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The curtain has been pulled back and the BRCA gene is out of the closet as are quite a few women who are now revealing they’ve also had the same life-saving double mastectomy as Angelina Jolie.
I now join the sisterhood she created with her bold editorial in the NY Times; I had my double mastectomy just four weeks ago.
Disclosure of something as personal as having had both breasts removed is quite a daunting decision for many reasons, least of which is fear of being seen as “less of a woman,” as even a world-class sex siren felt obligated to note. Read the rest of this entry »
PATERNO ISN’T THE ONLY ONE WHO FAILED TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN
UPDATE July 24, 2012: The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s $60 million penalty for Penn State’s football program has underscored the severity of the crimes committed by Jerry Sandusky, the assistant coach found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse of minors.
In addition, the NCAA officially stripped legendary coach Joe Paterno of his victories over the past decade, denouncing his role in a system-wide cover-up of the sex crimes which including including a rape of one boy in the team shower that was reported directly to him by an eyewitness.
I’m with NCAA executive chairman and Oregon State President Ed Ray who said yesterday, “The fundamental story of this horrific chapter should focus on the innocent children and the powerful people who let them down.”
Joe Paterno’s bronze statue was removed the day before the NCAA stripped him of his victory record.
Joe Paterno isn’t the only one who failed to protect the children, so let’s not stop our public repudiation with the one guy who’s already dead. Yes the president of Penn State was pressured to resign as was the chairman of Penn State’s Board of Trustees, but it shouldn’t stop there.
It is now time to hold accountable Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett who was attorney general during at least six of the 15 years Sandusky was molesting children and, as governor, was automatically given a seat on the Penn State Board of Trustees.
BRINGING NEW MEANING TO “AT-RISK YOUTH”
Public records show that Tom Corbett, during his campaigns for attorney general and governor, received $647,481.21 in political donations from present and former board members of The Second Mile, the non-profit charity for at-risk youth founded and run by Jerry Sandusky.
What’s more, despite personal knowledge of the Sandusky child molestation investigations, Gov. Corbett approved a $3 million state grant to The Second Mile. The grant has been put on hold, but Gov. Corbett should now address possible conflicts of interest, influence peddling and, at best, his failure to lead.
Matt? Savannah? GMA? NBC Execs? You won’t believe who did what in this summer network mystery special!
When high crimes are committed against network news careers you can be sure of one thing: finger prints are never left behind. Given the challenge, this kind of unsolved mystery needs a top television sleuth, someone willing to follow the trail while the blood is still fresh and revisionist publicists have yet to spin the story into infinity.
Preferably, the best choice to solve the high-profile case of the sudden disappearance of Ann Curry should have experience in the crime beat of morning news. So, for the greater good (of the blogosphere at least) I must volunteer myself, a long-time morning show executive and, just like NBC’s Detective Olivia Benson, a crime fighter whose skills have been sharpened by once having suffered a personal assault as well.
THE TALE OF THE TAPE
Curry Cringe w/Matt v. Teddy Bear Hug w/Al
And so we begin, first examining the suspects who were last seen with the victim, sitting on that couch as she tearfully said goodbye to her beloved audience. Natalie? No, she’s not All About Eve. Al? No, he doesn’t even qualify as a red herring although he likes to eat them. Matt? Now we might want to put Matt in a line up at least and not because he’s just re-signed a ridiculous new contract, one we can fairly assume was designed to make all his dreams come true. No, we just need to look at the victim’s body language and Matt’s not off the hook quite yet. Read the rest of this entry »
AMAZING NEW POLE CAM VIDEO**** : NIK WALLENDA'S "LIFE ON A WIRE"
Nik Wallenda and his 58-year-old mother, Delilah, on 10-story high wire in San Juan, Puerto Rico on June 4, 2011. Photo by Shelley Ross
I just witnessed the most extraordinary event: not just for its daredevil -"ishness" or athletic feat of balancing on a wire strung between two hotels ten stories above the ground in the light wind and rain.
For all fans of the ABC Megastunt broadcast, here's another inside look at Nik Wallenda's "life on a wire."
Michelle Obama: "I really like this job." Gayle King thought bubble: "So do I."
If an interview with the First Lady is, indeed, a litmus test for the strength of a new morning show anchor, Gayle King has lit up the internet. Based on the first two inaugural days of the new CBS The Morning, void of any real news, who knew the woman previously known as the BFF of O would nail the first real news-making interview of the week.
Wow.
To start, there was something smart and intimate about conducting the interview in the First Lady’s office, away from the West Wing and the grandure of the White House public rooms.
Michelle Obama’s office , which I don’t remember seeing on television before, felt a bit more cramped than expected, sending a subliminal message of the humility she was trying to express as she and King addressed some of the more sensational content of the new Jody Kantor book about the Obamas.
It wasn’t just the interview questions that made this interview particularly engaging. King’s unique poise, warmth and, yes, star power ensured this viewer was glued to the set for part two. Read the rest of this entry »
Words: the new Snakes -- on a Plane?
My name is Shelley and I have been clean, sober and without a word game for 12 hours, the longest I have gone since downloading Scrabble a couple of years ago, and more recently Words With Friends. I know Alec Baldwin’s pain.
I am not here to criticize him, but to express my compassion and solidarity after he was tossed off an American Airlines flight earlier this week while playing Words after the flight attendant told him to “power down” his iPhone.
First, a confession: this column was delayed while I first played a quick round of Words with about 12 friends. Then I began a search to find the provable effects of word games on the brain. Having written three editions of a neurology book with a new cutting edge medical book on the way, I usually navigate data bases of information with ease. This, however, provided a different challenge.
How many points for O-V-E-R-R-E-A-C-T-I-O-N?
After two days of searching for the truth, I have come to the conclusion that there is no current scientific basis to support the premise that online word games are addicting. Hey, call me just another word junkie, but I don’t believe the available science. Someone needs to give me, and Alec Baldwin an MRI and we’ll show you. Come on, the man took his treasured iPhone into a gross airplane lavatory where most of us contort our bodies to make sure we don’t have to touch anything in there. Yes, a junkie will take a fix anywhere he can get it.
What’s more, there is no science to support the so-called online “brain-training” games that now make up a billion-dollar industry make you smarter, mentally clearer or more creative. Hey, I was certain it must have. Read the rest of this entry »
In NBC
Oh, the joy to watch a brilliant news interview, the work of a master such as Bob Costas who, like a knight out of our journalism story books, charged onto NBC’s new high-tech set Monday night and delivered a low tech tour de force…. phoner!
As happens in all high art forms, Costas made this incredibly challenging interview seem effortless.
Getting a newsmaker in the chair (or on the phone as it turned out) is only half the battle. Getting a person in the middle of a media frenzy to really talk is the other, especially when that frenzy is over a pedophile sex scandal and football.
Eric Wemple, the Washington Post’s news media op-ed editor, said it best:
“The tone put this interview into a special category. Over nearly ten minutes Costas managed to be: prepared without being formulaic or rigid, polite without being nice, and skeptical without being prosecutorial.”
The transcript of the Sandusky interview cannot possibly reveal the mine field through which Costas was walking. One wrong step, I kept thinking, and Sandusky can just cut off the questions, put down the phone as in, “Uh, thanks for your interest, Bob, but gotta go now, it’s been a long day.”
Instead, Costa was getting Jerry Sandusky to open up and say (with a disturbingly flat affect), “I shouldn’t have showered with those kids.”
It reminded me of Michael Jackson admitting he slept in the same bed with a 13-year-old for 30 consecutive days in the boy’s mother’s house, but that he and the child (his first accuser) only watched scary movies together.
Pedophiles are very crafty, but if you can keep them talking you can learn a lot. Masters of manipulation, they often believe the “winning ways” which work on 10 year olds will also fool grown-ups. It rarely does. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: Now that Jerry Sandusky has been found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse of minors, it’s time to examine how he got away with hurting so many children for so long: who knew what and when did they know it? To that end, I begin with reposting my November blog on Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett who was that state’s attorney general during at least six of the 15 years Sandusky was molesting children. To date, Corbett has refused to address why the Sandusky case stalled under his watch citing “grand jury restrictions.” Will he now step forward to explain how and why this investigation got derailed on his watch, then help assure the people of his state that future serial child molesters will be stopped much earlier than Jerry Sandusky?
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has launched one of the most effective cover-your-ass campaigns in memory, in public everywhere weighing in as a moral compass on everything from the firing of Joe Paterno (“It was the right thing to do”) to the question of whether or not to fire the graduate assistant coach who reported seeing Jerry Sandusky rape a 10-year-old but did nothing to intervene (he failed “to meet the higher moral obligation.”)
Sadly, it appears the man who became Pennsylvania’s governor in 2011 failed to meet a higher moral obligation as well. For at least six of the 15 years Jerry Sandusky is alleged to have molested children, Tom Corbett was Pennsylvania’s attorney general, the top law enforcer in the state. The case began, then stalled on his watch.
Corbett as Attorney General used his grand jury’ subpoena power to go after his political rivals on Twitter
Corbett’s priorities towards the end of his AG tenure now seem more curious: he used the grand jury not to finally close in on Sandusky, but to launch a criminal investigation against two anonymous political critics and to subpoena Twitter to reveal their identities.
Gov. Corbett has spent much of his time since the Penn State scandal erupted dodging personal questions by saying he isn’t allowed to talk about the case because of grand jury restrictions.
Although various Sandusky molestation reports had been kicking around for years, the case officially landed on Corbett’s desk in 2009. According to the New York Times, officials at Clinton County high school had reported charges to the local district attorney that Mr. Sandusky had molested a boy there, but, citing a conflict of interest, the prosecutor passed it on to the attorney general’s office to investigate.
Corbett did convene a grand jury back in 2009 which begs the question: why didn’t he bring an indictment?
It’s hard to say. No one has pressed him for an answer.
Instead, reporters have accepted surrogate impressions. The New York Times, for one, quoted Kevin Harley who worked with Corbett during his years as Attorney General is now the Governor’s press secretary: ”He knew what witnesses were going to the grand jury even though he was running for governor. So then he became governor, and he knew at some point that this day would be coming. He just didn’t know when it would be.”
Was running for governor too much of a distraction to bring even the most difficult of grand jury cases forward after more than a year?
David Gregory began his interview with Gov. Corbett with this extraordinary puppy pass:
MR. DAVID GREGORY: Governor Corbett, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
GOV. TOM CORBETT (R-PA): Thank you, David.
MR. GREGORY: I know you’re limited, because you were attorney general, in speaking about the criminal investigation, but I have to ask you more broadly, are there more victims that we don’t know about?
GOV. CORBETT: I don’t know the answer to that, David. When you conduct investigations like this–and in my career, I have conducted investigations like this–the more that you can get public about what has happened, the more that you can demonstrate that law enforcement and authorities are going to assist the victims of these types of crimes, it is not uncommon to see more victims come forward.
Gregory did begin to probe how Jerry Sandusky slipped through the cracks for so many years, but bizarrely asked a nine-part complex question:
MR. GREGORY: I just have to ask you as a trustee, as the governor of the state, as the former attorney general of the state, how did this happen? I mean, was this, was this a culture of indifference? A culture of cover-up? Did it extend throughout the university? Go beyond the university to the police, to the D.A.? Where?
Gregory’s failure to as a direct question regarding Corbett’s tenure as attorney general allowed the Governor to dodge the issue completely.
GOV. CORBETT: I always wait for the results of an investigation before I issue any opinions.
Why did so many reporters give the governor such softballs when there are so many pointed questions that would have skirted any legal restrictions in the case. Here are just a few:
- What percentage of the resources of your office did you dedicate to the Sandusky investigation?
- When did the grand jury looking into Sandusky begin, end?
- How many grand juries did you convene in your last two years as attorney general?
- How many resulted in criminal indictments?
- What was your pedophile prosecution record during your tenure as AG?
- When did you first read the 100-page investigation of Jerry Sandusky produced by university police?
- What actions did you instruct your office to take based on that report?
- Once you began your campaign for governor, how often did you meet with your prosecutors to discuss the road to an indictment of Jerry Sandusky?
- Did your criminal investigation that involved the Twitter subpoena result in an indictment?
- When was your last official conversation about the Sandusky case and what was discussed?
- Had you decided not to bring an indictment against Jerry Sandusky?
- What, if any, was your “pass down” advice (on the Sandusky case) to the attorney general who succeeded you.
As attorney general, Tom Corbett did create a team to go after pedophiles and other assorted child abusers, although he has more often spoken publicly about a disturbing case he successfully prosecuted as a young district attorney where a pedophile used a Christian charity to recruit his victims.
Maybe Corbett did more or tried harder than it appears. In the scheme of things, he’s probably not any more of the devil than those who did “just barely enough” under legal obligations. He’s also not any less of an ostrich — or a coward in his failure to now say what he could have done, what he should have done and what laws must be changed tomorrow.
After we ask the right questions of our elected officials, perhaps we can find out what Dottie Sandusky knew and when she knew it.
Gloria Cain Breaks Her Silence to Greta Van Susteren tonight at 10 on Fox News
Poor Gloria Cain. I’m afraid Herman Cain’s wife of 43 years is about to suffer some of the indignities experienced by the women who have accused him of egregious groping and abuse of power.
There will be many who won’t believe Gloria Cain’s words, many who think she’s only speaking out for her big payday in the end.
With his poll numbers dropping ever since multiple women have accused him of sexual harassment, candidate Cain has now brought his wife to Greta.
And so, the political wife who has stayed in the background now breaks her silence.
“You hear the graphic allegations and we know that would have been something that’s totally disrespectful of her as a woman,” she says. “And I know the type of person he is. He totally respects women.”
“I’m thinking he would have to have a split personality to do the things that were said,” she says.
Is Gloria Cain a shrewd political wife? Or is she like so many others who never see any wrongdoing either because a) they’re too trusting or b) they are married to a charmer who wears a “mask” at home or c) all of the above. Read the rest of this entry »
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CBS: Putting the (S)Neeews Back in the Morning
January 10, 2012 in broadcast news | Tags: "Where's the Flu?, CBS News, CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose, Erica Hill, Facebook fan page, Gayle King, Health Watch, Julianna Margulies Dr. Holly Phillips, Matt Lauer, Melissa Etheridge, Michelle Obama interview, Mitt Romney, morning television, Newt Gingrich, The View, Today Show, viewers comments | by Shelley Ross dailyXpress | 5 comments
As a former Senior Executive Producer of a past CBS News morning show incarnation, I write this headline with a more generous heart than may appear; I always root for news shows to thrive and hope headlines like this just might help trigger a surge of competitive juice that pumps ferociously to prove the observer wrong.
The new morning team at CBS News.
While television critics have been kind about the launch of CBS This Morning — at least respectful of anchors Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Erica Hill — the morning show’s new Facebook Fan Page is overwhelmed by vitriol from viewers, real viewers who put their name and photos to their comments, some with whom I actually agree. Read the rest of this entry »