from life. . .
to art. . .
to somewhere in-between!
If you Googled Michelle Obama recently you might have been surprised by the results.
Of the 7,900,000 options brought up by a Google Image search for her, the top result at the moment is a doctored photo of the First Lady with monkey features.
According to The Guardian the image on a Google-owned Blogger site has been taken off the ‘Hot Girls’ blog, but the distorted shot still appears on Google searches. The internet search engine has issued a statement explaining that while they do not endorse the offensive image being up there, they will not remove it.
Above the image Google has put a banner with the title ‘Offensive Search Results’, inviting users to find out about their policy. The statement said: “sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries.”
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This may just be the saddest story I’ve read all year.
Writes James Bone in The Times:
“Children who write letters to Father Christmas this year will no longer receive an answer from the North Pole — in case the jolly old man turns out to be a paedophile.”
Apparently there was a scare at the North Pole last year, when a sex-offender somehow wangled his way into the US Postal Service’s Santa Claus letter reply writing operation.
So now, although the perve didn’t actually do any damage (he was stopped before he got round to writing back and offering any personal visits!), kids won’t get their ‘Dear Father Christmas ‘ letters answered. Lots of anger about this – you can join the ‘Keep Santa Letters’ Facebook group here.
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The author James Frey was apparently the inspiration for this week’s offering, as the lives of all our Gossip Girls and Guys came shattering down into a million little pieces.
That was not before a guest-appearance from NYU alum Ga Ga. As in Lady, in case Blair was wondering, not the first lady of Iran. (Though wouldn’t that brighten up Middle Eastern politics…)!
To sum up: following on from last week’s, ahem, shenanigans between Dan, Olivia and Vanessa, life in the NYU dorms was getting awkward. Nate, in his new role as everyone’s favourite teenage therapist, promptly put pay to Dan’s illusion that a threesome with his current celebrity flame and his infatuated life BFF was a GOOD IDEA.
For reasons frankly too convoluted and yawn-worthy to explain, the threesome (and Blair) ended up working on a theatre production together. After a day of bickering, things came to a head when Olivia outed Vanessa’s romantic feelings towards Dan, as discerned by her during the aforementioned shenanigans.
In fact, she had it wrong. Vanessa was, typically, far more interested in a pretentious drama student (and I’d argue only has eyes for Rufus H anyway). But as it turned out, Dan was now seeing Vanessa in a new, romantic light. And so the Dan-Olivia romance came smashing to the floor, with her off to concentrate on shooting the appalling sounding ‘Bitches of Eastwick’ far, far away from the GG shores.
While this was going down, Jenny was out playing tour guide to a sultry Belgian boy (school Jenny? No?). Yet as is so often the case with the sexy European characters dreamed up by American writers who don’t own passports, all 
was not what it seemed. Mr Belgium was busy exploiting diplomatic channels for a lucrative drug dealing business, which both scared and thrilled little J no end.
Chuck, however, was having none of it and came to take Jenny out of harms way. Isn’t it amusing how he has morphed from her almost date-rapist, to her sort-of-brother, to her white knight, in three short series?
Character continuity is evidently not a focus in the GG writers room.
As for Serena van-der Lewinsky. Where to start? Well she tried her damned hardest to stop Tripping over (get it) but blondie has never been very good at not doing stupid things. By episodes end Tripp had found out the shattering truth that his wife was behind the election-day set up, and was seeking (and finding) solace in Serena’s arms.
Not before Nate had declared his unrequited love for Serena. Now that his role in Tripp’s campaign for Congress was finished, and because he apparently doesn’t actually spend ANY time at Colombia, Mr Archibald has had time to think about his life.
But, possibly because he isn’t yet able to think for more than five-minute periods, Nate’s decided he’s lonely. He wants a girlfriend. Any girlfriend. He wants Serena, but it seems m
ainly because she’s the only girl he has seen all day.
Probably if Blair, Vanessa or Jenny, hell even Dorota, had come to see him he’d be lusting after them instead.
In the GG ranks, this was mid-level. Too many plot strands that came out of nowhere (hello, as if Blair would ever be desperate enough to hang out with drama geeks – hasn’t she seen how uncool they always are in cringy American sitcoms?).
Still some nice moments. Jenny would read NYLON magazine (uber trendy NYC teen girl rag) and Dan would so do a celebratory, I’m so cool, street jig in memory of last nights steamy goings on. Though for a far superior morning after dance, check out Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Bollywood style number in the fabulous 500 Days of Summer.
And some corkers of lines, not least when Dan pays homage to his awesome mathamtical skills. “Two girls. Four boobs. One Dan Humphrey,” he gloated.
A* for effort, Gossip Girl.
Whoever said that all publicity is good publicity must have had an in with Sarah Palin. 
The sideshow that is the former-Alaska Governor and McCain running-mate’s life is going to make for riveting reading. At least, thats what the publishers of ‘Going Rogue: an American Life’ must be banking on.
HarperCollins have ordered a whopping great 100,000 more copies of her autobiography. It’s also made the top spot on US Amazon’s best-seller list.
A prophesy on the outcome of the 2012 presidential election, or just an indication that audiences continue to be fascinated with the one-time Beauty Queen from Wasilla?
I’d hazard – and hope – that it is the latter. One thing is for sure, I know which book is next on my must-read list.
Damned if you, damned if you don’t and doubly damned if you didn’t but now you did.
No, not a new tongue twister.
Just my response to the inevitable media sniggering that has accompanied the news that, owing to extreme public outrage, Brown et al probably won’t be scrapping childcare vouchers any more. U-Turn, the Sunday Times cried at me across the breakfast table. Others sneered about a government ‘climb down’.
But what exactly is so wrong with the government changing their mind after 81,000 people signed their names to a petition on the subject?
Surely that is what democracy is all about – leaders listening to our opinions and reacting to them?
Why else would you set up a petition, except to encourage change. No one lobbies politicians just to make a point; you place pressure in order to get a result.
Ideally they might get it right first time, but i’d still rather a government who were responsive to popular sentiment. Of course they are doing it because they have calculated the ‘mum and dad vote’ is rather crucial to prevent a Conservative landslide come May, but so what!
Isn’t it better for them to ‘climb down’ on an issue they have apparently got it wrong with, than remain stubborn and defiant just to prevent accusations of flip-flopping.
Just imagine how different world history could have been, if only leaders were a little more willing to contradict themselves.
So, the backlash has begun.
After he made the cardinal sin of a spelling mistake in a letter - because no one else has EVER done that before – of condolence to a mother whose son was killed in Afghanistan, it turns out the British public thinks we should be laying off Gordon Brown.
Writing in The Times, Melanie Reid argued that nobody deserves the vitriol being directed to him The Mirror has struck out at David Cameron for making political gain out of the matter, while the Twittersphere is submerged in ‘sympthy for the blind man’ messages.
There are valid points on both sides; surely Downing Street has someone with a keener eye than Brown to check his outgoing mail. And was it really necessary to record what should have remained a private conversation between the PM and Jacqui James Jones Janes? As for The Sun? Well, it has even emerged today that the paper doesn’t always practice what they preach.
So, after three days of wrangling, apologies and remorse, how about we let Gordon Brown gets back to the big picture? Apart from anything else, if we want to reduce the number of mothers in Jacqui Janes’ position, we need to allow the government to, well, govern.
It’s the same story with the drugs advisory council furore. Nutt’s comments caused a fuss, and quite clearly sent Alan Johnson a message as well as reviving the very important debate on drug legalization or decriminalization. But then yesterday, three more advisors made very public resignations.
I don’t doubt they have a point. But proper policy change doesn’t come from publicity stunts.
When the government is forced to spend their time dealing with these scandals – from biscuit preferences to allegations about eyesight – it takes time away from dealing with the real issues.
Pressure is important. Holding the government to account is fundamental for a thriving civil society.
But this is a democracy, not a free for all. If you have to shout about it, go to speakers corner.
Take your complaints through the proper channels, not to the tabloids.
This was a return to the GG of old. One big party, major drama, and a few sub-plots involving Chuck and Nate on a boys weekend, and Serena finding out that while looks do get you anywhere in life, they don’t always take you to a very good place. Also, the remarkable revelation that Jenny’s middle name is Tallulah (as in…’she was a showgirl’). So, So appropriate. Oh, and of course, the event that has been scandalising parents…a certain Ménage à trois!
First stop, Jenny, who is becoming ever more of a caricature. As this weeks’ reality vacuum opens, she’s scouting out potential dates for cotillion on Facebook and rejecting them for ‘practically going to public school’. But don’t fret; if she can’t find Mr. Socially Acceptable, she plans to steal one of her lackey’s partners. Snobby and savvy, all in one scene.
Though you can kind of understand it given that as Blair says ‘this is not like your wedding day. Cotillion only happens once’. Karma being what it is, Jenny gets a touch of comeuppance minutes later for not having spent her formative years learning ballroom dancing, like all the other Park Avenue princesses. You can take the girl out of Brooklyn…
Blair, still on the outs with Serena (as Nate asks with a resigned expression, what are they fighting about this time?) is planning to forego cotillion. But as Chuck wisely remarks, ‘a cotillion without Blair Waldorf is like Tour de France without Lance Armstrong’ so she steps up to the mark. But before that, lets take a moment for some Eric appreciation. He’s acting as date to some random dateless girl, underlining exactly why so many girls have the fantasy of a GBF (gay best friend, for the uninitiated – other inspirations are Stanford from Sex and the City, or 
Will from Will and Grace).
But then, just when you’re ready to love him forever, he does a bit of a bitchy thing and tells the very-eligible Graham that Jenny is taken for the dance. In fairness, he’d just promised Jonathan as her date, but come on – even Eric knows the hot straight guy will still beat the GBF in the social pecking order. inevitably she finds out, gets angry at Eric and then sacks Blair as her mentor. In retaliation, Blair plays Frankenstein with some random frizzy-haired charity case to turn her into a swan, stealing away the handsome prince and leaving Jenny sans escort for the big event. At least she’s wearing a great dress.
But, as GG excruciatingly quips ‘nobody puts Jenny in the corner’ and she debuts arm in arm with, OMG, a college guy, none other than Nate Archibald. Can this finally be the resurrection of the long teased Jenny and Nate relationship? Its certainly the end of one, as Jonathan and Eric part ways, leaving Eric fuelled up to take Jenny down. Excellent.
Chuck, in the mean time, is spending his weekend ‘watching women with tramp stamps work out their daddy issues’, but not for his own benefit, mind, but for Nate. The sacrifices these Manhattanites make for friendship, I tell you. However he still finds time to deal Blair and Serena’s latest catfight, by locking them in a lift together to have a heartfelt chat and make amends. How adorable. I give it two episodes.
Big episode for Serena. Demands for the elders of GG. PLEASE stop handing Serena out jobs like they come from the bargain bin next to the till at a pound store (mind you, she’s the new ‘media relations rep for Congressman Tripp – is that what Monica Lewinsky was? – because he has a crush on her, which is really only a glorified version of her last job as professional girlfriend).
Bizarelly, in between that she was supposed to be a mentor at cotillion? Hello, reality calling. How does a girl who, in just eighteen odd years on the planet, has been implicated in a murder / sex scandal, been arrested at the behest of her own mother and played a starring role in ‘pyramid fund schemes; the teenage years’, make a good role model to anyone? Except, maybe, Jenny (who was supposed to be her mentee), herself so far down the scale of moral degradation.
And its almost, but not quite, farewell to Hillary Duff. ‘Do you think you can get brain damage from learning too much too fast?’ she ponders in a fit of existential musing, stressed out by some previously unheard of concept called studying. Dan, typically, gets it wrong. ‘You’re the one who wanted the real college experience,’ he replies.
Oh Dan. Are you so clueless that you are unaware of the precedent set by the Olsen twins for celebrity studentage – i.e. roaming around the city with huge sunnies, a straggly do, bohemian outfits and a giant latte?
Luckily, she doesn’t have to worry. Endless Nights 4 is calling, so the poor dear might just have to abandon ship for Hollywood. What a loss. Vanessa makes one of the wisest comments yet; ‘college is about more than just classes’. True anywhere, never more so than on GG, where we are yet to see any of them spend time in a place of learning. So to send Olivia off in style, Dan and Vanessa take her on a whirlwind tour of college ‘experiences’ involving shots and dancing in fountains.
And, lest we forget, the steamy threesome that has been so-talked about (and will mean there can never, ever be another series of Lizzie McGuire), which was mostly unremarkable except for the fact that Dan and Vanessa got cosy!! Oh, and Olivia’s movie got tanked (did the producers realise Twilight already had the lock on the vampire / high school market?). So, she’s staying.
Can’t wait for the awkwardness.
So. Twelve months later does the world still think Barack Obama is the messiah?
Well, no. Choose from any of the following – prevaricating over whether to send more troops into Afghanistan, the whole healthcare kerfuffle, the disappointing poll results in Virginia and New Jersey last week, the fact that he hasn’t solved the Middle East conflict or saved the planet from global warming – you name it, Obama hasn’t done it.
‘Yes We Can’ has become the rather less marketable, ‘yes, maybe, probably not’.
There’s nothing harder to beat than high expectations, and if November 2008 dealt Obama a resounding win, it also gave him a lot to live up to. Speculation aside, I don’t think that the off-season elections can really be seen to have taken the temperature of the Obama presidency. Far more interesting will be the votes next November in the mid-terms, when a third of the Senate and all of the House will be going to the polls. Remember 2006, when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats swept to victory? Turned out to be a fairly good reading of America’s mood.
Likewise, that Obama hasn’t actually yet achieved the exhaustive list of promises he proffered in his campaign is hardly surprising, and the yet in that sentence should not be ignored. Still, perhaps as a result of having a fixed term presidency, the media tends to view the first eighteen months as the only time a president will actually achieve anything, before he has to refocus his energies on re-election.
But is that really the reality? Well, history suggests it very well could be.
Consider what can probably be seen as the two most important examples of major domestic change in America over the last century; Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society.
In his first 100 days FDR put his foot down on the path to restoring economic viability with the Emergency Banking Act, as well as instating many of his notorious Alphabet Agencies, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
Likewise, Johnson, catapulted into office after JFK was assassinated, had introduced by the following August several social welfare measures including the Economic Opportunity Act. In July 1964, after 75 days debate, segregation was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act. And the huge array of key domestic legislation that LBJ is remembered for (when he is remembered at all for his successes), all took place in the first session of Congress of 1965, just after he had been elected as president with a vast majority.
So too, with foreign policy. Harry Truman gave the go-ahead to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just months after assuming office and so ended the Pacific leg of the second World War.
Not that it was all smooth sailing from then on. With three and a bit more terms in charge, FDR did plenty more, doing battle with the Supreme Court and the Nazis to name but a few of his achievements. For LBJ it was a downward spiral into Vietnam, urban rioting and all manner of other disasters. For Truman, it was the narrowest of narrow victories in 1948.
But however you look at the rest of their presidential runs, the first year or so, the honeymoon period, was pretty darn important.
Conversely, bad things also happened in the first year or so to some presidents, and they stuck. Whether Ford really recovered from pardoning Nixon is debatable – but it certainly didn’t win him enough support to win reelection. Everyone’s favourite peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter, spent his first year antagonizing half the Democrats inside the beltway and trying to pass an unprecedented amount of legislation, which didn’t win him any favours. His role in brokering the Camp David Accords in 1978 didn’t keep him in office in 1980, when Ted Kennedy and then Ronald Reagan campaigned on an ‘anyone but Carter’ platform.
George Bush senior promised ‘no new taxes’ in his election campaign, and eighteen months later was embroiled in a bitter row with the Democrats that led to a tax raise and helped Clinton push him out of office in 1992. Triumph in the Gulf War in 1991 as his presidency was entering its third year couldn’t help him keep power.
So does the first year really define the presidency from then on? Not really, when you look back from the vantage point of history.
Truman’s legacy is as much successes like the Marshall Plan, or disasters like his firing of popular wartime hero General MacArthur during the Korean war. No matter LBJ’s early successes, his name is synonymous with Vietnam. Regardless of his first year in office, Nixon’s will be the Watergate presidency.
But isn’t in interesting that the presidents who were markedly capable in their first eighteen months, the ones who fulfilled their campaign promises and made what must have been the tough calls, were the ones the voters offered a second term.
FDR, Truman, LBJ (a stretch since he only won the one election, but it was still technically two different terms), all got the thumbs up for four more years. Whatever we think of George W Bush, hi
s decisive action going into Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 had to play a part in his reelection.
And look at the ones who didn’t excel from early. Since the 1940s, when the presidency took the shape it has today, Ford, Carter and George H W Bush have been the only single term presidents. See a pattern?
This is all generalization and represents a very simplistic analysis of these presidencies and the relevant elections. Reagan, who regualrly scores highly in popularity polls, had notable successes like his role in the end of the Cold War much later, while his first two years were not marked by many Reaganomic wonders. Equally, Clinton screwed up any number of times in his first few years in office (although the midterms of 1944 saw massive Republican gain under the auspices of Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and Gingrich has been tipped as a possible 2012 candidate.)
Still, while its to early to call time on the Obama legacy, the lessons of history do beg the question; when is Obama going to get moving and follow up on his pledges.
Because the clock is ticking on the Obama Presidency. By this count, he only has another nine months.
If GG was one of those variety packs of chocolate bars, Nate Archibald would be a Milky Way. Nothing wrong with that – the chocolate is perfectly nice and the wrapping inoffensive. But not the most exciting pick, a little bland, uninspiring and unsophisticated.
Of all the characters he has been consistently the least engaging. Gorgeous, sure, but a tad dumb. Bit of a pothead, not very bright. Like most teenage boys then.
That was until this week, when we saw a new side to ole cheekbones – depth, personality, and even several unique facial expressions. Remember Tripp, one of Nate’s hugely irrelevant identikit family members? Well, he’s back and running for congress, with Nate, who at 18 has probably never voted, absurdly standing on the campaign frontline.
On election day, Tripp is caught on camera heroically saving the life of a drowning man, a feat that as audiences well know qualifies you for high political office. Except that the man wasn’t actually drowning but rather a trick pulled by one of the campaigns sinister puppet masters.
Putting a spanner in the works is Vanessa, who inevitably is documenting the campaign (because what every aspiring politician wants is some college activist privy to all his private moments).
But there she is, making yet another indie film. I wish the GG writers would realise that you can be arty and cool without always having a camera in your hand. And that having it doesn’t make Vanessa any less horrendous and pretentious.
Vanessa has the footage that proves the scam, and typically self-righteous, threatens to expose it as such before the polls close. In reality, someone so attention-starved wouldn’t have waited to sell it to a TV network, but put it straight out on YouTube. However she vacillates for a while, ruminating with faux concern about how much respect she has for the candidate whose chances she is likely ruining.
But Nate, the new improved Nate, seizes the day. With the shrewdness of a practiced politician, he plays Vanessa to stop her leaking the truth. Life sucks, V, doesn’t it.
Unfortunately, she just scams him right back and the truth comes out. So in a heartrending scene, he (although guiltless) takes the blame for the scandal so his cousin can win the vote.
In other news, Olivia reveals an embarrassing but highly dull secret about Dan on prime time TV (there is no way the bathroom boy scene would have been a YouTube hit).
More entertainingly, Serena and Blair are doing battle and B realises she needs to find a friend, stat (her lackeys not being good enough – “I don’t make friends with staff” she scoffs when one offers their services.) Blair’s pathological insecurities come out as she friend hunts with all the awkward anxiety of a spotty fourteen year old boy at a school disco
Naturally, she goes for the blonde with the good couture taste, and naturally, this is a disaster, because this psych major apparently doubles as a call girl, which is so NOT Waldorf-esque. It leads to some funny moments though, with Serena dunking Blair in a cake, and because when Serena gets all judgy about Blair’s new BFF, Blair makes the very valid point that Serena too is being paid to date her clients.
“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck” she says, brilliantly serving Serena her just desserts.
At several points the characters seem to forget which show they are in. Vanessa berates Nate for his lack of moral compass (this from someone who lied to her roommate for the sake of a stupid speech). Similarly Serena says to Blair; “political connections aren’t the first thing most people look for in friends”. Excuse me?
The icing on the cake is Nate (he’s not totally lost his naivety) when he once again takes the prize for most oblivious teen heart-throb since Dawson didn’t know Joey was in love with him. “I wouldn’t exactly call revenge a good basis for friendship” he says. Uh, earth to GG. This is not the Hallmark channel, or an episode of Gilmore Girls. The show is ALL ABOUT being soulless, manipulative and vindictive. HELLO, that’s what makes is so awesome.
Predictions for the future? Blair looks set to spiral into a new low of unhappiness; good for us because sadness breeds spite which means Blair at her absolute best. And with Serena and Tripp getting quite chummy at the end (and with him having an EVIL, SOULLESS wife), perhaps a love triangle with him, her and Nate? Stranger things have happened on this show….
