Monday, July 17, 2006
DAN RATHER IS A HOSS
News from California #1. LA journalist Kerry Madden’s newly Net-savvy conservative mother is angry:
She googled me. Then she clicked on an essay I’d written called “9 Tips for Surviving the Holidays at Your Republican Parents’ Home.” It was published in the LA Weekly in 2004 ... Now my mother is no longer speaking to me.
News from California #2. Cathy Seipp experiences a typically weird Dan Rather episode:
“You know, I wouldn’t touch that with a 17-foot pole, which is what I use for things I wouldn’t touch with a 12-foot pole,” Rather said. Folksy! Then he added that “the biggest compliment you can pay a man in Texas is to say he’s a hoss. And I’d like to think when it comes to reporting, yeah, I’m a hoss.” Even folksier!
News from California #3. Variety reports that Al Gore’s Gaia love story suckered the coasts, but is now slowly fading:
”An Inconvenient Truth” started off marching bigger than the penguins, but now it’s looking more like “Bowling for Columbine.”
Paramount Vantage’s global-warming doc bowed Memorial Day weekend to a boffo $367,311 at just four theaters, giving it a three-day average of $70,333 per play, the highest ever for a documentary.
But after expanding successfully to the top 10 and 25 markets in its second and third frame, keeping its average take at $17,615 and $12,334, respectively, doc has slowed down significantly as it opened in smaller cities and suburban markets.
News from California #4. Cindy “Thindy” Sheehan—mother, camper, dieter—recalls her childhood and celebrates her current fame:
When I was growing up in Bellflower, Ca., I never, as a child with a good imagination, could have ever imagined that my life would take the peculiar turn that it has. I could not have foreseen giving birth to a child that (ed: who) would eventually be wrongfully and devastatingly killed in war or that I would be meeting with world leaders or be nominated for the Noble Peace Prize.
Along with the Vice President of Spain, Foreign Minister of Ireland, Attorney General of Australia and countless parliamentarians from all over the globe, one of the world leaders that I have met and spent a good amount of time with on my journey is President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Catching up with the real heavy hitters, isn’t she?