Years ago on this date, a group of crazed fanatics and vicious cutthroats, egged on by their supporters thousands of miles away, carried out a brutal act of mass murder, killing over 3000 people. To date, the main instigators of this atrocity have not been brought to justice.
I am of course referring to the CIA-backed coup in 1973 that overthrew the lawfully elected democracy in Chile and replaced it with the fascist dictatorship of Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet.
In a way, I envy the Chileans’ character. They had to have a fascist dictator imposed on them by force. Americans let the Crawford Caligula annoint himself dictator with only few yelps of disapproval. I also admire the way Chileans remember the atrocity perpetrated against them without turning it into an Oprah-style sobfest, complete with extra helpings of kitsch and schmaltz.
Gwyneth Paltrow had a lot of ignorant abuse heaved at her for noticing how the British handled the July 7 attacks with a certain amount of class, without everyone trying to join the pity party. She’s right and she won a new fan in this writer for telling the truth, consequences be damned.
I haven’t watched MTV in many years since the network, in a word, sucks. I have even less use for pop tarts like Britney Spears, who performed on MTV recently. From the clip I saw, she didn’t seem enthusiastic about being on MTV. I can understand, since the channel has been a joke since Reagan’s first term.
For some reason, the media are appalled that Spears didn’t sing or dance well. I find this funny since she never did before, either -so why fuss about it now? Why fuss about her? After all Madonna Ciccone became a household name despite her complete lack of talent.
What’s truly pathetic is the news shows and wires fretting that Britney Spears is “fat”, with a news story at Huffington Post by one Nekesa Mumbi Moody calling her “out-of-shape” and “embarrassingly out of shape”. This article had an AP photo of Spears
that was offered as Exhibit A. Exhibit B in this non-story was a video clip on MSNBC. After seeing both the photo and the video clip, and noting the fact that I have perfect eyesight, and that Spears looked hot, there are only two possible explanations for this nonsense:
A) The print/wire/TV articles are written and edited by catty, bitchy old yentas who only wish they looked as good, or
B) The print/wire/TV articles are written by creepy old pederasts with a hankerin’ for adolescent boys (or stick-thin girls who look like boys), and who can’t wait to go toe-tapping in a men’s room in Minnesota.
There’s no accounting for taste, but calling her fat and “embarassingly out of shape” reveals more about those making the snide comments than Spears’ get-up (a bra, panties and microphone) revealed about her figure.