Jackie O M G

Secret tapes Jackie Kennedy Onassis made just months after JFK's death, reveal that she thought LBJ was responsible for the assassination and that she had an affair with William Holden, "in retaliation for her husband's many flings." The Daily Mail has the full story.



"Let me dry your back" indeed.

Gender Sells

Newsweek is getting a lot of attention today for the cover shot of Michele Bachmann that accompanies their profile piece, saying it makes her look crazy. While Newsweek may be creating controversy in order to hawk magazines, the characterization of Bachmann as crazy is not without evidence.



And as Matt Taibbi pointed out in his Rolling Stone Bachmann piece:

"In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance."

While the blogosphere is in a tail-spin about the Bachmann cover, the real story seems to be that Tina Brown, since taking over as Editor-in-Chief at Newsweek, has decided that females buy magazines, and thus like to see famous females on the cover, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Between Two Colors

Ff you don't know who Jane White was, you should. The New York Times has a great obit for this bi-racial classical actress and cabaret singer. Her own words are the best part of the piece.

“I’ve just always been too ‘white’ to be ‘black’ and too ‘black’ to be ‘white,’ which, you know, gets to you after a while, particularly when the roles keep passing you by,” she told an interviewer in 1968

"And if nothing else, bringing humanity to the stage makes a difference in the world, she added, “in black face or white face."

Zombisquatsi

Godfrey Reggio, creator of Koyaanisquatsi and Powasqquatsi has made an 8-minute film of children's faces as they watch television. Godfrey says of the film:

Unlike people in a movie theatre, where images are projected onto a screen, television viewers become prey to the television’s own light impulses, they go into an altered state - a transfixed condition where the eyes, the mind, the breathing of the subject is clearly under the control of an outside force. In a poetic sense and without exaggerating one might say that the television technology is eating the subjects who sit before its gaze.

Immediately, this scene from Truffaut's 400 Blows came to mind:



Evidence of the difference between television and LIVE performance?

"Terror Baby"

Rachel Maddow celebrates Barack Obama's 50th birthday (which was yesterday) with a send-up/mash-up of all the "birther" conspiracies. Pretty funny until she gets to the part about how politicians and commentators are STILL hawking confusion and fear about Obama's birth, even after the release of his birth certificate.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shilling With and For the Children

Santorum is NEVER going to let you forget he has a lot of children. (See post below for older family pic.) This is his new Iowa campaign video.

Suffer the Children

Rick Santorum is on the stump arguing against early childhood education, well, all public education it seems. Here's a choice nugget:

“We need to get the federal government out of that business. We need a leader in Washington to start talking with the states and the communities to rally parents to demand that the educational establishment in this country start meeting the needs of their child, not children. See, that is the difference. Obviously, socialists love children, just like they love people in groups of one million or more,” he said.

This seemed like a good excuse (not that we needed one), to look at this photo of Santorum's family again. The photo was taken during his concession speech after losing his Senate bid in 2006.



It never gets old.