Rosie O'Donnell is off "The View"

After her heated exchange with a co-host, Rosie is off the show. I know a lot of people for some reason hate Rosie O'Donnell. They say she's opinionated, crass and loud... and she is. So's Donald Trump and I don't see him engendering so much enmity- and he's as loud a liberal. What he is not is a woman. A gay woman at that.

Here's to you, Rosie: keep shooting from the hip!

Image from Sons and Daughters in Touch, a worthy group that care for the headstones of fallen soldiers for people who live too far from those graves to do so themselves

Memorial Day

As we are all enjoying our long holiday I think that we should think for a moment about our soldiers presently serving in harms way. No matter what we feel about the situation in Iraq, I think we can all agree to say a silent prayer (or just send golden beams of light if you're an athiest) that these men and women return safe... and soon.

I've just come back from a screening of an important new documentary on Darfur, The Devil Came on Horseback. It's a fascinating and informative film about a subject that I believe most people don't know a lot about: the genocide in the Sudan. Told through the eyes, story and most importantly photographs taken by young ex-Marine Brian Steidle while he spent six months as a military observer for the Afircan Union without being overtly politically slanted towards the right or left, it does ask what it will take for all of us to stop the ongoing horrors being perpetrated by the Sudanese govenment against the black African Sudanese in Darfur.

Check your elected leaders' record on Darfur

450,000 are dead
2.5-3 billion have been displaced

To put that into perspective for you, that is around the population of New Orleans Dead and3/4th of the state of Louisiana (or the population of Chicago) displaced. Think about that for a minute.

Oh, and it's still goin on...

Common Courtesy and the TV Commercial

There is a Liberty Mutual commercial that features people performing random acts of kindness, like pulling someone back from dashing out into traffic or allowing someone to take a parking space. Of course, doing these things one would hope be second nature and perhaps that is the point of the commercial. The question is, why isn't it? Have we become, as a nation, so self centered that simple good manners and common courtesy is as rare as jade? I'd like to think not- even if reality TV aspires to convince us that if Chivalry is not dead, it's barely hanging on...

What is it about his country?

I just saw another ad for that worthy ABC show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" for the next episode where they swoop in and build a large house with a sub-zero and a sun porch and a plasma TV for one lucky family touched by tragedy. All I could think of was, is this where we're at? The gulf coast is still in ruins, a Kansas town is leveled (and our President waits 5 days until visiting, because dinner with the Queen takes four days of prep, apparently) and this is the end result: if you are lucky or telegenic, Ty Pennington will drop in to build you a new house. The National Guard is off in Iraq, whose government is taking a two months vacation while letting us run their war and sacrifice out children to the great god Oil. What realy strikes me is that these are "Red States" and this is the treatment they get. I can only imagine how long it will take for help to get here when the big one hits.

Note to Ty: I photograph decently and have a really photogenic godchlld.

And a desire for a Viking range.

Paris Hilton is going to jail

Alex, I'll take schadenfreude for a hundred..