NUDE SCENES, BODIES THAT ONE CAN CUT ONESELF ON IF NOT CAREFUL….AND THOSE ROTTEN KIDS IN THE O.C.

So, according to the up-to-the-minute-hard-hitting-news on Lindsay Lohan - the actress-soon-to-die-of-Consumption – she is quoted as having said during an Access Hollywood exclusive interview that “You will never see me in a nude scene,” and goes further to state that showcasing her [bones] ahem, body, is not the way to achieve her goal of winning an Oscar. Alrighty then. And to think I was not even aware of a consumer demand to see something like that. Silly me.

Which brings us to the word of the day and appropriate contextual usage:

Consumption: A progressive wasting of body tissue.

Use it in a sentence. If you live anywhere near Los Angeles, that should be easy.

Now far be it from me to jump on the band wagon of intense curiosity (even the intellectually respectable political blog The Cranky Liberal has managed to comment) about everything and anything having to do with the life of one very confused and tormented young actress in need of a milkshake, but there are actually people out there who seem to believe that achieving the physical attributes of the comic book character, SKELETOR, should be defended as being “regular” or “normal weight.” Look at the pictures that you cannot escape seeing in every formerly-reputable-at-one-time newspaper. Okay, now consider that the camera ADDS TEN POUNDS. Okay, now that you’ve taken that important detail into consideration, now visualize what one really looks like with that additional ten whittled off. Anybody want to see naked pictures of that? Ew.

There is a bit of a sexist bent to the whole weight-loss/weight-gain of the stars lust for news that we Americans seem to crave, far more than knowing how the soldiers might be faring in Iraq or the recent news that the Federal government has now voted that yes, they CAN take your home that you have owned for 30 years to build a strip mall if they so desire. Pish tush, who wants to hear about that? Anybody see the enormously talented Christian Bale in The Machinist? He dropped 63 pounds to look like a walking skeleton which is what the script called for. And he did. He simply stopped eating. He looked positively repulsive. That’s what walking skeletons look like. Not necessarily something one wants to jump in the sack with if the consequences mean cutting yourself on the person. And definitely not something one wants to see naked. We didn’t really hear much about Mr. Bale though, because despite his talent, he’s not really Hollywood news in the Tom-and-Katie, Brad-and-possibly-Angelina way. Low Q rating. No, in Hollywoodland, we hear about Rene Zellweger gaining a paltry 20 pounds for the Bridget Jones sequel so she can finally weigh a normal amount only to be considered FAT. Her weight gain for that film put her at a bovine 135. Just recently, another “news source” quoted Elizabeth Hurley as stating that she would want to kill herself if she got as fat as Marilyn Monroe. Now there’s something to put in print for the teenage girls to read.

This is our news though, so we must develop an interest in it since there is apparently no interest in anything else. The lack of care or respect for anything happening in the world other than the hedonistic pleasures or eating disorders of the stars and/or what designer label they might be wearing during said pleasures or disorders is what we Americans truly care about. It shapes our values accordingly. Which brings me to a lesser known news item . . . anybody hear about a little high school party about a month ago in the O.C. where about 300 students organized a home invasion of an elderly couple? Nope. Not until a month after it happened.

According to KNX 1070 News Radio and the lesser known Daily Pilot of Newport Beach, the crime was not given press until an anonymous letter went out to residents of the community. Again I say, one month later. What took place was that, "apparently, fliers, e-mails and a website advertised the party, thrown by teenage children of a caretaker who worked in the elderly couple's home, police said. The children's mother -- who cares for a woman in her 70s who is confined to a bed -- was not home at the time, police said. One of the homeowners' cars, with a pass to get into the gated community, ferried partygoers from a nearby parking lot into the home, [the police] said. The elderly woman's husband had gone to get something to eat and returned to find the party going on, the letter says. "Upon returning he found, by police estimates, 300-plus kids inside/outside his home," the letter reads. "Inside, his home was in the process of being vandalized. Furniture was upended and broken. Alcohol and drugs were everywhere.... Some of his personal belongings were sitting in the bottom of his pool," the letter reads. The letter also alleges that students were in the disabled woman's bedroom, blowing marijuana smoke in her face.

300 children. From white, well-to-do Republican Orange County households. Invaded, terrorized and trashed the home of a pair of senior citizens. This is something that I think should have gotten far more press than it did, criminal charges against the parents for being, oh, I don’t know, LOUSY PARENTS, and certainly not a small news item one month after the fact. I wish there was some witty or funny quip I could make about this, but I’m too disgusted.

Guess I’ll go look up more news about what Lindsay Lohan’s wearing. There, that’s better.