America, America

Forget Japan, I am really proud of all the enthralling American headlines this month. NEWSFLASH: I LIKE GOSSIP!

3!

CONAN VS. LENO

Huge entertainment scandal. David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Jay Leno are the three big late night talk show comedians in America. Letterman is a classic offbeat jerk, and Conan is weirder, more hip and popular with college kids. Leno is squeaky clean and old people like him, but he and Letterman have been enemies since Leno screwed him over by stealing the iconic The Tonight Show out from under him 17 years ago. I love feuds! Last June, Leno passed the Tonight Show torch to Conan and made a new show of his own at an earlier time. It didn't do well. So he took Conan's spot back! Oooh! Slimeball! Celebrities and fans have rallied around Conan, and Leno's been slammed in the press, even though he won and Conan's off the air now. I LOVE FEUDS!

2!

SENATOR BEEFCAKE

This is the new Republican U.S. Senator, Scott Brown, posing for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1982. Brown's surprise victory destroyed the Democrats' super-majority in the Senate, likely the final blow for Obama's attempted health-care reform, but the point is, Scott Brown's nickname in the press is Senator Beefcake.

...VS.

PRESIDENT DREAMBOAT

Sweet America, hot mess!

1!
GOOGLE VS. CHINA
(These are the Google Guys)

OH SHIT! Google vs. China?! As huge corporations go, Google is an interesting company with an attractive philosophy. It was a big deal when they agreed to comply with Chinese censorship laws so they could do business there, because it went against their stated belief in free and open access to information and their motto (Don't Be Evil). Google claimed that it was better to provide some access to new information than none at all. Now Google's fed up with cyber-attacks on their systems targeting the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. They believe the attacks are supported by the Chinese government and they are threatening to pack up and leave. Now Obama and Clinton are demanding answers from the Chinese government regarding the attacks and criticizing the restriction of information, Chinese officials are pissed, and Google looks really cool.

Honorable Mention

HEIDI MONTAG DOES SOMETHING INTERESTING

I don't hate tabloid celebrities like Paris Hilton or Heidi Montag. I doubt they're any dumber than the average person and I don't call girls sluts or whores, so there's no shit for me to talk. But as an indicator of what many of my peers find interesting, they do depress me. I guess I have actively disliked Heidi Montag in particular for being the most obnoxiously boring one. A couple of months ago she disappeared from the press, which was weird because the bulk of her career, seriously, is posing for paparazzi while making obnoxious beauty queen/centerfold faces. It turns out she was in recovery after having 10 plastic surgery procedures in one day and now she looks like a dead person.

Look at that miserable face! She looks like she's in shock! I am so intrigued by her weird corpse eyes that I want to pay attention to her now. Celebrity therapist of celebrities Dr. Drew says, “...what I call this is female cross dressing. In other words a woman that over accentuates her femaleness – who becomes a Barbie doll – that always really concerns me. That suggests some significant trauma." Way to show some grit, Montag!

I can't read more than a few dozen kanji, so I can't read gossip about Japanese celebrities and politicians. It's so sad, I'm almost motivated to study.