Earlier: Oprah's Favorite Things 2007: The Audience Freaks Out!

1.) Martha Stewart Vs. Rachael Ray
Last night on Nightline, Cynthia McFadden tried to stir up shit between the two women.

2.) Martha Stewart Vs. Sarah Palin
But on the red carpet this week, Martha didn't need any encouragement to talk shit on Sarah.

3.) Piper Palin Child Beauty Queen
Earlier this week, I joked that Piper Palin was wearing so much makeup for Sarah's interview with Barbara Walters that she practically looked high glitz.

Later that day, Oprah's camera crew went to Wasilla to film the Palin family at home, where Piper was wearing a crown and a sash.

4.) Mother/daughter bonding

5.) The D.E.N.N.I.S. System
It's funny 'cause it's true.

6.) Crap letter from a dude
As featured on True Life: I Can't Leave My Boyfriend. The guy later came back to her apartment when she wasn't home, and stole all of her electronics and her dog.

7.) America's Next Top Amityville Horror
ANTM aired some never-before-seen moments, and I'd rather that this one had stayed unseen.

8.) Drunk idiots
The people on the Real World/Road Rules Challenge get so stupid drunk that they always end up fighting, and subsequently kicked off the show (whichseems to be their sole source of income). Brad started in with Darrell for no reason.

And then Darrell turned Brad into Quasimodo.

9.) Sewing with Nancy
Her awkwardness makes me uncomfortable.

10.) Stomache

On Sunday, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a piece exploring the struggles of colleges trying to measure the effectiveness of programs designed to reduce rape and sexual assault. These programs have shifted the focus from women to men - and have stepped up the idea that men can assist in preventing third party assaults.

The Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women gives grants to colleges to develop or strengthen various resources, including policies related to prevention, victim counseling, and training for administrators and the campus police in identifying and responding to sexual assaults.

Some colleges try to reach all their incoming freshmen during orientation, or work the training into their curricula, while others aim to reach a few hundred students a year. On some campuses, well-financed women's centers funnel thousands of dollars into the effort, while other colleges have found ways to educate a good chunk of students without a real budget, relying on student volunteers and fund raising.

The challenge for colleges is that even the best prevention strategies lack guarantees. "There is no magic bullet," says Paul Schewe, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Violence. The field is relatively new to academe, and not all experts agree on the best approaches.

John D. Foubert, one of the pioneering instructors, believes that one of the ways to stop sexual assault would be to focus on getting men to envision what it would be like if they were raped:

The program, which Mr. Foubert created in the late 1990s, consists of an hourlong workshop on sexual assault. The cornerstone of the program is a video that dramatizes the rape of the male police officer, which is both graphic and disturbing. And according to his research, Mr. Foubert says, the video increases men's aversion to rape while casting them not as potential abusers but as "potential helpers" who can help prevent assaults.

On its Web site, Mr. Foubert's organization highlights statistics from studies he has conducted on the program's effectiveness. It says that not only does the program improve men's understanding of how to help a woman recover from rape, but it also lowers "the likelihood of raping for an entire academic year-longer than any other program evaluated in the research literature." Furthermore, Mr. Foubert concluded that 75 percent of "high risk" men who attend his program report lower likelihood of raping after the program concludes.

This sends up some red flags. One, who determines who is high risk? Anyone is capable of sexually assaulting someone else, and while it may help deter men in social settings where a lot of peers are egging on forcible contact, it doesn't really stop one-on-one occasions like acquiescence rape. Secondly, are these statistics based on self-reporting? As we've seen before, many people will dance rings around the word "rape" without realizing that their behavior falls squarely within the definitions.

The more commonly known strategy aimed at women is a "risk reduction" tactic - where programs explain to women what they can do to try to mitigate the risk of an assault:

While some rape-prevention strategies were created specifically for men, others were designed to empower women. The latter include "risk reduction" programs that have been shown to decrease the likelihood of being assaulted. Such programs teach women, for example, to keep an eye on their drink to prevent someone from drugging it; to attend parties in groups; and to set boundaries in sexual situations. Self-defense training can be another component.

But the majority of programs are for both genders, according to a recent review written by a panel of sexual-assault-prevention experts, including Mr. Berkowitz and Mr. Schewe. Most rely on a lecture format, but many use videos, interactive skits, role-playing, and rape survivor stories. And according to Rape Prevention and Risk Reduction: Review of the Research Literature for Practitioners, mixed-gender programs have been shown to produce positive changes in attitudes about rape, although they have generally not been successful over the long term.

Several companies have gotten into the game, too. Colleges can book a performance of Sex Signals, a two-person play designed to educate students using a mix of improvisational comedy and audience participation. NFormed.on.sexual.assault, which bills itself as a "not for too much profit" company, offers online video training to colleges at a cost of up to $6.95 per student.

Although it's important to applaud educators for taking a closer look at rape prevention, it's possible the dwindling and hard to measure returns will continue as long as they solely focus on risk management, to the detriment of everything else. One of the reasons I enjoyed the Yes Means Yes! anthology and blog (full disclosure: I'm one of the contributors) is this idea of enthusiastic consent. So often, questions of consent hinge upon hearing "no" as in "she never said no" or "I didn't hear her say stop." Yes Means Yes reframes that idea, positioning that the absence of no should not be taken as consent, and that only a full, enthusiastic yes leads to a positive sexual experience for both partners.

In addition, there are a number of amazing documentary films examining the larger role of cultural influences that often go unchallenged. Dreamworlds 3 is one of these resources, where the images of women in society are critically examined. While some men may gain valuable insight by trying to place themselves in the shoes of someone who has been raped, another effective tactic may be to show how dominant and unquestioned are certain ideas about sexuality. The segment in Dreamworlds on masculinity and control is a major eye-opener:

In addition, Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes provides a hip-hop focus that still provides men and women with a shocking glimpse of what types of behavior become normalized.

At 6:37, the statistics begin flashing on screen: One in four black women are raped after age eighteen, that black women are 35% more likely to be physically assaulted than white women, and that more than 700,000 women are assaulted each year, with 61% of those victims being under 18.

The following segment, "Sisters and Bitches," provides an illustrated view of the problems with rationalizing away behavior. As the scenes Hurt films become more sexually aggressive and more violent toward women, he eventually approaches as police officer, who more or less shrugs it off as regrettable but not preventable:

In order to change the way sexual aggression is viewed in the culture, people must make sure that they examine and challenge assumptions. Which brings me to this problematic passage in the Chronicle of Higher Education report:

The majority of rapists, almost all of whom are male, are never reported or prosecuted, according to David Lisak, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts at Boston who has spent more than two decades studying rapists. These "undetected rapists," as he called them in a 2002 paper, hold rigid beliefs about gender roles and objectify women. They are usually hypermasculine, equating aggression, sexual prowess, and violence with their own adequacy. They tend to use alcohol deliberately to make their victims more vulnerable to attack.

While I agree that the majority of rapists are never reported or prosecuted (thanks social stigmas!) I disagree with creating a profile of someone who could commit a sexual assault or rape. For one thing, putting characteristics like hypermasculinity into the mix could become confusing. How then, does one deal with the manipulative dynamics of Nice Guys, or the murky consent dynamics of the open-source boob project?

In addition, a focus on the outcome (dealing with or preventing rape and sexual assault) can also lead to ignoring the causes and effects leading up to these types of assaults. At Racialicious, we recently published a piece from Fiqah who talked about her problems dealing with sexual advances from a uniformed police officer that lives in her neighborhood. She wrote:

"Where you headed?" he asked, looking down at me as my eyes landed everywhere else: his shoes, a lamppost, a trashcan, a little boy barrelling down the sidewalk on his scooter. As we stopped at a crosswalk, he moved a full step closer to me so that we were separated by no more than a few inches. I swung the shopping bag hanging from my hand between us, casually, so as to appear non-deliberate. My flitting eyes landed on the gun at his hip. I quickly looked away.

"Oh, not far," I'd said, calmly, making small talk as my mind screamed angry accusations and panicked instructions. Don't let him walk you to your building! Stall him! It's your fault for wearing a V-neck shirt without a minimizer! Tell him you have run to the bodega across the street and pick up something you forgot! Tell him your boyfriend's waiting for you! You must always remember to wear your wedding ring when you go out or this will happen! This is your fault! Your fault! Don't tell him your real name! Don't tell him anything! Keep talking! This is your fault!

"OH!" I said, feigning dismay. "I forgot something! I gotta run into one of these bodegas and grab it."

"No problem, I'll walk you there," he'd said. My stomach turned over.

"Thank you so much, that's really nice, but I got it."

"You sure?" he'd asked, handing me my bags.

"Oh, yeah, it's not a problem. I mean, a little weight-lifting won't hurt!" I added. He laughed, and gave me one last nauseating up-and-down.

"Don't get too much exercise, now," he'd drawled.

I had swallowed my rising bile and forced a smile, thanking him for his help, and hastily crossed the street.

As is par for the course with any blog posts on rape, street harassment, and sexual harassment, comments started creeping in asking what the cop did wrong, why the writer would feel threatened if a man was just saying hello, and asking what men are supposed to do if women dress in a way to attract attention. One commenter even went so far as to suggest Fiqah would have been fine with this harassment if she thought the police officer was attractive.

These types of ingrained ideas need to be explored. There is no reason why men should have so many problems distinguishing between flirting and sexual aggression, or why reflexive reactions like "well why are you wearing that?" should go unchallenged.

Luckily, on campuses, administrators are open to changing tactics. As Dorothy Edwards, creator of the Green Dot program, says at the end of the Chronicle article:

Ms. Edwards, of Kentucky, echoes some of her peers when she says it doesn't matter to her which strategy comes out on top, as long as the goals are met. "I couldn't care less about Green Dot," she says. "I want to end rape."

Rape-Prevention Programs Proliferate, but 'It's Hard to Know' Whether They Work [The Chronicle]
Official Site [Yes Means Yes Blog]
Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape [Amazon]
Dreamworlds 3 (Unabridged) [Media Education Foundation]
Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes [PBS Independent Lens]
Nice Guy (TM) at XKCD [Restructure]
Open Source Boob Project [Feminist SF Wiki]
Unreported [Racialicious]

Earlier: Rapists Admit Repeated Crimes - As Long As You Don't Call It "Rape"

Kenneth Clark's famous study was dispiriting: almost every child preferred the white doll. In
2006, filmmaker Kiri Davis re-created the experiment, and 15 of her 21 young subjects chose the Caucasian baby doll. While, as we all know, children "have to be carefully taught," this is clearly ingrained early - and dies hard. On the View yesterday, Elisabeth Hasselbeck remarked on the looks her daughter got when she carried a Tiana doll from The Princess and the Frog on the street (although I personally might have been looking at the celebrity, but that's just me. And she says she was wearing a hat.)

Yet, what makes the whole thing even more depressing is that on the surface, there have never been so many doll "choices": a piece in today's Wall Street Journal points to the trend in doll-girl matching and, amongst toy companies, "an intensifying concern with matching the characteristics of the figurine with those of its owner."

There are, of course, several different issues at play here. On the one hand, we've got standards of beauty - kids need to see more varietals than Barbie, and know that all kinds of appearance and coloring are equally valid - that one is not always the heroine while the others are the chorus, the satellite, the token friend. In a word, we need diversity of dolls to become commonplace, taken for granted.

And then there are the different forms of play: some children like to "parent" their dolls; just yesterday I saw a little girl assiduously mothering her baby doll while her mother tended to a real-life infant sibling. In these cases, you don't need a shrink to tell you that the play is helpful for transitioning, for working out issues, and for learning positive behaviors. And you don't need to be a sociologist to know that for a little kid, your baby most often looks like you. (Although Brangelina may be putting paid to this notion for any child whose mother has a Star subscription.)

Of course, for most kids, it's not about that particularly. Like Hasselbeck's daughter, most young children just want dolls as friends or characters. As the Journal put it,

More commonly, children have enjoyed dolls not for narcissistic satisfaction but for their imaginative potential as hand-held adventurers that can be moved about and made to talk or fly. A corncob doll works as well for those purposes as a custom-made mini-me.

Which is what makes the whole "model-of-myself" trend kind of strange. There is a difference between wanting to see a wide spectrum of dolls, to know that you're represented as a valid human being, to own a toy you identify with (hopefully unthinkingly) and needing your doll to be a replica of you, the child. One is all about imagination; the other is about the opposite.

For children who wish to see their own faces reflected back at them, the toy industry has never before strained so assiduously to please. American Girl, the Mattel-owned company that sells 18-inch dolls with realistic hair and moveable limbs (including a line of historical dolls), offers an array of mannequins that can be configured with Godlike genetic specificity: For $95 to $109, parents can purchase a playmate that mirrors their daughter's hair (blond, red, auburn, caramel, brown, dark brown, brown-black or black-brown), eyes (blue, hazel, green or brown), skin (light, medium or dark), and even attributes such as freckles, bangs, curls and pierced ears.

While they may be contemporaneous phenomena, companies producing a wide range of ethnicities and features, being able to find a doll with glasses or one with a wheelchair, seems to me a very different thing from the mini-idols that every company from Madame Alexander to Bratz is now producing. I feel like the two get conflated, but they're different. I remarked on this phenomenon when Strawberry Shortcake got her infamous makeover: why, I wondered then, do toy companies think a child can't relate to a doll who isn't exactly like herself? I speak purely as a passionate doll-lover, but it seems to me a real lack of understanding of the toy's appeal. Would I have wanted such a thing? Well, for one thing, I never saw a sallow Blythe doll with matted hair (the only approximation that would have come close), but I don't think so. Sure, it would be fun to see yourself mirrored on Christmas morning, and I imagine there's a satisfaction to acquiring each accessory, making the doll's hobbies and wardrobe mirror one's own, but doesn't that get old, fast? That's not a doll that looks like you in the general sense; it's a model of you.

Do Our Dolls Have To Look Like Us? [Wall Street Journal]
Kiri Davis: A Girl Like Me [YouTube]

Why was I even there? I think the books are dumb, and I hated the first film. Well, first of all, I felt like it was my duty, since I did it last year. Second of all, as an amateur anthropologist, dilettante and pop culture junkie, I feel required to keep up with the zeitgeist. Plus, maybe the new director (Chris Weitz) would improve the feel of the film? Last but not least, two words: Buff Werewolf.

So there I was, scooting through the rain in downtown Manhattan to a theater where the line went out of the lobby and wrapped around itself into a weird storage area where ladders were lying on the floor.

As my friend Workhorse and I settled into the line, the young lady in front of us assessed the wait and proclaimed, "I should have brought my computer, I could have done my homework."

"We're the oldest ones here," Workhorse whispered to me. It was mostly true: teens and twenty-somethings lined the walls of the waiting room. Workhorse and I are firmly entrenched in our 30s. When we did see one older guy, he had a young girl with braces with him. Daughter? Niece? Neither of us had that excuse.

"This movie is romantic," I warned Workhorse. "Are you going to cry?"
"I might cover my eyes if it's scary," he replied.
I frowned: "You didn't cover your eyes in the first one."
"I was too busy rolling them."

When we got to our seats I heard the 19-ish girl next to me say to her friend, "I can't believe you haven't read the books!"

I have read the books. Well, the first one, the second one, and half of the third one. I found them hypnotic, yet frustrating: The writing wasn't great and the story dragged; yet I was always curious to know: What happens next?

And such is New Moon. The filmmakers claimed they wanted to keep the movie close to the books, and they did: It is SO SLOW. The story drags. The drama in the first few minutes — when Bella gets a paper cut in front of a pack of vamps — is only mildly interesting; there's something off in the way she holds up her bloody finger and announces she's been cut — it's just so obvious, lacking in finesse or subtlety. Also: When you get a paper cut, don't you just automatically put you finger in your mouth? Jeez.

Anyway, next, Edward the Sparkle Vamp promptly breaks up with Bella (the girl next to me cried a little.) And then, for a long time, nothing happens. Bella mopes, has nightmares, goes through the motions. In the film, there's a montage to indicate that October, November and December pass while she is catatonic from misery, and it felt almost like her mourning process was happening in real time. IT WAS TEDIOUS. Plus, every time she interacted with the long-haired, fully clothed Buff Werewolf, all I could think was, "CUT YOUR HAIR AND TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF AND GET THIS MOVIE STARTED." More naked werewolves, less of the morose girl.

Through the film, Bella is narrating in a voiceover, but the conceit is that she is writing to her vampire friend Alice. Every scene without dialog begins, "Alice." and then "I am blah blah blah." If you play a drinking game when you go see this movie, drink every time she says "Alice" and you'll be wasted an hour in.

Time went by. The movie started at 12:20 and Bella didn't piece together that the werewolf is a werewolf until almost 2am. Her relationship with Jacob the Buff Werewolf is actually really sweet, and he seems like a better choice for her than brooding Edward, but that's just me. (Team Jacob?) The biggest problem is that Bella is a crappy heroine. She doesn't enunciate, she's incredibly passive, and I'm pretty sure she's codependent.

There were a few moments when the Buff Werewolf's dilemma — going through something and not being able to tell anyone — seemed like a metaphor for coming out of the closet, but that was probably just me trying to make things more interesting.

I laughed when Bella took VIRGIN airways to Italy; and the visuals of her running through the Little Red Riding Hood convention were actually really beautiful. And between Bella's friends and father, there are quite a few laughs. Unfortunately, the jokes are sideshows to a sluggish, depressing tale. The movie is bad. It's too long and too boring. Bella lacks the kind of spunky, triumphant joie de vivre I admired so much in Buffy. I know I'm not the target audience for New Moon — but as a woman who loves to get swept up in fantasy, drama, romance, vampires and werewolves, I was really and truly open minded; willing to give it a chance. Alas: For a flick with a lot of fangs, it didn't have much bite.

I did enjoy this:

And this:



But that's about it, so save your twelve bucks.

Earlier: Twilight At Midnight: Smells Like Teen Spirit

I felt bad for her, I really did. But the thrill is gone! You done me wrong, PR. And it's not me: It's you.

Anyway: Here's what happened last night. Carol Hannah cried. She was comforted by the Aryan arms of Logan.

Carol Hannah cried some more, and was comforted by Christopher.

Later Carol Hannah bucked up and put on some mascara.

Tim Gunn had a mothertrucking meltdown. Don't make Snagglepuss angry! Or he will exit! Stage left!

Here's Althea's show. She said that she was inspired by sci-fi movies of the '50s and '60s.

I thought her show was more '80s.

Or '90s.

Carol Hannah's show was basically just stuff she wanted to wear. Here are the notes I took last night:
yawn
baggy satin
preggo top
bottle brush dress
cleopatra sea anemone

Irina was inspired by New York, and the armor a woman needs to protect herself in this city. Although I found her distasteful as a "character" on the show, her collection had some really nice coats and was more cohesive than the other two. Still, was it as good as collections by Kenley, Leanimal or Christian Siriano?

In the end, judges Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and Suzy Menkes agreed that Carol Hannah's collection had "impeccable tailoring" but was not cohesive and had too many ideas. The panel thought that Althea's collection was "plugged in to the street" and that she "knows what's cool," but Irina's "edgy" "armor" made her the winner. I was watching with a friend who declared, "this is terrible television." I sighed and agreed, but felt the need to point out: It didn't used to be like this!
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen. Adieu.

(Except the show returns in January!)

As Christo and Jeanne-Claude put it in an interview with the Journal of Contemporary Art:

Gianfranco Mantegna: Of your many projects the Reichstag wrapping is the one that took the most time to be realized: nearly 23 years, right? Did you ever think that it would not happen? Why the Reichstag? And what inspired you?

Christo: First of all, you should understand that this is not only my project, it's also Jeanne-Claude's, all I do myself are the drawings . . .

Jeanne-Claude: The only things I do myself is write the checks, pay the bills and pay the taxes. Everything else is Christo and Jeanne-Claude, including the creativity. It's about time that people correct this mistake.

So. Conceptually, logistically, and creatively, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were more or less indivisible. We probably shouldn't think this kind of radically egalitarian relationship terribly unusual, in this day and age, when feminism's various well-advertised social and legislative victories have supposedly left us all more equal in life and in relationships than ever before. But isn't it wonderful to be reminded that a couple where both members were born (coincidentally, on the same day) in 1935 could see no better way of working together, than to work together?

Especially in the world of visual art, where women involved with great artists have traditionally been consigned to the role of "muse." Art hinges on the idea of a single creator, and his or her (but usually his) creative vision: that's why Guernica is art, and those scenic paintings done painstakingly by hand in workshops in China are not. Art historians argue for years over whether a work should be classified as by, for instance, El Greco, or if it was merely done by one of his trainees, because art affirms that the intentions and identity of a work's creator matters. Even in a collaboration, a partnership, as apparently straightforward as that of Christo's and Jeanne-Claude, the temptation is always to ask: but who really thought of that? (And then there is the further temptation to assume that it must have been Christo.) His refusal to play along — look at how he corrected that interviewer — is admirable.

Although before the Reichstag project, in 1994, all of their works had been presented under only Christo's name, the couple always maintained that the aesthetic burden was shared throughout their lives. (In fact, in 1968, Christo and Jeanne-Claude separately oversaw two simultaneous wrapping projects in different parts of Europe.) Although Christo had been wrapping small objects, like chairs and bottles, in fabric before he met Jeanne-Claude, he had never before attempted a project on the scale of a building before. From that point on, there's basically no point asking whose idea was which, although Jeanne-Claude has been credited with thinking of swaddling the islands of Biscayne Bay in pink fabric, which became the Surrounded Islands work of 1983.

Together, they fought bureaucracy. (The Gates succeeded after 22 years of official opposition to the idea of erecting 7,500 16 ft. tall gates swathed in orange nylon in Central Park; permission to wrap the Reichstag in Berlin wasn't granted for 24 years.) Jeanne-Claude told the New Yorker in 2004, "Probably the most difficult one for us, the one we would not want to go through ever again, was the Pont Neuf." That project, realized in 1985, took a decade of wrangling. "Our permit to wrap Pont Neuf depended on two men who never agreed on anything. One was the President of France, François Mitterrand, and the other was the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, who wanted to become president, and later did. There was an election coming up in 1986, and they were playing Ping-Pong with us, and we were the balls." Together, they financed the cost of all of their great environmental art projects themselves — no mean feat, given that The Gates cost an estimated $20 million. (The couple's usual method was to sell Christo's sketches to raise the necessary capital. They have apparently always felt that accepting grants or sponsorship would corrupt their working process.)

That fund-raising process was well underway for "Over The River," Christo and Jeanne-Claude's next project, which had been more than a decade in the planning stages when Jeanne-Claude's death, from a brain aneurysm, was announced this morning. Christo says he will continue without her. The idea is for nearly 6-mile long fabric panels to stretch across the top of the Arkansas River gorge in Colorado. Recreational boaters and other users of the river will be able to look up and see the sky through the panels, but from above, the river will look — for two weeks — silvery, flat and opaque. The earliest this might happen, the artists have said, is the summer of 2011.

So these two, who functioned as one, are now only one. Their long companionate marriage is over. I certainly hope that Over The River, when it is erected, can stand as a tribute to the two of them and all they shared.

Christo And Jeanne-Claude [Journal of Contemporary Art]
Lishui, China's Ancient Weir Art Village [New Yorker]
Over The River [Christo and Jeanne-Claude]
Gates To The City [New Yorker]

The report made waves by advising against home screening for breast cancer and against annual mammograms:

The task force, a federal advisory board, said this week that women should not begin routine mammograms until age 50, contradicting the well-established advice that women 40 and older should be screened.

Groups such as the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure have opposed the new guidance.

The backlash was swift and merciless, forcing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to issue a statement saying that the recommendations of the task force are not guaranteeing a change in government policy:

In a written statement, Sebelius said the guidelines had "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country" and stressed that they were issued by "an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who . . . do not set federal policy and . . . don't determine what services are covered by the federal government." [...]

The task force on Monday recommended that women in their 40s stop having routine mammograms and instead individually discuss whether to get the exams with their doctors.

The panel also recommended that women in their 50s get mammograms routinely every two years, instead of annually. The panel argued that the benefits of more frequent exams were outweighed by the harms caused by false alarms, which can lead to anxiety and unneeded treatment.

While hailed by many patient advocates and breast cancer experts, the new guidelines have been harshly criticized by the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology and others, including some members of Congress.

Two of the women over at Time's Swampland blog are up in arms, noting that the recommendation seems more like a cost-saving measure rather than anything that will benefit women. Kate Pickert points out the numbers:

The panel also said a review of clinical data showed that yearly mammograms for women 40-49 reduced the risk of breast cancer death by 15%, but under a section titled "Balance of Harms and Benefits," said this:

• Harms of screening include psychological harms, additional medical visits, imaging, and biopsies in women without cancer, inconvenience due to false-positive screening results, harms of unnecessary treatment, and radiation exposure. Harms seem moderate for each age group.

  False-positive results are a greater concern for younger women; treatment of cancer that would not become clinically apparent during a woman's life (overdiagnosis) is an increasing problem as women age.

These new guidelines - which while influential, are not binding - have caused no small amount of consternation. Women are incensed that some faraway task force has decided a 15% risk reduction – i.e. actual lives saved – is not enough to warrant mass screenings. I asked a number of female colleagues here at TIME what they thought of the new guidelines and all said they found the new recommendations to be disturbing. One even said the news set off "a giant pink bell ringing in my head."

After pointing out how Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a breast cancer survivor, freaked out at the proposal, Pickert concludes:

For instance, a small number of women get diagnosed with breast cancer in their 20s and 30s. Does this mean mammograms should be routine during these years too? At what point do lives saved outweigh "psychological harms, additional medical visits, imaging, and biopsies in women without cancer, inconvenience due to false-positive screening results, harms of unnecessary treatment, and radiation exposure." Will private insurance companies, which pay close attention to guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Task Force and other groups, stop covering mammograms for women under 50? Wouldn't insurers rather catch cancers early when they are easy (and cheap) to treat? And what about the oft-touted U.S. breast cancer five-year survival rate, which is 83.9%, compared to England, where it's 69.7%?

Time's Karen Tumulty doesn't pull any punches - she thinks the task force is composed of "pinheads:"

[A]t age 19, when I discovered lumps in both my breasts that didn't go away after a couple of menstrual cycles.

That's when I had my first mammogram. Back in those days, the technology wasn't what it is today, and it was inconclusive. My doctor decided he wanted to do a biopsy. That wasn't what it is today, either. A simple breast biopsy in 1975 required me to check in for an overnight stay in a hospital, and to sign forms before the surgery authorizing a mastectomy on the spot if it turned out to be cancer. I remember vividly waking up from the general anesthesia terrified, feeling the heavy layers of bandages trying to figure out what they had done. It was benign—thank God—but it turned out to be the first of several times I would go through this drill, because I have lumpy breasts. The fancy name for that is fibrocystic disease.

At the time of my first breast biopsy, I had no family history of the disease. I subsequently developed one. Over the years, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer (and survived it); my aunt was too (and didn't). I've had a number of scares, but none, thus far, has turned out to be cancer.

So it would seem I'm the perfect example of a person who shouldn't have had mammograms, or even examined my own breasts. But am I sorry I've had the information I've had through mammograms and self-exams? Not for a second.

That's why I think these scientists are pinheads. Pink ribbons are lovely, but women who want information should have it. And I would remind Swampland readers of the important lesson we all learned from Carly Fiorina. Information is power, ladies, and don't let some scientific panel tell you it isn't.

But the NY Times' Gail Collins begs to differ:

Somewhere between the reports that Pap smears and tests for prostate cancer aren't all they were cracked up to be and the news that a high fiber diet doesn't do anything to prevent cancer, the health establishment began looking decidedly nonomniscient. Then this week, a federal task force reported that most women don't need annual mammograms.

Even more fascinating, they suggested that doctors stop telling their female patients to self-examine their breasts for lumps. [...]

The report triggered two immediate and inevitable responses. Doctors and patients began an animated discussion. And Republicans declared it was all a Democratic plot.

"I mean, let the rationing begin. This is what happens when bureaucrats make your health care decisions," said Representative David Camp, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Representative Camp is definitely on to something. Whatever happens, we do not want the government conducting any studies on whether current health practices actually do any good. Let this continue and soon you will not be able to get your hands on a good leech when you need one.

There is no possible political advantage in coming out against medical testing, so the Obama administration scurried away from the report. The task force did not consider the matter of cost, but, of course, people like Representative Camp depicted it as the first step toward rationing. The current position of the Republican Party seems to be that it is not possible to spend too much money on medicine. Party on.

(Has anybody noticed that the people who darkly warn about government bureaucrats forcing insurance companies to cut back our coverage appear to be the same ones who just voted to force insurance companies to stop covering abortions? Where's the sanctity of the marketplace when we really need it?)

Collins, also a breast cancer survivor, is remarkably glib about the whole business, explaining:

I had mammograms every year like clockwork, and I had just gotten a clean bill of health from my latest one when I found a lump on my left breast while watching a rerun of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," multitasker that I am.

It turned out to be cancer, of a fairly low-grade variety. My oncologist felt strongly that it never would have developed if I hadn't taken estrogen replacement therapy - another one of the medical marvels that has now been consigned to the Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time category.

So, in summary, the cutting-edge of medical thinking of the 1990s may have induced my cancer, and then the universally recommended testing protocol failed to detect it.

So who's correct? Only time will tell, but in terms of personal health, most of us would prefer to side with the old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Who decides about mammograms? Inside the task force [CNN]
Sebelius distances herself from new mammogram guidelines [LA Times]
Are Mammograms the New Political Football? [Time]
A Word About My Breasts [Time]
The Breast Brouhaha [NY Times]

Earlier: New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines Spark Confusion, Criticism

MEOUCH!!!! OH NOES! DIS MODDLE HAZ NO CAPSHUN!!!!! USE TEH AMAZIN ROFLBOT! AN POST SUGGGESSHUNS IN TEH COMMINTZ!!!!

Earlier:
Vogue Taunts Us With LOL-Worthy Horse
LOLVogue: I Purmd Mai Hare
LOLVogue: I Can Haz Locayshun Shewt? (Plus Contest!)
October's LOLVogue Contest: We Have A Winner
LOLVogue: Teh Billee Goatz Gruff (And Contest!)
LOLVogue: Sumwon Elss Kleanz Up (Plus Contest!)
LOLVogue: I Can Haz Wind Tunnel?
LOLVogue: All Dat Glitterz Iz Mah Pantz
LOLVogue: Superhero Photo Shoot Gets Super Stoopid
French LOLVogue: I Can Has My Close-Up?
I Can Has Jeetann? C'est LOLVogue En Faux Français
LOLVogue: Teh Hare Toss & Teh Bunnee Hop
LOLVogue: Tard Moddles & Bahlinceeyagga
Bon Joor, C'est Paris LOLVogue Encore!
LOLVogue: Sheez Over Ayteen, I Sware
LOLVogue: Hungry Moddles & Rorschach Tests
LOLVogue: Carbs, Botox & Pink-Eye
LOLVogue: Good Help Is Hard To Find
Mon Dieu! C'est French LOLVogue: Shoulders, Champagne and Cigarettes
LOLVogue: Starving Models & Marionettes
LOL'Vogue': Scarves, Silverware & Scooters

Related: LOLLost: Srsly, Guiz, Dis Izland Is Weeerd

An escort agency manager identified only as James told the London Times's Helen Croydon that the TV version of Belle's story made some young women proud to be prostitutes. He says,

The TV series did glamorise it [...] Whether that is good or bad I won't say but I noticed that after it was shown, our younger girls - the ones aged 18 to 21 - started to think that what they did was cool. I call it the ‘Belle de Jour phenomenon'. They used to want to hide it but recently I hear they have come clean to friends - boyfriends, even. Not only has it become acceptable to them but some even aspire to it.

So will the revelation that Belle de Jour is Brooke Magnanti — educated, currently with a loving partner, and apparently with no regrets — convince more young women that prostitution can be cool and even risk-free? Magnanti's (alleged) ex, who has begun an extremely long-winded blog about her, has this rather bizarre answer:

Anyone who reads it and decides to take up prostitution because of it has much deeper issues. Her blog and books were merely the litmus paper that indicated/highlighted it, not the cause.

For example, having watched Twilight you don't just then fall for the next moody, pale adolescent you see. He might be a ravishingly intriguing vampire who can unlock the door to an exciting world, allowing you to escape your rather mundane one. However he might also just be quiet because he has nothing to say and pale because the world he will show you hidden in his bedroom is the Online Gaming forum he inhabits everyday when he should be out in the sun kite surfing every now and again as well. He will be fat, spotty and myopic by 30, not eternally youthful with good cheek bones. There is nothing wrong with the former, but don't be surprised and berate him for it when it happens.

Twilight references aside, the Daily Mail offers a cautionary tale for any young woman who might want to follow in Magnanti's footsteps. The lead is classic Daily Mail — "This week the anonymous sex blogger Belle de Jour revealed her true identity as a scientist and claimed she enjoyed her work as a prostitute. But can any woman justify glamorising prostitution?" — but Christina Errington's story is disturbing. She writes about having unprotected sex with older men as a university student, first because she needed the money and later as a form of retaliation against her overprotective and uncommunicative parents. Two men hit her, and she says "it took me several years of being in a trusting and loving relationship [...] before I could make love without stirring up unpleasant recollections of my life on the streets." She concludes her piece thus:

It is easy to say, as Brooke Magnanti did this week, that selling your body for money doesn't hurt anyone. But it does, and the damage that is caused to a woman's self-respect is sometimes irreparable.

It's clear that prostitution can carry psychological as well as physical risks, whether or not a prostitute is educated and middle-class. But it's somewhat unfortunate that Errington implies she deserved to lose her self-respect because she did sex work. Croydon writes that "those entering this sort of 'work' must have specific non-emotive character traits to be able to handle the psychological strain," and it's obvious that Errington, who took up prostitution in response to poor family relationships, felt this strain keenly. But what "non-emotive traits" would someone need in order not to feel it? Was Magnanti's comfort with her profession the result of her personality — which her ex describes with the words, "she wiped her nose on her sleeve and ate peas off her knife whilst discussing advanced astronomy etc at the dinner table" — or simply of good luck? It's hard to know, perhaps because both Errington's story — the fallen woman scarred by her days of selling herself — and Magnanti's — what Croydon calls the "happy hooker" — are such popular media narratives. What's missing from the public conversation about prostitution — and what continues to be missing despite Magnanti's confession — are nuanced portrayals of both the attractions and risks of sex work. These exist — Michelle Tea's Rent Girl is one. But they get less attention than stories that fit into established prostitution cliches, which, despite her new candor about her identity, Belle de Jour's still does.

Image via Daily Mail.

Happy Hookers: The Other Belles De Jour [TimesOnline]
I Was A Student Call Girl Like Belle De Jour - And The Shame Will Never Leave Me [Daily Mail]
Untitled Post [Brookes Owen]
Belle De Jour's Father: I'm Broken-Hearted After Discovering Her Past [Telegraph]

One of the greatest fallacies about history is the belief that what is commonly presented to us as our past is somehow a complete history. Somehow, the realities that millions of Americans lived were white-washed from history books and often do not return. B. Vikki Vintage's blog is valuable in that it reminds us that the American experience was broad and all-encompassing.


These students are walking to a Negro College Aid function, while still fashionable. Love the dress on the right.


I have nothing to say but: bad-ass.


Back when homecoming was an event.


This scene took my breath away. It belongs in a Turner Classic Movie.


At some point, petticoats came back in style.


We even had pulp comics (which I am now obsessed with).


Some things never go out of style. I'd put this on and happily walk out the door.


This type of pose - allowing the fabric to billow around the body - was super popular. It appears in many of the homecoming photos on the B. Vikki vintage site.


The caption reads "What a difference a year makes!" As we transitioned from the 50s into the 60s, the Afro began to be a popular hair style option.


Her look is part-Mod, part-Twiggy, all fabulous.


Fixed up and looking sharp in suits, gloves, and heels.


And of course, Coca-Cola got in on the action.


Sarah Vaughn was doing her thing.


And so was Dinah Washington.


All this happened while women were working on breaking down barriers in all aspects of life.


And while we were fighting segregation.


As Restructure puts it so well: "People of colour are not a story of suffering . . . Or resistance. We are multifaceted."


What is important to remember that only by finding all the pieces will we, as Americans, have a clear understanding of our whole history. There are many people who were here, living, breathing, loving, dancing - and their stories have been deemed unimportant. I'm most familiar with African-American history, but there is also an Asian American History, a Latin American history, an Indigenous history - all of which overlapped with popular culture and helped to create our American tapestry. To be written out of history is one thing - to do so in a way that the contributions of others are completely forgotten is another. As Threadbared points out, there's still so much more to find.

The sex tape, which allegedly shows Prejean pleasuring herself, initially seemed like a potential PR boost for her book, Still Standing. But the book's Amazon sales rank of #4,786 isn't terribly impressive (though it's #34 in "political doctrines"), and new revelations about her past seem to have soured her relations with supporters. These revelations include not just the tape itself, but a TMZ interview with its alleged intended recipient. This "boyfriend," whom Prejean said she "loved about and cared about," says he only met her in person once, for a four-day stretch they spent in a hotel. He also says she made him at least fifteen sex tapes, all when she was over 18, and that she and her lawyers pressured him to say she was underage — presumably so the tapes would be considered child pornography and not released. Though the ex remains anonymous, it's still in his interest to claim he would never have sex with an underage girl, and it's probably wise to take all his words with a grain of salt. But for the Christian groups that used to back Prejean, they may be the last straw.

The National Organization of Marriage, which once defended Prejean with the words, "Hollywood will dance its tribal war dance over her body–the hatred generated against her has been extraordinary–but Carrie will be free to define her own mission and message from now on," has now removed its press releases in support of her from its website, along with the ad above. And lawyer Charles LiMandri, who works with NOM and used to represent Prejean, now says,

I figured I'd help out for a couple of weeks and that would be it. But the attention continued so I stayed involved. Now that the mediation is over and the case I represented her on is done, I probably will not be involved with her as her attorney in any action going forward.

He also downplays her involvement with NOM, for whom she once recorded robocalls, saying, "It was one day. Then people got angry, so she ended her involvement." Blogger Ed Brayton writes,

[...] God knows, and the public knows, and the NOM now knows, that Prejean is just another shallow, vapid Paris Hilton wannabe draping herself in the Bible while violating most of its precepts. She's the female equivalent of John Ensign, Mark Sanford, Newt Gingrich, David Vitter and innumerable others who place themselves on a moral pedestal while violating everything they claim to stand for as soon as the cameras are turned off (or in Prejean's case, turned on).

The sad thing about Prejean's fall from grace is that she didn't do anything wrong. If it's true that she was of age, her sex tapes weren't illegal, and unlike Mark Sanford, she didn't disappear from elected office to cheat on a partner. All she did was masturbate in front of her cell phone camera, and possibly have a fling in a hotel room with a guy who turned out to be indiscreet. That guy says, "Really, I mean if she was just herself and she'd just take the route of ‘Hey I just like to party and I like to have a great time and I'm hot,' hey, that sells too." It might have sold — but more importantly, it would have been honest. Instead, Prejean chose to stake her fame on judging other people's relationships. So while her sexual choices don't deserve condemnation, it's hard not to be a little gleeful that her punishment for hypocrisy is to be shunned by the very people she courted under false pretenses.

The Right Dumps Carrie [Daily Beast]
National Organization For Marriage Drops Prejean [ScienceBlogs: Dispatches From The Culture Wars]
Sextape Partygirl Prejean Dropped By Marriage Defenders [Colorado Independent]
Prejean's Ex BF: Carrie Wanted Me To Lie [TMZ]

America's Next Top Model is…Nicole! I think this is the only cycle in which I agreed with the judges' choice 100%.


Tyra said that this is the first ever "petite" winner in Top. Model. History. Oh yeah? What about poor Eva from cycle 3? She was only 5'6.5" while Nicole is 5'7".


I have to say, though, that Laura did out-walk Nicole.


But I'm surprised that she wasn't admonished for her crazy tan lines. Tyra missed an opportunity to set an example and bestow wisdom. Those are her favorite things to do! It's like she's not the same anymore.


WTF?


And lastly, who's the jerk that pretended she wanted Teyona's autograph?

Sidney Poitier. Serious actor? Of course. Stone-cold fox? Yup. His omission is criminal!


Serge Gainsbourg. You really can't use the word "sexy" in any context and not think of Serge.


Kerouac/Cassady. Assholes? Surely. Overrated? Maybe. But this is about mid-century "sexiness," people - and the Beats had that down.


Marcello Mastroianni Have you seen 8 1/2? Then you won't question this.


Jimi Hendrix. Another no-brainer.


Jean-Paul Belmondo. You don't need to be a student of the New Wave to appreciate that no list would be complete without a healthy dose of insolent JPB.


Howard Keel. Who? You say. Adam Pontipee! Say I. To say nothing of Fred Graham, Frank Butler, Gaylord Ravenel...


Yves Saint-Laurent. The man was the cologne of the 1970s for a reason.

Sexiest Men Of The '50s, '60s, '70s [Life]

[Images via Getty]

Yes, Palin has shaken off the McCain entourage and that pesky government gig. Levi Johnston has broken with the family values narrative and is visiting with Sodom and Gomorrah. But the major memes are unchanged: her breezy embrace of ignorance is still only slightly tempered by a new round of handlers; she still unblinkingly co-opts feminist language; she still mesmerizes and infuriates.

Palin, write Nation editors Richard Kim and Betsy Reed in the introduction, "personalized, popularized, and polarized the debate." They're referring to her single post on her Facebook page that launched a thousand death panel screeds. But it pretty much applies to all things Palin.

Going Rogue is made up mostly material compiled from the election season, some of it after the McCain-Palin defeat, plus a handy greatest-hits collection of her fumblings and fabrications. Though there are some essays on her environmental policy and her religious associations, nearly all of them deal with her implications for women – her policies on sexual assault in a state with the highest rate of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence, what her selection means for women's progress. To the editors' credit, younger women writers like Rebecca Traister, Dana Goldstein, Jessica Valenti, Amanda Fortini, and Amy Alexander are well-represented alongside the likes of Frank Rich, Gloria Steinem, and Naomi Klein.

Before the election, cable-news analysis tried out the theory, the McCain campaign hoped against hope, and liberals had nightmares that Palin would be some sort of gamechanger for the Republicans in the 2008 campaign. But plenty of feminist and progressive writers saw through the entirely cynical ruse from the start. The lessons from the book — especially in a week where Palin's antics are tying feminists in knots, when some of her detractors are indeed sexist, but she herself advocates policies that limit women's rights — is to observe, as these writers have, how disingenuous a project this has been and still is.

Several of the essayists point out that Palin has gotten this far by co-opting cherished liberal ideals. That includes affirmative action and feminism. "Lower standards for potential leaders of the world's most powerful country in the name of diversity: That's what Republicans stand for now," writes Katha Pollitt in one essay. She adds, "The good news is, this twisted homage to feminism means conservatives must recognize it as a force in American politics-why spend so much time framing Palin as a feminist if we're all just a bunch of hairy man-haters?

Tom Perrotta also recognizes that Palin is a red herring, understanding her in the context of what he calls the Sexy Puritan archetype, which is a result of the right realizing that "to be seen as anti-sex — and especially to be seen as unsexy — is a losing proposition in contemporary America, even among evangelical Christians most troubled by the fallout of the sexual revolution."

Going Rouge can make you nostalgic for the moral clarity of the election season, when all the knotty dynamics came down to a simple yes or no on a Tuesday. Maybe that's another reason we can't let go of Palin — it's more fun to dwell in the suspenseful soap opera of last year than it is to deal with the bleak ambiguity of actually solving our problems in the Obama era.

Do people who oppose Palin's politics and her dragging down of the discourse make her matter more by obsessing over her? True, the future could still bring Palinism out of the teabag margins and into the mainstream. But if there's any silver lining to this act of the media farce, it's to remind us, as this book does in the most reasonable and un-Palin-like terms, why a majority of the electorate also didn't fall for it in the first place.

Going Rouge [OR Books] (Book only available for purchase through publisher).

It all depends on whom is asked the question.

To Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post, the film is yet another negative portrayal of blackness for white consumption. He scoffs at the idea Precious is a relateable movie, saying:

The New York Times Magazine featured the movie as a cover story last month and declared: "Precious is a stand-in for anyone — black, white, male, female — who has ever been devalued or underestimated."

Let's see: I lose my job, so I take in a movie about a serially abused black girl and I go, "Oh, swell, she's standing in for me."

Maybe there is something to the notion that when human pathology is given a black face, white people don't have to feel so bad about their own. At least somebody's happy.

After pointing out that sexual abuse is an cross-cultural issue, he then turns his attention to Oprah:

Asked by Entertainment Weekly magazine why she got involved with the project, Oprah said: "I realized that, Jesus, I have seen that girl a million times. I see that girl every morning on the way to work, I see her standing on the corner, I see her waiting for the bus as I'm passing in my limo, I see her coming out of the drugstore, and she's been invisible to me."
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Instead of making a movie about how she beat the odds, Oprah has taken to divining ugly life stories from black girls she passes in her limo. Maybe the Obama girls should stay off the sidewalk for a while.

In "Precious," Oprah and Perry have helped serve up a film of prurient interest that has about as much redeeming social value as a porn flick.

Milloy's contempt is counterbalanced by Sapphire's comments in today's New York Times. She tells Richard Bernstein a little more about how Precious is positioned in both the book and the movie:

There's a message in this, and Sapphire, whom I spoke to on the phone this week, wrote her book to get it across. There are many abused young women stuck in the hidden crevices of urban American life, and they need what Precious gets if they are to have a chance to turn their lives around.

"I really wanted to show a young woman who changes her life without falling in love and without getting married," Sapphire told me, "and without plastic surgery or a physical change."

In other words, she didn't want Precious to succeed via some sort of near magical and unlikely intervention, like losing a hundred pounds and actually looking like Cinderella. "I wanted to show how somebody can take concrete steps and work on her deficiencies and move her life forward," she said, "which is what millions of women are going to have to do."

Sapphire's take adds yet another dimension to the book that is often lost in the events of the plot - the reality of the matter is that unlike in a movie (where the perfect man will save you) or on a reality show (where if you lose weight or get plastic surgery, your whole life improves), most people do not have the luxury of waiting around for a savior. Sapphire then explains:

"She doesn't achieve this through romance," Sapphire said, "or through finding a boyfriend, or losing a hundred pounds, but through literacy, some friends, her loving relationship with her child. That's why it's the cultural event of the season."

True. But even seen though this lens, Precious has some detractors. Malika Saada Saar, founder of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, provides a painful reality check when she writes "this movie is in many ways a fairy tale:"

The character Precious gets to be saved by a caring caseworker and a loving teacher. In real life, poor, undereducated and sexually victimized girls are most likely to end up in the juvenile justice system.

I see it all the time. There is the 13-year-old who became pregnant to stop her uncle from raping her — a girl whom I met not at an incest survivors group but in a girls' detention facility. Or the girl raped so many times by age 13 that she feels worthy of being prostituted and cannot see a life for herself beyond jail. Or the girl who was kidnapped by a pimp, repeatedly raped by him, prostituted by him — only to be arrested and placed behind bars for prostitution.

Girls in the United States are subject to violence with horrifying frequency. One in three American girls will experience sexual violence by age 18, regardless of race or class. Girls ages 16 to 19 across the ethnic and economic spectrum are four times more likely than others to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. No girl is safe from being raped, exploited or abused.

Yet when girls in economically stable families are hurt by sexual violence, the protective layers of functional schools, safe neighborhoods and access to mental-health services tend to buffer them from further exploitation. For girls at the margins, sexual violence often funnels them into the criminal justice system.

So, what does one make of a film like Precious? It really depends on experiences within your own life.

A film as lost as the girl it glorifies [Washington Post]
A Movie With a New Message [New York Times]
Official Site [Rebecca Project for Human Rights]
'Precious' girls without a happy ending [Washington Post]

Related: Of Push, Precious, Percival, and "My Pafology" [Racialicious]

Ok!
"I'll Love Him Forever." This article, titled "Our Love Story," is about how Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are "like an old married couple." Why? Because they would drive to the set of Eclipse together, and, when headed home, one would wait for the other to get out of wardrobe and makeup. Oh, and Rob is like a "human magnet" for Kristen. They love each other, etc. BREAKING: Heels are not rain boots, Suri Cruise! (See image 7) Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom are "prepping for parenthood" by getting a dog. Lindsay Lohan has been partying all night every night in the last few days. The source here is a paparazzo who follows LL. He says: "After 4, 5, 6 in the morning, she's really crazy. She screams and yells and says very mean things, even though she knows us very well." Maybe she doesn't want to be followed at 5 am? Anyway, another "friend" says Lindsay refuses to go to rehab: "We ask, we beg, but she won't listen."
Grade: F (headlice)

Us
"Her Secret Deal."
Katie Holmes is sad and lonely because she's "committed herself" to a seven-year contract and Tom tells her what to wear, how to cut her hair and when to work out. "He even told her to be pale like Nicole [Kidman]," says a source. Meanwhile, Suri is 3 going on 30 with her heels and San Pelligrino and so on. As for Katie, the mag says her "situation" will "not improve until November 2013," when her contract is up. Moving on: Recently at a West Hollywood nightclub, Lindsay Lohan shouted at two photographers: "Why don't you go find my dad? He's the one who wants the pictures." Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale are stalking the stork; a source says: "Gwen has told friends she's trying for another baby." In Rob and Kristen news, they ordered the same thing for room service breakfast recently — and had it delivered to one room, which means, OMG, he slept over. A hotel staffer adds, "They were already dressed when room service was delivered." You can practically feel the magazine's disappointment! In case you're unsure of the milestones in the "Robsten" relationship, Us has provided a handy timeline (See image 8). Jon Gosselin is threatening to have a showdown on Thanksgiving because Kate Gosselin plans to invite her bodyguard, Steve Neild. A source says Jon's jealous: "Even though he knows it's over with Kate, he still can't stand the thought of her being with another man, especially Steve." Another source says Kate's constantly on the phone with Steve, "smiling like a teenager" and "I haven't heard her yell in two weeks." Lastly, Jennifer Aniston and two friends flew via private jet to the One & Only Palmilla resort in Cabo San Lucas. "On Aniston's agenda? Morning yoga sessions, lying by the pool, and being waited on hand and foot."
Grade: F (peeling scalp)

Life & Style
"Tears, Joy, And Drama At The Baby Shower."
While the magazine does not flat-out claim that it sponsored Kourtney Kardashian's baby shower, the guests drank from soda bottles decorated with with Kourtney's Life & Style cover (See image 9). And the magazine says: "Life & Style and Simmons jewelry company gave Kourtney a limited edition Hello Kitty necklace made from white gold, enamel and diamonds." Price? $950. There were 84 guests at the party, and they got chocolate Louboutin shoes and swag bags — it was a publicity event, not a baby shower. Each sister gave an exclusive interview to the magazine, which is where the "drama" comes in — Khloe and Kim used to hate Kourtney's baby daddy Scott Disick, because he was accused of cheating on Kourtney, but now they like him, because "he's done small things" like putting the crib together. And he got a job. With QuickTrim. For which the Kardashians are spokesmodels. Moving on: Michael Lohan is trashing Jon Gosselin and the way he treated Kate Major: "You sleep with a woman, you gain her confidence by saying you're going to hire her, then you use her like that?I spoke to Stephanie Santoro, and it was the same thing." Here are three ways Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are copying Angelina and Brad: First they denied they were in a relationship; then they get people used to the idea of them as a couple with an intimate photo shoot in a fashion magazine; then they GRADUALLY show PDA (see image 10). Also inside: Michael Lohan says: "I will not release another audio tape about Lindsay. I did it because I wanted Lindsay to know how I felt when I heard that tape. When I get a phone call at 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning from my daughter and she's in dire straits, I get very concerned." Lastly: Michael Jackson's funeral cost $1,146,518.62, and the mag itemizes that receipt for you (See image 11).
Grade: D- (clumps of hair falling out)

In Touch
"Yes! They'll Reunite!"
Re: The cover image: Do you love how they are Photoshopped together, with her arm disappearing into his chest? The cover copy reads: "Jen waits for Brad at the resort they love." But inside, what they mean is: She went to a hotel in Mexico she'd been to with Brad and "waited" for him to text her. "After a few glasses of wine on November 13, his pal reveals that Jen ducked away from her group of friends and exchanged a series of text messages with Brad that crossed the line from friendly to downright flirtatious." Oh, and you know how two tell-all books about Brangelina are coming out? Angelina's "tarnished" image is driving Brad away, and he thinks she's brought this on herself because of her addiction to attention. The copy reads: "Brad isn't worried about how the books will affect Angelina, but how they might hurt their children." A source says: "Maddox is old enough to Google his mom now, and Brad is afraid he'll get hurt." Jen's friend says: "Brad seems haggard. All Jen wants to to when she sees him is give him a big hug and tell him he'll be fine." Oh, and Brad and Jen have reconnected over Norman, Jen's sick dog — who used to be Brad's dog, too. Also inside: Geena Davis may have put on 50 lbs. Jennifer Garner may have lost 35 lbs. Britney Spears is in a "race to the altar." She's expecting Jason Trawick to propose over Christmas, and she wants to get married in the summer of 2010. Wait, is that a race? She wants bridesmaids, a gown and a four-tiered cake — a traditional wedding. (What, no pimps and hos sweatsuits?) "Britney wants to tie the knot ASAP to insure that Jason won't leave her again." She also wants her dad's conservatorship to end. Oh, and her dad wants her to start on another album after her tour, while Jason wants her to take a break — and he thinks her family is using her. Next: When Sarah Palin was on Oprah's show, things backstage were "tense." Did Nicole Kidman have a boob job? (See image 12) BREAKING: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were spotted getting off of a plane in Paris and HOLDING HANDS. "She grinned from ear to ear and snuggled into him happily," a source says. "They're obviously a couple and definitely in love." During their European trip, they booked separate rooms, but she ordered breakfast and coffee for two the day after they arrived. Lastly: a 41-year-old man named Matthew Roberts was adopted as a baby and found his birth mom in 1997, and she told him he was conceived when she was raped during a drug-fueled orgy involving Charles Manson and four other men. Why this story is here we have no idea, but the guy does look like Manson. (See image 13)
Grade: D- (matted hair)

Star
"Katie's $15 Million Tell All."
Since her contract expires on November 18 (TODAY), Katie is "prepared to pen an explosive and embarrassing exposé" of her life behind closed doors. She COULD get $15 million for her confessions. Like: They have separate bedrooms, and she says it's because Tom snores loudly, but Katie has hinted that they've never slept the whole night together. Tom likes it when Katie wears sexy lingerie, and Tom likes to "parade around the house in military uniforms," similar to the ones he wore in Top Gun, A Few Good Men and Valkyrie. "It makes him feel handsome," according to a source. Tom spends hours each day in front of the mirror, checking out his wrinkles and love handles. He also waxes his chest regularly and gets colonics. Tom lets Suri do whatever she wants and has already had to replace mahogany paneling twice in six months, because he lets her draw pictures on the walls. And! "Katie may also decide to go public about Tom's secret Scientology mobile unit. It's a black American-made van that looks like a regular vehicle on the outside, but inside it's fitted with high tech gadgets, monitors and computer equipment worth of a spy flick." A source says Tom spends a ton of time in the van: "It's how he keeps in touch with Scientologists all over the world. It's padded on the inside, so that no one can hear anything on the outside. Not too many people get to see the inside of this thing." Moving on: Did Kim Kardashian get a nose job? (See image 14). Rihanna is a "carbo-loader" who insists on fast-food feasts. And just so you know, Lady Gaga requests a hot, whole roast chicken in her tour rider. Precious star Gabby Sidibe is featured in a piece called "She's Got Style" and the copy reads, "she's a pro when it comes to turning heads." Seriously, there is not ONE crack about her weight from the magazine which does "Best & Worst Beach Bodies" regularly. (See image 15). Drew Barrymore has kicked Justin Long out of her apartment because he's a slob and started acting like a Frat boy, leaving his stuff all over the place. Someone told Jennifer Aniston that her ex, Adam Duritz, was on his way to a party — with his new ladyfriend, Emmy Rossum — so Jen "bolted out the back door." Bruce Willis took his wife Emma Heming to dinner and the owner of the restaurant mistook her for one of his daughters. Blind item! "Which actor plays a loving dad and hubby on TV, but likes to play the field in real life? While his wife cares for their kid, he hits NYC hot spots, trying to pick up young chicks." Khloe Kardashian was spotted picking up half a dozen pregnancy tests at Rite- Aid. In Brad & Angie news, they visited a museum, and the story goes, "They were so inspired by the beauty all around them that they babbled about their future family plans." Angie said: "I have a mosaic in my house. I have ancient cultures, and we celebrate everything. This year, we're doing Christmas, Kwanzaa and even Hanukkah." When asked if she was going to have one more kid, Angie said "I'm always thinking about it. I would love to." Brad said: "You never know." Fantasia Barrino's fans are upset because she is dating a married father of two who left his wife and kids to move in with her. He used to work in a T-mobile store and now Fantasia has his name tattooed on her chest. Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake went to a Jay-Z show and guess who came out to sing "Run This Town"? Rihanna. Seeing her was "like a knife" in Jessica's heart, but Justin danced and sang along. "Jessica stood there like a fool… trying not to cry." The New Moon promotional tour took Rob to Japan and Kristen to South America, and when they were apart, Rob realized he couldn't live without Kristen. So then there's some stuff in here for the Twihards: When Rob and Kristen stayed in that hotel in Paris, he arranged for the staff to place dozens of roses around the room — there were flower petals covering the floor and bed and lit candles everywhere when she walked in. The two are planning to get married once all the Twilight craze dies down. Which is never. They might elope in London. Finally: "Wow, Jen's New Bikini Body" is about how in Mexico, Ms. Aniston's belly was slightly rounder and she ate everything she wanted: "Could she be getting ready to be a mom?" A source says Jen's been hooking up with John Mayer — and they haven't always been careful. The "pal" reminds us: "Just because she's single doesn't mean she can't get pregnant!"
Grade: D+ (dandruff)

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I've had the unenviable task of reading both Prejean's Still Standing and Palin's Going Rogue in the last couple of days, and I gleaned the following striking similarities:

Both were self-described "jocks" turned beauty queens.

Palin: "I thought it was a horrendous idea, at first. I was a jock and quite square, not a pageant-type girl at all. I didn't wear makeup in high school and cut my hair short because I didn't like wasting time primping. I couldn't relate to the way I assumed most cheerleader types thought and lived, and figured it was those girls who were equipped for the pageant thing.
On the other hand, there was the scholarship money."

Prejean: "When I told my parents and my sister about it, they looked at me like I was crazy. They knew me as the girl who scraped her knees sliding into second base, who got a fat lip jumping up for a rebound in the midst of flying elbows at a basketball game. But a beauty contest?"

Both were accused of skipping public appearances, but say they had good reasons.

Palin: "My opponents and the press had a field day with that one: "Palin a No-Show at Chamber Of Commerce Luncheon Debate." [...] I couldn't make the media understand why I had chosen to skip another rubber-chicken campaign stop and instead attend this significant military exercise. I tried to explain: the Chamber of Commerce be here next week; our troops would not."

Prejean: "The reason I was not at the press conference is that I had not been invited to be at the press conference. The first I heard of it was when a reporter asked me to comment on it a few days in advance. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. [...] This was the second time in about a week that he and Shanna had "scheduled" an appearance for me (the other was the pro-gay marriage public service ad) when in fact they had never invited me at all and knew I would be out of town — and then portrayed me as running out on them!"

Both say they have the same views on gay marriage as Barack Obama.

Palin: "I explained to Schmidt that I oppose homosexual marriage, but that didn't seem too controversial in the campaign since the Democrat candidate for president held the same position."

Prejean: "When I later googled "Obama," "marriage," and "man and a woman," I found that Barack Obama's answer was almost identical to my own, although he managed to work in opposition to Proposition 8."

Both say they resisted pressure to give "safe" answers.

Palin: "The bottom line was that these were political answers — and I couldn't force myself to play it safe and sound like a politician. On top of that, there were probably ten cards for a single topic with a different set on nonanswers on every one. So in the end I'm thinking, Okay, which nonanswer do you want me to give?

Prejean: "Roger wanted me to reinforce the first part of my answer, and buck the whole question back to the right of states to regulate marriage. He wanted me to punt."

Both feel persecuted by the liberal media.

Palin: "Reporters from across the nation camped out at the end of our driveway in Wasilla and on the ice in front of our home. [...] Every once in a while a friend or family member would think they could trust a reporter, and so they'd talk to them. And almost 100 percent of the time Todd and I would get a call later from a panicked loved one saying, "Geez! We can't win! That reporter took what I said all out of context." Or even worse, "I never said that!" We assured them we knew, it was okay, it was just the unproductive game some chose to play."

Prejean: "Somehow the liberal media can get away with these degrading, disgusting jokes about a conservative woman, while still touting themselves as open-minded and tolerant. What is Sean Hannity or some other conservative media figure (male or female) had said something like this? Especially if he said it about a liberal woman? But for some reason it was perfectly acceptable for these men to belittle me on live television. Laura Ingraham pointed out the one-sidedness of "tolerance" in her television debate with Gloria Feldt (a liberal feminist who said I — another woman! — needed a "heart transplant" instead of breast implants). Laura commented — quite rightly — that she would be taken off the air if she spoke of liberals the way these media figures were speaking about me."

This last illustrates the most fundamental similarity between the two women: they believe that they are special, and have been singled out for special scrutiny. As we mentioned before, the conservative media is every bit as prone to attack journalism as the much-maligned liberal media, and Hannity, Ann Coulters, and others have said plenty of nasty things about liberal women. Palin and Prejean have both experienced sexism — Perez Hilton's post-pageant comments about Prejean
were a particularly noxious example. But instead of making them more sensitive to the problems of other marginalized groups, like gays and non-conservative women, their difficulties have only served to heighten their exceptionalism.

Still Standing is actually a more enraging book than Going Rogue, in that it deals more closely with its author's upsetting views on social issues. Prejean writes,

If it isn't right for the public schools to teach a single faith perspective, how can it be right for them to teach an anti-faith perspective, to teach that homosexuality is a normal lifestyle, when to faithful Catholics and Evangelicals and others who support traditional morality, it isn't? This sort of double standard in our public life is dangerous, but it's what political correctness is doing to us: it is putting just not just our freedom of speech, but our freedom of conscience at risk.

She also says,

I think my whole ordeal reveals just how the culture of political correctness uses shaming, blackmail, and other forms of emotional abuse to force people and organizations to either stick to our beliefs and suffer the consequences, or throw away our beliefs just to be left alone.

What she doesn't acknowledge is that people with beliefs the exact opposite of hers have been facing this choice for decades. Neither Palin nor Prejean seem to understand that while they ask America to sympathize with their victimization, they're also asking us to support policies that victimize others. Prejean's views on gay marriage and Palin's beliefs about reproductive rights (and welfare, and healthcare reform) aim to restrict people's freedom to live the way they want. To espouse these views while complaining about handlers who try to rein them in and reporters who criticize them reveals a staggering egocentrism. This is just one more thing Palin and Prejean have in common, and perhaps the reason both of them are still appearing on television long after each has arguably lost her relevance: both of them are tireless promoters of themselves.

Still Standing: The Untold Story Of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, And Political Attacks [Amazon]
Going Rogue: An American Life [Amazon]

If you've ever even been slightly curious about Tim Burton, that ultimate disconsolate son of suburbia who's been inviting us into his gleefully bent movie worlds for 27 years now, rest assured your interest will be sated by the show dedicated to the director at the Museum of Modern Art. Opening on November 22nd, it is an almost ludicrously complete assemblage of Burtoniana.

Just about everything one could think of has been matted and framed, up to and including the nascent director's adolescent doodles and prize-winning poster ideas. The director gave the museum curators the full run of his house and assorted papers; they turned up such early gems as a hand-written high school paper titled "Humor In America" ("Types of jokes I've heard and seen: Pollock [sic] jokes (ethnic jokes), Knock-knock jokes, Insults, Stories, One liners, Elephant jokes, Puns...") and this anti-litter poster, which adorned garbage collection trucks in Burton's native Burbank, California, after he won a Keep Burbank Beautiful competition.

A lot of the drawings on display date from the time Burton spent working at Disney, just after attending CalArts. Apparently, while animating such projects as The Fox And The Hound, Burton found he needed a less treacly creative outlet, and badly: most of the sketches from this period betray a mordant sense of humor and the same dark view of humankind that he would later explore in his feature films. Strangely, these images whipsaw between the grim and the twee. Men and women are portrayed as gothic grotesques, or the drawings hinge on kind of sweet little visual puns: a stringy-haired, football-headed woman tugging a string between both ears gets the caption MENTAL FLOSS, for example. Another drawing features two bunny rabbits with baskets of eggs, one saying to the other, "We've been telling the kids the story of Christ all these years...Well, I think they're old enough now to know what Easter's really all about."

The gallery is crammed with material. (Evidently the excavations of Burton's home proved fruitful.) In addition to the sketches and the high school coursework, there are sculptures — seven of which, in the museum courtyard, Burton made specially for the show — movie props, costumes, posters, Polaroids, and assorted notes such as would please the most dedicated connoisseur of arcana. In one corner, Burton's 1983 adaptation of Hansel and Gretel — screened by the Disney channel exactly once — plays. In it, a Japanese brother and sister outsmart a wicked witch with candy cane rhinoplasty who lives in a house that looks like a quivering, pink tongue. There's also a gingerbread man character who talks to Hansel even as he eats him up. "If you think I'm tasty, and you want my body, come on take another bite," taunts the pastry, to the rhythm of "If You Think I'm Sexy."

Visitors enter the exhibit through an immense mouth that hangs, red carpet-tongue extended; in the black-and-white striped corridor behind, Burton's animated shorts play on flat screens. (At the other end, presumably somewhere in the gallery's stomach, is a room lit by UV light, where Burton's blacklight paintings on velvet are displayed.) It is a curatorial choice that seems to cleave to the crowd-pleasing side of things. It's anyone's guess why the curators thought Burton's work needed such a loud proclamation of its difference from typical museum fare as a jagged-tooth orifice; it looks like the sort of thing one might encounter at an amusement park ride.

The man himself described the process of having his work turned out for display as "surreal" and "an out-of-body experience." He remembered to thank the exhibition sponsor, the ridiculously renamed SyFy — "I'm a sci-fi kinda guy" — only at the very last second.

The exhibit includes a life-sized statue of Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands, as well as this sketch of the character.

Artifacts from Beetlejuice include this sculpture, a yellowed copy of The Afterlife newspaper ("ECTOPLASM LEAK AT PLANT NUMBER 9" "EXORCISM RATE SOARS"), and Burton's own hand-written notes about the project, which compare it to that other well-known "extreme four character conflict," Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. In the nearby Mars Attacks section, there are latex severed heads and a gigantic painting of Martian anatomy. Sweeney Todd has a wooden box and an engraved set of cutthroat razors.

Batman is represented by various latex cowls, and Batman Returns merits the inclusion of Michelle Pfeiffer's whipstitched catsuit.

In a class composition Burton completed on September 27, 1974, at the age of 16, he imbued an ordinary trip to the doctor for a checkup and a tetanus shot with a sense of heavy foreboding. "There was a ghoulish smile on his face," wrote Burton, "like he enjoyed sticking the needle in my arm."

Tim Burton has stuck the needle in the moviegoing public's arm for nearly 30 years — by the looks of this show, thoroughly enjoying himself in the process. Long may he continue.

Tim Burton At MoMA [MoMA]

On the Today show this morning, a Newsweek editor, Dan Klaidman, defended the magazine's choice of a Runner's World photo to illustrate its two stories critiquing Palin as a political figure. He basically stuck to the magazine's talking points, arguing that the picture did "illustrate the themes of the cover story," which is to say, that Sarah Palin lacks gravitas and exploits her all-American image.

And some female critics agree. As Lindsay Beyerstein writes:

The bottom line is that Palin's a clown. She doesn't get a pass because her chosen clown persona is stereotypically feminine.

She caricatures herself. Day in and day out. Good for Newsweek for pointing and laughing.

The story is about why Sarah Palin is a problem for the GOP. The picture answers the question. She's a problem because she's a freak with no judgment who regularly makes a spectacle of herself.

So does this "freak" matter as anything other than as a momentary soap opera for politics junkies? On Today, Tina Brown put forward a theory that's growing in steam (and that liberals fervently wish to be the case): "[Palin is] really not remotely interested in politics as far as I could see... She really was quite happy to play as a celebrity talk show guest, and she did a fabulous job at that." And yesterday, Ana Marie Cox told Rachel Maddow that McCain staffers believe Palin has no intention of running for office, adding, "This is as famous and politically credible that she's going to be."

But NBC Washington Bureau chief Mark Whitaker — who, as former editor in chief of Newsweek, used to be Klaidman's boss — calls bullshit both on the dismissal of Palin's political future and the hypocritical handwringing among his own about how much she's being covered:

The widespread suggestion in some of the media commentary that she simply isn't qualified enough to be considered a viable presidential candidate is ridiculous....Call it sexism or what you will, but why should the media only compare ambitious women to impressive men, when so many ambitious but underwhelming men get so far in this world?

Media debate about why Palin is getting all this attention is also pretty laughable. Cable and network news producers cover her on television to boost ratings, print editors put her on their front pages and magazine covers to sell newsstand copies, and then everyone turns around and tsk-tsk's: "What's all the fuss? Is she good for the GOP? Is she good for America?"

That would be, more or less, the headline Newsweek itself went for. Except they went ahead and said that the answer is no, she's bad for both.

Update: Politico's Ben Smith takes the pulse of the presidents of various feminist organizations on the Newsweek cover. Their response is basically to shrug. White House Project president Marie Wilson: "It's much more complicated than sexism... What the [Republican] Party was selling, and people were buying — and what the candidate colluded [in] — is what shows up in that Newsweek picture." And Terri O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, says that while Palin has been at times a victim of sexism, this cover isn't an example of it. She adds, "Women's right's organizations are really clear that we're struggling for the rights of ordinary women...Sarah Palin is not with us on that."

Palin Calls Newsweek Cover Sexist [Today Show]
Where Coverage of "Going Rogue" Goes Wrong [MSNBC]
The Truth Hurts: Palin's Newsweek Cover [Majikthise]

Earlier: Sarah Palin Gets Her Criticism of Newsweek Cover Right