DIET NUTTINESS

MESSAGE TO THE DAILY BEAST

If I had the ear of The Daily Beast, I'd yell Stop ! You're promoting peeping Tom-ism. You're keeping alive the visions of Tiger making love to other women, feeding a fire that's hopefully, on its own, burning out.

Stop publishing the junk you're publishing! It's out-of-date, and behind-the-times! You are selling narrow-minded, judgmental remarks that your staff is making, about what Tiger Woods should, or should not do. It's boring, low-level, bs.

The public apology was pushed on Woods by small-minded fans and Websites like yours, who sprinkle suggestive details into their internet postings to attract more readers of hot gossip. And with your videos on Tiger and other famous "fornicators," you've got them lapping up authoritative sounding commentary on how Tiger should handle his private life. In your hypocritical, sanctimonious tone, you are selling readers more visions of Tiger and his other babes, encouraging anyone who logs on, to keep Tiger's private sexual doings in the forefront of their minds.

Tiger Woods did not need to make a public apology. The day and age when men and women are obligated to apologize publicly about what they've done in their private lives, has been over for a long time.

SPITZER ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL

Look out! The comeback trail is mud like quicksand, grassy dark water with alligators, snakes, birdsong blending with the buzz and rasp of creatures flying above it all.

And happy 2nd anniversary Eliot Spitzer -- March 10, 2008 the New York Times reported your perfidious use of the Emperors Club prostitution service, and March 12, 2008 you resigned.

What fun it is today for the columnists and bloggers, such as the high-falluting, brilliantly nasty Michelle Malkin, to declare that former Congressman Eric Massa (who resigned after the ethics investigation into his conduct), and Eliot Spitzer are birds of feather.

(Isn't it delicious, that Governor .Patterson who replaced Spitzer is on the verge of resigning because his corruption is about to be exposed? )

And with all this, "The Daily Beast's" Frances Martel has a ball, announcing that Spitzer’s madam, (Kristin Davis), who set up his prostitutes, is now running for the state’s top executive job herself.

And it goes on -- ABC News Senior White House Correspondent, Jake Tapper, in his blog, revealed that Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, was accused by former Congressman Eric Massa of a naked shower confrontation. (Oh my, we thought, expecting something marvelously salacious about the untouchable, distinguished Rahm.)

Of course the White House denies the meeting ever took place, but someone unearthed a clip from the 2006 documentary, in which a fully-clothed Emanuel (a Congressman back then), visited fully-clothed Congressional candidate Massa, and advised him to smile and try to be likable.

Will this silly, time-wasting, gossip-mongering ever stop? What is this raging need for dirty underwear news?

Fear -- fear because nothing is happening on the every day longer list of things that must be done to fix all those things that aren't getting done.

Spitzer is sharp, knowledgeable, full of energy. His wife and he are trying to recover. Why are we still punishing him? Because we weren't able to punish Bill Clinton? Because Hillary with her head high, expresses her love for him despite his womanizing? (Oh boy, that was grim, riveting, unforgettable -- when Monica L. was forced to describe Clinton's cigar/penis and their phone sex routine.)

But we don't need MORE about Spitzer's sex life. We need his experience, and judgment, on New York State's troubles, especially now -- with the White House refusing to let go of Health Care -- with the hot bloggers hotly working away, digging up new dirt, fresh, smutty, vulgar tidbits -- eeny-meeny-miney- moe -- on anyone who's a name in the news.

Why are bloggers, and Websites doing it? They do it because we want them to!

We created Drudge, Mudflats, Daily Dish, The Daily Beast -- we devour the Huffington Post and all the others -- we read them, seek them, love them for expressing all the bad stuff so we don't have to think about the deep, darkest fears we have about where we are heading.

I admire Eliot Spitzer's brain! In any discussion, when he opens his mouth, there's clarity, honesty, and perception of what the issue really is, and how it will affect us.

The world is a better place with Bill Clinton like an ambassador, understanding, helping, the world focus.

The world will be a better place when the doors re-open for Eliot Spitzer and he's back at work, helping us solve urgent problems.

INTERNET TV WON'T BE FREE

Who says so? (I'm reading this stuff, hoping to keep up with the fast- changing latest trends.)

I've been reading about Internet TV on CNN Money.com, Fortune Brain Tech.com, and staff writers David Goldman, Mike Copland, even Apple's Philip Elmer-deWitt seem very concerned.

I'm sort of wide-eyed, impressed when I see the numbers -- 178 million Americans watch TV online, streaming 33 billion shows, says data tracker com.

I looked up streaming, though I sort of knew what it was. And learned that it's technology that compresses audio and video signals, permitting watching and listening to them as high quality music and non jerky video.

I chewed on the question they were asking -- can the brilliant inventor-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, create a way of unplugging our current popular sources of cable TV? (Unplug Time-Warner? Fios? That's a biggie!)

It could be a very big deal for Apple -- $30 a month TV service. (I think we're paying about $90 a month now for the TV we get just in our home.) I learned that Apple's already offers $2 to $4 a month per subscriber for the major networks; $1 to $2 for a month, per subscriber for the cable companies. (What "per subscriber" means probably requires careful perusal of the small print.)

Fortune Magazine's Copeland declares doomfully, "The Apple Ipad changes everything!"

(I am not a regular browser on CNN Money, or Fortune Magazine, but why are they so worried about the Apple Ipad? Slates have been around for quite sometime, haven't they?)

Reading about their concerns makes me wonder if they're saying it to make themselves and their clients believe it? Or are they trying to get investors to shell out more money for researching newer ideas? (Arf arf! They sound like a bunch of barking dogs. Maybe in the tech world, declarations of doom, galvanize innovation.)

Furthermore, according to these Tech guys, the latest, biggest tech tool is social networking! I'm shuddering and not sure who or what they're talking about, as they go on at length, about CSCO's top customers and CIOs becoming super heros, because CIOs are enabling employees to perform great feats and cut CSCO's costs.

Hey slow down Tech guys, I muttering out loud to myself, because in my opinion, social networking is changing human-to- human socializing into cell-phonery (my term for phoney, un-real contact).

And dammit, I don't know what a CIO is, or who is CSCO? (I keep thinking it's got something to do with the blue and white can of Crisco shortening, Mom had in her kitchen.)

Damn acronyms -- it's no longer possible to gain information quickly about new things, without translating the acronyms, looking back at what I already read and figuring out AGAIN, what the alphabet letters mean. When you were little, did you ever eat Alphabet Soup? I feel like I'm gulping alphabet soup. And the soup makers keep re-filling my bowl.

I guess these tech guys are saying that in the near future, TV is going to be available on any device at any time, so get ready to pay for online TV, folks.

That's because of the big, unanswered question being asked by networks, cable companies, advertisers and technology providers: How do we make money from it?

Arf arf! Sooner or later, these alphabet soup cooker-uppers will take a long look at the simple plain folk who aren't wireless, mobile, blue tooth anything -- who just go on line for shopping, and email. Arf! Arf! So get ready to pay for using the Internet, folks.

WHY DIDN'T I MENTION OPRAH?

Making a video Friday on the 12th, about "HEROINES," I didn't mention Oprah.

Isn't she a heroine? For many woman, she certainly is.

On my Website,The Readery, in my virtual library sits my book "Somebody," The Woman of the Century. At the end of the 20th Century, in 1999. Cordelia, my heroine is age 99. Discussing the future with her granddaughter, she murmurs -- "Who will be the queen-pin. the king-pin, in 2010? Oprah? Hillary? Madeline Albright?"

It was what I was thinking as I finished final revisions of the book in 2008.

But now my current HEROINES list is -- Hillary, Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Madeline Albright, Christiane Amanpour; Carol Burnett, Amelia Earhart, Whoopi Goldberg; Germaine Greer, Anita Hill, Mahalia Jackson, Rachel Maddow, Dinah Shore, Joan Rivers.

No name is there because she is, or was a performer.

Oprah is amazing, likable, lovable, someone to admire, to adore for her good deeds, for her open mind, her generosity, but Oprah is a star performer.

Despite the details about her that she's let her people reveal, I'm not sure who Oprah Winfrey is.

Wait a minute -- Oprah's up-front, never pretentious -- she talks to the audience and her guests, looks them in the eyes -- admits when she is wrong. She even laughs at herself. We've seen her struggles with her weight -- see the wide variety of clothes, hairdos, grooming -- Oprah Winfrey lets us into her life... sort of ...

Well, maybe ... well ... maybe not.

Oprah is an opinion-maker -- books she praises become best-sellers -- movies she likes often become smash hits. And her guests (if they're not already names), very often become "names."

When I was writing "Somebody," I wondered if there was a way to get my book to Oprah. If you "know somebody who knows her, maybe," people said. "Or write her a letter.''

What would I say? I love your show? Be one of the thousands of letters, that her staff reads for her? Quote a passage from the book?

I have mulled over imaginary letters but never wrote one -- always got stuck on the thousands of letters she gets, and where would I send a letter, to what address?

Harpo, Inc., founded in 1988 by Oprah Winfrey is her production facility in Chicago, controlling her entertainment interests, currently four talk shows.. Harpo publishes, in partnership with Hearst Magazines, "O, The Oprah Magazine," and "O at Home," a home design magazine, and Harpo is producing, in partnership with Sony, a fifth talk show.

Harpo/Sony has announced, " The Nate Berkus Show," which will be a multi-topic series, with a broad range of subjects and guests based on lifestyle, entertainment and personal transformation."

I'll probably never see it. " I'm not a watcher of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Dr Oz," or "Dr. Phil" -- there's something too-too humbly sincere about Phil, and Oz annoys me -- he promotes himself too much. And "Rachel Ray," whose forte is cooking, doesn't interest me.

I don't watch Oprah because I'm too busy -- I don't have time when I'm writing a new post everyday ... well ... actually I could watch, but I don't ... maybe, probably because she makes me feel small, unimportant.

I'll say again what I said in my video.

I think of FAME as a huge bright green lawn, a stadium, a playing field surrounded by spotlights and a huge audience in the bleachers.

Wending my way to the center of that field, I felt like a lost child.


I got off the lawn!

Would I like to do what Oprah's doing?

Be like her?

No. she's big business. She's an unstoppable power,

I'd rather be me.

PALIN

I keep hoping she'll go away. She isn't. She's you-betcha-ing her way into more empty-headed voters, who need a simplified something to vote for.

She's scary. She'll sashay her way into conventions, luncheons, dinners, cocktail parties, fundraisers, and oh no ... oh yes .... well maybe ... the angry guys -- the race-prejudiced, kill-him, stop-him, STOP-THAT-NIGGER OBAMA guys -- could finally, in desperation, back her, throw her into the ring with Romney!

Hey, I saw this on the smart, sharp Andrew Sullivan's blog, "The Daily Dish."






Line on the bottom says:

"THE WORLD IS SUPPOSED TO END ANYWAY"

PEDIGREE PET DANCING

Oh my, grace, beauty -- utterly wonderful -- just there to behold.




Their muscles, their focus, the way they fly fearlessly up, up -- I gasp as I watch them, and watch again, trying to take into my muscles the freedom of theirs.