Was Xenu invited?

(I)f the wedding guests weren’t members of Scientology (John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Leah Remini, Jenna Elfman, etc.) they were otherwise people to whom Cruise is more or less a stranger: Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Richard Gere, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and Bruce Willis. Each and every one of them was there because they were connected to Cruise through his publicist or talent agent.

Of course, new best pal Brooke Shields, who was so offended by Cruise 18 months ago, was there. (Just wait till we hear about Brooke or producer-husband Chris Henchy doing a deal with United Artists.)

Cruise’s best man was David Miscavige, Scientology’s chef exucutive nut.

Worst duets (cont’d)

Great individually (or with the Stones), but together Bowie and Jagger are truly toxic, in the worst possible way.

Everybody hates Wal-Mart

Including the Christian right:

Baird had worked for the corporation, in various branches including Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart, since 1992. It was a recent tip she received from her brother that was the beginning of the end, because he told her "my company had joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce."

It was during an interview with WND in August that Wal-Mart spokesman Bob McAdam said, "It is correct that we have a dialogue with the (gay chamber). This is just what businesses do."

"Sam Walton was such a moral man, he wouldn’t even allow music to be sold in his stores if it had bad language," Baird said. "When it comes to moral values, first of all they started selling smutty magazines, then they brought in nasty music and videos, even ones others refused to sell, like ‘Brokeback Mountain.’"

Now this comes along. "I sent an e-mail (to the company) asking, ‘What have you done to Sam Walton’s store?" Baird said.

Because of the NGLCC deal, Missouri Baptists are threatening a boycott.

Meanwhile, former VP candidate John Edwards, a longtime critic of the retailing giant, was spotted shopping at Wal-Mart a few days back. Some would call that rank hypocrisy –

On the same day Edwards was bashing Wal-Mart on a conference call with a bunch of labor leaders, an "aide" was asking one local Wal-Mart if they wouldn’t mind bumping the former senator to the front of the line to get a Playstation 3 for his son.

(Heads up to Independent Gay Forum)

Look away …

Longtime Atlantans might remember Aunt Fanny’s Cabin in Smyrna. I went there a few times as a child, totally oblivious to the outrageous racial stereotypes being perpetuated for whitey’s entertainment.

It was, as Cliff Bostock wrote a few years back in Creative Loafing, Atlanta’s first theme restaurant:

I well remember the front room of the restaurant. Its walls were covered with black-and-white pictures of big-name celebrities who had eaten there — everyone from Vivien Leigh to Christine Jorgensen, the blond bombshell transsexual of the ’50s. But the most memorable part of a visit to Aunt Fanny’s was the waitstaff. As soon as you sat down, a young black boy under 12 came to your table and poked his head through a blackboard menu. He recited the menu sing-song style: "Aunt Fanny says, howdy, folks, wot’ll it be? Our famous fried chicken … ."

Halfway through your meal — the fried chicken and vegetables really were delicious — the black waitresses gathered around the piano in their slavery gowns and sang old-timey gospel music for the white folks. They shook mason jars with coins in them, gathering tips for their church, the story went. These were the later days of the Civil Rights Movement, and a shocking rumor circulated at one point that the ladies demanded better pay and refused to sing "Dixie." But in every other way, the restaurant, which finally closed in 1992, was an appalling example of the way white Southerners can romanticize the glory days of slavery.

Worst villain ever!

I’ll spare you a countdown of film evildoers and go straight to Number One:

Democracy in Russia

I have a sense of Vladamir Putin’s soul, too, and it’s dark, very dark:

Scotland Yard has launched an investigation into an audacious attempt to murder – using a deadly poison – a leading Russian defector at a restaurant in London.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian secret service and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was seriously ill under armed guard at a London hospital last night.

Mr Litvinenko, 50, who used to work for the Federal Security Bureau (FSB, the former KGB), fell ill after meeting a contact at Itsu, a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly. The woman journalist claimed to have information on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, the outspoken journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment last month.

Noted and quoted, abandoning ship edition

“If you mean by ‘military victory’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible.”

–Henry Kissinger, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

A Democratic test

Nancy Pelosi is on the verge of making a dangerous and unprincipled decision. Instead of appointing the current ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — Jane Harman, who’s proven to be both substantive and serious — Pelosi instead is poised to name Rep. Alcee Hastings, a former judge who was impeached for bribery and perjury.

Why? Because she doesn’t like Harman personally, and the Congressional Black Caucus is demanding that Hastings be elevated, despite his criminal past.

As the National Republic opines, “Some have noted that Hastings might flunk a basic FBI background check for a sensitive government job, making him a curious choice to oversee the nation’s most sensitive secrets — particularly for Democrats who campaigned against the GOP’s ‘culture of corruption.’ “

There’s ample reason to think that Americans cast a negative vote last week–not so much for Democrats as against Republicans. Over the next two years, voters will be watching to see whether Democrats are up to the responsibility of governing, and doing so with the national interest in mind. If Nancy Pelosi bases her decision about such a critical position on a combination of personal feuding and identity politics, she won’t just do Republicans a favor by giving them a readymade bogeyman to attack. She will have shown voters that she’s unable to push aside petty institutional politics in the name of the national interest.

Give me back my turquoise Albert Schweitzer doll

The visuals don’t necessarily jibe with the lyrics, but this homemade video is the only Brainiac I could find on YouTube, so live with it.

Ultraconservative overstatement of the week

Why would Warren marry the moral equivalency of his pulpit – a sacred place of honor in evangelical tradition – to the inhumane, sick, and sinister evil that Obama has worked for as a legislator?

–Columnist Kevin McCullough

Christian author and pastor Rick Warren invitied Barack Obama to speak at his California church because the two have worked together on the AIDS pandemic in Africa. How inhumane, sick and sinister is that?

It’s time to address a certain, unavoidable fact:

The mean-spiritedness of the far right — almost wholly represented by fundamentalist Christians — is beyond compare. Hell, even conservative/libertarian talk show host Neal Boortz says the most hateful e-mail he receives comes via the extremist right. That’s not to say other extremes aren’t often pissy and petty, but, by and large, they’re not claiming to represent God.

Until the Republicans rid themselves of this crowd, they can expect to lose. And until they choose to cut ties with these priggish, anti-intellecutual assholes, I hope they lose. 

Was Xenu invited?

(I)f the wedding guests weren’t members of Scientology (John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Leah Remini, Jenna Elfman, etc.) they were otherwise people to whom Cruise is more or less a stranger: Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Richard Gere, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and Bruce Willis. Each and every one of them was there because they were connected to Cruise through his publicist or talent agent.

Of course, new best pal Brooke Shields, who was so offended by Cruise 18 months ago, was there. (Just wait till we hear about Brooke or producer-husband Chris Henchy doing a deal with United Artists.)

Cruise’s best man was David Miscavige, Scientology’s chef exucutive nut.

Worst duets (cont’d)

Great individually (or with the Stones), but together Bowie and Jagger are truly toxic, in the worst possible way.

Democracy in Russia

I have a sense of Vladamir Putin’s soul, too, and it’s dark, very dark:

Scotland Yard has launched an investigation into an audacious attempt to murder – using a deadly poison – a leading Russian defector at a restaurant in London.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian secret service and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was seriously ill under armed guard at a London hospital last night.

Mr Litvinenko, 50, who used to work for the Federal Security Bureau (FSB, the former KGB), fell ill after meeting a contact at Itsu, a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly. The woman journalist claimed to have information on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, the outspoken journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment last month.

Noted and quoted, abandoning ship edition

"If you mean by ‘military victory’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible."

–Henry Kissinger, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

A Democratic test

Nancy Pelosi is on the verge of making a dangerous and unprincipled decision. Instead of appointing the current ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — Jane Harman, who’s proven to be both substantive and serious — Pelosi instead is poised to name Rep. Alcee Hastings, a former judge who was impeached for bribery and perjury.

Why? Because she doesn’t like Harman personally, and the Congressional Black Caucus is demanding that Hastings be elevated, despite his criminal past.

As the National Republic opines, "Some have noted that Hastings might flunk a basic FBI background check for a sensitive government job, making him a curious choice to oversee the nation’s most sensitive secrets — particularly for Democrats who campaigned against the GOP’s ‘culture of corruption.’ "

There’s ample reason to think that Americans cast a negative vote last week–not so much for Democrats as against Republicans. Over the next two years, voters will be watching to see whether Democrats are up to the responsibility of governing, and doing so with the national interest in mind. If Nancy Pelosi bases her decision about such a critical position on a combination of personal feuding and identity politics, she won’t just do Republicans a favor by giving them a readymade bogeyman to attack. She will have shown voters that she’s unable to push aside petty institutional politics in the name of the national interest.