Outrage of the day

I actually have little use for Barry Bonds, as I've indicated here before. But, still: it seems there's a young woman named Kimberly Bell. For 10 years, she was Barry Bonds girlfriend. They broke up. But she's determined to cash in; she's done a nude pictorial in Playboy, and she's going to tell all about their relationship. And she's proud of it. Quote: "The opportunity was there, and I took it," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. The photo shoot "was one of the most liberating experiences of my life." Yes--the opportunity to make money by trashing someone else. Yes, "liberating"---I guess cheap money can make one feel liberated. I wonder if she'd be okay with it if someone had the "opportunity" to make money off of the intimate details of her life, and "took it."

"If I had more self-esteem when I was younger," she said, "I wouldn't have been caught up with such a rotten man." If she had more self-esteem, she might not feel the need to do stuff like this. Full details here.

The coarsening continues...

...the coarsening of the culture, that is. Lindsay says she's innocent. Sure. Britney trashes a cover shoot. Now might be a good time to remember what Peggy Noonan wrote a few months ago: "Our country now puts less of an emphasis on public decorum, courtliness, self-discipline, decency. America no longer says, "That's not nice." It doesn't want to make value judgments on "good" and "bad." We have come to rely on censorship to maintain decorum. We are very good at letting people know that if they say something we don't like, we'll shame them and shun them, even ruin them.. ...But censorship doesn't make people improve themselves; it makes people want to rebel. It tells them to toe the line or pay a price. People who are urged in the right direction and taught in the right direction will usually try to discipline and improve themselves from within. But they do not enjoy censorship from without. They fight back. They are rude in order to show they are unbroken."

By the way, getting Don Imus fired way back when sure cleaned up the culture, didn't it?

Bad news for another celeb

Lindsay Lohan arrested last night--DUI, cocaine possession, etc.
And once again, everyone will be fascinated by the ET/Insider/Access Hollywood reports, and Lohan will eventually do rehab, and maybe a little jail time, and apologize, etc etc. But what if anything will anybody learn from all this? Will it just be another chance to do the equivalent of staring wide-eyed at the accident as you drive by?

And she's not exaggerating, either!

Singer Mariah Carey recently, in a message to fans on her website: “Hello! I know I haven’t called you since 1802,” the “Glitter” star said... “Actually, I haven’t called anyone. I’ve been really, really busy and when I do get free time, I’m on vocal rest so I can like get back in the studio for 20 billion hours. So everybody’s mad at me but whatever.”

More celeb news and notes here.

So you want to be a celebrity...

...but the question is, will the paparazzi let you out of your car?

It's easy to criticize the paparazzi, by the way, but remember: magazines, web sites, and TV shows gobble up their footage, and a whole bunch of Americans then go on to gobble up those mags, sites, and shows.

Shoddy is as shoddy does

Hmmm. So Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway says she'd be willing to go topless in a movie; although she wouldn't enjoy it. Her rationale? From MSNBC: “It’s not the most fun requirement of the job, but nor is it something that I would ever not do a job because of,” the “Devil Wears Prada” star told Marie Claire. “It is what it is. Some people choose not to do it on moral grounds; I think that’s a shoddy argument.”

Er---I think she's a beautiful, talented actress, but I fear it's her argument (to be fair, her quote may have been taken out of context) that seems shoddy. Shouldn't one's morality inform one's decisions? But then, Hollywood isn't short on shoddy.

Selective outrage

Some parents and others are furious over alcohol-flavored lip gloss. Hmmm...but have you seen what your teen daughters are wearing lately? There might be better things about which to be outraged.