It appears I totally jinxed the Shamu essay in the New York Times (see my bellwhether entry). For the first time, Shamu has been bumped from the number one spot atop the most-emailed list. But I have a feeling that Shamu ain't giving up without a fight.
Stay tuned for updates.
I'm not quite sure what hanging out with Prince William does for Pharrell's street cred. I don't think "dapper" works here.
As of today, Saturday, July 8, 2006, the New York Times essay "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage" is still the number one e-mailed article. It was first published in the Fashion and Style (love it!) section on June 25, 2006.
This essay's got legs baby!! Since the Times first started tracking this, I wonder what article has been the number one e-mailed for the longest. Author Amy Sutherland must be crazy stoked. She should be. It's a fantastic article that marriage and relationship counselors ought to incorporate into their counseling.
To read the article...Click Here. And e-mail it to your friends, family members, coworkers, and even enemies. Let's keep it number one!
I'm very cognitive of how difficult it is for actors to get gigs. Gigs are far and few between. An actor's motto seems to be you take what you can get even if that means dinner theater, Red Shoe Diaries or in the case of Brandon Routh aka Superman, an informerical for rope yoga (how many fucking variations of yoga are there?). [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8A4Q75D6lg]
Funny. I woulda thought Superman was more of a Bowflex kind of a guy.
In a 1942 educational pamphlet published by the US Army, entitled "A Pocket Guide to China," there is a section in there pointedly called "How to Spot a Jap." In this section, the reader is helpfully guided with illustrations on how to distinguish between "the Japs and our Oriental allies."
I'm sure there are similar guides produced by the military today that helps its soldiers and contractors discriminate between "the peaceful Iraqi and the insurgent."
To view more...Click Here.
P.S. To those of you reading this today and you don't know: Nowadays, it is NOT cool to call people "Japs" or "Orientals." FYI.
The newly divorced cuckold husband to Jessica Simpson has definitely upgraded himself by dating a bonafide hotty (as opposed to Double D Wonder). She might not be bringing home the money like Simpson, but MTV VJ Vanessa Minnillo is dating Nick Lachey. And it's developing, it appears, to be more than just a one week fling in Mexico. And you know what it means when two celebrities appear to be "seriously" dating? Time to bennifer their names. After the combined efforts of his hive, online gossip gadfly Perez Hilton decided on this: Minnillo BlahNick. What's more hilarious though is reading the comments section to read everyone's reaction.
blahnick?
you people are fucking dumb.
posted by: mag | July 6, 2006 09:50 PM
Some people seriously need to take a step back from their celebrity worship and check themselves before they wreck themselves.
One would think that a hoity-toity community like Scarsdale would be tranquil. I lived briefly in a first floor apartment on 30th and 1st that was across the street from a major hospital and even that situation (imagine ambulence sirens all. the. time.) was more peaceful than Scarsdale. It's ridiculous. I think someone is simultaneously running a lawn mower and a chainsaw right outside my window.
Stuyvesant students are so spoiled. Not only do they attend a fantastic high school (from what I've heard), but then they get always hilarious Conan O'Brian to speak at their graduation. I don't even know who spoke at mine. It was probably the Lieutenant Secretary of State or someone equally obscure. Although Conan's words were directed at 18-year-old kids about to make the momentous step from one chapter of their life to another (college), his message resonated with me as well. I think no matter how removed one is from their high school or college past, it's always good to hear a commencent speech as a form of reassurance and needed inspiration to those of us who are still attempting to find an onramp onto the highway of our dream career.
Anyhoo. Here is Conan's speech (broken up into two parts):
Part 1 of 2
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi4-1d9DB9Q]
Part 2 of 2
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLeVKGSJWE]
Slate tempers the media hysteria over the North Korea (failed) missile launch.
Kim Jong-il, these past few years, has adroitly played his otherwise miserable hand because of two cards that everyone believes he holds—nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Yesterday's dud raises the possibility that the missile card's a bluff, that there may be (as Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland) "no there there." The next tempting step is to wonder about the nukes. We know that he has enough plutonium to build some bombs, but has he built them? Can he build them?
Apparently this missile building stuff is more difficult than it appears. The only thing that Slate ignores in this article is that wee sibling to the south of North Korea. Even with this long range missile failure, the denizens of South Korea are still very much a hostage to their madman brother. Who needs missiles when some good ol' fashion shells with the assistance of gunpowder and gravity can do the job? While the Shrub can relax knowing the borders of the US are safe from a sneak attack by North Korea, that assurance doesn't mean much to South Koreans.
I was speaking with a friend who was recently in South Korea visiting relatives and he said that more South Koreans fear the US than North Korea, which is understandable if you realize that the Shrub administration's antagonistic "lone cowboy with guns drawn and negotiation is for pussies" foreign policy could have a very real side effect of thousands of thousands of shells raining down on Seoul. But then again, the problem with a nutso like Kim Jong Il, the great leader and pervert of North Korea, is that he may decide to do this for no reason other than the fact that his nuts itched that day.
My friend also said that along with their fear of the US, Koreans are also suspicious that North Korea's saber rattling will provide (the second closest and most obvious target for North Korea) Japan an excuse to attack Korea (again). And as we all know, the Koreans hate the Japanese.
I'm convinced that the only person who could resolve this whole zero-sum fiasco is...Michael Jackson. Seriously! Everyone in Asia fuckin' love him (They never got the Jackson Five memo that Michael didn't always look like Whitey McWhite) and once he starts singing that "We are the World" shit, it's all over. The soldiers facing one another across the DMZ line would walk over (carefully avoiding the mines) and hug. Japan would send a bouquet of flowers to Korea with "xoxo." Scene End. .
I need to bookmark this: Gnarls Barkley at Central Park Summerstage on August 17.
Eating two slices of pizza and two pieces of chocolate cake and washing that down with a Coke at midnight is nirvana. Pure unadulterated nirvana.
(Via)
I'm slightly embarrassed to be writing about this, because it underscores the very depths to which I dive into the trash of celebrity gossip and news. But I'm not ashamed. No, I'm going to own my celebrity obsession even if that preoccupation extends to people who barely qualify as a "celebrity."
The lanky kid, Dieter from MTV's Laguna Beach, is apparently back with his ex-girlfriend--she with the ginormous breats. Yes, he got back with the same girl, according to his myspace page, who broke up with him so she could get with the "bad boy," Jason. I am still convinced Jason is actually a 30 year old man.
Anyway, Dieter better double wrap his car before parking it in the garage.
(Via)
The photo above is of a billboard in Holland advertising the new "white" PSP (that is, a PSP that is colored white as oppose to its original black color). I've always been troubled by European (and South Americans) tendencies to deny racism and lines drawn by race and color. This billboard underscores that quality at an insidious level.
While to a certain degree European and American culture is incommensurable, I'm surprised that in today's climate of globalism where borders are no longer so neatly delineated that such a clearly offensive ad like this can emerge from a company that has such a presence on the international stage. How on earth did this see the light of day, let alone a major billboard, without someone in the advertising company or at Sony stepping and say, "Hold on people--This is a pretty offensive."
This example yet reinforces my idea for a particular sort of consulting company.
Forget everything you thought you knew about the shooters at Columbine High School.
Five years ago today, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered their classmates and teachers at Columbine High School. Most Americans have reached one of two wrong conclusions about why they did it. The first conclusion is that the pair of supposed "Trench Coat Mafia outcasts" were taking revenge against the bullies who had made school miserable for them. The second conclusion is that the massacre was inexplicable: We can never understand what drove them to such horrific violence.But the FBI and its team of psychiatrists and psychologists have reached an entirely different conclusion. They believe they know why Harris and Klebold killed, and their explanation is both more reassuring and more troubling than our misguided conclusions. Three months after the massacre, the FBI convened a summit in Leesburg, Va., that included world-renowned mental health experts, including Michigan State University psychiatrist Dr. Frank Ochberg, as well as Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator and a clinical psychologist. Fuselier and Ochberg share their conclusions publicly here for the first time.
This article nearly made my brain explode (no pun intended) and I'm curious as to see what the rest of the media will do with this report that basically trashes everything they've declared about that terrifying incident. The clinical diagnosis that Harris was actually a psychopath makes a lot of sense to me. The scary thing about people with a psychopathic personality is that it appears that they can't be caught until they've committed their crime.
To read more...Click Here.
(Via) If you've got an hour to kill--if not now, then bookmark the link below for viewing at a later date--you must watch this documentary that exposes the manipulation by and of the news media.
Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.
For most of you, the general thesis is well known, but despite the slight out-datedness of the documentary, it's still amazing to see for example, Larry King unctuously kissing the asses of Bush, Clinton, Gore and Perot in order to land a spot moderating their first presidential debate. This is a must see for both the media expert and the novice as a reminder that what you see isn't exactly the whole picture.
To view...Click Here (Google Videos)
World Cup revelers have been injured kicking soccer balls with "Can you kick it?" spray painted on them. These "balls" were filled by some pranksters with concrete.
World Cup pranksters in Berlin injured at least two soccer fans by inviting them to kick soccer balls that they had secretly filled with concrete, authorities said Tuesday.At least six concrete filled soccer balls were found chained to lampposts, trees and handrails across the city next to the spray-painted message "Can you kick it?," Berlin police said.
"Two young men kicked the balls and suffered bad bruising on their feet," a police spokeswoman said. "We still don't have any leads in the case."
Berlin is due to host the World Cup final Sunday.
Ouch.
This sucks for the injured kickers, but a part of me admires the brilliancy of the prank. It's an evil version of the glue-quarters-to-the-floor-and-watch-people-try-to-pick-them-up trick.
So while some of my friends will be enjoying this year's fireworks extravaganza from the comforts of a Manhattan high rise, I will be celebrating Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum's triumph over the invading aliens and their superior technology by hiding away in the tony Westchester suburb of Scarsdale. Surrounded by the flora that at one time commanded the same area that would eventually be demarcated as first "New Amsterdamn" and then later "New York City," the closest I will be to this year's Independence Day celebration is the interruption of nearby exploding fireworks and the howling of distressed dogs. My current hermitic status is largely self-imposed as a sort of an act of self-flagellation. Rather than enforcing religious discipline and commitment, I'm using my social isolation in Scarsdale to establish self-discipline in my job hunt. In addition, by placing myself in the very environment and condition I loath, I'm further forcing myself to push just that much more to find employment. Like The Good Book said, "in a job, I shall find salvation."
In sum, I leave you with these words by President Thomas Whitmore:
"Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!" We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"
Enjoy your hotdogs, kids.
In the same way that a sibling (and only a sibling) can relish their sister or brother getting caught with their fingers in the proverbial cookie jar. And in that spirit, as a Bruno, I'm slightly amused by the latest news that the Feds have subpoenaed Yale's records, specifically that pertaining to how it uses grants.
The subpoenas cover 47 grants valued at about $45 million, the school said. The university received about $2 billion in grants during the past decade. [...]"Regardless of the outcome of the current investigation, we must get all our processes right and make sure that we are good stewards of the funds entrusted to us by the federal government," Levin said in a statement released Monday.
Like most large research universities, Yale relies heavily on government grants to pay for scientific research. The grants come with stringent accounting rules that in one recent case Yale did not follow, federal officials said.
I know it's tough, but I'm sure Yale will somehow come out of this okay.
To read more...Click Here
The California Supreme Court recently ruled that a person with AIDS can sue the sexual partner who transmitted it to them, even if they did so unknowingly. Previously, courts in other states allow lawsuits over the transmission of STDs, but H.I.V., the nuclear bomb of sexually transmitted diseases, is one that hasn't been particularly addressed by the courts, until now. Sexual responsibility and safe sex isn't just a health issue. It's also a fiscal one, too.
To read more...Click Here
