Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Page 1 Consider (11/25)

  • Sunny and Share: I don't know about you, but I have to tell you that Carol Burnett and I are really excited about Rosie O'Donnell's new variety show, "Rosie Live."

  • Playing Gay: So, why are there no openly gay leading men in Hollywood?

  • Body on Tap: A man in upstate New York is obsessed with collecting discontinued products. Don't believe it? Wait'll you show up at his house and he serves you a Josta.

  • DramaQueen.com: If that headache plaguing you this morning led you first to a Web search and then to the conclusion that you must have a brain tumor, you may instead be suffering from cyberchondria.

  • '90s Flashback: Do you remember when Jean-Claude Van Damme seemed like the hottest man alive? Would you believe he's still alive?

  • The Scarlett Letters: Lawmakers in Indonesia's remote province of Papua have thrown their support behind a controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips -- part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease. Local health workers and AIDS activists called the plan "abhorrent."

  • City's Darkest Hour: With "Milk" set to come out this Friday, Dianne Feinstein has been talking about that tragic day in 1978 when Dan White gunned down Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. "I was the one who found his body," she told Maureen Dowd. "To get a pulse, I put my finger in a bullet hole. It was a terrible, terrible time in the city’s history." In the midst of all of the sadness she also became the city's acting mayor: "I inherited a city that was stunned and divided. The divisions were fueled by both hatred and sorrow. Over time, we were able to put the city back together, but the events of that day will remain seared in our memories forever."

  • Justice Is Blind: The New York state overseerer of insurance companies has told companies they must treat legally married same-sex couples the same as they treat opposite-sex married pairs. In addition, Gov. David Paterson in June issued a directive instructing state agencies governing insurance and health care -- to immediately change policies and regulations to recognize gay marriages performed in areas where they are legal.

  • The Victims We Know So Well: A trial began in London on Monday for Boy George on charges he shackled a male escort, chained him up, and assaulted him.

  • RIP: Betty James, who came up with the name Slinky for the stair-walking spring that has delighted children for more than 60 years and who ran the toy company after her husband, the inventor, left it and his family in 1960, died Thursday in Philadelphia. She was 90. As successful as Slinkys have been for 63 years, there have been slumps. In 1960, with sales down, Mr. James joined what his wife considered a religious cult and moved to Bolivia, leaving her with six children and the company. Mr. James died in 1974.

  • RIP: Karl Bissinger, whose lustrous black and white portraits created a memorable gallery of the leading figures on the postwar American arts scene, died Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 94. As a photographer for magazines like Flair, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Town & Country, Bissinger created indelible images of the new generation of writers, actors, dancers and free spirits who were reshaping American culture after World War II. One of his most recognizable photographs, taken in 1949, shows Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, the Balanchine ballerina Tanaquil LeClercq, the artist Buffie Johnson (who died in 2006) and others seated around a table in the garden of the Cafe Nicholson in Manhattan, their faces bright with promise. It is, in effect, a class picture of the young and the talented in the American arts, more than ready for their close-ups.
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