News of the Day

Interesting crop of headlines on tomorrow's ferret litter tray liners. The Daily Star seems slightly surprised that some gypsies can sing and play musical instruments and that there's a possibility of a Britain's Got Talent-type programme starring travellers. Now, we understand that they probably don't play all that much jazz in the Star offices, but you'd have thought at least someone there would have heard of Django Reinhardt. Fair bit of jizz in there though, one might suspect, what with all those porno mags that owner Richard Desmond also owns.

Apparently, some gypsies are quite good musicians. Whodathunkit, eh?

Public Domain image from the William P. Gottlieb collection via Wikipedia

The Independent reveals a "highly classified" US plan to supply arms to the Libyan rebels, as they're "desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents." Mmmmm - and tooling up the enemy's enemies has always worked out so well for them in the past, hasn't it? One wonders also how a highly classified document made it into the clutches of a British paper, especially one with such a small circulation - and hence available funds for mole payments - as The Independent. Perhaps they're using the proceeds of the I, which is outselling its parent considerably (either because the Great British Public welcome a paper free of slebbage or because it's only 20p and thus cheaper than Asda Smart Price bog roll) - which is probably a good thing as ever since The Grauniad disappeared up its own smug, middle class arsehole and turned into a lifestyle magazine for rich bell ends The Independent has been far and away the best Britrag, despite - or perhaps as reflected by - it having the smallest circulation of any of the proper newspapers. If the I enables The Independent to keep going, even if at a loss, then all well and good.

The Guardian itself devoted the top of the front page to a section in the G2 in which fashion correspondent Hadley Freeman discusses whether or not it's still acceptable to wear Dior following John Galliano's embarrassing little antisemitic outburst last week. Good to see they're still covering the stories that matter to the poor and oppressed, who will no doubt be showing a bit of the old Cable Street solidarity and burning their Dior couture on the streets tonight in response.

The Daily Express - also owned by Richard "Asian Babes" Desmond, as it happens - predicts snow in the near future as it was a little bit cold last night. We didn't bother to read the story, preferring not even to prod with a stick anything quite so unpleasant as the Express in case its vile poison should travel like that of a cockatrice up the stick and into our mortal hearts, but have little doubt that the snow can be blamed on the EU in some contrived way. May Saint Diana have mercy upon us!

Beauty queen does pole dance - not news. Daily Mail is prejudiced - also not news

According to the Daily Mail, the newly-crowned Miss USA Rima Fakih - a Muslim, which is apparently worthy of much discussion in the US of A - took part in a strip show back in 2007, albeit a strip show in which she seems not to have stripped. Just so readers can get really shocked, they have photos of Miss Fakih, now aged 24, dressed in a white vest and very short shorts as she dances next to a pole.

The admittedly-very-pleasing-on-the-eyes Rima Fakih

Miss Fakih won the Miss USA pageant, which still attracts a surprising amount of attention despite more than 40 years of feminism, on Sunday night at some hellish facility known as the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino which is co-owned by Donald Trump. And...er...well, that's it, really. Young woman does a very mildly naughty pole dance. Not much excitement in the news this fine morning, but this one's boring even by Daily Mail standards - surely they could have done better?

However, one small section of the story deserves further attention - this being the almost throwaway snippet that when asked whether she thought birth control should be paid for by medical insurance, Miss Fakih replied, "I believe that birth control is just like every other medication even though it's a controlled substance" and that it should be covered as it's expensive. Not quite sure what they're trying to suggest there, but it sounds rather as though they're trying to tell us that since Miss Fakih seems to have some knowledge of birth control, she must have used it - which means, horror of horrors, she has had sex and therefore is of questionable virtue in the morally-superior eyes of the Mail. The story goes on to tell us that the pageant has been mired in controversy in recent years, including last year when winner Carrie Prejean, was stripped of her title after she was found to have made a sex tape.

No mention of the controversy over beauty pageants upholding the sexist concept of a woman's worth being equal only to her aesthetic qualities, though. If we assume that the Daily Mail's omission of this demonstrates it has no ethical argument against such events (which is also suggested when it ensures it makes note of the supposedly high standards of the pageant by emphasising Ms. Prejean's expulsion), while it finds the idea of a young woman having sex and taking control of her own body shocking, the story can be viewed as much more than mere space-filler on a slow news day - it shows just how backward, sexist and ultimately horrible a "newspaper" it really is.

Pity Rima wasn't dancing next to a Pole - the Mail could have aired their anti-immigrant prejudices then as well.

Bruno star Baron Cohen death threats

Continuing our expedition into the world of tabloid journalism we soon came upon the Daily Express, that once-great newspaper that is nowadays read only by those who collect china with pictures of the Royal family on it, which carries a story on Sacha Baron Cohen (pictured right) - the creator of Ali G, Borat and Bruno - and how he has apparently received death threats from a terrorist organisation called the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

The Express got the story via the Daily Star who, they report, say that the AAMB "has claimed responsibility for recent terrorist attacks." Interesting - and why on Earth would a man of Baron Cohen's undoubted intelligence choose to satirise a real terrorist group, since doing so would be tantamount to suicide? Maybe the Express were thinking along the same lines, because they contacted Baron Cohen's spokesperson who told them: "I don't know anything about this."

Hmm. Over to the Star's website for more information it is, then. Using the page's search function, we soon found the following:

(original here)

That looks like the one we're after, doesn't it? So we clicked and were rewarded with:

(original here)

That page had a picture of a very pretty lady without very many clothes on, so that bit was alright; but we do wonder if just maybe the Daily Star is using the time-honoured red-top journalistic technique known as "making stuff up" and had to take the story down a bit sharpish because Baron Cohen's lawyers got in touch? If so, they may well be forced to print an apology - however, we shall never know because one look at the filthy little rag every couple of months is about all we can handle.

Sacha Baron Cohen image from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.