Date Posted: January 4, 2007 - Thursday
Title: Random thoughts Volume 3
Current mood: cranky
That Football Player . . .
Yeah, you know the one I mean. The guy who used to run through airports to advertise a car rental company. Involved in a lot of 'legal' trouble in Los Angeles a few years back. Had a collection of Swiss Army knives.
No, I don't want to use his name or even the initials he goes by.
Anyway, seems a while back this dud (no, I didn't misspell dude) decides he is going to write a fictional book titled "If I Did It." Like there are that many people around who don't believe he really did it.
This was supposed to be … Hell, I don't know what it was supposed to be. Science Fiction? Fantasy? Anyway, an account of how he would have done the deed – if he had really done it.
Well, gag me with a spoon. And that was about the reaction of a great portion of the media.
Besides the book, there was supposed to be two days of interviews conducted on the Fox Network. (Yep, that company, News Corp., headed by the bastion of fair and balanced media coverage Rupert Murdoch.)
Turns out even Murdoch's minions couldn't stomach the idea eventually. Or they bowed to the outcry that the announcement of the interviews generated.
Interviews canceled
I guess the book came out as I heard it was supposed to sell on Amazon.Com for $16.47. Don't know if it did get released because I not only wouldn't own it or read it but wouldn't use it to light a fire if I was freezing to death. The publisher should probably be prosecuted for wasting the trees it took to print the thing.
And the final karma of this whole story is the woman who was the publisher of the book, Judith Regan, (who worked for the aforementioned News Corp.) was later fired for ranting that a "Jewish cabal" in the book industry was out to get her. She was going to sue, claiming she had never made the remarks, but the man she had the conversation with had taken notes and he released them when her lawyer threatened lawsuit.
What goes around comes around, babe.
The Penalty for Stealing an Election …
OK, maybe not stealing an election, but at least corrupting the process a whole bunch.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, MoveOn.org Voter Fund and the League of Conservation Voters got slapped with fines of about $450,000 for several violations of election regulations.
You remember these clowns, right? The ones who came out with all the harsh propaganda to help the Republicans to victory in 2004.
So now we know the price to you pay to screw up the electoral process. No jail time, nobody gets in real trouble. Just write the check and get away with whatever you want. And it takes several years to get your wrist slapped anyway.
The 'Sunshine' Administration
Striking another blow for the free and open administration of your government, the Bush Administration wants to overturn a court ruling which ordered the release of the records of visitors to the office of Dick Chaney, the Vice President. A U.S. District Judge, Ricardo M. Urbania, ordered two years of visitor logs released to the media investigating the possible influence lobbyists had over government decision making.
Right On, George. Just keep the public in the dark about who has access to the White House and the administration. Don't let anyone know who may really be coming up with all those people-friendly decisions and policies.
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Yep, that's the pronouncement from that ultimate arbiter of social responsibility, Paris Hilton.
Coming to the defense of Britney Spears, Hilton said that people shouldn't criticize her friend's parenting commitment and just let her party away. "She’s, young, and if she wants to go out and have some fun, let her."
I will not dispute that Spears loves her children, but I can't buy her "partying ethics" haven't exposed them to less than exemplary parenting. Never having had children myself, I am not an expert, but I was raised in a family of eight and I know how much work raising children can be.
Since Spears is a single parent now the job of raising children can be doubly difficult. The urge for some time to herself has got to be strong, but parenting calls for self sacrifice and partying all night with a bimbo heiress and another former child star nick named "fire crotch" can't be classified as self sacrifice. This is especially egregious when you show up at a party in a little black dress that barely covers your tushie and absent-mindedly leave your panties at home.
So, Paris, despite your sterling defense of Britney, maybe your friend ought to grow up, shed her trailer-trash image and think of her kids first before she boogies the night away with her privates blowing in the wind.
And, Britney, think about this one. What are you going to say in a few years when your kids start cruising the Internet and looking for pictures of mommy?
What Are We Doing to Our Children
I was watching a movie the other night with the child actress Dakota Fanning in it. She's been in a fair number of films for a young girl. I can think of three right off the top of my head.
And as I was watching, I wondered what will become of this little girl. It is a treacherous path for a child actor or actress. There seem to be so many examples of turmoil and trouble for children who have grown up in front of the movie camera.
Drew Berrymore went through a wild period when she was very young.
Even those who enter into the entertainment industry at a later age have had their problems. Look at Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Not total disasters, but enough acting out to be a troublesome example.
Recently I also saw the remake of the film "The Parent Trap" with a pre-teen Lindsay Lohan playing the separated twins. Sweet looking little girl, but look at what she has grown into. A lot of nightclubbing, acting out and earning the nickname "fire crotch" from some rather rude male partying companion.
I suspect there will always be children who have to grow up in the film and entertainment industry. And there will probably be more who will stumble and fall as they grow to adulthood. But what does it say about us as a culture that we expose our offspring to these conditions in the name of producing leisure-time products.
The "Smell" of Controversy
The California Milk Processor Board came up with a novel idea to promote their "Got Milk?" campaign in San Francisco. They put scented strips in bus shelters as a part of their advertising campaign. The smell? Fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies.
Immediately there was a protest against the campaign. The rationale? That putting the smell of cookies in the air would be an affront to people too poor to buy cookies.
Hell, by that rationale I want them to take those obnoxious Lexus commercials off the air around Christmas time every year. Remember those, the "December to Remember" campaign spots? If I can't afford a Lexus then those commercials are offensive to me.
But the campaign to put a nicer scent than bus fumes into the atmosphere came to a quick conclusion.
City officials, demonstrating an amazing lack of backbone, ordered the scent strips removed after one day. Their reasoning? A possible allergic reaction to the scented products. The milk board's explanation that the ingredients in the scent strips were flavor-based oils already found in many foods fell on deaf ears.
So chalk up another one to bureaucratic stupidity and lack of intestinal fortitude. And the residents of San Francisco can struggle forward without the smell of chocolate-chip cookies at their bus stops.
Dueling Egos
It's a nasty battle of the egos. Rosie O'Donnell versus Donald Trump.
Lord, pick a favorite in that fight. (Who cares?)
The Donald recently announced he was giving a second chance to a chastened Miss USA, Tara Conner. Seems the underage young lady was out partying, drinking and perhaps more. Trump owns the beauty pageant and made the decision that she could keep her crown despite lapses in a wholesome image.
Well, this upset O'Donnell to no end. She blasted Trump for grandstanding, using the announcement as hype for the upcoming season of his reality show “The Apprentice” and a number of other things. And beyond just the railing about the press conference, O'Donnell ranted on about Trump's hair, his finances, his marital record and a whole bunch of other things. The topper was her statement that he had no right to be, "the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America."
And who does, Rosie, you?
Trump fired back calling O'Donnell fat, dumb and a number of other things. And he probably went over the line when he threatened to send a friend over and take O'Donnell's lesbian girlfriend away from her.
Now I have little use for either of these two. I do kind of like Trump's show because I think it is just amazing how all these supposedly successful business people and aspiring entrepreneurs can be so stupid when given a business task to complete. But, of the two I guess I have to take Trump's side.
Yes, the press conference may have been a sideshow and hype for the upcoming season, but then what isn't hype these days. And it's not like O'Donnell is some bastion of purity and restraint when it comes to media hype.
Beyond the hype, Trump was exercising that most American of values; giving someone a second chance when they screw up. He didn't claim to be the moral arbiter for anyone, not 20-year-olds, not aging executives, no one. It was an isolated case of redemption not applicable to anyone or anything else.
O'Donnell seemed to be using her bully pulpit as one of the hosts of “The View” to promulgate her own vision of what is right and proper. I have long suspected O'Donnell wants to be the white Oprah; media giant and arbiter of everything.
I would think she has little right to question anyone getting a second chance since she has had more than a few second chances in her 'career'.
Hopefully these two will both go away. Trump back to his real estate ventures and O'Donnell back into some kind of obscurity reserved for B-list celebrities.
The Potomac Two-Step
Before the last election I was pulled toward making some comments. But, every time I thought I had a handle on what I wanted to say another scandal broke out and the whole picture changed.
The Republicans seemed to be tripping over their own feet left and right, and the Democrats were not without goofs on their side of the aisle.
We had Congressmen chasing boys over the Internet, leadership claiming they didn't know what was going on, legislators being investigated for giving relatives perks that benefited their businesses and a whole raft of other missteps from our supposed national leaders.
So the Democrats swept through the election and now take control of Congress. They have promised a new spirit of cooperation, but their first initiative seems fairly partisan. The "first 100 hours" campaign to pass legislation on key issues was outlined as an effort to push things through without Republican input or efforts to derail the legislation. Not a real cooperative spirit there.
Hopefully the members of this Congress have learned a lesson from the election. Maybe they will finally, at least for a while, get the idea that the public is tired of the shenanigans, scandals and blatant misuse of authority and they will actually get some things done that benefit the country.
I hope so anyway, but I still may have to say something about the crap that happened pre-election.
Sloppy Record Keeping and Management
A report came out a while back about how arms shipments to Iraq were being handled. The weapons were intended for the internal defense of the country when we eventually extricate ourselves from this most recent quagmire. And some of them were unaccounted for.
So, just take a look at this and tell me if it isn't just a little scary how lax the control seems to be.
13,480 semi-automatic pistols were unaccounted for.
All 751 of the M1-F assault rifles sent to the country are missing.
Nearly 100 MP-5 machine guns are missing.
Talk about a lack of gun control.
