For this he should get another medal

Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic Senator from Nebraska, and now the president of the New School here in Manhattan, is being urged to run for an open senate seat in his old state now that Sen. Chuck Hagel is retiring.

Nebraska is an incredibly red state, but Kerrey is fairly popular and so well known there that he's probably the only Democrat who could win these days, which would mean one more seat picked up by the good guys.

He's been wavering about whether he wants to get back into politics, and was dropping hints that he wouldn't undertake the race, but now is telling friends he might still indeed do it.

He's a little too conservative for my tastes, but, again, this is Nebraska we're talking about, and he would have to be to have any chance of getting elected there.

Of course, the down side for him would be leaving the presidency of a college in Greenwich Village, where he probably gets a nice salary and a great house, not to mention, well, being in Omaha as opposed to NYC. Can you imagine?

Kerrey is a decorated war hero, and lost one of his legs in Vietnam, so he's certainly suffered for his country before. He may just have to again. Omaha can't be that bad can it?

Ok, it probably is, but still, he should do it for the team.

Nice to see his priorities spelled out

George Bush is balking at spending an additional $15 billion a year to expand a program that provides medical insurance to kids whose families can't afford it.

All of a sudden the man who presided over an explosion of government spending and debt under a Republican congress has become fiscally conservative now that the Democrats are back in control.

And what better way for him to show his fiscal prudence than by vetoing a bill to provide health care to poor kids.

Well, I'm sure there's nothing being spent on other things that could be used for that insurance. Oh wait...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked Congress yesterday to approve an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the Bush administration's 2008 war funding request to nearly $190 billion -- the largest single-year total for the wars so far.

Oh yeah, he looks innnocent too

Let me give a bit of advice to anyone married to (or even just hanging around) a celebrity in Los Angeles: run the hell away as fast as you can.

Because apparently they can murder you and face no penalty.

Of course, most notoriously, washed-up football player and B-actor O.J. Simpson cut off the heads of his ex-wife and a guy he thought she was involved with.

Then washed-up TV star Robert Blake's wife was mysteriously shot in his car when he conveniently returned to a restaurant they had just left - to pick up a gun he said he forgot no less!!

And now washed-up record producer Phil Spector got a hung jury in his murder trial, a case where a woman he had picked up in a club and brought back to his house, was shot dead. Suicide he said. Uh huh.

Even though Spector has a history of pointing guns at women, even though he basically confessed to murder when his driver came running in to the house at the sound of the gun shot, some of the numbnuts on that jury still wouldn't vote to convict him.

I know there are perks to being with a celebrity, the money, the great houses and travel, the easy entry to clubs, the fabulous service at restaurants - but, jeez, it seems like there's also a pretty decent chance you're going to be killed.

I hope the Park is a no-fly zone

There has been a constant and very annoying stream of helicopters buzzing around my neighborhood all morning. I assume it's because the U.N. is in session and half the world's leaders are in town.

Either that or Bush has decided to try to take out more hostile territory. And we will defeat him here on the Upper East Side too. Viva la resistance.

Great moments in TV journalism

I saw this live yesterday on MSNBC and thankfully YouTube has it up so everyone can see it. Watch David Shuster (sitting in for Tucker Carlson) take Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee to lunch on the continuing GOP bullshit over that Moveon.org ad about Gen. Petraeus.

He notes that the "betrayus" pun was actually first used months ago by Rush Limbaugh about Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who is opposed to the Iraq war, and asks her why there was no GOP "outrage" over that.

But the absolute best part is when he asks the congresswoman to name the last soldier from her district killed in Iraq. (It turns out it was an 18-year-old kid, no less.) And Shuster notes that when Blackburn can't even name him, she can go on "chapter and verse" about the Moveon ad and the New York Times.

Watch her stutter and stammer and then the icy glare she gives him at the end when he thanks her for coming on the program. Good stuff.



By the way, the highest rated show on MSNBC is Keith Olberman's left-leaning "Countdown." If MSNBC actually had some programming smarts, it might occur to them to give Shuster his own show too. He's not even a lefty, I've seen him hit Democrats hard. But at least he hasn't drunk the Kool-Aid on the war and the usual GOP craptacular talking points.

We are? Where again?

''Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma,'' President Bush said in an address to the U.N. General Assembly. Now called Myanmar, the Asian country also is known as Burma.

I'm sure there are probably terrible things happening in Burma, now known as Myanmar. But have you been outraged by it? Are any of your friends or co-workers or family members outraged by it?

Why does he have to lie about everything?

Americans care so little about what's happening in Burma, now called Myanmar, that whenever a newspaper ever writes about the country, the paper feels obligated to explain in every single article that the country now called Myanmar was formerly called Burma.

And if you really wanted to see a demonstration of "Americans are so dumb, they can't find country x on a map," ask them to locate Myanmar formerly known as Burma. Hell, it would take me a minute and I'm a friggin' genius.

DAMN IT!

The book publisher for Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady on the 1970s sitcom "The Brady Bunch," is shooting down rumors that she had a lesbian on-set affair with co-star Eve Plumb, who played her younger sister Jan.

The story of the alleged lesbian affair started circulating the Internet Friday, and was picked up by at least one newspaper on Saturday.

But the book's publisher said, though there are plenty of other revelations in the book, a lesbian affair is not one of them.
- ABC

Can you imagine?

Hold on, let me imagine.

Ok, back to work

Oy gevalt

As for Obama, a senior White House official said the freshman senator from Illinois was "capable" of the intellectual rigor needed to win the presidency but instead relies too heavily on his easy charm.

"It's sort of like, 'that's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And a laziness, an intellectual laziness."
-Examiner

Let me see if I understand this correctly. A member of the Bush administration - George Fucking Bush! - is saying a Democratic candidate has intellectual laziness?

Wow.

Don't cry for me, Argentina

What the hell has happened to this place?

This used to be a can-do country. We put a man on the moon. We beat the Nazis and the Communists. We invented the turducken.

And now, under seven years of George W. Bush – the worst president ever – we have become a nation of crybabies.

This week alone, the brave U.S. Senate passed a motion 72 to 25 “to express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus.”

This was because the group Moveon.org had placed an ad in The New York Times questioning whether Petraeus was cooking the books in his testimony before Congress about how things are going in Iraq.

Bush got in on it too, whining at a press conference: “The ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack, not only on General Petraeus but on the U.S. military.”

Bullshit.

Have we now come to the point where you can't criticize an army general? Isn't that the way they used to do things in those banana republics in Latin America?

Now the latest “outrage” is that the Iranian president wanted to visit Ground Zero, the site of the WTC attacks, when he's in town for the U.N. General Assembly meeting.

And all the usual suspects got in a lather. The politicians and the tabloids and the talk radio hatemongers and Fox "News" blowhards got self-righteous and said it would somehow be an insult.

Huh? Iran didn't attack us on 9/11. Sure, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a particularly nice guy, but is he any worse than a score of other dictators and thugs who do whatever they want when they visit the U.S.?

Nixon engaged our great Commie enemy Khrushchev in the famous “kitchen debate.”

We used to be a country that wasn't afraid to engage our enemies instead of whining about them being nasty - and instead of acting like a spoiled 8-year-old refusing to invite little Tommy to his birthday party because he was mean to him during recess.

Pathetic.

General Jameson?

Jenna Jameson, who I understand is some sort of porn star, visited the Capitol yesterday and got a tour by an aide to Sen. Arlen Specter.

Capitol cops got their pictures taken with her, and I'm guessing no-one mistook her for Sen. Barbara Mikulski when she was walking the hallowed halls.

Ever the wily one, Specter told Washington Post reporter Paul Kane he had no clue who she is.

"I don't recognize that name. Who? General Jameson?" Specter asked.

"No, sir, Jenna. She's, well, she's kind of an actress, in, well, uh, the adult film industry," Kane explained.

"Paul, do you mean pornos?" Specter chuckled.

"Yes, senator, that's what we'd call it."

"I don't think I'm meeting her," Specter said.

Of course, Specter's also the guy who came up with the magic bullet theory in the Warren Commission investigation of JFK's assassination, so, you know, whatever.

Jenna supports Hillary, by the way. Just another reason to like the girl.

“Dean Martin on the consolette”

Another good twofer, a montage of clips from one of the few sitcoms I can stand to watch these days, “Scrubs,” paired with a great song, “Diner” by Martin Sexton.

I actually just started watching Scrubs on a regular basis through the syndicated reruns, and the clips, thankfully, include a few moments of the always yummy Sarah Chalke.

And Sexton is singing about the now rapidly disappearing classic American diner – what they were constructed of (how often do you hear the word Bakelite used in a song), where they were made, and even gives a shout out to The Little Gem (a diner off Route 690 near Syracuse) that was known to be a bit of a dump, but I guess he visited it. Of course, the song has nothing to do with anything happening in the clips (some of which look like outtakes) but the music goes pretty well with the cast's dance moves.

A twofer

I'm a big fan of PETA and a naked Alicia Silverstone, so this PSA she did about being a vegetarian is fine by me. I may even reconsider my carnivorous appetites now.

Autumn in New York

Actually, I'm not even sure if it is Autumn, but it was a beautiful day, and my friend "Velma" - who hates that name, but she does have certain Velma-like qualities - played hooky today (and if her boss is reading this, she was really sick in the morning but got miraculously better) and I spent a few hours in my park. Central. I figure, before the weather turns chilly, it's good to spend time there.

We stopped in at the CP Boathouse and had an amusing little Sauvignon Blanc.

The staff there is sort of surly. Well, not even surly, just not particularly friendly. They are all Romanian, for some reason, and I wonder if the CPB management knows how they stand around not being very helpful. I could see tourists come in, who were probably nervous just being in the park, the yokels, and didn't realize they were supposed to seat themselves at the outdoor tables. And God forbid the hostess would let them know. She just basically ignored them as they stood there.

They really should put up a Seat Yourself sign.

At least the girls working there were sort of cute. You know, Eastern Europe has become the new porn capital of the world - all the new porn stars come from there (so I hear).

There were also some ugly Americans visiting. Even in America, American tourists can be ugly. There was a family with a brat running around, screaming, turning over empty chairs, throwing crackers into the lake. Ugh.

Quite annoying as we tried to enjoy our delightul vino.

I'm amazing

I just had a delightful lunch at Les Halles, a wonderful little brasserie on Park Avenue South. I started with the onion soup, then had the Onglet a le chalote (the Angus beef hanger steak with a shallot sauce) and the homemade fries, along with a few glasses of an amusing little Sancerre - and then walked home. That's almost 70 blocks.

And I feel like I could walk back down there, have dessert and then walk home again.

My new regimen has got me bounding with energy. I wish I could share it here, but, of course, I can't take the chance my husky right-wing friend will learn it and drop some pounds.

I'd still rather have an iPhone though

When did the memo go out that every kid in New York has to have a pair of those sneakers with the little retractable wheels in them, so you can walk or inline skate?

They didn't have those when I was growing up, damn it.

I'm almost tempted to get a pair, but then I would look like one of those dufuses you see going to work in the morning on a razor skooter. I think they think it looks cool. It doesn't. It looks ridiculous.

Once again, poor O.J. accused of something he didn't do

Simpson Named Suspect in Casino Break-In

LAS VEGAS -- Investigators questioned O.J. Simpson and named him a suspect Friday in a confrontation at a casino hotel room involving sports memorabilia, but the former football star denied breaking into the room.

Simpson told The Associated Press an auction house owner called him several weeks ago to say some collectors "have a lot of your stuff and they don't want anyone to know they are selling it."
- AP

But he's vowed he's going to spend the rest of his life hunting down the real breaker innners.

A rare look at Fred Thompson's early career

Below is a video clip of Fred Thompson, now one of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, when he went by the stage name of Edgar Buchanan.

It's the opening of the old sitcom, “Petticoat Junction,” and Fred (Edgar) plays Uncle Joe.

Now, as a student of television, as I indeed am, here's some genuine trivia factoids for you:

The dog in it was the mother of famous movie dog, Benji.

And Petticoat Junction, now occasionally seen on TV Land and Nick at Nite, was one of the many classic “rural” shows that aired on CBS back in the 1960s and 70s, including Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry RFD and The Andy Griffith Show.

Even though those shows had amazing ratings, the demographics weren't so good, and CBS canceled them practically in one fell swoop in a bid to improve its demos. In fact, Griffith once joked that CBS woke up one day and canceled every show that had a tree in it.

Seriously, those shows were regularly getting 40 and 50 million viewers each. Today, a network would KILL to get numbers like that.

CBS went into the syndication business with these shows as the backbone. Its syndication unit eventually split off from the network and was called Viacom.

Viacom became fabulously rich and started acquiring companies, including MTV Networks, Paramount, and – ironically – CBS itself.

Even more irony, the MTV nets include Nick at Nite and TV Land, which air a lot of the old CBS shows. It's all very incestuous.

But, hey, at least that wacky period of pop culture gave us Sen. Fred Thompson (Uncle Joe, he's moving kind of slow at the Junction – Petticoat Junction).

Huh?

Actress Alyssa Milano will be covering baseball online for TBS Hot Corner on MLB.com. TBS Hot Corner is a new broadband channel from Turner Broadcasting’s TBS, which will be broadcasting the major league division series and the National League Championship Series for the first time this season.
- TV Week

And in other news, Tootie from The Facts of Life will be covering the 2008 conventions for CNN.com

Save them from themselves

The time was 10:50 p.m. Monday. Victoria Beckham, sheathed in a minidress so tight that her breasts appeared to be up near her chin, entered the Marc Jacobs show at the Armory on Lexington Avenue, convoyed to her seat by bodyguards and paparazzi.
- NYT

Does anyone ever say to some of these celebrities before they leave the house: "Um, that's maybe not such a good look."

Because even with several million dollars, professional stylists and lots of free clothes given to them, apparently they can't be expected to dress themselves.

Once again, the innocent taken advantage of

So, I had drinks with a certain friend on Wednesday night. Her name need not be mentioned – cough – and, well, let's just say that even though we went into it with her owing me something like an astounding 8 drinks, she did not pay for 8 drinks!

And it was a $100 night, by the way ($97.61, including tip, to be exact.)

I know this because it is on my credit card.

Thankfully, as we were settling the tab, her consort was honorable and moved to make the pot a little more equitable.

But I was shocked at her maneuvering. Shocked!

On the positive side, now she owes me something like 11 drinks.

Yet another reason to be glad the Democrats took control of Congress

The U.S. Senate has declared, by unanimous vote, September as "National Bourbon Heritage Month". This resolution reinforces bourbon as "America's Native Spirit" by celebrating the family heritage, tradition and deep-rooted legacy that the bourbon industry contributes to the United States. The resolution calls for consumers who enjoy bourbon to do so responsibly and in moderation.

If the Republicans were still in charge it would probably be National Put on a Diaper and Go to a Whore House Month.

Or National Troll in Airport Bathrooms for Anonymous Sex Month.

Or National Hit on Teenage Congressional Pages via IM Month.

Meeeow hisss

Two of the Republican candidates are in the middle of a delicious spat. A mysterious anonymous site was put up on the Web attacking the newest entry in the GOP race, Fred Thompson. Reporters believed it was put up by an operative of Mitt Romney.

The Web site, which questioned Mr. Thompson’s conservative credentials and labeled him “Fancy Fred, Five O’Clock Fred, Flip-Flop Fred, McCain Fred, Moron Fred, Playboy Fred,” among other monikers, was taken down yesterday after reporters began making inquiries about it to the Romney campaign.

The Thompson camp fired back:

This latest episode only serves to prove what many voters are already figuring out: Mitt Romney will do anything, say anything, smear any opponent and flip flop on any position in order to win. The American people in general and the Republican Party in particular deserve better than this.

Good stuff.

This is sort of like when Iraq and Iran were fighting each other. You don't really care which side wins, and in fact you sort of hope they exhaust each other.

Oh well, at least stuff like this keeps those wacky Republican deviants out of whore houses and airport bathrooms trolling for sex.

Ka-ching (burp)

A 2-liter bottle of Dr. Brown's Cream Soda on sale at Key Food for 99 cents.

That stuff is my crack cocaine.

The party's over

Once upon a time, when there were pictures circulating of Britney Spears out in public going commando, people were sort of intrigued (in that horrified way) as you watched her career melt down right before your eyes.

Apparently, she did it again last night in Vegas after the MTV Awards.

But now it's - yawn.

Someone sent me a series of pictures like this one of her out and about on the town.

What a sad case of a huge star melting down and totally throwing away a promising career and image.

Boo freaking hoo

The early iPhone customers are crying because Apple just cut the price by 200 bucks.

May I say: haha.

I saw them lining up overnight outside the Apple and AT&T stores a few months ago to be the first to get the phones. That annoys the hell out of me whenever I see people doing that. Some folks do it for a new Harry Potter book or concert tickets. Puh-lease, get a life.

I wanted one of those phones, but who could be bothered to do that?

Not to mention, they never ran out of the damn things. You could have waltzed in anytime and got one after they started selling it.

But the outrage over the price cut is crazy. Did they think the price was going to go up? It always goes down for stuff like this.

I bought a hi-def TV set a couple years ago for $2,400. The same model today is about $1,000. That's technology. The point is, I needed a new TV, it didn't make sense to buy an analog set, and I've been enjoying it for the last two years. And I didn't whine because they cost less today than when I bought it.

Now Apple is apologizing and offering a $100 store credit to the cry babies.

On Thursday, in a remarkable concession, Steven P. Jobs acknowledged that the company had abused its core customers’ trust and extended a $100 store credit to the early iPhone buyers.

“Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these,” Mr. Jobs wrote in a letter posted to Apple’s Web site.

How did they break a trust? By reducing the price? If you're an early adapter, you pay for it.

And, for once, I appreciate that damn Verizon contract, which has me locked in to them. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't switch to AT&T without paying an early termination fee which is some ridiculous amount of money. (Not to mention, I've heard bad things about AT&T's service.)

I say Apple should actually charge those dolts who lined up an extra $100 just to make them realize how silly they were.

And when the other cell phone companies eventually begin offering iPhones at greatly reduced prices once the exclusive deal with AT&T ends, I will really get the ol' shadenfruede going.

Classy as always

Ah, that George Bush, always doing us proud as he represents the U.S. in foreign lands,

In Australia, for an Asian Pacific conference, Mr. Sophistication once again showed the world the class and verbal skills that truly makes him leader of the free world:

"We're kicking ass," he told Mark Vaile on the tarmac after the Deputy Prime Minister inquired politely of the President's stopover in Iraq en route to Sydney.

I'm pretty sure FDR said something similar when he met with Churchill at Yalta.

Who knew Christmas was so close to Labor Day?

Craig Tells Senate Leader of Plans to Fight Charge, Finish Term

Oh please, Baby Jesus, make it so.

Aawwkkwaard

We've probably all had embarrassing or awkward conversations with our parents, but this has got to take the cake:

Two of Sen. Larry Craig's children said Tuesday they questioned him explicitly about ''what exactly happened in that bathroom'' where he was arrested in a sex sting and believe his assertions that he isn't gay.

Michael Craig said they asked their father about the June 11 incident at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, which led to the Idaho Republican's resignation last week after it became public, because ''we were shocked'' at media accounts of the incident, he said.

(snip)

Among the questions he and his sister Shae Howell said they asked their father was ''what exactly happened in that bathroom,'' and they tried to ''break down definitions of what words mean,'' including semantic definitions of sex, Michael Craig said.

''Maybe it wasn't sexual intercourse, but were these sexual actions? Were there sexual feelings? All these terrible things that were said in the media, we asked all those tough questions,'' Michael Craig said. ''I don't want to have an answer based on a legality or technicality or semantics of the words. We wanted to know exactly what happened and after speaking to our dad, we know exactly what happened.''

Yikes.

The Craig story is a tough one. On one level, you have to enjoy it, because he is such a hypocrite. Not only a closeted gay senator, but one who went out of his way to continually vote against gay rights. Not to mention, the location of where he got busted and the whole foot-tapping thing is pretty funny.

On the other hand, someone of his generation, his career, and his place (Idaho), well, let's face it, he would not have been able to be elected dog catcher never mind senator if he had come out years ago.

And he's still denying it, maybe even to himself, so you have to feel a certain amount of compassion for someone who is so obviously fucked up in the head.

The root cause of the problem, of course - the closeting and the gay bashing and Craig and others like him having to cruise in airport bathrooms - is the Republican party's policy of demonizing gays.

Which is why this DC blogger who outs gay politicians who vote against gay rights is causing some terror in Congress these days. He says he has 33 names ready to go.

I hear Senators Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell might be the next shoes to drop.

Put away your white

It's after Labor Day - dress accordingly people. Girls, no more crocs (how the hell did these ugly things creep up on us?) please stick to heels. And, as always, tank tops continue to be encouraged.

I spent my LD weekend in the great state of Maine. Gorgeous scenery, beautiful weather, it was even a little cool at night - it's probably about 10-15 degrees cooler there than in the city.

And, yes, I'm posting again. I didn't win that goddamn Megamillions Lottery last week. Sigh.