One reason being a mall Santa can be a good idea

Tags: britney, britney spears, christmas

Brother Al, Britney, and separation of church and state

Getting a piece of what you want (non-gratuitous picture of Britney)

Our old friend Brother Al (Albert Mohler) is shocked at a news report that Obama requires public prayers offered at his events to have their texts approved beforehand.

In This Prayer Approved by the White House? 02/27/09, he refers to this story: A New Tradition for Obama's Presidential Events: Opening With a Prayer by Dan Gilgoff US News & World Report Online 02/24/09.

Brother Al finds this "ominous and troubling".

Uh, Brother Al. Isn't this what all you folks from the Christian Right wanted, to have politics and government and religion merged? Did you think that the influence was only going to go one way, from Church to State and not the other way?

And I seem to recall that there was some discussion last year about a very, very scary black minister who had been the pastor at Obama's church in Chicago for years. Gee, you reckon any of that controversy might have made Obama and his team concerned about the potential for trouble over something a minister might say in a prayer at an Obama event?

I know Brother Al is the president of the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention and all. But maybe he needs to brush up on why Baptists in the US for most of their history were pretty insistent on separation of church and state.

Brother Al even finds himself in agreement with a man who is usually regarded by the Christian Right as a howling banshee from Hail:

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, offered a most interesting response to the revelation that the Obama White House is vetting prayers: "The only thing worse than having these prayers in the first place is to have them vetted, because it entangles the White House in core theological matters."

An ardent and radical Church/State separationist, Barry Lynn has argued that no prayers at government-sponsored events or ceremonies should be delivered, citing both constitutional and theological reservations. I rarely find myself in agreement with Barry Lynn, but I am with him on this issue -- at least with respect to his argument that this practice "entangles the White House in core theological matters."

Of course it does. When a White House approves or edits prayers, it has entered theological territory and takes on a theological function. The President of the United States is our Commander in Chief, not our Theologian in Chief. [my emphasis]

Say, Brother Al, maybe you should check out the Constitution of the United States again, too. It says right there in plain English in Article II, Section 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States."

The President is the Commander-in-Chief of soldiers on active duty. He's not my Commander-in-Chief. He's not Brother Al's, either, unless he's on active duty in the military. Which would probably be a big relief for Brother Al to realize.

Not having the President pose as "Theologian in Chief" was a big reason why the first Congress passed the Bill of Rights, with the first words of the First Amendment reading, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

The Founders in the first Congress were the same distance in time from the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) as we today are from the US Civil War (1860-1865). The Thirty Years War had been largely (though not exclusively) a big, bloody war of Protestant kingdoms and principalities against Catholic ones. It was by far the worst war in Europe prior to the First World War. It came in the century after the Protestant Reformation occurred, which swiftly led to what historians call the Wars of Religion in the 16th century.

So the Founders were intensely aware of the great harm that institutionally mixing religion and politics could cause.

Some European democracies like Britain still have either established churches or formal institutional agreements with churches. Some of those situations might make worthwhile study for Brother Al, too. The British Parliament sometimes finds itself debating internal affairs of the Church of England. The Government of Austria has the right under their formal agreement with the Catholic Church to veto any appointment of a bishop in Austria of which they disapprove.

You don't have to look at wars, Brother Al, to see ways that mixing church and state can get very inconvenient for churches as well as the state.

A couple of other things are worth point out about this issue.

Dan Gilgoff reported on three cases of ministers who had their prayers pre-approved by the Obama White House. "None of the three invocation givers at Obama's presidential events, who were put in touch with the White House by local political operatives and elected officials, said they were asked to change their prayers after vetting."

So apparently Obama isn't rewriting the Christian Bible quite yet.

Brother Al also specifically called attention to the experience of a minister in Ft. Myers, FL. From Gilgoff's account:

During Obama's recent visit to Fort Myers, Fla., to promote his economic stimulus plan, a black Baptist preacher delivered a prayer that carefully avoided mentioning Jesus, lest he offend anyone in the audience. ...

James Bing, the pastor of the Friendship Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Fla., said he chose to self-censor his prayer. "For some strange reason, the word Jesus is like pouring gasoline on fire for some people in this country," he said. "You learn how to work around that."

Like maybe the large Jewish population in Florida?

I don't see anything wrong with a Christian minister making a prayer at a secular public event non-sectarian. Even though Brother Al and Pastor Bing grump that "some people in this country" [nudge-nudge, wink-wink] don't approve it.

Maybe Brother Al could also listen to Britney Spears song, "Are You Sure You Want A Piece of Me?" When the church gets a piece of the state, that can have some of those "unanticipated consequences" about which conservatives worry so much when a social program is up for debate. (Not so much when a war of choice in Iraq was under debate.)

But then the fundis have never forgiven poor Britney for auditioning at Jive Records years ago using the song "Jesus Loves Me."

So I know Bruce Springsteen isn't a Baptist preacher, either. But his song "With Every Wish" might make valuable listening for Brother Al:

Before you choose your wish you better think first
'Cause with every wish there comes a curse

Tags: albert mohler, britney, britney spears, christianism

Christmas wishes

For wishes already fulfilled, it's hard to beat this combination from the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle 12/15/08:


Something is clearly right with our world, despite everything!

So this is my Christmas wish for this year:



Tags: britney, britney spears,christmas

Britney at the Bambis

Britney Spears began her public appearances promoting her upcoming CD (coming out Tuesday, Dec. 2) in Germany, at something called the "Bambi Awards".



Still one of America's most popular exports! Not to mention her larger karmic service to humanity.

Tags: britney, britney spears

Thanksgiving

Our Establishment press, being clueless, has all kinds of speculation about how John "100 Years War" McCain lost the Presidential election. Picking Sarah Palin, the Iraq War's unpopularity, the complete failure of the private financial system, whatever.

But, as they often do, they miss the most painfully obvious. Earlier this year, with the idea of painting Obama as a light-weight "celebrity", McCain put out an ad attacking Britney Spears (along with Paris Hilton).

It was over for him right then. He might as well not have bothered to campaign any more. I mean, you just don't take on that heavy a load of karma and not suffer the consequences!

So you could say that Britney saved the country - shoot, the whole world! - from a John McCain/Sarah Palin Presidency. Indeed something to be thankful for. Though don't expect the cynical, reactionary Yankee press to notice!

Plus, she has a new CD coming out on Tuesday, Dec. 2, which happens to be her birthday. And she has a new cover story in Rolling Stone, Britney Returns by Jenny Eliscu (dated 12/11/08; accessed 11/26/08).

Ha! And there are still people who doubt the Britney Theory of History. Go figure.

Tags: britney, britney spears

McCainboating Obama

Poor Boo is being targeted by sleazy Yankee Republicans again!

Okay, McCain and his campaign have really gone beyond the pale now with their new ad casting nasty Yankee Republican aspersions on Britney Spears! They're completely off the cliff. But I'm so upset about that one I can't talk straight about it. So I'll stick to less inflammatory stuff, which was already bad enough.

Gary Kamiya gives a good summary of the nature of McCain's nasty campaign pitches against Obama in Waving the flag on Iraq - now in rerun! Salon 07/29/08:

The [Karl] Rove [political] play is based on three things: wrapping yourself in the flag, never admitting you're wrong, and impugning your opponent. These three tactics have one thing in common: They are aimed at the lowest common denominator of the American people. Under normal circumstances, they have only limited effectiveness. But when the nation is at war, they are extremely potent - as John Kerry and the Democrats found out in 2004. And McCain is going to use them and use them and use them.

McCain's repeated claims that we are succeeding in Iraq and must stay the course to final "victory," and his attacks on Obama, are textbook examples of the Rove-Bush-GOP tactic. Take the recent speech in which McCain attacked Obama for not supporting the "surge." "If Sen. Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically," McCain intoned. "Al-Qaida would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the 'Sunni Awakening' would have been strangled at birth. Al-Qaida fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely." (my emphasis)

The McCain campaign is making some arguments, like about Obama refusing to visit wounded troops in Iraq, that are so blatantly false that even some of McCain's loyal fans in the national press feel it necessary to point out they are false. On that, see McCain TV Ad Draws Scrutiny for Distorting Facts PBS Newshour 07/30/08.

But the claims in 2004 from the Swift Boat Liars for Bush were also false. They couldn't stand up to any kind of honest scrutiny. But our "press corps" doesn't do scrutiny. They do scripts. And the Swift Boat slanders gave them a chance to promote their stock "Democrats are wimps" script. Absent an effective counter-attack from Kerry's campaign, the Swift Boat slanders were instrumental in encouraging doubts about John Kerry. The Establishment press shamelessly facilitated the Swift Boat sleaze-slinging. And the most law-breaking administration in American history got to serve four more years. And the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are, at best, no closer to resolution than they were in 2004.

Obama and his campaign need to go after this nonsense hard. We remember Bill Clinton for "triangulation" and his "Sister Soljah moment". But in the 1992 campaign, his "Sister Soljah" moment was literally about criticizing pop singer Sister Soljah, who most people had never heard of until Clinton's criticism made her name part of the political vocabulary. It gave Clinton some symbolic advantage but cost him nothing politically.

Obama, on the other hand, has been doing things like his "Wes Clark" moment, backing aware from one of the most effective voices he had defending him against McCain's jingoistic attacks.

We almost never hear about another important moment in the 1992 campaign. The Republicans were spreading a Bircher-style rumor that Clinton had been an agent for the Soviet KGB. Yes, the honorable campaign of Old Man Bush was that sleazy. And Old Man Bush himself brought it up near the beginning of one of their debates. Clinton responded by getting in Bush's face and telling him he should be ashamed of himself, leaving Bush to shrug that, well, he guessed Clinton had explained it. That pretty much blew the KGB claim out of the water, and Bush looked much diminished for having used it.

Obama needs to have some in-your-face moments like that with McCain. Because one of the reasons that voters tell pollsters that they trust Republicans more on general issues of "national security" is that Republicans trash Democrats as traitors and weaklings and soldier-haters, and the voters don't see the Democrats defending themselves in an aggressive way. Instead, they too often whine that the Republicans are denigrating their patriotism. Of course they're denigrating your patriotism! That's what today's degenerated, authoritarian Republican Party does!

Wes Clark told at story in his speech to the Netroots Nation convention this year about a conversation he had with James Carville. Carville said that he didn't think that the Democrats could sufficiently convince the voters that they could adequately defend the country until the voters could see them defending each other. Given Obama's week response to the attacks on Clark, that was a big applause line before that audience.

The Republicans and their more-than-willing enablers in the press are working hard to promote the notion that Obama is a strange, threatening, mysterious figure, potentially something from the worst nightmares of the "culture warriors". Richard Cohen, for instance, is writing about Obama the Unknown Washington Post 07/29/08. He opens with one of the favorite devices of our broken press, putting his own opinion in the mouth of an anonymous (or apocryphal?) "prominent Democrat".

"Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.

And then he proceeds to gush about our greatest living saint, that bold Maverick John McCain. He concludes:

... [Obama's] record now, while tissue thin, is troubling. The next president will have to be something of a political Superman, a man of steel who can tell the American people that they will have to pay more for less - higher taxes, lower benefits of all kinds - and deal in an ugly way when nuclear weapons seize the imagination of madmen.

The question I posed to that prominent Democrat was just my way of thinking out loud. I know that Barack Obama is a near-perfect political package. I'm still not sure, though, what's in it.

That's pretty much what the McCain campaign wants potential swing voters thinking: this guy Obama, we hear some strange things about him, and we're not sure he can handle things as well as the War Hero and Great American McCain.

If the McCain campaign succeeds in defining Obama as a scary, risky gamble to enough voters, we could have McCain in the White House and the US Army in Iran.

Tags: barack obama, britney, britney spears, mccain

Major Cultural Event

Britney on How I Met Your Mother 03/24/08. The last segment starting at 2:00 is perfect. If it doesn't play here, go to the linked Web site and select "How I Met Your Mother: All the Britney Parts".



Tags: britney, britney spears

Superhero Britney

Tags: britney, britney spears

So, I don't get it, what's the surprise?

Gawker.com posted this story, Memo: In Sweeping Policy Change, AP Alerts Staff Britney Is Now 'A Big Deal' 01/08/08, about this letter from the Los Angeles AP assistant bureau chief:

Why is this news? Other than the fact that the guy though he had to explain it to the staff. Everyone else has known for years that everything about her is a big deal!

Tags: britney, britney spears, true americanism

The plague of the paparazzi

(Graphic from Gallery of the Absurd 08/14/07 )

Spears loses visitation and paparazzi battle by Richard Winton, Tiffany Hsu and Susannah Rosenblatt Los Angeles Times 01/05/08 reports on how extreme the paparazzi pursuit of poor Britney has become:

But it was the behavior of the paparazzi that was generating debate after a bizarre media swarm outside her hillside mansion.

Spears is perhaps the most pursued celebrity in Hollywood. ...

Although photographers have long followed Spears and other stars around when they shop, hit the clubs and take hikes, the 24/7 stakeout in which even the most private moments become breaking news is something relatively new.

"There are about 50 to 60 guys who follow her wherever she goes. If it is the middle of the night, five or 10 of them will be on her," said Frank Griffin, a veteran paparazzo and co-owner of the Bauer-Griffin agency. "What you saw last night, it has been like that for a while wherever she goes. She has nothing left but those moments."

Griffin and others said Spears' latest troubles underscore the growing aggressiveness of a determined group of paparazzi who follow the star. wherever she goes. They endure hours of mundane tasks in hopes of getting "money shots," such as the time the pop star shaved her hair off at a San Fernando Valley salon. Griffin said the mainstream too has joined the chase. ...

"Even a year ago, the paparazzi were going too far, and it keeps getting worse," said Los Angeles waitress and model Amanda Pugh. "If they just left her alone, she could maybe get herself together."

A similar debate was being waged on some celebrity news websites, with some readers expressing sympathy for Spears and rage at paparazzi for invading her privacy.

"So paparazzi now you should be happy, you followed her each second taking photos and videos to fill your website and earn money by destroying others life," one reader wrote on US magazine's website.

Tags: britney, britney spears, true americanism

Reactions to the Iowa vote

Once more, the dysfunctional media thoughtlessly trash one of our great national treasures, as in Britney Spears is hospitalized after child-custody dispute Los Angeles Times 01/04/07. Despite what all these nasty Yankee reporters are saying about her, I'm guessing we're going to find out that she's a huge John Edwards fan and that this latest incident was her overly-passionate reaction to his coming in second in Iowa. The vampiritic media should, "Leave Britney alone!" And Jaimelynn, too!

Meanwhile, Joe Conason has a more sober reaction in Barack delivers, Hillary disappoints Salon 01/04/07. His view of the Iowa outcome:

Against the skepticism of experience, Obama boasted that he would attract new voters, young voters, independent voters and even Republican voters into the arcane caucus system - and they all actually showed up to help him win. His politics of inclusion, which has sometimes sounded ephemeral and ethereal, suddenly seems to be rooted in reality. There turned out to be more to him than hope.

But Obama's achievement is not diminished in any way by observing that he enjoyed the unintentional assistance of Hillary Clinton, who suffered the consequences of consistently choosing caution over inspiration. From the high point of her primary campaign last September, when she introduced a strong healthcare platform that overshadowed those of her opponents, she eventually fell back into the calculated dullness that is the hallmark of her longtime advisors, most notably her strategist Mark Penn.

As an example of how her conventionally cautious approach led her to miss opportunities, Conason points out that Obama's foolish repeating of Republican anti-Social Security clichees gave her a good chance to position herself against him in a far more effective way than she did.

He doesn't discuss Edwards' role in the campaign. But he makes a very good point about why Clinton needs to jam Obama on just how he's going to fight for liberal goals:

Knocked down but not out, she has only two plausible choices going forward. The first is to demand the hard substance and specifics of change that underpin Obama's lofty rhetoric. Both the conservative admiration for Obama and his gauzy red-blue thematic scheme depend heavily on his reluctance to discuss how he plans to achieve a progressive agenda. If he speaks out as a progressive, he will draw fire from the right.

Indeed, such candid exchanges are likely to prove that Clinton is correct in anticipating a tough, nasty, expensive general election campaign rather than a campfire lovefest. Even if she loses the nomination to Obama, she will have done him an important favor by forcing him to hone his defenses. Those who sought to destroy the Clintons for eight years and that then smeared John Kerry in 2004 are not about to surrender the White House to any Democrat, not even a smart, nice and charismatic young guy from Chicago.

Tags: barack obama, britney, britney spears, hillary clinton, joe conason

Christmas songs Dec. 25

It wouldn't be Christmas without Little Boo. Here she's singing "Silent Night, Holy Night":



And it wouldn't be Christmas without The King, either. This is my favorite of his Christmas songs, "Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees", which I understand to be about a homeless person.



Hey, why not two from The King. This is "Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me".



And since we're doing songs from pioneering figures in popular music, here's an unusual one from the Beatles, "Christmas Time Is Here Again". This was the Christmas song they did for their fan club in 1967, in the Magical Mystery Tour days. Julián Ruiz in El Mundo calls it "a little masterpiece" of which versions are still made by others. I find it's one of those songs that unexpectedly sticks in your head.



Tags: beatles, britney, britney spears, christmas songs, elvis presley

A whole new generation of Spearses

Jaimelynn Spears, mother-to-be

Yes, it's true! Britney is going to become an aunt next year. Her younger sister, Jaimelynn, age 16, has announced that she's expecting her first child in six months or so. (Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's 16-Year-Old Sister, Announces Pregnancy Huffington Post 12/18/07) That means that in another 15 years, there'll be a whole second generation of Spearses greeting us in the supermarket lines and on the news daily.

Jaimelynn is keeping the child. Her momma was kind of shocked. She said, "I didn't believe it because Jamie Lynn's always been so conscientious. She's never late for her curfew." Who knew you could get pregnant before curfew hour?

Her momma's thinking she's going to have to postpone her upcoming book on Christian parenting. Probably she figures she'll need to spend time helping Jaimelynn settle in. Jaimelynn's planning to raise the baby in Lousisiana, "so it can have a normal family life." This is sure to open her up to criticism from the narrow-minded Christian Right types who hate her big sister already. But those Spears girls aren't letting themselves be intimidated.

We saw that this fall when Jaimelynn and Britney were going to a restaurant and some nasty Republican lady started screaming at Britney that she was messing up the neighborhood. (Irate Woman Bitches at Britney - Sis Steps In! TMZ 10/08/07) The crazy Republican got up close to them and yelled, "Nobody wants you in this neighborhood!" That was all Jaimelynn could take of this. In her best Southern accent (I prefer to call it the High American accent) and with careful enunciation, she told the hostile Republican women, "Then-move-the-[Cheney]-outta the neighborhood!" It was a heartwarming family moment.

Good luck, Jaimelynn! All true Americans will back you against the religious kooks and belligerent Republicans!

Tags: britney, britney spears, jaime lynn spears, true americanism

There's a reason this video has gotten 3,185,875 views (and counting)

Now here's a guy who understands the decadence of our mainstream media when it comes to their relentless persecution of our leading cultural innovators:



Apparently, it's one of the most popular videos on YouTube today. I would have scripted it a bit differently, but it works. (It's about a pop singer with a charming Southern accent.)

Actually, I've been following Britney's career since the "Oops, I did it again" days because I actually did think that she had a more enduring appeal than, say, Debbie Gibson, if anybody remembers her. One of my favorite folks singers - I won't embarrass the person by giving the name - that I was talking to after a concert and who knew I professed to be a Britney fan went on at some length about how nobody would remember who she was in two years. That was, I think, five or six years ago.

I started to have some real sympathy for her soon after she became famous when the Christian fundamentalists started trashing her for being, oh, female and sexy or something to that effect. Since in her early years of fame she was talking up her Southern Baptist background, you would think that they would appreciate the free publicity. But you would be wrong. I think what really pissed them off was when they heard that in her audition at Jive Records, she sang "Jesus Loves Me". (I'm not making this up!)

But the attention that she gets, and the kind of attention she gets, does say something about the state of our media environment in the United States. For instance, Al Gore includes the Britney coverage in his description of the dysfunction of the American Establishment media in his The Assault on Reason (2007), where he writes:

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know I am not alone in feeling that something has gone fundamentally wrong. In 2001,1 had hoped it was an aberration when polls showed that three-quarters of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11. More than five years later, however, nearly half of the American public still believes Saddam was connected to the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess - an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time. ...

Like JonBenet Ramsey, O.J. has recently been back at the center of another fit of obsessive-compulsive news, when his hypothetical non-confession wasn't published and his interview on television wasn't aired. This particular explosion of "news" was truncated only when a former television sitcom star used racial insults in a comedy club. And before that we focused on the "Runaway Bride" in Georgia. And before that there was the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy. And of course we can't forget Britney and KFed, and Lindsay and Paris and Nicole. Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch and married Katie Holmes, who gave birth to Suri. And Russell Crowe apparently threw a telephone at a hotel concierge. ...

And while American television watchers were collectively devoting a hundred million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. (my emphasis)

Not only is the coverage of celebrity stories (many of them little more than gossip) being promoted to the point that it squeezes out important news that will affect our lives for decades.

But it's worth thinking about how that coverage comes across. Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby - who was Al Gore's college roommate - has talked about the recent coverage of the substance-abuse issues that Britney and Lindsay Lohan have recently encountered. For instance, in this 07/23/07 post, he quotes with approval a New York Times reviewer on Lohan's movie with Jane Fonda:

But the movie really belongs to Ms. Fonda and Ms. Lohan, actresses whose formidable skill is often underestimated and overshadowed by off-screen notoriety. Ms. Lohan in particular has been subjected recently to the prurient, punitive gaze of an Internet gossip culture that takes special delight in the humiliation of young women with shaky discipline and an appetite for fun. (apparently Somerby's emphasis)

And Somerby comments:

“Special delight in the humiliation of young women” is all over cable, of course. But it galls us when we’re asked to buy it each night as part of a liberal news package.

The "liberal news package" he's referring to here is Keith Olbermann's Countdown.

Olobermann has been one of the most effective liberal voices on television on issues like the Iraq War. Wonky Muse linked to one of his more memorable contributions a couple of days ago.

I don't watch his full program enough to judge how correct Somerby is in this assessment:

... we’re not giant fans of Countdown. We think Olbermann tends to overstate what he knows and sometimes simply misleads his audience. ... Beyond that, we think his insistence on mocking young blonde women makes him one of cable’s worst players on gender issues.

I should mention that he made these comments in the midst of praising one of Olbermann's push-backs against Republican treason-baiting.

Maybe this was in the back of my mind when I did catch the tail end of one of his programs, I think it was sometime last month. I don't remember a lot of the details. But he had some celebrity-gossip twerp on talking about Britney, and the guy was basically just making a bunch of snarky comments of the kind that a college frat boy might think were clever. As I recall, the guy made some smart-ass remark about how she never gets home from partying until her sons are awake in the morning.

And Olbermann was just giving him softball questions to let him spout this silly stuff. And I was thinking as I watched it, if this program is supposed to be real journalism, shouldn't Olbermann be asking him if comments like that were factually true.

Maybe more important, if he's going to be covering something like this, shouldn't he maybe try to get the subject of his report on camera? Instead of some dork who learned all he ever needed to know in the frat house?

Seriously, I was thinking as I watched that, that it really detracts from the seriousness with which viewers can take his show. For anyone who remembers Walter Cronkite's newscasts, can you imagine him doing something that worthless? I mean, Olbermann's supposed hero Edward R. Murrow sometimes interviewed celebrities. But I'll bet that he didn't run drivel like that.

And I do think Somerby is right that you don't have to listen too carefully to a lot of these type reports to hear a real meanness the reporting. Including that guy on Olbermann. As the excellent film Walk The Line about Johnny Cash showed, drug abuse for performers is not particularly funny, on the whole.

Which brings me back to the YouTube video. I'm not sure how tongue-in-cheek this guy was being. But that's really the point he's making. And maybe that's part of why his video seems to be resonating with a lot of YouTube users.

I'll close by saying that one of the other Blue Voicers turned me on to the WeSmirch.com site, where you can get the latest celebrity gossip 24/7.

Tags: assault on reason, britney, britney spears, al gore, obermann

Major media dysfunction

More irrefutable evidence of the bankruptcy of the American media.

Britney Spears would never come back, the skeptical godless heathens said. So, Sunday night she comes back, opening the MTV Music Awards show from Las Vegas, performing her latest release, Gimme More.

She was brilliant, as always.

But what did our media do? They trashed her, of course. I'm not linking to any of the critical articles because they're just hate-sites. I'll bet none of them even noticed the musical connection with Elvis the King in her opening lines. Noooo-ooo, they're too busy making up phony stuff to trash her about.

It's her Southern accent, I'm sure. They just can't believe a sweet Southern Baptist girl like Boo with a charming southern-Mississippi-type accent can be such an innovative, cutting-edge performer. Disgraceful, just disgraceful.

But it doesn't matter. Quality wins out, eventually.

Tags: britney, britney spears, true americanism

Boo endorses goddess worship

In his new book, Al Gore talks about how superficial television news in the US has become. He mentions, for instance, the missing-white-girls cable obsession, stories which are sensational but whose outcomes are likely to have "any appreciable impact on the fate of the Republic."

He gives other examples, like the "runaway bride" story in Georgia, or the Michael Jackson and Robert Blake trials.

But he notes an important exception: ""And of course we can't forget Britney and KFed...". Certainly not! (And he must have meant it as an exception to the frivolity plague.)

Illustrating Gore's observation, the world media has understandably paid great attention to Boo's new message on her Web site: "Había tocada fondo" El Mundo (Spain) 30.05.07; Britney Spears says she "hit rock bottom" in rehab Reuters 05/29/07.

Naturally, the Establishment, being as it is still far away from understanding the deeper significance of Britney's radical postmodern vision, missed the most critical point in her message, which deals mostly with his recent personal trials, throughout which the press and her Yankee critics conitinued to ruthlessly persecute her.

But the last paragraph contains the critical portion:

It is so weird how stories are told. There is your side, my side, and the truth. Somebody has to figure it out. I guess we will never really understand or figure out life completely. That's God's job. I can't wait to meet him ... or her. (my emphasis)

This will probably set off a new round of attacks on her from the Christian fundis. They've never forgiven her for the fact that back when she auditioned at Jive records, she used "Jesus Loves Me" as an audition song.

Tags: britney, britney spears, goddess worship

May excitement abounds

It's already been an eventful May! Congress sent Bush an Iraq War funding bill with a withdrawal timeline and he's already vetoed it. Despite the fact that the clock is ticking for our troops, he voted against funding for the troops.

And Britney Spears began her post-rehab public performance "comeback" last night at the House of Blues in San Diego. Not surprisingly, all reliable reports say it was brilliant. Those who are experienced in reading Britney symbolism appreciate the fact that she began her "comeback" on International Workers Day.

Our Dear Leader Bush addressed his loyal subjects about the Iraq War yesterday in Washington: Remarks by the President to the Associated General Contractors of America 05/02/07. He didn't have anything particularly new to say, though it's always worth noticing what he does say about it just because he's the Decider. It was mostly the same sort of stuff we've heard for over four years, now. Things are going great, with a few small problems here and there, we have to hang in there, freedom is on the march, yadda, yadda. Funny, he didn't mention anything about those "weapons of mass destruction" we went in to find and destroy.

He said we need to give Gen. Petraeus until September before we start judging whether the McCain escalation (The Surge) is succeeding. Then he proceeded to explain all the ways it's supposedly succeeding, and brilliantly so, thanks to his own far-sighted, wise leadership.

Dear Leader also stressed the alleged role of "Al Qaeda" in the Iraq War. He makes it sound like the United States is supporting the Maliki government and the whole Iraqi nation against Al Qaida, who are apparently the masterminds and perpetrators behind nearly every attack in the whole country. He does mention that there are a few Sunni and Shi'a extremists here and there.

Dear Leader said, "And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not, no violence." He also says that "the number of sectarian murders in Baghdad has dropped substantially" as a result of the McCain escalation. As Bush might phrase it: in other words, sectarian violence is down. That means there's less sectarian violence. Well, mission accomplished, then! He should be able to agree on a withdrawal timetable with Congress sometime this week, don't you think?

Tags: britney, britney spears, bush, iraq war

Britney responds to public family criticism

Show business is show business, I know. And the New York Post and their "Page 6" are, well, the New York Post.

But for all that, if you get based the kinky Electra headline (Dad Spanks Naughty Britney 04/20/07), this actually makes some sense:

Britney told us via her rep, "I am praying for my father. We have never had a good relationship. It's sad that all the men that have been in my life do not know how to accept a real woman's love. I am concentrating on my work and my life right now."

A pal of Britney said the pop tart "had no drugs in her system when she was admitted to Promises - they [tested her] and there was nothing. She was embarrassed she had to go in there when she knew she was suffering from postpartum depression, not a drug or alcohol problem."

As for the bizarre head-shaving incident, the pal continued, "Britney's aunt had just died of cancer. She was feeling very guilty because she hadn't been there with her, she was overwhelmingly depressed and she shaved her head in solidarity."

So I wish all the nasty Yankee critics would just give poor Boo a break for a while!

Hey, her statement is a lot more credible than Abu Gonzales' testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday!

Tags: britney, britney spears, true americanism

Keith Olbermann, Britney and the cult of celebrity

Finally, another blogger defends Britney Spears!

Well, actually she's more attacking Keith Olbermann who made frivolous attacks on poor Boo: Everyone Loves Keith Olbermann - Except Me by Sandi Burtseva 02/23/07.

Burtseva goes further than I would in generalizing from Olbermann's celebrity reporting, particularly in relation to Britney. She seems to think that almost any kind of satirical or insulting shots about a celebrity's personal image is wrong, even when that image is essential to the reason they are a celebrity in the first place.

But she makes some valid points about the subject. Last year, Olbermann reported on Paris Hilton getting slugged in the face by some guy, saying "she's had worse things happen to her face". His report was also captioned, "A Slut and Battery". Though Paris Hilton is perhaps unique in that her only claim to celebrity status seems to be that she is a celebrity, she hasn't promoted herself as someone who goes around seeking to be slugged in the face. Among other criticisms of that report, Burtseva writes of Olbermann, "He thinks women who make particular sexual choices are to be taken less seriously when they claim to have been assaulted." Again, that's perhaps a bit too much of a generalization to hang on that one report of his. But as a criticism of that particular report, it's perfectly sensible.

Burtseva notes that on his Feb. 19 broadcast, he chose as his first topic to discuss "that most important of word events: Britney Spears' hairstyle choice". He had Village Voice columnist Michael Musto on to discuss it. Burtseva asks parenthetically:

Pause for a moment to consider this scenario: The man who has been called the Arthur R. Murrow of our time has a gossip columnist on his show to discuss a pop singer's hairstyle.

Good point.

She quotes the following dialogue between Olbermann and his guest:

OLBERMANN: The hair dresser, Miss Tognozzi, also asked if Britney Spears appeared to be under the influence. She said no, but she did use the word trance to describe her. A trance.

MUSTO: No, she actually said the tramp dropped her pants, and it got reported as trance, but it works anyway.

Burtseva comments sourly (and appropriately), "Olbermann elected not to take issue with the crude commentary of his guest. I'm not shocked."

Her general judgment of Olbermann's Britney-hair segment:

In the eyes of Olbermann and his sexist ilk, Spears made two mistakes: She dared to be overtly sexual and she dared to shed one of the defining markers of her femininity. I neither know nor care how much sex Spears has and with whom, or why she shaved her head, but I have this radical proposition: In spite of the fact that she's made sexy music videos, Spears' body is her own and should not be subjected to Olbermann's disgusting views.

That short paragraph is an example of a good idea sandwiched into bad framing. For one thing, it's not at all clear from her article who she wants us to picture as part of Obermann's "sexist ilk". Liberal reporters? Democrats? Guys named Keith?

And for someone like me who reads her blog post but didn't see the segment in question, she gives us four examples of Olbermann's "disgusting" views. One is the fact that he didn't object to Musto's comment, a comment that was kind of disgusting. The others are: Olbermann called Britney a "pop tart"; he wondered about "what she was on", i.e., whether she was on drugs or drunk; and, someone at the "cast and crew" blog of the Olbermann show referred to her in a post as "sweetheart".

Dumb or trivial, maybe. But I don't see those as "disgusting". None of them comes close to the "A Slut and Battery" caption in bad taste. And her conclusion in the end that Olbermann is "a petty, disrespectful misogynist" don't obviously follow from the information she provides in the article. I mean, if I'm going to join in trashing one of the leading liberal TV commentators - one of the only ones actually - I'd like to know I'm doing it for good reasons. Rightwingers could use her blog post to say, "Even the a liberal feminist like Sandi Burtseva says that Keith Olbermann is a woman-hater with disgusting, degrading views of women who even mocks domestic violence victims." Maybe there's more justice in her view than I'm seeing, but I'm withholding judgment on some of her general criticisms.

Having made all those reservations about Burtseva's post, she has a legitimate point about the Britney's-shaved-head story. As quoted above, "She dared to be overtly sexual and she dared to shed one of the defining markers of her femininity", i.e., her hair. It's a good point. Her sexy image is a big reason many of her fellow Southern Baptists have criticized her from the beginning of her national fame. And regardless of whatever particular issues she may have been having when she changed hairstyles drastically, would it be international news for days running if a male star of similar status shaved his head? Like Boo's ex Justin Timberlake, for instance?

I'm also not one to draw broad social conclusions from media coverage of some pop culture event or personality. But Brutseva has hit on something important, in that people project their ideas about sex and gender roles onto Britney's celebrity image. And then draw judgments based on how close she comes to fulfilling the expectations they project onto the image.

When Johnny Cash passed away, his daughter Rosanne said that there would always be a "Johnny Cash" - the public persona of the star - but there would never be another Daddy, the private father and man she knew. More than most famous people, Britney has to co-exist with "Britney", the celebrity character of which people have such intense and contradictory expectations.

Tags: britney, britney spears, keith olbermann

Britney - the new Kissinger?

Okay, you unbelievers! I told you there were going to be major karmic repercussions all over the place from Britney's announcement of her divorce.

And within hours after her announcement, Rummy was history. A coincidence? I think not.

TRex at FireDogLake has suddenly discovered what those who are blind to cutting-edge cultural innovation have recognized for a while. Britney's marriage moves are paradigm-shattering cultural events.

TRex has just realized that what Little Boo is telling us with her latest move includes: a solution to North Korean nukes; the key to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and, a peace agreement in Iraq that ends the insurgency and gets American troops all home.

Now, being a newbee to Britney prophetic interpretation, I think TRex may have partially misread the signals on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But it's nice to see yet another convert to the Real Truth about Britney.

Secretary of State Britney Spears? Ridiculous, you say? How many years have you heard people saying that no one would remember her in another year or so? Be warned, oh ye of little faith.