What is it About Lindsay Lohan?

Lindsay Lohan, the extremely troubled freckle-faced actress of Mean Girls fame, has been arrested –AGAIN—in Manhattan.  Early this morning Lohan allegedly punched a 28-year-old woman multiple times in the face, causing what police described as minor injuries.  The incident occurred at 4 a.m. November 29, 2012 at a Manhattan night club.

If you have chosen to read this post you are probably well aware of Lindsay’s rather impressive – in a bad way – rap sheet, her numerous run-ins with the law in both New York and Los Angeles, and her apparently failed attempts at drug and alcohol rehabilitation.  Although it is her right as an American to go to any bar she chooses at any time of the morning or night, don’t you just wonder why this woman would put herself in this position?

The reason for the scuffle has not been revealed, nor do we know which of the two women initiated the incident. 

What I’m curious about, however, has more to do with the response this latest bad news for Lindsay has gotten in some of the media.  Time after time I have heard television news and talk show personalities seem to try to “cut the girl a break.” 

• Her recent Lifetime channel movie, Liz and Dick, in which Lohan played Elizabeth Taylor, was panned by TV critics and drew only 3.5 million viewers,( I was not one of them.) so she’s had a rough week.
• Earlier this month she canceled an in-depth interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress' publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions. Yet Walters and Whoopi Goldberg were  reluctant to criticize her on The View this morning.
• Last month the Nassau County (NY) police were called, again in the wee hours of the morning, because Lindsay and her mother, DIna Lohan, woke the neighbors with their loud and long shouting match.  Poor Lindsay, again 26 years of age, “has not had any parenting whatsoever.”
• People “pick at” celebrities who have been in trouble, hoping to get them to react badly, according to Whoopi Goldberg.

Exactly how much slack does an individual deserve?  At what point does Lindsay Lohan start getting the kind of vilification that was heaped upon Chris Brown (and rightly so) when he beat the face off his girlfriend Rihanna?  

Are there signs of dysfunction in the actress’s family life.  Oh, yes.  Her mother appeared in a lengthy interview with Dr. Phil a few months ago.  She was clearly under the influence of some mind-altering substance.  Her father, Michael Lohan, told ETOnline today that he has been trying to convince Dina to stage an intervention with him because “She is in a dark place, it's in God's hands and I hope he deals with her appropriately."

It is time for Lindsay Lohan to be held accountable for her actions.  She could face a probation violation in relation to her theft case if she is formally charged for Thursday's alleged altercation, in addition to a possible charge of allegedly lying to police about a June car crash.

She should do the time.  Her defenders should stop defending her, no matter how much they argue that “she is a sweet girl.”  None of these people are doing Lindsay Lohan any favors.  Unless she is held fully accountable
soon, I, along with a lot of other people, will be writing about her “untimely” death.

Jack Johnson vs. Barack Obama–It’s a Draw

 

There are two aspects of my life that I can say, with unequivocal certainty, are right up there with eating the livers of animals and hearing the sound of fingernails dragged along a chalkboard.

One: The study of history—of the World, of The U.S., of Modern Europe or of my block on 13th Avenue -- during all levels of my 16-year schooling was a colossal waste of too much time, something I endured through the grace of a well-developed rote memory and the fear of taking “unacceptable” grades home to my mother.

And,

Two: Pugilism as a sport is the most barbaric, testosterone-soaked remnant of mankind’s membership in the animal kingdom still allowed under the law.  Michael Vick, speaking of testosterone, did time in the pokey for allowing dogs to do what Muhammad Ali is idolized for.

Well, I still hate boxing and refused to watch it, even when my son decided he needed to take it up for reasons known only to him.  If I want to see burly, muscular men in their underwear—and, of course, I do -- I sure as hell don’t want to watch them punch the crap out of each other.

But history?  I have developed an almost insatiable appetite for learning the details of what went on before we were plunged into the mess we find ourselves today.  This long, Thanksgiving weekend I combined this new passion with my love of catching up on multi-episodic documentaries, all within two or three consecutive days.

And who better than the prolific Ken Burns to feed the beast?

Friday’s popcorn-fueled marathon consisted of “Unbelievable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.”  Yep, the first African-American Heavyweight Champion of the World.  A boxer.

For those of you readers who share my distaste for fisticuffs and, like me, never even heard of the guy, Johnson (March 31, 1878-June 10, 1046) was the son of former slaves, born in Galveston, Texas, and had only five or six years of schooling before getting a job as a dock worker in Galveston.

Johnson took up boxing.  He was a machine.  He defeated all the storied black fighters enough times to become the World Colored Heavyweight Champion, a title he held for 2,151 days.

The thing about Jack Johnson was that he refused to allow Mr. Jim Crow to tell him how to live his life.  He lived large on his boxing purses, drove fast cars (for the time, of course) and made a habit of cohabitating with white women.  Some were prostitutes.  He married three times; they, too, were white. One of them was a Brooklyn socialite.

Jack Johnson pissed off every white establishment racist in the nation, which included the majority of the press. His ostentatious lifestyle rankled.  His custom suits and shoes, his phallic cigars, his ever-present and oft-flashed roll of hundred dollar bills – it was like waving a porterhouse steak in front of an awakening grizzly bear. 

Jack Johnson had a hard time getting any of the white heavyweight contenders to join him in the ring.  They said it was because they wouldn’t fight a nigger.  Or that nobody would pay to watch them fight a colored fighter.  I say it was because they were scared shitless of him.

Finally, on July 4, 1910, 20,000 people in Reno, Nevada watched the “Fight of the Century”  when reigning white World Heavyweight Champ James J. Jeffries came out of retirement to challenge Johnson.  Jeffries, who ultimately lost to Johnson, was paid $120,000.  Johnson got $65,000 and HE won!

What followed?  Race riots on the Fourth of July all across America.  White dreams of a Great White Hope to beat Johnson were dashed. Many white citizens felt humiliated.  That championship was a white man’s domain.

Hmmmmm.  Something about this story was sounding not-too-vaguely familiar.  Uppity Negro who refused to stay in his place.  Johnson overcame his lack of formal education and became a kind of Renaissance Man.  He was eloquent, highly intelligent and charming.  He beat The Man at The Man’s own game.

When President Barack Obama and his supporters refused to send his uppity, intellectual, charming ass into exile on November 6, 2012, some of the descendants of those Jim Crow era white haters seemed to have had a very similar, if not identical, sense of humiliation. 

Sure, the very fact that Mr. Obama managed to attain the White House is more than just remarkable.  It felt like a miracle.  That he made it through the first term alive is a relief.  But my history lesson this past, 21st century Saturday in Atlanta, GA rang through loudly and clearly.  Jack Johnson did his thing a century ago, but a century later, the reaction of many served as proof of George Santayana’s famous statement:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Are Washington Republicans Starting to Look a Little Desperate?

 

Instead of slinking off into a clandestine retreat with their party’s leadership to regroup after their November 6, 2012 thumping at the polls, John McCain and Lindsey Graham are looking foolish by continuing the right’s obsession with bringing down the Obama administration.

There have been several OS bloggers who have gone on record believing the President would meet his waterloo with Benghazi-gate.  The above-mentioned Senators have even called for a Watergate-like investigation of what caused the beleaguered U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to refrain from calling the incident a terrorist attack the Sunday after the U.S. consulate in Libya was attacked and four Americans were murdered.

Not that it will stop the Republican sour grapes any time soon, but this morning CNN reported that Ms. Rice’s talking points used on Meet the Press and several other Sunday morning talk shows had, in fact, been altered by the intelligence community before they were passed on to Ambassador Rice.  The version she was approved to use had been edited to delete any direct reference to al-Qaeda’s involvement in the tragedy.

In its report Monday night CNN stated:

The intelligence community - not the White House, State Department or Justice Department - was responsible for the substantive changes made to the talking points distributed for government officials who spoke publicly about the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, the spokesman for the director of national intelligence said Monday.

The unclassified talking points on Libya, developed several days after the the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, were not substantively changed by any agency outside of the intelligence community, according to the spokesman, Shawn Turner.

Susan Rice, who recently celebrated her 48th birthday, was asked to make the Benghazi presentations that Sunday because U.S. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton was exhausted from a week of consoling families of the Americans who perished in the attack, according to the New York Times. 

Both John McCain and Lindsey Graham have gone before media microphones and declared Susan Rice unqualified to be considered for Mrs. Clinton’s replacement as Secretary of State.  Do they make that claim solely on the basis of what they have apparently misperceived as a cover up of the al-Qaeda involvement in the attack?  It seems so.  Otherwise, they are simply insane.

Susan Rice is a Rhodes Scholar who earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and did her graduate work at Oxford.  Despite her reputation for being somewhat blunt and maybe even officious --

“Susan had a reputation, fairly or not, as someone who could run a little hot and shoot from the hip,” said John Norris, a foreign-policy expert at the Center for American Progress. “If someone had told me that the biggest knock on her was going to be that she too slavishly followed the talking points on Benghazi, I would have been shocked.”

-- The New York Times has written that at the United Nations, and in posts in President Bill Clinton’s administration, Ms. Rice has earned a reputation as a blunt advocate, relentless on issues like pressing the government in Sudan or intervening in Libya to prevent a slaughter by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Is she “diplomatic” enough in her demeanor to handle the tricky details of communicating among leaders from all parts of the world?  That’s a question the President has undoubtedly entertained.  Whether he chooses Susan Rice or not, it appears the Republicans are going to have to get used to the idea that they lost the White House and find some of “the people’s work” to get busy on.  Fiscal cliff, anyone?

Being the Obamas on Election Night

He nods goodnight to the guys with the dark glasses, leaving them to serve as sentries on his front porch.

While stepping across that familiar and long-missed threshold he inhales deeply and slowly sighs it out while he quietly shuts the door.  It is 7:30 p.m.

She is already there.  Her campaign duties ended with a women’s luncheon somewhere in Ohio at around 1:30 p.m. EST.  She and the girls are half-heartedly watching MSNBC while they awaited his arrival.

“Daddy’s home!”  He tries to sound upbeat.  He is mentally and physically exhausted.

Sasha, at 11, still hasn’t developed the cool reserve of her older sister.  She springs from her seat on the floor and throws herself at her father, arms and legs encircling his slender body.

“Oh, hi Dad.”  That from Malia, the tall, elegant teenager who will not reveal her delight at seeing the man the rest of us call POTUS.

The large old Chicago Mansion in Chicago’s upscale Hyde Park neighborhood wraps him in a soothing hug.  The light, the smell, the feel of the place whispers to his tired ears “you’re home.  You are safe here.”

Michelle rises from her seat on the sofa and sends an air kiss in the direction of his left cheek.  She know this man better, sometimes, than he knows himself.  He needs to de-compress. 

“Do you want to take a hot shower first, or are you ready for supper?”

He glances at her while he hangs his cashmere overcoat in the front hall closet. 

“What’re we havin’?”

She grins.

“Italian Fiesta Pizzeria in Hyde Park has sent over three jumbo pies, of course.  It IS a special occasion.”

In one smooth motion he rips off his tie and tosses his suit coat on the back of the club chair near the window.

“Let’s eat.”

Once seated around the table, Malia asks if she should call the Secret Service detail in to eat. 

He smiles at her and shakes his head.

“Not tonight,Sweetie.  Let’s just be a family tonight.  We’ll send one of the pies out to them in a few minutes.”

For several minutes there are no more words.  Only the sounds of chewing and savoring the special concoctions the local pizzeria created for Mr. President pierce the silence.

Sasha looks at her Daddy.  He looks different, a lot different.  His hair looks like it had snowed on his head.  The areas below his eyes are darkened and puffy.  He doesn’t laugh as loudly as he did before they moved to Washington.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Are you going to win tonight?”

“I don’t know Sasha.  We’ll have to wait and see, just like everybody else. Tonight is one night I won’t get an initial briefing from those clowns in the other room.”  The staff is having its own meal in a back room of the mansion.

“May I say something?”  her voice is tiny and a little frightened.

“Of course you can, baby.”  He dabs the pizza grease from his chin with a paper napkin.

“I…kinda hope…well, I wish…I hope you don’t.”  She looks down at her hands in her lap.  A large, hot tear falls from her round face onto the back of one hand.

Malia, who is seated on the same side of the dining table, slams her fist against the youngster’s thigh, her eyes riveted on her mother’s face.

Michelle rose from her chair and circled the table, putting an arm around the girl’s shoulders.

POTUS stares long and hard at his pizza.  Then he lifts his head and speaks to his family.

“ I know how hard this has been on all three of you.  Mommy has been gone almost as much as I have, trying to win this election by talking to the people on my behalf.  I have missed some of your important events.  I haven’t always been “here” even when I’m at home, whether in the White House, Camp David or this old house.  I know.”

“If I win – and I hope to God I do – the next four years will be just as tough, but they will be different.  Our country is in trouble.  Daddy has done a lot of things to try to make that trouble better.  Some has worked.  Some hasn’t.  But, Sasha,sweetie, we can’t afford to turn this country over to people who want to undo all the great things that have been accomplished on behalf of the common man, woman and child in America.  We need to hang on and push forward, no matter how difficult it is.  And, yes, I’ll be asking an awful lot of you, your sister and your Mom – AGAIN.  I must.”

He pauses, again staring at the uneaten slice of pizza on his plate.

“We are behind you, Daddy,” says Malia, with conviction.  We understand. It’s just that sometimes…

“Yes, no matter how hard Mommy and I try, you two hear some nasty words spoken about your father.  And you want to stand up for me, but you don’t know how.  I know.  But as long as you know the truth – as long as you know your Daddy, the guy who comes to your basketball games and hollers like an idiot; the guy who used to read to you, even after he became President; the guy who loves your mother more than life itself – as long as YOU know what’s true, you will be strong in the face of criticisms and, yes, even lies.”

Michelle winks at the girls across the table.  “They know, don’t you Malia?  Don’t you Sasha? “

Rising from the chair, Michelle motions to her family to gather in the living room to watch the election returns.   POTUS calls in the staff.  The waiting is almost over.