Make PETA Extinct

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has lost its way. For weeks they have been shoving Pamela Anderson down our throats as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, and now they have announced the winners of their Sexiest Vegetarian contest. The female winner is - surprise! a Pamela Anderson look-alike: Voluntary blond hair, collagen-laced lips and of course, grotesquely enhanced mammaries. Why didn't they just select a cow to win their trip to Maui? They're vegetarians, too. I didn't include her name because bimbos all have interchangeable parts.

Pamela Anderson may be an animal lover, but she also owes about $500,000 on her Income Tax. Not my definition of ethical. She is no stranger to these pages, however. I first blogged about her when I was a newbie. The marriage I sneered wrote about ended less than a year later after she allegedly feigned a miscarriage to dance on other men's tables, but alas, she is still with us.

I liked PETA better when they were protecting penguins in Antarctica.

The Bad Ole Days

Confederate History Month sounds like a bad Saturday Night Live skit for April Fool's Day. The Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, says that Confederate history "should not be forgotten, but instead should be studied, understood and remembered" because its leaders "fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth in a time very different than ours today." The Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust and the Crusades were also different times, but that is no excuse to celebrate them.

The NAACP objected. Can you imagine? Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour claims that he was not aware of any complaints that the holiday was offensive and says the "dustup" over Virginia's proclamation seems like a "nit," a lot of noise over something that "doesn't amount to diddly." I wonder why the state with the largest Black population in the nation doesn't have a Black Governor, and also why no one has put a muzzle on this guy. His white hood probably got in the way.

Are You the Party to Whom I am Speaking?

Will the real Vernon Pope stand up? For over six years, I have received dunning phone calls for him despite at least five conversations with various offshore Customer Disservice folks with Indian accents, each of whom assured me that my number would be removed from their annals. They all lied.

Exactly what part of "We don't know him - this is not his number" do they fail to understand? It seems that his debt, however large, should have fallen off his credit report by now. I think this occurs after seven years, but during that time a lot of buying and selling of accounts transpires among collection agencies. Kind of like a Virginia Reel, or a very large cluster fuck.

Meanwhile, Vernon Pope is doubtless living it up in Tahiti or Marrakech, leaving me holding the bag. He is laughing as he sips countless mai tais on breezy verandahs because he knows that I am taking care of business. But he is deluded. I want a divorce. We have never met, nor do I have the slightest interest in doing so, yet he has caused me considerable distress as countless debt collectors invade my life at all hours, demanding money on his behalf.

Vernon Pope, you and I have irreconcilable differences, and it's time you manned up and took responsibility for your own steaming pile of bills. Nowhere in that custody agreement am I mentioned as a person who will tend your errant progeny without benefit. You need to euthanize it, humanely or not. It makes no difference to me -- I have no dog in this fight.

Only changing my phone number will get rid of you, but I should not have to incur further inconvenience. I hope you understand that we cannot keep going like this. I want my freedom. Oh, Vernon Pope. we hardly knew ye.

Blindsided Yet Again

Things just get better and better for Sandra Bullock. Now rumors have surfaced that one of Jesse James' mistresses - I'm not sure which one because I am mathematically challenged over 1,000 - was pregnant with his child within weeks of his marriage to the Academy Award winning actress.

James' lawyer claims that his client is a "broken man." "This whole thing has destroyed Jesse's entire universe," he said. "Right now, he's a broken man." This would seem to imply that an arbitrary universe caused these events to happen to a passive, helpless James. What a grotesque attempt at damage control! Adultery doesn't just happen -- you have to take off your clothes first. He is portrayed as desperate to save his marriage and allegedly told Bullock that he would get help “like Tiger" because he is still in love with her. Does he think that broaching the "T" word somehow elevates his behavior? Safety in numbers maybe? I'm sure that he and his role model will be a great comfort to each other in dick rehab.

"The single most important thing to Mr. James and the children is that the marriage somehow survive," his lawyer declared. He even said it with a straight face, which is quite impressive. He probably gets a few million extra for that.

When all else fails, round up the usual suspects. The Oscar Curse. Give me a break. Meryl Streep has won so many times that she probably has an entire wing of her house consecrated to her statues, and has been married to the same man for 89 zillion years. I'm guessing the dude does not cheat.

This is War

Discovery Communications, the parent company of The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC and others known for their wildlife-focused programs is planning to produce an 8-part TV show on Sarah Palin’s Alaska. She will be paid $1,000,000.00 per episode. This is wrong on so many levels that I struggle to comprehend how they have not managed to connect the dots.

Discovery regards Palin as "one of Alaska's proudest daughters." I think they mean "richest." Because she is famous, personable, attractive and comfortable before the cameras, they are somehow, inexplicably, missing the fact that she also escalated a bloody aerial wolf-slaughter campaign that continues to this day, and even planned to offer a $150 bounty for the severed forelimb of each brutally murdered wolf. She also fought against increased protections for endangered Cook Inlet Beluga whales and for America's dwindling populations of polar bears. Sarah Palin is America's most unrepentant destroyer of wildlife, and her policies while Governor of Alaska pillaged her state's immense natural beauty for fun and profit.

That money would be better used by organizations dedicated to the preservation of wildlife and wild places. Please sign Defenders of Wildlife's petition now, demanding that Discovery Communications reconsider this grave insult to all who depend on their shows to celebrate our natural heritage, not its destruction.

Further Proof that I'm an Underachiever

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Saturday Night is Wasted on the Married

What I needed most in the world tonight was red grapefruit. I ate the only one in the refrigerator and craved more. I decided that my body was telling me something, so I walked around the corner to the neighborhood grocery. Flip came along to protect me, although I am far tougher than he is.

He tried to tell the store clerk that the girls outside the bar next door looked like hookers, but he couldn't remember the word. I'm not sure why he wanted to share this, but I reminded him that he came from a gentler era in which girls didn't look like hookers unless they were hookers. Everyone we passed was duded up and trailing perfume at near-toxic levels, wearing death-defying skimpy outfits despite the low temperature and a fierce wind off the Bay. I wore paint-streaked sweat pants, Ugg boots and a shape-hiding down jacket, topped by a bad haircut. If I were a hooker, I would starve.

Yesterday, I had my hair cut and I've been plotting a rematch ever since. I couldn't remember when my last one was so I consulted last year's calendar, which had many haircuts for Flip penned in but not a single one for me. I checked the entire year twice. Then I found my calendar from the year before and realized that my last one was in March of 2008. Exactly two years ago. I could probably lose my reputation as a high maintenance woman if I'm not careful.

The person I used to go to was a flake but he gave good haircut, and over several years he got to know my hair, which is finicky. Unfortunately, he disappeared into another dimension or maybe witness protection, leaving only a vague message on his cell phone. The new stylist gave Flip a good cut a month ago, so I thought I would try her. Now my hair looks like a bad Farrah Fawcett wig. With a little Minnie Mouse thrown in for good measure. It's a rotten way to be wounded.

I've been to doctor appointments in which medical interns doing a rotation in a particular specialty sat in. My hairdresser had her own intern, a facialist who wanted to learn about hair so she watched, owl-like, as my hair was washed, cut and flat-ironed. It reminded me of the actor's fourth wall, the space separating the audience from the action of a theatrical performance, traditionally conceived of as an imaginary wall completing the enclosure of the stage.

I do not possess the skills to flat-iron my hair, or even to style it with a dryer and brush. I haven't looked at the back of my head in years because I believe that what I don't know can't hurt me. As soon as I got outside in the rain, my naturally wavy hair reasserted itself and I realized that she flat-ironed it to delay my discovery that it bulges oddly with large clumps that seem to belong to some other haircut entirely.

Flip, however, was looking good when he escorted me to the store. Our hot Saturday night date netted several grapefruits and some red grapefruit juice, plus a dark chocolate bar with crystallized ginger. Between that, the strawberry-rhubarb pie I made yesterday and several boxes of Girl Scout cookies, our his 'n' hers diabetic comas are assured. If that's not romantic, I don't know what is.