MONDAY, MARCH 31
It’s a brand new week, and in the pages of One Day at a Time, Operation Catfight Freedom continues! But first, an update on our drink-throwing, cigarette-thumping, invective-slurring harpy-of-the-month, hotel heiress Paris Hilton. This young party-hearty sexpot has been on quite a tear lately, reportedly mixing it up with a slew of celebs including Shannen Doherty, Sarah Howard and Lisa Marie Presley–but now the war has been brought to the homefront. It seems one of Hilton’s chefs has been shooting off her mouth to the TV tabloid show Celebrity Justice, claiming that Paris has been mistreating her pet Chihuahua, Tinkerbell! The gabby cook, Lyla Livingston, told the show she once found the poor pooch “alone and huddled in a bedroom,” looking malnourished with its tail between its legs. “Paris needs to take responsibility and care for her dogs they’re not fashion accessories,” sniffed Livingston. Happily for all, the volcanic Paris denied the charges in characteristic form, screaming, “Tinkerbell is like my daughter! Lyla you are so fired!” Meanwhile The war of witchy words continues between sworn enemies Kelly Osbourne and Christina Aguilera. In the past Kelly has– some say reasonably–called the slutty diva a “cunt” and a “disgusting human being.” In this week’s Heat magazine she has further words for Aguilera. “She’s a pussy,” Kelly snorted. “She has a mouth on her, but she’s all talk. [Christina] was like ‘Yo girl, artists for artists, yo, why you been talkin’ shit?’ I didn’t understand a word she was saying. Then she made out like she had started a fight with me, to make herself look cool. She’s like a fucking feather. I could pick her up and chuck her across the room.” What’s really fun is to re-read the previous paragraph substituting Donald Rumsfeld for Kelly Osbourne and Saddam Hussein for Christina Aguilera. As you will see, they’re not all that different.
TUESDAY, APRIL 1
And speaking of “slutty cunts,” Air Force Gen. Richard Myers got all huffy and puffy today after being criticized for the way the Defense Department has been handling the war. It seems a consortium of retired generals have been hired as “analysts” for many of the major news networks, and have accused the top general of not sending in enough ground forces to get the job done in Iraq. With a stomp of his dainty foot, Myers steamed, “It is not helpful to have those kind of comments because, first of all, they’re false, they’re absolutely wrong, they bear no resemblance to the truth and it’s harmful to our troops.” The general then paused to search his thesaurus for other ways to describe the untruthfulness of the comments, adding that they were, “erroneous, insubstantial, lacking in substance, unreliable, fallacious, missing factuality, without foundation, and literally teeming with inexactitude.” We do believe if Kelly Osbourne had been at this press briefing, she may be tempted to quote the Bard by saying, “Me thinks the cunt doth protest too much.”
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2
Our One Day at a Time “Hot Tip” of the week goes to faithful reader Steven Stokes who sent in this website (www.collectiblestoday.com/ct/product/ prdid-912316001.jsp) advertising a product which Steven says proves that “America has the MOST INSANE people in the ENTIRE World!” It’s called the “Lord Bless This Defender of Freedom Figurine”; a sculpture depicting an adorable child dressed as a soldier in desert fatigues (carrying an M-16 rifle, no less) who is cupped lovingly by a big, creepy pair of glass hands. And who do these big glass hands belong to? Apparently our translucent Lord who automatically chooses to protect the defenseless American soldier while ignoring the 73 dead Iraqi civilians and 310 who have been wounded since Monday. In fact, 15 of those were killed today in the Haidariya region, when a family in their pickup truck was blown up by missiles launched from a US Apache helicopter. According to the one surviving member, the family was trying to escape fighting in Nasiriya when they were targeted. Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaji said he lost his wife, six children, his father, his mother, his three brothers and their wives. Now to many, this may seem unfair. But, c’mon! What’s our translucent Lord supposed to do? He’s only got two glass hands!
THURSDAY, APRIL 3
A new term has been introduced into the war-time lexicon (which includes “embedded,” “coalition of the willing,” and the classic “shock and awe”)–and the new word is “Dixie-Chicked.” This term is used when one lets slip their true feelings, and is then quickly attacked by everyone around them–sometimes a pile of their CDs are even overrun by monster trucks. Here’s an example: “Dude, you won’t believe what happened. I was in a staff meeting and let it slip that I thought Monica had a sweet rack. Oh, dude, I got totally Dixie-Chicked!” Someone who narrowly avoided getting “Dixie-Chicked” today was the formerly controversial Madonna, who has stopped the release of her video for her new single “American Life” due to concerns it might be construed as “anti-patriotic.” In the video, Madonna lobs a grenade at a Bush look-alike, who then uses the explosive as a lighter to ignite his cigar. In a press release Madonna stated, “Out of sensitivity and respect to the armed forces, I do not want to risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video.” No misinterpretations here! It’s pretty apparent the Material Girl has traded in her previously strongly held beliefs for another injection of Botox. Ah-HA! Madonna, you just got Dixie-Chicked!
FRIDAY, APRIL 4
The Associated Press announced today that, due to pansy-assed-ness, the annual Easter Egg roll at the White House will be closed to the public this year. The event will be replaced with a smaller event for the tots of troops involved in Operation Freedom Fries, who are thought to be less dangerous than the shit-poor D.C. children usually rounded up and paraded through the grounds with the vague hope of being rewarded with a Tootsie Roll or Marshmallow Peep. About 12,000 parents and children of morally pure active duty and reserve troops will be invited to the event April 21. That’s fewer than half the normal crowd of 40,000, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer (who does not celebrate Easter) said today. “It’s reduced as a result of the security situation,” he added. “A smaller group is more appropriate.” Of course, the administration will carry on with the annual tradition of crucifying a Jew in the Rose Garden.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
You are SO hard on Paul McCartney. Remember when you almost swallowed your Bioré facial cleansing cloth when he considered reversing the traditional “Lennon-McCartney” songwriting credit on his new album? “What about JOHN?!” you wailed like a banshee from the bidet of your tiny upstairs bathroom as your husband slept off a night of too much whiskey and Boggle. Well, it turns out that you overreacted. Again. Paul announced today that his intention was not to slam an axe into John’s legacy, but to merely “put the record straight.” In an interview with Britain’s Daily Mirror, Paul said he was simply “letting people know that the songs I sing today are my own.” Yoko Ono is said to be considering legal action based on the time honored legal grounds that a “deal is a deal.”
SUNDAY, APRIL 6
Peter Arnett, fired by NBC last week for going native, is now reporting for pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya. “He (Arnett) is an able reporter who has covered wars before and who knows Iraq well,” the station’s editor-in-chief told The Associated Press. (It’s true: No one knows the city’s hotel bars like Arnett.) Arnett started reporting for Al-Arabiya on Friday, becoming its third correspondent in Baghdad. The Peacock fired Arnett for giving an unauthorized interview to Iraqi TV, during which he said the U.S.-led war effort had initially failed because of Iraq’s resistance, which if true, is a REALLY BIG STORY. NBC said the company was über-irked because Arnett gave the interview without permission and presented opinion as fact. (NBC, incidentally, is owned by GE, which supplies the U.S. Army with “smart bombs” and has an invested interest in the war going swimmingly.) Waitasecond maybe we’d better shut up until we find out if we’re owned by General Electric.