Sunday, April 06, 2008

Madonna & Justin: 4 Minutes

Madonnarama!

Rich Cohen in the May Vanity Fair on Hard Candy:

Many of the songs are hybrids, traditional Madonna super-pop, workout tunes giving way to white hip-hop, Justin Timberlake showering cascades of rhyme. I was listening to the music, and it’s a record I think Madonna fans will like, because it’s filled with songs you can imagine blasting from the room where they hold spinning class, but I kept thinking about Britney Spears. I mean, here is Madonna, singing with Justin, whose very public breakup with Britney marked the moment the pop tart began her battle with the furies. And, of course, I was also thinking of those MTV Video Music Awards in which Britney, already well on her way to madness, frenched Madonna. In light of this record, and all that’s happened, I wondered if, in the course of that kiss, Madonna somehow extracted Britney’s soul from her body, or implanted the crazy chip. When I began to ask Madonna about Britney-specifically in relation to the paparazzi—she stopped me (before I even said Britney’s name) with a raised hand, saying, “Yes, I know. I know exactly what you’re going to say. It’s very painful. Which leads us back to our question: When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa, about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they’re in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that’s a terrible infliction of cruelty. So who’s worse off? You know what I mean?”

Here’s their Full Madonna slideshow.

The impact of the Subprime Market Squeeze on the South

Source: The New York Times. Click for the entire U.S.

Nomophobe?

imru:

Barr another turd?

Does anyone remember Newt Gingrich’s long, drawn-out, surprise attack run for the presidency?

This Gingrich quote comes from Fortune Magazine in November 2006:

“I am not ‘running’ for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”

I titled my post about that, A movement or a turd?

Newt pops to mind today because former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr posted a YouTube video yesterday announcing the formation of of an exploratory committee to determine if he should run for president as a Libertarian.

In it he calls Barack Obama an “empty suit,” and tells us he’s “crossed swords” with Hillary Clinton—“she’s no leader”—and reminds us that John McCain is “on a first name basis with every lobbyist you run into… he’s part of the problem, part of the status quo.”

Barr concludes by calling on his supporters to send a message:

I need you to send me a message by logging on to BobBarr2008.com and let me know through your words of support and your financial support if you want me to run for president of the United States of America in 2008. Bob Barr. 2008. Dot Com. I’ll see you there.

Let’s all watch. This should be good.

SEE ALSO: On Bob Barr’s libertarian credentials.