Politicians Behaving Badly: An Update

Because I know you're wondering:

Both Congressman Michael "I'll throw you over the balcony" Grimm and Congressman Vance "Kissing Congressman" McAllister are back in the news this week.

Rep. Grimm was hit with a 20-count federal indictment earlier this week, alleging that he skimmed more than $1 million from a restaurant he owned before he was elected to Congress in 2010. The congressman has proclaimed his innocence and that he is the victim of a political witch hunt by his opponents. Details here.

The Kissing Congressman, a.k.a. Vance McAllister, has declined calls from GOP house leadership to resign immediately but will not, after all, run for reelection. Details here.

The Other George

Yes, it's George, and not the traveling nine-month-old infant this time.

The sidebar stories are a surprise. I hadn't seen anything about Queen Latifah recently, and the Dead Blonde Girl in the bottom picture doesn't look familiar either. Nothing about Prince Harry's breakup yet, although that may have happened too late on Tuesday to get a cover story polished and ready to go. Stories about the royals must really be selling well in general, however, because there's more about Kate, this time apparently doing nothing more interesting than standing around looking good in her clothes. (All her latest looks... ) I find myself hoping Harry and Cressida's break-up is only temporary because I'm pretty sure royal stories would be a whole lot snazzier with "Princess Cressy" in the mix.

One more thing, completely unrelated to anything in People magazine: This is my 400th blog post. How about that? When I started blogging in 2009 I had no idea how it would go or what it would turn out to be but five years later I still love my little blog.

I'm also now contributing (once a week, on Mondays) to a more serious, professional blog called Blog To Work, which you can check out here, but this space will continue to be the place for my stream-of-consciousness musings about whatever catches my attention on any given day. Who knows what we'll be talking about in the future; I'm looking forward to my next 400 blog posts!

The Guessing Game

I had been thinking that this would be a three-word post:
George. Clooney. Engaged.

I'm still pretty sure that will be the cover story this week, but with today's news that Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas have split up, and with Harry and Will headed to Memphis this week-end for a wedding, People may decide to go with them as the main story with George as a sidebar.

It's also possible we'll see something tied to the Donald Sterling story. I can't imagine the magazine would put an 80-year-old obnoxious racist on the cover, but the so-called girlfriend looks pretty hot, so we may see her as a sidebar story.

Finally, Miley Cyrus' recent hospitalization could be a sidebar story as well.

Did Harry Dump Cressy?

I've been pondering a post about the royals for the past couple of weeks. Charles and Camilla's 9th wedding anniversary was April 8, the Queen's 88th birthday was the 21st and today is Will & Kate's third anniversary. Lots of good stuff to ponder and blog about but I never quite got a post written. So what specifically sent me to the blog this afternoon? The rumored break-up of Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas. People.com's lead story claims that Harry found Cressy to be too "needy" and has broken off the relationship. Another website is claiming it was Cressy, noted free spirit that she is, who bailed, breaking up with Harry because she can't bear the thought of living in the royal bubble, like Kate does.

So is it really over? Who knows. It's not like Harry will announce it on Twitter. Even if the current reports are true, which isn't a given, remember that Will and Kate broke up briefly too, so maybe there's hope for Harry and Cressy, not to mention for us royal watchers who were salivating at the thought of Cressida as a royal wife. On the other hand, aristocratic single women throughout Britain and the Commonwealth are probably salivating at the thought that Harry, that deliciously charming rascal, may be back "on the market."

Oh, and by the way: Apparently both Harry and big bro Will will be attending a friend's wedding in Memphis this week-end, so some nice American southern belles may have a chance to bat their eyelashes and work their wiles on Prince Harry. Stay tuned, there's sure to be more to the story...

Things I Don't Care About? Not This Time

I really, really, really wanted to say that I don't care about George Clooney's engagement, but it's not true. I admit, I'm interested. Why now, George, why this woman and not the others? I think it's cool that he's plighting his troth to a smart woman, a lawyer who speaks three languages and specializes in human rights. On the other hand, it's a little annoying, but not completely surprising, that she's 16 years younger than he is.

What does it all have to do with me? Absolutely nothing.

Will George be the cover story on this week's issue of People? Almost certainly.

Happy To Be Wrong

Lupita Nyong'o gets the nod, very cool!

The Guessing Game

As announced at people.com, this week's issue will be the annual tribute to the "Most Beautiful" people in the world, or, to be more accurate, "the most beautiful people in the current pop culture landscape as seen through the lens of People magazine." Any guesses for who will be the cover girl this time around? Last year, in a selection that wasn't universally applauded, it was Gwyneth Paltrow. I admit I'm mostly drawing a blank. Cameron Diaz has a movie coming out Friday and she recently made some provocative comments about life as a single woman, so she's a possibility but other than that, no one's coming to mind. Stay tuned...

Wednesday morning update: A few other possibilities. It could be current Hollywood "it" girl Jennifer Lawrence, or possibly Jennifer Aniston, for no specific reason. Finally, I can't believe I'm even thinking this but if the recent "Kimye" cover sold well for Vogue, and with the big wedding coming up, People may use Kim Kardashian, which would be really annoying. Fingers crossed that I'm wrong.

Things I Don't Care About

Is Tom Cruise dating Laura Prepon? Is Richard Gere dating Padma Lakshmi? I really don't care.

Cute!

Woof! Bo and Sunny watch the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.

Yeah, I'd Been Wondering About That Too

I'm still thinking about the big Scandal season three finale and it turns out you can't really kill someone by injecting them in the shoulder with a meningitis-infected needle. Or at least not in the time it takes to run a few commercials. Russell Saunders at The Daily Beast has the medical fact-check.

How High Is High? How High Is Too High?

The Towering Inferno was one of the big "disaster" movies from the 1970s, starring everyone from Steve McQueen to Paul Newman to Fred Astaire to O.J. Simpson (really.) It's about a 135-story (fictional) building that catches on fire and all the resulting chaos, death and destruction that ensues. At the beginning, fire chief Steve McQueen tells architect Paul Newman that "there's no way for us to fight a fire above the 7th floor." At the end, Newman wearily looks up at the smoldering wreckage and says, "Maybe they should just leave it the way it is. A kind of shrine to all the bullshit in the world."

I think of that movie every time I hear of another "world's tallest building" making its way up to the sky; specifically today because of news that construction will start next week on the Kingdom Tower, to be built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It's planned to be a full kilometer in height with 200 floors, although I understand the floors above 160 or so will not be continuously occupied. The current "world's tallest building", the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, has 160 floors, although, again, the highest floors are unused.

So how high is high? How high is too high? Would you want to live or work on the 150th floor? How long does it take an elevator to get up there? How long would it take the paramedics to get up there if you started feeling heart palpitations one night during dinner and had to call 911? How long does it take to run down the stairs if you ever did, in fact, have a fire? All good questions, possibly without good answers but it doesn't appear to matter. The buildings keep going up, up, up.

Waiting For Cressida

Here in America, we don't know who our head-of-state will be three years from now. President (Hillary) Clinton? President (Jeb) Bush? President Biden? President Rubio? There's no way to know yet; we have a long slog of an election to get through first. In England it's different. Barring disaster, the Brits know who their head-of-state will be for most or possibly all of this century: King Charles, followed by King William, followed by King George. As I noted in an earlier post, if little Prince George lives as long as his great-grandmother the Queen, he'll still be the King of England in the year 2100. None of these Kings will have much real power, but they are part of something real, 1,000 years of kings and queens, even if it's all a little baffling to us here in the colonies.

I point all this out as a way of introducing an interesting story at The Daily Beast, which tries to understand the hoopla surrounding the current royal tour of New Zealand and Australia. The clip above is from a letter to The Times of London, just a little bit tongue-in-cheek, of course, but a nice low-key way of saying "enough, already" with coverage of Will, Kate and Prince George, and even as I keep an eye on the happenings in Australia, I'm also aware that in the end they're really just a nice, well-turned-out couple in their 30s, plus a cute baby, doing their duty, representing the Queen and staying out of trouble.

Things will be much more interesting, sartorially and otherwise, if Prince Harry actually marries current girlfriend Cressida Bonas, pictured below. Unlike Kate, who always looks well-put-together and, as my mother would say, "ladylike," Cressy's fashion sense is, shall we say, more creative. Even in the waity-Katey days we never saw Kate looking like this. And we know that Harry likes to shed his clothes and party every now and then. The thought of these two free spirits teaming up and setting out to see the world and meet the subjects is enough to make a royalty-watcher tingle, so c'mon Harry, find a nice ring, get down on one knee and pop the big question to Cressy. Your prim and proper family needs some hot new blood!

Is There Life After The Kardashians?

Lamar Odom may soon find out. In a first for this blog, I'm linking to an article at the Sports Illustrated website, which explains not only the "what" but also the "why" of Odom's new contract with the New York Knicks. I care not at all about the intricacies of the NBA salary cap and free agency rules, but I am interested to see if Odom can get himself together and have a successful second act. Is he drug-free? Is he injury-free? Is he sober? And most of all, has he untangled himself from membership in the Kardashian reality TV empire?

A quick google search reveals that Kris "It-was-a-publicity-stunt" Humphries appears to have recovered from his time in Kardashian-land and is now playing for the Boston Celtics, so maybe there's hope for Odom too. If the two of them ever team up to write their memoirs with all the juicy/toxic details about what it's really like to marry one of Kris Jenner's daughters, I'll be first in line to read it.

Buy My Book

It's Robin Roberts on the cover this week, with no mention of the fact that Roberts' current media tour is in support of her new book, "Everybody's Got Something," which comes out on April 22. (I think she's on the cover of Good Housekeeping, too.) Sometimes People runs cover stories that imply an actual interview with the featured celebrity when in fact they're just quoting stuff published elsewhere (or an insider, family member or "source,") but with a headline that promises "Her Most Revealing Interview Ever!" it sounds like Roberts actually sat down and spoke with a reporter. You can bet the farm, however, that she didn't "reveal" anything that isn't in the book.

I absolutely didn't foresee a SEX REHAB NIGHTMARE story.

The Guessing Game

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, which could be the cover story this week. Other possibilities:

Pharrell Williams:  His song "Happy" is everywhere, he did an emotional interview with Oprah and he's joining the cast of The Voice
Stephen Colbert: Taking over when David Letterman retires
Michael Strahan:  Officially joins Good Morning, America
Robin Roberts: Has a new book out
Megan Huntsman:  A True Crime story, she had 6 dead babies in her house
Cameron Diaz:  Her new movie opens next week; she's been in the news recently after some comments about life as a single woman
Jessica Simpson:  A new picture of her looking skinny in a yellow dress
Michael Phelps:  Back to the pool
Nick Carter:  A Backstreet Boy gets married
Kimye:  In Paris preparing for their May wedding

Update:  I'm seeing rumors that the New York Knicks, under new president (and ex-Lakers coach) Phil Jackson, may sign Lamar Odom, a.k.a. soon-to-be ex-husband of Khloé Kardashian, to a short-term contract. If it happens, figure that bride-to-be Kim and mother-from-hell Kris will not be happy to have Lamar back in the spotlight right before Kim's big wedding.

Things I Don't Care About

The final season of Mad Men.

It's Still A Small World, After All

I like mash-ups with groups of people singing the same song, sometimes in different languages, and this video is lots of fun. Disney is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the It's A Small World ride, which was introduced at the New York World's Fair in 1964 then moved out to Disneyland when the Fair was over in 1965. It brings back memories of my first visit to Disneyland at age 11 or so. If I remember right, the Small World ride was free, or at least very inexpensive and I think I rode it several times. My family actually went to the World's Fair, too, and I assume we would have gone on the Small World ride there too, but I don't remember it specifically.

The other thing I like about this video is seeing Richard Sherman, one half of the Sherman Brothers, who wrote some of Disney's best-loved songs. (In Saving Mr. Banks, he was played by Jason Schwartzman.) So watch the video, sing along, then try to get the catchy little song out of your head!

Gorgeous

I love this picture of tulip fields in the Netherlands.

It's George

Here he is and little Prince George looks very cute. I do have a Media Literacy reminder about People's headline language, "People goes on the road with Baby George," which makes it sound as if their reporter has some kind of special access to the royals as a member of their traveling entourage, which can't possibly be true. The story currently on people.com was written by a reporter named Michelle Tauber and you can figure that she's just one of the dozens of reporters from all over the world who are covering the royal tour Down Under. If you read the story you'll see that the reporter refers to Prince George's mother as "Princess Kate," which actually isn't her correct title, but is better than calling her Kate Middleton. Thoughts on that here.

Mickey Rooney is the top sidebar story.

The Guessing Game

Will it be another Dead Celebrity cover this week? Like Reeva Steenkamp, Peaches Geldof, who died at age 25 of so-far unknown causes yesterday in England, wasn't well known in the U.S. but she's connected to fame. Her father is rocker and Live Aid/Band Aid founder Bob Geldof. If People does go with Peaches for the main cover story it will be the second Dead Gorgeous Blonde Woman cover in three weeks, and the third Blonde Woman cover in a row.

This could also be the week we get a new Will and Kate cover. They're in New Zealand for the start of their three-week tour and there are cute new pictures of Prince George as they arrived on Monday morning. Other possibilities:

Mickey Rooney: Also Dead Celebrity
David Letterman/Barbara Walters. Letterman announces he will retire next year; Walters announces that her final day on The View will be
May 16.
Rob Lowe: A new book, in which he explains how hard it is to be pretty in Hollywood
Kirstie Alley and/or Valerie Bertinelli: Gained weight, now trying to lose the weight, again
Quinton Aaron: The star of The Blind Side is also planning to lose weight
The Kaufman Family: Rescued at sea by the Navy after their child got sick. Lots of debate about their life choices; I want to know who's paying for the rescue
Vance McCallister: The kissing Congressman, of course

Tom, Really, Get Yourself An Editor

I like reading Tom Sykes' "The Royalist" blog at The Daily Beast. He's British, he's pretty well plugged into all the various royal gossip-mongers and he can sometimes be pretty snarky. His post from yesterday, however, titled "Prince George Faces The Global Media," is so riddled with errors I just want to scream. Consider paragraph 2 and the first sentence of paragraph 3:

But Kate Middleton and Prince William's noble efforts to keep their young son George protected from the global media came to a dramatic end today as Kate descended the steps of Quantas Airways jet with her eight-month old son into a the glare of the world's media at Wellington, New Zealand, on the first day of a three-week tour of Australasia.

Kate looked stunning and sprightly as ever despite the 28 hr flight from the UK, and was dressed in a Max Mara dress in red, the national color of New Zealand. 

I'm surprised to see Sykes making the "Kate Middleton" mistake, and see my thoughts on that here, but he gets a couple of other things wrong too. First, as anyone who's seen pictures of the family's arrival in Wellington can tell you, they weren't flying on Qantas, it was a Royal New Zealand Air Force jet. And Tom, there's no "u" in Qantas. (It's an acronym for Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services. Since I'm in the mood to be really nit-picky, I'll point out that it's not Qantas Airways either. Just Qantas.) Finally, Kate's red coat. I'm so not a fashion expert but most media is saying it's from Catherine Walker, a fave of Princess Diana, and not from Max Mara.

Update: I found this picture of the arrival at Wellington, which shows the line-up of dignitaries just before Kate, William and George walked down the stairs.

Where In The World...

I'd been planning to write a post with more snarky details about the kissing Congressman but this is lots more fun. Trip Advisor is out with their 6th annual list of Top 25 global destinations, details here, which is a "bucket list" of cool cities all over the world. I've lived in three (New York, San Francisco and Chicago,) and visited five more (Rome, London, Paris, Dubai and Sydney.) Of the remaining 17, the top three I'd like to visit next are Barcelona, St. Petersburg and Cape Town.

After a long, cold Chicago winter it's fun to start thinking about an intriguing getaway. And I do have all those miles... I'm not planning to hit the road anytime soon but you never know.

Hypocrisy Alert: The Kissing Congressman

Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to be a so-called public servant when irrefutable evidence of your misdeeds is about to go public. First-term Representative Vance McAllister, Republican from Louisiana, who I've never heard of before today, must have had such a moment earlier today. Grainy surveillance video (from his office, no less; didn't he know the camera was there?) of him passionately kissing a woman who isn't his wife is currently in the process of going viral and the usual Political Sex Scandal media feeding frenzy is in the process of playing out. (I'm not going to post the video but believe me, by morning it will be everywhere.)

The naughty politician, a married father of five who campaigned as a conservative, church-going, family values Christian, has issued a statement apologizing to God, his wife, his family, his constituents, blah, blah, blah, and asking for privacy for his children. Someone is being quoted as saying that the Congressman has "no plans to resign." The "other woman" has been named and I can only imagine the media scrum currently camped out on her driveway. And, of course, I've already typed his name into the draft of tomorrow's Guessing Game post.

In a post a few weeks ago, about the Congressman who threatened to throw a reporter over a balcony after the State of The Union, I said that it was the video that got him in trouble. That's true again now, obviously, and I'll be watching to see how this one plays out. Stay tuned...

Bacon. Just Bacon.

I just might have to buy a Bacon Bowl.

She's Not Kate Middleton Anymore

William, Kate and Prince George are airborne as I type this, scheduled to land in Wellington, New Zealand early Monday morning local time, approximately 6.45 p.m. tonight here in Chicagoland, if what I read is correct. They'll be in the news a lot over the next three weeks as they tour NZ first then pop over to Australia before returning home on the 25th. With royalty on my mind I feel the need to rant about something that always bugs me: what is this woman's name?



VanityFair.com is currently running a story with the headline "What To Expect From Kate Middleton, Prince William, and Prince George's Australia Tour." This is sloppy in a couple of ways, but I'm going to ignore the fact that the family is going to New Zealand first. What's got me going today is the lazy use of Kate's maiden name. I understand why headline writers, editors and reporters struggle with what to call her. Titles for British royals can be complicated, and in spite of the fact that she is married to a prince, calling Kate Princess Kate (or Princess Catherine) is really not correct. Her official title is Duchess of Cambridge, but that's a bit of a mouthful, and Duchess Kate doesn't sound right either. The one thing I know for sure is that referring to William's wife as "Kate Middleton" is wrong and it just plain bugs me.

This Is Cool

A photographer captured a picture of every airplane that took off from LAX during a seven-hour period one day. Read about it here.

Things I Don't Care About

Nicole "Snooki" Polizza is pregnant again.

On the other hand, I do think it's pretty funny that people.com currently has this news at the top of its site, complete with a bright red "Breaking News" banner. Really.

Wield Your Handbag Until The Day You Die

Five years ago, on the 65th anniversary of D-Day there was a bit of an issue about the fact that the Queen of England didn't travel to France for the commemorative ceremonies. Prince Charles attended instead and I blogged about it here. More recently the Queen's PR people have indicated that she is winding down her international travel, which at age 87, turning 88 on April 21, she is certainly entitled to do. So I was surprised to see that she and her 92-year-old husband Prince Philip, who turns 93 on June 10, are in Rome this week, meeting the President of Italy and the Pope. I'm even more surprised to learn that five years later, she is planning to go to France for the 70th anniversary commemorations. 



Here's the official announcement, from the Royal Family's website, and note the oh-so-correct wording, "at the invitation of the President of France":

The Queen, accompanied by The Duke of Edinburgh, will make a State visit to France from 5 – 7 June. Her Majesty and His Royal Highness are visiting at the invitation of the President of France, President Hollande.

On 6 June The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will attend events in Normandy to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings.

On 6 and 7 June Her Majesty and His Royal Highness will attend State Visit events in Paris and be received at the Elysee Palace by President Hollande.

In The Diana Chronicles, Tina Brown describes the Queen's work ethic as "Royalty 101, ... you get out there and wield your handbag until the day you die," and it looks like she was right. 

A Message For Valerie Bertinelli

One way to "take the shame out of gaining weight" is to stop glorifying women who lose weight. Exhibit A:  People's cover story from April, 6, 2009.

It's Gwyneth

It's two "gorgeous blonde women" in a row for People, plus that cute new picture of Prince George.

The Guessing Game

Possibilities:

Prince George: A cute new picture, plus he's hitting the road (with Dad and Mum) for Australia and New Zealand. Harry and Cressida are also still a possibility. 

Gwyneth Paltrow: Her divorce, her wish for an easy office job, her overweening obnoxiousness

Steven Colbert: Twitter trouble after an offensive tweet about Asians

Pharrell Williams: Joining The Voice

Josh Elliott: Leaves Good Morning America for NBC Sports

Sara Gilbert: Married girlfriend Linda Perry

Elton John: Getting married to boyfriend David Furnish

Johnny Weir: Getting divorced from husband Victor Voronov

How I Met Your Mother: Final episode, brilliant or insulting?

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys: Stars of The Americans are dating for real 

Michael Jackson: New album coming out in June

Stories about the Washington State mudslide, or the upcoming Boston Marathon one year after the bombing, are also possibilities.