Man arrested at Brad Pitt's LA home

Man arrested at Brad Pitt's LA home

LOS ANGELES - A man who identified himself as a freelance reporter was arrested outside the Los Angeles home of Brad Pitt, police saidA housekeeper called police around noon Wednesday after she saw a car blocking the actor's driveway, Officer Karen Smith said.

The man got out of the car and asked which house belonged to Pitt, the housekeeper told officers.

The 25-year-old reporter was arrested for investigation of trespassing and taken into custody on a "private person's arrest," Smith said. It will be up to the housekeeper to decide whether to press charges.

Third cover for 'Girls Next Door'

Third cover for 'Girls Next Door'

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Three is the magic number for Playboy magazine's March issueHolly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson — better known as Hugh Hefner's trio of blonde girlfriends from E!'s "The Girls Next Door" reality series — will appear for the third time on the cover of Playboy.

"It kinda happened by accident," Hefner told The Associated Press. "It was not the original plan. I knew we were overdue for a cover featuring the girls. For our annual sexiest celebrities list, we always get votes from readers on the Internet of who should be on the top of the list. Lo and behold, as the votes were coming in, we found the girls moving up higher and higher on the list."

Madison, Marquardt and Wilkinson will be featured together in three different covers for the "25 Sexiest Celebrities" issue. In the newsstand edition cover image, out Feb. 8, the women are clad in glittery lingerie in front of a starry backdrop.

"To be perfectly frank, I have unexpectedly fallen in love," Hefner said of his ongoing relationship with the three women. "It is the relationship with Holly that will probably last forever. The others will last for as long as they want it to last before going on with their careers and lives."

Among the celebrities to make Playboy's list are Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alicia Keys, Cameron Diaz, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. Hefner said the top three online celebrity vote-getters were Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba, with "The Girls Next Door" coming in fourth place

The Wound That Would Not Heal

By Drew

In the first chapter of his book Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art, Fr. M. Owen Lee relates the story of the Greek hero Philoctetes. As told by Sophocles, Philoctetes is the model of the tragic hero: a warrior blessed with a bow that would always shoot straight and true to the mark (a gift to him by the god Heracles). Considering how much warfare there was in the time of ancient Greece, one can see how indispensible a man with such a weapon would be.

So far, so good. But now tragedy sets in. On the way to the siege of Troy, Philoctetes suffers a grievous wound to the heel, a wound that will not heal. (No pun intended.) The wound festers and emits a stench so horrible that, combined with Philoctetes' cries of agony, the Greeks can no longer put up with him. Led by the ship's captain, Odysseus, the Greeks strand Philoctetes on the isle of Lemnos and sail on, abandoning him to a future of utter isolation and loneliness. Philoctetes, understandably, is a bit put off by all this, and for the next ten years he remains alone on Lemnos, his hatred of the Greeks who betrayed him welling up inside him and festering every bit as much as his wound. Philoctetes, once the great hero of Greece, is now an embittered and wounded man, consumed by his hatred.

Finally, after ten years, the Greeks return to Lemnos. It's not from any new-found sense of shame, though; rather, they've discovered through a prophesy that they will not win the Trojan War without Philoctetes and his bow. No problem, says Odysseus; we'll just go back and get him. Granted, after ten years it might be hard to convince him to come and fight for the people who abandoned him, but Odysseus has a plan for this as well. He proposes to use a young, idealistic soldier, Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. Neoptolemus is to approach Philoctetes and gain his confidence, telling him that the ship has come to take him home. Once Philoctetes is safely on board, the ship will sail instead for Troy, where Philoctetes can apply his trade.

When Philoctetes discovers the deceit he is outraged and aims his bow straight at Odysseus. Given the track record of the bow, we pretty much know this is more than just a threat. But just when all seems to be lost, the god Heracles intervenes. He tells Philoctetes that "his hatred is self-defeating, that his suffering has had a purpose, that if he goes with his fellow Greeks to Troy, he will be cured of his wound and win imperishable glory."

For Wagner, a student of the Greek classics, the effect of this story is clear; we can see it most obviously in Parsifal, with the ruler Amfortas who bears a spear wound that will not heal. Other artists were influenced by it as well; André Gide, in his 1899 novel Philoctète, provides an autobiographical Philoctetes, a writer who suffers in in an island exile. In Gide's story it is the writer Philoctète himself who speaks the words of Heracles, telling the solider who comes to take him home that "his suffering there has taught him more of the secrets of life than he could possibly have learned had he been a normal man functioning in and accepted by society.

And now you can see the direction in which this is heading, what Sophocles and Gide might call "self-improvement through suffering." Christians would think of it as the redemptive power of suffering, but the message remains the same. It's a message that Sophocles gets, and there is an implicit Christian subtext in the words he gives Heracles: suffering has a purpose. The man who accepts his suffering and allows it to shape his character without resentment or bitterness will emerge from it a different - and better - man. There is in this a prefigurement of the opening words of James: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. [James 1:2-4]"

To understand and apprciate Wagner, one must appreciate the extent to which he he saw himself as Philoctetes, the artist suffering for the sake of his art and the truth it conveyed. However, as Christians, let's take this one step further - to our understanding of the purpose of suffering. In Parsifal, for example. The aforementioned Amfortas is not made strong and steadfast by his unhealing wound; rather, he is rendered weak, ineffective, willing to let the Knights of the Grail fade to obsecurity through his lack of leadership, until Parsifal himself returns (having received the grace of Good Friday) to heal Amfortas and assume leadership of the Knights.

In Rienzi, Wagner tells the story of the rise and fall of Rienzi, a populist leader who is at first hailed by the masses as a savior, but who eventually becomes a victim of the fickle nature of popular opinion. He is betrayed by those who helped him come to power, turned upon by the very masses for whom he fought in ending the oppression of the nobles. In the end the people violently rise up against him and the mobs burn the capitol; Rienzi, defiant to the last, dies in the fire, refusing to compromise his principles, seeing himself as a martyr for the truth. There is, one might suggest, more than a suggestion of self-pity in Rienzi's defiance, that of one who wears the cloak of the "prophet without honor," suffering for the truth that the masses refuse to appreciate. The analogy is that not of the humble man who suffers for the sake of Christ; it is, rather, the suffering of Christ Himself. It should come as no surprise, then, that Wagner saw himself as Rienzi - the misunderstood genius, the suffering artist, the intellect not fully appreciated.

As one might suggest, there is a dramatic difference in the two types of suffering, the difference coming in the perception of the ego, the contrast between the selfless, humbling sacrifice that comes from a clensing suffering, and the essentially ego-driven suffering of the great man who simply isn't appreciated by the public - a suffering that, frankly, carries more than a hint of the "you'll all be sorry!" attitude about it. (We speak, of course, excluding the entirely selfless suffering of Christ.) If one can draw conclusions from this at all, it might be that in Wagner's self-portrayal of Philoctetes we see as an end result of the suffering not self-improvement, but the improvement of society through the wisdom of the artist.

And so where does that leave us, on the eve of Lent? Perhaps in a mood to consider the mystery, and the purpose, of suffering. Perhaps to understand the role it has played in our own lives, and to look for the beneficial ways in which it has shaped our character. In learning to accept suffering in this manner (as in, for example, the manner of a man who suffers through constant temptations of one sort or another and, through it, learns compassion and patience for others who face the same suffering) we come to understand more fully the mystery of God Himself, Who constantly reassures us that with Him, nothing is impossible.

It is something for us to contemplate, and the right time of the year for us to do so. There is much more in Wagner's life and music that will allow us to examine the relationships between art and truth, between the artist and his creation; it's a discussion we've had often in this space, and will continue to have in the future.

Poetry Wednesday

By Judith

The hallmark of a lyric poem is its inherent musicality. Whether it was written to be set to music or not, the lyric sounds as if it should be sung. A lyric poem such as Jonson's "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" (which we mentioned during our poetry quiz a few weeks ago) or Burns' "Auld Lang Syne" are examples of words that sing just by saying them out loud, although they are associated with music that makes them soar when sung.

Lyricists in the genre of the American Popular Song or American Standards (High Standards to XM radio - and I agree) wrote poems that sang even on paper. George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers may have written music without their famous counterparts (Ira and Lorenz Hart, respectively) but, oh, those lyrics. Cole Porter did both jobs and did them brilliantly. The line "When they begin the beguine" had people swaying to the rhythm, even though nobody knew what a "beguine" was. (Defined as a "spirited ballroom dance", although I've heard the story that Porter made up the word and the dance was created after that.)

From the romantic (Night and day you are the one/Only you beneath the moon or under the sun) to the slightly naughty (Some Argentines without means do it/I hear in Boston even beans do it/Let's do it, let's fall in love), Porter was clever, witty and even sentimental, without being saccharine.

This lyric is again full of one of my favorite poetic devices, internal rhyme. Like several of Porter's songs the tune has a slightly Latin beat that emerges even when the lyric is recited. In just a few short lines, a picture is painted and the universal emotion that a good poet can capture evokes the feeling that makes you want to draw your wrap around you a little tighter because of the "still, chill of the night."

In the Still of the Night

In the still of the night
As I gaze from my window
At the moon in its flight
My thoughts all stray to you

In the still of the night
While the world is in slumber
All the times without number
Darling when I say to you

Do you love me, as I love you
Are you my life to be, my dream come true
Or will this dream of mine fade out of sight
Like the moon growing dim,
On the rim of the hill
In the chill, still, of the night

Is Perfection Perfect?

By Kristin

A fantastic bit of programming on MN Public Radio are the broadcasts of live opera performances aired on Sunday afternoons. Unfortunately, it is not often that I find myself in a place listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon. This past Sunday, however, I found myself driving down Highway 55 listening to a beautiful opera. Which opera was it? I do not know. Who was the singer? I can not remember. Composer? Not a clue. What I do remember occurred about ten minutes into my drive; the sound of a cough echoing over the quiet song. I smiled. Not because it was funny, but because I could picture in my head a middle aged man sitting about 10 rows back, trying to hold in a cough and in a moment of weakens, allowing the disturbance to fly out. Why was I so taken by this imperfection in the recording? It has taken a few days, but I believe I have come to a semi-satisfactory explanation. I believe it was in the imperfection that I found a deep connection listening to the music, not in the perfect pitch of the singers.

This realization brought back a similar memory from my childhood. In seventh grade a friend copied for me a recording of the musical Les Miserables. As an adult, I remember one bit of the recording so vividly, as if I am listening to it now. The tape was made from a CD of a live performance of the original cast. During one of the songs sung by the young Cosette, there is a loud crash, as if a large 2x4 fell from the rafters onto the stage. The young singer wavered, but only for a moment then continued singing. Moments later, a member of the audience coughs a few times and is silenced by what I can only assume would be a cough drop. After nearly 13 years, these mistakes are the sounds I remember most clearly.

What is it about these mishaps that creates the lasting memories? For that split second when the error occurs, I felt the recording had new life. It was not a radio station number, or a bit of plastic tape but a three dimensional being with. In music, we all strive towards perfection. Few of us ever reach virtuoso status. But when we hear something slightly off, I feel that it makes the performance more human, establishes a bond between the music and the listener, more accurately reflecting life with all its imperfections. These disturbances in the musical world are what I will now be looking for a little more closely. Not to point out errors and assert my own superiority, but to find the human element in the live performance.

In closing I challance you to listen for the sneeze, watch for the wrong bowing and find the perfection in the imperfect.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

By Drew

There are many things that drive me crazy. This doesn't exactly come as a revelation to those who know me, but there you have it. Some things just defy explanation - you get so exasperated by them, words fail you. I'd like to think that's one reason why so many ridiculous statements go unchallenged - they're so breathtakingly insipid, it's not possible to articulate an argument against them. At least one that's cogent, that doesn't consist of words spelled like retching sounds.

At any rate, I repeat that there are a lot of things that drive me crazy. One of them is P.C.-thought. For me, this surpasses adequate description - it falls into one of those as-yet unnamed categories. At least, until today. For today I found an article that has come up with the word that almost perfectly describes my feelings for Political Correctness.

And that word is: stupid.

Not just that Political Correctness itself is stupid, although it is. Not just that the things the P.C. Police obsess over are stupid, although they are. No, it's that the people who fall for this garbage are, themselves, stupid.

Writing last week at Armavirumque, the blog of the excellent New Criterion, Kenneth Minogue describes the same feelings that come over me every time I read in the paper or hear on the tube about one of these insane cases:

They are generally about the extreme cases, known in the trade as “political correctness gone mad.” The question raised is thus: when was it ever sane? These cases constitute a large and fascinating body of data making the case that we are in modern societies surrounded by a great deal of alarming stupidity, especially at lower levels of responsibility.

Don't you love that? We're "surrounded by a great deal of alarming stupidity." Yes! The old joke in one unnamed Southern state was that voters had turned against a candidate because his sister had gone to New York and become a "thespian." We laugh at that because it sounds ridiculous - as, indeed, it is. And yet Minogue speaks of a case in Britain where "a paediatrician was nearly run out of town because a vigilante mob thought a paediatrician was a paedophile." He goes on to cite a disgusting incident at Barclay’s Bank that I'm not even going to try and describe, mostly because I don't want to break my fingers pounding them on the keyboard. Just read about it in his article. Suffice it to say that Barclay's, and their smug management, don't come out of it very well. (And if this quote: "We have a robust approach to equality and diversity and do not tolerate discrimination" doesn't make you wretch, you've a stronger stomach than I, Gunga Din.) As Minogue says in conclusion,

This is a stupidity story, not a victimisation one. The executive in question was making a lot of money and can no doubt look after himself. But it is I think important that we should all know about corporate cowardice and about the companies who indulge in it.

Corporate cowardice, indeed. (Although this description could be extended to cover places like schools, which are really just government-run corporations anyway.)

And Minogue is absolutely spot-on in saying that these exercises in irresponsibility by people who choose of their own free will to be offended need to be held up to the light and exposed for what they are. It is not that the comments that offend them are insensitive (although, undoubtedly, a few of them are); it is rather that these people, in demonstrating their outrage over such comments, show themselves for what they are: stupid. (This is not to say, by the way, that the people making these supposedly offensive comments in the first place aren't stupid as well, since stupidity doesn't appear to be a zero-sum game. But stupidity, as we all know, isn't automatically the same thing as insensitivity. It also isn't a crime, for which we can all be grateful.)

Take the Tiger Woods flap, for instance. Now, Al Sharpton, whatever else he might be, is not stupid. He's a rabble-rouser and a demagogue and a number of other things, but he's definitely not stupid; he knows exactly what he's doing. It's the people who fall for his shtick who are stupid. What is particularly despicible about the whole thing is that there are things that are offensive and need to be condemned. (Piss Christ, for example) And yet people like Sharpton agitate on things that are completely unimportant, purely for their own gain. Their cast of hangers-on enable them, and the stupid legions out there fall right into line, parroting Sharpton's blather - just as he knew they would. So words become crimes, thoughts become suspect, anyone with a mind to think and a mouth with which to express those thoughts becomes a potential fugitive from the Thought Police. Think that's an exaggeration? Ask Mark Steyn.

Minogue entitled his article, "Freedom's Collapse," and I agree. As much as I worry about hte loss of freedom, however, I'm equally concerned about the loss of the ability to think. There are plenty of people out there with whom I disagree, but I respect their intelligence and enjoy their company because they're smart people (who just happen to be wrong). But there's just no way you can respect the kind of stupidity that emerges from this morass. It signals an end not only to freedom of speech, but intelligent discourse as well.

We should take Minogue's advice and point out these incidents whenever and wherever they occur, and do it fearlessly. You know, it might even be fun - just think of it as a game, like Pin the Tail on the Donkey. And why not? There is, after all, no shortage of asses out there.

Lindsay Lohan Lampooned!

Lindsay Lohan Lampooned!

With all the awards show stuff starting up for 2008, one very distinguished honor has already been bestowed on Lindsay Lohan… she's been nominated for not one, but two Razzies!

Her dual roles in "I Know Who Killed Me" are garnering her all kinds of recognition from Razzie founder John Wilson.

Wilson told press, "I Know Who Killed Me is the most fabulously brainless movie since Showgirls. By the end of it, you still don't know what happened. Are they twins or aren't they? Did she imagine it? Can I please have my hour and 50 minutes back?"

LiLo plays both a stripper and an abducted small-town girl in the widely-panned flick. In fact, "I Know Who Killed Me" earned a total of nine nominations, making it the most dissed film of 2007.

We'll have all the Razzie winners for you as soon as they're announced on February 23rd, the day before the Oscars.

Paris Hilton Talks Up Nicole Richie's Baby

Paris Hilton Talks Up Nicole Richie's Baby

She's been busy promoting her latest movie at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as attending rapper 50 Cent's MySpace Nights concert. But Paris Hilton still made time to boast about her BFF Nicole Richie's new baby.

Harlow Winter Kate Madden was born on January 12th and ever since, the "Stars are Blind" singer has been going all out to pamper her new "niece."

Paris told press, "I'm so excited! I've sent her all these presents. I'm going to spoil her!" As for the newborn's moniker, Hilton says it's a trendsetter, for sure.

"It's the coolest name ever. I'm like, 'That is the coolest name, oh my God!' I wouldn't even think she would have thought of that. It's a beautiful name. Nicole is so into it. She always knows what's cool before it happens."

As for her former short-lived BFF Britney Spears, Paris wishes her only the best. "She's such a sweet girl. When I'm alone with her, she's a completely different person than they make her out to be. And I love her, I think she's very sweet and has a big heart. She's amazing. I just want her to be happy. I think everything's going to be OK."

Wish I'd Written That

By Mitchell

"Mrs. Rollins, I wouldn't be usin' that word 'why' quite so often if I was you. . . 'Why' is a nasty little Protestant word. We Catholics say Credo - 'I believe' - to whatever the Pope says. If you have to ask why, then I think you should go along to the Anglican vicar and let him instruct you in unbelief. He'll let you 'why, why, why' to your heart's content."

Peter De Rosa, dialog from Bless Me, Father

Christian Brando dies at L.A. hospital

Christian Brando dies at L.A. hospital

LOS ANGELES - Christian Brando, the troubled eldest son of the late famed actor Marlon Brando, has died from pneumonia at a Los Angeles hospital, an attorney said Saturday. He was 49.Brando died Saturday morning at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, said David Seeley, an attorney representing Marlon Brando's estate. Seeley said Brando was taken to the hospital on Jan. 11.

"This is a sad and difficult time for the family," Seeley said.

Born on May 11, 1958, Brando was a high school dropout and never had much of a career. He had small roles in a handful of movies, including 1968's "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!" but he was better known for his brushes with the law.

He spent five years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in 1990 for killing his sister's boyfriend, Dag Drollet, at the Brando family's hilltop estate.

Brando said he accidentally shot Drollet as they struggled for a gun during an argument over whether Drollet, 26, had beaten Brando's pregnant half-sister, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne, who later gave birth to Drollet's son but lost custody of the child, committed suicide in 1995. She was 25. Family associates said she had been distraught since her boyfriend's death.

In a 1991 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Brando said he never intended to kill Drollet, but wanted to scare him. "I just sat there and watched the life go out of this guy," Brando said.

At his son's trial, Marlon Brando pleaded for leniency, telling the court: "I think that perhaps I failed as a father."

Brando's ex-wife, Deborah Brando, sued him for domestic violence in 2005. She claimed that shortly after their 2004 marriage, Brando repeatedly beat her and threatened to kill her in the presence of her teenage daughter.

Brando countersued, alleging that his ex-wife broke into his home and beat him because he wanted to annul their marriage only 10 weeks after exchanging vows.

The lawsuits were settled last year on undisclosed terms.

Brando was charged January 2005 with two counts of spousal abuse and he later pleaded no contest. He was placed on three years' probation and ordered to drug and alcohol rehabilitation as well as a spousal-abuse prevention program.

Brando also was the one-time lover of Bonnie Lee Bakley, who was shot to death in 2001. At one time, Bakley claimed Brando had fathered her child but tests showed it belonged to actor Robert Blake, whom she later married.

Blake was tried for her murder and acquitted but later ordered to pay $30 million in a wrongful death lawsuit. During that civil case, Blake's lawyer suggested Brando was the killer, although police never implicated him.

Brando, who had denied any involvement, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on the stand during the trial.

Seeley said Brando was not married at the time of his death and did not leave any children.

Brando was the eldest of the actor's nine children, according to a will the Oscar-winner left following his death in 2004. Brando's mother was actress Anna Kashfi. She and Marlon Brando divorced after a year.

That touched off a 16-year custody battle for Christian, who was 5 months old at the time of the separation.

"I found him to be an extremely personable, bright gentleman," said Bruce Margolin, an attorney who represented Brando. "He was very well-loved in his family. I think his life was too short."

There are no funeral plans yet scheduled, he added.

Jennifer Ansiton Lights Up the Set

Jennifer Ansiton Lights Up the Set

Continuing on with the filming of her latest movie, Jennifer Aniston lit up the set with co-star Aaron Eckhart on Thursday in Vancouver, Canada.

And while the latest talk pits Jen and Entourage actor Kevin Connelly together, the former Friends star and Mr Eckhart seemed pretty chummy in between takes.

As previously reported by Fropki, Aniston is shooting for the film Traveling, which is "a romantic drama is about a widower (Eckhart) whose book about coping with loss turns him into a best-selling self-help guru."

The IMDB synopsis of the film adds, "On a business trip to Seattle, he falls for a woman (Aniston) who attends one of his seminars, only to learn that he hasn't yet truly confronted his wife's passing."

Back in the Day

By Mitchell

It's been awhile since we've taken a look back through the pages of TV Guide, and since there's not much else going on right now why don't we open one up and see what's inside?

The latest addition to the Hadley collection is this issue from December 28, 1963, covering New Year's Day, 1964. On the cover you see the 17-year-old Patty Duke, star of The Patty Duke Show, in which she plays twin cousins Patty and Cathy Lane. This show was a modest success, running for three seasons and producing a memorable theme song. The article itself (written by an unbylined author) wasn't particularly flattering, commenting on Duke's lack of personality; one might say, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, that there was no there there. Of course, given what we know about Duke's difficult childhood, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that she came across as little more than a programmed robot with no independent thoughts of her own.

It's interesting, however, to see the different attitude TV Guide had about it's subjects. Back in the day, TV Guide wasn't merely a shill for the stars' publicity machines; at the same time, the writers often appeared to go out of their way to take shots at those whom they profiled, either outright or through snide insinuation.

Take, for instance, Richard Gehman's piece on Joey Bishop, whose sitcom was entering its third season. Bishop had by that time garnered a reputation as being difficult to work with, a trait which Gehman is eagar to analyze. Speaking of the two major influences on Bishop's career - Frank Sinatra and Jack Paar - Gehman comments, "Some of their arrogance - the necesary cockiness of deep insecurity - has rubbed off on him." I'm sure Bishop appreciated the free psychoanalysis. Again, while Gehman may be making an astute observation on Bishop, with comments such as this peppered throughout the article, it appears as if he takes particular pleasure in doing so.

Here's another article on an actress named Katherine Crawford. Only 19, her television career has just started, with appearances on programs such as Kraft Suspense Theatre and Alfred Hitchcock. She's cute enough, and apparently had talent, but her major advantage was that she was the daughter of Roy Huggins, creator of The Fugitive, The Invaders, and other TV hits. In the title of the article (also anonymously authoried), Crawford proclaims, "I'll be acting till I'm 70." As you can see from her IMDB profile, her last credit was in the series Gemini Man in 1976. Well, she made it to 32, anyway. And by the way, I don't mean for that comment to be snarky - she could well have gone on to a life more productive and more fulfilling than most of us. It's just that it never ceases to be fascinating how short the lifespan of "the next big thing" can sometimes be.

There is, for example, a program ABC broadcast on Saturday, December 28 entitled "Hollywood Deb Star Ball 1964," in which we meet "the lovely Deb [for debutante] Stars, slated for future stardom by major Hollywood studios." Well, let's take a look. There's Meredith MacRae, daughter of Gordon and Sheila MacRae, who just happened to be the hosts of the show. She did pretty well for herself. There's the aforementioned Katherine Crawford. There's Susan Seaforth, who as Susan Seaforth Hayes became a huge soap opera star. One of her Days of Our Lives co-stars, Brenda Benet, who was perhaps as well known for being Bill Bixby's ex-wife, was there as well. Linda Evans, star of Dynasty, was one of the Deb Stars, as was Chris Noel, whose remarkable life led her from a modest Hollywood career to her vocation as a radio host and entertainer stationed in Vietnam for the Armed Forces Network, travelling to locations considered too dangerous for Bob Hope and other celebrities. Claudia Martin, Deano's daughter, was one of the ten starlets, and I think it's safe to say that her bloodlines were her biggest claim to Hollywood fame. And then there were Shelly Ames, Anna Capri and Amadee Chabot, who scored minor successes at best. Why do some careers take off while others flounder? Who knows.

Remember Guy Lombardo? He was on hand, as usual, on New Year's Eve, entertaining with his Royal Canadians from Grand Central Station in New York City. Remember when football bowl games were all played in the daytime? Back in 1964 they were, as the Orange (Auburn vs. Nebraska), Sugar (Alabama vs. Mississippi) and Cotton (#1 Texas vs. #2 Navy) were all played at the same time, acting as joint opening acts for the Rose (Illinois vs. Washington), which started at 3:45 Central time and ended the college football season. And what about all those other bowl games that came before New Year's Day? Well, during this week there was only one - the Gator (Air Force vs. North Carolina), on Saturday afternoon. As you can see, service academy football was still big back in the early 60s.

On Sunday, December 29, it's the television premiere on ABC of the documentary "The Making of the President 1960," based on the Pulitzer winner by Theodore White. And speaking of which, it was only a little more than a month since JFK's assassination, and a letter writer notes her appreciation for the television industry's "finest hour" of broadcasting coverage. I would imagine the holiday season might have been a little more somber that year than in years past.

As I have said often, TV Guide is - or was - one of the prime cultural indicators of the past. For the cultural archaeologist, it's like opening a treasure chest. It reminds us not only of days gone by, the things that were, but, as in the case of the Deb Ball, some of the things - or careers - that never were. And it is nice, isn't it, to sometimes be able to look to the future in blissful ignorance of what we know is to come? A pity that we can't be more optimistic like that all the time, but then, times have changed. And not always for the best.

Tentative deal reached on tax rebates

Tentative deal reached on tax rebates

WASHINGTON - Democratic and Republican congressional leaders reached a tentative deal Thursday on tax rebates of $300 to $1,200 per household and business tax cuts to jolt the slumping economy.

Congressional officials close to the negotiations said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio reached agreement in principle in a telephone call Thursday morning.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two wanted key members of their parties to sign off on the accord before any announcement.

The development came as the Bush administration, which also has been pushing for a deal, said agreement seemed imminent. "Our understanding is there is no final deal yet but they are making progress," presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said early Thursday.

Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed to drop increases in food stamp and unemployment benefits during a Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining rebates of at least $300 for almost everyone earning a paycheck, including low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes.

Pelosi, answering questions from reporters Thursday after a speech in Washington, said, "I am not confirming anything." But Pelosi added she would have something to say later.

Under the tentative plan, families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an overall cap of perhaps $1,200, according to a senior House aide who outlined the deal on condition of anonymity in advance of formal adoption of the whole package. Rebates would go to people earning below a certain income cap, likely individuals earning $75,000 or less and couples with incomes of $150,000 or less.

Workers would have to have earned at least $3,000 in 2007 to receive the rebates, the officials said.

The cost of the final business tax break package was uncertain. The two leaders agreed to allow businesses to immediately write off 50 percent of purchases of plants and other capital equipment and to permit small businesses to write off additional purchases of equipment. It appeared that a provision to allow businesses suffering losses now to reclaim taxes previously paid might be dropped to reduce the cost of the business package.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., scheduled a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee for next week to discuss the stimulus package.

"The Senate will want to speak, as well," Baucus said, adding that he and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the panel's senior Republican, had "agreed to work together, move quickly, and mark up economic stimulus legislation next week."

President Bush has supported larger rebates of $800-$1,600, but his plan would have left out 30 million working households who earn paychecks but don't make enough to pay income tax, according to calculations by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. An additional 19 million households would receive only partial rebates under Bush's initial proposal.

To address the mortgage crisis, the package also allows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — government-sponsored companies that are the two biggest U.S. financers and guarantors of home loans — to buy home mortgages much larger than the current $417,000 limit. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that lending cap might reach as high as $700,000 in areas with the highest home prices.

After a key Wednesday night meeting in which the parameters of an agreement were reached, Pelosi and Boehner spoke again Thursday to cement the accord.

In the talks, Pelosi pressed to make sure tax relief would find its way into the hands of lower-income earners while Boehner pushed to include upper middle-class couples, according to congressional aides.

The emerging package was already drawing fire from liberal activists and labor unions upset that proposals to extend unemployment insurance and boost food stamps had been dropped. They said those ideas could pump money into the economy more quickly than tax rebate checks that won't be delivered until June.

Conservative Republicans were likely to be restless over tax rebates going to those without income tax liability.

Democratic aides said greater GOP flexibility over giving relief to poor families with children — who would not have been eligible under Bush's original tax rebate proposal — was the catalyst that moved the talks forward.

Pelosi's decision to drop expanding unemployment payments and more money for food stamps — which many lawmakers had assumed would be included in the package — is controversial with Democratic constituencies, who were already stung by a decision to deny states more money for their Medicaid programs.

Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale: Workout Time

Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale: Workout Time

While her boyfriend Zac Efron is in the hospital recovering from an emergency appendectomy, Vanessa Hudgens spent the day with another High School Musical co-star pal.

The 19-year-old and BFF Ashley Tisdale were spotted attending a pilates class at a local gym in Encino on Wednesday afternoon - joking and laughing on the way in.

Both Hudgens and Tisdale are busy with upcoming movies and recording sessions, with an insider telling E! that the 19-year-old is nearly finished with her sophomore album.

"She is wrapping up in the recording studio right now," the source said, adding that "Hudgens has been logging marathon hours at a Hollywood studio on an almost daily basis."

A follow-up to 2006's V, Hudgens' solo debut, the new effort is "definitely more grown-up than her first CD," the source adds.

The Rest of the Story

By Drew

Appropos of Mitchell's post yesterday, it is impossible to talk about abortion without bringing up the subject of eugenics. Just as Cormac McCarthy's quote shows that the discussion of abortion invariably brings you to euthenasia, Ron Radosh's New York Sun review of Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism demonstrates that no analysis of abortion can be complete without understanding the barbaric - and essentially racist - topic of eugenics. Here's an excerpt of Radosh's review:

Turning to what he calls liberal racism, Mr. Goldberg offers readers his finest chapter. It is a devastating picture of how liberals adopted eugenics — a basic part of Nazi doctrine — which was not, as some liberal intellectuals have argued, an outgrowth of conservative thought. Fans of Margaret Sanger, perhaps the single most important feminist hero of the 20th century, will never be able to think of her in the same way. Mr. Goldberg dissects her hidden views of eugenics. A socialist and birth-control martyr, she favored banning reproduction of the "unfit" and regulation of everyone else's reproduction. She wrote, "More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue of birth control." She opposed the birth of "ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens." Her words reveal her motive in advocacy of birth control. She sought to remove "inferior" people from being born to poor people, whose mothers by definition were "unfit." Sanger's partisans in Planned Parenthood, the group that stemmed from her work, will be shocked to learn that her publication endorsed the Nazi eugenics program, and that Sanger herself "proudly gave a speech to a KKK rally." That was not surprising, since she clearly viewed blacks as inferior. Hence her "Negro Project," in which she sought to urge blacks to adopt birth control.

This isn't a secret, mind you. Or, rather, it's the dirty little secret of the "pro-choice" movement. But Santayana once pointed out what happened to those who don't remember history, so it might be a good thing to remind people of it. Remind them the next time someone refers to Planned Parenthood as a "women's health clinic." Remind them when the breast cancer Race for the Cure comes around in May, sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and remember that the Komen Foundation contributes to Planned Parenthood. Remind the supporters of Planned Parenthood and the Komen Foundation (and other organizations supporting PP) of this inconvenient little truth, and ask them to defend it.

If they can.

Poetry Wednesday

By Judith

Many people think of Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) as a small, quiet, reclusive lady who sat at home all her life and wrote nice little poems about daisies and bees. Well, sort of.

She may have been small of stature (she described herself as "small, like the wren"), but there was nothing little about her imagination or her favorite themes of life, death and eternity. She wrote 1,775 poems, approximately 2/3 of them before 1866. Less than a dozen were published during her lifetime. It wasn't exactly for want of trying. In 1862 she sent four poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an essayist and reformer, to see whether he deemed them worthy of publication (although she had been previously published, albeit anonymously). He advised her to wait.

Most people who read her work didn't know what to make of it, for it didn't follow conventions of the day. Her use of unorthodox punctuation, capitalization and rhyming scheme was so unlike most other poets of her day (except, perhaps for that free spirit, Whitman). The poems didn't have titles, being known by their first lines. A rhyme scheme she often used was "slant rhyme", meaning that words might have different vowel or different consonant sounds, but still had a nearly-close rhyme sound. The sound was more jarring than pleasing, but this dissonance was a useful tool in conveying her thoughts on death and the hereafter. (A further force of life/Developed from within - /When Death lit all the shortness up/It made the hurry plain- )

After Emily Dickinson's death her sister found her vast store of poems and worked at getting them published. The first volume came out in 1890. In 1955 Thomas Johnson edited a complete edition of her poetry, numbered the poems, and, most importantly, presented them as the author had written them, without reformatting them with conventional rhyme and punctuation. His numbers are shown here.

1540 - written @ 1865

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away -
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy -
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon -
The Dusk drew earlier in -
The Morning foreign shone -
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone -
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

1176 - written @ 1870

We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies -

The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King -

Wife of Brit's Pap Pal Seeks Separation

Wife of Brit's Pap Pal Seeks Separation

Los Angeles (E! Online) - A day after Adnan Ghalib took to the airwaves to defend his relationship with Britney Spears as being "far from over" comes word that his relationship with his wife of four years is far from on. Azlynn Elizabeth Berry filed for a legal separation from Ghalib in Los Angeles Superior Court Friday, citing the ever-popular irreconcilable differences.

Per the court filing, Berry, who has chosen to represent herself in the separation proceedings, is seeking spousal support from Ghalib, as well as to have her hubby of four years foot the bill for any and all legal fees stemming from the action.

In her filing, Berry stated that she and the 35-year-old Finalpixx photographer tied the knot on Dec. 18, 2003 and separated on Jan. 18, 2008—the same day the papers were filed in the courthouse. She also stated in her paperwork that the couple shared no children together.

While Berry's court documents did not elaborate on the nature of the irreconcilable differences, even the most casual of internet perusers may be able to hazard a guess as to one potential relationship sore point: the increasing amount of time Ghalib has been spending with Spears, his once and future, at least from the looks of things, cash cow.

Though he was keen to deny any payment changed hands, Ghalib at least got a cut of the limelight Tuesday night, when he spoke publicly about his relationship with Spears for the first time in the inaugural installment of a multi-part interview with Entertainment Tonight and the Insider.

During the televised tell-all, Ghalib denied reports that his involvement with the "Gimme More" superstar was motivated by anything other than genuine emotion, calling foul on tabloid insistence that he ever had plans to sell private photos of Spears or seek to make money off his association.

"In time, I think people will understand that," he said.

For his part, Ghalib, who has had the tables turned on him in recent months, getting photographed alongside Spears everywhere from late-night joyrides to pregnancy test pit stops to even a dinner date at Malibu's Tony Taverna's restaurant Tuesday night which ended when the duo inadvertently sideswiped a motorcyclist attempting to get close to the duo's vehicle, said that his relationship with the pop star only "turned romantic" just before Christmas.

When asked if he ever thought about marrying Spears, he said that he'd "be lying if I said no."

To further stress their commitment, Ghalib went on to say that their now infamous amble through the pregnancy test section of a Los Angeles Rite Aid this month was not, as pal Sam Lutfi has said, a joke they were playing on paparazzi. (Ghalib's own Finalpixx agency sold the pictures of the excursion.) Rather, he claimed that Spears genuinely believed she might be expecting—"She was feeling a lot of things she said she felt when she was pregnant. I think she was hoping she was pregnant with my child."

However, the paparazzo did deny reports that Spears was less than mentally stable.

"She is not crazy at all," he said. "She never has suicidal tendencies. You've got to understand the love she has for her kids outweighs anything else."

As for her Jan. 3 custody standoff and subsequent hospitalization, Ghalib said Spears' seeming laughter while being transported via gurney into the ambulance simply came from the singer's dismay at the entire unfolding of events.

"She didn't understand why she was taken to the hospital. She didn't feel the need to be there. I think she was just afraid of what was going to happen. It doesn't mean you are crazy."

As for her relationship with her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James, Ghalib said that the boys were her "primary focus."

"She doesn't talk about a strategy to get them back. That's something that's very private to her. She loves those kids—it pains her a lot."

Winehouse fans urge singer to shun drugs

Winehouse fans urge singer to shun drugs

LONDON (AFP) - Amy Winehouse's fans begged her to get help Tuesday after the troubled British singer was filmed purportedly smoking crack cocaineOn its website, The Sun newspaper released footage of Winehouse, 24, in which she appears to inhale from a crack pipe.

The soul vocalist, seated in front of one of her wedding pictures, claimed she had just taken "about six valium" before lighting up.

The Sun alleged that Winehouse "took hit after hit of the deadly drug after a 19-minute binge in which she snorted powdered ecstasy and cocaine".

A spokesman for the star declined to comment.

The video was purportedly filmed after 5:00 am last Friday at her east London home, hours before she attended a court hearing for husband Blake Fielder-Civil.

He is awaiting trial on charges of assault and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Her record company, Universal, said: "We are deeply disappointed and upset by these latest revelations and are doing everything we can to offer Amy our full support in dealing with her problems," according to the BBC.

On her official online fans' forum, people pleaded with the singer to change her ways.

The footage showed "what we feared the most," wrote one contributor, 'sjwatson'. "Amy, don't waste your life."

Another fan, 'Rebba' urged her to get of London and forget about her husband "and the druggies that flock around you. Kick 'em all."

First-time poster 'Frank 1962' urged her not to join the "stupid club" of dead rock stars.

Winehouse, who has earned six Grammy nominations -- the music industry's most prestigious awards -- is due in court in Bergen, western Norway, on February 29 after being arrested and fined for drug use and possession of marijuana.

Thought for the Day

By Mitchell

"Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talking about the right wing this and the right wing that. I ain't even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I don't like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I don't think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don't have much doubt but what she'll be able to have an abortion. I'm going to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation."

Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

R.I.P.

By Mitchell

Don Wittman

Don Wittman was Canada's Curt Gowdy, Jim McKay, Chris Schenkel, Keith Jackson. For over 40 years, he was "the soundtrack of Canadian sports" - the CFL, the NHL, the Olympics, golf, curling, and everything in-between. I've written often of the "big-game announcer" - the moment you heard his voice, you knew it was a big game. Don Wittman, who died Saturday of cancer at age 71, had that kind of voice, and was that kind of announcer.

To every event he broadcast, he lent a note of authority, a dash of gravitas, and more than a hint of drama. He called 37 Grey Cups 28 Stanley Cups, 18 Olympic Games, always underplaying the event, letting the action on television speak for itself. It wasn't easy to hear him here in the States, but invariably when you caught the broadcast of a Canadian sporting event - the Grey Cup, the Stanley Cup - you heard Wittman's voice, without the self-hype and malarky that typifies most of what passes for sports broadcasting today. He was a member of the CBC Hall of Fame, to be sure, but also the CFL Hall of Fame, and once drank from the Grey Cup in a memorable post-game broadcast. With his death and that of Don Chevrier in December, Canada has now lost two of its great announcers, and great gentlemen.

Suzanne Pleshette

Suzanne Pleshette was the perfect TV wife. She was smart, sexy, sassy, but also genuine. In her most famous role, that of Bob Newhart's wife Emily on the original Bob Newhart Show, she gave us that television rarety - someone who was a real character, not just a caricature of one.

One of the reasons for the show's success was that it dared to portray its leads as adults rather than children (they even slept in the same bed!) - and that was something, in a medium in which husbands are often shown to be clueless fools and weaklings, the wives empty-headed sexpots or shrews. What made her character so real was the chemistry with her TV husband, a formula consisting in equal parts of love, respect, passion, exasperation, and resignation - in other words, the stuff of all successful marriages. She may have been Bob's foil, as one obit described her, but she was not a fool, nor did she suffer them gladly. But you could see how a man with a sense of humor would appeal to her, how a babe like her could fall for a nerd like Bob and stay together for so many years. Her surprise cameo at the end of Newhart's 80s sitcom, reprising Emily in a scene revealing that the entire series had been a dream and Bob was in fact still in his old show, was one of the great moments in TV history.

It would be a mistake to think that the show was all there was to Suzanne Pleshette - she appeared on the big screen and was a staple in television dramas of the 60s, and appeared in more recent sitcoms such as Will & Grace and 8 Simple Rules - but it was as Emily Hartley that we knew and loved her best; and that, it would seem, is not a bad way to be remembered, on the day she died of cancer at 70.

Bobby Fischer, R.I.P.

By Mitchell

Back in the day, when I was in school, the chess players were the nerds, the bookworms, the boys wearing the horn-rimmed glasses. There was something about them that was, well, a little different.

But there was a time in the early 70s when chess became kind of cool, even sexy. It was a time when chess even became a televised sport. (Don't laugh - if people will actually watch poker on TV, then anything's possible.) Chess was another weapon of the Cold War, wedged somewhere in between the space race and the Olympic hockey team; and chess players were the new scientists or classical musicians, so square they were hip. One man was primarily responsible for that transformation: Bobby Fischer.

When he defeated the evil Boris Spassky (he was a Russian, after all; he had to be evil, if not a Commie) in 1972 to become world chess championship, he also became an American hero, albeit for a very short time. About the time it took to go from an eccentric chess master to a full-blown nutjob.

He was an American champion at 14, a grand master at 15, and world champion at 29. He was tall, youthful and good-looking, the latest matinee idol. His magnetism positioned him to capture the sports spotlight. But, like those chess players we knew in school, Fischer was always a bit odd, seeing conspiracies behind every tree, under every bed. He was always storming out of matches, seeing photographers, journalists, foreign officials (he once referred to the Soviets as "Commie cheats," which endeared him even more to America) and even the lighting guy as potential adversaries. Was it gamesmanship or were we seeing the "idiosyncrasies" of a true paranoid? Were the symptoms there in the young Fischer; was there something in his drive for chess success at such a young age that left him scarred forever? We may never know, although his life should be a harsh lesson for any parents who have seen their children come to great success (athletic or otherwise) at an early stage of life, a time when it is far better to be just a kid.

Fischer gave up his title without ever having defended it, refusing to play Anatoly Karpov. As his grew, his star faded, a comet flaring out, until he was a mostly forgotten champion. He became a ravenous anti-American and anti-Semite - he said 9/11 was a good thing and that America should be "wiped out," and called Jews "thieving, lying bastards." Not only had his elevator ceased going to the top floors, it seldom seemed to emerge from the basement. He renounced his American citizenship and spent the last years of his life in Iceland, where he was still remembered for what he had been, rather than what he had become.

Garry Kasparov, the great Russian champion and anti-Communist, was quoted today as saying, "The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess." And that is probably about the best way to put it. Bobby Fischer, who died today of kidney failure at 64, was an icon of the 70s, a mad genius, a great chess player who threw it all away, a victim of his own mind, and he died a mere characture of his former greatness.

Jessica Simpson's Friday Night Sushi

When you're rich and famous, the question isn't if, but rather where you go out to eat. And Jessica Simpson clearly had a hankering for some Asian food last night.

The "Major Movie Star" actress was spotted at the high-end Japanese restaurant Kumo on Melrose. She wore a white sweater/jacket and some black bell-bottom jeans, along with a massive orange handbag.

On her way out the door, an assertive chauffeur approached the "With You" singer inquiring as to her need for a limousine. He handed her his business card, saying that if she ever needed a car to call him. Kinda strange.

Anywho, you can be sure that Miss Simpson will be finding things to keep her busy this weekend. Reportedly she'll be skipping the Dallas Cowboys football game on Sunday, due to the popular opinion that she's bad luck for Dallas' star quarterback/her boyfriend Tony Romo.

Lauren Conrad Gets Fired

Lauren Conrad Gets Fired

She's young, beautiful, and unemployed. That's right, Lauren Conrad has reportedly been dumped from her internship with Teen Vogue, along with Hills pal Whitney Port.

And according to an insider, the constant partying and lifestyle choices portrayed on LC's show "The Hills" may have had something to do with the decision handed down from Teen Vogue execs.

"The average age of the magazine's readership is 16 — do they really want to support the behavior depicted in "The Hills?" They also started to see that newsstand sales were flat… there was no blip on the radar when Lauren and Whitney were involved."

So what are these two gonna do? An industry spy reports that both Lauren and Whitney are already sorting through other job prospects for the show's next season. In the mean time, at least they won't be sustaining themselves on food stamps.

The Writers' Strike and the Month of Money

By Bobby

In a form of automobile racing held primarily in the Midwest known as sprint cars (not to be confused with NASCAR Sprint Cup), a series of races in July and August collectively have the title of the Month of Money. These races, which include the King's Royal (where the winner of the Eldora Speedway (Rossburg, OH) event receives a lavish coronation ceremony, complete with crown, a royal seat, and a robe) and the Super Clean Knoxville Nationals in Iowa, are regarded as the highest-paying races on the schedule and are regarded as the most prestigious races on the schedule.

Television traditionally has its "Month of Money," where networks and affiliates usually aim for the biggest events on television in a span of six to seven weeks, when most major events air during that span. The Month of Money events on television are the Golden Globe Awards (NBC), Super Bowl (Fox, NBC, CBS rotation), Grammy Awards (CBS), Daytona 500 (Fox), and Academy Awards (ABC), all of which air on Sunday nights during the Month of Money. These five events are regarded as highly-rated events that bring in huge revenues for the networks fortunate to air them; all four major networks have at least one Month of Money event, and three (NBC, CBS, Fox) of them can have two if the rotation allows them to have two. Advertising revenues for the networks and their affiliates could make or break the year if they perform well during the Month of Money; a network without a major event could be down millions, and lose precious affiliates. Such was the case after CBS was relegated to minor network status in 1994 following the loss of the NFL, and prestigious affiliates, a situation from which they have never recovered, as they were pushed into lower-power minor stations in major markets (Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Austin), which have cost them ratings power nationally.

With the Writers Guild of America strike, Fox is sitting pretty in the catbird's seat for winning the Month of Money as NBC lost the Golden Globe Awards to the strike, and ABC may be on the verge of losing the Academy Awards because of the strike, as the support of the Screen Actors Guild of the strike (note United Artists (Tom Cruise) and Worldwide Pants (David Letterman) have made independent collective bargaining agreements with the WGA) leads to boycotts of both entertainment-themed awards shows. CBS has the Grammy Awards, and the status of that awards show is currently in the fate of the union (it will go up against the Pro Bowl two out of every three years; during CBS' turn at the Pro Bowl, they will have the game moved to Saturday). Fox has the Super Bowl and Daytona 500, and both events are live sporting events, so neither event can be stopped by the strike.

The fact the Super Bowl traditionally wins that network the week is important; only a bad game with low appeal will cost the network the week. The Daytona 500 is growing into that level, as the final laps of the race are now held in prime-time, as the 2007 race ended after 7 PM.

Does the announcement of the cancellation of the Golden Globes and potential loss of the Grammys and Oscars mean Fox is home-free in the Month of Money with the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500?

Wish I'd Written That

By Mitchell

To the Frenchman, nothing counts, by and large, except what is French. No other culture, language, or heritage isas fine. This narrow patriotism fuses into fierce national pride and, to a great extent, excludes interest in any other culture, language, or heritage.

If France loses, the French tend to belittle the winner, put forth a dozen alibis for their own defeat, and intimate that the prize wasn't worth winning anyway.

If France wins, the instrument of victory is likely to be applauded beyond all proportion, to be hoisted to giddy heights in the popular imagination - and to be a flop all the rest of his life as a result.

Robert Daley, Cars at Speed

Poetry Wednesday

By Judith

The two song lyrics we're going to look at today were written by different people, but what brings them together is the composer, Bert Kaempfert, who recorded these and many other songs he wrote with his orchestra in the 1960s. And - this one's for you Badda - I'm going to tie him in to Frank Sinatra (of course) at the end.

I find these lyrics interesting because of their internal rhythm and rhyme scheme. Even without the music they move along with an infectious beat. The first, written by Kaempfert with Milt Gabler, was penned for Nat King Cole's last album in 1965. Notice the device of using the same word at the end of one line and the beginning of the next that provides emphasis and a strong push-off for the following line ("..game for two, two in love...") and the repeated, internal rhyme of "...make it, Take my heart and please don't break it". Not to mention the correct usage of "me and you", not "I and you" or "myself and you" as is so often used by people who have been scared into never using "me". (Actually, you and me flows better, but then doesn't rhyme. Oh well. Poetic license.)

L O V E

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore.

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you

The second song was written by Kurt Schwabach (with additional lyric by Milt Gabler) with Kaempfert and recorded in 1962. As with many of Kaempfert's songs, someone else made it famous. Remember 1963 when Wayne Newton was just a kid? Now the interesting thing about this is the mispronunciation of the German word "Schoen" (sounds like shern, not shane) in order to force the rhyme for "pain", "explain", "lane" and "again". To be fair, this isn't the first time it was done; the Andrews Sisters recorded a song called "Bei Mir Bist du Schoen" and also rhymed the last word with "explain".

This one is chock-full of internal rhyme and gives the impression that the singer (or speaker) is trotting down a staircase or skipping a stone on water. You want to move, even while reading it sitting down.

Danke Schoen

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Thank you for all the joy and pain.
Picture shows, second balcony, was the place we'd meet,
Second seat, go Dutch treat, you were sweet.

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Save those lies, Darling don't explain.
I recall, Central Park in fall.
How you tore your dress, what a mess, I confess. That's not all.

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Thank you for walks down Lover's Lane.
I can see, hearts carved on a tree.
Letters inter-twined, for all time, yours and mine, that was fine.

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Thank you for seeing me again.
Though we go on our seperate ways,
Still the memory stays, for always, my heart says, Danke Schoen.

Danke Schoen, Oh Darling, Danke Schoen.
I said, Thank you for seeing me again.
Though we go- on our seperate ways,
Still the memory stays, for always, my heart says, Danke Schoen.
Danke Schoen, Auf Wiedersehen, Danke Schoen.

Kaempfert wrote a number of other songs that ended up big hits for other people. "Moon Over Naples" became "Spanish Eyes", recorded by Al Martino and "A Swingin' Safari" reached # 13 on the charts as recorded by Billy Vaughn in 1962. Later that year the song gained even more fame when it became the theme for the game show "The Match Game". When the Beatles were performing and recording in Hamburg in the early 60s, a Croat singer named Ivo Robic convinced Kaempfert to hire them to be back-up for a singer named Tony Sheridan in a recording session. Ivo Robic also co-authored a famous song to be used as part of the score Kaempfert wrote for a movie in 1965 A Man Could Get Killed.

So where does Frank Sinatra come in? That song in the film was "Strangers in the Night", a # 1 hit for ol' blue eyes.

Baby Watch: Avril Lavigne

Baby Watch: Avril Lavigne
It seems like every day a new celebrity is expecting. And for today’s installment of Celebrity Baby Watch, Avril Lavigne is taking the honor.

That’s right; the 23-year-old punk rocker is taking the next step in her marriage with Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley - parenthood. They’ll be celebrating their 2nd year of marriage this July, and Avril is slated for an August due date.

The announcement of her pregnancy may put the kibosh on her latter 2008 touring. She’s already scheduled additional dates for her North American tour (Minneapolis; Atlantic City, NJ; East Rutherford, NJ; Boston; Montreal; and Uniondale, NY) and she’s scheduled to do a worldwide tour after that.

At least she won’t have to worry about that pesky copyright infringement lawsuit from the ‘70s band the Rubinoos. Reportedly her attorney has settled it out of court for an undisclosed amount of money.

Megan Fox Is A Sex Fiend

Megan Fox Is A Sex Fiend

She’s quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, and at last night’s “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” premiere/after party, Megan Fox’s hotness was quite evident.

The “Transformers” babe was sporting a sheer black dress (dig that leopard print bra!) and some thigh-high cream colored high-heeled boots. There’s no doubt she was the belle of the ball as she clung to boyfriend Brian Austin Green at Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood.

And speaking of Brian Austin Green, it sounds like he has his hands full! In a recent interview, Megan confessed that her sex drive is sky high.

She told press, “I really enjoy having sex, and that’s offensive to some people. Women are the quickest to call other women sluts, which I think is sad. I haven’t met a lot of men who have said, ‘You like having sex? What a dirty whore you are.’”

She continued, “I’m young and have a lot of hormones - I’m always in the mood! But I like sex with one person when I’m in a relationship. Sex with random people who I’ve met at clubs is not really my thing.”

When Men Were Men - and Conventions Were Conventions

By Mitchell

Donald at 2Blowhards has a nicely evocative article on a time for which all political junkies hearken: the era of the contested political convention.

There hasn’t really been one since the 1976 Republican convention, in which neither Gerald Ford, the incumbent, nor Ronald Reagan, the challenger, arrived in Kansas City with enough committed delegates to capture the nomination. Ford had the lead going into the convention, however, and barring a procedural vote going in Reagan’s favor (it didn’t, and in the process indicated to the convention the relative delegate strength of each candidate), he was still the solid favorite to win – which he did, on the first ballot.

The Democrats almost had one, in 1980. Again it was the case of a challenger taking on an incumbent. In this case, the challenger was Ted Kennedy, making his one and only run at the presidency; the incumbent was Jimmy Carter. Again there was a procedural vote, on which Kennedy had laid all his chips; again the party machine, arrayed (for better or worse) behind Carter, held the line; again the challenger fell. Carter won the nomination only, as had Ford four years earlier, to lose the general election. (However, for Kennedy, unlike Reagan, there would be no second act on the presidential stage.) And with that, for better or worse. the last excitement that anyone would ever see at a political convention had come to an end.

(And, by the way, doesn’t it really say something about the uselessness of Kennedy’s political career that he wasn’t even able to wrest the nomination away from Carter, perhaps the weakest president of the latter part of the 20th Century? If this doesn’t prove the power of the incumbency, nothing does.)

As Donald points out, 1952 was the last time either national party had a presidential nominating battle go to multiple ballots. (A slight correction on Donald’s post: while the Democrats did indeed go to three ballots before nominating Adlai Stevenson, the GOP convention liked Ike on the first ballot – with Eisenhower only five votes short of the nomination after initial voting, a series of switches in state voting wound up giving him a decisive victory. Then, as now, everyone wants to be seen going with the winner.) In fact, the last time there was a multiple-ballot vote on anything was, of all things, the 1956 Democratic vice-presidential contest. Stevenson, having once again won the presidential nomination, decided to allow the convention to choose his running mate. Stevenson’s rival, Estes Kefauver, bested the young John F. Kennedy on the second ballot to capture the nomination.

Back in those days, political conventions were once the occasion for excitement, anticipation, drama. They represented the climax of a campaign season that wasn't dominated by "Super Tuesday," a time when most candidates didn't announce until early in the same year of the election, when the New Hampshire primary wasn't held until March, for heaven's sake. Take a look at TV Guide in July of 1964 for example, when the Republicans were preparing for one of the most tumultuous conventions they'd had in years. NBC provided live daily coverage of platform and credentials committee hearings. CBS aired a one-hour documentary showing highlights of "Great Conventions" of the past. Both networks provided gavel-to-gavel coverage than ran well past midnight. They actually expected people would want to watch this kind of coverage. And many did.

Today, of course, the national political conventions have less excitement than a cow-milking contest. Why is that? For one thing, as far as political conventions go, excitement usually means controversy, dissention, fighting. All of it in front of the cameras. (Recall 1976, when Vice President Nelson Rockefeller became involved in a brawl on the convention floor that resulted in him ripping out a telephone that connected one of the delegations to the podium.) And while all that makes for riviting TV, it doesn't always translate into effective politics, especially for the party in question. Heck, the role call of the states - the "Mr. Chairman" moment about which Donald writes fondly - is now spread over two or three days. Nobody even bothers to watch it.

2Blowhards commentor Annette mentions the 1972 Democratic convention as a turning point, with George McGovern delivering his acceptance speech at around 3:00 in the morning. She's correct, because after that debacle things do change. But to understand the nature of the change, it's necessary to go back to the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. You could write a book about that one, but the image one should keep in mind is that of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (no, not the current one - his legendary father), his iron-fisted response to anti-war demonstrators, and his role in delivering the old-line establishment machine behind Hubert Humphrey. The reformers didn't forget that in 1972, and at the Miami Beach convention they sought to break the hold of the establishment, beginning with their successful challenge that ousted the Daley-controlled Illinois delegation. The result of all this reform was a tyranny of the minority.

Now, I don't use that phrase perjoratively, for in fact we're talking about factions that in and of themselves were true minorities in the political system prior to that time - blacks and women, abortion rights advocates, anti-war protestors, along with the anti-establishment reformers. Put together they made a majority of the delegates in Miami, enough to get George McGovern the presidential nominaiton, but their collective power was somewhat diminished because of their factionalism. Theodore White's The Making of the President 1972 provides a marvelous description of the pinnacle of this disorganization - the chaos surrouding the choice of McGovern's running mate Thomas Eagleton, and the subsequent floor fight over his nomination. It was the voting on that nomination - three other candidates were nominated, and over 70 received votes (including 30 votes for the unknown Georgia governor Jimmy Carter) that pushed McGovern's acceptance speech out of prime time and into a political Twilight Zone.

It must be said that the Democrats learned well from that lesson. Watching the fiasco in Miami Beach - and remembering it four years later - was the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Robert Strauss. Strauss was determined not to repeat the mistakes of 1972, and created an ironclad agenda written months in advance of the convention, which included a prime-time acceptance speech. He even specified the exact time, to the minute. The model has been followed ever since.

There's another byproduct of that 1972 convention however, one that tells us a great deal more about our modern politics. Having ruefully discovered the inherent drawbacks to the populist, power-to-the-people movement spearheaded by the McGovern reformers, the Dems took a step back. Oh, the minority - some might say fringe - elements continued to control the party machinery, as they do to this day. But whereas the message of 1972 was "Let Everyone Speak," the message of 2008 has become "Speak Only If You Agree With Us." By allowing the tyranny of the minority to become an ideological dictatorship, the Democrats have essentially stamped out any form of dramatic dissent from the party line, at least at the national level. Pro-life Democrats? Not on the podium at the national convention. Pro-war Democrats? Ask Joe Lieberman. The voiceless elements do indeed have a voice in the Democratic party - the only voice, as it happens, that counts. Even some traditional elements of the Democratic coalition made the switch - unions, which had been staunchly anti-Communist throughout the Cold War, moved steadily to the left. Catholics, long a staple of the party, no longer cast their votes reflexively for the Democrats - and those Catholics left in the Democratic Party tended to be liberal, heterodox ones, now challenging the Church's leadership rather than the party's.

This is only a theory, I admit, but I think it's a useful one. Anyone reading the evolution of the Democratic Party, from Kennedy's 1960 victory through the chaos of 1968 and 1972, to the Strauss-mandated order of 1976, to the monochromatic liberalism of today, would share at least some of these conclusions.

What about the Republicans, you say? Well, they've had their own hierarchical pattern throughout the years, usually bestowing their presidential nomination on candidates who've "earned" it through long years of service. For further examples, see "Nixon, Richard," (although in that case they were right), "Ford, Gerald," "Dole, Robert," and "Bush, George W." The best you can say about them is that the winner usually bears the establishment seal of approval, which puts the same kind of damper on genuine debate and disagreement at the convention as the one-note politics of the Democrats. There's some hope that this year's GOP covention, to be held across the river from us in St. Paul, might be different. I share that hope, but not the optimism that it will actually happen.

At any rate, we didn't set out to discuss ideology or current politics as much as to cast an appreciative, nostalgic eye back in time, to an era when political conventions really meant something, when the smoke-filled rooms and the backstage deals and the packed galleries created their own share of drama and helped write the history of America. It was messy, often unfair, autocratic, splattered with mud - and I miss it tremendously.

What Music Means

By Drew

I meant to write about this a while ago, back when it was more topical. I suppose other things got in the way, and now I'm just coming back to it. I'm glad I waited though, because I've come up with another angle to it.

It starts with this comment by Ray from MN on a previous post. In respose to one of Mitchell's pieces on opera, Ray wrote:

You write on opera and music in a way that stings in that I have ignored it for most of my life. I've missed out on a lot of what it is to be human. [Emphasis added]

Undeniably, there is something in music that touches us in that way, that issues a subtle comment on "what it is to be human."

And so we come to the death, early in December, of the contemporary classical composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany. Alex Ross describes Stockhausen as 'a giant of late-twentieth-century music," a composer who "released sounds of mind-opening and mind-bending power." Andrew Clements, writing in the Guardian, says that Stockhausen "was part of the generation of composers who had seen the old order in Europe come to catastrophe in the chaos of the second world war, and had determined that artistically they had to begin again." Ivan Hewett, also in the Guardian, says that Stockhausen "was one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music." The conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen called Stockhausen "the rock star of my youth." Stockhausen's influence was said to stretch from the Beatles to the avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.

Amidst all this praise for Stockhausen, David Pryce-Jones, writing at NRO, comes to a completely different conclusion:

[Stockhausen] preferred not to communicate, to ignore melody and rhythm, and simply to ambush his audience with strangeness and discord. His work is a gigantic gimmick. Much of it is electronic, or consists of the abuse of instruments and people. Players are often left free to begin or to stop, interpreting as they choose. Players are advised in one instance to “Live completely alone for four days, without food in complete silence.” One of his pieces lasts for an hour with six vocalists “meditating” on a single note. In another piece, the members of a string quartet played from an airborne helicopter, their sounds relayed through screens and loudspeakers. It is the musical equivalent of conceptual art. The degradation of the man’s character was shown when he described 9/11 as “a work of art.”

[...]

Egomaniacs like Stockhausen are meat and drink to promoters and sensation-mongers, and nothing much can be done about it except to endure and wait for them to be gone. Unfortunately he and so many like him pass as “artists,” when they are nothing of the kind, but only destroyers of the culture they inherited.

So which is it? The weight of truth seems, to me, to side with Pryce-Jones. I say this not only because of Stockhausen's excreble comments on 9/11, but because so much of Pryce-Jones' charges against Stockhausen's legacy speak to my own opinion on the meaning of music. As Pyrce-Jones says, music "is perhaps the most direct and beautiful of the possible means of communication. Pretty well all of us recognise melody and rhythm, and these correspond to something deep in our common humanity."

In that sense, Stockhausen's music appears to fly in the face of the relationship between music and nature. Rather than harmonizing with our natural rhythms, it would seem to contradict it, and with that our humanity as well. It is destructive, driving apart rather than synthesizing. Hewett himself, in his obit of Stockhausen, is completed to mention "the accusation levelled at Stockhausen's music as a whole, that the vast ideas it contains often sound chaotic or merely ugly."

And there, I think, are the key words: chaos and ugly. Does it not say much about the way we view humanity, and life? There is our constant struggle against the order of natural law, the order given us by God. In place of that order we seek to insert chaos - or, if you will, relativity. Chaos, as seen through its struggle against nature, is not a good thing.

Nor can it be said that there is anything naturally ugly about humanity, although many aspects of it may be thought ugly; just as there is nothing ugly about human beings, even though many of them appear to us that way. In fact, nothing which is created in the image of God can be said to be ugly, except through self-choice. Choices, perhaps, that Stockhausen reflects through his music, fighting the natural instinct toward beauty that exists in the human soul and manifests itself through human creativity.

I don't want to go too far down that road however, because I don't want to fully pass that kind of personal judgement on Stockhausen. He was said to be a man of God, who said that God gave birth to him and called him home. And so perhaps, in his own way, Stockhausen meant to explore some of that mystical relationship through his music. But there have certainly been many ugly explorations of religion in contemporary art; we are constantly exposed to the ugly: ugly churches, ugly religious music, ugly theology.

And so we're left with a continuing plea to remember the relatonship that is supposed to exist between art and beauty. For if, as we've written before, there is an element of truth essential to art, then also there must be that relationship between truth and beauty. Stockhausen's music has been called many things; I'm not aware that beautiful was one of them. And, as Ray reminded us in the quote that began this peace, true beauty is a lot of what it is to be human.

What Not to Write

By Mitchell

As read in The Corner at the end of last week, a wise person writes Jonah Goldberg as follows:

Hello [writes Jonah's correspondent] , I wonder if you could help me save my sanity. The use of periods in the middle of sentences in order to emphasize the gravity of a statement has to be absolutely the most annoying online cliche I have ever seen. [Jonah had described something as the "Most. Painful. Thing. Ever."] Everyone does it. Everyone. It was interesting maybe two years ago when whoever it was (you? I wouldnt be surprised) started this stampede, but I cannot take it anymore. Every blog, every commenter, every diarist, does it and thinks they're being clever.
Well, it isnt clever anymore. Now it's like the visual equivalent of the sound of a broken whiskey bottle being dragged across a chalk board. Please spread the word to your brethren that many of us toiling out here in Readership Land are about to snap. Much obliged!

[Jonah replies]: Noted! Actually, my pet online peeve are people who use the phrase "Just sayin'" as a cutesy way of saying something barbed. I've done it a couple times without catching myself. But I really can't stand it.

Both Jonah and his correspondent are right here. We try very hard at this site to be analytical, concise, and (on rare occasion) profound. What we don't go for is clever or cute, especially when it borders on snarky. To the items listed above I'd add, "Umm," which is almost always both cutesy and snarky. Forget about the broken whiskey bottle and the chalk board; it's a sure inducer of projectile vomiting. As anyone who reads our Rules of the Road knows, something like that'll get you booted right off this site, unless you're willing to pay an exorbident ransom to the Managing Editors.

There's nothing wrong with irony, as long as you don't allow it to become your world-view. It might have been fresh when it started, but by the time I wrote this description in my as-yet unpublished novel, the ironic lifestyle had already become a parody of itself:

In one of the front rows, I recognized Mark Westerman, the beat reporter from the Troyville Sun, Moon and Star, who’d been covering the campaign. Westerman was one of those smart-ass punks who figured that he’d do some time in journalism before writing the great American novel, wowing us all with his hip post-modern observations on the irony of life. In reality, the irony was that he didn’t get it, not at all, so busy was he trying to apply that post-modern spin of his to the political scene. He figured he was too cool, too preoccupied with being hip, to be seen talking to mere politicians; but he also knew that lowering himself to speak with them gave him the opportunity to talk down his nose to them in his articles, which would be even more ironic, and in an ironic kind of way this actually made him more diligent than most local reporters.

Life is rich enough in irony without having to pose for it, but the danger is that when you see life as being too ironic, you lose sight of most of what life is all about, especially meaning. And if you're trying to advocate a particular point of view, you're almost sure to find yourself preaching to the choir and turning everyone else away. And I think most of us are capable of better than that. Aren't we?