As If

h/t Salon.

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Disturbing the Peace -- and Democracy

I've been away, and I have to get back into the saddle with an easy one.

In April of 2009, a 48-year-old housewife from Wearside in England was "remanded in custody" for having "excessively noisy sex". In December, she pled guilty.

48-year-old Brit Catherine Cartwright ignored a court-ordered ban on her noisy sex, and has pleaded guilty to making love with sounds described as "murder," "unnatural," and capable of drowning out her neighbors' televisions.

Cartwright had been banned from her noisy romps after hundreds of complaints. Even her postman and a women who walked her child to school past Cartwright's house complained.

The Blair-ian (Tony, not Eric) mechanism by which Caroline Cartwright was thrown into durance vile is an "Anti-Social Behaviour Order" or ASBO/Asbo. In particular, Ms. Cartwright's ASBO prohibited her (under pain of arrest, apparently) from making "excessive noise during sex" anywhere in England.

ASBOs have been issued to prevent teenagers from:

• wearing a single golf glove (allegedly the symbol of a gang);
• uttering the word "grass" as a threat;
• play football in the street;
• joining a group of more than three other teens;
• entering any "car park, school ground, or garden" without an invitation;
• meeting their brother in public;
• entering any subway;
• wearing a hood or cap at night;
• using the front door of his house;
• riding on a motorcycle (as driver or passenger);
• riding or pushing a bicycle.

Other bizarre ASBOs include prohibitions against:

• jumping into rivers or canals;
• sniffing petrol in Teesside (apparently it's OK elsewhere);
• being seen wearing underwear at the window or in the garden (I'm assuming this means the underwear being visible, not having underwear on under the clothes);
• climbing on any structure over 1 metre high without explicit permission;
• making sarcastic remarks to the neighbors.

ASBOs are handled by civil courts. The standard of proof is allegedly indistinguishable from the criminal standard, but hearsay evidence is allowed (which means the defendant isn't allowed to cross-examine all witnesses). Defendants are also not allowed to compel testimony or the release of evidence held by applicants or others. The result is that the standard of proof is automatically lower than required for criminal conviction. And yet breach of an ASBO is a criminal offense bearing a potential 5 year prison sentence.

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The Late Notorious Bettie Page, 1923 - 2008

Bettie Page Died Today

Susie Bright has an excellent column:

But Bettie's story was different from the average Suicide Girl. She was doing fetish photography when the subject was completely removed from any sense of camp or fashion. The closet was shut so tight not even a filament of sex-positivity could be imagined. The damnation she faced must have been entirely without context to comprehend.

Including an interview with Mary Harron, director/writer of The Notorious Bettie Page:

SB: You point a finger, without drawing a thick line, at her history of sexual abuse, incest, — and also, at her survival of a gang rape when she was a teenager, long before her modeling career.

How do you think women recover, sexually, from situations like that?

MH: The abuse by her father was the most damaging, because she was still a child. She was a traumatized person, but she did have an active sex life. Billy Neal, her first husband, told me they had a great sex life and I believe him -— it was clearly the motor in their relationship.

Sexual abuse, or rape, is an awful trauma but it doesn't mean you will never enjoy sex— although it may mean you become more sexually-identified, as the careers of countless porn stars will attest.

Many men who've seen the film complain that Bettie doesn't react much to the sexual abuse: she doesn't show more rage or grief. But most men have no idea how much sexual shit women go through, how many of their female friends, relatives, and co-workers have been raped or abused in some way. They don't know about it because the women don't talk about it, and just get on with their lives, as Bettie did.

SB: My interpretation of Page's "naivete," and her various personalities as model, missionary, etc., is that she was coping the best way anyone does when they are suffering from mental demons.

But if she had been homely — and crazy — or even just plain, what would have happened then? Sexual allure is often both the salvation and damnation of people who need to be seen more deeply than the surface....

MH: If she had been homely, her mental problems would have been spotted earlier. The people I talked to who knew her in the Fifties all talked about how sweet, friendly, unassuming she was— but at the same time, no one seemed to know her intimately.

Even her first husband, Billy Neal, found her a mystery. That suggests to me that she had sealed herself off: there was something blank and inaccessible about her. She was always late, often hours late, which implies that she would just space out.

Someone can be mentally ill, but if they are young and beautiful and their life is going well, people don't notice because at that point the cracks are almost imperceptible. I think it's significant that Bettie's breakdowns happened in her middle age.

There were a lot of things going wrong for her by then. Her fourth marriage had collapsed, and with it her hopes of happy family life.

There were the demons from the past, her father's abuse and the gang rape. You can't discount the traumatic effects of aging. By now she was a middle-aged woman, and she had spent her whole adult life as a beauty. Her identity, her finances, her social life, her sense of herself: everything depended on that, and it was gone.

Bettie (not Betty, although that was her birth name) was an icon twice: post-War, when she was an iconic pinup; and her revival starting in 1976 with the publication of A Nostalgic Look at Bettie Page from Eros Publishing. She "inspired" pieces of two generations, the Silents post Korea and the Boomers in the 80s. Her exquisite combination of girl next door and fetish model was original and potentially unique.

The official obituary.

As one of Susie's commenters has it:
There's a ... little Bettie in all of us

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Interesting Articles

Browsing...

I found these articles interesting.

Not enough to give them their own article. At least not on a holiday weekend when I'm all about resting and reading. And folks are mostly taking it easy. But enough to post them up together.

Enjoy.


Bothell High School, Seattle
Sued over Nude Cheerleader Photos

This is total sexist bullshit. Welcome to the Seattle School District.

Two cheerleaders took nude (topless in one case) photos of themselves, one for her boyfriend, one just goofing around with another cheerleader. As tends to happen -- and here at GNB we have warned y'all about before -- the photos got out...

The football team enjoyed them.

Therefore, naturally, the girls were suspended from cheerleading. One for 30 days, one for a year. The PI story didn't say, but I'd assume the topless photo only got 30 days. Nudity is worth an entire year, I'm guessing.

The football players? A stern talking to, then back to the gridiron.

The girls are suing the hell out of the Seattle School District. Can you say Equal Protection Violation?

Can you spell S-E-X-I-S-T P-I-G-S-? Oink, oink.

SeattlePI

King argues the district's student handbook didn't specifically prohibit the girls' behavior, and didn't outline potential consequences for a case like this.

"My clients fully realize what they did was stupid," King said, adding that the girls never intended for the photos to be distributed and have been mortified by the entire incident.

He wants the disciplinary action expunged from the girls' school records, the remaining teen reinstated to the cheerleading squad and some form of apology from district officials for neglecting to discipline other students in the case.

Northshore officials, however, believe the girls clearly violated the district's athletic code, which students must agree to in order to participate in school activities. The girls understood that as athletes, they would be held to higher standards of behavior, Stoltzfus said.

"When you sign up to be a cheerleader -- or for any student activity -- you agree to certain codes of behavior," she said. "We consider them student leaders, and we want them to be role models."

Teen Sex = Sex Offender = Eviction =
Georgia Remains a Totally STUPID State

Two kids had sex ten years ago.

The girl was 17. The boy was three weeks shy of 16.

In its infinite wisdom the great State of Georgia -- motto: even stupider than Mississippi -- convicted her of sodomy which ended her up on the registered sex offender's list for life.

People on said list can't live within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, school bus stop, and so on. Even if they own a home or are renting, if a school bus changes its route, if a new school or a church gets put in, they are hosed. For life.

Because of a teenage blowjob when they were less than two years apart.

If you gave/received head to/from someone while you/they were under 16 years old (yes, that means you or they were 15 or younger), raise your hand. Feel free to tell us the entire story including ages, and how totally bogus Georgia's bullshit law is. Do remember however there are Statute of Limitations regarding Age of Consent laws. We're not lawyers; don't ask us.


Federal Way, Washington Teen Returns Ten Large.

A 17 year old grocery bagger, Moisei Baraniuc, a Ukrainian immigrant, found $10,000 in unmarked cash in the bathroom of the grocery store where he works. The young man and his parents came to the United States five years ago with $300.00. The kid works for minimum wage.

The boy turned the money in.

The cash belonged to a -- seriously -- Mr. Smith. It was his life savings. He was moving, so instead of hiding it at his home, he had it on him. Mr. Smith satisfied the police it was his and they returned his money to him.

Tacoma News Tribune

“Besides being really, really shocked, I had an overwhelming sense of pride for Moses for doing the right thing,” said Schafer, the store’s guest services manager.

“You always hope that people would do the right thing,” she said. “He didn’t even think twice.”

Federal Way police are also praising Baraniuc.

“That was great,” said Cmdr. Stan McCall. “I think that’s very honest and shows a great deal of integrity.”

Baraniuc works 15 hours a week after school to pay for gas and other expenses. He earns minimum wage.

Baraniuc said he and his family came to the United States five years ago with $300.

He teaches 10-year-olds in Sunday school at First Ukrainian Baptist Church in the Federal Way area. That’s another reason he knew he had to return the money.

“I can’t be teaching little kids not to do it if I’m doing it,” he said.

Baraniuc's promised a reward, but says he's fine: “Right now I have everything I need.”

Lots of people might mock this. I think it's just great.

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“You Must Be, My Lucky (All-) Star...”

Soooooo Not The Tale Of “The Natural”...But It Does Involve A Shady Lady, Temptation, Faith, and a Hotel Room. Oh Wait...

What with the vicissitudes of the extended rollercoaster of a political season, I haven't had much opportunity to indulge much writing on one of my favorite things in the whole wide world—Baseball.

I fell in love with the game 37 years ago, on a July 13th afternoon. It was a Tuesday. I remember that because Tuesday was always a light work-day at my Dad's job and I knew I could spend that day in particular at his restaurant, running behind him like some annoying little Black “Mini-Me”. It was the afternoon of the mid-summer classic—Baseball's All-Star Game, and my semi-apathy towards the sport was instantly replaced by a sense of awe and wonder when the Oakland A's young superstar Reggie Jackson launched one of the hardest hit, most majestic home runs you've ever seen—off an offering by the Pirates' mercurial All-Star hurler Dock Ellis. Seeing Jackson's Superman-esque blast, as he set the new standard for what a slugger looked like—the boozy-looking, flabby free-swingers of the Ted Kluszewski mold would now become anachronisms—I was hooked. His A's in their gaudy green and gold togs would become my first favorite team—but I could never keep up with their exploits the way I wanted to, as the west coast scores even in the early 1970's would be delayed a day or so in the papers and televised sports reports.

So, I shifted my allegiance eastward, to the team of my father's since he saw their Negro League namesakes play at the same hallowed Bronx ballyard—The New York Yankees.

Yes, I became a Yankee fan when they were at their worst, and you could buy a walk-up ticket at the Stadium into the third inning and by the fifth, have the place so empty you could walk down to the field level and hand Duke Sims his Racing Form in the on-deck circle—no sweat . It was the CBS-owned / about-to-be-handed-off-to Steinbrenner early 1970's. (CBS fucked up EVERYTHING they gobbled up during that wave of 70's super-conglomeratization—Fender Guitars, anyone? Gabriel Toys?) And oh, what an embarrassment they were then. A collection of cast-offs, half-talents, wash-outs and a few gems they got lucky with thanks to the still-sane few in management who were still player-developing amidst all the collected hardball detritus.

I remember those horrible Yankee teams well. Manned by the dazzlingly dull Horace Clarke, and the wannabe slugger Duke Sims, and an aging, partied-the-hell-out Ron Swoboda.

And I remember the nadir of those Yankee years—1973, when crappy Yankee pitchers Fritz Petersen and Mike Kekich got all “Ice Storm-y” and swung harder at home than they ever did at the plate in the pre-Designated Hitter days. They swapped wives and families,'cause hey...it was the seventies, ma-a-a-a-a-a-n, and that's what you did, right?

Well...fucking, no, That's what a decided minority in the population played around at doing, but none so publicly and stupidly as these two Yankee fuck-ups. It ended badly of course, as Fritz's wife liked her switch, and Mike's couldn't get-down with the whole funky, bell-bottomed swap-er-oonie, and he was left ass-out when the “arrangement” ended. (Fritz wound up marrying Mike's wife—Um...oh snap?) But it was a dark day for fans of the team, as the ugly bedroom peccadilloes were splashed across the back pages of all the city's tabloids—the Daily News's in-house scold and grump Dick Young had a spittle-flecked day as he went into full-on Archie Bunker mode and used the incident to rail about everything that was wrong in the world at that awful, afro-ed, libertine moment in time. Being a Yankee fan, but thankfully a young one, I kind of pish-poshed the whole thing as silly, and kept on steppin', blindly supporting my pinstripes as the they stumbled around a couple more years as the league's dumping ground for drunks, skunks, and once-talented-but-now-washed-up bums.

I note all of this—right up to the Kekich/Petersen PR bed-shit for my beloved team (My God, if there was sports-talk radio or an ESPN around then....sheeee-iiittt!), because for me over the years as a Yankee fan, that was just about the depth of private bedroom ugly enveloping the team in a public sense. Flat-out dumb-assery played out by a couple of ridiculously naive man-boys in tight double-knits that embarrassed them mainly, and the team second—but no less nastily.

Well, helloooooooo 2008! Thirty-five years later, and sordid tales of “big sticks”, “bounding balls”, and...“yick!”...messy slides-in dominate the news again about...my team. Not quite wife-swapping. Just sloppy, public wife-dissing in favor of...what? Not the mysterious, murderous “Harriet Bird” from Bernard Malamud's “The Natural”, but a corny, ersatz digital era version of the same. With a lot more mileage, and a boatload less mystery about her. Not that I'd expect the mega-talented, but tragically head-cased Yankee star Alex Rodriguez to be savvy enough to pick up on that sort of thing.

'Cause this is about more than just “Physical Attraction” here.

“Borderline” behavior such as this, that is.

You see, for all his macho, there's a bit of the naif in him...which is what's gotten his ass in dutch.here. Yes, we know he's not “Like A Virgin” stumbling headlong into the arms of some “Beautiful Stranger” or something., but still...

Okay...fun's fun “Everybody”. Let's get “Into The Groove” here and look at this tabloid-y mess.

With “Madge” holding our hand or course...'cause we're all soaking in it now...and it ain't diswashing liquid, kids. Bleah.

Everything about an élite pro athlete's life — the nine-figure contract, the 20,000-sq.-ft. home, the beauteous gluteus maximus and, yes, sometimes even the 12-lawyer divorce — is a brawny spectacle. But the breakup of New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez and his wife Cynthia is surely one for the record books, with its allegations of a starry love pentagon and brainwashing via a rabbi. The relationship that appears to have helped unravel the six-year Rodriguez marriage involves no mere Vegas stripper or D-list country star. This couple is fighting about the only woman on earth who can top A-Rod in both net worth and push-ups — Madonna.

Cynthia Rodriguez filed for divorce Monday, with her lawyers claiming that "Alex has emotionally abandoned his wife and children" and that the marriage "is irretrievably broken because of the husband's extramarital affairs and marital misconduct." While Madonna's name isn't mentioned in the petition, Earle Lilly, Cynthia's divorce attorney, told TMZ, "Madonna was the last straw."

Lilly later clarified to PEOPLE magazine that he was not claiming sexual infidelity by the Material Girl and Major League boy, but rather "an affair of the heart." Dodd Romero, Rodriguez's former trainer and godfather to his children, told Good Morning America that Madonna has "brainwashed" the ballplayer with teachings of Kabbalah, the form of Jewish mysticism she practices. "Something has pulled him away from his strong family values and has caused him to search and look for something that really isn't out there," Romero said. (For pro athletes, chatty former trainers pose the same threat that chatty ex-nannies do to actors: they often see their bosses at their worst, and share it.)

Come on, man. Madonna?

Madonna?

I mean, Goddamn...that is sooooooooo 1998. Shit, it's damn near sooooooooo 1988.

Madonna?

Yes, somewhere in the great orange and blue box seats in the sky, I know Steve is laughing his ass off over this All-Star calibre of Yankee drama stupid. As well he should. Beyond his “F' the effing Yankees” mantra (and you should see how he and I used to go at it in our back-channel baseball e-mails—hooooo boy!), this is one of local baseball's most juicy little scandal-ismos to come down the pike in a a while. It isn't quite as kooky-fuck as the Kekich/Petersen “Freaky Friday” bit, but it ranks up there with some of the others. Like the recent shitty, 3:11 a.m. trash-canning of Mets manager (And New York's first Black MLB manager) Willie Randolph last month that re-exposed the long-known and creepy fissures in the team from Flushing, or the infamous Howie Spira spying-on-Dave-Winfield incident the got George Steinbrenner a well-deserved, forced time-out in the eighties.

(But of course, a “head” like me can go back to antics like the juvenile David Cone Mets bullpen “Onanism” bit, or the Yanks' Luis Polonia fucking up with an underage girl who lied to him about her actual “yout”. And of course, the one that freaked me out as a child of the Civil Rights era—Met great Cleon Jones getting busted en flagranté de-fucking-lecto by the cops in a “love” van down south with an jailbait White girl (very “Black Snake Moan”, dontchaknow...), a stash of drugs, and being summarily bounced from the team for said indiscretion. I always imagined the van's doors being flung open, and a cloud of reefer smoke pouring out along with the gutteral strains of The Chakachas' “Jungle Fever”)

What makes A-Rod's incident so head-shakingly dumb is how it only serves to bake hard into people's minds what a grasping, insecure goofball he is. Especially when you look fifty feet to his left and see his peer and evil twin in super-stardom, one Derek Sanderson Jeter playing shortstop.

If you spend any time out in New York City once the sun goes down, and maybe get to know a party person or two, you eventually come to know that Mr. Jeter is one of the town's greatest Lotharios since the days of a sober Joe Willie Namath, his panty hose and his infamous men's club “Bachelor's III”. Jeter has been linked over the years to a veritable “Who's Who” of bodacious babe-a-licious-ness , spanning the likes of Mariah Carey (whose ill-conceived attempt to publicly play off the relationship's still going on after it had ended led to the unfortunate coining of the phrase “Jetering”, the process by which one openly dispels an ended relationship's faked continuance at a public gathering), Jordana Brewster, Both voluptuous Jessicas—Alba and Biel, Scarlett Johanssen, Miss Universe Lara Dutta, Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima and a favorite chocolate kiss of mine, actress Gabrielle Union, amongst a raft of others, less famous but off-the-chain “hawt” (as the kids say) nonetheless.

The most you've probably heard about these relationships is that they existed (save for the Carey end-game drama which she inanely prompted). You don't hear about wild canoodling, or stripper bars, slap-fights or other embarrassing peccadilloes involving him and the various women in his life. Why is that? It's because for all of his tom-catting about, he's remarkably discreet and un-messy in the way he conducts his life. They don't go to Page Six about him, and he doesn't give 'em cause to. When you're comfortable in your own skin and operate from a base of confidence, you tend to run your ship with an even keel. That's a manifestation of his whole personality, which flows through his whole “game”—on-field and off. I get the feeling that A-Rod cuts his eye those fifty feet leftward these days and probably hates/respects/is awed by him more than ever.

(SHOWN BELOW: DEREK JETER'S MADDENING ROGUE'S GALLERY OF CONTENTMENT—CLICK FOR LARGER)



You see...for all his mighty ability—and make no mistake, Alex Rodriguez is one of the seven or eight best all-around players in baseball today (including Tampa Bay's B.J. Upton, the Marlins' Henley Ramirez, Philly's Jimmy Rollins, the M's Ichiro, Detroit's Miguel Cabrera, and a few others), he is a flat-out mess of a person in his head.

In an ironic, but not unheard of twist, either the Gods, the Fates (or maybe even...Satan?) smiled down and gave Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez an otherworldly combination of positives to build a life from—stunning physical looks, off-the-charts marketable talent, a ridiculously affable personality and a nimble, cognitive mind. With all of that, he is still an emotional basket-case, unlike other like-gifted big-name personalities like George Clooney, Tom Brady and the aforementioned Jeter. Rodriguez' infield mate isn't a perfect person by any means, but what demons may haunt him do so well beyond our view. A-Rod's psyche-spawned spectres however, tear at him before our very eyes. For example, the man's got Daddy/abandonent issues to beat the band. His father Victor, a talented ballplayer in the Dominican Republic booked back to New York when Alex was nine years old and the marital split-up was kept from young Alex ostensibly to shield him from heartbreak, but he went on for years deluded, thinking that Daddy was merely “away” for a while. You can imagine how that kind of over-kid gloving can addle a person, no matter how talented. It's the sort of thing that when eventually discovered by a child, can easily trigger the obvious approval / validation junkie issues Rodriguez exhibits today. With all he has going for him, there's a Cecil Fielder-sized hole in his soul. Coming up with such fanfare with the Mariners in 1994, the young star dazzled everyone—until he came up for free agency six years later and signed a salary-structure busting contract with Texas that vociferously pissed off the mellow, and seemingly betrayed Pacific Northwesterners unexpectedly to no end. It also engendered ill will from baseball fans in many small-market cities as he became the poster child (rightly or wrongly) for excess in the game. Quite a blow for an “approval / validation junkie”. He's been a superficial statistical wunderkind and a grasping, mind-fucked enigma ever since.

He saw his best buddy (and talent lesser—let's be honest) Jeter rack up World Series ring, after ring, after ring, after ring, and while hated for his NY success, be acknowledged as the intangible-stuffed baseball magician of the age. Hated but respected, alá Michael Jordan, while A-Rod himself was just...well, fucking hated. So, he overplayed the affability card to get the love he craved from fans and the media and it never worked. He marketed himself on the outside package of perfection, and took a wife to buttress that palatable, “Joe-Perfect”, “I-can-sell-whatever” image—even though he was clearly not ready for that level of commitment or personal responsibility. He shtupped about like so many of his baseball brethren—on the road eighty-one plus days a season with chickies galore, all too willing to serve it up to even hundred-thousand-aire bench-riders—imagine the amount of ego-swelling (and everything else-swelling) ass a mega-star stud like him could bag?

But again...it was never about the sex, really. It was all about that gaping hole in his soul. Let's keep it real fellas...when we fuck around illicitly, it's due to a combination of three things really:

1.) Validation of self-worth—“I need to know they still want me!”

2.) Because we can—“It's nice to know I can still do it!”

3.) The thrill of the risk / danger involved—“Real men can get away with this—I wanna be a real man!”

Sex itself is easy to get. Gift of gab, a bit of personality, and lacking that—money to spare'll get you your share. Validation and a settling of internal turmoil are harder things to procure, and A-Rod's quest has clearly been dominated by those latter vesperous grails. But anyone who's watched Alex Rodriguez over the years with any kind of closeness could also see there was a deeper searching in this strangely yearning, superficial “man with it all”. A searching for the self-satisfied, seeming completeness constantly on display by the placid, settled, actual “man with it all” standing fifty feet to his left—one-hundred and sixty two times every year with that shit-eating semi-smirk permanently pasted on his mug. Goddammit to hell, how do I get me some...of...that?

Doesn't know how—the poor schmuck. So he fills his life beyond the ballpark with messy grab-assery. A cocktail waitress here, a stripper there. Nothin' classy. Just “empty calories” for a hungry soul.

Enter the relationship equivalent of Olestra, good ol' “Madge” Ciccone.

Madonna's made a career of collecting and discarding a string of men—a lot of them emotionally boys, actually—who've either had a certain something to offer to enhance her image or career. To further her music career (Jellybean Benitez), to secure Hollywood cred (Sean Penn and Warren Beatty), to get her the desired “exotic” baby (Carlos León), or to simply burnish her vaunted “I can get 'em while they're hot” status as a man-catcher par excellence (Jose Canséco and Dennis Rodman at their 90's supernova-fame hottest ). As the years have worn on and her desire has shifted towards a quest for stability and centered-ness, she settled down with director Guy Ritchie and had her second child Rocco, semi-scandalously adopted what some would call a “boutique” baby with little David from Malawi, and perhaps most interestingly, threw over her Catholicism for the Judaic mysticism of Kabbalah for added gravitas.

Mama got peace. Mama got soul. Mama's got it all, now. Family, success, her own odd version of that beatific Jeter-esque look of completeness, and she was willing to share that “secret” (“Lose insecurity now—Ask me how!”) with anyone willing to ask.

Except...unknown to the myopic, questing slugger, time was also passing Mama by on the front she'd staked out from her just ripened-fruit days as a “Material Girl” to her cougar-ish “Beautiful Stranger” December bloom. And it just so also happens that—oh yeah—it can't do anything but help to put a sort-of fading one-time sexpot back on the “Hoochie-Mama” front burner than to snag a hard-to-get dude of the minute. Or at least, appear to have.

Take A-Rod's searching stupid, mix with Madonna's crafty sense of timing and ability to exploit—garnish with the 21st century / 24-hour paparazzi age and you have a silly, exploding scandal that works in favor of a master of media manipulation (Madge) and tarnishes the clutchy dope. (Guess the hell who?)

It's a cocktail of sordidness served alongside a heaping plate of “What-the-fuck?” in Ms. Alex Rodriguez—his wife Cynthia. And Ms. Cynthia is not the typical “baseball wife” in that she is not defined by or is subservient to the relationship to her famous ballplaying husband. That's a thing that's expected from an MLB significant other, and I can speak from a level of intimacy on this—as I dated a woman who I would remain friends with for years after she married an MLB All-Star and one-time free agent superstar. The shit she was supposed to just “deal with” (and hubby damn sure pressed the envelope famously in NY—no further comment...) was unconscionable. Cynthia Rodriguez is not that kind of baseball wife. She's a daughter of a supremely prominent South Florida family, went to the best schools there and nabbed a Master's Degree in Psychology—she would also teach said subject in schools, and use her expertise to help the grasping A-Rod through a slew of issues in his life—actually brokering the desperately craved reunion between he and his dad, and mackadociously enough, stepping in to fix the negotiations the slugger's agent Scott Boras broke between he and the Yankees when they nearly let him walk in a fit of pique. She's one smart, tough and connected cookie...and it seems that A-Rod in his emotional “walkabout” of an adulthood ultimately craves that kind of woman.

Trouble is, he apparently craved more than one of 'em as evidenced by his open sniffing around the equally no-bullshit Madonna.

But Cynthia Rodriguez is no Goddamn piker and A-Rod picked the wrong woman to dick over publicly.

So of course the woman who helped negotiate your quarter-of-a-billion-dollar contract isn't gonna take your overactive, high school-jock libido bullshit lying down.

She's gonna jet her ass over to Paris and crash at Lenny Kravitz's villa, 'cause you see...she knows people too.

And yes, she's gonna melt that fucking AmEx card down to its base petroleum elements with a $100,000 spree—which is an ass-whippin' you'll just have to take.

Because for all of your bicep-flexing, longball-bashing might A-Rod? It's clear you're kind of weak in the ol' security / confidence arenas.

And I say this as the BIGGEST of Yankee fans ever. I can love the team, and cheer like a madman when you fire off a mortar like you did against Toronto off the foul pole up at Rogers Centre Saturday, but as a guy...a REAL GUY? You leave some shit to be desired on the personal tip. And you were messy, silly and stupid in mucking around with a stone, self-interested operator like Madonna. How in the hell did you expect that to turn out? Her “E” Inside Story's on once a month, knucklehead. And did you notice we're not talking about her husband Guy Ritchie in all of this? Wanna know why? Because when it comes to Madonna and a some dude, that's what it's always going to be about—Madonna...and some dude. You're in her orbit, man. Be you a flash-in-the-pan director husband, or a quarter billion-dollar compensated sports super-duper-star.

Get it?

Now...it's time for you to start growing the fuck up, and start handling your business tidy-like. You've probably scuttled the marriage irreparably, and guess what? You don't have Madonna, either. Lose-lose, brother. That quest for peace or completeness? Yeah, well...there are ways of going about getting to that—but the hope here is that you've learned that dipping your wick in allegedly mystical, magical punanny will not get your ass “clear”.

Understand?

Now, I fully grasp that this transgression will not stop the ladies from loving you. Mrs. LM and my softball team-mate “Y” will fight off all comers for the loins of the chiseled A-Rod. But you need to get a bit more experience in the maturity department in dealing with the ladies, Alex. Date as many as you want like your “buddy” Jeet, but please...at least try to be a touch more discreet, and here's a thought—maybe classier in terms of who you choose, and how you comport yourself. Okay? Great. Do it.

And lastly, for God's sake...will you once and for all stop trying to pull that Goddamned outside breaking ball? It ends up a weak grounder to short nine times out of ten!

There's more...

Sex Change Operations: The Real Reason We're Gonna "Bomb, Bomb Iran"

[The News Blog (Jen and Gilley) had a habit of publishing interesting, amusing, thoughtful, and sometimes indeterminate pieces on the intersexion of politics and sex.  I hope that Gilley likes this one -- Evan]

By now everybody's heard of or seen video of John Sidney McCain paraphrasing The Beach Boys' fantastically popular cover of The Regents' "Barbara Ann".

Or was he?  Is it possible that he was actually quoting Vince Vance and the Valiants "Bomb Iran"?

Who cares?

Anyway, I've uncovered the real reason that the neocons are so concerned about Iran and why turning Iran into a parking lot will be a major foreign policy plank in any future right-wing administrations.

The Secret

Although there are no homosexuals in Iran, there are trannies!  OMG!

Fortunately, the sexually repressive religious regime of Iran viciously represses transsexuals, subjecting them to stoning, prison, torture, and death, right?

Right?

Not so much.

Turns out that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the second largest provider of sex change surgery in the world (after Thailand), and that there are officially between 15,000 and 20,000 transsexuals in Iran, although the Guardian alleges up to 150,000 unofficially.

Under current President and leading member of the Axis of Evil, Mahmoud Admadinejad, government support for  transsexual surgery has extended to bribes:

...state support has increased since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.  His government has begun providing grants of 2,250 for operations and further funding for hormone therapy.  It is also proposing loans of up to 2,750 to allow those undergoing surgery to start their own businesses.

It's obvious that this threat to the American way of life must not stand.  Under a right-thinking administration, Iran will be taken out of the transsexual axis of evil business, and put back into the sexual repression business, just like Afghanistan.

There's more...

Dogs Lick Themselves, Water Is Wet, Oh Yeah...And The Sun Can Be Hot.

Lost The Bet On When It Would End, But Hey...Nobody's Perfect...

From the department of “Who didn't see this coming?”...

Nearly three and half years after they swapped “I dos” at their corporate-sponsored wedding, Star Jones and Al Reynolds are calling it quits. The National Enquirer reports the legal diva sent Al his walking papers a month ago.

A rep for Jones says the report is false, but the Enquirer goes on to say, “They hadn’t been seeing eye to eye for months and had already spent a great deal of time apart,” a friend of the couple told the Enquirer. “Finally, Star decided it was over. She told Al at the end of January that he had 30 days to get his act together or ‘get out.”

The Enquirer spoke to another insider who confirmed the breakup and revealed Star’s intention to make it permanent. “Star is planning to divorce Al.” As for reason behind the split, the source added, “I think Star felt Al had spent their marriage riding her success while she did all the heavy lifting.”

The MSNBC report from above is pretty kind and steers away from the delicious, gossipy luridness of what was going down—or rather...NOT going down between the endsville-headed pair. The 'round-the-way, hard-core grime can be found in other places...

As tempting as it is for Pollyanna Jones to turn all of this heartache into a refreshing batch of divorceade, the New Star, a persona refined on her short-lived Court TV talk show, would never seek to pair the end of her marriage with crass sponsorships. Much to media and trial-watchers' chagrin, there will therefore be no free samples of Cinnabon, Herbal Essences, and OUT magazine distributed during custody hearings over the fate of the couple's only child, their much fussed-upon maltese, Pinky.

I freely admit to being in a circle of friends who casually took bets on how long the marriage would last. My number was eighteen months. Turns out Star and Al lasted a little more than twice that.

Yes...a lot of Black folks had money on when this square-wheeled “Le Car” of a marriage would wind up in a ditch belching smoke and flames.

Now, why do I focus on this salacious little story? Well, number one, my lower right jaw feels like Smokin' Joe Frazier's been blasting left hooks into it all day. (Mmmmmmmmmm. Gum surgery...) and a gossip tidbit is easier on the brain to write on than politics and all that. And two, it's a tawdry tale a lot of folks I roll with had been shaking their heads over even before the marriage took place.

It was a real-life season of “Flavor of Love” embarrassingly playing out for all the world to see. The kind of thing that average, working-stiff Black folks cringe at because of the stupidity's public spectacle. Good old American racial myopia brings that guilt in Black folks on. Against common sense, we get the feeling that the race as a whole is judged based on the spectacular flame-outs of our celebrities. We're looked at through the O.J.-violent-n*gger prism—when we're not being cast through the 24-hour clown persona of a Flavor Flav. The Bill O'Reilly “Where's my mother-fuckin' iced tea?” ramble comes from ancient stereotypes, but just as much from the crack-infused, Tourette's-ravings of the unplugged and unhinged Whitney Houston we discovered via her “reality” show.

Urrrrrrrgh.

So yes, we cringe when the more prominent folks in “the community” proudly and loudly shit the bed for all the world to see. People who you think would be intelligent enough to make better choices or just have the common sense God gave a gnat. Star's nuptial flame-out was especially ugly as it was just another one in a long line of “WTF were they thinking?” public relationship gaffes that give folks cover to demean us as fucking idiots as a whole when our so-called prominent folk self-implode.

My friend “T” calls this strain of the problem “The D.A.D. Syndrome”. “D.A.D.” standing for “Dumb Ass Diva.

“Fucking Judy Garland...she couldn't see Vincente Minnelli didn't bat exclusively for her team? Then that Mark (Herron) dude. The guy was living with his lover when Judy met him, and when they broke up, he went back to living with a dude, Hel-o-o-o-o-o-o! Dumb! Then Liza, her daughter hooks up with Peter Allen? “I Go To Rio?” You think she'd have learned, but I guess it's hereditary because 25 years later, who's she down the aisle with—David Gest! David-fucking-Gest? These are supposed to be smart women! I mean, look at Terry McMillan. A writer. Got her finger on the pulse and whatnot. Speakin' to the inner hurt sisters feel. And she hooks up with a dude who everybody was tellin' her was absolutely not the right man for her—then immortalized the mess of a relationship in a movie! 'Your man is gay! Your man is gay!' 'La-la-la-la-laaaaa! I can't hear you!' Look what happened—the shit was true. Right down to his gaming homegirl outta her money. Now Star comes along...with big, gay Al! And everybody's telling her tacky ass, 'Your man is gay! Your man is gay! Trust me on this—I slept with him and my name is Ralph!' Does she listen? After Terry's hell? She's a former prosecutor, right? Smart woman, right? Bzzzzzzzzt! Nope! Marries him, trashed her rep on “the View” with her tacky-ass 'Hook me up sponsors!' wedding to the bum. Now look at her. A laughing-stock. A total laughing-stock behind this...shit. She knew better. Everybody with a brain knew better. Still...

Our talk went on to the “whys” of these situations. Why make such obvious and clearly destructive relationship choices? I know that deep down, everybody just wants someone to love them. That's as old as time immemorial. But you don't pick an over-the-top loser to be that love provider, do you? Unless as “T” said, you have deep, deep self esteem issues and subconsciously insist on being perceived by others as the one in the relationship who is the more committed, the more loving one.

The W.H. Auden poem “The More Loving One” popped into my head when I thought about that idea. I used to see it posted in subway cars all the time for the city's “Poetry In Motion” campaign, and the words stuck with me...

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

It's a crazy power-play. A way to as Jerry Seinfeld put it to maintain “Hand”—as in the upper hand in a relationship. You pick a loser who doesn't love you and is incapable of loving you as much as you love him, because in the end, they make you look good. Steadman. Jonathan. Al.

I know it. Behind every proud and preening macho man is a scared little boy for whom women are still in many ways a dark and scary mystery. There was a lot of that in me. And it manifested itself in the choices I made in mates. I didn't go for the sane and sedate types who were easy to live with—no. My choices were the most difficult and high-maintenance types possible. The more ornery the diva the better. Temperamental singers. Mercurial performers. Batshit actresses. Not the sane ones in those already tough fields, but the most glamorous, attractive and damn-near certifiable of the lot. I nearly married an opera singer for whom a falling pencil was an avalanche of rocks that kept her awake. Who would not talk to me but wrote long, elaborate notes on audition or performance days lest her voice be abused by asking me to pass the honey or some such trifle. Who had a meltdown because a particular hair scrunchie of hers was missing and the outfit she was wearing to a newspaper interview absolutely required it.

Yeah, I got the subway to 72nd Street to Love Pharmacy to get the particular scrunchie. But dammit, she was mine. I was proving my mettle by dealing with the demanding one's whims. I was “the more loving one”.

My pathological desire for people who I knew were no good for me even extended to pop culture. On the TV show “Girlfriends” I was smitten with the selfish, creepy and mean “Toni Childs” as played by Jill Marie Jones. On Will & Grace, it was the drunken, doped-up, rambunctious she-devil Karen as played by the yummy Megan Mullally who floated my boat big time.

Lord love a mess.

We often make the choices we make for reasons. We're not necessarily always unwitting dupes of crafty Svengalis out to steal our love. I know I wasn't. And people much smarter and more successful than me do the same silly stuff in very public forums. This is about control and wanting to be known as “the good person” in the relationship. Now granted, my choices weren't quite as extreme as Terry's and Star's—picking, and in essence buying someone who wasn't pre-disposed to be into 'em any-damn-way. My paramours were women who were massively difficult (and who I admittedly got a charge out of trying to “tame”.)—not posers who were gaming me for a payday while living double lives “across the fence”. But in the end, I wanted the same sort of thing Terry and Star wanted—Seinfeldian “Hand”. I spent some time in therapy dealing with that issue, and my therapist—no crafty “Dr. Melfi”, he—didn't take long before noting and calling me on my “pattern” and strongly suggested that I train my sights on partners who were not quite so “selfishly intense”.

“Try a regular person for once.— he said. “There are pretty and intelligent women out there who won't scream at you and throw hairbrushes through aquariums at you. You may even find you'll like them.”

He was right.

How, if I could get help for my latent relationship stupid, (inexpensive help too, in spite of his 'round-the-corner-from Carnegie-Hall-office) is it possible that these bold and dynamic (not that that makes them great people, mind you) women can't seem to get their inner “Partner-ometer™” calibrated better? As “T” would later say “The 'D' can't be that good, can it? I mean, damn!”

My friend “S” won the circle's bet on the marriage's length. She figured on three years—with the last year lived mostly apart. Pretty damned close. Down to the living apart. She missed on her guess that Star would catch Al in bed with the cable guy, or the pool boy, or an “I'll show you!” Steadman Graham.

At least...I hope she missed.

There's more...

BACKGROUND: NY Governor Eliot Spitzer Implicated In Prostitution Ring

“Hey Gov, You Wanna Give It a Go? Mmmmm-hmmmmm!”

The wife called me a little while ago, breathlessly asking me, “Hey! You hear about 'my boy' Spitzer?” Being absurdly busy, I hadn't. So, I checked in on the news online....and ohhhhhhhhhh my!

This...is ugly.

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

An affidavit in the federal investigation into a prostitution ring said that a wiretap recording captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

Mr. Spitzer today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.”

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.”

“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

Before speaking, Mr. Spitzer stood with his arm around his wife; the two nodded and then strode forward together to face more than 100 reporters. Both had glassy, tear-filled eyes, but they did not cry.

The governor spoke for perhaps a minute and did not address his political future.

He declined to take questions and promised to report back soon. As he went to leave, three reporters screamed out, “Are you resigning? Are you resigning?”, and Mr. Spitzer charged out of the room, slamming the door.

Eliot, we hardly knew ye...

My wife was particularly interested in this because of a deep, personal enmity for Spitzer dating from his State Attorney General days . In a major probe of impropriety in the insurance industry involving underwriters, kickbacks and lots of shady skullduggery, her company, people she knew and clients she worked with were involved. Files that passed through her hands were subpoenaed and she had to answer some questions to investigators—which pissed her off because it inconvenienced her. She reveled for a minute in the once-ascendant (electorally) Spitzer's getting some come-uppance. He was touted as “Eliot Ness 2000” for his crime-busting, imperious ways. Always a bit above it all and more than a bit of the rough-handed scold, this scathing story pretty much aborts the launch of his skyward political path and is the source of much martini-clinking in the Wall Street set who feels that he cracked the whip on them unfairly and made their jobs that much harder. The wife says that the mood down there is almost euphoric in many quarters. He was NOT well-liked amongst the “Big, swinging”...uh, “deposit” set.

He's on tape in this scandal procuring, arranging payment for, and lining up the lay-down spot for “the ill na-na” as we call it around the way. It should be a death-knell for his governorship—a ridiculously short governorship as he was only sworn in in December of '06. The white-knight crime-fighter's been payin' a fee, for the stuff that rhymes with the word wus-sy.

And not the just-outside-the-Lincoln Tunnel rough-trade “Tunnel Bunnies” either—this is the high-priced um...“spread” as it were. $3600 a pop, with “buy-out” options into the five-figure range if an extended-time tryst was desired (supposedly $50,000 for such calls). The whole “Pretty Woman” package—minus an adoring, Richard Gere-ish looking john and a happy ending. (The Hollywood kind, you little nasties!) Same kind of money, though.

And of course, he took part in the traditional “Let's embarrass the living hell out of the wife” press conference with her standing at his side. Lord...what an awful scene. But as usual, there's some back-story and juicy stuff the press seems to be missing as they''re caught up in the more obvious secrets and secretions.

1.) The possible political payback angle: Spitzer has got more enemies than a three-legged fox after “Tally Ho!”'s been called. The state GOP's been on his ass like mad since he rose in the public eye and he took down certain criminal parties in bed (pun unintended) with them, and his main enemy has been State Senate Leader Joe Bruno—a crooked, but crafty-ass GOP mover and shaker who Spitzer especially disliked, and who hated Spitzer in kind.The soon-to--ex-governor bent rules in going after the slimy Bruno in using state resources to spy on him to catch him doing wrong. He—unlike Bruno was sloppy in his dirt-doing and got caught up in it, allowing Bruno to play the indignant victim (!) while simultaneously drawing the disingenuous Bruno's wrath. And as the top dog in NY's upstate-run government, Joe Bruno was able to launch ethics investigations that helped tarnish Spitzer's do-gooder image quite a bit.

But it didn't do as much damage as the venomous, vindictive Bruno probably would have liked. Thus speculation is that this damning probe may be the result of favors and chits being called in by a waning northeast GOP. It is a federal wiretap that he got his ass caught up in, and one can only wonder if this is possibly the result of some of that not-so-long-ago talked about abuse of the NSA wiretapping that was suggested as being targeted at political opponents. Nobody told ya to go hoochie-chasin' Eliot, but something smells just a wee bit dead-rattish about this probe. Hmmmmmmm...

2.) The fallout from Spitzer's seemingly inevitable resignation: There are of course the calls for Spitzer to step down, and those calls will grow louder as this spools out sordidly. The Republican Governor's Conference has piously called for him to resign, as again Spitzer is so hated by them that their call is knee-jerk obvious. It sets up a scenario for them to steal the governorship back in 2010—and for them their candidate would seem clear, one Rudolph W. Giuliani, who through his long-standing connections to the U.S. Prosecutor's office (He is the former Southern District Attorney—the office that is presently dogging Spitzer) probably got a head-up about this when the investigation started late last year. It is their chance to resurrect a once-and-former-champion, albeit a lame-ass chance what with Rudy's own “sexy-time” baggage that addled his campaign this past year. It is exceedingly doubtful that he could pull that off, what with the state's GOP in disarray right now anyway. There will be another Dem candidate put up by state's newly powerful Dem machine, (probably the son of former Dem governor and present state Atty Gen. Andrew Cuomo—finally able with this to take an office that has eluded him in the past) and two years is an awfully long time to wait before something else awful about Rudy breaks in the news—you heard it here, first.

But the undiscussed development of Spitzer's stepping down is the following:

It would elevate to the office of Governor of the state of New York an African American. An African American with deep familial ties to the old-school Black wing of the state's Dem machine, “The Harlem Clubhouse”. One David Paterson, son of Basil Paterson, former NY Deputy Mayor, Secretary of State, and State Senator and bigwig in that clubhouse along with the one-time kingmaker and NY Boro Prez Percy Sutton—who also co-founded Inner City Broadcasting Corp. (of WLIB, WBLS and “Showtime At The Apollo” fame) and Congressional Rep. Charles Rangel.

Repeat—“It would elevate to the office of Governor of the state of New York an African American.”

Paterson, who is legally blind due to a childhood ailment that robbed him of total sight in one eye and drastically impaired vision in the other (and would also be the first blind governor in the country) was considering a run at Sen. Hillary Clinton's abandoned seat were she to win the Democratic nomination and presidency, but of course...things never do run according to Hoyle.

The irony is that Paterson himself joked about the general dead-end nature of the Lt. Governor's job not long ago:

David Paterson, who is 51 (his younger brother, Daniel, works for the Office of Court Administration), has few illusions about a job that has frustrated more than one predecessor. (Comparing the salary, staff and other perquisites, Alex, his 12-year-old son, who aspires to be an investment banker, recommended he remain in the Senate, adding, “I know a bad deal when I see one.”)

David Paterson said, “I’m learning what the title really means,” and added that many people are “focused on what the governor is doing and could care less about what the lieutenant governor is doing.”

I'm sure someone has pointed out to him the stunning truth of that last statement in the last three hours or so.

Fate is a funny, funny thing.

And a 12-year-old's prognostications are at this moment in Black New York's clubby political circles probably even funnier.

Yowtch!

This is going...to be verrrrry interesting.

There's more...

What Price The Quest—Redux (A Return To Form?)

“You, you got what I need but you say she's just a friend And you say she's just a friend...”

In comments yesterday in the original “Unconscious” post on Obama downpage a piece, ohhhh...say about 2:40 p.m., one of our readers—moonglum said the following in reference to wingnuts poking about Barck Obama's past for “dirt”:

...Some of the best dirt diggers in the industry have been searching...all they got was "he bought a house for fair market value"...its rather pathetic....

It sparked a little discussion in the thread about opposition research and dirt-digging in the political campaigns—for example, the newly hatched (I'm thinking not-so-newly) 527 group tasked with blow-gunning the Obama elctoral balloon. There was talk about a post-primary “implosion” by McCain as the election-season continued to heat up.

Ladies and Gentlemen...“The roof, the roof...THE ROOF IS ON FI-YAH!”...

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Ohhhhhhh, my, my, my, myyyyy.

I held on this bombshell waiting for a bit more info to pop out, and sure as shootin', at just before nine a.m. today, McCain in his best “I'm gonna face this shit down” mode went before the press and stiffly (even for him) denied the reports with flat “No's” and a particularly odd, ass-covering rejoinder to a pointed question:

Reporter: No staffer was ever concerened about a possible romantic relationship?

McCain: If they were, they did not communicate that to me.

He denied, denied, denied, then went off on a potentially advantageous (to attract the knuckle-dragging “Ah hates citified, librul smart stuff” wingnut base) “Bash the liberal NY Times” mantra that's been picked up by his conservative co-horts in the media, as the Times has dug in its heels with editor Bill Keller standing by the story it statements since it broke.

A story that according to pundits, has been wafting about like a tent-trapped fart in D.C. since December. That should tell you an awful lot about how these Beltway types operate in the way they circle the wagons, protect each other, and yes, spike stories based on timing factors and access issues. The Times was supposedly pressured to hold the report lest it needlessly damage McCain's chances in the Iowa contest several weeks ago.

“Reach-around”, anyone?

When the media supposedly “loves” you and paints fawning word portraits of you in return for hearty backslaps and free beer and pretzels on the campaign bus, it can come back to bite you on the ass at the most inopporune of times. Like just as you're trying to cement your bona-fides with rank-and-file conservative voters who you haven't sold on your candidacy as yet. “Why won't Mike Huckabee go away?” many McCain backers have been saying in recent days.

Perhaps it's because in spite of ol' Huck's cornpone-y, Andy Taylor-speak, even he gets the gossip 411 from the ladies at the switchboard office in Mt. Pilot. Cue a peculiar bit of foreshadowing by Governor Huckabee from about a week ago.

Transcript of press statement by Huckabee after Feb 12th Primaries:

QUESTION: Governor, tonight Senator McCain's camp, Jill Hazelbaker, said that it is mathematically impossible for Governor Huckabee to secure the nomination. You said the other day that you majored in miracles, not math. Has anyone on your campaign staff done any of their own delegate math? Would you be able to comment on that?

MR. HUCKABEE: I mean, we understand, in terms of the conventional process, barring, you know, some something that could happen along the way in the campaign for Senator McCain, or if he doesn't acquire enough delegates, that's really the possibility, that it could go to the convention.

If you think Mike Huckabee didn't catch wind of this story from people unfriendly to Johnny Mac, I'll eat a medium-rare squirrel burger on a bed of mustard greens.

But this story gets at other things, too. For example, it rehashes the image of McCain as a D.C. wheeler-dealer of some standing. Chillin' with the lobbyists, doin' favors for the lobbyists...possibly even bumpin' uglies with the lobbysist. The hell with Jack Abramoff—did a lobbyist (God forgive me...) Jack Johnny off?

I wrote this in the “What Price The Quest?” McCain post:

Life would grow fragile. A marriage would end after several affairs and a final, advantageous liaison with a wealthy, connected daughter of industry as his career in the armed services petered out (He'd retire as a captain). He'd fallen in with a political circle as a Navy liaison to the Senate and would then curry favor in his now-new wife's family's business circles as a base to launch his own political career from.

What this story does is at the worst possible time manage to re-open the old wounds of McCain's long-time “playersim”—and I mean it in both senses of the word:

1.) His playerism in terms of his dealing fast and loose with the lines of propriety in congressional ethics—i.e. his entanglement in the S&L scandals of the 80's, and his insiderism in dealing with lobbyists and special interests that have prevailed upon him. I guarantee you that as I write this, half the grasping comers in the D.C. press corp are digging through his voting record and cross-referencing it with congressional records on whose company plane he rode and where.

And 2.) His well-known, but pish-poshed in Beltway canapé circles carnal “playersim”. It's amazing how people will pull the monkey-face “hear no evil” routine when it's convenient, and how for all the gnashing of teeth about Bill Clinton's peccadilloes, what remarkably little has been said about McCain's notorious reputation for ass-grabbery through much of his adult life. He himself admits to it —in his own words:

"My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine."His wife Carol would later echo those sentiments, saying "I attribute [the breakup of our marriage] more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else."

I would seriously doubt that the Senator's staff would go so far out of their way, and potentially incur his infamous wrath in engaging in such a creepy and blatant cock-block unless there was something worrisome to consider. And I doubt the Times would run with this story without sieving this through multi-layers of lawyering to cover their asses post-the Jayson Blair/Judith Miller fact-check gaffes.

My guess is that they're dangling another shoe off the end of their ink-stained foot. They've got more. Probably ugly stuff they're waiting to spring like a bunny trap. If McCain keeps biting hard on that “They're lying about me!” carrot, and then pulls the string—he's liable to drop the trap's box (more facts, supportive of the original claim and then some) right on his head, trapping him, damaging him, and quite possibly scuttling his campaign. A-gain

What it has done is suck the air out of a new cycle that should be talking about his “inevitbility” and left instead a sordid vacuum of “He did what with who?” water-cooler talk.

It's also handed a big, fat, ribbon-topped gift to whoever his opponent will be (“should he survive this”—Huckabee mutters as an under his-fried- squirrel-breath prayer) in the general election. The 30-year *D.C. insider. Lobbyists, back-room deals, one hand washing the other...I can see the ad...

“John McCain...connected...in all sorts of ways”

Ohhhhhhh, my, my, my, myyyyy.

From the “What Price” post noted earlier:

“It seems our opponents have already made a choice of champion. So while we kick our own asses grabbing at the fleeting thrill of Varsity glory/ avoiding the agony of JV ignominy, there he stands in the tunnel—the other team's “choice”, awaiting us. Awaiting America.

An immensely flawed “choice”.

Dangerously flawed, in fact.

Yes, I said dangerously flawed. And there's not a whit of hyperbole in that phrase.

Let's dig into the phrase itself for a second though—shall we?

dangerous (dān'jər-əs)
adj.
1. Involving or filled with danger; perilous.
2. Being able or likely to do harm..

----------------------------------

flawed (flô'd)
adj.
1. Imperfect, in an often concealed way that impairs soundness.

Dangerously flawed. Keep a note of that. It's not a meme.

It's the truth.

(*GNB hereby claims dibs on the “D.C. Inside-Her” headline you'll probaby see somewhere soon. Nyah-nyah, Daily Show!)

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Headlines, Headlines, Read All About It

“Big Problems Mount For Small Beaver County Town With No Mail Service”

Oh you know we had to go there... (It's just the headline.)

Pittsburgh News

HOMEWOOD BOROUGH, Pa. -- A small town without any mailboxes in Homewood Borough, Beaver County, hasn’t had any problems for more than a century, but that all changed a few weeks ago.

Now, those residents have to go to Beaver Falls to get their mail, but that's a problem for some of the elderly.

The borough, which contains about 50 houses, does not have a post office. A contract postal unit is used so that people in the town can retrieve their mail from a single location.

The same woman has been in charge of the CPU for more than 40 years, but around Christmas, she got sick, which means no one has been able to get their mail.

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“That's No Hooker. That's My Wife!”

Not a Henny Youngman joke; just a family on a really bad day.

Reuters

WARSAW - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees. Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

SLUT Money All Sticky

South Lake Union Transit riders are having trouble paying...

Seattle Times

Payment on Seattle's new South Lake Union streetcar was supposed to be on the honor system, anyway.

But the honorable are having a tough time. The ticket machines often won't take the money.

Riders are to insert bills or coins into a machine in the center of the streetcar, then get a ticket to display in case a transit supervisor asks for proof of payment. The problem is, dollar bills are becoming stuck, preventing the next person from paying.

It happens "three or four times a day" per train, and operators haven't yet determined why, said Rochelle Ogershok, a spokeswoman for King County Metro Transit, which operates the $52 million, city-owned system.

At noon Wednesday, only one of five people who boarded the orange train at Westlake Avenue and Thomas Street could pay for the trip to Westlake Center. He used coins.

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My favorite are the t-shirts reading “Ride the SLUT”.

h/t for all, Fark

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Good Girl Syndrome: Why Jamie Lynn Spears is Knocked Up

Jamie Lynn Spears photo jamie-lynn-spears.net Click either photo for LARGE version.

Jamie Lynn Spears Pregnant at Sixteen

Jamie Lynn Spears, sixteen, star of the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101, has announced she is twelve weeks pregnant with the child of her boyfriend, student Casey Aldridge, nineteen.

Jamie's pregnancy should not impact production of Zoey 101 which already completed production of its fourth season.

Sister Britney tonight denied Wednesday night her baby sister is pregnant. TMZ has the video.

I can't count as a paramedic how many teenage moms I've had in the back of my rig. Or how often I've referred someone to Planned Parenthood for birth control. In fact, I referred a teenager there last week.

What isn't surprising to me is this child getting pregnant. Her home life is well known to not be of especially high quality. Born in McComb, Mississippi, just on the borderline of Louisiana, she was raised Baptist. Her sister is an addict. Her family life has been white trash with money. None of this is the recipe for being taught to use birth control religiously.

If she weren't the sister of a train-wreck of a major star (once renowned for her claimed virginity) or staring in her own television show, this would mean precisely nothing. It isn't as if teens don't get knocked up daily.

Don't think however it will force any Wing Nuts to deal honestly with pregnancy or birth control. As Sara has pointed out repeatedly at Orcinus -- read her Cracks in the Wall and Tunnels and Bridges series, and search for her articles on Mark Foley -- the fundies are quick to forgive their leaders human failings, knowing as they do that we are all born sinners.

The Wing Nut mothers will sigh a sigh over poor Jamie, make their daughters promise not to have sex. The daughters will all, "Of course Mommie. I'd never." And then on Friday nights with their boyfriends it'll be "Oh, Lance. That feels so... good."

The red states have a vastly higher teen pregnancy rate than the blue. It isn't an accident. Thanks to their fundy parents, the red states are filled with good girls.

The problem with being a good girl is, you can't use birth control. To have birth control is to admit you were prepared for sex, and to admit you were prepared for sex is to say what a little slut you are. That's worlds apart from being swept off your feet and onto your back, carried away in the moment by how good it feels, than to cold-bloodedly, like, you know, do it.

'Cause only sluts do it.

Good girls sometimes get carried away and make love. That can happen to anyone; who can help being overcome by loooove and passion. But just doing it?

Slut.

Jamie Lynn was raised a Baptist. She's a good girl.

Knocked up. But a good girl.

Thank God.

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And The Beat Goes On...

Sing it with me now! (To the theme from “Car 54, Where Are You?” and inspired by Admiral Komack in comments)

“There's a holdup in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam in Harlem,
That's backed up to Jackson Heights...
Rudy smiles his crooked smile,
As Judi's chaffeured round' in style...
Car 54, WHERE ARE YOU???”

How's Rudy Giuliani doin'? Well...just when you think its pretty bad, in the words of that noted late 20th century poet, Sticky Fingaz of Onyx, “B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but wait! It gets worse!”

Via Kagro X at Kos:

A source involved with the mayor's operations at the time tells CBS 2 HD that Nathan took flagrant advantage of that police car and driver.

The source says Nathan forced police to chauffeur her friends and family around the city -- even when she wasn't in the car.

That set off alarms with ethics watchdogs.

"The rules are clear, you can't use city resources for private reasons," said Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Research Group. "And if you're using a city car, a police driven car to chauffeur around relatives, unless they're explicitly protected and their deemed to be the subject of potential security threats, it's just wrong."

NYPD officers, chauffeuring around not just the mayor's girlfriend, but her friends and family, too. Nice. 'Cuz they're too good to deal with traffic, like the rest of you scum.

Let me say here right now, that It's perfectly understandable for the many of you who have been so demoralized by the GOP's ability to routinely get people to treat their runny shit like it was double-churned Edy's Chocolate Ice Cream, to have pooh-poohed this breakout reportage of Rudolph Giuliani's past pecuniary peccadilloes as being “eh...ineffectual”.

You have every right to have had that mindset based on recent history.

But it's impossible to dismiss—in the particular instances we've seen this week, that there has been some damage...serious damage in fact to the inevitability of the pundit-powered “Giuliani Juggernaut”. There were desperate attempts to get around this roiling ball of ugly, to circle it and cut it off into a mere 24-hour story.

That failed miserably.

Why? Because Giuliani resorted to the same techniques he used when he was the Mayor of New York. “Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about! The issue is closed! Fuck you!” That worked, and worked shockingly well for a local politico during his mayoral heyday, because even though he was dealing with some ostensibly big-name reporters in a big-media town, it was still for the most part, local reportage, and his power in that “local” dynamic was many times more concentrated than it is on the national level (especially in terms of direct influence on media arms). That isn't the case with this story. He's now dealing with NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC (especially Brian Ross' investigative team at ABC, who Mark Foley will attest to the tenacity of...) requesting info, ledgers, expense reports, and all manner of financial/billing arcana, that seems to be rapidly indicating that Rudy's so-called mania for fiscal watchdoggishness stopped cold at his—and his mistress' Hamptons front door. He lived high, and sloppy as hell off the hog in his last two years as Mayor, (thinking I'm sure that he was somehow “entitled to it”) and sought to cover that excess with this stupid, junior grade, secretary-hiding-her-check-kiting scammery. Except, instead of futzing with money for the occasional spa visit or pair of earrings from Zales, like Tillie in Accounts Receivable, he was swapping around hundreds of thousands of dollars in city monies—taxpayer dollars to sweep the ol' dirt trail of any evidence of his infidelity.

You see, money is a finite thing. You can play games with math's commutative law all you want, but government money—unless you're dealing with “black money” that spending doesn't have to be accounted for—leaves a trail of zeroes, and ones, and fives, and threes, and what have you. Giuliani's ham-fisted stonewalling on this investigation (a years-long investigation) backfired. He's in a much bigger pond than NYC now. And his DMX-ing about with his “posse”, smacking around national reporters is only gonna make 'em dig that much more.

Oh, you didn't hear about that? The elbowing and thuggery? Well...feast! (via TPM)

From NBC/NJ's Matthew E. Berger
OKATIE, SC -- Giuliani refused to take questions here today about allegations that travel expenses were picked up by obscure city offices when he was mayor of New York City.

“We’ve already explained it,” he said, walking past reporters after a town hall meeting.

Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away.Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters. On other occasions, reporters have been free to video Giuliani as he is shaking hands and signing autographs after events, and he often informally takes questions from reporters.

This whole thing should—had things gone as per the depressing usual—again have been a 24-hour story. But it's a three-four-five day story, and growing.

See, uh...Giuliani actually might have a case with his claim that the timing on all of this is suspicious—albeit truthful, unfortunately for him. Note that in the last ten days, he's changed his campaign strategy—worried that he perhaps can not afford to throw away Iowa and New Hampshire as planned, he's shifted his efforts back there in a bit of a desperation ploy to stall the ascendant wingnut du jour, Mike Huckabee.

And just in time for his flurry of last-minute campaign activity to stave off a noted descent in the polls, this news hits. I've noted before that there are people in NY city government who've been laying in wait to shoot darts at Rudy from the bureaucratic bushes for years. But these folks, like the city's comptroller Bill Thompson, whose been digging at Giuliani's financial skullduggery for years have only now been able to access the voluminous records that seem to implicate Rudy more and more each day.

This tidbit via Talking Points Memo stood out for me:

“Yesterday, every reporter who wanted a copy, was allowed to go down to City Hall and pick up copies of the city financial records that were the basis of the original Shag Fund report in the Politico.com. That's how we found out about the weird $400,000 prepayment to American Express, which appears to have been yet another method of taking city money and running it through enough buckets that it could be used for pretty much anything Rudy and his crew wanted to use it for. Some stuff legit, other stuff pretty questionable.”

The highlighted portion is what I want to focus on. Letting press people come down to City Hall and get whatever city financial records they wanted to implicate former Mayor Giuliani, who hand-picked the present one is a pretty extraordinary thing. It would appear that the present administration is running NO INTERFERENCE AT ALL for Giuliani as this scandal mushrooms. There's no stalling, no roadblocks—in fact, the present police commissioner put rusty snow-chains on the bus that Rudy's being thrown under with this damning statement.

...But the current New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said today he knew of no problems with the delay of payments before Giuliani was mayor, when Kelly served under Mayor David Dinkins, or since.

"I don't recall anybody, any statements about delay," Kelly told reporters.

He said all bills for the police details for Dinkins and now for Mayor Mike Bloomberg are handled directly "through the police department."

This forced former Giuliani sidekick and Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota to back off a “now inoperative statement” (we call 'em lies in the 'hood) about the book-cooking:

Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor in Giuliani's City Hall, told the Daily News Wednesday night that the administration's practice of allocating security expenses to small city offices that had nothing to do with mayoral protection has "gone on for years" and "predates Giuliani."

When told budget officials from the administrations of Ed Koch and David Dinkins said they did no such thing, Lhota caved Thursday, "I'm going to reverse myself on that. I'm just going to talk about the Giuliani era," Lhota said. "I should only talk about what I know about."

The embarrassing backtrack comes as Giuliani rushed to network airwaves to defend himself against allegations his administration deliberately attempted to conceal the taxpayer cost of his NYPD protection while he engaged in secret Hamptons liaisons with Nathan, his then-mistress and current wife.

No cover, two previous administrations jail-shanking his claim that “This is how we ALL did it.”, and the present one offering up free samples like it was the girl at the mall in front of “Wok n' Roll” with a freebie platter of Bourbon Chicken for anyone walking by to sup from? Where's the camaraderie? The brotherhood? Who's enabling all this stuff to be dug up?



The guy on the right, that's who.

New York's present Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Silent as a churchmouse on this whole brouhaha—“No comment. No comment”—yet giving free rein to reporters to become an army of muckraking, campaign-damaging suppositories up the proverbial pooper for his onetime pal Rudy. The above picture was snapped yesterday as Obama took a very public “power meeting” with Bloomberg in a midtown Manhattan diner.

That does NOT look like a “friend of Rudy”. And taking a PUBLIC meeting like that at a desperate time for his political patron—a man desperate for support from his New York contemporaries—should tell you everything you need to know about what's going down with all of this. Some have floated the idea of Bloomberg's being a candidate himself—that this pictured and ballyhooed meeting yesterday signals the open consideration of an Obama/Bloomberg ticket. I doubt that. What it does signal is Bloomberg's ability to sense the political winds shifting, and wanting to have his sails trimmed accordingly (as he did in allying himself with Rudy in '01).

It was a fairly public diss of his troubled, onetime father-figure.

And his letting all who may sniff around at Rudy's dirt-dealing (Rudy must be throwing all the hotel mini-bar bottles against the wall in anger over that—REPORTERS HAVING ACCESS TO CITY HALL BILLING RECORDS?!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAARRRRRGGGH!) at this juncture is the private, but so-much-more damning diss. What other details have come out in the last 24 hours thanks to this “mi casa es su casa” policy by Bloomberg towards the press on this? Via Josh again, at TPM:

We focused on the accounting methods while the city dailies focused more on what was actually paid for. So, from looking at their articles this morning, we can get yet a fuller picture.

The Shag Fund not only paid for the 11 tryst visits to Hamptons.

-- It paid for hotel and other expenses for mayoral aides—in addition to the security detail—who also went with the mayor to the Hamptons on the tryst weekends.

—Nathan's NYPD-chauffeured trips (without Rudy) to visit her parents in Pennsylvania, 130 miles outside the city.

—NYPD detectives and city-owned undercover Dodge to drive Nathan around the city.

—NYPD detectives and city-owned undercover Dodge to drive Nathan's friends and family around the city even when she wasn't in the car.

-- NYPD security detail for Nathan, personally approved by Bernard Kerik.

-- NYPD cops to walk Nathan's dog.

Yeah folks. Rudy had NYPD cops walking his mistress' Goddamned dog. And his indicted wingman pal Bernie Kerik personally signed off on it. He's pushing reporters around, churlishly stomping away from questions. Lies and backtracks galore by his spokespeople. Backstabs from “friends” with new breakfast buddies and now, now—his every shady number-fucking laid open for every shoved-around reporter to scratch at?

Gettin' a little hot 'round the
ol' grill these days, ain't it?
Pop! Pop! Pop!

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