Roundup: Giant Hourglass Edition
- As part of an international day of protest over the genocide in Darfur, campaigners in London displayed a giant hourglass filled with “blood” to symbolize time running out. The image at right is from a video featuring Hugh Grant tied to the campaign. More than 200,000 have died, with 2 million displaced and 4 million on food aid, since the conflict began four years ago.
- A woman is suing Millersville University for denying her a teaching degree the day before her graduation because of a personal photo on her MySpace page. The Halloween party photo showed her drinking and wearing a pirate hat. The university accused her of “promoting underage drinking” and awarded her an English degree instead of the teaching degree she’d earned. This Daily Kos diary has more information, including contact info for the university.
- Rush Limbaugh’s blatantly racist song parody “Barack the Magic Negro” is starting to trigger a backlash. A lot of black radio station staffers are reportedly “up in arms” about it, and there’s been a groundswell of listener complaints. Limbaugh has previously refered to Obama as a “Halfrican American.” More from The Horse’s Mouth.
- Jonathan Schwarz at This Modern World has the lowdown on Tim Russert’s difficult telephone situation. He also wants to know why Oprah doesn’t give Iraq War misleaders the James Frey treatment.
- Former Senator Carol Mosely Braun was mugged in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood Friday night. She fell and broke her wrist before two U of C biology students heard the struggle and chased away the attacker.
- James Doohan’s ashes have been launched into space.
- Scientists believe they’ve discovered the “night owl” gene, which may cause certain kinds of insomnia, and which has a lot to answer for, as far as I’m concerned. Via Towleroad.
- Chile asks Google to give it back one of its towns, which Google Earth had awarded to Argentina on one of its maps. Oopsies.
- Grey’s Anatomy found not guilty of displaying giant testicles on TV screens nationwide. Nation breathes collective sigh of relief.
- Schools are banning iPods so students can’t use them to cheat.
- Review of The Children of Hurin says it’s only for the fans, and “the style of the writing varies wildly from one passage to the next, as you’d expect in a book cobbled together from manuscripts written over a 50-year period,” but calls it “a grand read” nonetheless.
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Oprah won’t give the James Frey treatment to the war machine for one simple reason: none of them would ever appear on her show or agree to be interviewed by her. Her show tends to recruit nice, pliable celebrities that she can sit on the couch and gush with about how famous they both are. Sinister politicians are to the Oprah guest as Everclear is to Harvey’s Bristol Creme. I doubt some crusty, misogynistic, rich old man is going to take a drubbing from someone as flamboyantly self-righteous as Oprah. (Anyway, politicians don’t care what we think once they’re in office. Unless they plan on running again, and–guess what??!) :-)
Well … she has had politicians on her show before, including GWB himself. But Schwarz at the TMW link cited above isn’t talking about politicians, he’s talking about the war promoters in the media, like Judith Miller, and he points out that Judith Miller was on the Oprah show back in 2002, stumping for the war. So why doesn’t Oprah have her back for a grilling? Now, you could argue that maybe Miller would refuse to return if she knew she was going to get grilled, but in that case Oprah could always grill her in absentia. (And then serve her audience little grilled pundit sandwiches. And give them a car. And all that other Oprah stuff.)
Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember Bush being on Oprah (although he’s really a stooge for other assholes running the show). I didn’t watch (I didn’t have the stomach for it), so I have no idea what she asked him (“how many pairs of underpants has Jenna lost?”).
Point taken on Judith Miller, but since she’s been to jail, she’s already been “disgraced” and nobody really seems to feel she’s relevant anymore. There others who were just as bad, anyway. (Hell, even big gay Dan Savage supported the war and wrote a column saying we were “idiots” if we didn’t.) But again, the folks who supported it won’t appear now, because the tide has turned against them. They have to stick to Fox News, because that’s the only place they won’t get called out. (And grilling someone in absentia isn’t something Oprah would do–she’d insist on seeing them in person so she could give them her patented Oprah Reproachful Look!)