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(Personally, I still prefer Mess O’ Potamia, but whatever. As long as it’s not Trendspotting, I’m happy.)
For starters, I have a slightly older article from MoJo that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a few weeks: The Hidden War on Women in Iraq, circa 7/13/06. The tag line says it all: “Since the American invasion of their country, Iraqi women have suffered a marked increase in sexual terrorism.”
Countless Iraqi women have become shut-ins in their own homes. Historian Marjorie Lasky has described this situation in “Iraqi Women Under Siege,” a 2006 report for Codepink, an anti-war women’s organization. Before the war, she points out, many educated Iraqi women participated fully in the work force and in public life. Now, many of them rarely go out. They fear kidnap and rape; they are terrified of getting caught in the cross-fire between Americans and insurgents; they are frightened by sectarian reprisals; and they are scared of Islamic militants who intimidate or beat them if they are not “properly covered.”
Gee, and I though the War On Terra was supposed to advance women’s rights in the Middle East. Care to respond, Laura Teh Velvet Hammer Feminist ™ Bush? Nevermind, I’m sure she doesn’t much pay attention to the newspapers, either.
When you’re done with that assignment (yes, read the whole! thing!), surf on over to Salon and check out the poignant essay from Anthony Bourdain, Watching Beirut Die. Again, whole thing.
And speaking of Beirut - during the evacuation of foreign civilians from Lebanon, our elected sheeple managed to overlook the evacuees’ animals. Again. Guess those “lessons learned from Katrina” were a load. You can find out more about the plight of animals in the war zone - and lend some aid - via the many alerts I’ve posted on my special Katrina page. (Sadly, current events have forced me to expand the page’s scope to include all large scale disasters.) Or, go right to Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and make a donation.
Next up, some humor from Sploid: Lovin’ That Bloodshed:
Apocalyptic Christians are thrilled over the horrific bloodshed in Lebanon.
That’s because they’re hoping the End of the World is finally at hand — and only some 1,950 years after Jesus reportedly promised it would happen. […]
Watching the massacre of innocent Lebanese on television, another one of Jesus’ followers wrote, “Got that dancing feeling on the inside of me.” […]
But for Christians who pray every day for the destruction of Earth and the brutal torture of the billions of people who don’t follow their religion, the best part is when Jesus will magically suck all of the Christians from the Earth — right out of their clothes.
The awful image of millions of fat, naked Christians being hoovered into the sky may be disgusting to most people, but to the “Rapture Ready” crowd there is nothing more orgasmic.
The English term rapture comes from the Latin word for rape; Christians hoping for the Rapture are literally begging to be raped by Jesus.
Sadly, they’re only 1/3 kidding.
Now on to some slightly more amusing fare. That’s right - Mel “Fucking Sugar Titty Jews” Gibson.
Choice coverage:
* TZM’s un-covering of the cover-up, “Gibson’s Anti-Semitic Tirade — Alleged Cover Up”;
* The Passion of the Freepies, bravely brought to you by Pam Spaulding;
* Christopher Hitchens’ take on Gibson (”He is sick to his empty core with Jew hatred.”);
* Mel’s bullshit apology rationalization, posted on CNN
Oh, I so can’t wait for that video to be leaked to You Tube!
My final link is only tangentially related to the Middle East, so bear with me for a moment. The NY Times reports that…
The PBS documentarian Ken Burns has been working for six years on “The War,” a soldier’s-eye view of World War II, and those who have seen parts of the 14-plus hours say they are replete with salty language appropriate to discussions of the horrors of war.
What viewers will see and hear when the series is broadcast in September 2007 is an open question.
A new Public Broadcasting Service policy that went into effect immediately when it was issued on May 31 requires producers whose shows are broadcast before 10 p.m. to adhere to tough editing requirements when it comes to coarse language, to comply with tightened rulings on broadcast indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.
Most notably, PBS’s deputy counsel, Paul Greco, wrote in a memo to stations, it is no longer enough simply to bleep out offensive words audibly when the camera shows a full view of the speaker’s mouth. From now on, the on-camera speaker’s mouth must also be obscured by a digital masking process, a solution that PBS producers have called cartoonish and clumsy.
In addition, profanities expressed in compound words must be audibly bleeped in their entirety so that viewers cannot decipher the words. In the past, PBS required producers to bleep only the offensive part of the compound word.
Let me guess. The chillun, chillun, oh lawdy, we got to protect the chillun’. Gawd forbid they be exposed to “salty language.” Because they’ve got to have virgin ears when they hit 18 and we send ‘em off to war, right? Kind of like the “clean underwear” admonitions our moms always gave us. When we were five.
Our priorities are just so fucked.
F. U. C. K. E. D.
November couldn’t possibly come soon enough.
Last night, as I was folding laundry in front of the TV (really, is there any better place to fold laundry?), I happened to catch the first few minutes of CNN’s Showbiz Tonight. (Which, I hasten to add, I never fucking watch. At least not on purpose. For Chrissakes, it’s hosted by a dude named A.J. Fucking Hammer. And, as is a fitting punishment, I feel that much stupider for having ingested the little morsel of inanity that I did.)
Anyway, they were discussing - what else? - the Brangelina spawn, otherwise known as Shiloh. Shiloh, which in addition to meaning “the peaceful one” via Teh Bible, is also a dog’s name. A cute dog, but a dog nonetheless. Seethe not, jealous genetic deficients, at least Teh Perfect Baby has a gawd-awful name. Then again, she’s unlikely to be on the receiving end of much shit, even for such a dumb name, because where the fuck would her fellow gourmet babycake classmates Apple and Assisi get off teasing Shiloh re: her canine namesake?
Angie, were you doing kinky stuff to the dog again?
But I digress. Mr. A. J. Hammer and his colleagues were griping about the hurdles that the paparazzi have faced in obtaining post-birth interviews with and photos of the Jolie-Pitt clan. Poor paparazzi! Imagine that - the woman just had her uterus sliced open, and she doesn’t want y’all peeping in her bedroom window. The Nerve!
Don’t get me wrong. When George Clooney had a tantrum about the “stalkerazzi”, I rolled my eyes along with the rest of America. After all, if it weren’t for the moviegoing public’s obsession with you, George, there’s no fucking way you’d be able to demand $20 million per movie. That’s 20. Million. Dollars. For, what, six months worth of work? Doctors who save lives, not to mention soldiers who sacrifice theirs, don’t earn that much during the course of their entire careers. So quitcher bitchin’, Georgie, a few photo ops and a George Hancocks here and there are all part of your job. (Even then, you’re still grossly overpaid.) Don’t like it? Go work at Starbucks, you douchebag. A word of warning: Starbucks employees don’t get sprung from the slammer after serving 4 hours of a 60-day sentence for drunk driving. So there are other perks to celebrity, is what I’m saying.
My general dislike of celebrity notwithstanding, even I was appalled by the Vampirazzi’s arrogance in dissing on Pitt and (especially) Jolie for their reluctance to cater to Teh Media during the gestation and birth of their baby. Bloodsucking, vampiric, cannibalistic leeches, those people are. While the mainstream media sit on their arses and regurgitate el presidente’s talking points ad nauseam, the Vampirazzi flock to Namibia in order to snag the very first photo of…what? A fucking toehead! They all look the same, people! Oh, sweet Jebus, how did our priorities get so fucked?
Again, I digress. Copied below is the full transcript of said segment. I know the text looks daunting, but it was all so shockingly pretentious that it’s just impossible to excerpt the worst parts. It was all the worst. If you simply can’t bring yourself to slog through the full pile of horseshit, jump right to the bolded sections. Just be sure to meet me at the end for the snarky punchline.
HAMMER: Hello, I’m A.J. Hammer in New York.
VARGAS: And I’m Sibila Vargas in Hollywood. And A.J., got to ask you a question. If you were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie right now, what kind of sign would you post on your door?
HAMMER: Well, that would be easy, it’d be that little sign that says “Privacy, please.” Yes, privacy is in fact the buzzword in Namibia tonight as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie dodge the press and just about anyone else trying to get a glimpse of their baby girl, little Shiloh, born just last Saturday. SHOWBIZ TONIGHT is in Namibia with CNN correspondent, Robyn Curnow.
Let me interject, if only to remind y’all that this was broadcast on Wednesday - not one week after Jolie was either carved open like a turkey in order to have a buhbie extracted from her womb (if one is to believe the reports) or forcibly expelled a 7-pound melon from her netheregion. Either way, does Mr. Hammer really expect her to be amenable to an interview? Seriously?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Robyn, this hasn’t exactly been the smoothest of relationships between Brad and Angelina’s camp and the media, has it?
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No, it hasn’t at all A.J., in fact, I’d probably say there hasn’t been any relationship between Brad and Angelina and the media. Now, it depends when you talk about the media, whether you mean the paparazzi, the foreign photographers, or whether you’re looking at some local journalists trying to get an interview or a little picture of that famous visitors on their doorstep. Either way, there really hasn’t been interaction between the Pitt-Jolie family and the media here.
They have very, very successfully managed to quadrant (ph) themselves off, to isolate themselves here on this west coast of Africa. And there really is absolutely no interaction whatsoever. The media themselves have tried, absolutely, to try and sneak a few photos. They haven’t been successful. They say they’re definitely losing out to the Brad Pitt- Angelina Jolie camp in that sense. But, on the other hand, they say it would have been great if Brad and Angelina had come out maybe once or twice, given a few photo opportunities, said hello, maybe given a quick little interview to the local newspaper. That would have smoothed over all sorts of things. So, at the moment, the relationship is very much nonexistent.
Smoothed over what sorts of things? What grievous sins did the two commit that they must now atone for? Was $300,000 not a large enough donation? Oy. The noggin aches.
HAMMER: And in addition to getting that photo op or perhaps just getting a picture, I understand that you and your CNN crew have been working at getting an interview with Angelina and Brad. They’re not even speaking with CNN. Basically, they are not talking to anybody.
Shorter Hammer: We’re CNN, dammit! No one snubs CNN!
CURNOW: Yeah, I mean, that is basically it. We handed over a letter to one of their keepers, because there is a large quadrant of people and bodyguards and just people who are protecting them. And we said, you know, we’re here, we’ve come all the way to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Namibia. We’re - - very lovely to come in and have a cup of tea. I somehow doubt that we’ll be invited in.
HAMMER: And what I’m trying to under, maybe you can help me out here, I have no idea what they’re so upset about or why they are making it so difficult. You mentioned to us last night on the show that it’s not exactly swarming with paparazzi. There are reporters everywhere trying to get a hold of them. So why don’t they want to do this? Why don’t they want to come out and participate with the media at all? I mean, what do you think is going on? It seems like a perfect opportunity with things really under relative control.
I think major surgery is enough to make any woman want a little privacy, no? Really, no?
And if they weren’t upset before, this self-interested drivel should be enough to do it.
CURNOW: Absolutely. I think that is the key point, here. The control is firmly in the Jolie-Pitt camp. I mean, they are setting the agenda, here. Every time they go out there’s a thousand meter quadrant around, say, a restaurant or a beach where they’re at. That’s according to one of the photographers we spoke to today. So, you know, that is the big question. Why haven’t they just, you know, maybe been a little bit flexible, been maybe a little bit kinder or generous to the local press in particular. I don’t know. That’s a good question. And people are asking that. We have only had one official statement from them, I think it was released to a magazine in the U.S. saying that the baby has been born and it was, you know, x-weight and it was born by cesarean section, but other than that, there has been absolutely no media whatsoever. There’s been a lot of speculation, a lot of rumor, a lot of misinformation and so that also creates this whole quite bad and negative atmosphere, where people feel like they are being exclude, in a way, which I suppose, is not the way, you know, people hoped that this experience would go at least for the people here in Namibia who are quite proud that these famous people have landed up on their doorstep.
Oh, I’m sorry. I guess this featherhead just didn’t understand. I didn’t realize that the couple was obligated to share the birth of their first child with the whole fucking town. Because, you know, it’s just so selfish for Brad and Angie to make it all about them. Maybe Jolie can cram a web cam up her birth canal next time so y’all feel included?
(On a more serious note, rumor has it that Jolie and Pitt are selling the rights to the first photo of Shiloh to an American mag/rag for $5 million. Which they are donating to UNICEF. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if they let someone else take a photo of the little bundle, then they, um, can no longer sell the “first photo.” Which means they can’t get quite as much for it. Which means they’ll have less to donate to charity. Yeah, those two should be ashamed of themselves! And, to Hammer’s detriment - he reported this the night before. Idiot.)
HAMMER: Certainly. And certainly it is the right of Brad and Angelina to do as they please, but it seems to fly in the face of logic that they wouldn’t be a little more welcoming and a little more participatory with the press and the media. Robyn Curnow, thank you so much for joining us once again from Namibia, tonight.
Wait for it, wait for it…
Would you scumsuckers like a side of afterbirth to go with that self-entitlement?
Sorry for the repetition, but man I hate this douchebag.
Via The Superficial.
The more I read about this Tom Cruise fellow, the less I likey likey:
Forget whatever it was Tom Cruise told Diane Sawyer about his relationship with Katie Holmes’ parents.
The truth is, Katie’s parents, Martin and Kathleen Holmes, didn’t get to see baby Suri up close and personal until the day of the “Mission: Impossible 3″ premiere in Los Angeles.
That would have been May 4. Suri was born in the late afternoon on April 17.
You do the math, fans. That’s two and a half weeks. The Holmeses were specifically not invited until Tom was back home in Los Angeles after his worldwide promotional tour and could monitor the baby’s first visit with her maternal grandparents.
Tom’s mother, Mary Jo Mapother-South, was there for the delivery. So were Tom’s sisters. But, as widely reported, the Holmeses were at their vacation home in Florida when they got the news that their daughter had given birth to their first grandchild.
Excuse me? Cruise had to “monitor” the baby’s visit with her own fucking grandparents? Say what?
The whole Scientology thing is just a gimme - in our “Christian Nation,” it’s something that we can all agree to poke fun at, no matter our religious affiliation: Catholic, atheist, Jewish, Protestant, whatever. Galactic Confederacy? Thetan levels? Space operas? You’ve got to be shitting me! (Granted, Xenu is no more ridiculous a concept than, say, virgin births, but try to tell a xian that.)
Nonetheless, Cruise’s sequestering of new mom Holmes - coupled with his increasingly overt misogyny (let’s face the facts - Scientology, like most other religions, is less than feminist, what with its advocacy of silent births sans painkillers and its disdain for medical - i.e., proven - treatments for a myriad of disorders, such as postpartum depression) smacks of something far more sinister. Think David Koresh. Or Warren Steed Jeffs. Fucking creepy, is what it is.
At least Tom-Tom’s approval ratings have dipped to embarrassingly low levels, on a par with GW’s, even.
With that out of the way, on to the fluffy stuff.
Johnny Depp, who I so don’t want to harbor any ill will towards, is suing Hollywood…
over a proposed project on the Sunset Strip [.]
Depp contends in a suit that the city of West Hollywood violated environmental quality laws by approving development of retail shops, a restaurant and a garage on a lot beneath his 2 1/2-acre property.
The 42-year-old actor also argues that the project would block the view his two children have while playing on a terrace outside their 7,430-square-foot home.
Developer Joseph Emrani of Venice Investments argued that the youngsters - Lily-Rose, 6, and Jack, 4 - are being raised in France, where Depp and French actress-singer Vanessa Paradis also have a home.
Douchebag. Sorry, folks, gotta call it like it is.
Meanwhile, in LA,
A newspaper promotion for Tom Cruise’s upcoming “Mission: Impossible III” got off to an explosive start when a county arson squad blew up a news rack, thinking it contained a bomb.
The confusion: the Los Angeles Times rack was fitted with a digital musical device designed to play the “Mission: Impossible” theme song when the door was opened. But in some cases, the red plastic boxes with protruding wires were jarred loose and dropped onto the stack of newspapers inside, alarming customers.
How fitting, as Tom Cruise is increasingly in the Waco way. Lawdy, lawdy, what a cute little fanatic sac he has!
Finally, my nominee for Mother of the Year:
Mom Said to Help Girls Bake Ex-Lax Cookies
SKOWHEGAN, Maine - A 43-year-old woman is charged with helping her daughter and two other teenage girls bake cookies laced with a laxative that were then given to a teacher. […]
Hunt was arrested Friday after a police investigation into the attempted prank at Carrabec Community School in Anson that sickened four seventh- and eighth-grade children.
The cookies, which were baked with Ex-Lax, were left on the teacher’s desk on April 10 with a note saying, “We made these cookies just for you, hope you enjoy them.”
According to a police affidavit, Hunt told the
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