thanks for the help extended to your fellow gay Americans, governor.
And why is this so not a surprise:
And with my God, I found purpose.
So in deciding between the God or rehab route, the former governor chose the Creator. Good for him.
And oh by the way, Governor, you actually had the stones to stand before the public and admit that you’re gay, whereas on the other side of the aisle, men hitting on men in restrooms is due to "wide stances" and "misunderstandings" and, of course, fear of black men. But this behavior is not, never has been, and never will be, because they’re gay Americans. Perish the thought.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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A belated welcome to the blogroll
9/4/07 07:45:14
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I draw your attention to the latest addition to my blogroll, Nail ’Em Up. South Asian rudeness at its best. Please visit early and often.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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And speaking of idiocy
9/4/07 07:34:49
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I normally never read Cindy Adams’s braindead column. I have no interest in her and her ancient friends and her reminiscences about the swingin’ days at the Brown Derby, or about how much more civilized Las Vegas was when it was controlled by the Mob. But this offering bears comment, because in her wisdom Cindy has uncovered who’s to blame for Larry Craig’s predicament. Can’t guess who? Look in the mirror, bub:
I HAVE nothing for this ruined ex- politico ex-senator ex-nice family man Larry Craig. Never met him. Never heard of him before. I don’t care a fig about him. I don’t care about Idaho either. I don’t even know where that is, other than you get to Chicago and make a left. Aside from a baked potato topped with sour cream, who-the-hell ever makes mention of Idaho? So, I have no horse in this race. It’s just that in my limited, not-very-smart view, his guilt is primarily hypocrisy.
The rest of the crime, if in fact Craig is gay, is of our making. The tawdry solicitation leaves us partly to blame. Draping homosexuality in shame is what forces the weak to hide and lie and rail against it publicly in order to cover themselves privately. A guess would be he spoke and voted and campaigned against it in fear for himself. To draw a curtain around his own being. Those Enron guys probably didn’t start out bilking billions. They started small. A little here, a bit more there. It’s always the first step. Suddenly you’re in it up to your eyeballs. Same with this shivering little scared mess of a man. Terrified of his own self, he early on made one statement. Then maybe had to back it up. Then he maybe enlarged it. All in mortal dread that his innermost voice might make itself heard.
Possibly someday, if all of us, each with our own demons, could wash away the stain of whatever tints our sexuality, this pathetic soul would never have picked a bathroom for a bedroom.
God, this is getting tiresome. No Cindy, WE are not to blame for Larry Craig’s behavior, his self-hatred, his repellant voting record on gay issues, his inability to keep his self-riteousness to himself during impeachment, his recklessness in seeking out company in public toilets, and on and on. No, it’s Senator Larry Craig who, instead of hiring a shrink and doing the hard work of dealing with the reality of his sexuality, used his power as a United States Senator to legislate morality while exempting himself from the restrictions he wanted to impose on others. If what is now (finally) being published is to be believed, Craig has engaged in this closeted behavior for forty years. FORTY YEARS.
So sorry Cindy, you’re going to have to find someone else to take the rap for this one. Someone called Larry Craig.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Denial is the name of the river that runs through it
9/4/07 07:18:14
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So for God only knows what reason, two of Larry Craig’s kids agreed to be interviewed on Good Morning America. The result: a pitiful stream of denial, self-pity and other assorted pathetic statements. Yes, ok, so they’re the man’s kids and they love him, but you have to get a load of this sample of madness:
"He was a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Michael Craig of his father’s arrest.
"On Capitol Hill especially, people have made their decision and formed opinion without talking to even talking to my dad," (Craig’s daughter Shea) Howell said.
Kids, please. Let me explain. Your dad PLED GUILTY to this matter. There is not an innocent human being on the planet who would have signed this document to make the situation all go away, as Craig claims to have have done. But there’s hope that the apples fall far from the tree in the Craig family:
Howell and Craig, who maintain their father’s heterosexuality, said that even if he were gay, they would still support him. "Gay or straight, that part doesn’t matter," Craig said.
Would that their closeted, self-hating father were so open minded.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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A ’girl can dream, can’t she?
9/3/07 08:01:53
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Maybe - just MAYBE - if all these closet case right wing Republicans came out of their closets, the 2008 GOP convention could possibly look like this. Entertaining AND patriotic, too!
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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Sometimes there are no words
9/3/07 07:47:12
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There’s been a lot said about Senator Larry Craig and the woes he’s suffering as a result of his toilet trading. The fact that Craig’s sexual preferences lean, shall we say, a certain way contrary to his public persona and voting record has been an open secret in Washington for decades. The only suprising thing about this story is that this ridiculous, uptight man has managed to dodge this bullet for decades.
Let’s make things perfectly clear. It’s bad enough that his voting record is what it is with regards to gay rights. It’s bad enough that he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut about Bill Clinton, parading himself around like a paragon of huffy virtue. But no, we can’t leave it at that. Now I and the rest of the planet are intimately familiar with Larry Craig’s leg positions when he lowers his pants to use the toilet. We had to wait for a young police officer to finally drop the dime on this odious hypocrite, since the Washington "press corps" didn’t seem to understand - again, for DECADES - that perhaps a Senator who votes one way while living a lifestyle diametrically opposed to his public persona is newsworthy. We had to wait for a young cop in Minnesota to call Larry Craig a liar to his face. Now the entire country - and the world, thanks to YouTube and the Internet - is suffering from TMI syndrome.
Or are we? Is there even a word to describe the feeling you had when you first read this news and heard the audio tape? Schadenfreude doesn’t even begin to cut it. I’m guessing that it’s the same feeling people who turned up in the public square had when they would turn up for an entertaining, fun-filled public execution. Now, watching someone get killed is not my cup of tea, but there are those who love to watch this sort of thing. Why? The release, I guess - pun fully intended.
And just to be clear, I don’t feel sorry for his family. I don’t want to respect their privacy at this difficult time. And I never, ever want the humiliation of Larry Craig’s duplicity to fade.
Fuck you Larry Craig, and all those like you. Fuck you for appointing yourself as a guardian of public morality instead of seeing a shrink to come to terms with your own self-hatred. Fuck you and your strutting, preening self-riteousness.
The cop is right. It’s people like you who are making this country go down the tubes.
Dc Media Girl Permalink
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