Matt Lauer says stay-at-home mom Cori Rist decided to appear on Today "to set the record straight," and Rist echoes this sentiment when she says, "I felt like I needed to defend myself." She does emphasize that Tiger Woods never paid her for sex, that she's not "a hooker or a prostitute," and that members of his entourage knew about their affair, but she doesn't really add all that much to "the record." Rist says she needs to "set an example" for her seven-year-old son, and perhaps her appearance is an effort to, as she says, "take responsibility for the things I've done." But while she publicly apologizes to Elin Nordegren, the apology is unlikely to be all that comforting, and there doesn't seem to be much need for Rist to "take responsibility" on television. In fact, at this point it's hard not to suspect some of Woods's mistresses of self-promotion.

As Givhan pointed out yesterday, the act of speaking publicly as a former Woods mistress does have costs. The media and viewers alike disparage them, viewing them not only as morally loose but as "interchangeable commodities." Givhan writes,

Whatever might have occurred between Woods and all these women might never be fully known, and frankly, that's the way it should be. But for all the careful parsing of Woods's character, the attempts to reconcile his public persona with what might have been going on in the shadows, the women are being lumped into broad categories. They are being stereotyped as usual suspects for this sort of behavior.

It's a fair point, especially when people are joking of Tiger that, "If all his mistresses look the same, why didn't he just choose one?" Just because they looks similar doesn't make them the same, and even if Woods pursued them because they fit a certain physical type, that doesn't mean blondness is all they have to offer anyone. It's also true that their occupations — some are cocktail waitresses or former models — don't say anything about their intelligence or morals (a mistake we've been accused of making). But their jobs do make them a lot less famous than Tiger — meaning that, in some ways, they have less to lose.

Rist and other women in her position face some public censure and mockery. Even Givhan's not immune, saying of Woods's porn-star entanglements, "It seems fair to say that if you have chosen porn as your life's work, you are content with being judged as slimy, stereotyped as skeevy and maligned as sleazy." But unlike Woods, they don't have lucrative endorsement deals with Accenture to lose. And they may have something to gain — especially since famous other-woman Ashley Dupre now has a newspaper column. Rist says that unlike Woods's other mistresses, "I wasn't looking to get anything out of the relationship," and that may be true — when she broke down on Today, it felt genuine. But the Today show and other media outlets are certainly looking to get ratings out of Tiger Woods's relationships, and women who until now lived in relative obscurity may find the exposure tempting.

The Tiger Woods Scandal Is A Tale Of Sex — And Sexism [Washington Post]
Big Risk In A One-Man Brand Like Tiger Woods [NYT]

Trick question. They both have zero.

According to the Writers Guild of America's 2009 Hollywood Writers Report, which drew on self-reported data from its members, Hollywood writers rooms remain stubbornly homogeneous:

White males continue to dominate in both the film and television sectors. Women remain stuck at 28 percent of television employment and 18 percent of film employment. The minority share of film employment has been frozen at 6 percent since 1999, while the group's share of television employment actually declined to 9 percent since the last report. Although women and minorities closed the earnings gaps with white men in television a bit, the earnings gaps in film grew.

Male television writers outnumber women by about 2 to 1. That's still better than in film, where women's participation has actually dropped by a percentage point since the last report. In fact, the study says, from 2001 to 2007, while male film writers in Hollywood were increasing their average earnings by 31 percent (from $73,332 to $96,250) between 2001 and 2007, women's earnings declined 4.7 percent (from $60,000 to $57,151.)

What accounts for such a dramatic pay gap? The WGA's director of Diversity, Kim Myers, offered one theory over at Women & Hollywood:

Although this is somewhat anecdotal, in conversation with women screenwriters most attribute this fact to the type of films that are being developed at the studios. The emphasis is on tentpole movies and franchises – many of which are comic book or graphic novel adaptations. Action is the main focus of these movies. While there are many women screenwriters who have written and continue to write action movies, this is often seen as the province of male writers.

Insert your dude/tentpole joke of choice here.

The report also ranked 133 television shows that aired during the 2007-08 season (or that were written during it). Here's their list of the writing staffs with the highest proportion of women:

1. Showtime's The L Word (100 percent)
2. CBS's Cold Case (69.2 percent)
3. Showtime's Californification (66.7 percent)
4. The CW's Life is Wild (66.7 percent)
5. NBC's Lipstick Jungle (66.7 percent, tied.)

Only two of these shows are still on. But hey, at least now we've got Mad Men! (Seven of their nine writers are women, which would put them near the top of this list.)

Fourteen of the 133 shows had no women at all writing for them. And not all of them are the ones you'd think.

1. 24 (Fox)
2. American's Funniest Home Videos (ABC)
3. Burn Notice (USA)
4. The Closer (TNT)
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
6. Flight of the Conchords (HBO)
7. Futurama (Fox)
8. Monk (USA)
9. Quarterlife (Bravo)
10. Rescue Me (FX)
11. Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central)
12. The Tudors (Showtime)
13. The Wire (HBO)
14. Zoey 101 (Nick)

Yeah, that's right. Sarah Silverman's show, which begins its third season early next year, has no women writers. (The study obviously doesn't count Silverman herself, though she's also credited as a writer on IMDB. The show also has a few female producers listed.)

So what difference does this make, besides annoying the crap out of us? A recent academic study that scrutinized whether sex and nudity boosted either box office or critical claim (the gist: they don't) also noted that "the greater the participation of women, the more thought-provoking but the less violent and fear-inducing is the resulting cinematic product."

The study's authors actually quantified this by creating an index of indicators like "blood/gore, disrespectful/bad attitude, frightening/tense scenes, guns/weapons, jump scenes, scary/tense music, and violence" in 914 films released from 2001 to 2005. Films with more women working on them scored high on "tense family scenes" and "topics to talk about."

So hire women writers, Hollywood! So we have "topics to talk about." Besides "same shit, different day."

2009 Hollywood Writers Report [WGA]
Still Sucks to Be a Female Writer In Hollywood [Women and Hollywood]
Sex Doesn't Sell-Nor Impress! [Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, sub req'd]

Earlier: Guess How Many Female Writers There Are On Late Night?

Double X's KJ Dell'Antonia writes,

Senators Jim Moran (Va.) and Bill Pascrell (N.J.) have introduced the Healthy Kids Act, which proposes "specifying categories of foods and beverages for or about which any advertisement, promotion, or marketing directed at children and youth shall be an abusive, unfair, or deceptive act" and limiting advertising for certain other foods and beverages-presumably the slightly less objectionable ones-to two minutes an hour on weekends, three on weekdays.

It's true that limiting advertising directed at children, like increasing the penalties for sex offenders, is a perennially popular measure. Few parents haven't heard their kids beg for Koala Yummies* after catching a TV commercial, and some research suggests that kids' eating habits are influenced by what they watch. Dell'Antonia points out that without regulation, companies have every incentive to keep pushing Miley-Cyrus-shaped-mac-and-cheese-whatevers** on undiscerning little brains, and that limiting said pushing is thus "good policy." It may be true that restricting advertising might reduce some kids' cravings for salt, sugar, and yellow no. 5, but Dell'Antonia also identified a much bigger culprit for children unhealthy eating habits: the government. She writes,

In September, Michael Pollan noted in an editorial in the NYT that, with the proposed health care bill, the federal government is "putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup." The Healthy Kids Act would have that same government encouraging the production of foods and beverages containing high-fructose corn syrup, but discouraging their consumption. It seems cynical to call that progress, but I guess we'll have to take what we can get.

Until farm subsidies quit making Industrial Grade Fructose Snax^TM artificially cheap, it may not matter much whether advertisers make them artificially attractive. So rather than trying to keep kids in the dark about all the delicious varieties of corn syrup glutting supermarket shelves, maybe we should concentrate on filling those shelves with brussels sprouts instead, via agricultural that encourage farmers to grow food that doesn't make you die. Then TV regulators can worry about what really matters — why the women on kids shows are so hot these days.

* Are these still around? They were delicious.
** I don't know what kids are eating these days. Get off my lawn.

You Can't Sell That On (Kid's) Television [Double X]
Cultural Milestone Of The Week: Screw Sesame Street! Sexy Entertainers Are Steaming Up Kiddie TV Shows [Details]

First, a description of the problem. Salon's Heather Havrilesky introduces her review of the TV shows The League and Men of a Certain Age with this depressing assessment:

[W]hile it's still unnerving to observe the casual arrogance of a gaggle of young men in their prime — their baseball caps molded into the perfect C shape, their boxer shorts peeking out above their low-slung jeans, the almost prissily self-aggrandizing set of their broad, hairless shoulders — watching that same smug spirit butt stubbornly from within the cramped confines of adult life can be surprisingly poignant. Because even as the older guy's guy accepts the responsibilities and burdens of demanding wives, pesky children, gigantic mortgages, tedious jobs and arthritic knees, even as he gives in to the perils of prostate checks and surrenders to the burden of acknowledging people's feelings and succumbs to the unbearable reality of neurotic teenage offspring and little motorized devices that yank the stray hairs out of his nose, there's some small part of him that is never completely at peace with this shackled, neutered state. Something deep inside him can still feel that tacky, spilled-beer floor under the soles of his shoes, some part of him can hear the faint strains of "Louie, Louie" playing on some quad far, far away, some stubborn cells at his core can still smell the Polo cologne and the cup-a-noodles heating up in the mini microwave.

Are these really the choices for men? "Louie, Louie"-loving frat boy or "neutered" married guy? Yes, I'm aware that television offers men plenty of chances to solve crimes, diagnose obscure ailments, and bed beautiful women — but personality-wise, many TV men seem pretty arrested. Women may have hookers, victims, and doormats to choose from, but guys have assholes, man-children, and slobs. But there are a few awesome men on television, a few who — aside from the flaws every human being has — a boy would be lucky to grow up to be.

Tim Gunn, Project Runway

Nurturing yet firm, Tim Gunn is the perfect surrogate parent to the sometimes childish contestants of Project Runway. He knows what he likes, but he's not a dick about it, and he genuinely wants to help designers make beautiful things and average people look their best. Yes, I know Tim Gunn is actually a real person and not a "character," but I'm assuming his persona on Project Runway isn't all there is to him. However, that persona — unflappable yet light-hearted, with the grace to say "Macy's accessory wall" repeatedly without sounding like an idiot — is pretty awesome in itself. TV's couch-dwelling slobs could learn a lot from Tim.

Image via Boston.com.

Admiral William Adama, Battlestar Galactica

Adama doesn't always make the right decisions, and he's a little over-reliant on military solutions for political problems. But he's a man of principle, someone who's been given enormous power over the human race and manages (largely) not to misuse it. You won't see him screwing around with interns — in fact, Adama's very supportive and fair to the women under his command, as his close mentorship of Starbuck (though that, too, has its faultlines) shows. Battlestar Galactica has some of the best female characters of any sci-fi show, and part of that has to do with the gender equality of the Colonial Fleet, for which Adama bears (fictional) responsibility. Male bosses, take note.

Image via LA Times.

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Yeah, okay, I'm a nerd. But I'm a discerning nerd, and I'm not a big fan of Captain Kirk's swashbuckling, lady-killing approach to the universe. Capt. Picard, however, shows that being bald can be hot, ordering tea can be cool, and, most importantly, being thoughtful can be manly. Picard spends just as much time puzzling over the moral implications of contact with alien races as he does firing his phaser, and he shows over and over again that the brain is mightier than the sword. Margaret says her brother "always says he learned everything he knows about respecting other cultures from Captain Picard," and I'm hoping some of the Captain's awesomeness rubbed off on my brother as well.

Detective Elliot Stabler, Law & Order: SVU

I struggled with this one, because Stabler has a lot of problems. He brutalizes suspects, he has rage issues, and he can seem unpleasantly narrowminded. But just as great female characters don't have to be perfect saints, a male character can still be compelling even if you don't like everything he does. And what's refreshing about Stabler is that he's a capital-A Adult who cares deeply about his family — even when his marriage on the rocks — and doesn't shy away from responsibility. I don't approve of his interrogation methods or his politics, but I do think Stabler could teach The League's overgrown frat boys a thing or two about growing up.

Cliff Huxtable, The Cosby Show

Cliff Huxtable the character had a big cultural influence, given that The Cosby Show was one of the first to depict middle-class black family life. But Cliff himself was also a big influence on his family, an involved dad who actually enjoyed spending time with his kids. Contrast him with one of the dads from The League, who says, "If Sophia and I split up, 50 percent of my time I would have to spend 100 percent of my time with my kid. Right now, I'm rocking like 50 percent coverage 30 percent of my time, you cannot beat those numbers" — and you might just want to take a trip back to the eighties. But you don't have to — as Kate says, "though he's not exactly in the Cliff Huxtable mold," Darnell from My Name Is Earl is the "only character on that show with a brain and a conscience, and also not a bad dad."

In Defense Of The Aging Frat Boy [Salon]

Earlier: Report: Television Violence Against Women On The Rise

According to the Associated Press:

The Parents Television Council released its report Wednesday. It says it counted more than 400 violent acts against women in prime time on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox shows in February and May this year. There were just under 200 during those months in 2004.

The council notes that acts against women are a small percentage of violence in prime time.

The report shows there were more than 3,900 violent acts not specifically aimed at women during those two months.

Worse still:

The study noted that depiction of violence overall has changed little over the years — up 2 percent from 2004. Depiction of violence against women, however, was up 120 percent.

It said 29 percent of the incidents were beatings, 18 percent credible threats of violence, 11 perdent were shootings, 8 percent were rapes, 6 percent stabbings and 2 percent torture — but that in 92 percent of the incidents, graphic violence against women was depicted, not just implied.

Why is it suddenly more permissible to show violence against women on television? Just thinking of a few of my favorite shows, TrueBlood features a lot of psychopaths and demonic possession, so that may explain the reliance on violence; Weeds also features depictions of violence, particularly in Nancy's relationship with Esteban - but I've only casually watched since season three. And then there's Mad Men (screengrab above). But beyond those, I'm having problems trying to remember what shows feature violence - and I wonder if I'm starting to become desensitized since I can't remember.

Group Worries About Violence Against Women On TV [AP]
Study: TV Violence Against Women Up 120% [The Wrap]

What impact this had on our sex lives I don't know, but I do know that as adults my brother and I obviously have to scream this at random intervals whenever we're together. These things make an impression. A piece on MSNBC talks about the dynamics of watching TV together. And forget Where the Wild Things Are. New findings suggest that watching TV with parents can freak kids out.

While it seems logical to protect a child from something scary by watching together, in fact a lot of kids take their cues from parents, and a skittish mom can only add to anxiety. (Like, even flinching; you don't need to be terrified by Dumbo, although some of us are.) "The researchers suggest that well-intentioned parents might be inadvertently turning up the volume on fear. That can happen simply because children are watching their parents' reactions." This logic applies to many facets of childrens' fears, and a lot of it's pretty intuitive: we've all seen a small child "decide" how bad a fall or scrape is - what might have been a small incident if dealt with matter-of-factly can become a screaming tantrum if an adult reacts with excessive concern or panic.

The piece details the various ways coddling can reinforce fears, the way a parent can communicate his own neuroses - and makes the point that the opposite "tough-it-out" extreme's not great, either. Common-sense stuff, for the most part. The TV findings are really interesting though because it's fascinating to think how much of fear is natural and intuitive, how much it's influenced by circumstance. I've seen young children in the same family react completely differently to The Wizard of Oz, and for that matter I have strong memories of being so terrified in a theatre showing of The Black Cauldron that my aunt had to take me out of the theatre; to this day I think of it as the scariest movie in the world.

The article doesn't get into it, but it's hard not to think about that other scary parent-movie scenario, sex scenes. I wonder how much of that squirming discomfort is natural, and how much is communicated by our parents. A friend tells me that sitting between her parents through Don't Look Now remains one of the more traumatic memories of her early-teen years. "But that wasn't even just the normal squirm," she writes, "because my parents kind of looked like Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, so it was doubly awful." Scary indeed.

Mom And Dad Make Scary Movies Even Scarier [MSNBC]

Last night's episode was titled,"The Color Blue," referencing this post-coital conversation between Don and Sally's teacher Suzanne,, wherein they ponder a question one of her students asked, "How do I know if what I see as blue is the same as it is to you?" Don remarked, "People may see things differently, but they don't really want to."

Part of the shared human experience is the desire to be understood, to have others (or at least someone) see things as we do. But another part of the human experience is that we each have a different lens—shaped by our individual experiences—that renders a worldview unique to each person. So, basically, we're all doomed to misunderstandings.


Exhibit A: The teacher's brother.
He has epilepsy (or "fits") which is making socialization/work/life difficult for him: it freaks out those who don't understand the disorder. As the brother, Charlie, sees it, "Other people are the problem." He's tired of being misunderstood to the point that he doesn't want to even try to assimilate anymore. His sister tries to renew his faith in humanity when she tells him, "People are ignorant. They're scared of things they don't understand." But he may not have understood.


Exhibit B: Paul Kinsey
He's in the "other people are the problem" camp as well. And when he says "people" he means women, specifically Peggy. As Peggy pointed out to Don when she was asking him for a raise a few episodes back, Kinsey makes more money doing the same job as he does ("and not always as well"). In this clip, Paul's pitch for the Aqua Net account falls flat, but Peggy comes to the rescue with some good ideas. Paul sees her good work as a negative reflection on himself, rather than a positive reflection on his team.


Paul thinks he's telling Peggy something she doesn't already know when he says, "Wearing a dress isn't going to help you with [the] Western Union [account]." Clearly he thinks being a woman is a benefit for Peggy's career, rather than a hurdle.


While Kinsey was jerking off and getting wasted, Peggy was actually hammering out ideas, and making sure to keep track of them. If Peggy views her gender to be a hurdle in this business, maybe she understands that she can't do anything to fuck it up.


Once Kinsey finally has his inspiration, he's too busy being proud of himself to write it down. Perhaps, since he hasn't had to deal with the same setbacks as Peggy in this business, he isn't as prudent about his work. So, in that way, perhaps Peggy "wearing a dress" does help her with the Western Union account.


While Don is busy acting like Tony Soprano (sleeping over the goomah's house and lining his desk drawer with cash), Betty is busy reading The Group by Mary McCarthy, which was on the New York Times best-seller list in 1963. It's a novel concerning a group of women who come from affluent backgrounds and graduated from Vassar together in 1933. They find that the Great Depression has given them a more autonomous lifestyle, as they are encouraged to work and have careers. Again, the Depression was viewed by many people one way, and by this "group" as something completely different. Amazon says:

Mary McCarthy filets Ivy League society, socialism, 1930s child-rearing practices, sexual double-standards, psychoanalysis, and men in general.

Betty probably relates to the character Kay (which was loosely based on McCarthy's own life), as Kay "subsumes her own talent to the artistic 'genius' of her egocentric and philandering husband." Interestingly, since last night's episode, the book has gone from a ranking of around 64,000 to 3,200 on Amazon.


Interestingly, Sterling Cooper was founded in 1933, the same year The Group takes place.


While doing the laundry, Betty happens upon a set of keys that belong to Don. She seems relieved at first that they fit into is desk drawer (and not some women's apartment), but then she finds Dick.


He's gonna have some explaining to do. But after Don doesn't return home from work, Betty rethinks rocking the boat with a confrontation, and returns the box and key where she found them.


Does anyone else think that Don made a huge mistake giving his card to the teacher's brother, who "always" needs money? I have a feeling this guy is gonna blackmail Don for his drawer cash.


In the end, Kinsey, realizes that he's not so misunderstood, when Don and Peggy both empathize with his "lost idea." And in the end, he realized that Peggy's intelligence is what helped her out with the Western Union account.


In the car, on the way to Sterling Cooper's anniversary party, Roger's mother, who seems to be suffering through a bit of dementia, manages to drop a super insightful (not to mention, heavy on the foreshadowing) quip when she told Jane, "Enjoy the world as it is. They'll change it, and never give you a reason." November 22, here we come.

When I refer to the challenge, I don't mean getting the residents of Huntington to adopt better habits. I mean penetrating the "reshapping & remaking" genre of reality television, which is already full of contenders like The Biggest Loser, Dance Your Ass Off, DietTribe, and Celebrity Fit Club: Boot Camp.

Still, it appears the producers are pressing on:

Oliver came to Huntington last month and the show is taping in West Virginia's second-largest city throughout the fall. Months before it airs, though, the show has opened still-fresh wounds from an Associated Press story last year that used federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data to proclaim the five-county Huntington metropolitan area the country's fattest and unhealthiest.

The town, for its part has fretted a bit about it's image in the world, noting that "the world's fattest town" isn't quite a label that anyone wants to adopt.

"All the years of statistics don't strike home as much as the threat of a national TV audience getting this perception about Huntington," said [Don] Perdue, who is chairman of the House of Delegates Health and Human Resources committee.

Even so, Perdue is worried about the show.

"If it's accurate and not positive, that's our fault," the Wayne County Democrat said. "If it's inaccurate and negative, that's their fault."

However, this fluffy article isn't sharing with us the full story. In the New York Times Magazine, a six-page feature on Oliver shows what he's really trying to accomplish. Oliver didn't come to the states to find the fattest people to put on display - he is coming to help expand his people first food revolution.

The article opens:

On his first day in Huntington, W. Va., Jamie Oliver spent the afternoon at Hillbilly Hot Dogs, pitching in to cook its signature 15-pound burger. That's 10 pounds of meat, 5 pounds of custom-made bun, American cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Then he learned how to perfect the Home Wrecker, the eatery's famous 15-inch, one-pound hot dog (boil first, then grill in butter). For the Home Wrecker Challenge, the dog gets 11 toppings, including chili sauce, jalapeños, liquid nacho cheese and coleslaw. Finish it in 12 minutes or less and you get a T-shirt.

So much for local color. Earlier that day, Oliver met with a pediatrician, James Bailes, and a pastor, Steve Willis. Bailes told him about an 8-year-old patient who was 80 pounds overweight and had developed Type 2 diabetes. If the child's diet didn't change, the doctor said, he wouldn't live to see 30. Willis told Oliver that he visits patients in local hospitals several days a week and sees the effects of long-term obesity firsthand. Since he can't write a prescription for their resulting illnesses, he said, all he can do is pray with them.

Last year, an Associated Press article designated the Huntington-Ashland metropolitan area as the unhealthiest in America, based on its analysis of data collected in 2006 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly half the adults in these five counties (two in West Virginia, two in Kentucky and one in Ohio) were obese, and the area led the nation in the incidence of heart disease and diabetes. The poverty rate was 19 percent, much higher than the national average. It also had the highest percentage of people 65 and older who had lost their teeth - nearly 50 percent.

In the midst of a town battling various ailments, Oliver arrives dispensing more than just solid food advice - he deeply appreciates the transformative power that the ideas of simple food and home have made in his life:

Oliver got personal with his series "Jamie's Kitchen," based on the Fifteen Foundation, which he created in 2002. Each year it sponsors 15 (give or take a few) young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those with criminal records or a history of drug abuse, and trains them in the restaurant business. To kick-start the program and to finance Fifteen, the upscale London restaurant that would employ them, he put up his own house as collateral - without telling his wife. [...]

If he were just a professional do-gooder, Oliver, who is 34, would be a bore. But food has given his life focus and meaning since childhood, and he has honored it ever since. [...]

In last year's U.K. series, "Jamie's Ministry of Food," Oliver expanded his reach past the school system into people's homes. He chose Rotherham, an industrial town in northern England with a high rate of obesity and related illnesses, where 20 percent of the working-age population was on public assistance. He built a community center where residents could learn to cook inexpensively for their families while instilling the idea that healthful eating is not a luxury. "They thought that cooking a meal and feeding it to your family was for posh people," he said. Some participants in the show had never even had a kitchen table. They ate takeout food on their floors.

That project has proved a success and the perfect model for Oliver's mission in Huntington. The community center here will be called Jamie's Kitchen and will teach both adults and children the basic skills for cooking healthful, economical meals at home. Oliver will also work with local schools on eliminating junk food in vending machines and in cafeterias, replacing reheated processed foods with meals cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients. But there is no guarantee of success.

The reporter Alex Witchel, points out that Jamie's enthusiasm for food does not always translate to success. Witchel finds out from Oliver that only half of the schools from the flagship program are functioning properly - there are issues with getting school staff properly trained and willing to stick with the program. In addition, the children, once exposed to the wonders of eating fresh, unprocessed food, still revert back to many of their old ways once the pressure is off. Near the end of the piece, Witchel skeptically points out the residents of Huntington don't seem to be interested in being healthier as much as they want to be on television.

However, I think that Oliver has it exactly right. When he speaks to the people of Huntington, he's polite and hopeful, explaining that the problem they face has a solution. Changing food culture from one of convenience to one of health will not happen overnight. People need time to acclimate to cooking, to the taste of food that isn't injected with salt/fat/sugar/hormones, that change in lifestyle. One of my larger critiques with the current food movement is that is is concerned with ideals and absolutes, and doesn't take into consideration the role food plays in people's lives and cultures. However, Oliver, with his less than stellar beginnings, and commitment to people, does get it. And it shows he speaks:

Oliver picked up the mike. "Hi, guys," he began. "Some say this is the most unhealthy town in America. We're going to spend the next few days getting under the skin of the problem, and we're asking families, individuals, schools and churches to spread the word. Here, the odds are against you, you live an unhealthy life and die young. That's what the report said. So, this is not a sparkly, pretty show. It's about finding local ambassadors for change."

He asked people to raise their hands if friends or family were affected by obesity and bad health. Almost every hand went up. Oliver nodded. "What do you think the problems are?" Among the answers were: too much processed food in school cafeterias; a need for better prenatal nutrition; a call to stop putting Kool-Aid in toddlers' sippy cups (earlier, Oliver heard about infants' bottles filled with Coca-Cola); suggestions that restaurants offer smaller portions and that children's menus offer alternatives to burgers and fries.

Oliver took it in. "This isn't a freak show here," he said. "You're only a few percent away from the national average. Every child should be taught to cook in school, not just talk about nutrition all day. Good food can be made in 15 minutes. This could be the first generation where the kids teach the parents." That earned a round of applause.

"I got a billion dollars out of the British government and put it into the school system," he went on. "But it's still in transition, it's not all glossy yet. When parents get angry anything can happen. So I'll need your help. Hopefully over the next few months, we'll do some really good things together."

‘Fattest city' in U.S. braces for reality TV show [AP/MSNBC]
The Biggest Loser [NBC
Dance Your Ass Off [Oxygen]
DietTribe [Lifetime]
Celebrity Fit Club: Boot Camp [VH1]
Putting America's Diet on a Diet [NY Times]

• Researchers have found that having a TV turned on can injure the parent-child bond even when it is just "background noise." They discovered that parents spoke to their children 20% less when the television was on and became less attentive and responsive. • Taking matters into her own, um, hands, a Cincinnati woman allegedly spanked a stranger's two-year-old son in a Salvation Army store; she faces assault charges. • A memorial service for murdered antiabortion activist James Pouillon was held at the Owosso High School football stadium, and some attendees said they would hold a service outside a local Planned Parenthood as well. • Star Trek actor George Takei and his husband Brad Altman will be the first gay couple featured on The Newlywed Game. • After years of deliberation, the UN will create an agency devoted to women's and gender issues. The agency will be much more powerful than existing UN groups that deal with women's rights. • A Spanish employment tribunal ruled that calling your boss a "son of a whore" is not sufficient grounds for termination — because the term is "common usage in conversation." • A teen's lawyers claim he only "simulated" his role in a gang rape in which the victim was forced to perform oral sex on her own son. • A Georgia man is accused of kicking a female Army reservist in the head and screaming racial slurs in front of her seven-year-old daughter, after the woman asked him to be careful with the door at a local Cracker Barrel. • Wondercat Clyde made a real-life incredible journey from his home in Tasmania, across a 185-mile strait and 2,000 miles of land to the Australian town of Cloncurry. He was identified by a microchip under his skin, and is now back home with his family. • A 98-year-old woman has been evicted from her apartment in England for assaulting terrorists, harassing neighbors, and using her panic alarm 563 times in a month. • A group of girls from the United States and Mali has written a guide called Girls Gone Activist! about "how to change the world through education." • Anti-abortion activists are stepping up their protests against the Susan G. Komen's Race For the Cure, because the foundation doesn't warn women about the (nonexistent) link between abortion and breast cancer. • Another Komen critic: the blog AdRants, which says the foundation's new ads depicting "women cupping their breasts as they pledge allegiance to their girls, hooters, tatas and gazongas" are merely "the American Pledge of Allegiance [...] re-written as a boob joke." • The VOICE Study (Vagina and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic) hopes to determine whether taking anti-retroviral drugs, either as a vaginal gel or as a pill, can prevent HIV in women as well at treating it. If successful, the study could provide women with HIV-prevention measures that — unlike male condoms — they could fully control. • Chemicals called PBBs and PCBs may decrease the number of female births, according to a recent study. The chemicals are now banned, but may still exist in animal fats. • According to Debenhams department store, British men are becoming increasingly interested in grooming their brows, which inspired the store to hold men-only "guybrow" nights. Apparently, the perfect "guybrow" is somewhere between Noel Gallagher and Sylvester Stallone. • Working as a delivery nurse, Astrid Skreosen became familiar with all the mess that comes with giving birth. However, she realized that the little pads placed beneath the mother were simply not enough to absorb all the blood and fluid that comes with labor, so she created a super-absorbent sheet for use in the delivery room. • Four men have been arrested for the rape of a Hofstra College student. Five men reportedly lured her back to a dorm after stealing her cellphone, and proceeded to sexually assualt her "one by one." Police are still searching for the fifth attacker. • Doctors have found a link between diet and acne in girls: Teens who ate significantly fewer raw veggies and fruits were more likely to have acne than those who consumed fresh vegetables regularly. They also found that acne is directly related to mental health. • A government fact sheet from the Equalities Office in the UK has been criticized for leaving out Margaret Thatcher. A spokesman for the Equalities Office said: "We have acknowledged the oversight and have taken steps to amend it." • The FDA has issued a warning for Evenflo breast pumps. They say that the Ohio-based company failed to investigate claims that their breast pumps gave mothers electrical shocks. • A letter written by Mary Queen of Scots on the morning of her execution will be on view until September 21st at the National Library of Scotland. "Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning," she wrote, over four hundred years ago. •

More than 17 million people watched last night's premiere according to Media Week, and Leno beat the combined ratings of the competing network show's by about 7 million viewers. However, the numbers are expected to drop off during the week, especially if critics' reviews reflect how audiences feel about the show.

Critics agree that despite all the hype, The Jay Leno show is exactly the same as The Tonight Show, except Leno seems less enthusiastic and there is no desk between him and the guests. Reviewers say Jerry Seinfeld's interview with Leno seemed too rehearsed, Leno repeated week-old jokes about Joe Wilson, and the fact that he got the first post-VMA interview with Kanye West was just a coincidence, as he was already booked as a musical guest. NBC is committed to keep the show on the air for at least two years, and if the audience that enjoyed Leno's routine at 11:30 is interested in getting to bed a little earlier, the show will probably retain enough viewers to make it a success regardless of what critics think. (After all, it worked with Leno's last gig!)

Time

The Jay Leno Show, NBC has been telling us all summer, was "comedy at 10," not simply a second Tonight Show. Instead, what we got was a monologue, a couple taped comedy bits, an interview, a musical act, another interview and Headlines. Somebody refresh my memory: what was The Tonight Show again? Because clearly I was watching the wrong show all these years.

The Boston Globe

The Jay Leno Show premiered last night with a big old disconnect. NBC's prime-time Jay Leno experiment has been hugely anticipated - both inside and outside the TV industry - since the move was announced in December. It has been called network TV's riskiest change in decades, one that could forever alter the nature of nightly programming. And yet there it was, seeming very, very much like The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,' brimming with the kind of safe, middle-of-the-road humor that has always been Leno's trademark.

Even Leno, while delivering his opening jokes, seemed relatively unenthused about the premiere. He set forth his usual flurry of average one-liners - about Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and his own ad campaign - with an ordinary energy level, unwilling to be anyone but the easygoing Jay his late-night audience already knows and loves. If he was keyed up and inspired about his new gig, he hid it well.

The New York Times

And Mr. Leno ended his maiden show the way he started it, in his familiar silly and safe Tonight mode. So much attention — and promotion — has been spent deciphering the impact Mr. Leno's 10 p.m. slot could have on prime-time programming, and so much ink has been devoted to describing how Mr. Leno's new show would depart from his old one that it was startling to see how little difference there was. The set was slightly different, and Mr. Leno spoke with his guests in matching armchairs, not across a desk, but the content and tone of the premiere looked and sounded like any ordinary Tonight show.

Slate

Leno, no more unfunny that usual, presided over a set decorated with dark wood and delicate bonsai that evoked horrible memories of paying $16 for well drinks at hotel bars. In one of the show's superficial attempts to play like something other than Tonight, Leno does without a desk, forgoing the authority a slab of lumber confers in favor of a cozier armchair setup. Thus seated, the host did not so much interview guest Jerry Seinfeld as set up his jokes.

The Chicago Sun-Times

And there he was, old reliable, slapping the hands of audience members and making jokes about George W. Bush on a mountain bike. It was almost like he never left. His first comedy bit, about participating on the show Cheaters, was lame and homophobic, although having all members of the love triangle wear argyle sweaters was a nice touch. Leno's just too corny for my taste.

NBC is committed to airing Leno's show for two years, and all the networks are watching closely to see how it goes. All Leno needs are the same 5 million viewers he had in his late-night slot, and the show will be more profitable than what it replaced. That could mean that the future of television will be lower-budget, live-event-oriented, and possibly populated by former game show hosts.

USA Today

Bet NBC wishes Kanye could do Jay every day. Because without Kanye West, and his conveniently timed controversy from the MTV Video Music Awards, NBC's Jay Leno Show premiere Monday would have been even more of a cut-rate, snooze-inducing, rehashed bore. If Leno's desire is to help fans get to sleep earlier, desire satisfied... Leno had promised his new show would not be the same as the old one, but it looked awfully similar. If you found Leno's routine amusing before, you probably found it amusing Monday night. And given his propensity for repeating jokes, you'll probably find it amusing Tuesday night as well.

The Los Angeles Times

It's not a good sign when the Bud Light commercial is funnier than the comedy show it interrupts. Sixteen minutes into the new The Jay Leno Show, it was difficult not to panic. This is the future of television? This wasn't even a good rendition of television past. Clearly Leno believes that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and he has been very vocal about the fact that his late-night talk show was not broke. So here it is again, different time slot, busier set and same old jokes. Literally.

Newsweek

Much like the Hugh Grant interview, the sitdown with Kanye was a little funny and a little awkward, and while it wasn't particularly illuminating it'll be what everyone is talking about in the morning. There's not much else to talk about, considering there isn't much difference between the new show and Jay's Tonight Show. There's more comedy, though it's of the bland, topical variety that Jay is known for. Jay hosted The Tonight Showfor long enough that audiences came to expect that his middle-of-the-road humore he deals in, but in the earlier time slot it feels out of place. As usual, the monologue was tepid, and a short film about a musical car wash from The Dan Band, one of the comedy correspondents in Jay's new troupe, was interminable.

The Washington Post

They said The Jay Leno Show wouldn't feel like going to bed really early, that it would feel new. But it's like going to bed really early. It feels old. For a lot of people, The Jay Leno Show, which premiered Monday in its game-changing 10 o'clock weeknight format, it might feel perfectly comfy.

Leno asked [Kanye West], who sat frozen at the mention of his mother, who died in 2007. What was weird about this was how quickly West stammered through his repentance ("Obviously, I deal with hurt"), saying he needs to take a vacation from performing and the celebrity grind under which he lives, then recovering immediately to perform with Jay-Z and Rihanna, proving that really, after all the talk, Jay's show is still a place to promote your product, your song, your movie — and in special guest Jerry Seinfeld's case, your Seinfeld reunion on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Leno and his producers kept saying it wouldn't be like this, this usual shill game.

Updated: Leno Lands More Than 17 Million Viewers On Night One [Media Week]

The new Melrose Place is both a reboot and a sequel to the original series, which ran from 1992-1999. The new group of people living in the Los Angeles apartment complex are similar to the previous residents, yet some members of the original cast appear on the show along with their doppelgangers. Laura Leighton reprises her role of Sydney Andrews in the premiere, but is found dead in the complex's swimming pool by Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, whose character closely resembles the corpse, by the end of the episode. Flashbacks will reveal in upcoming episodes that everyone in the new cast had a reason to murder Andrews, including Jonah (Michael Rady), an aspiring filmmaker; his fiance Riley (Jessica Lucas) who is a first-grade teacher; Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen), a poor med-school student who turns to prostitution to pay her bills; chef/alcoholic Auggie (Colin Egglesfield); and publicist Ella (Katie Cassidy). Reviewers said the new Melrose Place may be marginally better than its predecessor, but in the '90s guilty-pleasure prime-time soaps were a bit harder to come by. The new series is decent, but may not be good (or rather bad) enough to make viewers switch over from the dozens of sleazy reality dramas they're already watching.

Below, the critics weigh in:

Wall Street Journal

The real entertainment-and there's plenty of that in the new Melrose Place-builds from the endlessly brewing conflicts and rivalries within that band of young hopefuls. The writers extract sturdy drama when they bore in on psychological conundrums-the reasons, for instance, a woman can't bring herself to say "yes" to a marriage proposal from the man she loves. There's the woman who is a prostitute by night, and a doctor by day. A familiar sort of fantasy, that, but one that plays out intriguingly here. The Los Angeles setting here takes a more prominent role than in the original-one more given to reflecting its world of filmmakers and producers, its angst and unbounded ambition. The new Melrose Place may not be the old, but it is, all told, instantly engaging and-from the evidence-likely to remain so.

New York Post

The new Melrose Place is as good and sometimes better than the old Melrose Place. Think of it as a renovation, or in LA terms, a facelift. In fact, the new tenants actually made me forget the old tenants rather quickly. Well, I didn't forget all of them, because two of them are back but in a new format. Now the series is an ongoing whodunit. Remember Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) from the original series — the one we loved to hate so much? Well, she's baaaack — or make that back from the dead, as she gets killed in tonight's episode, but not killed off. The show's writers somehow managed to keep all the cheese we love so much, while supplying us with a solid mystery that's fun to try to solve...

Terrific fun, and much classier than the old show, but still with plenty of cheese. If you're wondering how they turned this old package of individually-sliced cheddar into a fresh slab of brie, you'll be interested to know that the new producers are from Smallville, and tonight's pilot was directed by Davis Guggenheim — the Oscar winner for An Inconvenient Truth. Geez. I hope cheese doesn't pollute the environment!

The Boston Globe

I "like'' the new Melrose Place,' in that I think it has the potential to be as addictive, and phony, as a can of Pringles potato crisps. The trashy CW series... has none of the hokey moral quandaries of the show that precedes it, 90210, no lesson-learning unless you're a student of chicanery and double-dealing. The new Melrose Place is just a mess of gossipy plotlines about adultery, murder, and secrets. If it has a moral compass, the arrow is stuck pointing down, to hell.

Variety

"I wish you'd known me when I first moved here," Laura Leighton's Sydney Andrews says wryly near the start of the Melrose Place reboot, which — given the CW's determination to recycle everything Fox did in the early 1990s — is probably better than it ought to be. That's not saying the premiere is particularly good, only that it has assembled a highly attractive cast and rapidly thrust it into tawdry situations, including a convenient murder mystery to get the ball rolling. Success will ultimately depend on ecology - that is, the level of demand for recycled trash.

Time

By the standards of the original, the remake actually comes off fairly well. Where the 90210 spinoff-about twentysomethings in a Los Angeles apartment complex-took a while to find its decadent, over-the-top tone, the new version skips over its forebear's early attempts at earnestness and goes straight for the trashy stuff. (Mostly. There are a couple misplaced stories about career-crises-of-conscience, particularly one involving aspiring filmmaker Jonah, played by Michael Rady of Swingtown, who seems to mistakenly believe he's in a TV show that requires realistic emotion.) The problem isn't that the new version-which dives right into the pool (literally) with a murder mystery and re-introduces several characters from the original-is bad, exactly. It's competent. It also seems a little familiar and unnecessary. The luridly lit nightclub scenes, for instance, by now seem familiar from the CW playbook of Gossip Girl and 90210.

The Los Angeles Times

If only it were possible to care, even the least little bit, who did what and why and what will happen next. But as of the end of Episode 2, it just isn't. Like action figure collectibles, each character is so carefully encased in his or her protective wrapping of clever plot possibilities — Auggie's a recovering alcoholic! David steals things! Lauren may have to become a high-price call girl to pay for med school! — that it's virtually impossible to connect with them emotionally.

The New York Times

The current version is slicker-looking than the old; the lighting is sultrier, and the stunned reaction shots are fewer. Much of the acting is marginally improved since the days when Andrew Shue, playing the doltish writer Billy Campbell, approached each scene as if the script demanded that he look like a 6-year-old told that he wasn't getting a puppy for his birthday. No one appearing on Melrose Place 2.0 is nearly that dreadful, and the one-liners that remind us that we are not watching the television of a historic golden age retain the zesty camp of the series's first iteration. "If it wasn't for me," Sydney Andrews tells the young protégé she has schooled in her lunatic brand of venality, "you'd still be wearing Juicy sweatsuits, French tips and a bad dye job."

The New Yorker

The old Melrose Place was on Fox, and the new one is on the CW (as is 90210, which precedes the new Melrose Place on the Tuesday-night schedule as of this week), and is a cross between a sequel and a remake-a requel-in that the story includes a couple of the old characters but isn't really about them, and yet the new characters almost completely mirror the old ones. In other words, it's as fresh as yesterday's daisy... Over all, the show has a little something, but it doesn't have outstanding curb appeal, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a foreclosure notice in the window sooner rather than later.

• Question 1: What's Your Idea Of The Perfect First Date?
• a. You, baby! Let's get it started! Is my boyfriend Devin going to see this, though? Devin! I love you! This means nothing, I swear! NOTHING!
• b. Anyone lucky enough to date me is going to have a perfect first date, period.
• c. Well, he would have to be like, really cute? And like, we would go to somewhere like, nice? Um, and like, it would be romantic?
• d. I am an ear of corn.
• e. Whatever, you know? I just go with things, man. If love happens, it happens, but I can't force it, you know? It's just whatever the energy of the universe wants, bro, you know? Whatever the vibe happens to be. You can read more about it in next month's Playboy magazine.
• f. Something really simple and sweet. I don't ask for much. Just good times with good people.

• Question 2: What Is Your Best Quality?
• a. I can drink anyone under the table! Want to see?
• b. Why don't you ask your boyfriend? He seemed to enjoy several of my qualities last night.
• c. Um...I like a lot of different things? Like, um...I like unicorns? And once, I saw Lindsay Lohan at a party and I was like, "Oh my god, you're Lindsay Lohan!" and she was like, "Yeah, I am." And so like...I can identify people, you know? Like, that's pretty good, I think?
• d. I am an ear of corn.
• e. I mean, you know, what can I say? I know how to get shit done, bro. I haven't had any complaints, in any areas, if you know what I'm saying. That was a sexual innuendo. Just wanted to make sure you picked that up. Are you filming on the left? Film on the right, bro. You know my right is my better side. Although both sides look good in my upcoming photo shoot for People magazine.
• f. I'm a good friend, or at least I try to be. I could always improve, I guess.

• Question 3: Who Is Your Role Model?
• a. Megan Fox!! She is so hot and crazy!!! I am too! SPRING BREAK! OWW!
• b. Get me a mirror and I'll show you, asshole.
• c. Rolls? Like...for bread? You can be a model for bread?
• d. I am an ear of corn.
• e. Jesus, who put me on this earth to be great. I actually discuss this in next week's issue of Star. You should buy a copy, bro. Buy one for your friends, too. It's gonna change your life, man.
• f. My parents. They have a really great marriage and they've always taught me that it's love and laughter that are important, not material things.

• Question 4: What Is Your Typical Saturday Night Like?
• a. If I remember it, it wasn't any good!
• b. You have to ask because you'll never be invited. That's so sad for you! Maybe you should go back to Nebraska or wherever it is you came from. I hear the cows on the farm are always looking for new friends.
• c. Um...Saturday is the day that comes after the day you stop working but only at night because like, you work during the day, but then like, the weekend technically starts at night, right? Why is it called Saturday? Did someone get sat on? Satted on? How do you say it?
• d. I am an ear of corn.
• e. I'd walk you through it bro, but it's too much for you to handle. Usually it just involves me and my beautiful girl being the most famous people alive, trying to get the haters out of our way. We can't help it if everyone wants to be like us. I mean, we're perfect, you know?
• f. I typically go out to dinner with some good friends and then maybe out dancing or for a few drinks. Sometimes if there's a good band in town, we'll go to a show. No big deal.

• Question 5: Where Do You See Yourself In 10 Years?
• a. Famous, gorgeous, and loving life! And I want to give a shout out to my fellow Coyotes, my man Devin who I love so so much, no matter what they say, baby! Now who wants to do some shots?!
• b. Somewhere you'll never be. I'd say something like, "But I'll never forget you," except, well, I totally will.
• c. Ten is five plus five!
• d. I hope to be the head of an international research company. Also, I will still be an ear of corn.
• e. Just turn on your television, baby, and I'll be there, no doubt!
• f. Happy. That's the most important thing, right?

Stay tuned for the results!

Those of you who watched the return of Jon and Kate Plus 8 may have noticed that the network blurred out all of Gosselin's Ed Hardy gear, leaving him to wander around on screen with all of his badass insignia covered up. So sad! How will anyone know that he's totally not going through a midlife crisis now?

Jon's clothes aren't the only problem, a source tells Radar, and the blurring was meant to not-so-subtly let him know that they aren't very happy with him right now: "TLC feels like they are being used by Jon. They want to send him a message loud and clear."

Perhaps if the network really wanted to send Jon Gosselin a message that they, like most of us in America, are tired of his shit, they should CANCEL the show itself. TLC may feel like they're being used, but that's a bit hard to swallow coming from a network that continues to air episodes of a "family" show even as the family unravels in a very public and very icky way. Gosselin's behavior, and the circus surrounding himself, his wife, and sadly, his children, may be offputting, but that circus never would have been there to begin with if the network hadn't pushed it on the rest of us.

For now, it's just the shirts that are being erased from our screens. But one hopes that the entire program isn't far behind.

Exclusive: Jon Gosselin Now Has Bad Marriage With TLC [Radar Online]

Earlier: Jon Gosselin: "It's Not A Midlife Crisis!

[Image via INFDaily.]