Perhaps realizing that instructing her handlers to "just drop me in the armpit of Africa. Somewhere no one's ever heard of. I'm about to make an anonymous, destitute country famous!" for a demi-orphan shopping adventure may have come across like the self-serving act of an aging pop icon, Madonna returned to Malawi with little David Banda and lesser biological offspring Lourdes in tow, to follow the progress on the construction of her exciting charitable projects like the Little Red Kabbalic Reprogramming Schoolhouse. Also on the itinerary was a reunion with David's concerned father, which quickly devolved into mayhem when the army of international reporters who had descended upon the scene were fended off by a defensive ring of rock-launching teenage orphans:

We alerted you yesterday to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's charity work in Costa Rica, handing out presents to Colombian refugee children. But the flawless philanthropists have no monopoly on good deeds, as celebrities from every letter of the rigid Hollywood caste system came out to help those less needy. A round-up:
· Survivor host Jeff Probst and his girlfriend, former Survivor contestant Julie Berry, spent Christmas serving dinner to patrons of the Wayside Soup Kitchen in Portland, Maine. Just for fun, Probst suggested serving meals to four separate lines divided by race, an experiment soup kitchen officials quickly cancelled after a bearded man in the white line started shouting that the two individuals in the far shorter Asian line were receiving unfairly generous turkey portions. [Canada.com]
· In further New England celebrity charity news, Adam Sandler sent Stephanie and Kevin Hudon, two teenage siblings from New Hampshire suffering with cancer, a hard-to-find Playstation 3 and swag bag, in the hopes that the blowing away of virtual Nazis with high neuro-artificial-intelligence would temporarily take their minds off their troubles. [AP]

While you were desperately rifling through piles of Banana Republic wrapping tissue searching for the all-valuable gift receipt that would spare you from a fate of itchy sweater hell, year-round Christmas angel Angelina (it's right there in her first name!) Jolie and short-leashed civil partner Brad Pitt were once again focusing their energies on making the world a better place, one Colombian refugee baby at a time:

Like so many others for whom the Hollywood dream has gone sour, Sable, Cody, and Angel probably started in the business with high hopes, but wound up mostly living hand to mouth, forced into wearing close to nothing and swinging on poles for other's amusement when they weren't being terrorized by a physically abusive svengali. But now comes happy news, as a lawsuit settlement has granted the three hard-luck showbiz vets an early retirement:

Following the recent student/parent/ bodyguard/paparazzi stampede and pile-on at a Mumbai school used as a shooting location for A Mighty Heart (video of the terrifying, anarchic events available here), flawlessly bone-structured altruists Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have now found themselves in the unlikely position of having to defend themselves against some rare, bad press. Jolie has released a statement calling the allegation that one of her three bodyguards arrested in the melee called a parent a "bloody Indian" a "horrible rumor." But it's Brad Pitt, perhaps realizing the potential threat the impromptu and much talked about fight club could pose to their global good standing, who has taken the formidable step of going directly to the top with his damage control efforts, pleading their case to none other than Indian Oprah. From an Extra press release:

A local children's AIDS charity had recently hoped that Sharon Stone, everyone's favorite loose-screwed screen siren, would auction off a one-of-a-kind "Sharon Stone" Barbie doll at a fundraiser, but when the actress took a look at it, she found it woefully underrepresentative of her own, still-fabulous-at-forty-eight looks. Reports Page Six:

Realizing that perhaps a single emotional Oprah appearance that betrayed her stouthearted, fake-British composure was not quite enough to completely reverse the public's lingering impression that her recent African charity efforts amounted to nothing more than a calculated and self-serving toddler-snatching, Madonna has reemerged on the U.S. media circuit to plead her case. Talking to Meredith Vieira yesterday, the frequently becameltoed Queen of Pop explained that when she realized that the child who captured her heart on videotape and whom she began to brazenly adoption-stalk (or something to that effect) had a living parent, she first pledged her material support so that he may raise the child himself. He then proudly refused the offer, paving the way for a no-strings, guilt-free baby purchase:

Whatever you thought of Madonna's appearance on Oprah yesterday, it seems to have subdued the outrage somewhat, filling in the comic frame images we've been seeing lately of the pop icon on her dark-baby shopping spree with at least a few dialogue bubbles indicating she hasn't completely lost her mind. We were too transfixed by her accent to really form an opinion on the matter—could that possibly be what humans will sound like in 500 years?—but others were far less indecisive. A Madonna-on-Oprah fallout round-up:
· Leading the "screw Madonna and Oprah and their army of motherfucking hair and makeup people and their misguided, self-serving Third World charity efforts"-cavalry is the NY Post's Andrea Peyser, who questions Oprah's softball-lobs (but that's what Oprah does!), as well as Madonna's sniveling condescension towards David's "simple man" father. Worth a read—if only for the anti-Oprah blasphemies. Heavens! [NY Post]
· The "simple man," meanwhile, is now claiming he's worried the controversy— including the last chapter where he expressed genuine surprise that goodbye meant forever— would cause the rich white lady with man-muscles to back out of the agreement. [ABCNews.com]
· Reuters managed to get a quote from the father as well, in which he stated his clear opposition to the consortium of 67 Malawian human rights groups seeking to legally block the adoption. And to this we say: There's 67 Malawian human rights groups? [Reuters]
· And finally, to end on a cheerier note, CityRag blog offers a quick, inexpensive and easy costume idea for Halloween: "Celebrity Baby Smuggler." [CityRag]

Daryl Hannah's heroic treetop exploits on behalf of squatting farmers all over South Los Angeles have not yet been forgotten. On last night's Daily Show, the phrase "They are going to forcibly remove actress Daryl Hannah from the walnut tree" was deemed only slightly less surreal than hearing an agitated, airborne Samuel L. Jackson yelp, "Get these motherfucking Daryl Hannahs off the motherfucking plane!" In a follow-up story on the protest, today's LAT offhandedly described Hannah as "plucked" from her perch during the tree-viction, a verb choice that makes it sound as if Hannah were an accidental catch in a giant arcade claw machine, retrieved by a police officer who was hoping to snare a Pamela Anderson or a Leonardo DiCaprio from the protester-filled branches to impress his girlfriend. Lastly, Page Six characterizes Hannah as laughing off her arrest and citation by the LAPD, a sunny insouciance she maintained even after some cruel cops taunted the vegetarian with a plate of bologna sandwiches.

Like Ugg boots, red string bracelets, and hairless, yippy purse-dogs, charitable causes are subject to the ever-shifting, capricious cycle that affects all celebrity-assisted trends. Unfortunately for AIDS activists seeking famous faces to attract publicity to their work, the global pandemic suddenly finds itself last year's tired Cambodian adoptee to global warming's red-hot Namibian-born biological offspring. Reports the LAT:

Someone or something has kidnapped the angry Spike Lee of yesteryear, and replaced him with lovable, huggy Spike, director of crowd-pleasing heist capers. The ongoing fuzzy-wuzzification of Lee shows no signs of slowing down, as he has been recently spotted doing time as Carrie Bradshaw's Cartier-loving girlfriend-in-crime:

Turns out all those sightings of George Clooney in Darfur weren't just meant to throw celebrity-stalking internet bloodhounds off the case. Clooney and his father indeed visited the region, and were horrified at what they witnessed while they were there:

Brad Pitt gets to combine two of his favorite hobbies—architecture, and doing stuff that will impress Angelina Jolie—in a competition he's spearheading that challenges designers to come up with innovative and feasible plans to rebuild New Orleans:

Since coming out of the closet last year, Star Trek's George Takei has become a formidable gay celebrity role model. The two concepts sit alongside each other quite comfortably, as evidenced in the accompanying photo which ran with his coming out story back in October: Gay Takei, literally staring out at the world through rose-colored glasses as he proudly salutes his fans with the Vulcan shocker. For further proof, watch how the Roddenberrian and queer imagery intermesh effortlessly in this report of the actor lending his voice to a gay rights demonstration in Minneapolis:

Ask anyone in Hollywood where they stand on the Hillary issue, and you're likely to get an answer along the lines of, "She's, like, a way better singer than that skankbag Lindsay." Further qualify that you're referring not to Hilary Duff but to Senator Hillary Clinton's chances at a White House run, and the answers aren't nearly as clear cut. The LAT explores how the industry's love affair with the presidential hopeful has been cooling in recent months as liberal Hollywood looks for a promising candidate to lead us out of the Bush era:

Pamela Anderson has proven herself to be an indefatigable crusader on behalf of those beautiful and defenseless creatures many of us enjoy eating and wearing, animals. She made a homecoming of sorts with her most recent campaign, sending an impassioned plea to her homeland's leader, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to call off the highly controversial seal hunt currently underway on Canada's East Coast. From her letter:

Glinty-eyed imparter of Hollywood movie wisdom Morgan Freeman is seeking to raise funds to erect a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington D.C. Celebrity pals Brad Pitt and Laurence Fishburne have each donated a motorcycle for a charity auction, while noted hog enthusiast Ben Affleck is selling two. From the auction website:

Somehow, even as we typed the words you know, the one's where we reluctantly admitted feeling a momentary, uneasy kinship with Jessica Simpson we just knew a reality check bitch-slap addendum was forthcoming; we just didn't realize how soon. Creepy Svengali/manager/chromosome-donator Joe Simpson clears things up:

Our assumption that Jessica Simpson spends the majority of her down time pointing and laughing at unflattering tabloid photos of a chunky, acne-beset Britney Spears turns out to be at least partially off-base: Simpson has been keeping busy visiting the capital in support of her pet charity cause, Operation Smile, which offers free plastic surgery to overseas children with facial deformities. Even more amazingly, Simpson managed to do what Robert Redford and Tina Turner could not: turn down an audience with the President.

HuffPo patsy/general do-gooder-about-town George Clooney has decided he can live without the wide assortment of pricey and useless luxury goods and services crammed into his Oscar gift bag, and will instead donate its contents to charity: