Media-Whore d'Oevres



"WYCLEF Jean may have gone too far when, live on MTV, he invited 'everybody' to his Saddle River, NJ, home for a New Year's bash. After the singer performed on the telecast, he arrived home around 1 a.m. to find more than 500 people partying at his mansion. 'There were hundreds and hundreds of cars parked all over,' said one partygoer. 'They had tents set up outside, but people were wandering around in his house, in the movie theater, in the kitchen.'" (P6)

"Sean Penn has been named the jury president for this year's Cannes fest, being held from May 14-25. He directed critically acclaimed drama Into the Wild this year and won an Oscar for his role as a revenge-seeking father in Mystic River. Mr. Penn also won the best male performance prize at Cannes in 1997 for She's So Lovely by Nick Cassavetes." (Observer)

"Nairobi degenerated deeper into violence on Thursday as riot police used tear gas, batons and water cannons to turn back thousands of opposition supporters who tried to rally in the Kenyan capital. Kenyan police used teargas and water cannons against several hundred anti-government protesters in Nairobi, Kenya. Some demonstrators showed restraint, yelling to the rowdier members in their ranks, 'Weka mawe! Weka mawe!' which means, 'Put down the stones.'" (NYTimes)

"Given that Odinga is such a strong and forceful character, it appears unlikely he will back down to any significant degree, creating the worst case scenario prospect of an extended political crisis and escalating tribal-based violence. To avoid this outcome, Kibaki will need to compromise. One idea currently being mooted is that the international community could send a team of observers to audit and recount the election results. While palatable to Odinga, Kibaki and his Kikuyu supporters are unlikely to easily accept this outcome, and even less likely to accept any reversal in their electoral fortunes should international pressure mount to such an extent as to compel a recount. Outright civil war is improbable given the international interest in the country, but Kenya still faces weeks, if not months, of political uncertainty and instability." (Janes)

"Sen. Hillary Clinton faces tonight's Iowa caucuses not as the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee but seriously challenged by Sen. Barack Obama, thanks in no small part to committing a strategic error: premature triangulation. The problem is reflected by what happened to a proposal for a simplified, though sweeping, health care plan ... (Mark)Penn, a professional pollster who was political adviser to President Bill Clinton, is chief strategist for the Clinton campaign. He has embraced triangulation -- coming over as a third force somewhere between liberal and conservative poles. To many Democratic operatives, Penn's triangulation prematurely introduced a general election strategy, when in fact the party nomination was still in doubt." (Novak)

"The journalist likes to think of himself as living close to the edge, whether he's covering real estate or Iraq. He (and she) shouts and curses and cracks wise at most every opportunity, considers divorce an occupational hazard, and loves telling ripping yarns about his greatest stories. If he likes sex, he has too much of it. Ditto for food. If he drinks, he considers booze his muse. If he smokes, he smokes to excess, and if he attempts to quit, he uses Nicorette and the patch. As Meryl Aldridge notes in her 1998 article titled "The Tentative Hell-Raisers" (from which I cherry-picked the Everett Hughes quotation above), journalists identify with larger-than-life personalities, because that's how they see themselves. Deny the journalist his self-image as a rule-bending individualist and you might as well replace him with a typist." (Slate)