Here's what I don't get about the Gary Condit-Chandra Levy real-life episode of Murder, She Wrote.
Here's what I don't get about the Gary Condit-Chandra Levy real-life episode of Murder, She Wrote. Why would the California Congressman, enormously popular in his district, throw away his career by avoiding the media and not fully cooperating with DC police officials about his relationship, platonic or otherwise, with the missing intern?
Say Condit did have an affair with Levy: wouldn't it have made sense, the moment her disappearance became known, to fess up in a press conference and say that his political ambitions paled in comparison with the importance of locating the young woman? Granted, he'd be in hot water with his wife, but the American public, particularly his constituents, would undoubtedly praise his candor and rally behind his efforts to do everything possible to solve the case.
As it is, even if Condit's friendship with Levy was chaste, he looks like a cad, and is now political toast. Every time Chandra's parents appear on tv, with those desperate, anguished gazes, you can't help but think the Congressman is somehow culpable in the mystery.
(6/26)
Personally, I believe you can legislate behavior but you can't legislate brains. My impression has always been that the majority of people allowed behind the wheels of automobiles are too stupid to drive anyway?hence the many really stupid crashes you see people get into?and so of course they shouldn't be gabbing on the phone while they drive. That's different from saying they shouldn't be allowed to. There are already plenty of laws on the books regarding reckless driving, under which cellphone use that causes accidents surely falls.
But I understand the urge for this new legislation. It's not so much that we find cellphone drivers dangerous, as that we find them fucking annoying. The first thing another driver notices when some cell-gabbing idiot causes a problem is the cellphone. That driver would still be an idiot without the cell. The cell just flips your outrage switch.
In consideration of the above, I'd like to propose, now that the State of New York is banning the use of cells by drivers in cars, that the City of New York consider legislation prohibiting the use of cells by pedestrians on city sidewalks. As a pedestrian, not a driver, I find this much more annoying. At least in cars you're not forced to listen in on their inevitably trite conversations. You can even make a good case that sidewalk cellphone use is dangerous: for example, the next cell-talking fool barreling down a crowded Manhattan sidewalk who almost clocks me with his/her cocked elbow as they fecklessly yadda-yadda-yadda with their crosstown girlfriend is going to go down.
(6/26)
It was the oldest of schoolroom pranks. A man offers a woman a chair, but as she's in the process of sitting, he yanks the chair from beneath her, sending her tumbling to the ground, arms and legs flailing, to the great merriment of those around her.
Problem in this case was that the man is a Pace University law professor teaching a personal injury course, and the woman one of his students. The student is now suing the professor for the boo-boo she received, as well as the "severe pain and mental anguish" she suffered as the result of her pratfall.
On the one hand, you can think (as the Post seems to) that it was a dumb and childish thing to do in the first place, and for the sheer irony of it all alone, the professor is getting what he deserves. But let's look at a few other facts. It was the woman's first week of law school. The professor is the author of a book entitled How to Succeed in Law School. Before class, the woman had e-mailed the professor, telling him she hadn't done her assigned reading for that day. My guess is that the first chapter in the professor's book is all about the importance of doing your assigned reading. As it turns out, the assigned reading?and that day's lecture?was about a case in which a child was injured after another child pulled the chair stunt (yet another example of America's absurd litigiousness). The student didn't know the case, she didn't know what was coming, therefore, the professor knew the stunt would work on her, and he'd be able to make his point in graphic detail.
"It was humiliating," the student's lawyer says. "There she was in front of all of her peers with her dress up around her waist and injured."
If you ask me, the humiliation she felt should have come from not doing her homework.
Of all the students in the class, the lawyer added, the professor chose to pick on an attractive young woman.
No, the professor chose to pick on the student who hadn't done the reading. Too bad for him she also turned out to be a big, humorless crybaby.
The lawsuit, which is being lodged both against the professor and the school, is seeking damages for battery, negligence, pain and suffering. On the bright side, I guess, it looks like he's a pretty good teacher after all!
Still, in the future, he might want to consider using cream pies or seltzer bottles instead.
(6/26)
Maybe Baldwin could be persuaded to lend a few brain cells to Julia Roberts. In the current issue of Time, Roberts contributed this comment about Jenna and Barbara Bush: "We all need to take a deep breath and think about being a Bush daughter and having that cross to bear. I'd go out and have a couple of drinks too." Say what you will about the President's conservative beliefs, but even his most partisan political opponents don't question the extended Bush clan's devotion to one another. Same thing goes for the Kennedys: I wish the lot of them would work in the private sector, rather than advocating New Deal liberalism, but you have to admire their fierce family loyalty.
I wonder if Eric Roberts, whose limited appearances in celebrity magazines these days usually center on his estrangement from sister Julia, will also offer his sympathy to the First Twins?
(6/26)
Seems almost too weird to be true, but [there it was on the Drudge Report yesterday]: the news that the Pentagon "has ordered a dozen Black Hawk combat helicopters and nearly three dozen elite Army Rangers to Morocco?to the set of Sony's new action flick Black Hawk Down." The film is being directed by Ridley Scott and is based on the disastrous October 1993 American military deployment in Somalia. From Drudge: "The first-ever deployment of U.S. forces to foreign soil for cinema has caused a split among military officials, according to sources.
"At a time when the Pentagon's budget is being carefully reviewed by Congress, and the Defense Department is doing a top-down review of the entire U.S. military, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cautiously signed off on the role over objections of senior staffers.
"'I do not believe sending forces to a movie set is in the national interest, or in anyway helps the nation's defense,' one top source tells the Drudge Report."
Oh he doesn't, does he? Unreasonable tight-assed bastard?wonder what his problem is. It's worth wondering what would have happened had the Clinton administration pulled a similar stunt: deploying the U.S.S. Eisenhower, say, to appear in the latest film by Steven Spielberg or some other Clinton-supporting filmmaker, or renting out the meeting chamber of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Barbra Streisand's godson's bar mitzvah. The right-wing talk-radio airbands would have vibrated with denunciations of the administration and its contempt for our men and women in uniform. The right-wing print commentators would have gravely condemned Clinton's typically irresponsible conflation of statecraft and entertainment, and made searing comparisons between superficial, media-obsessed baby boomers and the sacred, morally serious "greatest generation," which would never debase itself by doing something like this. We'd have heard ad nauseam about Clinton's role in coarsening our culture. Why, he's throwing the very weight of the holy U.S. military behind the creation of violent Hollywood trash! William Bennett would have emerged once again onto the national stage.
So what's the moral difference between the repulsive business of selling nights in the Lincoln Bedroom and renting out American soldiers and war equipment to movie studios, in the same way a tools warehouse rents out belt sanders? At least auctioning off nights at the White House will never hurt anyone. What if one of our soldiers is hurt or killed during this crucially important mission to Morocco?
(6/25)
When will the Republican Party stop whining about the overwhelming liberal bias of the media? It's a political fact of life: The GOP's base is business (both big and small), Southern and Sun Belt religious groups, and constitutional absolutists. The Democrats can rely on trial lawyers, blacks, the entertainment industry and the media. It seems to be a wash. That's not to argue that allegedly objective news organizations shouldn't be criticized for their hypocrisy, but it's a losing battle.
So, I read in the [New York] [Post's "Page Six" yesterday] that Rep. Tom DeLay's spokeswoman, Emily Miller, doesn't think CNN's Tucker Carlson is worthy of succeeding Robert Novak and Pat Buchanan in Crossfire's "from the right" chair. (Carlson, after his embarrassing Spin Room was canceled, is filling Mary Matalin's slot on the show.) Which made me think: it's the bowtie he wears. Apparently, a young man (Carlson's in his early 30s) isn't entitled to choose his own wardrobe. Would a bolo soothe DeLay?
Miller told "Page Six": "We do think Tucker is a big jokester and not a real Republican." What nonsense. First of all, why the GOP would want a party defector like Buchanan back on the air is beyond me: Pat's very entertaining and a gifted inquisitor, but his xenophobia and questionable racial and religious views are from the pre-Cold War era. As for Novak, he's a journalistic giant, but is already well-embedded in CNN's programming schedule.
Carlson's not only funny and articulate, but also very conservative. Research his opinions about abortion. Get beyond his quips and listen to the questions he asks of both Republicans and Democrats. I remember, a few years ago, introducing him to a Nation writer at a social function in DC. After pleasantries, Carlson pressed the fellow, saying, "Hey, you don't really believe in all that pro-union crap, do you?"
(6/25)
[This morning's Daily News] caught my attention when they offered up the tantalizing, if long-outmoded headline, "Rudy Goes Punk for Book Help."
Of course, that's what headlines are supposed to do, right? Grab your attention? In this case, however, even the lede seemed promising: "The financial journalist teaming up with Mayor Giuliani to write Hizzoner's book on management?tentatively titled Rudy's Rules?is a former punk rocker."
At this point, if you're an aging and reasonably pathetic punk, the way so many of us around here are, the mind starts flipping through the possibilities. Who the hell could it be? Greg Ginn? Maybe Merle Allin? Tesco Vee? Lee Ving? Dee Dee Ramone? Maybe Dee Dee?he's got a bunch of books out already, right? Or one of the guys from the Angry Samoans? They were mostly math majors, weren't they? Could it be Dr. Heathen Scum? Or the great Rev. Norby Ugly? I bet it's Michael Gerald from Killdozer?yeah, it's gotta be him?
By the time you're halfway through the possibilities, you're already onto the next paragraph, where the secret is finally revealed.
Ken Kurson, an editor for Money magazine, was a college dropout in the late 1980s and early 1990s, playing bass guitar for the punk bands Green and the Lilacs. These days, his colleagues refer to him as a sort of "Martha Stewart of personal finance."
Umm, who's this now? And which bands again?
Perhaps realizing that the aging punks in the audience would be asking themselves those same questions at this point, there is no further mention of Mr. Kurson's esteemed musical career?nor any speculation whatsoever as to why it may carry the slightest whiff of significance when it comes to ghostwriting a management book for the Mayor.
So why even bring it up, let alone make it the focus of the headline and the lede? If you're going to make a big deal out of the irony of the Mayor's ghostwriter being in a couple punk bands 10 years ago, why not track down some old song lyrics? Find something crude or savage enough, and there you have it?abounding irony. Without it, you have nothing, and there's no point in making the point. I mean, personally, I'm much less horrified by the fact that he once played bass for some no-name punk bands than I am by the fact that his colleagues refer to him as the "Martha Stewart of personal finance."
(6/25)
[Reuters reported today] that "Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has warned Jewish community leaders that exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden is seeking to recruit local operatives to attack Israeli targets." Simultaneously, [Israeli security forces were busy assassinating an Islamic radical with an exploding pay phone](http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/33325.htm) on the West Bank, so I think we can assume the bin Laden alert is an attempt to divert the media's attention with their favorite figure of evil since Saddam Hussein and the great, now sadly all-but-forgotten Muammar Qaddafi.
Bin Laden's been all over the media lately. The New York Post, for example, can't get enough of the guy. He's virtually a daily figure in their pages. P. Diddy doesn't get this much love from the Post. A couple of weeks ago there was the bit about how "International security forces are working furiously to thwart a plot by Saudi terror master Osama bin Laden to assassinate President Bush and other world leaders" at July's G-8 summit in Genoa. In a cool twist, "Italian officials say they've been warned by German intelligence services that bin Laden is secretly financing neo-Nazi skinhead groups throughout Europe to commit acts of violence during the summit..." Muslims and skinheads united! Now that's a rainbow coalition, brothers and sisters. More recently, the Post reported that the summit might be moved from Genoa?which already plans to be in a police-state mode of complete security shutdown for the duration of the meeting?"to an aircraft carrier or cruise ship" because of bin Laden's threats.
Then there was the Post story that "Osama bin Laden's terror network is circulating a chilling recruitment video in which he urges Islamic militants to join his holy war on the United States and Israel?and calls for 'blood, blood and destruction, destruction.'" [Yesterday's daily bin Laden alert] claims he's "planning a major attack on U.S. and Israeli interests in the next two weeks..." And then my favorite, the June 16 headline that stopped pussyfooting around and simply declared BIN LADEN VS. THE WORLD. I understand this will be the title of his first rap album, due out in time for Ramadan.
I'm not one of those "international security experts" who get to go on tv all the time and discuss these matters, but I do know screaming yellow journalism when I see it. This bin Laden guy is a true guerrilla media star, a Huey Newton or Che for the 21st century, with his perfect, hooked-nose Evil Arab features, his penchant for posing with Soviet-looking automatic weapons and his puppetmasterly way of getting the West's security forces to hop every time he makes one of his outlandishly broad threats. He's as close to a cartoon bad guy as the real world has produced in years. No wonder the media eats him up.
(6/25)
I wonder how long it'll take The New York Times to bump off William Safire. The token conservative op-ed voice at the paper was hired at a time when limited diversity of views was still considered an asset at the country's "paper of record." Safire predates the solipsism of Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Gail Collins; the increasingly strident economic socialism that Paul Krugman spits up twice a week; the wishy-washy foreign policy nuggets of Thomas Friedman; and, of course, the disastrous reign of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
And they're off!
I was excited there for a second this morning. Well, both excited and filled with rue. I'd received an e-mail from a friend of mine who was all pissed that he had yet to see a single news outlet draw the slightest connection between those drag-racing fatalities on Long Island this weekend and the nation's number-one movie, The Fast and the Furious (which is about drag-racing).
If what he said was true, then it was on my shoulders to make that connection?after all, isn't it the media's job to draw specious, ill-informed parallels between recent fatalities and popular movies or television shows? It's a practice that goes back at least as far as the made-for-tv Linda Blair vehicle, Born Innocent?and was witnessed most recently in the protests against the WWF by the Parents Television Council, in response to children being injured while "play-wrestling." It's one of the many public services we in the media provide the public?by offering the families of the deceased someone to blame (and more importantly, sue)?rather than having to live with the notion that their child/husband/wife/whatever was simply a big fat moron who did something really stupid.
So there I was, all set to decry the awful, pernicious?even deadly!?example set by The Fast and the Furious?an example obviously being aped by those poor, suggestible saps out on Long Island?when I discovered that [the Post] had beaten me to it.
A real-life version of the hit drag-racing movie "The Fast and the Furious" was played out on the streets of Long Island yesterday?and ended with two people, including an innocent driver, dead.
Damn them anyhow! And if opening the story that way wasn't enough, they had to go and close it with:
Police said they didn't know of any link between the accident and the film, which debuted this weekend and topped the box office with an estimated $41 million in ticket sales.
Yeah, so, the cops didn't know if there was a connection or not, but the Post sure seems to. By this evening, I bet the torch is picked up by all the local channels, at least one of the networks, and Entertainment Tonight as well.
I passed word along to my friend, who was undaunted, as he wrote back, "But can we blame the five drowned kids in Houston on Disney's Atlantis?"
(6/25)