Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Salman Rushdie’s upsettingly brilliant psycho-profile of Pakistan, in his 1983 novel, Shame, rightly laid emphasis on the crucial part played by sexual repression in the Islamic republic. And that was before the Talibanization of Afghanistan, and of much of Pakistan, too. Let me try to summarize and update the situation like this: Here is a society where rape is not a crime. It is a punishment. Women can be sentenced to be raped, by tribal and religious kangaroo courts, if even a rumor of their immodesty brings shame on their menfolk. In such an obscenely distorted context, the counterpart term to shame—which is the noble word 'honor'—becomes most commonly associated with the word 'killing.' Moral courage consists of the willingness to butcher your own daughter. If the most elemental of human instincts becomes warped in this bizarre manner, other morbid symptoms will disclose themselves as well. Thus, President Asif Ali Zardari cringes daily in front of the forces who openly murdered his wife, Benazir Bhutto, and who then contemptuously ordered the crime scene cleansed with fire hoses, as if to spit even on the pretense of an investigation. A man so lacking in pride—indeed lacking in manliness—will seek desperately to compensate in other ways. Swelling his puny chest even more, he promises to resist the mighty United States, and to defend Pakistan’s holy 'sovereignty.' This puffery and posing might perhaps possess a rag of credibility if he and his fellow middlemen were not avidly ingesting $3 billion worth of American subsidies every year." (Christopher Hitchens)

"On or around April 5, a group of prominent New Yorkers—including Andre Balazs, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lindsay Lohan and Harvey Weinstein—received a curious group text. It was from Courtney Love, and she was pissed. Maer Roshan, she said, was fucking unethical. He was not to be trusted. He’d secretly tape recorded her, she claimed, and sold her out to the Internet. What had prompted Ms. Love’s fury was a rambling video that had been posted by Mr. Roshan’s recently launched website, The Fix, in which Ms. Love assailed Kelly Osbourne for calling her a crackhead on the E! Channel. 'I’ve saved her life twice, physically,' Ms. Love fumed on camera. 'Booze, Oxycontin and coke—foaming at the mouth … ' A number of online outlets had immediately picked up the story. And since it was evident to any of the hundreds of thousands of viewers of the clip that it had clearly been recorded with Ms. Love’s full knowledge and consent, Mr. Roshan confronted her the next day. She replied via text. 'I’m very sorryed,' she wrote. 'Just Fuckkked upp. Hate the stuupid innternet. Want to hang out tonite?' Did we mention this website is focused on addiction and recovery?" (Observer)

"Last Saturday, June 4th, the daughter and son of two celebrated American political and philanthropic families, Andrea John Catsimatidis and Christopher Nixon Cox, were married at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Ms. Catsimatidis-Cox, 21, is the daughter of Margo and John Catsimatidis. Mr. Catsimatidis is Chairman and CEO of the Red Apple Group, Gristedes Foods, and the Red Apple Group subsidiary, United Refining Company ... Mr. Cox, 32, is the son of Patricia Nixon Cox, always known as Tricia, daughter of the late President Richard M. Nixon and Mrs. Nixon, and Edward Finch Cox. Mr. Cox is Chairman of the New York Republican State Committee." (NYSocialDiary)

"Talks are about to get underway for Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of villainous ranch owner Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, the Sergio Leone-style spaghetti Western that Quentin Tarantino wrote and will direct as his next film. DiCaprio is being courted to play a charming but ruthless proprietor of Candyland, a despicable club in Mississippi where female slaves are exploited as sex objects and males are pitted against each other in 'mandingo' style death matches. Candie is a slave's worst nightmare and the freed slave Django must cross him in order to reclaim his wife. Now, deal making discussions are just getting underway, but I'm told there is a much higher likelihood of DiCaprio taking part in the film at this point than Will Smith, who had been reported as lead candidate to play the title role of DJango, a slave who is liberated and taught the tricks of the trade by a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter." (Deadline)

"Rep. Anthony Weiner, who still insists he won’t resign his New York congressional seat despite a House ethics committee investigation and building pressure from fellow Democrats, is the liberal firebrand with a reckless appetite for sexting strange women on the Web. But the 46-year-old congressman, married for less than a year to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, may ultimately be remembered as the biggest scalp on Andrew Breitbart’s belt. 'That’s not a scalp!' the conservative Internet entrepreneur told me Tuesday afternoon, unable to suppress a licentious laugh. 'I’m a media mohel,' the 42-year-old Breitbart added with giggle, using the Hebrew term for the guy with the knife in the Jewish ritual of circumcision." (TheDailyBeast)