Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Page 1 Consider (06/03)

  • Some Nerve: Maybe Laura Albert really is JT LeRoy -- or at least some man. How else do you explain the huge set of balls she obviously has to be criticizing the young woman she hired to play the truckstop hooker turned literary darling in person? In "Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy," Savannah Knoop, 27, will tell the story of the charade in which she wore a blond wig and sunglasses to hobnob with celebrities who believed she was LeRoy, the drug-addicted hustler who supposedly wrote the 1999 bestseller "Sarah." Albert, with no sense of irony whatsoever, reacted in outrage: "I am not in any way connected with this book and it disgusts me. Just because you play a writer doesn't mean you are a writer," Albert, 42, told Page Six. "I think Savannah is being motivated by money and attention ... It's sad and it's sleazy. She's really stepping on my feelings." I'm happy to see that being exposed as a liar and a fraud hasn't forced her to lower her standards. (PageSix)

  • Gay Marriage Is Ruining the World: No, there are no real issues for us to be dealing with in this fall's elections. The economy's great. The war's a smashing success. And we all have health care. That must explain why an initiative that would again outlaw gay marriage in California has qualified for the November ballot, the secretary of state announced Monday. (AP)

  • No (More) Wire Hangers, EVER: I wish every wingnut out there would read this essay by a retired 80-year-old gynecologist who treated NYC women pre-Roe v. Wade: The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous "coat hanger" -- which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in -- perhaps the patient herself -- found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it. However, not simply coat hangers were used. Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion -- darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off." It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days. What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens -- and freeing their doctors to treat them as such. (ScienceTimes)

  • The Missed Sense: I love that M. Night Shyamalan thinks Hollywood has soured on him because he's too much of rebellious free spirit when in fact it's because he keeps making crappy movies. (NYT)

  • Uma's Obsessed Fan: A Manhattan judge has sentenced a former mental patient to three years of probation for stalking and harassing actress Uma Thurman. Jack Jordan of Gaithersburg, Md., will serve the probation in his home state, with the condition that he receive outpatient psychiatric treatment. The prosecutor had sought a year in jail, which would have served absolutely no one. Kudos to this judge for a just and compassionate punishment. (AP)

  • Rescue Her: Tatum O'Neal was released from jail today following her arrest for buying drugs from a homeless ex-con on the Lower East Side. She was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court. Like Uma's stalker, let's hope she gets the professional help she so clearly needs. (NYP)

  • Dick Shine: For the first time in his 117 years, Dick Cheney finally says something funny and now he has to apologize for it? (AP)

  • Ride the Ride: While most San Franciscans were still sleeping yesterday, an excited crowd of more than 3,000 participants in the AIDS/LifeCycle bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles erupted in cheers as it was announced that they had raised $11.6 million to help end AIDS, a new world record for an annual HIV/AIDS fundraising event. Participants in the 545-mile ride, which is produced by-and benefits-the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, range in age from 18 to 81 and hail from 12 countries and 42 states. Keep up with their progress at the AIDS/LifeCycle blog (Blogging on the road??? These are my kind of people!)

  • Hole Lotta Messy: Courtney Love says someone stole Kurt Cobain's ashes from her house. Of course they did. (NYDN)

  • Dripping: Finally, someone is unraveling the science of sarcasm -- not that you care. (ScienceTimes)

  • 2 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    The abortion story was interesting; I can't understand why anyone would not see the common sense in making abortions safe and legal and rare.

    And M Night Shymalan is the WORST DIRECTOR of the past decade. I will admit that I really loved THE SIXTH SENSE, but all of his other movies have been terribly, terribly hokey and manipulative and, in my opinion, deeply conservative to boot. That SIGNS movie was a good example of a movie I was actually enjoying (lllooovvveeeddd the first video they showed of the alien taken by Mexican schoolchildren or something) until it took a certain turn and I realized, "I fucking hate this!"

    libhom said...

    I can't tell you how important the story on sarcasm is to me. It's the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night, my mind churning with ideas.