March 17, 2009

Not exactly. The tabloid-clinging starlet who, weeks ago, was scouting synagogues in London for a rumored wedding to girlfriend Samantha Ronson (and who then announced she was converting to Judaism) averted an arrest warrant earlier today.

According to the L.A. Times (whose reports come from gossip website TMZ), all’s well in Lohan-land. The $50,000 arrest warrant for the “Mean Girls” star was rescinded and Lohan’s lawyer proved she actually did, in fact, attend those three “missed” days of post-rehab alcohol education. Or, perhaps the arrest warrant was due to her weekend road trip to Las Vegas, where she partied with aforementioned girlfriend at swanky nightclub. Apparently, after two 2007 DUI’s, her driving privileges are restricted and she can only commute to and from WORK. So, what in the heck was she doing seeking refuge at Jack Nicholson’s house???

More from the L.A. Times:

Despite a $50,000 warrant for her arrest and the cops being called to her house last weekend for a domestic disturbance, Lindsay Lohan was not in court today. Lohan’s attorney Shawn Chapman Holley was there on behalf of her client.

And everything’s OK. Much ado about nothing, reports TMZ. The LiLo arrest warrant has been recalled!

According to TMZ, the alcohol ed program director told them that Lohan missed three days of class in 21 days. But Lohan’s attorney apparently showed proof of compliance.

OK, so why did Lohan seek sanctuary at Jack Nicholson’s home over the weekend? If ever there was a bad place for an unbalanced, possibly inebriated and dramatic young girl to seek sanctuary, it’s gotta be at Jack’s shack.

Watch the video of her at Nicholson’s gate here.

“What the hell is going on out there?” a sleepy-sounding Nicholson asks. “What do you want me to do, honey?”

He opens the gate, almost crushing the paps shooting her.

That history-making Barack Obama is at it again with another historic “first.” As if becoming the first African-American president in U.S. history wasn’t enough, he will become the first sitting president—drum roll please—to appear on a late-night talk show. President Obama will hit the couch with Jay Leno on this Thursday’s “The Tonight Show,” presumably to discuss his economic recovery plan.

More from Huffington Post, New York Times Caucus Blog and… 

An interesting bit from the L.A. Times:

By taking a seat Thursday night on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Obama will become the first sitting president to appear in such an unlikely venue, erasing—perhaps once and for all—any vestige of the line that separates news from entertainment.

It will also extend Obama’s habit of speaking past the Washington press corps and ditching the capital for events that distance him from the Beltway status quo; for those keeping accounts, Obama may be sending a signal by going on the “Tonight Show” and then skipping Saturday night’s Gridiron Club dinner.

The evening of music and comedy hosted by an exclusive Washington journalists’ organization is a white-tie highlight of the capital’s social season. But Obama plans to spend the evening with his family, becoming the first president since Grover Cleveland not to show up for the first Gridiron dinner of his presidency.

“He’s kind of setting a tone that he’s not going to be restrained by the rules,” said Michael Dimock, associate director of Washington’s nonpartisan Pew Research Center

Sopranos creator David Chase will write and produce a new HBO miniseries about the creation of Hollywood. The series, titled “A Ribbon of Dreams” comes from the Orson Welles metaphor, “A film is a ribbon of dreams.” The story focuses on two men from different backgrounds who rise through the ranks of the incipient film industry, encountering a slew of Hollywood legends along the way.

The question is, will the Italian-mafia expert tell the story of the Jews who invented Hollywood?

None of the early reports on the show indicate Chase’s intentions with the project, other than establishing its basic plot. It is said that the two fictional leads will encounter D.W. Griffith, John Ford, Bette Davis and Billy Wilder (yes, a Jew). But other than that, word is mum.

From the New York Times ArtsBeat: 

Having previously struck gold for HBO with his mobster series “The Sopranos,” the writer and producer David Chase is returning to the cable channel with a new mini-series about men who swear relentlessly and resort to ruthless tactics to get ahead, only this time, it’s set in Hollywood. In a release, HBO said that Mr. Chase’s mini-series would be called “A Ribbon of Dreams” (taken from Orson Welles’s famous metaphor for film) and would follow two characters through the birth and development of the American motion picture industry. The two protagonists, a mechanical engineer and a cowboy, will begin working for D.W. Griffith, and encounter the likes of John Wayne, Bette Davis and Billy Wilder as they rise through the business. No casting or premiere date was announced.

Looking briefly at this, the “news” seems to be that Rubin admitted to what the government charged (and Krugel admitted), i.e, they planned to blow up the mosque and Issa’s office. I think few people, other than Irv’s wife, thought otherwise.

What’s more intriguing to me, if the FBI papers are genuine, is that Rubin might have had a change of heart toward Arabs/Palestinians

The Enterprise Report has the story:

“Never-before-seen FBI documents obtained by The Enterprise Report reveal Jewish Defense League Chairman Irv Rubin, while jailed on federal terrorism charges in 2002, claimed he admitted his role in a plot to bomb a mosque and the office of a Congressman just before Rubin slit his throat and jumped from a 20-foot-high railing.

Rubin later died from his injuries.

“I am a bad Jew,” Rubin allegedly told a fellow inmate, who also told FBI agents Rubin had befriended two Palestinian prisoners in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Downtown Los Angeles and had begun to reconsider his lifelong anger towards Arabs.

“Rubin told (name deleted) that what he did hurt the Jewish people and the Jewish cause,” one inmate said.”  more from The Enterprise Report .

The concerns about Avigdor Lieberman becoming Israel’s next Foreign Minister remind me of a Jewish telegram: “Start worrying. Details to follow.”

Indeed, in an era when Israel’s image is not so shiny, the idea of someone who seems like a bully, who lives in a settlement and who uses strong language to express his radical views is not ideal.

But, looking carefully at his recent statements to the Washington Post and New York’s Jewish Weekly, Lieberman seems less scary on peace. Like other right-wingers before him — Sharon, Olmert and Livni, to name a few — he realises a Palestinian state is a fait accompli. He even hinted at giving up his home settlement for real peace.

It is his views about the Israeli Arabs, not his stand on the peace process, which should worry us. Six decades of conflict have put the Arab residents of Israel — 20 per cent of the state’s population — in a situation where, according to a painful saying, “my country is at war with my people”. If we were smart, we would have made them the happiest people in Israel, fully integrated and equal, thus turning them into our perfect ambassadors, conveying the message to other Arabs: “See what you get when you live in peace with the Jews”. Instead we have treated them unfairly and are surprised they are bitter.

Then along comes Lieberman with his past suggestions of a land swap and more recent calls for Israeli Arabs’ citizenship to be conditional on an oath of loyalty.

In such a complex situation, where national sentiments, cultural differences, social grievances, prejudice and fear create an explosive mix, the last thing we need is a bull in a china shop. And we Jews, of all people, with our history of being a persecuted minority, should be more sensitive than anybody else.

The good news is that he will not last long in his new job. Either police investigations about his money deals will force him to resign; or, most likely, a fight with Netanyahu. These two strange bedfellows can’t stand or trust each other. Until it happens, however, we’re in for some interesting times.