by Walter Brasch (Moronia)–It’s the end of February, and one of my friends is still sporting a summer tan. I know it’s phony—and she knows I know it’s phony—but I have long ago stopped teasing her about it. In her never-ending quest to appear to be beautiful and healthy, she has slathered skin tanning lotion into every pore of her body, laid out on roofs and beaches to catch whatever ray was passing by, and goes to a tanning salon once a week. I’m not sure she’s ever stepped into the surf.
For decades, I have endured the scorn of these fake-skin friends, their skin tanned to the color and consistency of obsidian, as they sweat their lives away. Nevertheless, I have always been content to know I don’t need to cremate myself on a rooftop to be healthy.
Once, women desperately wanted to look pale. Ashen was to be admired. Pallid was wonderful! The lighter the skin, the healthier they believed they were, even if it meant hiding in a basement and fighting any attempt by Vitamin D to force its way into their lives. These women would read Macbeth and admire the ghost. Any darkness of the skin reflected that they weren’t women of leisure, but (horrors!) working women—the kind who go out of doors and have to (shudder!) do things.
Then, in the 1920s fashion designer Coco Chanel became bronze, and the Western world decided that suntanned bodies identified women of leisure and privilege. When they couldn’t find enough sun to char their skin and fry their brains, they bought sunlamps, reflectors, and gallons of sprays, gels, powders, and amino acids, guaranteed to make their friends believe they had just returned from a decade in Bermuda—or Nigeria.
In the late 1970s tanning salons became popular in the United States. In the semi-privacy of a casket, people could pay a few bucks for a few minutes of UVA rays, slather on even more lotion, and look even healthier! Have you ever seen what a couple of hours a day in the sun can do to an unprotected body over a few years? If you don’t have to chase knife-wielding scouts from the Tandy Leather Factory from trying to skin you, then you have a chance to live until a ripe old age of at least 50. And if Tandy doesn’t get you, there’s a pile of melanoma waiting. Ever see what cancer of the eye or ear looks like? Ever see a jellyfish on a rotting log?
Cancer scare? There’s still sunblock. Just pick a number. Any low number. You’ll “protect” yourself and darken up just like that Bain de Soleil model—and look just as good. After all, would advertising agencies lie?
While many people desperately want to have dark skin, they aren’t willing to appear to be “ethnic.” So, just in case someone could confuse them with being Black, Hispanic, Jewish, or any other genetically dark-skinned type, they dye their hair screaming saffron blonde. Just as they believe that the advertising agencies wouldn’t deceive them, they believe blondes have more fun. If that great American philosopher Lady Clairol said it, it must be so. And, of course, there are about 65,000 solutions on the market just designed to make you have fun while you lose every follicle in your genetic pattern.
Because of genetics—and wise use of suntan lotion—I can spend hours splashing in the ocean and not have to endure boiling red skin, peeling off in painful layers, and spend half my week visiting expensive suntan parlors and dermatologists.
Sunday, at the annual Academy Awards show hundreds of women will have spray-tanned and baked themselves into looking like brownies. They will have hair styles and colors as natural as what passes as reality on the “Jersey Shore.” Having already gone on extreme diets to look more photogenic, they will stuff what’s left of themselves into designer dresses and designer shoes, and decorate themselves with jewelry that could finance a revolution in a small Asian country. Every woman nominated for an Oscar is talented, but they exist in an industry forged by hype and image.
The day after the awards ceremony, TV shows, both entertainment and news, will feature the stars; newspapers and magazines will open full pages to show tanned women in their $10,000 dresses.
Throughout America, giggly and awe-struck pre-teen girls, their lives fixated upon Disneyesque princesses, will be absorbed by what the mass media show as rich and successful. And they will want to look just like the stars, fake tans and everything else.
[In a 40-year journalism career, Walter Brasch has covered everything from the presidency to awards shows in California. His current book is Before the First Snow, an autobiographical novel set in the counter-culture.]
By Paul Krassner (Huffington Post) Jim Jones, founder of the 8,000-member People’s Temple in San Francisco, once asked Margo St. James, founder of the prostitutes’ rights group, COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), how he could obtain political power.
She answered, sardonically, “Arrange for some of your women to have sex with the bigwigs.”
It was well known around City Hall that Moscone had a predilection for black women. Police almost arrested him once with a black prostitute in a car at a supermarket parking lot.
Soon after the Dan White trial, Lee Cole, an ex-Scientologist I had met in Chicago while researching the Charles Manson case, took me to see Lowell Streiker, author of The Cults Are Coming! and a deprogrammer who had counseled one-third of the Jonestown survivors. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned my theory that Jim Jones had served as a pimp at City Hall and maintained power by implied blackmail.
Dr. Streiker told me of his friend — a member of Jones’ planning commission — who had told him about the technique that People’s Temple had used on Mayor Moscone. They sent a young black female member to service him, as a gift, then called the next week about a serious problem — she had lied, said she was eighteen, when in fact she was underage, but don’t worry, we have it under control — just the way J. Edgar Hoover used to manipulate top politicians with his juicy FBI files.
So Jim Jones had taken Margo St. James’ sardonic advice after all, on how to achieve political power: “Arrange for some of your women to have sex with the bigwigs.” And he had taken it all the way to a mass suicide-murder — which occurred simultaneously with a mass demonstration by the women’s movement in San Francisco, called “Take Back the Night!”
Paul Krassner’s dialogue with Andrew Breitbart appears in the December issue of Playboy.
via Paul Krassner: Sex, Corruption and the Kool-Aid Massacre.
By Bob Tourtellotte (Reuters) A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday shows 57 percent of Mexicans would be either very likely or somewhat likely to tolerate the sexual indiscretions of stars and politicians.
They were followed by Belgians at 55 percent. In the United States, the tolerance factor was 48 percent. France, in fact, was way down the list at only 33 percent, while Japan was the least forgiving country at only 28 percent.
In total, 44 percent of some 18,700 respondents in more than 20 countries said they would likely tolerate a scandal.
via And the most tolerant nation for sex scandals is.. – Yahoo! News.
By Walter Brasch (Spectrum) “If it bleeds, it leads” is local TV’s aphorism that dictates its belief that fires, car crashes, and shootings lead off the nightly newscast. These stories, of course, are more “visual” and easier to cover than poverty, worker exploitation, and the health care crisis.
But, now and then, it’s hard to find an assortment of adrenaline-enhanced stories. And so it was that WOW-TV’s panicked station manager met with his news director late one afternoon to go over the final line-up for the 6 O’clock news, which, with few variants would be the same news the station would run in its “expanded news coverage” shows over the next 24 hours. The station manager wasn’t happy.
“What do you mean leading off the news with a report that some jokers at the Public Health Service found the cure for AIDS? Weren’t there any accidents? Fires? Murders!”
“Sorry, Boss, there’s nothing out there.”
“NOTHING?! ‘Nothing’ as in ‘no accidents,’ or ‘nothing’ as in ‘You’re about to get a job at Kwik-E-Mart’?!”
“Boss, we really tried. I have five camera crews running around right now.”
“Think you can get two of them to run into each other? We’d pay the hospital bills.”
“Boss, don’t you remember? The union made us agree to a six-month moratorium on stories that involve us maiming our crews just for the sake of ratings?”
“Some union,” the station manager huffed. “Doesn’t even want its members to get more air time.”
“It’s only for six months,” said the news director. “After that, maybe we could cut the brake linings on Unit 3 and have Unit 4 cover it. But for right now, the news scanner is dead.”
“What happened to that fatality on Honeysuckle?”
“By the time we scrambled the chopper, the drivers had exchanged insurance numbers and left.”
“Left!?” thundered the station manager. “No one leaves when there’s a camera crew on the way!”
“Best we could figure out, it was just a few paint scratches.”
“Any of the cars red? If you got there faster, it might have looked like blood. Check the cops again. They might be covering up something.”
“Sorry, Boss. Even Philly’s not reporting any murders in the past 24 hours.”
“Then go out and shoot someone!” the station manager demanded.
“Sorry, Boss, I can’t do that.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said the station manager. “Tell Susie Sweetwater to do it. Her ratings are down. This should help.”
“Susie’s in the middle of her reading class right now, and you know how she hates to be disturbed when she’s learning new words.”
“Then Heartthrob! Audiences salivate whenever he’s on. The public would back him even if he had assault weapons and made welsh rarebit out of the Easter Bunny.”
“It’s an hour until air,” the news director reminded the station manager. “Hearthrob’s already in Makeup. They’re darkening his hair tonight.”
“Celebrities!” shouted the station manager. “Audiences love train wrecks, and celebrities do it better than anyone! Find me Lindsay Lohan!”
“We have two crews on her now,” said the news director, “but all she’s doing is drinking and partying. Besides, we’ve done that story five times this month.”
“What about the Jersey Shore morons.”
“They’re currently destroying what’s left of the Roman civilization, and we can’t afford to send a crew.”
“Get me a fire! Forest. Trailer. Stove. I don’t care!” the station manager demanded, smashing his coffee mug against his desk, and cutting his wrist. “BLOOD!” he shouted. “We have blood!”
“It’s only a scratch,” said the news director.
“It’s blood! And it’s good for a grabber. Grab a producer. Come in with an extreme close-up full-frame, and then pull back to a medium shot. Dissolve to some of the footage of the Vancouver fans rioting when their team lost the Stanley Cup. Here’s your lead: Violence in Canada leads to blood-letting in America.” He paused a moment. “Make sure you run teasers on this every five minutes.”
[Walter Brasch, who once worked with TV, says it’s much safer in print journalism. His latest book is Before the First Snow, which is receiving critical acclaim for its look at the American counterculture.]
By Jules Siegel (Moronia) In case you missed it, a Democratic congressman named Anthony Weiner sent a picture of his bulging briefs to a female college student who had invited him to add her to his private Twitter harem. Unfortunately he inserted the wrong code and sent it to all his zillion followers, none of whom saw it because he immediately deleted it, except for a rather unsavory guy who was stalking him. Enter right wing fake scandal monger Andrew Breitbart. Congressman Weiner freaks and issues awkwardly false denial. Pictures of other beautiful Weiner Twitter harem girls then appear. One of them proudly confesses to consensual virtual sex with him and publishes the transcript.
Abashed congressman withdraws denial and tearfully cops to being a stupid putz. The next thing you know, Sarah Palin’s totally unpolitical Paul Revere vacation tour (in a bus plastered with ads for her PAC) to warn the British that we aren’t giving up our guns is off the front pages and Weiner’s weiner is getting Nancy Pelosi all hot and bothered, even though the offending picture is not exactly Marky Mark 
Now, as weiner jokes tsunami the Internet, Weiner is in the bunker making apologetic phone calls to Democratic bigshots. Meanwhile, his wife is off being Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff while three months pregnant, arousing teabagger speculation that Hillary is really the baby’s father and that’s why Weiner was resorting to fooling around online instead of saving his precious sperm for post-morning sickness sex. He performed his duty, right? What more do people expect of him? He’s just Hillary’s beard, they chortle.
I think Anthony Weiner and his wife should go on the View and play this out in public like adult human beings. It will be better than Nixon’s Checkers speech. This totally lame scandal is about on the level of getting caught jerking off while looking in the mirror. Like who cares? No body fluids were exchanged. It’s thought crime. I’m sure his wife was annoyed, but she’s his wife. You can be sure she gets annoyed a lot. Don’t they all? I don’t see how voters were involved in this.
The GOP doesn’t see it that way, of course (except for Boehner, who has not ventured an opinion, possibly because the Enquirer is reporting that he’s boning a blonde lady to whom he is definitely not married, as it would be bigamy). Once again, however, Democratic girly men (and women) are showing their utter lack of backbone, just as they stampeded to betray Bill Clinton. This could revive Joe Lieberman’s career as a Quisling sell-out. As usual they let the GOP set the rules and the agenda. This is why we lost the House in 2010. The youth vote does not consider sexting a moral flaw, you know.
I feel Pelosi should carry out an internal investigation and announce that Weiner did nothing illegal or unethical as a congressman. She can admonish him for imprudent behavior. The issue is then closed. Criticisms should be answered with an offer to sacrifice Weiner in exchange for Vitter’s resignation. When they complain that a representative for a senator isn’t a fair exchange, she should answer that life is not fair. If it were, Weiner wouldn’t be under inquisition barrage. Weiner’s and Vitter’s indiscretions are minutiae at worst. No non-theological corporation in the world would fire anyone over this.
I submitted this to HuffPost but tend to doubt that they will let this through. They seem to be in the IMPEACH THE SCOUNDREL camp. One of the moderators will surely kill it for failure to play by feminist political correctness rules. Also, I said jerking off and boning, very immodest terms, far worse than Marky Mark grabbing his own penis. Feminists are understandably offended because Anthony Weiner sent suggestive pictures to ladies he was dating online and they didn’t complain because of being programmed to accept male domination. He must resign because of the ick factor, wrote one otherwise usually sensible female Facebook friend. Sexting with consensual partners is icky, she explained, not because it’s really icky, as in body fluids and all, but because it’s politically icky. I am not making that up.
This is the letter I sent him yesterday instead of doing my assigned work, thereby incurring the annoyance of my bride, the beauteous Anita Brown, who can’t understand why I would find writing about Weinergate more compelling than making money and throwing it away on useless luxuries such as food. Despite that, she brought home flowers for me. Send the little homemaker flowers, Congressman Weiner, preferably white roses. This might not be the right time for a crotch picture, though.
Dear Congressman Weiner:
I don’t live or vote in your district, but I am a New Yorker, even though I’ve lived in Mexico since 1981, in Cancun since 1983. I vote in the Chelsea district, for Jerrold Nadler.
I’m writing to express my 100% support and admiration for you and also to give you some advice. You’ve got to fight back on this one by shaming the shamers. You committed a marital indiscretion, at worst. Your sex life prior to your marriage is nobody’s business but your own. These women sought you out, sent you their pictures and even eagerly cooperated in your mutual loveplay. They enjoyed it and so did you. These were intimate moments that were just as valid as anything that takes place while dating, not to speak of underwear advertising.
You can understand why your partners chose to expose what you did together. It might be considered a betrayal, but you understand how desperate people are in these awful times. Perhaps they also wanted to share the pleasure you had together (if not the publication fees) and even to support you by showing the real you. Now that it’s all out in the open, you invite people to look at these texts and photographs. You even give them a link.
You forcefully assert that you’re not ashamed of anything in them, except for the discomfort that they cause your beloved wife, who is the only victim here. Marriages survive on the ability to absorb and learn from the hurts we inevitably cause each other.
You didn’t promise your constituents that you would submit to castration. You promised you would represent their interests to the best of your ability. You’re sorry that your private life has provided the prudes with a distraction from the real issues that face us today, such as 25 million Americans looking for work.
I truly hope that you will understand and appreciate my advice. Many thanks for your service to the goals and fundamental beliefs of socially progressive people everywhere. I’m proud that you are out there working for me. Talk from the heart. Be funny. Be strong. You can win this.
With my very best wishes for your success.
(Combined Wire Services) David Charles Schubert, 47, the Las Vegas district attorney who helped prosecute Paris Hilton and Bruno Mars on separate drug charges in 2010, was arrested and booked into jail Saturday on a charge of possession of cocaine, according to jail records. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Schubert allegedly bought crack cocaine from a street dealer as a police officer looked on.
By Lee Fang (ThinkProgress) Last year, Koch Industries began employing New Media Strategies (NMS)). Under the moniker of “MBMAdmirer,” NMS employees edited Wikipedia articles to distance the Koch family from the Tea Party movement, to provide baseless comparisons between Koch and conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros, and to generally delete citations to liberal news outlets.
