In yet another softball interview regarding Brown's brutal attack on ex-girlfriend Rihanna earlier this year, Robin Roberts sat down with the oh-so-redeemed R&B star to discuss the abuse, the fallout from the abuse, how he made Rihanna cry with a song she claims she's never heard before, and and perhaps most importantly, to promote his new album and show off his dope sneaker collection. Isn't he the coolest, you guys?!

Brown seems to take a great deal of pride in the fact that he made Rihanna cry with the song he wrote for her, as if it's some great accomplishment on his part that he was able to evoke an emotional response from a woman he beat horribly just months earlier. Whether or not Rihanna has heard the song is unclear, but the point is that she said she didn't, and Brown still insists on undermining her interview in order to promote himself as some romantic savior with magical songwriting healing powers.

It is a quality in Brown that seems to come out in every interview he gives on the issue: he's sorry for "what happened" or "what went down" (he never seems to actually say, "I'm sorry for beating/physically assaulting my ex-girlfriend") and plays himself up as some angelic changed man who should be commended for writing apologetic love songs and going through mandatory community service and domestic violence classes. As Chris Richards of the Washington Post writes, since the assault, "the 20-year-old Brown has shown various faces to the media — flip, contrite, smug, confused — apologizing at every turn while still seeming not to fully grasp the severity of his misdeeds."

But why shouldn't Chris Brown be smug? Why shouldn't he sit there in that chair and gleefully report that he made Rihanna cry with his song? With networks continually giving him and his album a promotional faux-contrition platform, why shouldn't Brown seize the spotlight and play the role he seems best at playing as of late: the brand new man, who surely has, as Roberts breathlessly adds in a post-interview voiceover as his new video plays in the background, become someone whose lyrics show "lessons learned and love lost." Ah yes, lessons learned and love lost. For what truly sums up the effects and fall out of domestic violence, not only on those involved but on society as a whole as well as "love lost," right?

We are all supposed to forgive Brown: he has paid his dues and given his apologies. Even Rihanna wants to move on at this point. But none of this makes it okay for networks to continually hand Brown a platform to show the world what a super guy he is and how his new album is going to wash away his sins. The message everyone is sending is that it's perfectly okay to beat the living hell out of someone and return to glory less than a year later, thanks to a few classes, a few half-ass apologies, and a song or two. It isn't a new message: we've seen it before and surely we'll see it again. Could Brown really be sorry? Could he really have changed? Perhaps. Forgiveness and change exist, but they're a tough sell when promoting your new record seems to be the push behind them, an lately it seems that everyone is giving him a spotlight and an invitation to return before he's shown any honest signs of deserving it.

Onstage, At Least, Chris Brown Has Nothing To Apologize For [WashingtonPost]

If anyone's wondering why Ashley's popping up, it's because she has a single out on MySpace, which Watch What Happens host Andy Cohen mentions at the end of the clip. Ashley makes a reasonable point that others have pointed out about the women who are currently claming that Tiger Woods cheated with them: "I was forced into this situation, I had no choice, and these girls for them to just come forward, I don't understand that, I don't know who would want what I have." Of course, Ashley is saying this on TV, so maybe they do want what she accidentally got: fame at any cost.

Related: Ashley Dupre Cannot Stop Talking to Tabloids About Prostitution [Gawker]

"He was a bit skittish at first and didn't want to come out of his cage. But soon, we found apple treats. Appluh snack thaz whah we like bluhhhh bluhh":

Little Lost Pony "Like a Giant Dog" [The Awl]

Have you ever met a self-described "guido" or "guidette"? I haven't, and I've lived within their purported stomping grounds for a decade. In fact, I bet that 99% of Americans have never met one, which is probably the bet MTV execs were making when they greenlighted this show, because the whole point of it seems to be to allow members of a tiny splintered-off sub-group, a small social network, really, to present themselves before the the largest possible audience that will feel comfortable looking down on them. Remember in Independence Day, when the aliens came and all of the nations and religions and creeds forgot their differences and came together to fight them? The same concept is at work here (though it can be argued that all of reality TV is like that on some level.) It's been said before: we watch reality TV so we can celebrate and take comfort in the fact that we're different, we're not like these people. MTV has simply raised the ante by choosing to present eight horrible people who define themselves by the same ethnicity. And yes, that is bad, but to get too worked up about it (as Italian Americans, as people from New Jersey, as reasonable human beings with the ability to reason and a sense of fairness), while understandable, is to play right into MTV's hands.

Because as repulsive and wrong as this show is, isn't calling it racist (or ethnicist) kind of...racist (or ethnicist)? Yes, it's annoying that the people on this show choose to define themselves and their behavior as that of a particular background, but if you accept that these people represent Italian Americans you have to accept that the women who clawed for Bret Michaels' attention on Rock of Love represented American women. It's an obvious lie. It's that wrong, and that laughable, and while I have no doubt a few people out there in America are stupid enough to think less of Italian Americans based on this show, I firmly believe that when those few people turn fourteen and meet their first actual Italian American, that spell will be broken.

That said, this show is horrible and everyone involved with it should be ashamed of themselves. The biggest shock of the entire premiere was the fact that the show actually has credits (though, suspiciously, not very many!) Here are nine horrifying clips from this painful TV show about, and let's call them what they are: eight individuals afflicted with the same crippling syndrome, rounded up by an attention-hungry cable network and presented for us to laugh at and pretend to be shocked by. Let's think of it as one long, entertaining anti-tanning PSA. Above, the shore house mates meet each other.

Snooki demonstrates that she likes being the center of attention, and "Ring Around the Rosie" is given a new meaning.







"I just don't want your pukey breath on me." I have a new appreciation for the kindness and maturity of my tormentors in 7th grade.







New girls arrive, and quickly get naked. Angelina freaks.





"This situation is is going to be indescribable. You can't even describe this situation." - The Situation





The shore house becomes a yelling house.





"I should have just pounded out what's her face on Friday." Never before has a man's term for the sexual act so aptly described his bad technique.





"Guys, I gotta let you know something that's disgusting." Vinny has PINKEYE!







"Go upstairs with your whores and have fun." = Funny

"I will cut your hair while you're sleeping." = Funny

"If a girl's a slut, she should be abused." = Unforgivably sickening. Like this show, really.

In the clip above, Tyra teaches Cookie Monster how to smile with his eyes, or "smize," which, due to Cookie Monster's fixed plastic eyes, resulted in a Cookie Monster Smize Fail. Then, Tyra talks to Elmo about Twitter, and Elmo is all "Elmo tweets. Elmo tweets." And then Tyra shows the Tweet she made about Elmo, while an audience-baby cries in the background audio. That was the part of this extra-dumbed-down version of this already extra dumb show that send me over the edge. I was like, "Wait, why is the sobbing in my head also coming out of the TV set?"

Later, Tyra welcomed one of the passengers who was on the Miracle on the Hudson plane. Why the hell not? I don't even know anymore. Just make the crying stop.

Neil Patrick Harris is "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman" [HuffPo Comedy]

These "cursing toy" local news stories tend to come out around the holidays, with such suspicious frequency that one has to wonder if local news producers aren't finding these outraged parents on Craig's List. The most famous (and still funniest) toy audio malfunction has to be the Elmo potty training book that asked toddlers "Who wants to die?":

Hannah Montana Doll a Potty Mouth! [YouTube]
Called Who Wants to Die? [YouTube]

Some choice quotes:

"I'm over the age of 40 and that's all you're going to get from me, but I have never been able to maintain a relationship of the length or the quality that Tom and Lewis have."

"Turn on the television. We have a wedding channel on cable TV devoted to the behavior of people on the way to the altar. They spend billions of dollars, behave in the most appalling way, all in an effort to be princess for a day. You don't have cable television? Put on network TV. We're giving away husbands on a game show. You can watch The Bachelor, where thirty desperate women will compete to marry a 40-year-old man who has never been able to maintain a decent relationship in his life."

"That's what we've done to marriage in America, where young women are socialized from the time they're five years old to think of being nothing but a bride. They plan every day what they'll wear, how they'll look, the invitations, the whole bit, they don't spend five minutes thinking about what it means to be a wife. People stand up there before god and man even in Senator Diaz's church, they swear to love honor and obey, they don't mean a word of it. So if there's anything wrong with the sanctity of marriage in America, it comes from those of us who have the privilege and the right and have abused it for decades."

A former labor activist, Savino was elected in 2004 and serves Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. But now that this speech has put her on the national radar, who knows how far she can go?

"We Have Nothing to Fear from Love and Commitment" [The Awl]
Senator Diane Savino's NY State Senate Bio

Jayde unsubtly uses an engagement party as an appropriate place to pester Brody about where their relationship is going, and Brody maturely explains that it's not the right place. And then later he makes plans to dump her. What's with these young girls wanting to get married like there's a stipulation in their trust funds that requires marriage for them to get the money or something?


Spencer confronts Heidi (who was apparently waiting in the foyer for him to call her name?) about the pregnancy test he found. He actually sounds reasonable at the end of the talk, but then you remember that earlier in this episode he passive-aggressively hounded Heidi about this in front of a small child.


Aww, Justin (Bobby) has to pretend to like Kristin here. For the script!


Justin (Bobby) and Kristin enter into a mature, loving, communicative, all-the-way relationship...or whatever. Let's hope next season she cheats first.

Britain's Missing Top Model, which premiered in the UK in the summer of 2008, began airing on BBC America last night. All of the 8 contestants are white. All of the 8 contestants are thin. All of the 8 contestants are conventionally pretty. Each one of them says, at some point in the first episode, that they think they're attractive. These are not women with confidence issues. (Debbie, who lost most of her arm in a bus crash, has posed for Playboy.) The judges make some good points — one says, being disabled is part of the world, "Why shouldn't it be part of fashion?" But while watching these women — all pleasing to the human eye — I thought, well, it's not much of a stretch to find beautiful people beautiful. Wouldn't an eye-opening show feature women with cleft palates or port-wine stains — visible differences which tend to make people uncomfortable?

Then again, maybe the fact that they're all pretty is the point? These are not your "average" disabled people, just as models are not "average" people. The contestants want a shot in an industry in which aesthetics is everything, so, naturally, they're going to be aesthetically pleasing. Maybe the point is: "I'm pretty, I just happen to have one arm, but don't let that stop you from hiring me to model designer shoes." The problem is, that doesn't make for very dramatic television.

Take Debbie, for instance. when asked if she'd show off her disability, she was totally fine with it. So her photo shoot was pretty boring.

And Sophie, who survived a what she describes as a "violent" car accident and is paralyzed, also had a boring (gorgeous, but anti-climatic) photo shoot.

At the critique, the judges said one nice thing and one critical thing about every model's picture, which Jenny from Seattle found frustrating. "Don't patronize me," she spat.

The judges couldn't even agree on what the show is really about. Two deaf women are in the final 8, but the judges wondered: Shouldn't the winner be visibly disabled? Or isn't that part of the point: Not all disabilities are visible? In the argument, the disabled judged fought for a girl with a visible disability, but was outvoted by the other able-bodied judges, and the contestant the disabled judge liked was sent home, and the judges had to watch her limp out the door. Why not listen to the one disabled judge? Dumb.

Frankly, the show would be more successful, more interesting if it followed one disabled model and her trials and triumphs in trying to get work — as well as how she was encountered in the fashion industry. Because watching the judges niggle and nit-pick over eight beautiful women is tiresome.

In July 2008 a reader spotted a Nordstrom catalog featuring a model in a wheelchair. I'd much rather watch a series about how this came to be and follow as someone, Michael-Moore style, asks execs why we haven't seen other catalogs/ad campaigns do the same. Maybe the world is "missing" a "top" model to tell that story.

Earlier: On BBC Show, Disabled Models Learn Same Lessons As Any Other Models

Kristof begins by discussing how the problem of the 20th century was slavery and gender inequity is the major problem of the 21st. He and WuDunn then launched into a long-ranging discussion about their observations from global conflict zones. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also did segments for the show.

While the effort was wonderful for consciousness raising, some issues felt as though they were glossed over. For one thing, images of suffering women were shown often - but where were those who inflicted the suffering? A warlord was featured at the beginning of the show, but perpetrators were conspicuously absent from this narrative. Where were the pimps? Former sex slave Long Pross was stabbed in the eye by a female pimp - but this was barely touched upon. In the clip above, Kristof also brings up how the owner for one of the brothels is also an employee of the local police force.

Watching the segment reminded me of the frustration many activists felt when reading The Woman's Crusade article in the Saving The World's Women issue in the NY Times magazine. As Melissa over at Shakesville wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, I just read seven pages that are the philosophical equivalent of "She got raped." Passive. Rape is something that happens to women. Something that gets done to them.

So, apparently, is worldwide institutional oppression.

I don't guess I need to say that I am all for giving women around the world every tool, every resource, every dollar and dinar, every bit of choice and opportunity and access, everything possible to lift themselves up and achieve everything they could want or imagine.

But how can we talk about lifting women up without a serious discussion of, no less without more than the merest passing reference to, who and what has been keeping them down?

The segment focused on women's oppression, but glossed over other complicating factors. For example, Kristof actually purchased two girls from sexual slavery and returned them to their villages. One girl remained in her village and wed - the other went back to the brothels, presumably in search of drugs. Kristof mentioned that this made him understand that "freeing" someone is "more than just opening a door" - but that type of analysis was lacking in the articles and segments that Kristof appeared on. Instead, the focus was on feel-good narratives and painful images of poverty and suffering.

On Oprah's website, she has a registry sub-site set up to help.

The various ways to assist (financial and awareness-based) are helpful, but is human intervention enough in the face of structural and societal problems of this magnitude?

George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore And Hillary Clinton [Oprah]

Related: Half The Sky Movement [Official Site]

The Women's Crusade [NY Times]
Here's Your Big Chance To Ask: What About The Men? [Shakesville]

Augustine is facing eviction by the city of Gretna, Louisiana, if she doesn't get her home up to code, so the show brings in a team of professional junk removers and housekeepers to remove over four tons of garbage and human and animal waste from the premises. They also bring in Augustine's two adult children: Jason, who hasn't seen his mother in four years and now lives in Seattle, and Susan, who raised Jason after he was removed from her mother's home as a teenager. They're supervised by an OCD counselor and a professional hoarding counselor, who miraculously remain positive and chipper throughout the entire ordeal, which, as you'll see in the clip above, involved retrieving Augustine's false teeth from layers of garbage, and the disturbing discovery of a decades-old cat corpse. (Later, they found another one.)

This show is always hard to watch (I find that the best way to watch it is to grab a drawer and start throwing things away while you watch), but this episode was especially difficult because Augustine has no remorse for what her actions have done to her family and her community (not to mention the cats), and absolutely no gratitude toward the people who are trying to help her stay in her home. She only blames other people for her situation — her son's father for abandoning her, her mother for not loving her, and especially, her daughter for throwing her stuff away. The camera lingers over some of the few items in Augustine's possession that aren't covered in excrement: little plaques that say things like "Bless This Mess" and "As soon as the rush is over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I worked for it; I owe it to myself; and nobody is going to deprive me of it." Augustine certainly followed through on the plaque's threat, though there's no evidence that she ever worked for anything.

Watching this episode, it's impossible not to be struck by the generosity and caring of the people who are helping Augustine, and to wonder if their resources couldn't be used helping other people who actually want to change. Her children are both remarkably well-adjusted, and it's hard not to wish that they could have this woman out of their lives for good. At one point Jason says, with sadness in his voice, that he feels no emotional obligation toward his mother, only a moral one, and he's a hero for even feeling that. If this were the first episode of Hoarders, I probably would never watch it again, because there was no lesson to be learned: Unlike most of the people profiled, Augustine seems less like a person with a compulsion caused by feelings of loss who desperately wants to get her life in control, and more like the clinical definition of a sociopath. And a failed one, at that. Hopefully, Jason and Susan will be able to get over the guilt they feel about "abandoning" Augustine, because she clearly stopped caring about them long ago.

Talk To The Moose - Gap 2009 Holiday Commercial [YouTube]

[With Jon & Kate Gone, The Soup Pitches New TLC Show [Mediaite]

"Lisa you're too young to be a witch! Savor the steps leading up to it: college anorexic, string of bad marriages, career disappointment, failed pottery shop, then when you're old and alone you can hit the witch thing hard."

Ouch! At least they left out "grow hair so long you can sit on it and add a purple streak."

Of course, it wouldn't be a Speidi interview if the couple didn't talk about Lauren Conrad's sex tape.

And yesterday, while in a heated discussion over the Attorney General's decision to hold 9/11 terrorism trials in downtown Manhattan, Joy mentioned that Elisabeth told her in the makeup room that she was planning on moving out of New York. Elisabeth got pissed about the "personal" information disclosure.

Obviously, Heidi is not pregnant, and this is all just contrived drama for the show. Still, it's kinda fun thinking about the possibility of a Pratt brat with an Oedipus complex.

In other news, Kristin went to Vegas with Stacie-The-Bartender to get away from the guys in L.A. However, she discovered that douchiness is not specific to any one city, and was not impressed with the guys she met on her trip.


So she called JustinBobby, and he drove down to Vegas to take a shower.


JustinBobby made a very astute observation when he said, "Everything happens for a reason." (He means that everything happens because the producers tell them what they should do, right?) He, Kristin, and Stacie-The-Bartender all went to a strip club, where Kristin and STB made out.


The next morning, Kristin and JustinBobby discussed the events at the strip club, however, most of it was censored out, and it's incredibly difficult to infer what transpired. From what I can deduce, one of two things happened: A stripper took a shit on Kristin or a stripper went down on Kristin.

And yet: The way he flirts with this blonde whose name I do not care to know? It's sexy. Sexy, I tell you!

You know this guy. He's a beautiful liar, he's gorgeously crooked and twisted — but only "because that's how the world is." Wounded, bitter, yet still feverishly hot. You're attracted to him, but you worry he'll steal your wallet, your best friend and your silverware. I lost a video camera this way once. And my virginity. Kidding! (Maybe.)

Here's a promo for James Franco's little brother Dave Franco. And then back to the story. If the way James says "amuse ourselves" doesn't get your spot hot, then you have a problem.

If someone can show me how to make "If it makes you feel any better, I don't want to have your babies" as a ringtone, I will be forever grateful.


Last, but not least, his shirt came off. Not as good as seeing him naked in Sonny, but what do you expect?

Earlier: WTF Hour Of Daytime TV: James Franco On General Hospital
Liveblogging James Franco's Soap Opera Debut

His Rolling Stone cover hits stands now-ish.

Taylor Lautner Covers Rolling Stone In A Wet T-Shirt [JustJared]

Earlier: Can Werewolves Swim?

Jon almost seemed manic. And for all his talk about making changes, growing up, and being a the best father he can be, he sounded like a first-semester NYU student.


Jon also talked about how he has to work on his relationship with Hailey. Kate said that the kids don't know about "girlfriends." Speaking specifically about Hailey, Kate said, "I don't envision a future there involving my kids…at all."


During one of his custody visits, Jon planned on setting up a lemonade stand with the kids to raise money for the local fire department. He wouldn't allow the twins (the two older girls) to participate, because one of them had made a remark about how she prefers doing things with her mother. Later, at the lemonade stand, Jon wore a shirt that read, "Lies, Lies, Lies," while he sold the drinks to paparazzi.


Kate gives her final thoughts on the series coming to an end, and how she never intended for Jon to not be in "the driver's seat."

Amber is 38, but has never been in a committed relationship and finds herself getting hung up on one (unavailable) guy after another, which makes intimacy difficult, if not impossible, for her. Oprah asked Dr. Drew where the line is drawn between the "normal" type of obsession/stalking women experience after being rejected, and the kind that is categorized as an addiction.

It feels like he's laughing on the inside the entire time, like, "Dude, I'm on a fucking soap opera. Heh."


Even when he's being creepy, it's hard not to love him.


I wonder if it was in his contract that he gets slapped by a woman at least once. It's the most soap opera-y thing to experience for a man.