Archive for December, 2009
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Playboy: Bring on the RealGirls!
December 18, 2009
So the Playboy sale has fallen through, largely because of Hugh Hefner&;s insistence on living at the Mansion until his death.
Sad, but even incoherent and out-of-date as it is, this great American brand can still be saved. I&;d love to consult on it or edit the new version, but I&;ll provide the first of my modest proposals for free:
Bring on the real girls!
Yes, I understand that Playboy is supposed to be full of fantasy females as part of its quaint &;Playboy philosophy,&; which philosopher-king Hefner says &;is very, very connected to the American dream&;that we indeed did and do own our own minds and bodies.&;
But right now, the girls have been completely Barbi-cized, between the plastics surgeon&;s knife and sacks o&; saleen, the airbrush and the aerobics and the soft-focus photography. Fake boobs, fake girls.
Instead, why not make it, at least partly, an instruction manual for the impressionable male? Maybe some girls are a bit chubby, others a little nosy, hairy or otherwise quirky. For when the one-hand reader of today&;s magazine (and website) encounters a real girl, they won&;t look like this&;especially down there.
Tags:fake-girls, Hugh-Hefner, Playboy, Playboy-sale-fails Posted in death-of-magazines, Men's Magazines, Playboy, Uncategorized | 1 Comment &;
Why Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods ShouldGolf
December 17, 2009
Bill can take pointers from Tiger on upping his score.
Perhaps Newt Gingrich and Silvio Berlusconi can join them for a foursome. No cheating&;on the course.
Although with Susan MacDougal apparently joining Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers, with allegations by Paula Jones, the President is proving quite the player himself.
Tags:Berlusconi, Bill-Clinton, Monica-Lewinsky, Newt-Gingrich, Susan-MacDougal, Tiger-Woods Posted in 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, political-correctness, Politics, Sex and Society, tabloid-journalism, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
No Terrorism Attacks Since 9/11Update
December 16, 2009
Last week (December 8, 2009) FBI Director Mueller called for an independent review of the FBI&;s handling of information about the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting, such as Major Hasan&;s contacts with a radical imam in Yemen. &;It is essential to determine whether there are improvements to our current practices&;that could make us all safer in the future.&;
Translation: Maybe we screwed up by not sharing this information with the Army.
But how could we possibly be safer, as there have been no terrorism attacks since 9/11 in the U.S.?
Tags:9/11, FBI-incompetence, terr, terrorism-in-the-U.S. Posted in 9-11 | Leave a Comment &;
No Terrorist Attacks Since9-11?
December 15, 2009
No, not according to the FBI, not in the USA. Both Republican defenders of George W. Bush and Democrats like Nancy Pelosi want to prop up this story, and for whatever reason, the press doesn&;t press them on it.
Yup, move on, nothing to see here, no terrorist attacks in the U.S. Except maybe:
Naveed Haq, who shot 6 women, killing one, at the Seattle Jewish Federation in 2006 was found guilty today
Major Nidal Malak Hasan, who &;allegedly&; shot 13 people to death at Fort Hood
The 5 &;wholesome&; American kids arrested in Pakistan for trying to link with extremist groups to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan
In June 2009, two soldiers were shot, one fatally, in Arkansas by a suspect who the FBI delicately noted had &;political and religious motives&;
John Muhammad, a Muslim, the 2002 Beltway Sniper, and Boyd Malvo, who claimed they killed for jihad. Muhammad said he was a fan of Osama Bin Ladin, but surely he was just crazy.
The July 4, 2002 shooting by an Egyptian national at Los Angeles International Airport. A young woman killed in the attack lived not far from me.
In March 2006, Mohammed Reva Taheri-azar rented an SUV and drove it into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina. He carried out the attack, which injured nine people, due to &;the treatment of Muslims around the world.&; At his arraignment, he told the Judge that he was &;thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah.&; He is currently serving a 33-year sentence.
You can read more about more of these non-existent attacks here. And even leftist KCRW feels pushed to explore this issue.
Tags:9-11, KCRW.ORG, terrorism, terrorism-in-the-U.S. Posted in 9-11, war-on-terror | 2 Comments &;
UrbanDaddy.com&;GetLost
December 15, 2009
What&;s an UrbanDaddy? Although I am, in fact, an urban daddy (of two) after two years of emails from UrbanDaddy.com, I&;ve decided they are not me. Here&;s their self-description:
We start from the premise that there&;s a lot of noise out there when it comes to your city [they 'cover' New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco]—poor recommendations, shills, plants, promoters, liars, enemies, and exes. Our goal is to be your friend. The kind of friend who knows everyone—the maitre d&;s at all the right restaurants, the bouncers at all the right clubs, the addresses of all the great parties. And the kind of guy who lives to share the wealth. And that&;s what UD does—once a day we&;ll send you a short and quick email with the latest piece of need-to-know information on underground opium dens turned cocktail lounges, brilliant advice from supermodels and how to spend a night at the Guggenheim.
If this kind of pretentiousness turns you on, well, knock yourself out. Here&;s my email to their site:
Dear Urban Daddy:
1. Many hundreds of thousands of us live in the San Fernando Valley or Pasadena and will never go drinking in Beverly Hills, Culver City and the like; it&;s not just the distance but the DUI. If you think that makes me geographically undesirable, then take me off your email list.
2. Many more of us regardless of where we live will not be purchasing the silver-enlaid martinis with encrusted gold olives and the overpriced like. That&;s so&;2006. A serious financial crisis is upon us, if you haven&;t noticed. Yes, Thorstein Veblen is long dead, but when millions are losing their jobs and houses, so should be the conspicuous consumption you advocate in every post. If you think that makes me financially undesirable, then take me off your email list.
That is all.
Tags:conspicuous-consumption, online-lad-media, recession-economics, urban-daddy Posted in Men's Magazines | Leave a Comment &;
Tiger Woods is Happy About OneThing
December 14, 2009
Tiger Woods is no doubt thankful that his father, U.S. Army officer Earl Woods, is not around to see and sound off on what a mess he&;s made of his life. As Earl put it in 2000, &;I wanted to raise a good person.&;
Tags:Earl-Woods, Tiger-Woods Posted in Celebrity-Drunk-Driving-School, celebrity-justice, tabloid-journalism | Leave a Comment &;
Another PublicationDown
December 10, 2009
Actually two; Editor and Publisher and Kirkus Reviews, one of the few publications today still wholly devoted to reviewing those quaint things called books.
But Editor & Publisher is probably even a greater loss, not just for the job advertising it offered but for its justifiable boast, after 125 years, &;America&;s Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry.&;
Pageviews or paper, journalism&;and journalists&;are in trouble. No newspaper industry=no Editor & Publisher.
Tags:book-reviews, death-of-books, death-of-journalism, death-of-newspapers Posted in death-of-newspapers, Journalism | Leave a Comment &;
LA Auto ShowNotes
December 9, 2009
I attended the LA Auto Show&;s Press Days last week. The show had a focus on environmentally-friendly vehicles, and I got to drive three different &;green&; cars.
Porsche Cayenne &;D&;&;Great to drive a Porsche, as even the SUV has lots of pick-up and style, once I figured out that the ignition key goes to the left of the steering column. Downer: the car probably won&;t come to the USA, as the representative told me that they&;d sell 1000 Cayennes a month with little positive impact from having a diesel. The implication was that even with &;clean diesel&; the pain-in-the-ass factor was too high for their market.
Chevy Equinox fuel cell&;handles like what it is, a mid-size Chevy SUV with the extra weight of fuel cell technology. Felt good to drive, but clearly still an experiment&;only given out to 100 customers who live within short driving distance of a hydrogen filling station, of which there are apparently only two in LA. The car gets about 150 miles on a hydrogen fill-up. Not a commercial vehicle, yet.
Ford Focus BEV (battery electric vehicle)&;Based on a relatively old stripped-down Focus, the BEV was clearly a prototype. It had a big red button that looked like the nuclear war &;football&; between the seats. Its purpose was to completely shut down all systems if it had a techical problem; &;Don&;t push it!&; the engineer on the ride-along shrieked. Yet this car had the most potential of the three I drove; currently it gets 80 miles from its giant lithium-ion battery pack, and Ford is shooting for 100 before a commercial release sometime in 2010. And unlike the fuel-cell cars, alls you have to do is plug it in overnight.
Another interesting trend at the Show: Japanese cars, once famous for their fuel economy, are heavy, expensive and deliver poor gas mileage. A poster child for this problem is the 2010 Acura ZDX&;a 4,462 pound hatchback for $56,045 in the &;advanced&; configuration, it delivers 16 miles to the gallon in the city&;Escalade territory. I also think it&;s ugly, but you can decide.
Tags:Acura-ZDX, Chevy-Equinox-fuel-cell, Ford-Focus-BEV, green cars, LA-Auto-Show Posted in Automobiles, Automotive-industry, green cars | Leave a Comment &;
James Cameron, ClosetFeminist?
December 9, 2009
As a film maker, Cameron is associated with action/sci-fi films that skew male (and fanboy) like Terminator, Aliens, the upcoming Avatar, and of course his &;classic&; first film, Piranha Part II: The Spawning.
But Cameron has also included some strong roles for strong women in his films, from Sigourney Weaver as 6-foot ass-kicking Marine Ripley in Aliens (which some call the best of the Alien quartet)to Oscar-nominated Kate Winslet in Titanic.
My personal favorite female Cameron role is Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. Her bulked up arms and steely/insane determination to protect her son appealed to both male and females.
Avatar will bring three strong females to the screen including Zoe Saldana and the ever-feisty Michelle Rodriguez.
Then there&;s Sigourney, 9-feet tall and blue in the movie&;and 6 feet tall in red in Hollywood.
Cameron may be an action director, but thankfully, when it comes to women, he&;s no Michael Bay.
Tags:Avatar, James-Cameron, Kate-Winslet, Linda-Hamilton, Michael-Bay, Michael-Bay-Victoria's-Secret, Michelle-Rodriguez, Ripley, Sigourney-Weaver, Terminator, Zoe-Saldana Posted in Hollywood, SciFi | 1 Comment &;
Me, Medical Marijuana and the LATimes
December 8, 2009
Another media blog recently took the LA Times to task for having &;at least three&; of its columnists write expose columns about how easy it is to get medical marijuana. Make that four LA Times writers.
I wrote this piece for the LA Times Magazine in 2007, before any of the other three. And unlike Sandy Banks or Steve Lopez, I actually smoked the stuff and commented on its power. Perhaps in these days of layoffs they&;re afraid of peeing in a cup?
More likely, they (and their editors) suffer a paucity of imagination. The tone of each article was the same; &;Wow, it&;s too easy to get a recommendation for medical marijuana. Now almost anyone can buy some.&;
Yes, like it&;s difficult for anyone to buy marijuana from a dealer. As I wrote in the story,
&;I forked over $50 for an eighth of an ounce. Later, when I told a friend about my purchase, he laughed and delivered the ultimate insult: &;You paid more than street value.&;&;
Tags:LA-Times, Marijuana, medical-marijuana, Sandi-Banks, Steve-Lopez Posted in Los-Angeles-Times, medical-marijuana, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment &;
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