Archive for September 23rd, 2009

Because Broth Don’t Make Itself

23rd September
2009
written by jed

Today’s Post…

…but first, alcoholic vervet monkeys!

Why can’t drunken humans be this adorable (to others)?

Today’s headline reinforces the feeling I sometimes get that, despite reading this horrible paper every day, there are huge chunks of the story that I’m missing (and I’m not referring to “the left-wing side”).

TENT FLAP

Khadafy booted from Camp Trump

Apparently, Moammar Khadafy was setting up a giant tent on the Westchester property of Donald Trump (in Bedford) until local officials made him stop (not because he’s a mass murderer — he didn’t have a building permit! yay, bureaucracy!).

Trump’s spokeswoman, Rona Graff, made a p.r. boner/gaffe (Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam was cancelled before I got my time to shine, yo). When asked if the story was true, she insisted, “There is no truth to this story. I’m not even going to engage in a dialogue on this.” She later amended her remarks, saying that it was “possible” because they have many Middle Eastern partners who may or may not have rented it and then given it to Khadafy.

Which reminds me of that great Jeff Foxworthy joke: “If you lease properties to one of your various Middle Eastern business partners who may or may not turn around and lend those properties to someone who ordered the murder of numerous American citizens years ago… you might be a terrorist.” He makes great beef jerky, too.

Andrea Peyser, holding what appears to be the purse of a clown, is photographed chatting with the security guard at the Libyan Mission yesterday (for today’s column, “Busting thug’s a dirty job — and that’s why I gotta do it”).

She decided that it was her “civic, moral and aesthetic duty to confront” Khadafy. But not just confront. “I was determined to make a citizen’s arrest.”

She calls the security guard an “officious jackass” which would be accurate if officious meant the opposite of its current definition. I would even go so far as to say that, as a loud gum-snapping American with a giant handbag (with an enormous… daisy on it?) screaming about arresting Khadafy, YOU were the officious person at the Libyan Mission. Not the guy whose job it was to keep shrill horse-faced harpies like you out.

When the NYPD informs her that she has to leave or face arrest, she claims, “I complied, if only to maintain my ability to put Khadafy in chains.”

So… you’ll continue your crusade to bring Khadafy to justice?

“I didnt get Khadafy this time.”

The Dog Bounty Hunter?

The issue of race. The left (sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly) accuses members of the right of being racist. The right (sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly) claim that they are being unfairly victimized and that, in fact, the accusation of racism is a kind of racism in and of itself.

Unfortunately, Boolean logic abounds and people draw conclusions that ought not to be made. Were there people at the 9/12 Protest who were holding signs with racist messages? YES. The photos exist. If you were there and say that you didn’t see any, that their existence is just a left-wing trick? Then you’re either delusional or a liar. Or both.

Especially you, Joffrey Knorr of The Bronx, and your wife “who happens to be Black.”

But not everyone at that rally is a racist. Not everyone has ridiculous theories about Hitler and Muslims and birth certificates. So it’s equally unfair for people to refer to everyone there as a racist or an idiot.

When I refer to some of these people as “mouth-breathers” I don’t mean to imply that anyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist and/or stupid. I’m talking about the people who kept their kids out of school so that Obama couldn’t indoctrinate them through the TV rays (because they thought they were too young to be doctors or Nazis or whatever that word Rush told them to say means). They’re not stupid for disagreeing. They’re stupid for believing that any telejournalist or talk radio host has their best interests at heart.

Anyhoodles. The reason I bring this up is because The Post is doing something that’s starting to make me very angry (what else is new?).

Page 2 has an article on Paterson (“I’m in it to win it, defiant Dave says“) where the opening paragraph is opinion in fact’s clothing (but you’ll only learn that if you struggle through the full 12 paragraphs).

“A bitter and defiant Gov. Paterson is claiming that President Obama’s attempted political hit job has only given him ‘renewed vigor’ to seek a full term next year, the Post has learned.”

Now, if that was all I read, I’d think that Paterson actually said that. And I’d reason that he was kind of a dick when he said it, if the paper was calling him bitter and defiant.

But the quote belongs to Dr. Henry Jarecki. He was at the fund-raising event (attended by 60 of Paterson’s supporters) and he told the Post (who wasn’t there, apparently) that “[Paterson] referenced the incident [the Obama attacks]. He spoke of having a renewed vigor to run.”

1) It was at a fund-raiser. Do you expect Paterson to ask his base for money while avoiding the elephant in the room (that elephant being that he is a terrible governor, but the judges will also accept discussing the smaller elephant — that the Post has declared that Obama hates him)? If I was as low in the polls as he is and I had my hand out? I’d be using as much chest-puffing rhetoric as is humanly possible.

2) THIS IS HEARSAY! Someone at the meeting mentioned “the incident” which becomes “[the Obama attacks]” even though I can only remember one alleged “snub.”

But this isn’t what made me cringe.

Directly under the headline is a big photo of Michael Goodwin (big smile!) along with a quote from his column on page 13: “However you explain President Obama’s putsch against Gov. Paterson, there is only one factor that ultimately makes it possible: race. Only the first black president could pull off a coup against New York’s first black governor.”

I’ll discuss how disturbing this is when I get to page 13.

But on the lower right corner, there’s an article about who might replace Cuomo as Attorney General. The headline?

Race already on to replace Andy

If what Goodwin says is true (it isn’t) then maybe it would be helpful to let the Paterson article (which may or may not be accurate) stand alone, instead of being sandwiched between Goodwin’s hate(ful) speech and the word race all bolded and prominent.

Luc Bondy directed the new production of Tosca at the Met. It opened last night.

When he emerged from backstage for the curtain call, he was booed off the stage.

Proving that a) you cannot buy class and b) minimalism and opera don’t go well together.

Hiram Monserrate! Your girlfriend has recanted her story! She claims it was an accident! You’re home free!

The prosecution has some silly story about you finding a cop’s PBA card in Karla Giraldo’s pocketbook and flying into a jealous rage, slashing her in the face with broken glass (requiring 20 stitches!). Luckily Hiram’s defense consists of “I tripped and cut her by accident. On account of I’m clumsy.” I can already hear the “not guilty” verdict.

…wait. Apparently there’s video footage? And it starts with Hiram throwing a cop’s PBA card down the garbage chute? And Karla shoves you and runs to the chute to retrieve it? And then later? Karla runs downstairs (bloody towel on her face) and pounds on a neighbor’s door for help? And Hiram grabs her and pulls her away? And she grabs at the staircase railing as Hiram drags her towards the front door of the building? And as they leave, she screams and grabs at the door frame with her hand and foot, but Hiram keeps dragging her?

Oh. Um… maybe you’re going to prison for a while…

Congratulations, Mom and Dad! Westchester County homeowners pay more property tax than any other county in America!

You’re #1!

The FDA (now with even more corn syrup!) just banned the manufacturing, importing, marketing and distribution of candy-, fruit- and clove-flavored cigarettes in this great land of ours.

I actually passed someone smoking a clove cigarette the other day and I smiled because it made me think of my junior year of college when (seemingly) the entire theater department reeked of them. I smoked one a few years back and gagged. But I still mourn the loss of my old friend (who I never planned on seeing again anyways).

Did they meet at a club for people with double l’s in their first name?

Veronica Nickey, 41, approached Ellison Butler, 22, in Crown Heights in July 2008 shouting, “That’s what you get for touching my daughter!”

The “what” he got was shot to death by her. The man standing next to the victim, Dillon Rickman, refused to testify about the incident, even refusing to state his name on record. So the judge had no recourse but to dismiss the charges against Nickey (though Rickman got 30 days for summary contempt).

The Post’s crack reporting doesn’t explain how old Nickey’s daughter is/was or what “touching” was alleged to have taken place. Context is for suckers. But what it does point out is that Dillon’s silence is especially odd, given that he currently faces other rape and robbery charges (no deets on those either).

Oh, and that Mrs. Nickey is married to a Brooklyn cop.

Page 13.

First off, I should point out that I prefer to use “Black” as opposed to “black” when referring to people of African descent (and Sicilians). It differentiates between the adjective for gloomy and dark things and the actual human beings. But in fairness, I identify myself as “White,” lest someone accuse me of reverse racism.

Someone people capitalize, some don’t. If I’m quoting someone who doesn’t, I generally change it for them (for continuity’s sake). But I want no part of Goodwin’s words. He’s on his own.

“O’s NY coup shows race does matter” is where his page 2 quote comes from.

“‘It was a gutsy move,’ said one top state Democrat. ‘The president basically said openly what everybody else in politics has been saying quietly about Paterson: You’re not qualified to be governor.’ The grumbling didn’t turn into action for one simple reason: No white New Yorker was willing to risk being called a racist.”

Then he paints a picture of Paterson’s incompetence, forgetting to mention that Paterson wasn’t elected. No one chose him. The guy he worked for had sex with (my streak of not mentioning her name is over, damnit!) Ashley Dupre and he wound up in charge. The reason no one said anything is because the man has been digging his own grave for months. His approval ratings are downright Bushian.

Paterson’s “defiance” is embarrassing. He got there by accident and he is guaranteed a defeat in the next election. But he’s still going to run? Really? Why is it everyone else’s fault for not staging a gubernatorial intervention (especially easy if the mark is blind — “We’re taking you to, um, a really fancy restaurant, Governor Paterson.” “Woo hoo!”) and not Paterson’s fault for being bad at his job?

The argument that, if Obama wasn’t the same color as Paterson, the Democrats’d be stuck with an incompetent lame duck at the next election is absolute bullpucky. But the argument itself gets to perpetuate some of the stereotypes that the column alleges to “point out.”

Although, I wonder if Goodwin has the “courage” to pull off a similar “coup” and write up a fancy think-piece on why Michael Steele only got the job because he’s the same color as Obama.

In one of his other brain-leaks, Goodwin explains that the global population is now 6.8 billion and expected to be over 10 billion in 40 years (when I was in the 1st grade, it was 4 billion). He also notes that Uganda (5 million citizens in 1950, 25 million today) will reach 127 million in 2050.

“It’s politically incorrect to talk about these things, but we’d better start.”

Why is it politically incorrect? It’s a global concern that shatters boundaries. A POTUS with strong connections to the rest of the world will more than likely discuss this in great detail. Once you let him give us the public option and stop building effigies of Ray Bolger.

Two alternate jurors have been let go in the Astor trial and they’re both saying he’s guilty.

I don’t understand how my reading this is legal.

Only half of Bernie Madoff’s clients ultimately lost any of their money.

Holy salt on the wound, Batman!

These surveys have to stop.

Guess what the top two complaints about flying are. Go on, guess. Ready?

Flight delays (92% of passengers complain) and the rising prices (95% of passengers complain).

Which is news to 0% of 100%.

I hope my tax dollars funded that survey!

My next improv group will be Survey Villechaize and our flyer will have us on an island shaped like Herve Villechaize and we’re surveying the land in silly hats.

You should really come and see us perform.

Woody Harrelson can cure your acne. He claims that if you remove all dairy from your diet, your acne will clear up in just three days.

This could be huge. Unless the notorious stoner who played that stupid guy on TV is somehow wrong.

Naaaaaaah.

Page Six (today on page 17) notes that, at his farewell bash at La Pomme, Plaxico Burress was among friends who wanted to send him off to prison with a happy goodbye, “but his face had the look of a lost boy on the body of a giant.”

That’s funny because he used to play for the Giants! Well, I hope he had his fill of white wine and tampons and whatever other feminine things he likes before heading up to the pokey.

The Mischa Barton Death Clock just lurched forward.

On Monday, Alice Tully Hall (no relation to Anthony Michael Hall) played host to a screening of Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. Mischa showed up (to the totes sold-out event) and started asking people for tickets. Then she started to walk the red carpet. Then she realized she was at the wrong place and crossed the street to the Met, where she saw the premiere of Tosca (is it possible that they were actually booing her?).

More on Moore in a moment.

Page Six also has a “source” that insists that Leno and Letterman’s bookers are telling celebrities that they need to choose which show they’ll be on (they can’t do both).

I think “America” (via “ratings”) is telling celebrities that, too.

Everyone should be like Johnathan Huff. He a Bronx high-school dean who was voted 2007’s Teacher of the Year.

Oh, wait. I meant no one should be like Johnathan Huff. He was busted yesterday for molesting one of his male 14-year-old students.

That award needs to go to 2007’s runner-up, like, NOW.

Oh, right. The document that the two men with ridiculous names tried to blackmail John Travolta with was the form he signed that held the paramedics without liability if they didn’t take the dying Jett Travolta to the local hospital (Travolta wanted to fly Jett to Florida, but didn’t have access to the right-sized plane — according to yesterday’s testimony).

Also, Scientology is for crazy people.

South Carolina is a scary place. Especially Wellford.

Mayor Sallie Peake has ordered all of the local police to NOT chase suspects on foot. Ever.

Apparently, a police officer was injured during a pursuit on foot, and the person she was chasing was a minor drug offender. Sallie crunched numbers and realized it wasn’t cost-effective to risk more injuries, so no one is allowed to chase a suspect.

If a Wellford cop gets into a car accident, that town might just become Thunderdome.

The Phillips family is back.

Mackenzie’s new book has some interesting new tales. In High on Arrival (more like Remaindered on Arrival, am I right?), Mackenzie recalls once confronting her father, John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas, saying, “We have to talk about when you raped me.” This is a reference to how, “on the eve of my wedding day, my father showed up, determined to stop it. I had tons of pills, and Dad had tons of everything, too. Eventually, I passed out on Dad’s bed. My father was not a man of boundaries. He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs. I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father.” Mackenzie was 19 at the time.

John Phillips died in 2001. Whatever fondness most folks had for him died just now.

If the story is true. We shouldn’t jump the gun. Let’s see what other evidence presents itself.

Take it one day at a time.

In Russia, officials told the owner of a kebab joint called “Anti-Soviet” that they had to change their name because the elderly found it offensive.

So now it’s called “Soviet.”

And still, no old people eat there.

Joffrey Knorr’s letter about how (at the 9/12 Protest) “I did not see a single sign that any fair-minded person would call ‘racially insensitive’ — neither did my wife, who happens to be black…” also takes the media to task for reporting on stuff that isn’t there. “I find it a rather pathetic attempt to establish credibility on racial issues and most unbecoming.”

Joff? I agree with your first statement (though I have a feeling we’re using two different definitions of “fair-minded”), but not your second. In fact, I’m interested to know why you would read (and write to!) the paper that repeatedly blames “racial issues” for the fact that the only person who could successfully inform Paterson that his approval ratings are sub-zero and his party can’t waste money or votes on salvaging his unsalvageable campaign had to be the same color as Paterson.

I have the same question for Theodore Miraldi of The Bronx who writes in to complain about how “race is quickly becoming the ‘joker’ in the deck of political tricks” and opines, “It would do this nation a service to strike the word ‘race’ from the dictionary, and let those who use it stand on their own merit.”

Theo? Have you been introduced to Michael Goodwin? He’s new here.

According to Dr. Marc K. Siegel (who attributes the info to an Investors Business Daily/TIPP poll), “two-thirds of doctors ‘oppose the proposed health-care plan’” and “almost half would ‘consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement’ if ‘Congress passes its health-care plan.’

Well, if Investors Business Daily says so, it must be true!

Incidentally, which health-care plan are they referring to?

The Weinsteins are firing some more staffers, going from 160 in 2005 to 90 now. Maybe they should change the name of their company to Mirameh.

Google just halted progress on that online digital library. But, but… how will we read books without it?

Some homeowners in Scotland continue to refuse to sell their land to Donald Trump (for his mega-golf course slated to open… in a few months!?!?). That’s it, Scots! Make him earn that land!

And the proposal for a book by the guy who pretended he fathered John Edwards’ mistress’ baby has been picked up by St. Martin’s Press. I can’t wait to read the 400-page paraphrase of the previous sentence!

Page 37 also has a great story about how only half of Bernie Madoff’s… clients… wound up losing… good grief. They didn’t reprint the story from page 14 — they ran two versions of it.

Well done, Post!

Kyle Smith “reviews” Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story.

“Don’t spend any cash for this clunker” and “another factually-challenged jeremiad” and “intellectually bankrupt” and “busted logic, self-contradiction, tasteless jokes and ideas that are demonstrably, empirically wrong.”

He has a sidebar of “MOORE TO HATE” which lists Moore’s previous films and who his “enemy” was in each. Roger & Me was “Moore vs. US auto industry” and Bowling for Columbine was “Moore vs. US gun industry” and Farenheit 9/11 was “Moore vs. US” (now THAT’S good film criticism!).

Smith also claims there are several “cheers for armed uprising” in the film, “although what exactly his viewers in Santa Monica and on the Upper West Side will rise up against is anybody’s guess.”

It’s like I’ve always said: Good film criticism must be condescending, dismissive, insulting and partisan. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I look forward to doing so and seeing whether or not Mr. Smith is being honest or if he had an agenda before the lights dimmed in the theater (guess how I’m leaning).

Roger Clemens is fired up once again and he filed an appeal of his recently-dismissed defamation suit against Brian McNamee.

Where does he get all of this energy?

The Yankees have become the first team to official take their place in the playoffs. They’re also currently beating the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California Which Is Part of the United States of America And That’s All The Qualifiers We Feel Are Necessary At This Point In Time (it’s 3-0 in the bottom of the 4th). If we win, the Magic Number for clinching the AL East will be 5.

Boston lost their last two games (against Kansas City!) and Texas has become the Mets of the South.

Estelle Getty’s Emmy for The Golden Girls is on eBay. The TV Academy is demanding that it be removed.

Its estimated value is… not much but the opening bid is $15,000.

No takers as of yet…

Ellen DeGeneres responded to the “debate going on right now whether I’m qualified to be the new judge on American Idol. I’ll tell you right now, how I know I’m going to be a great judge… I’ve spent my whole life being judged. So I know what it’s like.”

I see what you did there, Ellen.

Well gayed.

Dancing With The Stars beat House by 1,500,000 viewers.

What did I say, America? Cut it out.

I mean it.

Now that his competitors are airing new episodes, Jay Leno’s audience has fallen to 5,700,000.

OK. You got this one right, America. Here’s a cookie.

The Mrs. is home with some kind of sickness. I am ministering (ministrating? administering? menstruating?) and hoping she feels well enough for the Elvis Costello taping we got tickets for. He’s interviewing (among others) Lyle Lovett and we’ve been looking forward to it for the last week. But if she doesn’t feel up to it, so be it. I’ll stay in and keep him cozy. Because broth don’t make itself.

Speaking of which, it’s already Wednesday night! Wha hoppen?

Later!


EDITED TO ADD: Mackenzie Phillips has A LOT more to say about her relationship with her father. A LOT.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/22/mackenzie.phillips.oprah/index.html

Thanks, Bethany!

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