BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin is the only woman who can make Tony Romo WIN a playoff.

calendar   Friday - July 24, 2009

On Cronkite

A Post For Peiper

JayD, this article extends the email I sent you, along with the post over at Vilmar’s.

So, to use his own words, was Walter Cronkite an honorable journalist who did the best he could?

No. What may—may—have resulted from forgivable misimpressions due to the “fog of war” long ago crystallized into obdurate lies. Cronkite never clarified the record, never admitted that the Tet offensive—the Vietcong’s surprise holiday attack on cities across South Vietnam—resulted in a military and political fiasco for North Vietnam.

This was becoming apparent even before the dust had settled in 1968, as we learn in Peter Braestrup’s indispensable “The Big Story”, one of the signal historical works of the 20th century, which meticulously analyzes the media’s failure to assess Tet correctly as a defeat for North Vietnam. Even Leftist journalist Frances Fitzgerald in her Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fire in the Lake” reported that Tet had “seriously depleted” Vietcong forces and “wiped out” many of their “most experienced cadres,” noting that such losses drove “the southern movement for the first time into almost total dependency on the north.” Her conclusion: “By all the indices available to the American military, the Tet offensive was a major defeat for the enemy.”

And so be it. The president lost Cronkite, the United States lost Vietnam. But why are the rest of us still stuck with Cronkite’s Orwellian packaging as “America’s most trusted newsman” 41 years after he totally and calamitously and obstinately blew Tet? The ongoing genuflection before “Uncle Walter” reveals something mighty weird about this body politic—something beyond the ken of a mere journalist, something more in the line of work of a really good shrink.




As for the “secretly gay” thing ... well, you can search on that if you want. I clearly remember him “coming out” or at least being “outed” some years ago. Or was it the “outies” just wishing really hard?


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/24/2009 at 09:07 PM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesMedia-Bias •  
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calendar   Monday - May 04, 2009

Berlusconi demands an apology AFTER wife says she’s had it and wants divorce.

Now this guy I want ya to know and I believe you already do, is Italy’s top guy. He’s their president, their leader, they’re jealous.

Oh before I forget.

UPDATE May 4th.

Mrs. Berlusconi has today filed for divorce and could get half his 4 BILLION dollar fortune. Hey, they’ve been married 19 years.  If he was gonna mess around, the least he could have done was be considerate enough not to embarrass his wife so publicly for so long. 
Hot blooded Latins.  Hmmm. Wonder if the guys extend that excuse to their women?


‘Shameless’ Silvio Berlusconi buys 18-year-old model a gold necklace for her birthday and calls himself ‘her little daddy teacher’

By Nick Pisa
Last updated at 11:49 PM on 29th April 2009

You would think that Silvio Berlusconi’s wife would be thrilled that her busy husband found time to attend an 18th birthday party.
Well she wasn’t - because the party was for someone else’s pretty young daughter.

Mr Berlusconi’s long-suffering wife, Veronica Lario, lashed out after his appearance was gleefully reported in the Italian press.
She said in an email to Italy’s national news agency ANSA: ‘That really surprised me because he has never come to the 18th birthday parties of any of our children despite being invited.’

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Veronia criticised Berlusconi in an email to an Italian press agency.
The Italian prime minister, 72, has three grown-up children with Mrs Lario - Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi - and two from a previous marriage.
But he also sees himself as ‘little daddy’ to blonde teenager Noemi Letizia, the daughter of a business associate.
He was the surprise guest of honour at her recent 18th party in Naples, and gave her a necklace and signed photograph of himself.

Yesterday Miss Letizia was interviewed by several Italian newspapers and said: ‘It was a lovely surprise to see the man I call Papi (daddy) at my party.
‘I call him Papi but of course he is second to my father. He gave me a lovely necklace as a present.’

Mr Berlusconi said he wanted ‘youthful new faces’ as candidates for June’s European elections.
He named four targets, none of whom has any political experience: soap actress Camilla Ferranti, 30; TV star Eleonora Gaggioli, 29; ex-Big Brother contestant Angela Sozio, 31; and former Miss Italy candidate Barbera Matera, 28.

In her email Mrs Lario said: ‘Someone wrote that all this is to sustain the enjoyment of the Emperor.
‘I agree with this - what has emerged is shameful trash, all in the name of power.

‘I want it to be made clear that my children and I are victims of this situation and do not agree with it, we have to put up with it and suffer with it.
‘Fortunately for some time now we have had women in politics and business - in the past we had (Margaret) Thatcher and now we have (Angela) Merkel - that is to say women can be involved in politics.

‘Women today are and can be beautiful and the fact that there are beautiful women in politics is not a merit or a demerit.’
It is the second time that she has made a public statement on her husband’s antics.

Two years ago she demanded - and got - a public apology after he told one actress he would wed her if he wasn’t already married and then told another he would run away with her.

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Berlusconi babe: Eleonora Gaggioli has been lined up as a prospective candidate for the European elections

Berlusconi demands an apology from his wife as he admits: Our marriage is over
By NICK PISA
Last updated at 4:55 PM on 04th May 2009

Silvio Berlusconi has no plans to seek a reconciliation with his wife and has demanded an apology from the former actress for comments she made.

The Italian prime minister’s wife Veronica said over the weekend she planned to file for divorce, days after publicly criticising Berlusconi’s selection of pretty young women to run in European elections.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/04/2009 at 11:36 AM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesEye-CandyFinance and Investing •  
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OUT OF AFRICA?


OUT OF AFRICA?

It appears that the very wealthy professional liberal Madonna, who it is rumored might also be a singer, is having a bit of a problem adopting another black child from Malawi.  Either Madonna just likes the idea of matching bookends, or maybe she feels that the boy she has already adopted might like company growing up in a white world with another kid of his own race.

Apparently, the Material Girl has an mo of pretty much getting what she wants, when she wants it. Except perhaps a stable marriage. Whatever.

It must be some sort of a rush to have her money and be in a position to indulge your shop til you drop fantasies by shopping for people and buying a couple of children.  However, there is a fly in the ointment and poor Madonna may have a problem with latest acquisition.

Seems the father of the little girl, whose name is Mercy, has filed for custody, arguing that the pop star “ lacks the morals to bring up his child. A court has already denied the 50-year-old Madonna the chance to adopt Mercy.  As well, the people there are a bit miffed that after taking one kid she’s back for another, and accuse her of thinking she can just walk in with all her money and buy their kids.  There is a bit of a class and race thing going on, and I guess many of the folks who cannot rub two pennies together very well are a bit envious.  Others praised her for giving a small boy a chance of a good life in the West. Like there are no dark skinned children already in the West who could benefit from her magnificence.

The father of Mercy is critical of Madonna’s appearances “almost naked on stage.” He said:
“I don’t want my daughter to grow up like that. Women who respect themselves, cultured women, do not go about half naked.”

While he may have a point to make it hasn’t been reported just why his daughter was not in his custody to begin with, given that the mother died in childbirth.

I guess we will have to stay tuned to this one just to see if the aging pop star will win her fight to have the present ruling overturned on appeal. 
I have a gut feeling that it is not little Mercy, she’s that concerned about.  It is all about winning and getting her way. She does not like to be thwarted.

That’s what I think and unless someone can offer something else, I’m stickin to that.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 05/04/2009 at 08:24 AM   
Filed Under: • Celebrities •  
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calendar   Friday - April 03, 2009

WELL IT JUST LOOKED DARN FUNNY TO ME …. ALL TOGETHER NOW 1 and a 2 and

WHEN THE MOON HITS YOU EYE LIKE A BIG PIZZA PIE ....

THAT’S REVOLTING ....

LOTS MORE

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 04/03/2009 at 12:26 PM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesHumorInternationalPolitics •  
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calendar   Thursday - April 02, 2009

YOU MAY RECALL MY POST YESTERDAY RE. THE TEACHER/MODEL IN HOT WATER.

Well now ....

There hasn’t been any update to that story and I doubt there will be.
BUT ... I want to bring this to everyones attention because it irks me.

The knothead priggish head teacher spoke of images and standards and the idea that kids had to be protected from seeing a teacher on a website posing in an alluring way.  What an ass. As though kids are looking for that very mild non-porn negligee poses. Wait, they probably are but so what?
Any of you guys old enough to recall looking at The Natl. Geographic? uh huh.  Ruined us all, didn’t it?

Like they don’t watch TV and see a lot more.  Kids today see far more and hear more then anyone at this site at that age. I may not think that’s always a good thing but that’s the world today.

So then ... take a look at this very public image and tell me.  Is there any chance that some 11 to 16 year old just might see this?

Especially as these two are well known celebs.

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And please don’t forget the kiss on stage between Madonna and Britney Spears some time back.  How many kids saw that?
About a million or more? 

I happen to see this today on the Daily Mail website and so it got me thinking about that PE/Dance teacher.  Yeah, a real danger to the kiddies morals.


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 04/02/2009 at 01:50 PM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesStoopid-PeopleUK •  
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calendar   Saturday - March 28, 2009

not what most of us would call motherhood.

It’s 8pm where I am at the moment and I have booted quite late today.
There is so much going on it’s hard to know exactly where to start.

Today being Saturday the papers (like Sundays) are large and bulky and filled with all sorts of stuff and I have gone through three papers which believe me is time consuming.  Ah but there is heartwarming public interest blurbs.
For example Madonna, in order to increase her limo-liberal credibility and profile, is flying off to some place called Malawi to bring home yet another black child to adopt.  I guess the first one needs company in the form of another like being.

It’s kind of her to give a loving and caring environment to these children.  What a pity she has to go to all the trouble of flying off to jungle land because as we know, THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO CHILDREN HERE IN THE UK OR IN USA who need adopting and a caring home. NONE.
The Mail’s Amanda Platell has this to say about that.


No merciful mum

Fresh from ditching her toyboy lover (not to mention her husband), Madonna flies into Malawi this weekend to adopt four-year old orphan Mercy James. Mercy? If only.

On past evidence, the poor child will be cared for largely by strangers, with no father figure in her life and a part-time ‘mother’ who treats adoption as though it were a shopping trip to be fitted into her busy schedule.
What Madonna wants, Madonna gets.

But it’s not what most of us would call motherhood.


PLATELL


AND FROM THE TIMES, THIS CARTOON.

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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/28/2009 at 02:48 PM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesStoopid-People •  
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calendar   Monday - December 29, 2008

It’s not too late ladies

Ladies, did you find yourself out of ideas for your conservative man this Christmas? Has he got all the socks, ties, and power tools he’ll ever need? A closest bursting with firearms? Well, don’t despair. Don’t write this holiday off just yet with a “I’ll try harder next year”. All you really need ... is a present you’ll both enjoy!



Say it with me

“Kazuo Kawasaki 704 C.34 SP-51”

That’s Kah-Zoo-Oh Kah-Wah-Sah-Key Seven-Oh-Four See-Thirty-Four Ess-Pee-Fifty-One.



The bangs, the bun, the outfits I leave up to you. A few minutes on YouTube and you’ll have the accent down pat. Uh oh, momma wants a fresh reindeer steak, you betcha!


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/29/2008 at 04:29 PM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesRepublicansSex •  
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calendar   Thursday - December 11, 2008

EXTREME TORTURE OF SUSPECTED TERRORISTS. AND IT IS TORTURE MAKE NO MISTAKE.

Must be a generational thing.  Music?  Gotta be joking. 
Tell ya what though.  If I had to listen to this crap I’d most likely break in two seconds.  Which is one second longer then I can take this misnamed junk.

Whatever .... seems another dumb thing that “artists” (artists?) can get up to.  Demand that their music noise not be used by our guys to break terrorists.  Screw em.  They aren’t real musicians anyway. Just damn lucky enough to be born and raised in a time when the young have disposable cash and they need no particular talent musically to make a great deal of money.  Which of course is the name of the game.  I accept that part.
But unfortunately these “artists” begin to believe that what they think or want matters.  They think they can tell the military how to conduct things, they want to advise governments on human rights and who knows what else.

They should stick to making noise and money.  Maybe use their income to take some lessons and learn how it’s done.

Bah! Dope Heads!


The Britney bludgeon, a weapon of torture: Pop stars tell the U.S. military to stop using their songs to ‘break’ terror suspects

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:22 AM on 11th December 2008

Torture: Britney Spears is on the list of artists whose songs are used to ‘break’ detainees in American military camps

In the hands of a teenager with a powerful set of speakers it is a lethal weapon.

Popular music played at extreme decibel levels will already have been judged torture by many a parent.

But a phenomenon that did no more harm than widen the generation gap has suddenly taken on more sinister overtones with reports that ear-splittingly loud music has been used as a ‘sonic bludgeon’ by the U.S. military against prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

Human rights groups are protesting that blasting tracks such as Britney Spears’s Baby One More Time and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. into cells at high volumes for hours on end can cause the inmates longterm psychiatric problems.

Now the musicians themselves have joined the fray, furious that their songs are being used to ‘break’ suspected terrorists.

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Bristol-based band Massive Attack and Tom Morello, guitarist with U.S. group Rage Against The Machine have joined a campaign against the practice.

According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo bragged that he needed only four days to ‘break’ someone by alternating 16 hours of loud music with just four hours of silence.

The practice has been used often in the ‘war on terror’, with U.S. forces systematically playing loud music to hundreds of its detainees. Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former U.S. military chief in Iraq, said the aim was ‘to create fear, disorient . . . and prolong capture shock’.

The new campaign is a joint venture between musicians and the human rights group Reprieve, which represents 30 inmates at Guantanamo. There are plans for minutes of silence during concerts and festivals to raise awareness of the issue.

One of the more unlikely protesters is Bob Singleton, whose song I Love You - sung by U.S. children’s television character Barney the Dinosaur - has been used to ‘torture’ detainees.

He said he was horrified that ‘a song designed to make little children feel safe and loved was somehow going to threaten the mental state of adults and drive them to the emotional breaking point’.

Mr. Singleton should wake the hell up and realize the ppl we’re up against would be very happy to, and in fact already have, murdered children all over the globe.  And 9/11 was only a part of what they do.  And they want more.  So up yours Mr. Singleton. 
Be interesting to see what his reaction and that of yet another “human rights” group would be if one of their own were caught up in a terrorist attack.

Schmuck!

FULL STORY HERE


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 12/11/2008 at 10:55 AM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesStoopid-PeopleWar On Terror •  
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calendar   Tuesday - November 04, 2008

Hello New Haven. Birth place of the late and great Artie Shaw.  Something different for a change.

At first, I wanted to post her photo because I think she is drop dead gorgeous and I thought hey, we can use a bit of beginning of the week eye candy.
Most especially this morning.  I wasn’t going to post the article that went with the photo, which I think is pretty darn nice.
But then I read it and found it interesting, and thought you might too.  Hey, just a bit of nothing much. A pleasant time waster.

So, just to take our minds off really important stuff for just a few minutes, (but no more)

Here’s KATE WINSLET.

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She is famously deprecating about her looks and claims to be a normal mother-of-two with bad skin and cellulite, but Kate Winslet’s latest photoshoot rather suggests otherwise.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor
Last Updated: 9:25AM GMT 04 Nov 2008
Kate Winslet poses for Vanity Fair
Best foot forward: Kate Winslet in Deneuve tribute Photo: Exclusively for Vanity Fair by Steven Meisel

The 33-year-old British actress has posed for one of her most glamorous sets of pictures yet in the new issue of Vanity Fair magazine, showing off a flawless complexion and enviably svelte figure. The images are a tribute to Catherine Deneuve in the 1967 film Belle de Jour.

In the accompanying interview, Winslet says she realises that the pictures will raise eyebrows among other mothers on the school run.

The mother of two children, Mia, eight, and Joe, five, said: “I know when I walk into that classrom in the morning, even if it’s for a split second, at some point I’m being checked out. Some of them will even say to me, ‘OK, what’s the secret with the skin?’ At which point I’m like, ‘Oh my God, there’s no secret. I have make-up on. And by the way, since I turned 30 I’ve had an acne problem on my chin. I’m just like everybody else - I just know how to cover it. If you’d like me to show you how, I’d be more than happy.”

However, a spokesman for Vanity Fair admitted there had been “a minimal amount of retouching”.

But her publicist said that while there had been some skin tone correction, her body had “not been airbrushed at all”.

Digital retouching expert Joanne Craske said: “The first place to look is under the eyes, because whether you’re two or 92 you have darkness there, and the pictures of Kate have none. There’s certainly no sign of acne either.

“It definitely looks like there has been a bit of work done.”

Winslet famously objected when GQ magazine airbrushed away her curves and elongated her legs for a 2003 cover shoot. “I don’t look like that and I don’t desire to look like that,” she said at the time. “It wasn’t that they simply retouched my image - they completely stretched it so I looked like I was six feet tall and a size two.”

At school, Winslet was bullied for being overweight and nicknamed ‘Blubber’. She told Vanity Fair: “I never had huge ambitions - never. I was fat. I didn’t know any fat famous actresses. I just did not see myself in that world at all, and I’m being very sincere. You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. Because you always think that you just look a little bit wrong or a little bit different from everyone else. And I still sort of have that.”

Winslet stars in two forthcoming films which are already being talked of as Oscar contenders: Revolutionary Road, a 1950s drama which reunites her with Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, and The Reader, in which she plays a German woman exposed as a former Nazi.

She holds the record as the youngest actress ever to earn five Oscar nominations and makes no bones about how desperately she wants to win this time. “Do I want it? You bet your ***ing a** I do! I think that people assume that I don’t care or don’t want it or don’t need it or something. It’s hard to be there five times and I’m only human, you know? But I don’t go home and cry, because we’re all grown-ups here.”

http://tinyurl.com/57zjku


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Posted by peiper   United States  on 11/04/2008 at 05:10 AM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesUK •  
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calendar   Tuesday - October 14, 2008

WITH APOLOGIES TO BMEWS. CLASS.  A MEA CULPA?  CARLA BRUNI AIDS TERRORIST.

Recently Drew and I agreed on the term class as applied to certain women.  Neither of us thought Paris Hilton exhibited much by her overall public behavior, though I tended to think perhaps she might be improving somewhat after being incarcerated.  Something she was never brought up to believe one of her monied class would experience. 

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I then posted an eye candy photo of a woman who up till that time I thought exhibited class beyond all measure.  The First Lady of France, Carla Bruni
Fully clothed she had far more appeal and striking looks then many women half her age (40 something). 

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I forgot she had been a million dollar model and so knew how to best present herself.  I now confess that blinded by her physical appearance, I was quite willing to conveniently forget just how far left her politics were are.  I came to believe she was one who did exhibit class as I understood the word.
Well, maybe I don’t understand what “class” really is.  I always just assumed I’d know it when I saw it and she seemed to embody the very meaning itself.

If real class in a person goes beyond the physical (and it does), then my idea of Bruni class has shown her to have hooves of clay.  Actually, that might not be fair to her as she never made a secret of her leftist politics and has spoken openly on the subject.  And that fact alone (being left) doesn’t mean she’s classless.
However, it’s what she’s managed to bring about in criminal matters, the total disregard of victims as she worked on the ever horny Sarko, president of France, to deny Italy the extradition of a member of The Red Brigade, that has me riled this morning.

She has NO CLASS whatever.  Simply a very good actress with the appearance of class.  I’m more disappointed in myself (typical male huh?) then in her.
She never denied her stripes and I never gazed beyond her light to see what what was behind.  So, here’s the story that has me all bothered today.

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Carla Bruni uses influence to halt extradition of Red Brigades terrorist
Carla Bruni and her sister have persuaded Nicolas Sarkozy not to extradite a woman who faces life imprisonment for murder to her native Italy, sparking anger amongst her victims’ families.

By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 6:01PM BST 13 Oct 2008

In a sign of her influence over her husband’s decision-making, the Italian-born First Lady - along with her sister - convinced the French president to drop a court order to deport exiled Red Brigades terrorist Marina Petrella to Rome.

Her personal intervention and the presidential u-turn sparked anger in Italy, which has been seeking Mrs Petrella’s extradition from France since she fled after being freed on bail in 1986.

A group representing victims of the Red Brigades said it would travel to Paris this weekend and protest against the decision in front of the Elysée palace.

Mrs Petrella was found guilty in absentia by an Italian court in 1992 of murder, kidnapping, attempted kidnapping and armed robbery.

A French court approved her extradition in December and an order to send her back to Italy had been signed by the prime minister. But after “pugnacious” lobbying by Mr Sarkozy’s wife on behalf of her older sister, actress Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, the president changed his mind - citing humanitarian grounds.

“Mrs Petrella was in danger of dying. This hunger and thirst strike had to stop, which it did. There is a humanitarian clause, I used that clause,” Mr Sarkozy said during a financial press conference.

“I told him (Mr Sarkozy) about her, especially just after I saw her in jail.

I gave him some information that was perhaps a little bit important in his decision,” said Miss Bruni-Tedeschi.

“He focused his attention on a case that he hadn’t completely focused on before,” she said. Her sister Carla said she was “happy” about the decision.

The pair personally delivered the message to Mrs Petrella on Sunday at her secure prison hospital bed, where she is refusing to eat and is in “very poor” health.

“I have a message for you from my husband,” the First Lady reportedly told her. “You will not be going back to Italy.”

The Communist Red Brigade was accused of dozens of murders in the 1970s and 80s, including that of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978.

Mr Moro’s widow, Olga, expressed outrage: “All judicial accords and conventions have been violated” by a decision “no doubt taken because the Sarkozy household was scared of unpopularity,” she said.

Mrs Petrella had been living at liberty in France until she was arrested in August 2007 at Italy’s request soon after Mr Sarkozy’s election. He had promised to end France’s policy of granting repentant ex-Red Brigades members asylum– first initiated by Socialist president François Mitterrand in 1985.

Mr Sarkozy denied that his decision would anger his Italian counterparts. “I remained in contact with them. I don’t think there was a lack of understanding. There is never a lack of understanding when one takes a humanitarian decision,” he said.

But Isabella Bertolini, a member of Mr Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party disagreed: “To apply a humanitarian clause to a terrorist convicted of homicide, theft and kidnapping sounds like a bad joke,” she told newspaper La Republicca.

The First Lady’s sister told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that Mrs Petrella’s story had particular significance for the wealthy Bruni family, which had fled to France after receiving death threats from the Red Brigades.

“I arrived in France as a little girl exactly because my family was afraid of what was happening in Italy, also because of terrorism,” Miss Bruni Tedeschi said.

“We all had a sentiment of fear, even I who was so little, and I know what it means to be welcomed by a foreign country, feel protected by it, and I can imagine what it means to suddenly lose that welcoming, lose that protection.”

This is a rare foray into politics for Mr Sarkozy’s third wife, who unlike her husband has always espoused left-wing causes.

However, it is not the first time the President has involved a spouse in politics: last year he sent his second wife Cécilia on a successful mission to free Bulgarian nurses from jail in Libya. The pair divorced last October and a month later he met Carla Bruni, a top model and successful folk pop singer.

http://tinyurl.com/3kra9x


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 10/14/2008 at 04:02 AM   
Filed Under: • CelebritiesCommiesCrimeEditorialsEUro-peonsTerrorists •  
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calendar   Friday - October 03, 2008

A VERY SAD GOODBYE.  Richard Sudhalter Cornettist and historian of pre-war ‘hot’ jazz.

Leave it to the Brits to remember this American.

Most of you I’ll bet never heard of this guy.  Unless like myself you’ve had an overriding passion for the period’s music and BIX in particular.
This fellow wrote the bio on Bix that for me was the definitive word on the subject.  (my lic. plate read, BIX LIVS)

My heroes since childhood have mostly been musicians and there wasn’t any higher calling that I could see.  All I lacked was talent. Gee, in today’s musical world, I couldda been a contenda. I couldda been a star. A talentless one but perhaps a wealthy one. 

So, today was a sad start to the day when I opened the morning paper and found this obit.
Had this man been a Brit, I’m almost certain there’d have been a Sir before his first name.

RIP, Richard Sudhalter

Richard Sudhalter
Cornettist and historian of pre-war ‘hot’ jazz whose playing was much influenced by Beiderbecke.

Last Updated: 12:31AM BST 03 Oct 2008

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Richard Sudhalter, who died in New York on September 19 aged 69, was a jazz cornettist, critic and biographer; his career also included a period with United Press International (UPI) in Europe, first as political correspondent and later as a bureau manager.

Sudhalter’s playing style was an elegant variation on that of Bix Beiderbecke, and his main interest was in the jazz of the 1920s and 1930s. Friends often observed that he seemed to have been born 30 years too late and was busily making up for the error.

Richard Merrill Sudhalter was born on December 28 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts, into a musical family. His father, Albert Sudhalter, had been a professional saxophonist and Dick’s brother and sister were also musicians.

Dick took up the cornet at the age of 12 after hearing Bix Beiderbecke for the first time. The actual Beiderbecke solo, he recalled half a century later, occurred in Paul Whiteman’s 1928 recording of San: “I couldn’t wait for my father to come home so I could ask him, ‘Who is Bix Beiderbecke?’ From that day on I was hooked.”

Through his father’s contacts he met, and later sat in with, many distinguished jazz musicians of the older generation, encounters which strengthened his attachment to “hot”’ jazz.

Between 1956 and 1960 Sudhalter studied Music and English Literature at Oberlin College, at the same time studying trumpet privately with Louis Davidson of the Cleveland Symphony. Shortly after graduating he moved to Europe, living first in Salzburg and later in Munich, where he taught English and played in the Bavarian State Radio jazz ensemble.

Sudhalter joined UPI, in Berlin, as political correspondent for West and East Germany in 1964, moving to London as UK correspondent two years later. In 1968, when the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia seemed imminent, he flew to Germany, and from there succeeded in reaching Prague just before the Russian troops moved in. He was one of the very few Western journalists on the scene and his reports were front-page news.

Leaving UPI in 1972, Sudhalter settled in London to concentrate on music and begin work on a biography of Bix Beiderbecke with a fellow-Bixian, Philip R Evans. The book, Bix: Man and Legend, was published in 1974 to great critical acclaim and was nominated for a National Book Award in the United States.

In the same year Sudhalter and the alto saxophonist John RT Davies assembled in London the 29-piece New Paul Whiteman Orchestra, dedicated to recreating the music of the band of which Beiderbecke had been the star soloist.

In the orchestra’s ranks were musicians of several generations, including Britain’s veteran master of the bass saxophone, Harry Gold. After a triumphant debut at the Roundhouse, the orchestra gave numerous concerts and BBC radio broadcasts.

Sudhalter returned to settle in New York in 1975. To his writing and playing schedule he now added the duties of administrator of the New York Jazz Repertory Company. For this band he produced a Duke Ellington retrospective series of four concerts at Carnegie Hall, followed by programmes devoted to Whiteman, WC Handy, Hoagy Carmichael and others. In 1975 and 1976 he also acted as artistic manager of the annual jazz festival held at Nice. Despite all this activity the flow of articles, radio scripts and album notes continued unabated.

In 1978 he became jazz critic for the New York Post, and from 1983 to 1987 joined three like-minded musicians to form the Classic Jazz Quartet. At first they wanted to call themselves Bourgeois Scum, but were advised that not everyone would see the joke.

Sudhalter’s biggest, and most controversial book, published in 1999, was Lost Chords: White Musicians and their Contribution to Jazz 1915-1945. This scholarly and apparently innocuous title caused a furore on the American jazz scene, poisoned as it had become by racial politics.

At public lectures, where he sought to explain and defend his book, he was often shouted down by a claque of opponents accusing him of racism and of attempting to belittle black jazz musicians. To the impartial reader, Lost Chords is nothing like that. It seeks merely to give due recognition to white players, such as Billy Butterfield, Bud Freeman and Pee Wee Russell, in the context of jazz history.

His last book, published in 2002, was Stardust Melody, on the life and music of the singer and songwriter Hoagy Carmichael.

Sudhalter normally wrote as “Richard” and played as “Dick”. The impression left by the recordings of Dick Sudhalter is of a player of great sensitivity and charm, regardless of his admitted debt to Beiderbecke. His 1999 album, Melodies Heard, Melodies Sweet, catches the flavour of the man to perfection.

He is also to be heard on the soundtracks to a number of films, notably Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose and The Shooting Party, unmistakable for his mellow tone and bright articulation.

In 2003 he suffered a stroke, which put an end to his playing career, and his health declined thereafter.

Richard Sudhalter was married and divorced. He is survived by two daughters.

http://tinyurl.com/3mjn6g


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 10/03/2008 at 03:20 AM   
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calendar   Thursday - September 18, 2008

THE ITALIAN FIRST LADY OF FRANCE in an answer to Drew’s question which was ….

A day or so ago my new friend and puter guru (He didn’t volunteer) our BMEWS tech guy Drew asked the question,

Doesn’t this lady wear any cloths?  May not be an exact quote but it’s close.

Since Drew has spent considerable time answering my questions, I thought I’d answer one of his.  Although to be fair this was a far easier question and more fun for me to answer, then are my tech troubled questions to him, the answers of which I’m still working on btw.

So, my entry here is dedicated to Drew and other males like myself who really do appreciate feminine beauty when it’s fully clothed as well.

Cheers All .....

Oh yeah ... sorry I ran short but I’m kinda new at this stuff.
The music is Artie Shaw, recorded in the 1930’s ..  “A Pretty Girl. (is like a melody)”


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 09/18/2008 at 07:18 AM   
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calendar   Wednesday - September 17, 2008

Having a tough week?

This might help.

No, I don’t mean “this might help scare you to death so that this week will be over one way or the other!”, I meant ... hey, it could be worse.

You could be her. 

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 09/17/2008 at 09:27 PM   
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calendar   Wednesday - September 03, 2008

JERRY REED HAS PASSED AWAY. A GREAT MUSICIAN AND ACTOR AND GOOD GUY. RIP

Yesterday I received some news that someone in the music industry had died.  He was one heck of a super picker, as musicians are referred to in Nashville no matter what instrument they play.  He was also a heck of a good actor. He was Jerry Reed.  Long before I ever met the man, I was playing his records when I was a DJ.  I also MC’d one of his shows a time or two and got to know him that way.

Once we moved to the Nashville area I’d visit his office on Music Row on the odd occasion.  He was two months older then I am. He was born in March of ’37, I was born in May of same yr.

What a loss it is. Truly.  Jerry was a picker’s picker.  And he was a very funny man as well and did lots of novelty songs. He stared with Burt Reynolds in the Smokey movies and sang the theme.  He was also in The Survivors with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau. I thought he stole the movie.

A memory I will always carry was a private concert with only the two of us. OK, it wasn’t actually a concert and it wasn’t planned. 
Between shows he went to his dressing room just off the stage area where he’d finished a show in open air. Hot KY. summer and no cover on the stage.
Everyone who ever played there complained about that, and Loretta Lynn once almost fainted.  So anyway, Jerry Reed went to the dressing room and I followed about 15 minutes later thinking I may as well get an interview for our station while I was there.  I’d MC’d his show and saw no problem.
But I never got to ask.  When I knocked and walked in he was practising and doing runs and I simply stood there like a deer caught in headlights.
Honest.  I was memorized. I was awed by this guy and never asked for an interview and didn’t even think about it.  There was more then an hour between shows, in fact I think now it was a couple of hours. But anyway, there were just the two of us and he played and played and I wouldn’t have been able to think of questions anyway.  I’ve always been in awe of talent which made me the very worst person to try and do an interview anyway. So I stood there and listened to a great guitar master and entertainer.

Sad .... RIP Jerry.  Til now I hardly appreciated how damn lucky I was to be there.


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Posted by Drew458   United Kingdom  on 09/03/2008 at 05:47 AM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
  1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
  2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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