It's a case of the pot calling the kettle a bad parent: Lindsay Jackson, who is best known for appearing alongside her daughter Maddy on the controversial TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras, has been accused of exploitation by the little girl's father.
Whitney Houston's role in Sparkle, Salim Akil's sturdy and enjoyable remake of Sam O'Steen's nearly unwatchable 1976 film of the same name, is tailored to the late diva. As Emma, Houston plays the surly matriarch of a trio of singing sisters – Sister, Delores and Sparkle – and a former singer herself who was "almost killed" by the business. Houston, who co-produced the film, plays the role with the world-weary hoarseness apparent in virtually every public appearance she did in the 10 years before her death. Despite some moments of poignancy, this is mostly light fare and Whitney camps it up with bitchily dignified flair. It is her best acting role, which is not saying very much given that she never suggested she was anything more than competent on screen while alive, but nevertheless, it is a lovely swan song.
Six out of twenty-two stores tested by Nottinghamshire's County Council during a recent undercover operation reportedly allowed an underage customer to purchase alcohol with a fake ID.
It's clear, by now, that the most interesting thing about NASA's Mars Exploration Program is not Mars itself, which appears to consist chiefly of boring dust mountains and nothing else, but the Curiosity Rover sent there to document it.
This is America. This ain't Saskatoon or Piscataway or Buddhistan or some other foreign speck of dust. This is America. We have an army. A god damn capital-A Army. A big badass American army with big ol' guns. And that army needs soldiers. Lots of soldiers. Lots of big god damn badass American soldiers to carry some big guns and show the freaks and the geek's what's what. There's Jesus in Heaven and there's god above and he gave man dominion over all things and guess what, that man is called The You Ess God Damn Army. Now you tell me, son: where exactly do you think we should find a bunch of god damn red-blooded boys ready to kill for god and country? Should we, should we, should we look up under the couch cushions? Should we look up under the floormat? Hey, I think I left m' god damn US Army recruits on my nightstand table! Should we look there? Hot shot? Oh, you probably think we should look up in the god damn fabric store, eh? How bout we look for one million future globe-dominating soldiers up in the La-mozz class? Is that it? Maybe we should go on down to the, to the Yankee Candle store down at the outlet mall and ask if they have any assistant managers lookin' for a little excitement? Maybe that's where we'll find the future Navy SEALS of America? Maybe a bunch of posey-picking little girls will beat up the next Sad-dam? Is that it? Or do you think maybe, maybe, maybe we should, lemme just propose this to ya, maybe we should take a look down at the ol' Nascar track? You think? Ya think that one might be a better idea, smart guy? Maybe we should go have a look at the ol' football stadium? For some strong young fellas? Would that be alright with you, pinky? Maybe we can find a few strong young boys who know a little something about kickin' butt down at the drag-racing spot, eh? That alright with you, Albert Einstein? Thank you so much. So if it ain't too much trouble and all, we're just gonna keep on spendin' our $80 million a year sponsorin' some stock cars and football games under the name of the God Damn Army of the United States of America, thank you very much. So stop your god damn bellyaching about it. There's still a few good men left in Congress, thank god.
When filmmaker Tobias Mathijsen learned that his kid brother had "fraped" his Facebook page, he didn't get mad — he got a bunch of friends to come over and together they transformed his brother's bedroom into a "little girl's room," complete with pink walls, a dresser full of makeup and accessories, flowery accents, and a giant Bieber poster on the wall.
A distracted gas station manager inadvertently helped a Massachusetts man win $1 million when he handed him a different scratch ticket than the one he asked for.
When three members of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot were sentenced to prison on charges of "hooliganism" this morning, a large crowd of protesters turned out to support the women. One of the members of that crowd was Garry Kasparov, chess genius turned writer and outspoken anti-Putin activist.
An attention-whorse named Oreo went buckwild in Manhattan yesterday, tearing through traffic and injuring three people.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and Maria Alyokhina, three members of the punk activist collective Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years in prison on charges of hooliganism today. The women had staged a brief performance of an anti-Putin "punk prayer" in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral; their subsequent arrest and drawn-out imprisonment (which saw the women, two of whom are mothers of young children, locked up awaiting trial for some seven months and denied adequate food or rest) seemed to represent an attempt by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's autocratic ruling party to ally itself with the once-banned Russian Orthodox Church — which had itself been a locus of resistance under the old Soviet regime.
Who is the biggest bro in the presidential race? It's probably the most important question that we'll answer in this election cycle. Barack Obama drinks a lot of beer ("Consumer research," The Washington Post writes, "shows that beer is most popular with the very voters that Obama and Romney are fighting over: middle-America independents.") — but Mitt Romney has an M.B.A. Paul Ryan ("the frattiest veep candidate in American history") loves Rage Against the Machine — but Joe Biden went to the University of Delaware. So who can call himself the Bro Candidate?
