Drudge and Palin's Afghanistan Messages: A Right-Wing Sybil Moment?
The Pentagon and "patriotic" hawks for years supported a prohibition on publishing pictures of slain soldiers' caskets. Then President Obama lifted the ban, thus giving Matt Drudge an opportunity to create this lovely collage commemorating the Afghanistan war's 8th anniversary. It's almost as if, by some miracle, Drudge suddenly understands the real, human cost of war, a war he tacitly cheered on during Bush's reign. But, no: it doesn't take a genius to see this for what it is: a not-so-subtle visual jab at President Obama, who's currently deciding our military's future in that country. (The line above the pictures reads "Obama clings to 50% approval...") While Drudge doesn't offer an actual editorial on the matter, Sarah Palin does: the sorta politician took to her Facebook page today to join her Republican peers and ask Obama to add more troops to the region. We can win in Afghanistan by helping the Afghans build a stable representative state able to defend itself. And we must do what it takes to prevail. The stakes are very high. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Afghanistan, and if we are not successful there, al Qaeda will once again find a safe haven, the Taliban will impose its cruelty on the Afghan people, and Pakistan will be less stable. We wonder, however, whether Drudge and Palin's efforts, though ostensibly working toward the same goal, will nullify one another. Palin and the Republican set are explicit: more troops! The typically conservative Drudge, we're assuming, supports that message, but his anti-Obama bias has obscured the header's bellicose undertones. What happens when impressionable readers see all the death on Drudge's and think, "Gee, maybe this war business isn't good for anything?" It's almost as if the conservative camp's having a Sybil moment. Not that we can blame them: pinning all this death and destruction on Obama must be hard while also calling for more death and destruction. MORE >>
Brett Ratner Is an Internet Celebrity in His Own Mind
Brett Ratner has an essay on BlackBook's website about how hard it is to be him because everyone is talking about how awesome Brett Ratner is on the internet. Sorry, but all we could find is people making fun of you. Well, that's not entirely true, over the past seven days, there have been some nice things said about the Hollywood director, but we certainly didn't find the tweets he was talking about. In the piece, he says the "other day" he flew to New York, and on the trip a limo driver tweeted about the tip he left. To do that, a lot of things would have to happen: the limo driver would have to recognize Brett Ratner, he'd have to risk his job and life to tweet while driving, and Brett Ratner would have to leave a good tip. At least two of any of those three things seem unlikely to occur. Also, Ratner claims two "performance artists" tweeted that he would attend their strip show, and a kid tweeted that he was a thief. We couldn't find any of these. In BlackBook Ratner says that the constant surveillance of people recognizing him and writing about what he's doing and how awesome he is really harshing his mellow. That apparently seems to be a problem only in Bizarro Cyberspace where Ratner lives. Mostly, what people were talking about was how he would produce a new Roman Polanski documentary. Some excerpts of what people were really saying: @BrianLynch says: :Brett Ratner's Roman Polanski doc will have the kickiest soundtrack and most hilarious fish out of water misunderstandings a doc can HAVE." @hunterstep says: Polanski is like white peoples' oj, except he's guilty and he didn't murder anyone, and he's friends with brett ratner. @John_Hollahan says: Even if I felt drugging/raping were ok, Brett Ratner's support would give me pause. On any issue, really. @AdamTM24 says: Brett Ratner, McG, Roland Emmerich, Joel Schumacher, Friedberg/Seltzer, Tom Rothman. All clown shoes when it comes to movie making. @katerbee says: You know how to decide how you feel something? find out what Brett Ratner thinks, then think the opposite. @PAPPADEMAS says: Also: Brett Ratner got a "Special Thanks" for, like, just being a good dude. His heart is so big it has a poolhouse you could crash in. @Meli_Molina says: Oh yea, saw New York, I Love You. I still don't have a soft spot for NYC and I still hate Brett Ratner with a fiery passion But Ratner still looks on the bright side, seeing past the drawbacks of living in a world where limo drivers and strippers constantly tweet about how excited they are to be near you: Maybe I should look at the positive side of constant surveillance. Maybe it's a sign that when one of my films comes out, and it's really good, all of those secret spies will tell everyone about it, and get more people into the theater for opening weekend. But then again, they might not like what they've seen and tell everyone that the movie isn't worth their dollars. From our not very scientific market research, we're going to have to go with the... MORE >>
Did Letterman's Blackmailer Get the Idea From One of His CBS News Stories?
One of the last 48 Hours stories that CBS Newsman and accused David Letterman blackmailer Joe Halderman worked on—airing just one month before he allegedly launched his plot to extort the late-night host—involved a ransom scheme. Weird, huh? On August 1, 48 Hours aired a true-crime story, produced by Halderman with Sara Rodriguez, about Sonia Rios—the "Black Widow of Lomita." Rios, a Filipino immigrant who lived in Lomita, Calif., allegedly had two of her ex-husbands murdered during visits to her home country, once in 1987 and again in 2006. Rios herself turned up dead of a bullet wound to the head in 2007. The story originally aired in February, but the August re-broadcast was updated with new reporting based on developments in the case. It's a run-of-the-mill true-crime tale of murder and deception, but it features one detail that seems strange in retrospect: The sister of one of the victims, who never got her brother's remains from the Philippines after his murder, at one point received creepy anonymous e-mails from someone claiming to have her brother's ashes, and offering to sell them to her. From the script: Jackson was devastated. She didn't even know where Larry's ashes were. But after her brother's murder, she received a bizarre e-mail with an offer: "It said that they would help my family get my brother's ashes back." The mysterious e-mailer told Jackson her brother's ashes could be retrieved from the Philippines for a mere $35,000. That's from a story Halderman was immersed in a mere 40 days before he delivered a blackmail note to Letterman's car, demanding money in exchange for silence on Letterman's sexual hijinks. The strange thing is, in the story Halderman reported, the ransom scheme goes haywire: The man behind the e-mail ends up attracting attention to himself and gets arrested for Rios' murder. Maybe Halderman got the idea that he—a producer who crafts TV crime narratives for a living—could pull off a heist like that better than any of the rubes he covers. Or maybe he wasn't thinking at all. (We should note that the onscreen credits for the Rios piece don't list Halderman as a producer, but the online credits on the transcript do, and we know from published reports and from talking to people involved in the case that Halderman was deeply involved in producing the story.) We came across the weird synchronicity between Halderman's day job and his after-hours scheming while going through his old 48 Hours segments and looking for signs that they may have been produced by someone crazy, desperate, stupid, and/or unscrupulous enough to engage in blackmail. By and large, everyone we found who was involved in Halderman's stories speaks highly of him. "He seemed to be a pretty nice guy," said Dennis Bourdeau, the brother of Rios' other victim. "They did a fantastic job." As a result of Halderman and Rodriguez's story—Peter Van Sant was the correspondent—Bourdeau was able to locate his... MORE >>
Gourmet's Empty Cubicles Mark the End of an Era
Yesterday, Gourmet was one of four mags the wounded publishing giant closed for good. Today it is just an empty shell full of boxes and crushed dreams. The tipster who sent these pictures says, "By 1pm it is completely empty. Not a soul left on this side of the 5th floor. Security guards are standing by the elevator as the last of them trickle out. One woman was rushing to process one last invoice. Amazing how fast they cleared this place out." Only a few stragglers remain in the lobby. We're wondering if one of them is going to try to rip the sign off the wall and take it home as a memento. Once these cubes were filled with the bustling of interns and the shrill screams of editors on deadline. Now, we only see the ghosts of the projects that were in the works when the ax fell. Better not pack too many cookbooks in each box or they're going to be too heavy to carry home so that you can sell them all on eBay while waiting for your unemployment to kick in. Don't you dare leave those two bottles of wine on your desk. They're going to come in real handy in about an hour or two. Someone left their cardigan behind so that the desk chair doesn't get cold. After all this, there is still good in the world. We hope those totes are full of delish food stuffs. After working at Gourmet, waiting in the breadline is gonna suck. MORE >>
$1000 Prize Offered for New Nikki Finke Photos
Journalism about Nikki Finke has become a cottage industry. Each new profile provokes a flurry of reviews, debunkers and all-around Big Media Disappointment. But wading through all the miles of pixels spilled about Hollywood's most notorious monger of gossip about entertainment executives La Finke, the same damn picture pops up again and again. Over and over, the same black-and-white picture of Nikki in what appears to have been a audition photo for the role of the evil headmistress in a 1940's film. At Gawker, we're prepared to do something about this distressing dearth of Finke images. We are hereby offering a $1000 prize to the first person to bring us a recent photograph of the scourge of industry reporting. How does this happen, that a woman who is the focus of so much attention is so little seen? As far as we can tell there is but one other known picture of the most hated woman in Hollywood media; a mysterious rumpled image dating back to Nikki's debutante days in which the first seeds of diabolic rage can clearly be discerned. The hunt for Nikki sightings is a long and venerable one, stretching back almost a decade. Around that time, as she first began to ruffle feathers with her LA Weekly column, people around Hollywood began noticing that no one had actually seen the great columnist in quite some time. Theories abounded about why she had become a shadowy presence. Some speculated of agoraphobia; some thought she was afraid to run into those she had trashed in writing; while others said that it might be vanity, her appearance not being what it was perhaps at the time of the Evil Headmistress photo. And through this time, Nikki began to make strange appearances and non-appearances in and around the press. There was a strange little incident during one of her earliest feuds with the late blogger Cathy Seipp in which, mid-fight, Cathy began receiving comments on her blog from someone identifying him/herself on as Nikki Finke's attorney and demanding (more or less) that her attacks on Nikki cease. Checking the IP address from the attorney/commenter, Seipp found it was identical to Nikki's own. Whatever the case was with the lawyer in that episode, Finke soon developed a taste for deploying her legal pitbulls on a succession of journalists who dared question her. Stories among journalists abounded of lawsuits actual and threatened by Nikki. This tactic of course is not unknown to those she covers — legal stonewalling and badgering as a PR tactic; the Church of Scientology kept their critics at bay for years with such a strategy. But for a journalist to employ it herself is unusual, to say the least — particularly from one who becomes near rabid at the least suggestion that she is not receiving full and total openness from any source of her choosing. We are quite sure that Tad Friend and the New Yorker absorbed the brunt of this particular strategy. Reports also circulated of her responding to the most innocuous inquiries with... MORE >>
Gossip Girl: A Fleur for the Dramatic
Having Tyra Banks try to act on your show is nuts. Almost as nuts as having an on-air threeway. Gossip Girl is crazy enough to do both, and it always throws the power dynamics into a tizzy. Thanks, TyTy! However, in the high-stakes act-off between Tyra and Blake Lively, I think Tyra actually won. That's kind of like being the world's chastest hooker, but as long as you're not in last place, you're not fairing too shabby. Too bad there were plenty of people on the bottom last night as we saw everyone grabbing for a little bit of control. Except Dorota. She's got everything in check. Dorota: Power Play: Tells Blair that it's silly to mess with the Constance girls: +3, Can throw a hell of a slumber party: +2, Waters down the martinis: -1 Total: 4 Season to Date: 28 Power Position: Down Georgina: Power Play: Didn't make one appearance all episode: -20, Still manages to loom over everything ominously like an evil specter in heels: +5 Total: -15 Season to Date: 8 Power Position: Down Chuck: Fashion Points: Only Chuck Bass could pull off a white tux: +3 Personality Flaw: Excessive reference to himself in the third person: -2 Power Play: Is concerning himself with high school politics: -1 Quip: "What do you espect from a place where men wear sandals": +1 Sexual Intrigue: Let's Blair know that the best thing about her is that she is dating him: +2 Social Schemes: Convinces Jenny to grab the power: +2, His "bring Jenny to the premiere" gambit totally works: +3, The "hire the paps to photo Blair" gambit is also a rousing success: +2 Total: 10 Season to Date: 7 Power Position: Up Dan: Personality Flaw: His pop cultural stupidity pays off for a change: +1 Power Play: Only gets invited to the premiere because of stupid Vanessa: -2 Sexual Intrigue: Picks up a hot girl on the street: +2, Is too stupid to know that she is a big Hollywood star. Put down the Milan Kundera and pick up an Us Weekly, Dan: -2, Gets dumped by the star for being just too damn awesome: -1, Has his second fancy girlfriend without even trying: +4 Total: 2 Season to Date: 4 Power Position: Down Blair: Personality Flaw: Excessive reference to herself in the third person: -2 Power Play: Wanders into a He-Man lover's support group: -1, Won't go to a movie premiere because she's having a sleep over: -3, Still gets into the premiere when she deigns to go, and doesn't even need an invite: +1, "They don't care that I'm Blair Waldorf": +1 (consolation point), Gets her picture taken by the paps: +1, Chuck set it up: -2, Her confidence is back so watch out, world: +1 Sexual Intrigue: Chuck cares enough to scheme against her: +1 Social Schemes: Has to go back to Constance to feel powerful. Sad: -4, Unseats Jenny Humphrey as Queen with the wave of a wand: Even, Finally gets herself some NYU minions: +4 Total: -3 Season to Date: -4 Power Position: Down Olivia: Fashion Points: Wears a fedora and a retro T-shirt in public during the day. She can afford a publicist, but doesn't have a stylist?: -2, No, she... MORE >>
Letterman Totally Cuckolded His Extorter
The David Letterman Sexy Scandal has yet more "sordid" mundane details to be wrung out of it. Details about sex, between David Letterman and a lady! The same lady, Stephanie Birkitt. But more incidences of sex! This morning's big scoop, courtesy of the New York Post: Pretty former "Late Show" staffer Stephanie Birkitt revealed in her diary that she continued having sex with boss David Letterman even after moving in with her CBS-producer boyfriend, who later allegedly tried to extort him over the affair, sources told The Post yesterday. So much to parse! Birkitt is officially "pretty," for purposes of this scandal at least. More interesting: Who is this source, who viewed Stephanie Birkitt's diary, and then blabbed about it to the most salacious paper in America? It's highly unlikely that it's Stephanie herself. It's not her boyfriend Joe Halderman, the cuckolded blackmailer. Maybe his lawyer? OR MAYBE: David Letterman is so pissed about all of this that somebody on his side leaked this to the Post, just to make the point that, hey Halderman, Dave was totally boning your lady, how you like that? "Halderman exploded when he read Birkitt's diary in December and learned that she was still carrying on a steamy affair with Letterman, the sources said." We bet they did say that, the sources! Would Halderman even gain any benefit by having his lawyer leak this? Not only is he an incompetent villainous criminal, he was also cheated on by his lady. Maybe he's trying to play the "I too was victimized by David Letterman" card? Trade away the very last shreds of his reputation in exchange for some public sympathy? If so, that's bound to fail. The important thing is that the tabloids' "Every Time David Letterman Had Sex" chart is now slightly more complete. [Pics: AP] MORE >>
In Free Speech v. Dog Fights, Free Speech Should Win
We've always thought the Supreme Court could be livened up with more dog fights. Now, thanks to a controversy over something called "free speech," we're getting our wish. And the result could rip the liberal set asunder! The case in question involves one Robert J. Stevens, who sold "pit bull training" videos that feature dog fights as, he says, cautionary tales on what happens when vicious beasts are used for evil, not good. Well, people found the tapes themselves to be evil and Stevens was charged under a federal law the forbids to distribution of videos that depict "animal cruelty." (That law, by the way, came into being to stop "crush videos," which showed stiletto-clad women crushing small animals. Apparently people were getting off on such things back in the 1990s. Who knows? People are weird.) Now the Stevens case has made it to the highest court in the land and animal activists want to justices to prohibit all dog fighting videos in the same way it prohibits kiddie porn, which hardly seems like a fair comparison, but alright. Others, like the New York Times editorial board, worry about the free speech implications: All 50 states have laws against animal abuse. The best way to fight animal cruelty is to enforce these laws more vigorously and to increase the penalties. Anyone with an ounce of decency should be tempted to ban animal-abuse videos, but anyone with an appreciation for the First Amendment understands why we cannot. Hip to this whole "free speech" argument, the American Humane Society offers a weak counter point: While supporters of Stevens' position include many "freedom of speech" proponents who do not necessarily condone animal cruelty, American Humane believes that this law is necessary and does not infringe on the true intent of the First Amendment. Er. We're going to have to go with the Times on this one. Sure, dog fighting's cruel and people who watch the movies are not quite right in the head, but if footage ends up being restricted, then even lowly bloggers such as ourselves could get in trouble for posting a picture like the one that illustrates this story. As the Times says, "There is no clear way to sort through all of the covered expression to determine who should be held criminally liable and who should not." Regardless of what happens, someone's going to be unhappy. If the Justice's rule in Stevens' favor and say free speech laws protect these videos, then the animal activists will be upset. If the court goes the other way, then free speech activists are pissed. Those who don't know where they stand will probably just be so confused that their heads explode. The lesson here: justice serves only some of the people some of the time, not all of the people all of the time. The only way to really solve this would be to fight to the death. Oh, shit: can we say that? MORE >>
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