Category: Arts & Entertainment
News anchor icon Walter Cronkite passed away this month, and it is but inevitable that people would look for the next news personality to take his place. Well, maybe not literally but figuratively speaking. If Walter Cronkite was known for one thing, it was that he was the man that all of America trusted when it came to the news. Now that he is gone, who does America trust most?
Time conducted a poll with this exact question: “Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America’s most trusted newscaster?”
The choices were:
a. Katie Couric
b. Charlie Gibson
c. Jon Stewart
d. Brian Williams
And the results?
e. Katie Couric – 7% (that low?)
f. Charlie Gibson – 19%
g. Jon Stewart – 44%
h. Brian Williams – 29%
If the figures are to be believed, Jon Stewart has gained the trust of the American people. Now don’t get me wrong – I love watching Jon Stewart do his thing on TV. Indeed, I rarely watch TV but on the rare occasion that I do, I find myself watching this “newsman.” The interesting thing about this, though, is that Jon Stewart is primarily a comedian and not a news anchor!
Walter Cronkite and Jon Stewart have practically NOTHING in common. So how did America get from Cronkite to Stewart? Is it a reflection of the state of the news media in the country or is it a reflection of the American culture in general? Maybe there is a confusion between “trusted” and “funny”? You tell me.
…and gets 56 stars for it. The story is that Kimberley Vlaeminck, an 18-year-old Belgian, went to a tattoo parlor to get stars on her face. According to her, she asked the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, to put three stars near her eyes. As the procedure progressed, she said that she fell asleep. She only woke up when she felt a pain in her nose as the tattoo artist started adding stars there. BBC quotes her as saying: “I woke up when he was starting to tattoo my nose… I counted 56 stars, it is frightening.”
However, according to the tattoo artist, she knew exactly what was going on. He said that she ordered stars – and lots of them, it seems – all over her face and that she got exactly what she asked for. He also disputes the teenager’s claim that he probably misunderstood her instructions. Toumaniantz says ‘She was awake and looked in the mirror several times as the procedure was being done. She agreed, but when her father saw it, the trouble started.”
The question is, who is telling the truth and who is lying? Two totally contradicting stories – one of them is surely lying. My thoughts on this piece of news…it is one thing to fall asleep while getting a massage or while at the spa, but I don’t really think it’s possible to fall asleep while getting a tattoo. And to fall asleep through 56 stars? I don’t know. What do you think?
Even those who do not watch American Idol on purpose cannot help but know what’s going on in that show. We have to admit it, American Idol does have its allure and the publicity that it gets makes it just hard to ignore. So, this season is over, and it seems that the voting didn’t go as many expected.
In what many consider to be an upset, Kris Allen won over Adam Lambert. Lambert has often been described by the American Idol judges in superlatives: a real genius, an artist, on a league of his own, and so on. And yet when the final judgment came, it seems that he was not able to win majority of the voters of the show.
What happened? Theories and explanations abound, depending on who you ask. The people over at New York Times think that the choice “says something about the mood and mores of the country, that viewers are too conformist to anoint a sassy, androgynous individualist. Then again, maybe not: Mr. Allen’s victory may merely reflect the voters’ conventional taste in pop music.”
Personally, I do not think either idea is the cause. I think that people see the immense talent in Adam Lambert and they also see the well of niceness in Kris Allen. They saw the former as a sure win and the latter as an under dog. And I think that America’s heart was captured by the underdog. This is not to say that Kris does not have the talent – he does. But we all know that Adam will also go a long way even if he didn’t win the title. I guess it’s all fair in the end.
Well, not the real St. Innocent – he’s been dead for hundreds of years now. What I am referring to is his statue, which was stolen from a church in Italy in 1990. So where did he turn up?
Almost two decades after the heist, the bust of St. Innocent was recently found in the home of a couple residing in North Caroline. The bust is 350 years old, and is intricately carved. The antique is actually only one of the items that were stolen from the church in November of 1990. The other things that were lifted during the heist include 16 other statues (similar to the one just discovered) and two oil paintings.
Some facts about the stolen statue of St. Innocent:
-it is made of wood and painted with gold
-it was made by Diego da Careri, a 17th century Franciscan artist
-the current bust is not worth much by now since the head is missing, as well as part of the cross that the saint is holding.
So how did the American authorities get wind of the stolen bust? They were informed by certain officials in Rome that an Italian citizen had sold a statue to a dealer in antiques from Greensboro. This dealer then sold the statue to Neal Johnson from Charlotte, who then sold it to the couple.
Needless to say, the bust will be returned to the Italian church where it belongs. What about the money that the couple paid? I have no idea.
Book publishers and TV personality Oprah Winfrey have once again been duped by an author claiming that his story was real. Readers might remember Winfrey’s support for James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, which was supposed to be his memoir about his struggle with drug addiction. That story broke into a million little pieces when proven to be an exaggerated account of what happened in real life.
This time around, it is the book Angel at a Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived that is in the limelight. Written by Herman Rosenblat, the book was supposed to be an account of his experience at a concentration camp wherein he first met his future wife – the angel at the fence who threw him apples. According to his story, they met again on a blind date 12 years after the end of the war, this time in Coney Island. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year.
If the story were true, it would indeed be one of the greatest love stories of all time. Unfortunately, it is too good to be true. After a lot of media attention – thanks in part to Oprah’s taking them under her wing in her show – it has been revealed that the story is all made up. As such, Berkley Books is cancelling the book and taking back the advance that was given to Mr. Rosenblat. A movie based on the book is also in the works, to be produced by Harris Salomon. Apparently, a good story is a good story – the movie will be still be released but under the label of fiction instead.
Photo courtesy of The New York Times
