Well, she has a good last name.

Seriously, who is Amy Wineshoue? I’m fairly old, so I don’t know this kind of pop-culture stuff.

All I know is that everyone is up in arms over young girls like her who are drunk, out-of-control, and making a mess of their lives. The media says they need rehab, I say they need to call me so we can have a pajama party. I'll bring my silver flask filled with Absolute.

Here is what Salon wrote recently about Miss Amy Winehouse and ladies like her.

“According to a report by British organization Women in Journalism, teenage girls find "encouragement" in "the soap opera-style lives of glamorous women," even if those women are falling over drunk and look like hell [stop talking about me that way, be-atch!].

Sure, teens (of both genders) are attracted to images of celebrities supposedly living it up [Lablogda note: teens, hell! Middle-age broads like me want to live it up more]. That doesn't mean they want to replicate every aspect of their behavior. Why pin it on Winehouse? She's far from the only celebrity disaster [to the novice, this is media code for, “hello Britney. Is that a gun in your belly or are you just happy to see me?] and hers is a pretty clear-cut cautionary tale. It's hard to believe that teens see her stumbling around with blood on her satin ballet flats and scratches all over her face and think, That should be me! [Well, that might be me, so screw you.]

Teenagers are wrestling with all kinds of influences, but no one of these things is forcing them to become binge drinkers or drug addicts. In a recent study, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse cites predictable factors like low self-esteem, peer pressure and concerns about weight and appearance as the top motivations for girls to drink [as well as middle-age women]. That these things aren't sensational doesn't make them any less troubling.”

Okay, new rule: young Hollywood types need to sober up a tad (this isn't the seventies), but, at the same time, the media needs to move on and get on to more serious things than Britney’s expanding waist line (she had two kids, what do you want?). There are men, women and children dying daily in Iraq. Iran is scary because it’s Iran, and there is a short guy ruling N. Korea, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that short dudes are to be feared because THEY ARE FREAKED OUT ABOUT BEING SHORT.


So media, let the drunk gals be. Girls just want to have fun, then turn to rehab so that they can write their memoir and be the female James Frey (minus the fiction). We have a cock-eyed cowboy running our country, and as my grandpa would say, we are going to hell in a hand-basket. For God’s sakes, leave Amy Winehouse alone, and for God’s sakes, someone tell me who the hell she is.

Long live Lindsey.

Something to Gaffe About

In case you missed this in the news, here's an article from Reuters:
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Even for someone as gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush, he was in rare form on Friday, confusing APEC with OPEC and transforming Australian troops into Austrians.

Bush's tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney.

"Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction," he told Prime Minister John Howard. "Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit."

As the audience of several hundred people erupted in laughter, Bush corrected himself and joked, "He invited me to the OPEC summit next year." Australia has never been a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Later in his speech, Bush recounted how Howard had gone to visit "Austrian troops" last year in Iraq. There are, in fact, no Austrian troops there. But Australia has about 1,500 Australian military personnel in and around the country.

Upon finishing his speech, Bush took the wrong way off-stage and, looking slightly perplexed, had to be re-directed by Howard to a centre-stage exit.

But not before a veteran White House correspondent seized the opportunity to ask Bush whether there had been any new message in his speech. Apparently misunderstanding the question, he bristled and asked, "Haven't you been listening to my past speeches?" before turning away.

Bush is no stranger to the occasional faux pas, and often jokes about his habit of mangling the English language.

One of his highest-profile gaffes came in May when, at a welcoming ceremony for Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, he nearly placed her in the 18th century.

Then there was the famous incident at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006 when Bush, unaware he was on camera, greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair with the words "Yo Blair."

Bush's sometimes muddled syntax and mispronunciation of words like nuclear ("nukular") have long been fodder for late-night TV comedians. But aides say his folksy style has helped endear him to Middle America.

I Once Knew a Girl Named Katrina

When I was 17, my pal CW and I went with her mom to New Orleans to see the Rolling Stones play. Van Halen was the opening act. The venue? The Superdome. Before the show, we sat in a French Quarter restaurant and ate oyster po-boys and watched a waitress bolt across the floor and lock the door to keep some LSU frat boys from walking out on the bill. Later, we went to the concert, and I met an English journalist named Dave, who was 25, and I French kissed him that night. Then for the next year, we kept up, what in retrospect, was a disturbing pen pal relationship.

What does this have to do with anything? Today is September 5, and to quote the AP, Nola is “ a cesspool of physical ruin, broken lives and neglect.” More than 160,000 of the population, or 40% have left this once fabulous town.

I live in Las Vegas. The worst trash I have ever met lives here. Awful, terrible, soulless people who wouldn’t know their asshole from their fake tits. The best people I ever knew? Well, it wasn’t in New Orleans, but Lord, I knew some great folks there. They have scattered since Katrina. They live in towns like Baton Rouge and Monroe, places that may very well make Vegas look good. I don't live there. All I know? They are not what New Orleans once was.

Blame whomever you want for what happened after Katrina. I mainly blame George W. Bush because he’s so damn easy to hate, but let’s get this straight: if you voted for him, I blame you, too. for this and for Iraq. And if you didn’t vote at all, move to another country. Finland, Iceland, Poleand, wherever. You think the lesser of two evils means voting for no one? You are stupid and you know who you are.

This country, from the pols to the voters who elected them, have never let down one of its own more than it did with Katrina.

So here's my question to those of you responsible: Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?