The Washington D.C. Olympics, in 2024?

Do you like the logo? A group of business, political and sporting community representatives in the Washington D.C. area have formed an exploratory committee to possibly bid to host the Olympic Summer Games in 2024. It's a long, expensive and potentially humiliating process, as Chicago learned in 2009, but by 2024 it will have been 28 years since the last summer games in the U.S., in Atlanta in 1996, and 22 years since the winter games in Salt Lake City and by then it would seem to be our turn again. The IOC's website, olympic.org, has lots of interesting info on the bid process and how cities get selected. The announcement of which city will host the 2024 games will be made in 2017.

Lots of Olympic happenings in the meantime, of course, The Sochi Winter Games are only 162 days away and the announcement of the 2020 host city will be made a week from tomorrow, on Sept. 7. According to gamesbids.com, a cool site that tracks Olympic bidding, Tokyo is currently the front-runner; Madrid and Istanbul are the other contenders. Based on the selection of Rio for the 2016 games, however, I'd guess that Istanbul is the favorite, simply because Turkey has never hosted the games. We'll know in eight days.

The New Issue

I didn't officially play the guessing game this week, but Khloé, Miley and Linda were all on my mental list of cover possibilities and they all got sidebar stories. I hadn't heard anything about Michael Douglas's problems so the main cover story took me by surprise.

I'm still pondering the state of the Kardashian brand, and I'm guessing mother-from-hell Kris Jenner is having a very bad week. After Kanye's sit-down with Kris last week and the big "first baby pic" reveal, Kris (and Kim) probably figured the baby would be the big K story in the news this week. Not quite. Little sis Khloé's marital woes knocked North off the tabloid covers and not in a good way. Lamar is a drug addict? Really? It's possible that in Reality-TV land, where any publicity is good publicity, at least most of the time, a drug addict husband/SIL/BIL will just add to the drama and draw more viewers to the mothership KUWTK show, but I think it's an overall negative for the brand. And on top of all that, word on the street is that Kris's talk show has been cancelled. As I said, Kris isn't having a good week.

Word Of The Day

Do you twerk? Do you know what twerking is? When I first heard the word I thought it might mean "tweeting at work," but no. According to urbandictionary.com twerking is:

The rhythmic gyrating of the lower fleshy extremities in a lascivious manner with the intent to elicit sexual arousal or laughter in ones intended audience.

Or, what Miley Cyrus did at the VMAs. Try to use it in a sentence.

As Famous As I Wanna Be

When I started this blog one of my recurring topics was fame in America - the good, the bad and the ugly of being famous. I called fame a "fickle lover." It's still true and Allison Samuels has a great article at The Daily Beast about Lamar Odom's sad decline. Being famous as a Kardashian apparently isn't easy, and I'm especially intrigued about the changing family dynamics when Kanye West, who is an actual superstar, famous for more than just being famous, shows up. Kris Jenner is there too, still pulling the strings. I admit I'm curious to see how the whole missing/on drugs/getting a divorce thing plays out, and in particular what it does to the Kardashian brand. Khloé Kardashian married to a crack cocaine addict may be just a little too much reality.

What Time Is It?

I have a slight pet peeve about time zones. Please, people, know the difference between standard time and daylight time. Whenever I see "CST" (for Central Standard Time) in the summer, when it should be CDT, for Central Daylight Time, I just want to scream, and it happens more than you might think. Why am I ranting about this today? Here's why:

One of my cousins is participating in the Mrs. America pageant, which is being held in Tucson, Arizona. The preliminary competition is tonight and Tara, aka Mrs. Oregon, put a note on Facebook saying that it will be livestreamed online at 5.00. Tucson is in the Mountain time zone, which is one hour behind Central time, so 5.00 in Tucson is 6.00 in Chicago. Except, when I googled it to make sure, I learned that Tucson doesn't observe Daylight Savings time, which means that here in Chicago, on Central Daylight time, we'd be 2 hours ahead, not one. In other words, Tucson stays on *Mountain Standard Time.*

Then I checked the Mrs. America website, and it says the competition starts at 5.00 p.m. PST.  Huh? Pacific time? Pacific *Standard* time? I assume whoever programmed the website just got confused, or was being too clever by half. Pacific Daylight time would be the same as Mountain Standard time, right? PST is the same as nothing. Get it together, everyone. Please!

Contrived, Sensationalist, Repetitive, Witless

There was a time when this blog was Kardashian-free. A moment of respectful silence, please, for the good old days, because those days are so over. After blogging about the baby and the Kim/Katie imbroglio I found myself reluctantly intrigued and wanting to know more about the whole Kardashian phenomenon. I did some googling, learned some interesting things, then on Sunday I actually did that which I thought I'd never do - I watched their show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, or as it's known on Twitter, KUWTK.

So check out this great article from September, 2012 that I found on the website of The Guardian, a British newspaper. It's an interview with Kim K and there's lots of good stuff, including the history of the TV show (Mom Kris Jenner made a pilot episode shortly after Kim's sex tape came out, in order to "take advantage of the moment," ick;) why Kim posed for Playboy (Kris again, talking her into it, double ick;) and the fact that teenage fans pay $10 for K-branded bottles of water (really stupid ick.) When the article was written Kim and Kanye had been dating for a few months but she wasn't pregnant yet, and the writer asks if Kim would get married on television again:

She thinks about it for a moment. "Well, I guess you never say never. Because who knows? So many other people I know have gotten married on TV and it has worked out amazing for them." There is a pause. "William and Kate got married on TV," Kardashian says thoughtfully. 

See, Kim and Kanye are just like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Kim also has an answer for the question Katie Couric and everyone else keeps asking:

"When I hear people say [what are you famous for?], I want to say, what are you talking about?" she says slowly, her eyes wide as a bushbaby's. "I have a hit TV show. We've shot more episodes than I Love Lucy! We've been on the air longer than The Andy Griffith Show! I mean, these are iconic shows, so it blows my mind when people say that."
But you're not performing; you're just being followed around by cameras…
"But to be able to open up your life like that and to be so… if everyone could do it, everyone would. It doesn't make sense to me."

My first response to this was incredulous eye-rolling, but she does have a point. The Palins certainly haven't been able to do it. In fact, I'd bet that Sarah Palin lies awake nights trying to figure out how to make her family as rich and famous as the Kardashians.

I may have more to say about "KUWTK", or not. This morning there's actual news in Kardashian-land as TMZ and other sites are reporting that sister Khloé's husband Lamar Odom has a serious drug problem and is currently "missing." Reality may be getting a little too real for the reality TV stars.

"A Really Unfair Thing To Blame On God"

Well, today's the day. Kanye West went on Kris Jenner's talk show and showed a picture of the Kimye baby. I couldn't have watched even if I'd wanted to because the show isn't on in the Chicago market, but Kevin Fallon at The Daily Beast provides a recap and it's a doozy:

Kris Jenner is notorious for the admirable doggedness with which she orchestrates her family’s publicity. Convincing one of rap music’s most respected artists to engage in an hour of scripted PR about his unconditional love of a sex-tape-turned-reality-TV star, all building up to the grand unveiling of a photo of his first child may be her most despicable and, ultimately, most impressive accomplishment yet. 

Read the entire story here. As annoying as this all is, fear not, because I stand by my prediction. Two years max and Kimye will be history.

Things I Don't Care About

Ben Affleck as Batman.

Can't Stay Away From The Royal Baby

There he is again. People couldn't resist one of the cute pictures taken by Kate's dad Michael Middleton, but keep in mind that this is less about newsworthiness, especially here in the colonies, and more about selling magazines. The previous royal baby cover issues must have sold really well and as long as that's the case, the Kate/Will/George covers will keep on coming, whether or not there's any actual news for a story. I'm also thinking that "fun Uncle Harry" and/or "hot Aunt Pippa" cover stories are probably coming soon. Also no surprise that there's a "Dead Celebrity" sidebar, as well as a wedding story, two of People's fave topics. They probably would have had LiLo or Simon as the third sidebar, except they didn't want to block Prince George's face.

Final thought for now: all this coverage of the real royal baby has to be driving Kim Kardashian (and her mother) crazy. Love it.

Strongly Branded Women

I'm linking to a fascinating article at Forbes.com, comparing the branding and pop culture placement of those two recent new moms, Kate and Kim. The author, "trendspotter" Marian Salzman, describes one woman as "tasteful, aspirational and lovely," and the other as "a shrill and diva-ish queen of self-promotion."  Any guesses for which is which?

The New Issue

It's Tuesday afternoon and time to play the guessing game: what will be the cover story on the new issue of People? Lots to choose from this week:

• Lindsay Lohan, out of rehab and trying to rebuild her career
• Prince George and the new pictures of the Cambridge family  
• Gia Allemand and/or Lee Thompson Young, both of whom committed suicide this week
• Hannah Anderson is a sidebar story on the current issue, but I could still see her as a main story, especially if she gives an interview or if there's a really good picture of her
• An Oscar for Oprah? She's getting good reviews for her performance in The Butler. She's also a sidebar story this week, but she could move up to the main story 
• Oscar Pistorius, indicted for the murder of his girlfriend
• Beau Biden's health issues
• The Obama family's new dog
• The Kim K/Katie Couric dust-up. I'm sure there will be a Kim story eventually but it will probably not happen until the first baby pictures come out. 

Finally, Caroline Kennedy was in the news this week, after she released her financial information and was revealed to be really, really rich. With the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination now just three months away, there's almost certain to be some kind of story about Caroline between now and then. Like stories about the royal baby and the Kardashians, it could pop up any time.

Tuesday night update: Simon Cowell gave an interview to the BBC about his upcoming fatherhood. People.com's recap is currently their top story, so I'd say Simon's a possibility for a cover/sidebar story too.

Dog Days Of Summer

Welcome Sunny! Bo Obama has a new playmate and she's as cute as he is. Check out the video for some fun doggie frolicking!

It Was An Accident

The headlines are everywhere: Was Diana murdered? The answer: No. Three investigations, one French and two British came to the same conclusion, so definitively that even Mohamed Al Fayed's legal team was forced to concede that there is not a shred of credible evidence of murder, pregnancy or conspiracy. Tina Brown lays it all out in an article on The Daily Beast; here's my favorite part:

 As for sinister forces organizing the crash of the Mercedes, a conspiracy would have been beyond the capacities of all the intelligence agencies and royal masterminds in the grassy knoll of tabloid imagination: pre-knowledge that Dodi would make the last-minute decisions he did; that Henri Paul would be the driver; that Paul would be drunk and drugged; that he would not follow the most obvious route to Dodi’s apartment; that the argumentative group of paparazzi and the supposed intervening cars or motorbikes were coordinated to the last split second in their movements; that Dodi and Diana would not wear seat belts—and on and on through an infinity of variables.

So why so many headlines? Clicks, of course. It's a provocative subject and a tantalizing headline that will drive traffic to websites and morning news shows. But read (or listen) carefully and you'll learn there's not much of a story here. It's just one more media feeding frenzy for ratings.

Katie And The Kardashians

I would guess that Katie Couric feels the same way about the K's as I do: Why are they famous? What is it that they do, exactly? Why do they get so much attention? In fact, I don't have to guess, because Katie said the following in an interview with, wait for it, In Touch magazine: "I don't understand - why are they famous? I think it's mostly teenage girls that are interested." So I had a few seconds of being surprised when I learned that Katie had sent Kim a gift when Miss North West was born. Then I remembered that regardless of Katie's personal feelings, having Kim on her talk show would be a huge "get" for Katie, which is why she was sucking up to Kim by sending the gift. It's just business.

The plot thickened when Kim saw the In Touch interview and fired back on Instagram with a snotty message for Katie: #IHateFakeMediaFriends, and #MayIHumblySuggestYouNotSendGiftsThenTalkShit. I had a few seconds of actually feeling some sympathy for poor Kim, being used/sucked up to by Katie just to get Kim on the show and boost Katie's ratings, but then I remembered, whatever else you think about her, Kim Kardashian really isn't stupid, especially when it comes to brand-building via media. She knows that Katie Couric isn't her best friend. She knows why Katie would send her a baby gift, and I'm pretty sure Katie isn't the only media heavyweight who is trying to get Kim on their show by reaching out/sucking up. It's all just business and Kim knows that better than anyone. She wouldn't be rich and famous otherwise.

Saturday afternoon update: Katie Couric has issued a "sort of, but not really" apology: "I've met Kim before and I think she's a really sweet person. I was responding to a reporter's question, and explaining how I'm intrigued by the public's fascination with her family. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. The gift is genuine, and I'm happy for Kim and Kanye."

Looking Ahead

Mark McKinnon is a republican strategist and consultant who worked on presidential campaigns for George W. Bush and John McCain and now writes for The Daily Beast. In 2009, he started posting and updating his top 10 list of potential republican candidates for president in 2012. On June 3, 2009, this is how the field looked to him, ranked in order:

1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. John Thune
4. Mike Huckabee
5. Sarah Palin
6. Mark Sanford
7. Bobby Jindal
8. Newt Gingrich
9. Jon Huntsman
10. John Ensign

Plus Jeb Bush as a "longshot". Four years later, with the wisdom of hindsight, there's a lot of fun to be had looking back. Obviously, no one on the list was elected president, although Romney did indeed get the nomination and three others (T Paw, Newt and Huntsman) ran in the primaries. Thune, Huckabee, Palin and Jindal declined to run, and most interesting to me, not one but two of the distinguished statesmen on this list flamed out in sex scandals, namely Don't Cry For Me Argentina luvguv Mark Sanford, and Sleeping With My Best Friend's Wife Senator John Ensign. Who's not on the list? Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, all of whom were also declared (and unsuccessful) candidates.

Things sure can change in three years. Have you heard anything about John Thune lately? (If you've never heard of him at all, he's a senator from South Dakota.) So with that in mind, here's one of the first lists I've seen of potential republican candidates for 2016 and note, I would again add Jeb Bush, possibly not such a longshot this time around:

Marco Rubio (Senator from Florida)
Bobby Jindal (Governor of Louisiana)
Paul Ryan (Congressman from Wisconsin and 2012 VP nominee)
Chris Christie (Governor of New Jersey)
Rand Paul (Senator from Kentucky)
Ted Cruz (Senator from Texas)
Rick Santorum (former Senator from Pennsylvania and runner-up to Mitt Romney in 2012)

Will any of these guys be standing on the Capitol steps on January 20, 2017? Will one (or more) of them get caught in a scandal? Is there a dark horse/fresh face hiding somewhere who will bubble to the surface and shake up the race, as Barack Obama did for the democrats in 2006? The 2016 campaign is already underway, which is both intriguing and depressing, and I haven't even mentioned Hillary...

Not That Kate

Not even close. Have you been wondering what Kate Gosselin is up to? Me neither, but apparently People thinks we need an update. I haven't read the actual story yet but I have to say the kids look pretty cute. This also takes me back to 2009, when I first started the blog. At that time, the story of Kate, then-husband Jon and the break-up of their marriage was the 800-pound gorilla of reality TV/pop culture. For a while they were everywhere. Between May 25, 2009 and March 22, 2010, People ran eight cover stories about the Gosselins, not counting Kate's picture on the year-end "Intriguing People of 2009" issue and an additional eight "sidebar" stories. Once the divorce was final and their TV show was cancelled, however, they pretty much disappeared from the scene, which I take as a positive sign. Fingers crossed that four years from now, no one will know (or care) what the Kardashians are up to either.

Tomorrow's People Cover

Time to play the Tuesday afternoon game: Who/what will be on the cover of the next People magazine? Here are my guesses:

• Bethany Frankel: Her divorce is nasty and she has a talk show starting in September. 
• Simon Cowell: Simon was one of the secondary cover stories last week, but his married-baby-mama scandal is so juicy I still think it could be a main cover story. 
• Hannah Anderson: Even though she's happily now been found, a "missing white girl" story is manna from heaven for the tabloids. 
• Longshot: The group Powerball winners 

Wednesday morning update: the new cover isn't posted yet and I thought of one more possibility for the cover story: Usher, his son and his ex-wife, with a story about the son's swimming pool accident and the ensuing custody battle. 

North By North West

I confess:  I am just a bit curious about Kim Kardashian's baby. There, I said it. Overall, I'm proud to point out that this blog has been mostly Kardashian-free, because, you know, I'm such a deep intellectual thinker and serious observer of pop culture. The Kardashians? I'm so above all that, my dear.

Anyway, when exactly will we get to see a picture of North West? Kim K and Kanye West's daughter was born June 15 and eight weeks later both mother and baby are still in hiding. With the stipulation that everything I know about this situation comes from reading the tabloids, both dead tree and digital, some or all of the following may or may not be true:

• Kim doesn't want to be seen in public until she has lost her baby weight and gotten her pre-pregnancy figure back. 
• The K's, specifically Kim and her mother, who want to sell the first pictures for as much money as possible, were overruled by Kanye, who is insisting on keeping the baby private. 
• Kimye may do as Tomkat did and present the baby in a "prestige" publication like Vanity Fair. 
• Or, they may do as Beyoncé and Jay-Z did and post pictures on their own website, for no financial remuneration. 

Kris Jenner teased viewers of her new talk show with a picture that turned out not to be North, and Kim followed suit by tweeting a picture of herself with sister Kourtney's baby from a couple of years ago. Why? Just messing with their fans, I guess.

We'll see the baby pictures eventually and I admit I feel some sympathy for the little girl. Growing up as the daughter of Kim Kardashian won't be easy, not to mention the fact that Kimye as a couple doesn't strike me as a model of maturity and stability. When Kim married Kris Humphries a couple of years ago I gave the marriage two years. It famously imploded after 72 days. I'm going out on the same limb again and you heard it here first (or not): by August, 2015 Kimye will be no more. People magazine and the other tabs will keep us informed.

Where Do They Go?

I've been thinking about unsuccessful candidates for President and Vice President, partly as a result of my recent post about Sarah Palin, and partly because of this Paul Ryan story at The Daily Beast. I'm struck by the contrast in the post-campaign activities of, not to mention the amount of media attention paid to, the two most recent losing VP candidates. Unlike Palin four years ago, Ryan went back to his day job in the House of Representatives and has pretty much stayed out of the spotlight. Palin went back to her day job, too, at least initially, but the lure of fame and fortune was too much for her and in July, 2009, she famously quit her job as governor and set out to get rich.

The Ryan story got me thinking: What have other recent losing candidates done? Where do they go, what do they do once the campaign is over? Here's a "blast from the past" list of the losing POTUS/VP candidates going back to 1972. Yes I remembered most of them, but I admit I did a little googling to come up with the complete list.

1972 McGovern/Shriver
1976 Ford/Dole
1980 Carter/Mondale
1984 Mondale/Ferraro
1988 Dukakis/Bentsen
1992 Bush/Quayle
1996 Dole/Kemp
2000 Gore/Lieberman
2004 Kerry/Edwards
2008 McCain/Palin
2012 Romney/Ryan

So what did they all do when the election was over? Some go back to the Senate (McGovern, Bentsen, Lieberman, Kerry and McCain) or the House (Ryan and Ferraro). Defeated incumbents settle into the life of a retired/former POTUS or VP (Ford, Carter, G.H.W. Bush, Quayle, Gore). Some VP nominees regroup to run for the top spot (Mondale and Dole, who were nominated by their respective parties then lost in the general election; and Edwards, who dropped out of the race after a few primaries), and some just go back to whatever they had been doing before (Shriver, Kemp, Romney). Given conventional wisdom that being a governor is a better path to the White House than being a senator, I was surprised to realize that of all the unsuccessful candidates since 1972, only two, Michael Dukakis and Sarah Palin, were sitting governors. When their campaigns were over, they had to go back to their home states and resume trying to govern. In Palin's case that didn't work out so well.

Going back a few years, two candidates actually got their party's presidential nomination twice. Richard Nixon (Nixon's The One...) was the Republican nominee in 1960 and lost to JFK, ran unsuccessfully for governor of California in 1962, then reinvented himself effectively enough to be elected president in 1968. And in the fifties, Adlai Stevenson II (madly for Adlai...) was nominated by the Democrats in 1952 and 1956 and lost to Eisenhower both times.

Succession

No, not to the British throne, this time I'm talking about succession to the Presidency. Back in 2010, I was struck by the fact that for a brief moment in history, the #2 spot (Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) and the #3 spot (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) were held by women. This was caused by the death of the usual #3, the President Pro Tem of the Senate (Senator Robert Byrd). Even after Senator Daniel Inouye took over as President Pro Tem, Pelosi and Clinton were #2 and #4, which meant that two out of the first five were women, which I thought was cool. Just like the Brits however, we're now back to all men at the front of the line:

1. Vice President Joe Biden
2. Speaker of the House John Boehner
3. President Pro Tem of the Senate Patrick Leahy
4. Secretary of State John Kerry
5. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew

The first woman in line is currently the Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, who is 8th. How did I get interested in the minutiae of Presidential succession? It was a plot point on The West Wing. At the end of season four, President Bartlet temporarily steps down, and because the Vice President had resigned due to a sex scandal, the Speaker of the House, played by John Goodman, is sworn in as president. Nerdy Will Bailey points out that at that point, the President Pro Tem of the Senate is next in line.

By the way, over in England, the first woman in line to be Queen is now #6, Princess Beatrice.    

We'll Always Have Sharknado

Fear not if you missed the cultural phenomenon that is Sharknado, now you don't have to wait for Syfy network to run it again. The "movie" has proven to be so popular that instead of just re-running it on television every week, it's actually going to be shown in theaters. For now it's a one-time-only good deal, with late-night showings tonight in theaters around the country, but who knows. It could become another Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or not, but whatever. Supposedly Sharknado 2 is already in production.

Snarking On Sarah

I'm always happy to have a reason to snark about Sarah Palin. She's been back in the news recently, although happily not at the "all Sarah, all the time" level we had to endure four years ago, because she told Sean Hannity that she's "considering" running for one of Alaska's U.S. Senate seats next year. Democrats and progressives reacted with joy, all but begging her to run, figuring a candidate as manifestly unqualified as the former half-term governor would ensure a Democratic win. On the other hand, several pundits pointed out that Palin has done nothing in the last four years to indicate that she is serious about running for office, much less actually governing, and that she was probably just jumping back into the spotlight in advance of her next book, which comes out in October.

So is it possible that Sarah would actually run for something? I just can't see it, but I sure understand why Democrats want her to. Not to put too fine a point on it, and forgive my language, Sarah Palin is an opposition researcher's wet dream. The ads just write themselves. Imagine the following, in a deep, doom-and-gloom political announcer voice, with an unflattering picture of Sarah in the background: "Sarah Palin had two of the most important jobs in Alaska, Chairman of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and Governor. She quit them both. Now, she wants to be a Senator. Does she know it's a six-year term?"

And that's just off the top of my head. If someone really wanted to go digging for dirt on Sarah, there is six swimming pools worth of dirt to be dug. She's a very strange woman who has said and done a lot of very strange things, and there are bloggers in Alaska who have devoted their professional lives to tracking every move she makes. They could fill a Democratic campaign operative's head with all manner of things, none of which would make a rational person want to vote for her. If you're interested, check out The Mudflats, Just A Girl From Homer, and The Immoral Minority.

I'm convinced that at this point Sarah Palin is unelectable to anything, which is probably just fine with Sarah Palin because I'm also convinced that she's not really interested in running for anything and she's absolutely not interested in governing. Teasing a senate run, or in 2011, a possible presidential run, just keeps her supporters enthused and happily sending her money, not to mention buying her silly books. By the way, that next book is called "Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting The Heart of Christmas," and I won't be reading it.

Lots of Balloons!

What a great picture! Over four hundred hot-air balloons took to the sky from a former NATO base in Chambley, France, part of the Lorraine Mondial hot air balloon festival, of course. Click here for more great pictures from the event.