Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Carla Bruni -- who had a reputation as a 'man-eater' before becoming the first lady of France -- had three former lovers as houseguests when she took French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Riviera on his first vacation in her Mediterranean villa, a new book claims. The Times of London obtained an advance copy of 'Carla: A Secret Life,' an unauthorized biography of the Italian supermodel that will be published this week. Author Besma Lahouri writes that Bruni neglects her charitable works, lives a solitary life and drives her husband mad with jealousy. Her past lovers are said to include singers, philosophers, lawyers, journalists and politicians. Bruni's most famous boyfriend was Mick Jagger in the early 1990s. 'The young supermodel had long set her sights on the older and married Rolling Stone, and she called the shots once she had snared him,' the Times of London says. Notoriously cheap Jagger even once splurged on a Concorde flight from New York to Paris especially to visit her. Some of Bruni's partners went to pieces when she dumped them. According to the book, one was lawyer Arno Klarsfeld, who told Jack Lang, a former French Culture Minister, Bruni was 'a real tigress.' But Bruni has met her match, Lahouri writes -- she was unhappy when Sarkozy seemed smitten with Catherine Zeta-Jones at a dinner in New York." (PageSix)



"Iggy Pop, in all his full shirtless and sweaty glory, stood gripping the mic stand on stage at Dasha Zhukova's Pop Magazine party at Don Hill's last night. It was the most buzzed-about event of Fashion's Night Out and chances are, if you were there, you were there for a reason. Too bad Iggy Pop doesn't give a fuck about your reason. 'I think we're all aware it's Fashion Week in New York City,' Iggy growled to the mass of beautiful attendees. 'Just remember, fashion people, your pretty face is going to hell.' That set the tone for what can only be described as a raucous bash at Paul Sevigny's just-opened and hotly anticipated new project, Don Hill's. The civilized Soho shop-hopping of earlier that night was like a far-off memory now that Iggy and the Stooges had plugged in." (Observer)



"It’s hard to top a kick in the nuts. Especially when the kicker is Linda McMahon, the Connecticut Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. Pure comedy gold. Jon Stewart watches the tape and doubles over with laughter. He and fifteen of The Daily Show’s writers, producers, and performers are gathered around a 40-inch flat-screen TV inside the show’s Eleventh Avenue offices early on a Thursday morning in August. Creating a segment for tonight’s Daily Show around this footage, from one of World Wrestling Entertainment’s harmless little skits, would seem to be easy. Maybe they can just run the nut shot repeatedly. Along with another clip of McMahon, the co-founder and former CEO of WWE, chugging a beer and drooling foam down her cheek. Except that the goal here isn’t simply topping the kick in the nuts—it’s using the scrotum slam in the service of a larger point. Oh, Stewart & Co. enjoy a lowbrow laugh as much as the folks over at South Park; heck, next week they’re publishing a book that includes some excellent masturbation jokes. But Stewart and The Daily Show became America’s sharpest political satirists by aiming at least a little bit higher." (NYMag)



"YOUR blogger spent 11 hours in the (paper and ink) company of Tony Blair yesterday, and a very odd experience it was too. The former prime minister's memoirs were published in the morning, leaving just enough time to read the whole thing, then write a print column for this week's newspaper (it was a late night). Bagehot should perhaps start with a confession. Perhaps because I watched Mr Blair from abroad for almost the entirety of his term in office, I have never quite fathomed the visceral loathing he inspires in so many British people. I think his term in office was a disappointment in many ways, and regret that he only came to see the need for deep structural reforms of the public sector once it was too late, and his political capital was almost all spent. I can see how divisive a figure he was, even before the defining crisis over Iraq. He has a staggering self-belief, which comes across in his memoirs, and he has a taste for the finer things in life which sits awkwardly with British ideas of how left-wing politicians should behave. He himself admits in his book that he is manipulative, and that he was ready to trim and shade on the truth to advance his political goals. But none of these flaws make him unique as a politician. Yet he inspires unique levels of dislike." (TheEconomist)



"I've learned that Jennifer Lopez had been negotiating for a guaranteed 'go' motion picture and TV pilots at Fox to accompany an asked-for $15 million American Idol judging paycheck. But the powers-that-be who produce Idol -- Fox, Fremantle, and 19 Entertainment -- balked. It was her manager Benny Medina (whom she once fired) who first orchestrated the meeting with the Idol producers in June, and, by the end of July, J-Lo accepted the offer to be a new Idol judge. Since then, she, Medina and her producing partner Simon Fields have been trying to milk the gig for all they could get from the movie studio and broadcast network/television programmer to further her stalled career in the film/TV area. One bargaining chip they had, I can report, is that Simon Cowell already asked JLo to be a judge on the U.S. version of his The X Factor when it debuts on Fox in Fall 2011. Among JLo's demands, 'she was angling for an overall deal at Fox, including a put picture, to keep the movie career going. But Fox said no,' one insider tells me. 'In the old days, these were called a 'vanity deal' for good reason. They simply don't exist today ..'" (Deadline)



"There are two things any respectable international film festival must be sure to have in ready supply: cigarette-consuming, suit-clad Bulgarians closing international distribution deals over half-drunk Stellas, and lyric French documentaries about manic-depressive artistic geniuses and the practical people who love them. You’ll have no trouble finding the former in the hotel lobbies of downtown Toronto, and the quota of the latter is fulfilled at this year’s festival by L’amour fou, the documentary about Yves Saint Lauren. Pierre Thorreton’s quiet little film is guaranteed to satisfy the Francophile and the fashionista in one fell swoop, with equal parts romanticism, elliptical French philosophizing, and a tasteful dab of decadence. Following on the heels of successful fashion documentaries like Valentino: The Last Emperor (directed by Vanity Fair’s Matt Tyrnauer) and The September Issue, L’amour fou focuses its eye on the unwavering love of Yves’ partner and lover, Pierre Berge. Set against the backdrop of Christie’s auction of Saint Laurent’s massive art collection following his death, the documentary is dominated by Berge’s face while he reminisces and packs their personal effects off to the auction house." (VanityFair)



"This past Friday marked the beginning of Fashion Week in New York. The Couture Council of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology kicked things off with their annual benefit luncheon at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center and honored Karl Lagerfeld who made the trip from Paris for his award ...More than 550 guests gathered just before noon. The luncheon was completely sold out with a waiting list of more than 200. More than $600,000 was raised for the Museum at FIT. There were many women wearing their best Chanel and Lagerfelds to pay their individual respects. About 12:30 the white-haired/pony-tailed master arrived with entourage in two large black vans, dressed in his trademark suit (this one in a blue/grey) by Hedi Slimane with its high collar matching blue tie and studded driving gloves (also blue/grey). The designer’s arrival had all the hoopla of that of a movie star and he conducted himself accordingly in a very relaxed and engaging manner ... At the center of that was Daphne Guinness, whose shoes looked like (probably were) white ballet slippers poised on a very steep Lucite heel and accessories with (presumably) rhinestone clips. Ms. Guinness has a look that is all her own beginning with her chocolate and vanilla coif which she wears up, also accessorized. On the back of her dress was a black velvet bow to which was attached a brooch with a canary yellow diamond in the center. Someone told me that it was in fact a real diamond with a value of approximately a million dollars." (NYSocialDiary)



"When 100 young adults gathered in Hong Kong for summer school, they didn't brush up on French or calculus. Instead, they learned about the dangers of marrying without a prenuptial agreement, how to buy art and how to safeguard an inheritance. These are no ordinary students. Together, these 18- to 34-year-olds—scions of some of Asia's wealthiest families—are heirs to combined fortunes of about $50 billion. Yet their concerns as they seek to safeguard their wealth while establishing their own identities will be familiar to their peers around the world. Their classrooms were the maple-paneled library and ballrooms of the Island Shangri-La hotel, where Citigroup Inc.'s Citi Private Bank was offering a free five-day crash course called 'The Next Generation of Wealth.' Attendees' families had to have at least $10 million at the bank and pay their own travel costs ... After lessons, the young aristocrats hit the local nightclubs. Many trailed in late in the mornings or didn't show up at all. One Thai teenager with orange-tinted hair turned up late for the first session and confessed to the group he had been out partying until 4 a.m. 'The most memorable part of the Next Gen was the parties,' said Stevenson Lau, 29, who has attended the camp several times. His father wants him to take over the firm he founded, Minwa Electronics Co., but Mr. Lau, a graduate of Syracuse University, is exploring other options, having launched a 2-D bar-code venture with two friends he met at the camp in 2005." (WSJ)



"Citigroup, the most bailed out and dysfunctional of the big financial houses, has been acting extra-stupidly lately by barring an influential analyst who had the gall to question the bank’s accounting practices from meeting its senior executives. Following reporting by myself and others at Fox Business Network, Citi CEO Vikram Pandit has relented: The analyst, Mike Mayo, will get his long-awaited meeting with Citigroup brass, including Pandit himself. But the Mayo pissing match—he will be doing a victory lap of sorts this week, making the media rounds, including an appearance on Fox Business at approximately 1:30 p.m. Eastern today—shouldn’t obscure a larger story. Specifically, how this behemoth, even with all the management changes it has endured during its relatively short (12 years) and tortured history, still breeds contempt for the needs of investors and the American taxpayer, who will be on the hook once again if Citi begins to falter, a distinct possibility. The cost of Citigroup’s crappy (some would say corrupt) corporate culture became crystal clear last week, when the Securities & Exchange Commission released documents that showed just how many people inside Citigroup’s management team knew about its massive risk-taking, and the losses that would ultimately doom the bank." (Charlie Gasparino/TheDailybeast)



"Ryan Reynolds isn’t someone anyone should feel sorry for. He’s handsome, talented, and more or less guaranteed to be rich beyond his wildest dreams in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, thanks to his upcoming role as Green Lantern. According to Hollywood insiders, or at least the handful I know, he’s seen as a future megastar, and his performance in Rodrigo Cortes’s Buried, which screens Tuesday at the Toronto International Film Festival, is the type of tour-de-force that can lift an actor out of the ranks of rom-com McDreamies and onto the picture-opening A-list. It’s not just that Reynolds spends the entirety of Buried on screen; it’s that he spends it in a wooden coffin, buried under the Iraqi desert, with little more than a Zippo and an Arabic-language cell phone to keep him company. That we wind up not only feeling his pain but truly understanding him, both as an individual and as an Everyman whose predicament mirrors that of down-on-their-luck American schlubs from coast to coast and beyond, is a testament to his remarkable skill, endurance, and ingenuity as an actor." (VanityFair)



"In a nationwide referendum yesterday, Turks approved 26 amendments to the country's constitution, which supporters say will reign in the power of the military and make the government more accountable, but opponents believe will give Turkey's Islamic-oriented government too much power over the judiciary. Turkey's current constitution was originally adopted after a military coup in 1980 and has become a battleground between Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdogan's government, and the country's secular military elite. The amendments will make military officers more accountable to civilian courts, allow civil servants to go on strike, and strengthen anti-discrimination laws for women, senior citizens and the disabled. The changes were meant to bring Turkey more in line with European law and advance the country's troubled bid for EU membership. Erdogan said that Turkey had 'crossed a historic threshold toward advanced democracy and the supremacy of law'. The European Commission welcomed the vote as a "step in the right direction.'" (ForeignPolicy)



"Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room six years ago. Five hundred million people have joined since, and eight hundred and seventy-nine of them are his friends. The site is a directory of the world’s people, and a place for private citizens to create public identities ...Zuckerberg’s Facebook friends have access to his e-mail address and his cell-phone number. They can browse his photograph albums, like one titled 'The Great Goat Roast of 2009,' a record of an event held in his back yard. They know that, in early July, upon returning from the annual Allen & Company retreat for Hollywood moguls, Wall Street tycoons, and tech titans, he became Facebook friends with Barry Diller. Soon afterward, Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page, 'Is there a site that streams the World Cup final online? (I don’t own a TV.)' Since late August, it’s also been pretty easy to track Zuckerberg through a new Facebook feature called Places, which allows users to mark their location at any time. At 2:45 A.M., E.S.T., on August 29th, he was at the Ace Hotel, in New York’s garment district. He was back at Facebook’s headquarters, in Palo Alto, by 7:08 P.M. On August 31st at 10:38 P.M., he and his girlfriend were eating dinner at Taqueria La Bamba, in Mountain View. Zuckerberg may seem like an over-sharer in the age of over-sharing. But that’s kind of the point. Zuckerberg’s business model depends on our shifting notions of privacy, revelation, and sheer self-display." (TheNewYorker)



"Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian metals magnate and owner of the New Jersey Nets, figures he knows just what New York City needs: another snob. Mr. Prokhorov this week is bringing Snob, a Russian-language, general-interest magazine that caters to that country's global elite, to the U.S. Currently distributed in Russia and Britain, it will hit New York Wednesday with an initial run of about 20,000 copies of its September issue. The magazine's U.S. hub will be a small office in Dumbo. 'Russians living abroad have been rediscovering Russia,' said Masha Gessen, deputy editor in chief of Snob. For years, she said, Russians were imbued with the mentality that succeeding abroad meant permanently cutting ties to their home country. Now that so many Russians have achieved enormous financial success overseas, many of them are feeling 'secure enough to go back to the culture that unites us,' Ms. Gessen said. The name of the magazine does not mean to Russians what it means to Americans. For readers, the title Snob is 'obviously ironic,' Mr. Yakovlev said, and in fact the title is an acronym of the Russian words for accomplished, independent, educated and thriving. For Russians, a snob has come to mean a self-made man, or a person who has gained the right to snobbishness." (WSJ)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"David Koch is steaming. 'It's hateful. It's ludicrous. And it's plain wrong.' The object of his ire is a 9,963 word story in The New Yorker magazine, published last week which accuses David, his brother Charles, and Koch Industries of … well, just about everything: Secretly funding the Tea Party movement, secretly manipulating the Smithsonian, along with, not-so-secretly polluting the planet, stealing oil from Native American land, denying the existence of climate change, and promoting carcinogens—all in the self-interest of making further billions. Another profile in July, this one in New York Magazine, described Koch as 'the Tea Party’s wallet.' The news alert that a businessman with a personal net worth estimated at nearly $18 billion might wield political influence seems to have shocked, shocked, the media. Cue Rachel Maddow, who went on a televised tear, and the rest is Twitter. Perhaps this wasn’t the Pentagon Papers, but it seemed that there had been an unraveling of sorts—after all, the title of last week’s New Yorker piece was 'Covert Operations.'" (TheDailyBeast)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"The 2011 elections in Nigeria, scheduled for January 22, pose a threat to the stability of the United States’ most important partner in West Africa. The end of a power-sharing arrangement between the Muslim North and the Christian South, as now seems likely, could lead to postelection sectarian violence, paralysis of the executive branch, and even a coup. The Obama administration has little leverage over the conduct and outcome of the elections -- and if the vote does lead to chaos, Washington may no longer be able to count on Nigerian partnership in addressing African regional and security issues such as the conflicts in Darfur, Southern Sudan, and Somalia. Nigeria’s current political drama dates to November 2009, when its president, Umaru Yar’Adua, was hospitalized for a kidney condition in Saudi Arabia. Yar’Adua refused to comply with the Nigerian constitution and hand over executive authority to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. The result was a power vacuum until February 2010, when the National Assembly extralegally designated Jonathan the 'acting president' by resolution, even though there is no constitutional provision for doing so. In April, Acting President Jonathan attended the nuclear safety summit in Washington, where U.S. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden warmly embraced him, not least because his designation forestalled a possible military coup. In May 2010, the first act of Nigeria’s political tragedy ended when Yar’Adua died and Jonathan became the constitutional president. Now, Washington may be tempted to move its attention away from Nigeria -- but that would be a mistake." (ForeignAffairs)



"'What’s going on with Hillary Clinton?' has become one of Washington’s favorite cocktail-party questions in the last month—not quite up there with 'What was Mark Sanford thinking?' and 'How about that public plan?' but outranking 'Should we have a carbon tax instead of cap-and-trade?'; 'Can we win in Afghanistan?'; 'Is Mitt Romney’s hair real?'; and other hardy perennials. As a double ringer (I am a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a former HRC staffer), I’m always surprised that others are surprised or unsure of who the secretary is and what she’ll do. The clues are right there in her words, if you know where to look. Secretary Clinton’s speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday tells you a number of things you already knew, or should have known .." (TheDailyBeast)



"Two lady friends of mine, Arianna Huffington and Tina Brown, run two very successful web sites, The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast, reputed to be worth millions upon millions, yet I’m not sure anyone will pay, say, one million for either of them. It’s all still up in the air, as they say, and I include the greatest website of them all, Takimag.com, run by my own sweet little daughter Lolly. What we do have is that now everyone feels they can have their say. If they’re not glued to their cell phones talking rubbish, they’re pounding away on their blogs, frenetically trying to have their opinions read by anyone, everyone, as long as their voices are heard, read, posted. Blackberrys, Kindles, iPods, everyone is opining about everything, but I’m content to read my Speccie, my Telegraph, my Chronicles, my books, couple of tabloids, Arnaud de Borchgrave, and John Burns in the New York Times. What else does a man need?" (Taki Theodoracopulos)



"Over the past decade there has been an ongoing debate over the threat posed by electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to modern civilization. This debate has been the most heated perhaps in the United States, where the commission appointed by Congress to assess the threat to the United States warned of the dangers posed by EMP in reports released in 2004 and 2008. The commission also called for a national commitment to address the EMP threat by hardening the national infrastructure. There is little doubt that efforts by the United States to harden infrastructure against EMP — and its ability to manage critical infrastructure manually in the event of an EMP attack — have been eroded in recent decades as the Cold War ended and the threat of nuclear conflict with Russia lessened. This is also true of the U.S. military, which has spent little time contemplating such scenarios in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union. The cost of remedying the situation, especially retrofitting older systems rather than simply regulating that new systems be better hardened, is immense. And as with any issue involving massive amounts of money, the debate over guarding against EMP has become quite politicized in recent years .." (STRATFOR)



(image via NYSD)

"Warm and sunny in New York, with the humidity picking up midday but dispelled early evening by gusts of breezes suggesting autumn. I went down to Michael’s for my first lunch of the Summer’s Over season. The streets and avenues were jammed with traffic, often at a standstill. The sidewalks along Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street were jammed with people in a hurry. Michael’s wasn’t the madhouse it is when everyone’s back from the summer, but yesterday it was well on its way. At table one in the bay: Diana Taylor and Susan Mercandetti. Ms. Mercandetti, who is the executive editor at Random House, is a very popular figure among her peers in the media and political worlds. On meeting it’s easy to see why: she leaves her titles back in the office, maybe even in a bottom desk drawer. Is Ms. Taylor going to write a memoir about her New York life? Is that what they were discussing? It’s been one of the more interesting ones for women of this era. Meanwhile back at the tables: Terry Allen Kramer next door entertaining her friend Jimmy Nederlander Sr.; Rick Friedberg and Francine LeFrak entertaining Councilwoman Christine Quinn; Stanley Shuman with John Josephson; Richard Beckman, Steven Rubenstein, Euan Rellie, Carlos LaMadrid, Donna Soloway and friends; Chris Matthews with Doug Band. This is the second time in less than a week that I’ve seen Mr. Matthews out at a restaurant. Late last week I saw him at Swifty’s." (NYSocialDiary)



"Concerned that (directorJim Jarmusch is) losing interest due to hair questions from the media elite (a guy on an ice cream cart), I ask him what the likes of (Borscht Belt icon Kutsher's Country Club and Hotel) decaying kitsch brings to this unique event and he lights up. 'Kutsher's is fantastic; what a perfect place. It's contained (read: minimal civilian interaction), the venues are great and they're indoors (read: 'no nasty sunlight'), they got these different bars (read: no lines for drinks), everyone's sort of all together...' which is true. Just under 3,000 people attend the intimate indoor showcases, a fraction of what larger summer festivals draw. This smaller attendance and the fact that the majority of these attendees stay in the rooms at Kutsher's, creates a campus like feel to the grounds as they're possessed for the weekend by all manner and ilk of music aficionados. These creatures, all piled on top of each other sleep sometimes six or eight or more to a room, some sleep in the lobby, others sleep out by the manmade lake and still others, others never sleep at all. Even the musicians stay at the hotel to roam the halls and mingle with the masses during the shows. Jarmusch continues, 'Kutsher's is not some state-of-the-art resort. It has it's history, but it's kind of hard for 2,000 rock and rollers to really mess it up very much. I like that it's here... It's perfect.' He then runs through his lineup choices he's curated for Sunday, a day of music that will blend post rock, neo garage, shoegaze psych, post-hardcore, delta blues, [breath] hipster pop, hip hop and an experimental doom explosion. And that's just Sunday." (Papermag)



"Vogue's Fashion's Night Out runway show at Lincoln Center could have been a painfully long affair. After all, the event featured 150 models, 171 looks, a public seating, a mini concert by Pharell Williams, a front row featuring at least three dozen worthy notables, and more CBS cameras than found on most Paramount lots. But Anna Wintour wouldn’t have let the likes of Roger Federer and Si Newhouse sweat for three hours. This was a delightfully efficient affair during which Gisele, Naomi Campbell, Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Sasha Pivovarova, and Lara Stone (among countless other leggy superstars) put on a dizzying, well orchestrated display that lasted exactly 14 minutes and commenced right on time. 'Was this it?' wondered basketball superstar Amar'e Stoudemire right after the show. 'I’m so new to this, so now I think I got a little bit spoiled too early.' He wasn’t the only one. 'I feel like this is like every girl’s dream, sitting in the middle of the fountain and watching pretty outfits go by,' said an excited Caroline Wozniacki, who, like Federer, took a night off from Flushing and the US Open for the night. 'I’ve been trying to check the score of Venus’ match on the Blackberry,' added Serena Williams, while her older sister played at Arthur Ashe." (DailyFrontRow)



"'Does anyone have a cigarette?' model Erin Wasson requested of anyone who was listening, after a surprise performance by Alison Goldfrapp during the fifth-anniversary for Viktor & Rolf's fragrance, Flowerbomb, at a private townhouse on Grove Street last night. (Ms. Goldfrapp was bedecked, gloriously, in one of the tulle confections from Viktor & Rolf's spring/summer 2010 collection; she sang three of her own songs before breaking into a rousing rendition of 'Happy Birthday' dedicated to Flowerbomb.) A helpful bystander offered one—but clarified that it would have to be a Virginia Slim. 'Beggars can't be choosers,' Ms. Wasson replied cheerfully, accepting it without further ado. Ms. Wasson is busy this week: on Friday night alone, she has three appearances to make, at Opening Ceremony, Henri Bendel, and a Vogue event. 'I need to like, metamorphosis into an octopus so that I can completely deal with all of it,' she confided. We also chatted with Ladyfag, who sported a Michael Angel dress and her signature augmented eyebrows, and fashion vet Lynn Yaeger, no stranger to distinctive makeup herself, who told us that when she started covering Fashion Week, she thought she had a duty to attend up to eight shows a day. (Four shows plus a party is a more reasonable upper limit, Ms. Yaeger recommended.)" (Observer)



"The crowd was especially stylish yesterday at the Monkey Bar, where Vanity Fair celebrated the latest additions to its International Best-Dressed List. Diane Kruger, Dylan Lauren, Wendi Murdoch, Hope Atherton, Tory Burch and Stacey Bendet Eisner all looked like they were ready for Fashion Week. The list and the lunch also included Andre Balazs, Waris Ahluwalia, Jonathan and Lizzie Tisch, and Nacho Figueras and Delfina Blaquier. Among lunch guests who didn't qualify this year because they're already in the Best-Dressed Hall of Fame: Graydon Carter, Daphne Guinness, Carolina and Reinaldo Herrera, Mica Ertegun and Amy Fine Collins, who oversees the selections." (PageSix)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"The question, some Middle East experts asked, is whether Mrs. Clinton has the negotiating grit to keep both men at the table — the mysterious combination of bluster, theatrics, hand-holding and guile that secretaries of state, like Henry A. Kissinger and James A. Baker III, have deployed to forge agreements between Arabs and Israelis. 'She’s plenty tough, tougher than her husband,' said Aaron David Miller, who worked on peace negotiations in the Clinton administration. 'But does she have a negotiator’s mind-set? These are tough people in a tough neighborhood, who know how to manipulate people.' Early in her tenure, some questioned the scope of Mrs. Clinton’s role after the appointment of highly visible special emissaries like Mr. Mitchell and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Others suggest that in the case of the Middle East, where Mr. Mitchell has an influential voice in making policy, she was insulating herself from potential failure. If so, that is no longer an option. Mrs. Clinton got her first taste of high-wire negotiating last October in Zurich when she headed off a last-minute dispute that nearly scuttled an agreement between Turkey and Armenia on normalizing diplomatic relations. Sitting in a black BMW limousine, she juggled two cellphones, slowly nudging two ancient enemies together, if only temporarily. In June, at a hotel bar in Lima, Peru, she finalized a deal with a Chinese diplomat over which companies could be named in a United Nations resolution punishing Iran for its nuclear program. But these are sideshows compared with the challenge of bringing together wary foes who have spent six decades avoiding a deal." (NYTimes)



"Lake Como, Italy has long been a haven for celebrities seeking reprieve from the spotlight. It is not uncommon to see Catherine Zeta Jones, Robert De Niro, or Madonna dining at a local restaurant. But when George Clooney fell in love with the place nine years ago, the tiny town was transformed from casual celebrity hangout into a paparazzi paradise. It might never be the same. When Clooney bought his fabulous 18th Century Villa Oleandra here in 2001, it was part of the Heinz Ketchup family estate. The estate has 25 rooms and butts onto the lake in Laglio, a tiny hamlet of less than 900 a few kilometers from the Swiss border. He also purchased two adjoining properties to use as an editing suite and garage for his motorcycles. The acquisition upended everyone’s existence, including the actor’s himself ... Even though Italian designers Donatella Versace and Giorgio Armani both have equally lavish villas on this side of the lake, neither attracts the same attention as Clooney. During the summer months, when his famous friends like Uma Thurman, Brad Pitt, and David Beckham were visiting, boats and helicopters swarmed the area. When Clooney’s friends John Krasinski and Emily Blunt were married on the grounds in July, local police had to set up road blocks and close off the air space above to try to control the paparazzi. But the locals don’t seem to mind a bit. In fact, chasing George Clooney is a local pastime that they blatantly capitalize on." (TheDailybeast)



"Could Serena Williams have her eye on hot R&B star Drake? Sources tell us she's asked her agents to arrange an introduction to Drake, who at 23 is five years younger. One source said, 'They're hoping to fix up a meeting with Serena when he plays Radio City later this month.' Williams, who split with actor/rapper Common in May, might be just what Drake wants. 'I love older women . . . I love experience and maturity and the conversation," he told a radio station this week. "I like to learn from an individual, like, when we converse, I like to re ally be able to soak it all in, the knowledge, the wisdom, all that.' Williams' rep didn't get back to us." (PageSix)



"I had lunch at Swifty’s with Dennis and Terry Stanfill, their daughter Francesca and our mutual friend Sassy Johnson. The Stanfills are in from Southern California to visit their daughter and son-in-law Dick Ney at their house in Southampton. The restaurant’s folding door-windows were open because of the warm weather, and we were seated right there by the sidewalk. The belching and rumbling and screeching of the heavy traffic was bamming our ears. New Yorkers tend to forget that out of towners are not used to that cacophony of mechanical screeches, hisses and fits. Although the Stanfills didn’t seem to mind it as much as this writer. The conversation began with stories about Larry Ashmead, the great book editor who died last Friday (see NYSD 9.7.10), and from there, serendipitously into the mythic world of Babe Paley, one of the characters in the book I was hired to write for Larry (and never did)." (NYSocialDiary)



"Had quite a busy day yesterday in L.A. running around town. The most fun, however, was last night, when I schlepped Jeffrey Deitch to visit the amazing, brilliant 94-year-old artist and funny lady Phyllis Diller at her Brentwood home. Jeffrey loved Phyllis and was so excited by her work, home, style and general aesthetic. Of course I couldn't resist art shopping and bought two of her fab paintings. One is of a NUDE JUGGLER (Ms. Diller cackled loudly and asked, 'Which balls do you watch?') and the other is one of her absurd, but amazing, face paintings. I think Jeffrey's mind was blown by her art. He also bought an amazing piece that I'm jealous of -- a self portrait of Ms. Diller painted over musical notes." (Kim Hastreiter/Papermag)



"Los Penetrados (The Penetrated) is a 45-minute film elaborated in eight acts by the Spanish artist Santiago Serra. Staged geometrically, ten couples have sex in versatile position facing mirrors. In this allegoric porn performance act, each participant embodies a social position according to gender, class, race and have a determined place in Serra’s imposed economy paradigm. The work will be show from September 9th until October 23rd, 2010 at Team Gallery, 83 Grand Street, New York." (TeamGal)



"Democrats are facing the prospect of a Republican tidal wave, as unemployment inches up and President Obama’s approval ratings tumble down. As the fall campaign heats up in earnest, Obama needs his political team to blot out distractions as they focus on the daunting challenge of trying to retain control of the House and Senate. Their focus will be sorely tested by the surprise news Tuesday afternoon that Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago would not run for re-election—sparking speculation that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff and a key player in the midterm elections, might head home to Illinois to seek the job. The announcement is sure to test Team Obama’s unity—and could speed up the timetable for a major shakeup of the White House political operation, rumored to be coming as soon as the midterm balloting is over. A look at the major players and the odds of their defecting .." (Richard Wolff/TheDailyBeast)



"Brazil's economy maintained its torrid pace of growth in the second quarter, continuing a boom in Latin America's largest economy despite a series of interest rate hikes. Growth surpassed most expectations, and will likely lead economists to raise their forecasts for 2010 as a whole. But a debate rages over the prospects in 2011, with some economists arguing the government should be applying the breaks now, both through lower spending and higher interest rates, to avoid overheating next year. Gross domestic product expanded 8.8% in the second quarter from a year ago, the Brazilian statistics agency, or IBGE, said Friday. That was above the median forecast of 7.9% from a survey of 15 economists by Dow Jones Newswires. Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the first half performance means the economy will grow by at least 7% this year, which 'would represent the best performance in 24 years, and without inflation.' Of the world's major economies, only China is doing better, said Mr. Mantega." (WSJ)



"Over the past decade, Brazil’s students have scored among the lowest of any country’s students taking international exams for basic skills like reading, mathematics and science, trailing fellow Latin American nations like Chile, Uruguay and Mexico.Brazilian 15-year-olds tied for 49th out of 56 countries on the reading exam of the Program for International Student Assessment, with more than half scoring in the test’s bottom reading level in 2006, the most recent year available. In math and science, they fared even worse. 'We should be ashamed of ourselves,' said Ilona Becskeházy, executive director of the Lemann Foundation, an organization based in São Paulo devoted to improving Brazilian education. 'This means that 15-year-olds in Brazil are mastering more or less the same skills as 9-year-olds or 10-year-olds in countries such as Denmark or Finland.' The task confronting the nation — and Mr. da Silva’s legacy — is daunting." (NYT)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Subtle shifts in the balance of power are difficult to detect yet of foremost importance to peace and stability. And even if detected in a timely fashion, policymakers can be slow to react. But maintaining a balance of power favorable to one's interests is one of a president's key tasks. On that score, our leaders have been negligent for over a decade. Occasionally, presidents detect shifts in the military balance when it is too late and then compound the problem by responding with questionable policy choices. For example, President Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation was, in part, a response to what seemed to be a loss of the U.S nuclear monopoly and Soviet conventional supremacy in continental Europe. (Eisenhower also wanted to maintain U.S superiority on the cheap -- by cutting Truman's conventional defense build-up). A policy of responding with a nuclear attack to Soviet aggression anywhere did not seem very prudent to many at the time, but at least the president took the perceived shift in the balance of power seriously. Some of President Nixon and Carter's questionable arms control ideas were a response to a shift in the strategic balance in favor of the Soviets. Unfortunately, most of the time, policymakers do not react to an adversary's growing capabilities until met with disaster (e.g. Pearl Harbor, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 9/11). Today the balance of power in Asia is shifting. Since the end of World War II, Washington has kept the peace in Asia through its forward presence of military forces and its uncontested ability to project force into the region. Take an example from just 14 years ago. Realizing how destabilizing were China's missile tests conducted in the waters around Taiwan, President Clinton sent carrier battle groups near the Taiwan Strait. The missile tests stopped, Taiwan held its elections, and conflict was avoided. Today, any president would think twice about doing the same." (ForeignPolicy)



"In the summer of 1985, I was living in Los Angeles when a friend mine, a Viennese woman by the name of Marlene MacDonald sublet her apartment for a couple of months to Kitty Kelley, who was researching a biography she was writing about Frank Sinatra. Although I didn’t personally know Sinatra, I knew several who knew him well and had known him for a long time. Marlene knew that and suggested Kitty call me to interview. Which she did. At that moment, in the world that was Hollywood, Sinatra was king. There were bigger stars, directors and producers, bigger corporate film executives, richer, and currently more famous, but Sinatra possessed an eminence gris, however you want to look at it. He was without peer. This status, which appeared to be lifelong to his public, was something he consciously acquired over the years, after his great comeback in the mid-1950s, cultivating the friendship of the social lions and lionesses of the film colony as it existed then. Despite the fact that Sinatra was well known to be a no-bullshit person, he was a sophisticated man in many ways. He liked the company of the rich, the chic and the shameless wherever he traveled, particularly if they came with the provenance of power, be it industry, celebrity, or political." (NYSocialDiary)



"CNBC Closing Bell host Maria Bartiromo is teaching a class at New York University's Stern School of Business this fall, according to Bess Levin. The class is called 'Global Markets and Normative Frameworks,' and she's co-teaching with Ripplewood Holdings CEO Tim Collins. Ms. Bartiromo grew up in Brooklyn and studied at N.Y.U. herself. In those days she worked as a teller at an Off-Track Betting location. 'It’s probably subconscious,' Ms. Bartiromo told Vanity Fair's John Helpiern in an interview for the this month's issue, 'but the O.T.B.’s urgent pace and dealing with money all day could have planted the seed for wanting to report from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.' Working at O.T.B. probably also prepared Ms. Bartiromo to handle N.Y.U. business students who don't know how to take a B+ on the chin." (Observer)



"At 3 in the afternoon, we slid into a booth at Tony Roma’s restaurant in Lexington. I told (William) Shatner I was exhausted from chasing him all over in the rain. 'I was just trying to torment you,' he said. The waiter appeared. I said I wanted a salad for an appetizer, and Shatner interrupted: 'No! He’ll have the ribs appetizer.' I said I didn’t want the ribs. 'You’re having the ribs,' he said. 'They’re delicious.' Liz said, 'But honey, he doesn’t want the ribs.' Shatner said: 'He’s. Having. The. Ribs.' Then, sharply, he added: 'This is the man’s table. Go sit over there at the woman’s table.' Liz ignored him and began talking about the equestrian games. Shatner shrugged, as if defeated. When the ribs arrived, we all picked at them. 'These are good,' I said. 'I think I’ll have them as a main course, too.' But Shatner said: 'No. Have something else.' I said, 'But I want the ribs!' Shatner said: 'Some. Thing. Else.' I ordered a sandwich. The waiter asked if I wanted coleslaw or fries. Shatner answered, 'He’ll have the fries.' I said I wanted the coleslaw. Shatner said: 'I. Want. The. Fries.' I pointed out that he was having a baked potato. He said: 'All right. I’ll let you have some of my potato.'" (NYTimesmag)



"What fortuitous timing for Natalie Portman's tour de force in Black Swan to be unveiled on the festival circuit! The Oscar buzz for her performance certainly helped Portman get the offer for the female lead in the Alfonso Cuaron-directed 3D thrill ride Gravity. When Deadline described Warner Bros' dilemma last week as it tried to find an actress who could carry nearly the entire $80 million film on her shoulders following Angelina Jolie's decision to pass for a second time, we reported that the studio was focusing on Portman and Sandra Bullock. The movie belongs to the actress and not co-star Robert Downey Jr., who'll spend only about three weeks filming. Portman, who is more age-appropriate for the role as Cuaron and his son Jonas wrote it, is an intriguing choice here and it seemed just a matter of time until she found her breakout vehicle." (Deadline)



"This book should be required reading for everybody who wants a career in rock and roll. How do you make it? You take one good-looking performer with focus and an unyielding desire to make it. You connect said person with a manager willing to bend every corner, lie, cheat and steal in order to see his charge succeed so he can take his twenty percent. And you get your songs written by Desmond Child. Desmond is the unsung hero of the Bon Jovi story. Reading this book, you realize that without him, Bon Jovi is just a band of big-haired wannabes with a minor radio hit featuring the piano playing of a member of the E Street Band. Oh, where to begin. This book was written by Rich Bozzett, Bon Jovi's original tour manager." (LefsetsLetter)



"In the middle of the explosive U.N. report on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was leaked to the French press last week, the reader finds a map of that vast country with red arrows branching from east to west. The arrows trace the twisting path taken by tens of thousands of starving Hutu refugees across the immense, trackless jungle as they fled before Rwandan troops and their local surrogates, who kept catching up to them and killing as many as possible. The idea of a relentless campaign of murder carried out by Rwanda's Tutsi government, which came to power in the aftermath of the 1994 Hutu-led genocide, is both sickening and shocking. But the report, whose formal publication Rwanda has succeeded in postponing until Oct. 1, is unequivocal: 'The massacres in Mbandaka and Wendji, committed on 13 May 1997 in Équateur Province, over 2,000 kilometres west of Rwanda, were the final stage in the hunt for Hutu refugees that had begun in eastern Zaire, in North and South Kivu, in October 1996.' 'Hunt' is a terrible word when applied to humans. Whether or not that seven-month killing spree constitutes genocide will, as the authors note, be a matter for competent courts to decide -- though they present a plausible case that it does. Even if some future tribunal concludes that the dreadful acts amount "only" to crimes against humanity, this meticulous document offers a powerful rebuke both to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has adroitly and cynically used his country's suffering as a shield behind which to advance its regional interests, and to his backers in Washington and London, who have unquestioningly accepted the country's unique victim status." (ForeignPolicy)



"ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer has the first television interview with author and journalist Bob Woodward, who is promoting his upcoming book Obama's Wars. The book is due to be released September 27, and Sawyer's interview will air that day. Excerpts will also run on Good Morning America and Nightline. Woodward, of course, is one-half of the team that brought down President Richard Nixon during Watergate. His previous book, The War Within, focused on the Bush Administration's internal dialogue and debate about the Iraq war." (TVNewser)

Labor Day

No posts today. Drinking ice cold adult beverages. Be back tomorrow,

xo,
R

Why Is Tony Blair Such A Prick?



Interessant. From The Guardian:

So Gordon Brown has made his counter-move in the post-power war of words and reputations with Tony Blair.

As the Guardian reports on page one today, Brown has let it be known that he plans to work for a number of charities with global reach, and to do so for no financial gain.

What should we make of this? I think we should all take a deep breath and, whatever we think of Brown, Blair or the pair of them, say: 'Well done, Gordon. Good luck with your new life. We hope you find it fulfilling.'

There has been controversy over the timing of Blair's book, A Journey, with some claiming it was published with a view to influencing the voting stage of the Labour leadership contest. My usually level-headed colleague, Polly Toynbee, has even suggested Blair is guilty of treason against his party. He should have waited even longer, Pol says.

Granted, Tony Blair is probably correct in his assessment that, fundamentally, Gordon Brown was/is temperamentally unsuited to holding the reins of political power. But does that explain Why Blair essentially reneged on his promise to hand over the British Prime Ministership ("'Gordon had not seized the moment") until the last possible minute -- a terrible time, politically -- all but dooming Brown? All with that trademark Blair fake-assed smile... (Averted Gaze)

By that reasoning George Bush -- with whom Blair shares in common a great deal -- was a-Okay in playing racial politics in the notoriously oily South Carolina primary in 2000 (Bush also thought of McCain as fundamentally a "loser"), winning and pushing back the Arizona Senator's shot another 8 years.

Finally, why would Blair release his scathing thoughts on Brown so fucking soon? This could have waited another 10 years -- Blair certainly doesn't need the money (though probably he needs the redemption).

What has happened to manners and civility in the UK? He deserved better than being kicked when he is down; he deserves better than being Tony Blair's perennial whipping boy. Say what you will about Gordon Brown -- he didn't have the chops; he was a lugubrious chap; he was mired in loserdust -- but he was and is a decent man.


The same, alas, cannot be said of Tony Blair.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Who would want to be in the shoes of Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, or for that matter, in those of Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank? They are grappling with a fiendish dilemma. As concern about a double dip grows, there is rising pressure for more stimulus. But the more addicted western economies become to aid, the harder it will be to implement exit strategies. No wonder markets seem uneasy; squaring this circle looks extremely hard. As the policy debate intensifies, investors might spare a thought for Korekiyo Takahashi, Bank of Japan governor from 1911 to 1913. He also served as finance minister and prime minister in the 1920s and 1930s. Outside Japan, few western investors know the name. For while there is discussion about what can be learnt from Japan’s lost decade, little attention has been paid to earlier periods. The experience of 1930s Japan is thought-provoking. Not only does it help explain the decisions that Tokyo leaders took during the lost decade; it offers a cautionary tale about exit strategies." (FT)



"To celebrate 25 years of British ELLE, I was invited to join them in their biggest editorial ever. The inspiration for the shoot was a 1969 Jane Fonda movie called 'They Shoot Horses, Don't they?'. The premise of the film and of the shoot was a depression era dance competition in which couples literally danced until they dropped, sometimes for days on end with little to no sleep. The Elle team and I set up in a giant warehouse in Brooklyn to reenact this movie. For three days the other models and I pushed ourselves past the point of exhaustion to dance all day, every day in a space that was probably over 100 degrees in temperature. This was method acting at its finest as we were literally living the movie. The shoot was probably one of the most intense I've ever experienced, but the pictures that resulted were worth the effort." (OhSoCoco)



"Sales-Week Ending 8/29/10. 1. Katy Perry 'Teenage Dream.' Sales this week: 192,122. Debut. She's got no fans. People want to bump their asses to her hits, want to download and delete them, but they don't care about this two-dimensional icon playing by rules that comport not a whit with reality. Put her on tour. See how many tickets she can sell. Bupkes. Do not equate media coverage with fandom. And today, only fandom counts, there's not enough money in record sales, and without fans, you've got no longevity, and the big revenue comes from longevity. This is hardly different from The Jersey Shore. No-talents surrounded by professionals creating a sleek product wherein you laugh and have contempt for the players. If Katy Perry wanted to gain our trust, she'd make a video of herself at the piano, or playing an acoustic guitar, warbling her composition sans backup. This is what cemented GaGa's cred and career, that video that illustrated she truly had talent, when she played alone at the keyboard. We're still waiting for Katy to prove she's talented. Many people trade on their sexuality." (LefsetzLetter)



"John Boehner is in dress rehearsal to become the Speaker of the House for the putative Republican Congress, and what the feverish partisans among us need to accept is that this chain-smoking, conflict-averse, glad-handing and peculiarly orange-tinged golfer is the pay-off for the last two years of Lilliputian turmoil. No matter how successful the Tea Party and Club for Growth vote on Election Day—60-seat swing! Coup de main!—all the king's horses cannot do more come January and the 112th Congress than to wait on the modest brainpower of a 61-year-old professional Ohio pol who, on his best day, is described by a wag as so out of touch with the American culture that he thinks of himself as cool, just like Dean Martin. What does John Boehner say of his plans for the No. 3 job in the Republic? Two of his recent policy speeches in Cleveland and Milwaukee are so stunningly facile that there is an open question whether the guileless Mr. Boehner is putting us on. Boehner warned with a mighty trumpet, 'Never before has the need for a fresh start in Washington been more pressing.' Boehner cried out like a blue-eyed Jeremiah for 'a series of immediate actions to end the ongoing economic uncertainty…' Boehner proposed with drum-rolling militancy, '…We must focus on working together to identify our national security priorities …' What explains this colossal banality? Grant that Boehner is a foreign-policy tenderfoot after two decades of kissing the hem of the domestic Abramoffs. Still, his remarks on the economy suggest, as Mark Twain taught us to repeat, that he is an idiot as well as a member of Congress. It may be possible that Boehner, one of 12 children of a modest tavern keeper in Cincinnati, has worked so hard at being an anonymous footman since entering Congress in 1990 as part of Newt Gingrich’s dynamiters that he's incapable of the cogency associated with historical memory." (TheDailyBeast)



"Alexandra Lebenthal’s The Recessionistas has pegged the atmosphere in her portrait of the well-heeled now finishing out their summer at their seaside villas, because although the story takes place in 2008, the air today is full of gnawing uncertainty. Me, I’m enthralled reading THE SUGAR KING OF HAVANA; The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba’s Last Tycoon. Julio Lobo is an unknown name at the beginning of the 21st century, except in Cuba where fifty years after his departure, their term for 'rich as Croesus' is ser rico como un Julio Lobo ('to be as rich as Julio Lobo'). This is after fifty years of communism and Fidel. He was known as The King of Sugar, the magnate who handled half of Cuba’s annual sugar production. He possessed a fortune of $200 million, or $5 billion in today’s dollars. He was also one of the great supporters of the revolution of Fidel Castro. In the 1950s, he responded to the need to get rid of the corrupt Batista government by backing Castro. After Castro succeeded, Che Guevara offered him the position of running the Ministry of Sugar for the new regime. They needed him although they had taken all but one mill from him." (NYSocialDiary)



"Some Jewish fashionistas are peeved they have to work on Rosh Hashanah at the Vogue-championed Fashion's Night Out on Sept. 10. Though the shopping event was scheduled to accommodate the holiday's start at sundown on Wednesday, the nightime retail extravaganza takes place next Friday and begins before the end of the High Holiday. 'No one would dare ask us to work on Christmas,' one fashionably observant Jew snipped. Some are working around the event: Ivanka Trump, now married to an Orthodox Jared Kushner, will not make personal appearances at Fashion's Night Out, and Yigal Azrouel will appear only for a short time Friday night at his West 14th Street boutique. Azrouel also moved his runway shows from Friday to the following week, on Sept. 14 and 15." (PageSix)



"It increasingly seems that French statesman Charles de Gaulle was right when he proudly claimed in 1952 that 'everyone has been, is, or will be a Gaullist.' Certainly, France is experiencing a surge of interest in its former president: The country has just lavishly celebrated the 70th anniversary of de Gaulle's launch of the French Resistance on the BBC airwaves, and the public has been bombarded with conferences, exhibitions, radio and television programs, and publications of all kinds, from hagiographic works to novels (Benoît Duteurtre's Return of the General, in which de Gaulle comes back from the dead to save France once again) to comic-strip adaptations (Jean-Yves Ferri's De Gaulle at the Beach). The third volume of de Gaulle's War Memoirs has even been put on the standard high school curriculum. But France is not alone in actively kindling admiration for its former president; political leaders around the world have long looked to de Gaulle's stalwart style of statesmanship for inspiration and guidance, and the last few years have seen a flowering of their interest in the old general. His memoirs have been translated into 25 languages, and statues have been erected in his honor in Brazzaville, Bucharest, London, Moscow, Quebec, and Warsaw. Along with Mahatma Gandhi and Che Guevara, de Gaulle is one of the few truly global historical figures from the post-World War II era: His fervent admirers include monarchists and conservatives in Europe, nationalists of various hues in the Arab world (Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi posthumously decorated de Gaulle with the highest medal of the Libyan state), and Marxist revolutionaries (Fidel Castro waxed lyrical about the general in his recent autobiography)." (ForeignPolicy)



"Robert Rodriguez’s blade-wielding ex-federale should win what is shaping up to be a sluggish holiday weekend weekend at the box office -- but just by a knife point. With its ultra-violence and clever viral marketing campaign, the Fox film bursts in with the most heat, but its primary competition, both of which appeal to markedly different demographics, should be close behind. That would be Warner Bros.' rom-com 'Going the Distance,' with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, and Focus' George Clooney-starrer, 'The American,' which debuted on Wednesday. Opening in 2,669 theaters, 'Machete' should bring in between $12 to $15 million over the four day weekend, according to pre-release surveys. 'Even though it's a hard 'R,' it’s a hoot and will appeal to a broader audience than just young males,' Chris Aronson, executive vice president of distribution for Fox. told TheWrap." (TheWrap)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"It is precisely because it is unimaginable that Sarah Palin could play the role of honest broker on the international stage on an issue such as Middle East peace that she will never be president. For better or for worse, being president of the United States requires individuals who can assume such a role. Indeed, the success or failure of many American presidents has turned on whether or not they have risen to the challenges of international statesmanship. The American people recognize this fact and with very few exceptions look for character traits in winning candidates that translate into presidents who can hold their own with top leaders on vital issues (although sadly, international experience is not one of them). This week, with the renewal of direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, President Obama's test in this defining crucible will begin." (David Rothkof/ForeignPolicy)



"On Aug. 11, real estate blog Curbed posted a seemingly innocuous scoop: Rachel Maddow and her partner, Susan Mikula, had bought Michael Stipe's old apartment at 130 Jane Street for a cool $1.25 million. The blogger, Sara Polsky, also posted photos and a floorplan for the apartment, apparently attained from Corcoran's Web site. So far, so good. But Ms. Maddow, seemingly unfamiliar with New York's celebrity-intoxicated real estate press, was not pleased. On Sunday, she told New York magazine, 'They may get a lot of page views for that, but I think they would have gotten just as many page views if they had redacted my address and considered my safety and privacy. Whoever at Curbed decided the actual address and floor plan was necessary to get those page views, I hope they die in a fire.'" (Observer)



"Paris (Hilton) and her less ridiculous sister, Nicky, showed up one summer in the Hamptons in the late 90s. I remember meeting them for the first time at a benefit at the Parrish Art Museum. They looked like Eastern European hookers, decked out in Versace, or some such vulgarity. They were not even twenty. Their horribly pushy mother came to me—I was then the managing editor of Hamptons magazine, and she wanted me to give Nicky a summer internship, which I did. Nicky was reserved and efficient, though I could never quite make heads or tails of her. I imagine if Nicky had been prettier, she would have ended up much like her sister. I would only see Paris out at night; she thought she was somebody, and was clearly peculiar. One evening in a Manhattan club I saw her dry hump a support column for several hours while flashing her pantyless crotch to everyone around her. Poor Paris was desperate for something. But Hilton couldn’t quite crack the social scene in New York. Her low-rent star-seeking ways were too cheap for the East Coast." (Mandolyna Theodoracopulos)



"Were we seeing a reinvented Glenn Beck? Had the political commentator turned tent pole revivalist for good? Based on the material so far published at The Blaze, the answer is no: The site is part The Drudge Report and part Big Government, insofar as its content is mostly driven by a populist right-leaning political agenda. It's also less angry than those sites, and infused with notes of Beck's weirdness." (TheDailybeast)



"When he wanted to interview a source in Connecticut for a recent 'World News' story on technology, ABC reporter Pierre Thomas didn't even leave the office. ABC's cameras showed him sitting in front of a computer screen, talking to Michael Coppolla through Skype. The video phone service has become an important tool for television news organizations over the past several months. Producers say it enables them to reach many more people for interviews. It also saves money, although its current users insist Skype won't become a crutch. Skype encourages news organizations to use the service, doesn't charge for it and offers detailed advice on how to best take advantage of the technology. The company asks networks to display its logo or verbally identify Skype. 'It really has changed the way we do business,' said Tom Costello, a Washington-based NBC News reporter." (ABC News via TVNewser)



"Porto Cervo, I was told by someone knowledgeable a couple days before at Baroness Thyssen’s late afternoon drinks party, is a fairly new community built specifically for the rich and their yachts. I had no idea exactly what that meant but on arrival it is easy to see. A small bay wall-to-wall with big yachts and sailing ships, and at its center a large and rambling two- and three-story hotel and shopping mall (it turns out) which, again like Cala di Volpe is a faded salmon pink. And in the hillsides on either side, like architectural outcroppings, are smaller versions of that Mediterranean adobe/stucco and stone villas, some white, some salmon pink, some yellow. Idyllic, not fancy although very likely not modest, the scene is almost quaint and simple in feeling." (NySocialDiary)