Arizona state Rep. Barbara Blewster certainly has a way with words. And if the rabidly racist Republican keeps expressing herself as eloquently as she has been, she may soon have no one left to insult.
Earlier this year, Rep. Blewster waltzed into hot water when she voiced surprise that her colleague Rep. Barbara Leff was Jewish because she lacked the requisite "big hook nose." Then in February, she pissed off gays and lesbians when she wrote that what "follows homosexuality is beastiality [sic] and then human sacrifices and then canabalism [sic]." (Barbara-baby, did you take spelling lessons from Dan Quayle while you were at Jerry Falwell Finishing School for Girls, or what?)
And now the Arizona Republic has quoted big-mouthed, punky Brewster telling Rep. Leah Landrum, an African-American Democrat from Phoenix, that slavery wasn't really all that bad and that after the slaves were freed, "No one was starving, no one was dying." Bubbly Babs also blabbed that Native Americans are "not smart enough to do what they need to do to get ahead," and that "even African-Americans are more advanced than Native Americans."
No surprise, then, that the Democratic National Committee is calling for Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson to offer up Blewster's hollow head on a platter. "One offense is too many," said DNC chairman Joe Andrew, "but after three strikes, Blewster should be out." Or at least seriously clobbered with a wild pitch.
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Never mind that she looked like she'd been pigging out in the green room
"She acquitted herself well."
-- Film and TV critic Tom Shales on Monica Lewinsky's surprise guest appearance on "Saturday Night Live"
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JFK: A squirrel-head of state?
The hell with wondering whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone (or whether he really played hide the salami with our dear friend Judyth). A Michigan dishwasher claims Oswald didn't act at all.
T. Casey Brennan, 50, says it was he, not Oswald, who fired the fatal shot that deprived a nation of its beloved president -- and his claim comes complete with its own conspiracy theory.
According to Brennan, CIA operatives began brainwashing him at age 5, when a family friend named "Dr. Ernshaw" lured him into a trance and then forced him to practice shooting using a video game-like machine. His target: JFK's head attached to a squirrel's body.
Then, Brennan says, when he was 15, his tormentors drugged him, dragged him to the sixth floor of the Dallas Schoolbook Depository and forced him to fire at JFK's real head (initially attached to JFK's body).
Brennan squirreled away the horrible episode for years, he says, and only dug it up in 1996, when he published the details. Fearing reprisal from the CIA, he passed his story off as "gothic fiction," but now says he's ready to tell his squirrelly tale and bravely face the consequences. Talk about a hidden nut. (So there, all you who doubted that the talents of Oliver Stone and Beatrix Potter could ever converge.)
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Natalie Portman, beware
"'Star Wars' taught me everything: how to shoot a gun. How to have my breasts taped."
-- Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher on the film that made her famous and, apparently, firepowered and flat-chested.
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No such thing as a free soda with lunch?
Let Janet Reno and the Goo Goo Dolls try to stem the tide of high school violence by touting a new teen-targeted CD and resource guide jointly produced by MTV and the U.S. government And let Bill, Hillary, Al and co. put their heads and wallets together with the entertainment industry to address the various dangers impacting kids' lives. Congress is taking aim at an evil even more pernicious than those pesky handguns, more virulent than the most violent video game, more seductive than the sexiest shoot'em-up on TV: soda pop.
A group of minor-minded lawmakers, comprising primarily representatives from dairy states, introduced a bill last week that would keep schools from dispensing free sodas to kiddies. Such soda dispensers, they allege, are under the thumb of soft-drink execs eager to hook our unsuspecting young on their sugary, belch-inducing beverages.
"This is a loophole, big enough to drive a soda truck through, that hurts our children," intoned bill sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "Any parent knows that filling up on soda before lunch is not the way to encourage children to eat a healthy lunch."
To which the soft drink execs raucously replied, "Buuuuuuurruuuppppp!"
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Letting the Sacred Cat out of the bag
Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, frequently feted of late for his fearless pursuit of White House sexual escapades, has been handed an award even the Clintons may consider him worthy of: a replica of a mummified cat.
Last week, the Milwaukee Press Club bestowed its Sacred Cat Award -- "honoring a nationally recognized journalist" -- on the man who propelled Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp, among others, to fame and misfortune. Accepting the catty trophy -- a tribute to an actual artifact uncovered during alterations to the club's former home -- Isikoff treated the assembled journalists to a momentary meow of their own. "What can be drawn from [my] book 'Uncovering Clinton,'" he said, getting his back up ever so slightly, "was they framed a guilty man."
Hiss. Scratch. Purr.
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