The Reluctant Whore

Week # 9 in Review

This is a much shorter week because I was in Las Vegas on Monday and Tuesday and had no internet access. Regardless, here it is:

The beginning of the 9th week of 2008 was marked by the 80th Annual Academy Awards and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader announcing his candidacy for president and in the week that followed, Us Weekly interviewed Senator Barack Obama asking him if he wore boxers or briefs to which he answered “I don’t answer those humiliating questions but whichever it is, I look good in ’em”, reality TV tagalong character Nicole Ritchie was offered the lead role in Chicago on Broadway, In Touch Weekly voted actor Matthew McConaughey’s chest the hottest chest in Hollywood and it was revealed that blogger Perez Hilton had been engaged in IM chats with another gossip blogger who promised to make several sex tapes in return for assistance in marketing his blog but the assistance from Hilton never materialized.

All acting trophies at the Academy Awards were given out to non-American actors including representatives from England, France and Spain. The deaths montage noticeably did not include actor Brad Renfro who died just before Heath Ledger and who starred in Larry Clark’s film “Bully” and had just finished filming an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ “The Informers”. Former host Whoopi Goldberg was also noticeably absent from the montage of hosts as was Steve Martin. After winning her Academy Award for best screenplay, writer Diablo Cody, an ex-stripper, was gossiped about in the New York Post who repeatedly pointed out that nude photos of her were on the internet. Cody responded by shooting back that the Post failed to report that she herself was the one who posted them and that they were on her myspace page.

American blogger Matt Drudge revealed that third in line to the British throne, Prince Harry had been secretly deployed in Iraq prompting the military to have him sent back to Windsor. The UK press had respected an embargo on any reportage of his position in Iraq. The Food Network fired TV chef Robert Irvine because he lied on his resume with claims that he had worked for the Royal Family and for 4 American presidents.

Former child actors, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen announced that they were releasing a book entitled “Influence” which would feature a series of interviews with people like writer Bob Colacello, it was rumoured that actress Angelina Jolie was pregnant with twins then later it was denied and then still later it was rumoured again and it was reported that Madonna attended jury duty on Monday morning and was making fun of the fact that she had only had three hours sleep because of her Oscar party the night before. She reportedly went and stood in the unemployed line and said, “I’m gonna tell them I’m an unemployed mom.”

In Extraordinarily Odd news, a woman in India went to use the toilet on a train and accidentally gave birth. The child fell through the toilet and onto the tracks only to be rescued moments later and found to be completely unharmed and in Russia the guards charged with defending Russian President Vladimir Putin put out an official request for 21,000 dollars worth of mice but refused to explain why they needed them.

In the UK, Scottish lawmakers were asked to push through a posthumous pardon for everyone found guilty of witchcraft under ancient laws and Prince Charles banned the use of foie gras at all his official residences for what he described as “personal reasons”.

In the US, every Starbucks coffee house was shut on Tuesday between 5:30 and 9 for nationwide training, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that rats twitch their whiskers about ten times faster than anyone realized allowing them to sense in the dark with great precision and the CEO of lingerie company Victoria’s Secret announced that she thought her company had created an image that was either too sexy or it was the "wrong kind of sexy".

In Malaysia it was found that nearly 9000 people on the national electoral ballots were over the age of 100 prompting the government to consider whether or not it would attempt to register the statistic as some kind of world record and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra played for the first time to an audience in North Korea. They played a repertoire that included Gershwin, several Korean folk tunes and the national anthem of both nations. In press coverage of the event, several members of the North Korean public were interviewed about daily life in North Korea and one tie wearing 23 year old young man was quoted as saying:

“I am very happy.” The interpreter then added for him, “The Dear Leader Kim Jong-il looks after our lives.”