The Guild 5-13-2003 Try some new Annuals in your garden

Better Homes and Gardens ^

[NYpeanut]

I have lived my life under the assumption that custom made underwear has a special compartment for Socks.

Oh, now that's sick.

[lodwick]

Dang - strong stuff when the archaeologists get in on the act.

The government trembles.

[lodwick]

Now that's just funny - thanks!

[Utah Girl]

I love the opening to this thread. If only I didn't have a black thumb.

[Utah Girl]

Drudge is reporting that Oprah is close to closing the deal with Hillary! for the exclusive first interview for her new book. A little earlier story reported that 60 Minutes was probably out because Bill works for 60 Minutes, and so Diane Sawyer was high on the list. But it looks like the Opster may get the interview. I can't decide if this is good or bad.

[lodwick]

Of late, I would rather see the Oyster get the PIAPS. She is doing better work imo.

[Carolina]

Drudge is reporting that Oprah is close to closing the deal with Hillary! for the exclusive first interview for her new book.

Oh, double gag! I think I'll wait for our resident book reviewer. How's our collection plate doing for our Draft-Mountaineer-to-Do-the-Hillary-Review of Lying History?

[Utah Girl]

I go back and forth on Oprah. Betcha money that Living History will be Oprah's bookclub pick in the next couple of months. I still belong to an online Oprah bookclub, I'll have to report the comments and reviews on the books from that group.

I don't mind some of Oprah's shows, she's done some good interviews. I couldn't sleep last night, so was watching her show of makeovers. Pretty good, except Victoria Principal had her people do a makeover on a hippy couple. Great makeover, but Victoria needs one herself, she was dowdy looking in a bad hairdo and a polyester flowered dress.

[mountaineer]

Is that a cat in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

[lodwick]

Is that a cat in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?


Girls are truly much worse than guys...thanks for being so.

Maanana guys - rest well all.

[Iowa Granny]

Rest well, JL.

Custom made underwear. Yea, right.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Speaking about the event. Chelsea said: "I am grateful of the opportunity to support the British Red Cross’ vital HIV/AIDS work in Africa. That work, like this event tonight, helps combat the medical, political, economic and social crisis that HIV/AIDS is in Africa and increasingly, around the world."

Heaven forbid Chelsea would support the AMERICAN Red Cross. I guess she is now an international citizen.

[mountaineer]

Yes, and it's a real coup for the British Red Cross to be able to get such a distinguished, accomplished citizen of the world for its fundraiser.

[mountaineer]

Tales of the rich, famous and inconsiderate:

When the world's richest man and the supreme anchor of network news stroll through downtown Watertown, S.D., a prairie village of 20,000, they hardly go unnoticed. And when they each guzzle down a large $3 cappuccino at the Past Times Cafe -- and then leave without paying, let alone tipping, the waitress -- it's a screaming headline.

Thus the story of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates's and NBC News Alpha Male Tom Brokaw's visit last Friday -- to tape an interview for last night's "NBC Nightly News" about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's $250 million gift of computers to rural America -- spread as far away as Great Britain. The British high-tech journal, the Register, reported it yesterday.

"When I got to Montana I asked one of the producers, 'Did we pay that woman in Watertown?' and he said, 'I don't think we did,' " South Dakota native Brokaw told us. "Having grown up in one of those small towns, I know the DNA of these places, and I know that when Brokaw and Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, leave without paying, that news will instantly ricochet up and down Main Street."

Past Times owner Corinne Arnold told us Brokaw and Gates have nothing to worry about; the cappuccino was on the house. But waitress Jackie Harrington, who spent five minutes brewing the steamed-milk treats for her distinguished customers, revealed that Gates and Brokaw abjectedly failed our Celebrity Tip Challenge, and left nothing on the counter.

As in zero. Zippo. Zilch.

"It's all right," the 25-year-old Harrington told us. "A tip is not an obligation."

Gates Foundation spokesman Joe Cerrell told us: "I'm not going to try to defend it, but basically it was a very chaotic situation. It was an oversight that we didn't leave a tip. The tip is in the mail."

Brokaw, too, said he has sent two $20 bills to the Past Times Cafe -- one to cover costs and the other, "with an inscription, for Corinne to hang up on her wall."

---

• Yesterday started out as a bad day for 23 Republican women who flew here from Houston for a week's visit -- only to discover that their prepaid rooms at the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington were occupied and unavailable.

But after group leader Pearl Fincher phoned not only us but also her congressman, Kevin Brady, and one of her senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison, it ended up as a bad day for the Sheraton hotel chain and its parent company, Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

"I think it's time for the Sheraton people to get a little bad publicity," Fincher told us by cell phone as her exhausted charges waited to learn where they'd be spending the night.

First the Sheraton offered the angry women, who had paid $1,035 apiece for transportation and lodging, rooms at a Best Western hotel two hours from Washington. Then a Starwood official told us erroneously that they would be given accommodations at no extra charge at the Marriott Wardman Park. Finally, the women were put on a bus heading toward a Best Western in Potomac Mills, in Prince William County. . But as complaints from Capitol Hill grew more heated, the bus made an about-face and the women were returned to the Sheraton -- where, somehow, the promised rooms were suddenly found.

"These are normally very gracious women," said Brady, who has a breakfast meeting with them scheduled for this morning. "But when they need to, they stand up for themselves."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52859-2003May14.html

[mountaineer]

Monica Lewinsky was so desperate to contact Bill Clinton during the early days of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's investigation that she enlisted a Hollywood actress to pass messages to him, according to former White House senior aide Sidney Blumenthal. The top Clinton adviser relives old battles - and settles some scores - in his 800-page memoir, "The Clinton Wars," due out May 19.

Among his stories:

Even as Lewinsky's lawyers negotiated with Starr to gain immunity from prosecution, "Lewinsky began to send secret messages to the White House, intended for the President," Blumenthal writes. "The route she used was through [her PR rep Judy] Smith, who was black, to a black actress in Hollywood, to a black member of the White House staff, who contacted me - an underground railroad eluding Lewinsky's attorneys. I gave her message to [Clinton lawyer David] Kendall. Clinton never knew about them. They were all the same: She hated Starr, she was holding out against him. We sent no message back. Then came a final message: I can't hold out any longer."
Lewinsky didn't return a call. Smith would only say the story was "inaccurate." Blumenthal, who wouldn't give up the name of the actress, stands by his story.


Hillary Clinton suggested that the personal life of one-time opponent Rudy Giuliani was better suited for the stage at Lincoln Center than the floor of the Senate. Blumenthal writes that when Giuliani withdrew from the Senate race in 2000, after the public airing of his split with his wife, Donna Hanover, his romance with Judith Nathan, and his battle with cancer, Hillary quipped: "Now I know why he likes opera."

Journalist Michael Kelly, who was killed in the war in Iraq, was convinced Blumenthal was "spying" on him for Hillary Clinton when they were both writing for The New Yorker. Blumenthal claims Kelly nicknamed him "Sid the human ferret" and blamed him for spreading falsehoods about Starr and his prosecutors - for example, that members of Starr's team were secretly gay.

Asked whether he regretted his unflattering portrait of his fallen colleague, Blumenthal told us: "I'm sympathetic to his family. I wish he were around to respond and debate my book. But I believe what I've written is accurate."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/83420p-76309c.html

[Carolina]

The route she used was through [her PR rep Judy] Smith, who was black, to a black actress in Hollywood, to a black member of the White House staff, who contacted me - an underground railroad eluding Lewinsky's attorneys.

Geez, isn't that politically incorrect? Doesn't this deprecate the memory of all the freedom fighters who supported the REAL underground railroad? Where's the outrage?????

Oh, this is a Clintonoid. I forgot...they get a pass.

[lodwick]

Whoopi?

[mountaineer]

You're right, the phrase "underground railroad" is a bit overblown, under the circumstances (unless he means that Lewinsky's attorneys - the ones they were trying to avoid - were carrying shotguns and had packs of dogs in hot pursuit). Whoopi certainly is a good guess. I wonder if we'll ever know. Maybe the black actress in question was some friend of Vernon Jordan's.

[lodwick]

This edition of BET's JOURNEYS IN BLACK profiles this electric performer (Patti LaBelle), examining her decades-spanning career with performance footage and testimonials from Whitney Houston, Whoopi Goldberg, former President Bill Clinton, and more.

Who knows who the mule might have been? Though to me, it's more believable that Whoopi might have an acquaintenance on staff.

[Carolina]

Though to me, it's more believable that Whoopi might have an acquaintenance on staff.

Well, didn't she have an affair with Ted Danson who is a FOB?