October 1, 2009

Turns out, Adam Lambert is even more of a nice-Jewish-boy than we thought. The up-and-coming rock star and ‘American Idol’ sensation is using his newfound fame for a cause.

Through DonorsChoose.org, an online charity site representing public schools in need, Lambert has raised over $232,000 for education. According to the site, his efforts will reach more than 90,000 students and the nearly 2,000 donors have come from Lambert fan sites all over the web.

The project is yet another reason to love Lambert, who, despite his fast rise hasn’t forgotten his roots. And even though many celebrities attach themselves to charities to demonstrate public goodwill, by the tone of the video below, Lambert seems as genuinely invested in this project as he is in black nailpolish and eyeliner. Can we say ‘mensch’?

Here he thanks his fans for donating their dimes:

Is Mark Lloyd the new Van Jones?  Jones was Barack Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar” who was forced out after, among other things, it was revealed that he was a “truther.”  Turns out, he’d signed a petition which alleged that the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Well, there’s yet another wacko in the Obama administration.  Mark Lloyd is President Obama’s “Diversity Czar” at the Federal Communications Commission, a fellow who has decidedly questionable views.

This gentleman has spoken about having white media executives step down out of deference to minorities; called what’s going on inside of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela “” title=”2007 study”> 2007 study for the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress which examined what they called the “structural imbalance of talk radio.”  In media interviews, Lloyd has whined incessantly about how 91 percent of talk radio is controlled by conservatives.  But so what?

As a former radio talk show host, I knew that my show would live or die based only on ratings. It was the marketplace of ideas that would determine my fate.  Lloyd seems to have little understanding of this.

The liberal answer to conservative talk radio, Air America, was launched in 2004.  By 2006 it was bankrupt. Why? Listeners quickly labeled it boring and humor-less.  Now re-named Air America media, and with new owners, listeners still find the station boring and humorless and it struggles to attract listeners. 

Will Obama’s Diversity Czar follow Van Jones into oblivion?  Only time will tell.  Stay tuned.

Traveling with a lulav and etrog could cause some airport security headaches.

While the palm branch spine and citron fruit used for ritual purposes on Sukkot aren’t technically on the Transportation Security Administration’s prohibited items list, both the agricultural nature of the items, and the Lulav’s sword-like shape, have been known to raise some security eyebrows.

This year, as in the past few years, TSA, working with the ” title=”the alert reads”>the alert reads.

The Sukkot travel period this year is begins Sept. 30 and ends Oct. 13.

When Hollywood’s biggest stars rushed to the defense of Tel Aviv after a boycott at the Toronto International Film Festival, it felt sweetly vindicating. But I can’t claim the same tinge of pride watching Hollywood lobby on behalf of Roman Polanski—an admitted child rapist.

In a refreshing bit of perspective, Keli Goff explains on the Huffington Post why situations like these alienate conservative-minded middle America from the so-called “Hollywood liberal elite.” Of course, she straight up blames “Weinstein and Polanski”—as in Harvey Weinstein of The Weinstein Company, who initiated a free-Polanski petition which was then signed by hotshot directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, and, Polanski himself, for fleeing from justice more than thirty years ago.

Goff writes:

I used to think that when conservatives denounced the so-called “Hollywood liberal elite” as being essentially amoral and out of touch with real Americans, they were being a bit harsh. And when Sarah Palin implied that middle America was somehow more sensibly American than those of us sin-lovin’-anti-religion-anti-America-fancypants-big city folk—I genuinely wondered what gave her (and some of my extended family in Middle America who appear to agree with her) such an idea.

Thanks to Harvey Weinstein and Co., now I know.

While our country is engulfed in two wars, struggling to climb back after falling off of an economic cliff last year and trying to find a way to provide health care for nearly fifty million uninsured Americans, I am glad to see that some of Hollywood’s elite, (including Mr. Weinstein and Woody Allen, among others) have found a truly important cause worth fighting for: defending an alleged pedophile.

She has a point. Admittedly, this is probably not the best use of Weinstein’s time, as Goff deftly points out: “Shouldn’t Mr. Weinstein be more focused on saving his troubled studio than saving an aging fugitive?”

But even if you can’t agree with Weinstein’s support of a pedophile, you have to admire his blind loyalty—especially in a business where bonds are easily broken for opportunity. The sense of tribal allegiance to Polanski by much of Hollywood’s boys’ club is actually quite admirable—nevermind their sexual mores, the important thing is that they share them.

“My first thoughts upon learning that Mr. Weinstein was circulating a petition on behalf of Mr. Polanski were: Finally! Hollywood finds a cause the average American can get behind,” Goff writes and then adds, “When Woody Allen is coming to your defense in a case involving alleged sex with a teenager…well, that’s a punchline that writes itself.”

Read more of Goff’s article at The Huffington Post

Read more on Roman Polanski’s arrest

and criminal denial on Hollywood Jew