If Mel Gibson wants to, he can come back from this scandal.
He and his camp haven’t responded to the drip-drip, drip-drip of tapes containing angry, racist and misogynistic rants directed at his ex-girlfriend and mother of one of his children, Oksana Grigorieva. (To be clear, there’s no confirmation that the man on these recordings is Gibson. Nor has it been determined if they were edited.)
But people are already proclaiming that his career is over. If it is him on these tapes and the investigation into violence against Grigorieva goes anywhere, it’s easy to see why people would say that. Put the recordings alongside the anti-Semitic comments he made during his 2006 drunk driving arrest, and it doesn’t take a PR expert to doubt the likelihood of a Lethal Weapon 5 or anything else from Gibson.
Nothing is impossible, though. A public figure, particularly a Hollywood celebrity, can do a lot of negative things, but people will still admire and work with them. So, I think Gibson can have a career after all this. In fact, I’m pretty sure he will. It’s just a question of how he’ll go about it. Continue reading 'Mel’s Choice'»
Mel Gibson keeps doing it to himself. The list of his anti-semetic, racist and misogynistic tirades gets longer and a police investigation has been opened into the assault on his ex-girlfriend. And to further hurt his career, the NFSW audio of this conversation, which is purported to be him, has surfaced. [RadarOnline]
Hot GOP. What’s behind the ogling and sexualization of Palin and other Republican women? [Newsweek]
Can you ask your church for a refund? This woman did. She sued her church for $250,000 – a portion of the money and gifts she claims she gave the church over 37 years – because a gay wedding was held there. [Clutch/theGrio]
When public figures break the law or do something very bad, forgiving and forgetting can be two very different things.
Two weekends ago, Chris Brown tried to resurrect his career and redeem himself in the eyes of the public with a tribute to Michael Jackson at the BET Awards. The performance was almost a year to the day since Brown pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna. The first half of Brown’s performance was a dance tribute to Jackson. The second half was Brown weeping to Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror.” He was supposed to sing the song, but Brown appeared as if he couldn’t hold back his tears. I say “appeared” because there are allegations that the tears weren’t real.
Another redemption story came to an end a few hours after Brown’s performance. Robert Byrd – the longest serving U.S Senator in history – died that Monday morning at age 92. Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940′s, voted against Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court and filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Then in the late 1960′s, Byrd had a turnaround on race. He supported the creation of the Martin Luther King National Holiday and endorsed Barack Obama for president. How’s that for a switch? A former Klan member endorsing the man who would become the first black president.
Also that same weekend, the world mourned (again) over Michael Jackson’s death. One year after he died, the media and some of the public rehashed the King of Pop’s life, death and money. Though he was never convicted of anything, the allegations of child molestation followed him for over a decade. Those allegations along with the years of strange behavior - we all know he did, so I won’t list the incidents here – made the Michael Jackson who died into someone different from the one who made hit records. There was one Michael Jackson who was a megastar performer in the 1970s and 1980s and became one of the most famous performers on the planet. Then from about 1993 until his death, he was another Michael Jackson: the guy who once a megastar, but did a lot of weird things and was accused of molesting kids.
How much money does it take to heal a broken heart and buy silence? A lot, if you’re Tiger Woods.
The London Sunreported that the terms of Elin Nordegren’s divorce from Woods are final. The paper said she will get $750 million along with full physical custody of their kids and several pieces real estate. Nordegren also can’t talk publicly about Tiger, ever. A source who claims to be a friend of Nordegren is quoted as saying, “The price of the huge sum is her silence: no interviews, tell-all books, or TV appearances about this for the rest of her life – even if Tiger dies first – or she’ll lose the lot.”
Forbesdisputes that three-quareters of billion dollar figure saying Tiger doesn’t even have a net worth of $750 million. They put his net worth at $600 million, but half of that is still a lot of money.
It must be extremely devastating and painful to have the entire world know your husband cheated with umpteen cocktail waitresses, strippers and porn stars. Three hundred million or three-quarters of a billion dollars, though, would definitely soothe some of that pain, and is, apparently, the price to make sure the public never knows about it.
On my old blog, I compiled links to interesting news and opinion pieces from around the Internet. I’ll start doing the same here about sex, race and American culture. As always, feel free to leave your comments below.
-One year ago today, Michael Jackson died at the age of 50. According to this estimate, the King of Pop’s estate made $1 billion (yes, with a “b”) in revenue since his death. [Billboard]
-Joran van der Sloot claims he’s getting mail from women who want to marry him and have his baby. Why do some women like very bad boys? [The Daily Beast]
-If there were groups of heavily armed black men who wanted to “take back” their country during the Bush/Cheney years, would they be viewed the same as the militia groups that have grown in number since Obama’s inauguration? [Washington Post]
-The leak and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is the “missing white woman” of oil spills. [The Root]
In case you haven’t heard, Debrahlee Lorenzana is suing her former employer, Citibank. She claims she was fired after her bosses said her beauty was too distracting. On Wednesday, a 2003 video surfaced showing Lorenzana getting her second breast implant procedure. In the video, she said she wants to “look like a Playboy Playmate” and be “tits on a stick.”
That’s a slightly different impression from the interviews and articles we’ve seen of her over the last week. Her story has been that she’s a single working mom whose bosses at Citibank said her beauty was so distracting to her bosses that they fired her. Whatever she wore, the beauty that blessed her (or cursed her?) was too sexy for Citi.
What I’m trying to make is the point that enough is enough. I’ve been through my whole entire life going through this type of harassments [sic]. And I have done the other.. gone the other way where you stayed quiet. You just leave, get a better job and it just.. it continues to happen. And it’s the point that you say, ‘I don’t want to go through this anymore.’
After hearing that, it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for her. Which makes it sound like such a great story. She’s a beautiful working mom who was pushed around by the big bank. Then there are the issues of workplace dress codes, what’s too sexy and what isn’t, and tons of reasons to show more photos of Lorenzana and have commentatorssay how beautiful she is.
It’s a shame we’re still having a debate over gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
This New York Times article delved into some of the issues involved in transitioning the military to allow homosexuals to openly serve. One issue is whether openly gay soldiers should be put in separate housing. Another is that families might request different housing, on religious grounds, if same-sex couples live close by. Others are concerned that service members who don’t adhere to anti-discrimination policies may not be promoted. An unnamed Army National Guard member who is a lesbian had concerns, too. She said, “Getting rid of ["Don't Ask, Don't Tell"] completely without modifying it is kind of worrisome. The number of incidents against gays in the military is going to increase.”
True. This soldier is rightfully concerned about the safety of herself and other troops. If the policy is going to be repealed soon, and that is far from certain, it doesn’t look like it will happen before a report on the repeal is due on December 1. All of this fear and worry, though, is over soldiers who may be homophobic. This hand-wringing is over the feelings of people who may be bigots and what they might do. But the bigotry I see is with the leaders, policymakers and pundits who want DADT to remain in place.
On the issue of gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, we’re not the norm in the West. Every other country in NATO, except Turkey, allows gays and lesbians to openly serve. When Britain and Canada allowed homosexuals to serve openly they only lost three soldiers each (yes, just 3). And when U.S. looked into how Canada changed their policy, a report showed that “negative consequences predicted in the areas of recruitment, employment, attrition, retention, and cohesion and morale have not occurred.” Continue reading 'Where The Bigotry Lies In ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’'»
I watched Rand Paul’s infamous interview with Rachel Maddow in which he doesn’t give his complete support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was painful watching the newly-nominated Republican U.S. Senate from Kentucky dance around a direct answer to the question of whether businesses should be able to discriminate on the basis of race. Paul said he is personally against institutional racism, discrimination and segregation, and against those things in the public sphere. He just couldn’t bring himself to say the government has the right to tell private businesses that they’re not allowed to discriminate.
Everything from banks and corporations to restaurants and bowling alleys would be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, in his view. From his statement about people in wheelchairs working in two-story buildings, it sounds like businesses would be able to treat disabled people differently, too. And, I’ll go out on a limb and say that in Paul’s worldview, they would be able to discriminate on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.
So, according to Paul, prejudice and discrimination is bad, but it would be allowed for private businesses. If he were to be elected as senator, it doesn’t appear he wouldn’t do anything in that capacity to stop it.
I don’t think these views make Rand Paul racist. Nor do I think that the Libertarian or small government movements are racist either. But their antipathy toward the federal government has blinded them so much that they would allow private businesses to discriminate without any legal recourse. If Paul and his supporters put a business’s desire to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or disability above the need for all citizens to be treated equally, then the movement is flawed.
Making Dean’s Den, training for more than a fundraising run, and why Confederate History Month isn’t something to celebrate. You’ll find all that and more in the recent posts from Jazz Guns Apple Pie. Enjoy!
Alone Time In The Man Cave
I was able to carve out one in our small apartment. I was also surprised about the big man cave industry.
Running Away From Old Age
As I train for the Father’s Day 5-Mile Fight Against Prostate Cancer Run, I get the feeling something is coming up behind me.
Once again, I’ll be running in the 5-Mile Father Day Race Against Prostate Cancer. Please help me raise money for research and screenings by making a contribution to the American Cancer Society on my fundraising page. Any amount will be greatly appreciated.
With the pivot of a desk and a chair under our loft bed, I was able to turn storage space into a little office area. The transformation from storage to Dean’s Den, one of a few names Holly calls it, was unintentional. I just wanted a place to be alone so I could write.
When I Googled “man caves” I found a ton of websites devoted to the topic. There’s even a show on the DIY Network called “Man Caves” that I had no idea existed. The show could be called “Extreme Makeover: Dude Edition.”
That’s one reason why I’m not crazy about the “cave” part of the term man cave. The word doesn’t do justice to how huge and elaborate these space are. They’re tricked-out with all kinds of gadgets and amenities around certain themes like sports bars, wine cellars or recording studios. There are even basements turned into nightclubs, gun vaults and golf dens.
Check out some from the show “Man Caves:”
My area, though, is a workspace. I’m looking for a quiet place to work, not to play. When I read that one guy uses his man cave to watch television all day, I thought, “Nah, I’m not trying to make a man cave.” Which brings me to my second surprise in researching all this. Continue reading 'Alone Time In The Man Cave'»
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