Today’s lunch day news chum brings a bouquet of articles about various people in the news:
- Heidi Fleiss. Yes, the notorious madam Heidi. I ran across an article in the Las Vegas RJ about her latest endeavor — and it’s somewhat legit! She’s opened a dog hotel and grooming business in the southern part of the Vegas valley called “First Pedigree” (the original name was to be “Doggy Style”). Her partners in the venture are former Playboy model Yvette Lopez and former Chippendales dancer Jasen Johnston. She’s planning to offer dog grooming classes in July, and eight people have already signed up for the training, including three licensed prostitutes from a bordello in Nye County who she said are looking for “a career after hooking.” Of course, the opening of the shop is going to be chronicled in a show proposed to Animal Planet. You might even find Heidi in the shop, grooming some dogs.
- Paris Hilton. The LA Times has an interesting article on Paris Hilton, demonstrating that the bubblehead Paris image was just a facade. Turns out that she’s a shrewd businesswoman, who has developed 17 product lines, and has just launched her 12th fragrance line… and the fragrances earn millions every year. Paris Hilton watches, handbags, pet apparel, hair-care products, eyelashes, false nails, shoes and scrapbooking materials are sold in 35 countries, including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Her fragrance line alone has earned more than $1.3 billion since launching in 2004. By year’s end, she’ll add sunglasses, apparel, and bed linens. Of course, this is all being chronicled in a reality show, “The World According to Paris”.
- Sarah Palin. Now turning to the reality show that is Sarah Palin. I’ve been following the show that is her bus tour, where she is combining a family vacation with a political tour that isn’t a political tour. She’s also not talking to non-Fox media, per her contract, by talking to non-Fox media. But what really prompted her inclusion in this post was her encouragement to Donald Trump to run. This is shaping up to be a real bizarre field, and it is the moderates and those in the middle that will be hurt. The liberals will strongly support Obama, and the neo-cons and Tea Party folks will go for one of the wackos announced or soon-to-be-announced, but there is no one that the moderate side of the Republican party or the independents can pull for strongly. Can Obama figure out how to appeal to them, or will someone new emerge?
One way that Obama may attempt to do this is via attacking Paul Ryan’s proposal on medicare. Ryan is claiming that the Democrats are using demagogury to misrepresent his proposal by painting Ryan’s Medicare proposal as a “voucher” program that would harm senior citizens. A TV ad put out by a liberal group depicts a man pushing an elderly wheelchair-bound woman off a cliff. The message is that Republicans wish to privatize Medicare. Never mind, of course, that the Republicans did the same thing when they portrayed Obama’s proposal as mandating “death squads” and government-run health care.
- Elmo. Yes, I know I posted something on Elmo last week. Here’s another quicky on Sesame Street: Syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro has published a book claiming Sesame Street pushes liberal values. What are these values? Conficts should be solved peacably. They had Neal Patrick Harris on the show playing a Fairy Shoeperson. They made fun of Fox News.
