Funerals or wakes were to be held on Thursday for at least six victims of Friday’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn., as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. prepared to visit Newtown in the afternoon to meet with investigators and first responders. In Washington, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is meeting with law enforcement officials to discuss gun restrictions after President Obama asked him to lead the administration’s response.
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Heart joins select class with Rock Hall induction
Labels: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — The journey to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can be a long and winding road for some acts. For Heart, it took more than a decade, and sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson admitted they were losing hope.
"(The) running joke in the band was (we) would never get in," Ann said.
But all that changed when the group made the class of 2013, announced this month.
"Well, it just goes to show you that just when you think you know the shape of rock 'n' roll, it changes shape on you," Ann said. "This is really more than thrilling."
Her younger sister, Nancy, was glad the speculation over whether they'd make it was finally put to rest.
"We feel like we deserve it, so we're happy to be here," Nancy said.
Since their seminal 1976 release "Dreamboat Annie" that spawned the classic hits "Magic Man," and "Crazy on You," the band went on the sell more than 30 million albums worldwide. They took time off in the 1990s so Nancy, then married to director Cameron Crowe, could raise her family, but have been performing and touring for the last several years. This year, they released their 14th studio album, "Heart Fanatic," and also released the book "Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll." Their most recent tour resumes on Jan. 25 in Worcester, Mass.
With their induction, they are part of only a few rock bands in the hall fronted by women (others include Jefferson Airplane with lead singer Grace Slick. Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie with Fleetwood Mac, and Chrissie Hynde with the Pretenders).
Neither sister feels she was an inspiration to other women that eventually played in rock 'n' roll bands.
"Boys invented rock to get girls, so when girls came into it they had to make a new universe," Ann joked, before adding: "I'm just looking forward to the time when we don't have to have a gender designation on music. To me, that will really be the time when we've done something."
The 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on April 18. Other acts who will be part of the 2013 class are Rush, Donna Summer, Randy Newman, Public Enemy and Albert King.
They're proud to be among the more senior rock acts still touring today (Ann is 62; Nancy is 58).
"Rock 'n' roll does not have an age limit as long as it's authentic. Rock and roll is just as beautiful as when Keith Richards plays it as jazz would be when Thelonious Monk would play it," said Ann. "But the key to all that is that it has to be the real deal. It can't be some old washed up dudes thinking ... 'Let's go out and do it some more.' No. It has to still be vital."
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Online:
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Derrik J. Lang contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
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John Carucci covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him at —http://www.twitter.com/jcarucci_ap
U.N. Suspends Polio Campaign in Pakistan After Killings of Workers
Labels: Health
B.K. Bangash/Associated Press
A Pakistani woman administered polio vaccine to an infant on Wednesday in the slums of Islamabad. Militants have killed nine polio workers this week.
LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.
Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis.
The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.
At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.
The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.
The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.
On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.
Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.
In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.
Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.
Female polio workers here make for easy targets. They wear no uniform but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.
Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”
That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”
On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.
Tool Kit: Equipment for the Mayan Apocalypse, or a Lesser Emergency
Labels: Business
We may have only a few hours to live. On Friday, the Mayan calendar will come to an end, leading some to predict that the world will spiral into chaos. It could be the end of days. Locusts could swarm the earth, destroying crops. Tornadoes the size of Florida could shred Europe. Thousand-foot waves could crash over Idaho. Zombies! Flesh-eating viruses, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together.
Or just maybe, as with every other predicted apocalypse before it, nothing will happen. We could just wake up on Friday, roll out of bed, grab our coffee and go to work. Another day in the life.
Either way, it’s probably better to be safe than sorry. You’ll want to be prepared for the end. And if it’s not the end, these supplies will help you when the next subapocalyptic event happens: another hurricane, perhaps, or a blackout, earthquake, blizzard or typhoon.
Given that most of our lives are now hyperdependent on things that require power, you should stock up on batteries. Lots of them. Amazon sells packs of 20 or 48 AA or AAA batteries for as little as $10. Solar panels, or at least devices that incorporate them, are a must too. The WakaWaka solar lamp, $40, can provide up to 16 hours of light on a full charge.
Sometimes sunlight is in short supply. The Etón BoostTurbine 1000 is a power generator that can be hand-cranked to charge a cellphone or other gadgets. If you’re hiding from zombies in a basement and your iPad is about to die, just plug it in and crank the wheel, and you can finish that game of Angry Birds. Cranking for one minute will give your cellphone enough power for a 30-second call.
There is, of course, a chance that your phone will not work, so if you want to get around and communicate with people, be prepared to travel back in time. Before cellphones, there were these things called maps that were made of paper, or plastic. Be sure to have a few showing your local city and state highways. If the power is out, there might not be any Twitter or Facebook either — gasp! — so you’ll have to leave notes the old-fashioned way: with a pen and paper. Don’t forget tape. Duct tape or electrician’s tape has a multitude of uses.
You might want to pick up a pair of two-way radios too. The Motorola MH230R has an astounding range of 23 miles and can operate for up to 10 hours on a charge. These walkie-talkies can also pick up 11 weather channels from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
You will want some canned food: tuna, spaghetti, fruit, pinto beans, vegetables and some soups. (Buy a hand can opener, too, as your electric one needs electricity.) You can also order freeze-dried foods from a camping store. Don’t forget food for your lovable pets.
Studies show that humans can last a couple of weeks without food, but most people can last only three to five days without water.
If you have the money, invest in a Lifesaver Bottle, $230, which can filter out bacteria, chemicals and toxins from your water supply. A less expensive alternative is the LifeStraw Personal Water Filter, $25, which is essentially a fancy straw that, it is claimed, removes 99.9 percent of waterborne parasites. Some people swear by tomato juice, which will quench your thirst while providing nutrition.
You will need a stove to warm up all of those wonderful canned foods. Jet Boil Sol Advanced Cooking Stoves, $100, are go-to items for campers these days. They have an all-in-one top from which you can both cook and eat. They also have a one-button starter, and are compact for easy storage. Get a few extra fuel canisters.
Cash is king in a catastrophe. In 2003, during the New York City blackout, I was caught in the subway when the power went out. When I finally emerged from the tunnels, escorted by the police, I realized I had only $14 in cash on me. Credit cards and A.T.M.’s were useless. Keep a wad of bills and change in your apocalypse kit.
In case you have to hit the road to flee a zombie invasion, grab some Mylar thermal blankets, $10 for a pack of 10. They look like tinfoil, but can actually hold in 90 percent of your body heat. There are also Hothands hand warmers, which can be purchased in packs of 40 for $20.
In the unlikely event of a nuclear emergency, it would be good to have some potassium iodide tablets, $8 for 14. These little pills can reduce the chance of thyroid damage.
You will be amazed how dark it can be at night without a dozen light bulbs glowing in your living room, so stock up on flashlights. You can get a couple that require batteries, but also have backups that don’t need them, even though these might not be quite as bright. Forever Flashlights ($30) can be shaken up and down to create power. They actually do work: shaking for seconds will generate up to five minutes of light.
If you think the world might take a while to wind down, you might want to invest in a generator. They start at around $300 and go up into the thousands. Don’t forget to pick up fuel to run it, though. And you might want to make sure your fire extinguisher is working, in case fireballs start falling from the sky or the toaster goes berserk.
Take a look at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Ready.gov Web site, which tells you how much water and food you will need for an emergency and offers a list of things you should always have at the ready. The agency recommends water canisters or sealed jugs so you do not have to drink from your bathtub.
Finally, don’t forget to have a camera fully charged and some extra batteries so you can document your particular angle on the apocalypse. This way, when society finally rebuilds itself, you’ll be able to post those awesome photos on Twitter and Facebook.
Obama to Give Congress Plan on Gun Control Within Weeks
Labels: World
WASHINGTON — President Obama declared Wednesday that he would make gun control a “central issue” as he opens a second term, submitting broad new gun control proposals to Congress no later than January and committing the power of his office to overcoming political opposition in the wake of last week’s school massacre.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a news conference at the White House on Wednesday.
The president’s pledge came as House Republicans restated their firm opposition to enacting any new limits on firearms or ammunition, setting up the possibility of a philosophical clash over the Second Amendment early in Mr. Obama’s second term.
“This time, the words need to lead to action,” Mr. Obama said, referring to to past mass shootings that prompted outrage but led to little or no legislative changes.
He said the proposals would not be just about weapons. “We are going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to guns,” he said.
At an appearance in the White House briefing room, the president said he had directed Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to lead an interagency effort to develop in the next several weeks what the White House says will be a multifaceted approach to preventing similar mass shootings and the many other gun deaths that occur each year.
Mr. Obama, flanked by Mr. Biden, did not offer any specifics about the proposals. But he promised to confront the longstanding opposition in Congress that has previously blocked broad gun control measures.
“I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” Mr. Obama said. “It won’t be easy, but that can’t be an excuse not to try.”
During his first term, Mr. Obama largely avoided the issue of gun control, even as high-powered firearms were used in several mass shootings. Asked about his lack of action, the president cited the economic crisis, the collapse of the auto industry and two wars, saying, “I don’t think I’ve been on vacation.”
But he conceded that “all of us” in Washington “have to do some reflection on how we prioritize.” And he said: “There’s no doubt that this has to be a central issue.”
On Wednesday the president said that Mr. Biden’s group would propose new laws and actions in January, and that those would l be “proposals that I then intend to push without delay.” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Biden’s effort: “This is not some Washington commission” that will take six months and be shelved.
He said the “conversation has to continue. But this time, the words need to lead to action. I urge the new Congress to hold votes on these new measure next year, in a timely manner.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York praised Mr. Obama’s announcement and said he offered his “full support” to Mr. Biden in a telephone conversation the two had Wednesday. But Mr. Bloomberg, a vocal advocate of tougher gun control, also urged the president to take executive actions in the meantime, including appointing a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“The country needs his leadership if we are going to reduce the daily bloodshed from gun violence that we have seen for too long,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “The task force must move quickly with its work, as 34 Americans will be murdered with guns every day that passes without common sense reforms to our laws.”
When asked about the fiscal negotiations, Mr. Obama said he would be reaching out to Congressional leaders on both sides to try to move the talks forward even as House Republicans were preparing to vote on their alternative proposals.
The death of 20 young children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday appears to have softened opposition to gun control among some Democratic lawmakers, particularly in the Senate. But there has been little indication that Republicans who control the House of Representatives are willing to accept new restrictions.
Shooting renews argument over video-game violence
Labels: TechnologyWASHINGTON (AP) — In the days since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a shell-shocked nation has looked for reasons. The list of culprits include easy access to guns, a strained mental-health system and the “culture of violence” — the entertainment industry’s embrace of violence in movies, TV shows and, especially, video games.
“The violence in the entertainment culture — particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games, movies now, et cetera — does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said.
“There might well be some direct connection between people who have some mental instability and when they go over the edge — they transport themselves, they become part of one of those video games,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, where 12 people were killed in a movie theater shooting in July.
White House adviser David Axelrod tweeted, “But shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game?”
And Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting, “Video game violence & glorification must be stopped — it is creating monsters!”
There have been unconfirmed media reports that 20-year-old Newtown shooter Adam Lanza enjoyed a range of video games, from the bloody “Call of Duty” series to the innocuous “Dance Dance Revolution.” But the same could be said for about 80 percent of Americans in Lanza’s age group, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Law enforcement officials haven’t made any connection between Lanza’s possible motives and his interest in games.
The video game industry has been mostly silent since Friday’s attack, in which 20 children and six adults were killed. The Entertainment Software Association, which represents game publishers in Washington, has yet to respond to politicians’ criticisms. Hal Halpin, president of the nonprofit Entertainment Consumers Association, said, “I’d simply and respectfully point to the lack of evidence to support any causal link.”
It’s unlikely that lawmakers will pursue legislation to regulate the sales of video games; such efforts were rejected again and again in a series of court cases over the last decade. Indeed, the industry seemed to have moved beyond the entire issue last year, when the Supreme Court revoked a California law criminalizing the sale of violent games to minors.
The Supreme Court decision focused on First Amendment concerns; in the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that games “are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.” Scalia also agreed with the ESA’s argument that researchers haven’t established a link between media violence and real-life violence. “Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively,” Scalia wrote.
Still, that doesn’t make games impervious to criticism, or even some soul-searching within the gaming community. At this year’s E3 — the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the industry’s largest U.S. gathering — some attendees were stunned by the intensity of violence on display. A demo for Sony’s “The Last of Us” ended with a villain taking a shotgun blast to the face. A scene from Ubisoft’s “Splinter Cell: Blacklist” showed the hero torturing an enemy. A trailer for Square Enix’s “Hitman: Absolution” showed the protagonist slaughtering a team of lingerie-clad assassins disguised as nuns.
“The ultraviolence has to stop,” designer Warren Spector told the GamesIndustry website after E3. “I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it’s in bad taste. Ultimately I think it will cause us trouble.”
“The violence of these games can be off-putting,” Brian Crecente, news editor for the gaming website Polygon, said Monday. “The video-game industry is wrestling with the same issues as movies and TV. There’s this tension between violent games that sell really well and games like ‘Journey,’ a beautiful, artistic creation that was well received by critics but didn’t sell much.”
During November, typically the peak month for pre-holiday game releases, the two best sellers were the military shooters “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” from Activision, and “Halo 4,” from Microsoft. But even with the dominance of the genre, Crecente said, “There has been a feeling that some of the sameness of war games is grating on people.”
Critic John Peter Grant said, “I’ve also sensed a growing degree of fatigue with ultra-violent games, but not necessarily because of the violence per se.”
The problem, Grant said, “is that violence as a mechanic gets old really fast. Games are amazing possibility spaces! And if the chief way I can interact with them is by destroying and killing? That seems like such a waste of potential.”
There are some hints of a sneaking self-awareness creeping into the gaming community. One gamer — Antwand Pearman, editor of the website GamerFitNation — has called for other players to join in a “Day of Cease-Fire for Online Shooters” this Friday, one week after the massacre.
“We are simply making a statement,” Pearman said, “that we as gamers are not going to sit back and ignore the lives that were lost.”
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Irish Government Set to Allow Abortion in Rare Cases
Labels: Health
DUBLIN — The Irish government said Tuesday that it was preparing to allow abortion under limited circumstances in an effort to comply with demands by the European Court of Human Rights to clarify the country’s legal position on the issue.
Cathal Mcnaughton/Reuters
A vigil was held in Dublin on Monday in memory of Dr. Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist who died after being denied an abortion.
The proposed legislative and regulatory changes would allow abortion only in cases where there is a real and substantial risk to a woman’s life — as distinct from her health.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that abortion was permissible when risk was present, but the government never passed a law to that effect.
Addressing Parliament after the announcement, Prime Minister Enda Kenny was at pains to emphasize that the proposals would allow abortion only in certain cases. He added that the threat of suicide could be among them.
The abortion debate has convulsed Ireland for decades, but calls for change reached a crescendo after the death of Dr. Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, in October. Dr. Halappanavar arrived at a Galway hospital in severe pain and was found to be miscarrying. Her fetus had a heartbeat, making termination of the pregnancy illegal under Irish law. She died of septicemia a week after admission.
The Lede Blog: The Lede: Latest Updates
Labels: WorldFour days after the school shooting in Connecticut took the lives of 20 children and 6 staff members, classes resumed at most Newtown schools on Tuesday. One school unexpectedly stayed closed after a threat. Sandy Hook Elementary, the scene of the killings, is expected to remain classified a crime scene for weeks, possibly months, but an unused school in a nearby town is being readied for Sandy Hook’s students and staff to go back to class next month. At least two more funerals and two wakes were scheduled for Tuesday as the gun-restriction debate revived by the massacre continued.
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Merry Christmas, America-Haters?
Labels: TechnologyWhen TNT was preparing its annual special “Christmas in Washington” with the president of the United States, you’d think the last star musician they would consider to join the official caroling would be Psy, the South Korean rapper. What on Earth is Christmasy about this man’s invisible-horse-riding dance to his dorky disco-rap hit “Gangnam Style”? It’s not exactly the natural flip-side to “O Holy Night.” But TNT couldn’t resist this year’s YouTube sensation.
This inane publicity stunt backfired when the website Mediaite reported on Dec. 7 that Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) had participated in a 2002 protest in which he crushed a model of an American tank with a microphone stand. But that’s nothing compared to the footage of a 2004 performance after a Korean missionary was slaughtered by Islamists in Iraq. These lyrics cannot be misunderstood.
“Kill those f—-ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives … Kill those f—-ing Yankees who ordered them to torture … Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers … Kill them all slowly and painfully.”
This isn’t just anti-American. It’s anti-human.
Guess where this story first surfaced in the American media? CNN, from the same corporate family tree as TNT. It was posted back on Oct. 6 on CNN’s iReport, an open-source online news feature that allows users to submit stories for CNN consideration.
The Korean one-hit wonder put out the usual abject careerist apology, but he weirdly said, “I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted.” Those darn lyrics and those darn people who misinterpret lyrics about killing Yankees’ mothers. It is like Barack Obama expressing regret for the awful things said about Susan Rice, ignoring the awful things said by Susan Rice.
Psy is now a millionaire. As Jim Treacher wrote at the Daily Caller: “So far he’s made over $ 8 million from the song, about $ 3 million of it from the people he once wanted to kill.” Brad Schaeffer at Big Hollywood noted his own father fought for South Korea’s independence in the Korean War: “Had it not been for ‘f——-g Yankees’ like my Dad, this now-wealthy South Korean wouldn’t be ‘Oppan Gangnam Style’ so much as ‘Starving Pyongyang Style.’” (Gangnam is a posh district in the South Korean capital of Seoul.)
Despite the controversy, neither the Obama White House nor the TNT brass felt it was necessary to send Psy packing before the Dec. 9 taping. On Saturday, ABC reporter Muhammad Lila merely repeated, “the White House says the concert will go on and that President Obama will attend, saying that they have no control over who performs at that concert.”
What moral cowardice. On Monday morning, another pliant publicist, NBC correspondent Peter Alexander, calmly relayed that the White House did take control on the Psy front — on its own “We The People” website, where the people may post petitions to the president for their fellow citizens to sign. A petition asking Obama to dump Psy from the Christmas concert was itself dumped. Alexander explained: “But that petition was removed because the rules say the petitions only apply to federal actions. And, of course, the President had no say over who the private charity chose to invite.”
This is double baloney. The White House hasn’t removed silly “federal action” petitions like the one asking to “Nationalize the Twinkie Industry,” or one to “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” They removed one that they didn’t want people to sign.
As for Obama having “no say over” who appeared on the TNT show, the president could easily declare he wasn’t going to share a stage with this America-hater. Or he could have obviously placed one phone call to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes (an Obama donor), and expressed the dismay of the President of the United States.
Instead, the Obamas came and honored Psy. Yes, the president honored a man who despised America enough to want its citizens slaughtered.
John Eggerton of Broadcasting and Cable magazine observed, “At the end of the taping, when the First Family customarily shakes hands and talks briefly with the performers, the First Lady gave Psy a hug, followed by a handshake from the President, who engaged Psy in a short, animated discussion — at one point Psy appeared to rock back with laughter — and patted the singer on the shoulder.”
I never thought I’d ever view a Christmas special featuring a hideous hater of America celebrated by the President of the United States.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM
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Who was Gossip Girl? The series finale told all
Labels: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — "Gossip Girl" ended its six-season run with a major reveal: The identity of its tattle-tale blogger.
Known only as Gossip Girl and given narrative voice by actress Kristen Bell, she turned out to be a he. The Monday night finale revealed Gossip Girl was secretly the work of character Dan Humphrey.
Dan, played by Penn Badgley, was a budding poet and a student at Manhattan's posh St. Jude's Preparatory School for Boys. But he came from the other side of the tracks, or rather, from Brooklyn, across the East River.
His Gossip Girl blog was a sassy tell-all account of the lives of the privileged young adults who made up the CW drama. Other series stars included Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford.
At the end, Dan fittingly pronounced Gossip Girl dead.
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