With the JonBenet Ramsey case focusing attention on overbearing stage mothers pushing their daughters into beauty pageants, we overlook the more everyday activities such as high school cheerleading. Remember the Texas Cheerleader Mom who hatched a murder plot to assure her daughter a place on the squad? (That's not teen spirit I smell.) Mom's getting out of prison pretty soon, if she hasn't already, and that's certainly nothing to cheer about.Texas must be big for cheerleaders because there's another flap happening down there concerning a young girl with cerebral palsy named Callie Smart. Callie was an honorary cheerleader for a high school in Andrews Texas. The school's administration found a problem with this. Seems the authorities were worried Callie might get hurt as she piloted her wheelchair to and fro along the sidelines, inspiring her team and the fans. Her mother fought the decision and won a compromise: little Callie Smart will be able to join the other cheerleaders at Home games. Her mother's happy.
I guess there are good Cheerleader Moms and bad Cheerleader Moms.
I'd like to make it clear from the start that I have absolutely nothing against Islam or Iran (peace be unto them). But I think it's a bit extreme to condemn Salmon Rushdie to death because he wrote a piece of fiction. the poor guy has been skulking around under heavy security ever since February 14th of 1989 when the now-dead Ayatollah Khomeini (peace be unto him) sent a very un-Valentine's day message to the world: big bucks for the life of Mr. Rushdie. (My, aren't we touchy?) Such a death pronouncement is called a "fatwa."
Does anyone remember the plot to the Beatles' second movie "Help!?" Rushdie even looks a little like Ringo, only a lot more worried.
I never read "The Satanic Verses." Apparently it takes a poke or two at Allah or Islam or somebody (peace be unto him or it or them too). Let's get one thing straight: the Grateful Dead's "Blues for Allah" is my absolute favorite Dead album (may peace be unto Jerry Garcia) so there's no reason to target me, for heaven's sake.
The deal still sounds pretty sweet though: any Muslim who offs Rushdie gets not only a guaranteed spot in paradise but wait! There's more! Two million dollars to make their days here on evil old earth a little more paradise-like. Personally, I don't see much peace behind all that.
Geraldo Rivera came to Boulder to do his show last week which is kind of like one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse rounding the bend. He's making a smooth career transition from O.J.-stalker to Ramsey-watcher with all the aplomb of a rodeo rider. From the looks of his first show Geraldo seems to be more interested in getting to the top of sweeps than to the bottom of the mystery. But that's his job after all.
More interesting than watching Mr. Rivera board the misery gravy train is seeing how the web community is reacting to the tragic JonBenet Ramsey murder case comparing this to the growth of O.J. sites during his first trial. While I remember slews of Simpson sites springing up, (many of which were humorous in a dark way), I don't recall anything like the proliferation of well-funded and well-established sites concerning the JonBenet case.
The clarion call was the Ramsey's own unprecedented PR web site-making this a very public spectacle from the first weeks. Not to mention that it adds a bizarre twist: the number one suspect (Mr. John Ramsey) funds a web-based spin doctoring machine (reportedly at over a thousand bucks a day) just days after the murder to steer suspicion away from himself and his family. Not that I'm doubting J.R.'s innocence, it just looks a little tawdry that he hired the first of his many lawyers within 24 hours of his curious "discovery" of little JonBenet's body.
Geraldo Rivera has, albeit broken, a nose for a good seedy story. I kind of hope he stays on this one like a bloodhound.
The problem with clones is if you've seen one you've seen them all. What's the big deal anyway? So a nutty professor figures out how to replicate a sheep. (Isn't "sheep" what we call large groups of humans who, without thought or individual reasoning follow the crowd?) No wonder folks are a little nervous about this laboratory magic. Nobody's pulling the wool over my eyes, we've already got enough Democrats and Ditto-heads out there to prove somebody's been cloning human sheep for years.
I would rather the lab boys put their efforts toward what I consider the >ultimate scientific feat: cloning Sandra Bullock. Bunches of 'em. A new crop each year. Wow.
With all the fertility drugs, birth control pills, day-after pills and hormone therapies aren't we all fooling ourselves that the line will be drawn at cloning sheep? Somebody grow me a finger.
One of my earliest musical memories was singing along with my parents' scratchy 45 rpm single of Pat Boone's "Love Letters In The Sand" on the Dot label. Way back when, Mr. Boone made a nice living (built a career and became a media magnate) interpreting "race music" in a nice, clean unthreatening (read: white) way for late Fifties teenagers. The guilt must have driven him to Christianity, where he prospered even more, recording religious albums and delivering The Word.
Hell, his DAUGHTER even had a huge smash hit (which made millions for Warner Brothers) with "You Light Up My Life," the "you" in the song's lyrics referring to Jesus if I'm not wrong. (But I haven't played it backwards to be sure.)
Well, Pat Boone's gone bad, if you haven't already heard. What ever "possessed" him to consider covering tunes by the likes of Led Zeppelin; Guns N' Roses; Metallica and Judas Priest for heaven's sake? Good lord, was he thinking he could do for heavy metal what he did forty years earlier for "race" music? Well, it backfired on him, thank God, which just emphasizes that Fundamentalists don't have much of a sense of humor. As for me? I'm going to buy a copy of "In A Metal Mood." The horn arrangement on "Smoke On The Water" is worth the price of admission all by itself.