Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

Nothing quite says “I love you” like a Sunday night wedding at a Las Vegas chapel where the guests can’t keep themselves from laughing.  It was a week ago that Shayne Lamas, winner of the 12th season of The Bachelor, and Nik Richie, master of the misogynist website “The Dirty”, exchanged vows at the Little White Wedding Chapel.  Although they had known each other for less time than it takes milk to curdle, Shayne wore white and was all giddy, repeating “I’m a bride, I’m a bride,” for the cameras.  Ever the gentleman, Nik (real name: Hooman Karamian) did buy a $130,000 5-carat diamond engagement ring for his slow-witted spouse.  In this case, however, the engagement ring came after the wedding.  That can happen when you marry someone you’ve known for either one day or one week, depending on who you ask.

Makin' Her Papa Proud.

Shayne Lamas was first known as the spawn of the long-haired, wife-beater-wearing former sex symbol Lorenzo Lamas.  He was known for being an 80s icon, appearing on Falcon Crest and then starring in his own show, Renegade, in which he played a fugitive who managed to avoid getting caught while he “roamed the badlands” on a loud, flame-painted Harley and worked as a bounty hunter for a Native American fella with the rockin’est mullet EVER and a taste for pimp-style suits.  So that’s one half of her heritage. 

Then Shayne became a contestant on season 12 of The Bachelor, the one in London, where women competed for the love of a desperate British man.  In the end, Matt Grant chose Shayne to be his future wife.  They were interviewed shortly after the finale aired.  Shayne appeared to be blissfully in love with her engagement ring.  The couple split up a few months later.  Was it the distance?  After all, she lives in LA and he in London.  Was it a difference in values?  Or maybe Matt finally saw a rerun of Renegade and considered the cheese factor in the gene pool.

But it was none of those things.  The real issue became abundantly clear when E! began airing Leave It to Lamas, a reality TV show a la Keeping Up with the Kardashians, only with—believe it or not—more complaining.  Leave It to Lamas capitalizes on the still-famous surname, although Lorenzo himself does not appear in every episode.  Shayne does, though.  As does her brother AJ, who has some difficulties living up to the tremendous legacy of his father, who was trying in one episode to pass out autographed photos of himself by saying his own name and mentioning the show Renegade.  And then there’s Shayne’s mother, Michele Smith, who appears to be intoxicated every time she’s on camera.  The true star of the show is the incessant whining of young Shayne.  Even while wearing stripper heels and drag queen-style makeup, she speaks in the voice of a very dissatisfied 5 year-old.  Perhaps the voice is a nod to the Kardashian girls and Paris Hilton, who also speak like children.

But what would make a girl run off to Vegas with some guy that she knows her family will hate?  What would cause a daddy’s girl like little Shayne to marry a man whose life’s work is to make fun of women?  Well, I’m no psychologist or anything, but could it have to do with the recent announcement that 52 year-old Lorenzo is marrying someone 2 years younger than his daughter after a lengthy 3-month courtship?

Shayne Dahl Lamas married Hooman Karamian in a charming Vegas wedding chapel.  I wonder if she knows his real name.

Tonight begins a new television series for Alyssa Milano.  The good thing for her is that she has a job again.  The bad thing is that she might be remembered for this instead of Who’s The Boss?  Yes, yes, she had that stint on Charmed, but no one really talks about it and fewer watched.  The only reason to tune in was the possibility of seeing Shannen Doherty have a meltdown.  Right now, Milano is still considered wildly sexy to men of a certain age: the ones who grew up watching her on Who’s The Boss? and fell in love with her teased hair, pegged acid-wash jeans, and Brooklyn accent.  And now, she’s throwing all of that away on an already-critically-panned sitcom called Romantically Challenged.  She says that she uses her years of dating experience to help her get into character.

Risking the whole "sex goddess" thing.

Of course, she’s not dating anymore in real life.  30-something men and Major League pitchers mourned when Milano accepted an engagement ring from Daniel Bugliari in January 2009.  They’re married now.  But her social life was much talked about, especially among baseball fans.  She was our own real-life Baseball Annie, with a taste for pitchers.  She dated Barry Zito, Carl Pavano, and Brad Penny.  In her book “Safe at Home: Confessions of a baseball fanatic”, she says that she had sworn off ballplayers until Brad Penny said “Let’s go down to the clubhouse”.  That’s supposed to be some kind of justification, or vindication, or something.  Why couldn’t she just admit that some of us can’t help chasing the tall guys with the bubble-butts? 

But I digress.

On her new show, Milano plays a recently-divorced mother of a 16 year-old girl.  This is like kryptonite to the libidos of the men who are still in love with the 1980s, vintage Alyssa.  But she is determined to have another go at sitcom fame.  She has a younger sister on the show who thinks that promiscuity is the way to go.  Then there are two male friends in the mix.  It’s your basic sitcom platform with different actors thrown in.  And it runs a high risk of turning the men who are still melting all over at the sight of her into guys who think of her as another married chick in her 30s. 

Remember when she played Amy Fisher in one of the three made-for-TV movies about that whole “Long Island Lolita” thing?  That one didn’t disrupt Milano’s reign as Italian-American Sex Goddess because she was wearing the same clothes as she did as Samantha Micelli, and even in the same size despite her growth.  But this is dangerous, this new role.  Playing a divorced mother of a teenager will forever change the way her fans view her.

But then, she’s always got her Dodgers.  And Giants.  And Marlins.  And Yankees.

Well, Reggie Bush has been seen lately with Paris Hilton, who is said to have broken up with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt.  For an ex to date again is one thing.  For an ex to hook up with a walking petri dish is another thing altogether.  Kim Kardashian, after years with Reggie Bush, did not receive the expected engagement ring after his Superbowl victory.  Instead, they broke up.  Again.  And it was likely that they would end up back together, because they complemented each other so well.  Reggie didn’t even seem to mind that all of the Kardashian women have the voices of 5 year-old girls.  Then he met Paris Hilton.  Next to Hilton, the Kardashian girls sound like Barry White. 

Why wouldn't Reggie feel threatened by this testament to masculinity?

And Kimmie met Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo.   He has dated Paris Hilton, but really, who hasn’t?  Probably not realizing that there are two different types of football—American football and the kind the rest of the world plays—she found her way to make Reggie jealous.  Apparently they met in Miami, where they were seen kissing and laughing.  Their shared mastery of the English language was probably a bonding point.  That, and their love for shopping, tight t-shirts, and short shorts.

Several different media outlets reported that Kim attended one of Ronaldo’s recent games after flying to Spain to spend some quality time with him.  After the game, she hopped into a car that followed Ronaldo back to his home, where she was seen leaving after about four hours.  That’s plenty of time to watch Spartacus and eat raw cookie dough.  She left for her hotel (no overnight generally means one of two things.  Anyone care to venture a guess?) and flew back to the States the next day to do some kind of photo shoot with her sisters.

Both Kardashian and Ronaldo (that name really should belong to the Brazilian Ronaldo) are very busy with their various occupations, with Kim posing nude for Harper’s Bazaar magazine and C.Ronaldo posing for in tiny underwear for Armani.  They really are a match made in heaven, with only a few things standing in their way.  There’s the complete “ick factor” created by any physical contact with Paris Hilton.  There’s the idea that Kim and Reggie Bush only split about 5 minutes before was seen dining and laughing with C. Ronaldo.  And there’s one other thing, too.  Ask his teammates.  Or check YouTube.

It completely makes sense that Kim and Cristiano would have a great time hanging out together.  They have a lot in common.  But as for making Reggie Bush jealous?  Well, that’s not so likely.

Let’s face it.  Normal people do not go on reality TV shows.  Normal people do not look for love in front of millions of viewers.  Normal people do not allow intimate moments to be captured on film—to be run in syndication ad infinitum—with the hope of finding a soul mate.  They do it for the fame.  Or the money.  Or both.  Let’s just ponder the idea of 25 women vying for the love of Flavor Flav.

Are you thinking about it?

So beautiful, it could be scripted...oh, wait...

So was it really a surprise to find out the latest winner of The Bachelor has a tainted past?  No one liked her or wanted her to win, but Vienna ended up getting the gigantic 2.02 carat Neil Lane diamond engagement ring (2.72 if you count the setting) from Jake Pavelka.  We already knew that she had “former Hooters waitress” on her resume.  When reports surfaced this week that she had been in a relationship with Central Florida’s most successful weed dealer, there was little shock.  But we all eat up a scandal, don’t we?  Evidently, Vienna dated Chase Alley, called a “drug kingpin” in some of the more melodramatic articles, and was with him until she left for the taping of The Bachelor.  The same articles claim that she was in contact with him throughout the process. 

When your boyfriend is arrested and charged with 50 counts of buying, selling, and possessing an outrageous amount of MaryJane, not to mention trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering, and could be in prison for up to 20 years, what’s a girl to do?

Reality TV is always the answer.  Now she’s got a big ol’ rock on her finger, courtesy of whatever network plays the show.  And she’s engaged and “madly in love”.  Jake has even said that they are “more in love than ever”, even as he takes his next step in the reality TV cycle: Dancing with the Stars.  But while he claims to be happy with Vienna (and her little dog, too!), he seems to be getting more than chummy with his partner on DWTS, Chelsie Hightower.  They act like teenagers together.  The giggling, the flirting, the taking-this-tango-really-seriously.  Jake says that they are just friends.

Yeah, just like the “friendly” $10,000 diamond ring former NFL player Chad Ochocinco gave to his DWTS partner, Cheryl Burke.  With friends like that, who needs a wife?

Something about reality television just breeds drama, drama, drama.  And, while it’s all trash, it is the trashiest of the trash that we love the most.  Flavor of Love set the bar pretty high, but then came I Love New York (in which one of Flav’s reject trannies has 20 or so men compete for her love), RuPaul’s Drag Race, and whatever Tool Academy is.  Not to let basic cable take away viewers, networks had to pick up the slack, and we are now at a point in the devolution of our society that people actually want to compete on something called The Biggest Loser. 

So maybe Vienna is a pot-smoking, two-timing, “can-I-bring-you-an-order-of-buffalo-wings-honey”, not very nice person.  She’s smart enough to know that if her boyfriend went to prison, and even if she didn’t find love on The Bachelor, there’s always the next season of The Bachelorette.  And Jake went onto a show with a long history of relationship failures to find Mrs. Right?  Now that he’s already onto his second reality show, we can pretty much count down to the time he appears on The Surreal Life.  It isn’t about looking for love.  It’s a career move.

We’ll be watching.

90s metal band Guns N’ Roses was forced to cancel a show in Costa Rica when the video screen they require was so heavy that it caused the stage to collapse.  That’s what happens when the stage is made of bamboo and straw.  Did anyone even realize that this band still existed?  I thought that fans scattered after waiting a decade or so for the album Chinese Democracy, which I think is out now.  Axl Rose is still out there, still performing under the name Guns N’ Roses, even though every other member we recognize is off doing something else.  He still feels, apparently, that even though he isn’t as trim as he was in the Welcome to the Jungle Days, and even though his hair is now red and—for some ungodly reason—corn-rowed—he can still draw a crowd.  So he brought his new band to Central and South America on their Chinese Democracy Tour, although the videos on the official GNR Facebook page seem to all be from the Slash/Duff McKagan/Steven Adler/Izzy Stradlin/and even Matt Sorum eras. 

There is the mid-life crisis, and then there is...corn rows.

Axl Rose has been in the middle of controversy since the first time he was accused of Diva-like behavior on the Welcome to the Jungle Tour.  He has managed to offend pretty much everyone, making enemies throughout the music business and in life in general.  He has either sued or been sued by just about every single person who ever touched his life, including controversy over the ownership of the name Guns N’ Roses.  In 1993, he sued his ex, model Stephanie Seymour, for “assault, battery, and the return of more than $100,000 worth of jewelry”, including a 4.5-carat diamond engagement ring.  Really.  Now his manager is suing him for $2.1 million in unpaid fees, per oral agreement between Axl and Front Line Management CEO Irving Azoff.

Azoff should have known better than to trust anything Axl Rose does orally.

On the upside, even though all talk of a reunion has been nixed by the temperamental singer, former bandmate and chief sparring partner Slash had nothing but good things to say about Chinese Democracy.  He referred to it as “the perfect Axl Record…he’s f***ing phenomenal”.  But, when asked about the possibility of the two talking about a reunion, the guitarist says, “I’m more standoffish because I know how vehemently he hates me.”  Well, that puts Slash in pretty good company, actually.  Axl Rose seems to hate almost everyone.  Slash and the other boys have kept themselves quite busy since the breakup of the original band, and none of them really need a reunion to keep themselves in Jack Daniels and Harleys.  It could happen, but Axl seems determined to make it work with his merry band of nobodies. 

So the tour rolls on, despite the stage collapse in Costa Rica and a little incident in Bogota, Colombia.  Axl and the band were performing Knockin on Heaven’s Door on March 30 when the frontman’s feet went out from under him and he fell down.  To everyone’s surprise, he did not throw a hissy fit and storm offstage.  He got up and kept singing.  He kinda has to, though.  Liposuction and Botox do not pay for themselves.

As for an original GnR reunion, it could happen.  But I’m guessing that former Metallica bassist/ ginger hottie Jason Newsted will not attend.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor—a woman we all love and respect—has accepted an engagement ring from 49 year-old Jason Winters, a talent manager whose clients include Janet Jackson.  This will be her 9th trip down the aisle, but the first one she’ll take in a wheelchair.  To be fair, two of those marriages were to the same man, Richard Burton, but this one will nonetheless tie her with Zsa Zsa Gabor for the most marriages for a celebrity.  As non-celebrities go, there is, apparently, a woman out there who has been married 23 times, but she’s not famous.  Taylor’s last marriage, to the mullet-maned construction worker Larry Fortensky, ended in 1996.

Liz Prepares for Luck Number 9

At age 78, Liz Taylor has gone beyond the existing terminology available for an older woman dating a younger man.  She is far from a Cougar, Leopard, Jaguar, and even beyond the over-55 accepted “Snow Leopard”.  But she doesn’t seem to care.  There appears to be genuine affection between the former actress and her fiancé.  At a certain point, it is probably more about companionship than anything else.  Like when there was that giant kerfuffle over Martha Raye marrying the much younger Mark Harris.  At age 75, Raye wasn’t looking for an acrobatic love life.  She wanted someone to be with her and make her laugh.

And now there are rumors that the Liz Taylor/Jason Winters union has even more in common with the Martha Raye/Mark Harris marriage.  Some sources have claimed that Winters is gay.  Mark Harris very clearly was.  He made Liberace look conservative.  If Winters is, it wouldn’t be a tremendous surprise or anything.  Liz Taylor has been a long-time defender of gay rights and fundraiser for AmfAR.  Liz Taylor practically IS AmfAR, holding the title of Founding National Chairman.  But whether or not Winters is batting for the other team, again, it really doesn’t matter.  Elizabeth Taylor has had numerous medical problems and Jason Winters has stayed by her side for years to keep her smiling.  She has said that he is “one of the most wonderful men I’ve ever known, that’s why I love him.”  If he’s swinging from the other side of the plate, that just means he’ll need less direction when she wants him to pick her up some new jewelry.  And Liz loves her diamonds.

At this point, with 8 previous weddings under her belt, Dame Liz is probably going to keep this one small.  Ever aware of how she looks, she has to know that it would be less dramatic to be pushed down the aisle.  Plus, after a while, don’t these things just kind of get old?  It’s not like she needs a big guest list in hopes of getting a new George Foreman Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Machine.  She’s Elizabeth Taylor.

Now when people say, “She’s been married more times that Elizabeth Taylor”, it’s an ever higher benchmark.  Gives us all something to aspire to.

Boston, MA –It was destined to be a big night for the Boston Red Sox last night.  First game of the season.  Opener at home against the Yankees.  Pedro Martinez back in a Sox uniform to throw out the first pitch.  And that was just the beginning.  The rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees is still a thing of legend, and to have that as the home opener in a town so violently pro-Sox and, specifically, anti-Yanks was poetry.  Red Sox fans don’t care that the Yankees won the World Series (again) last year.  For as long as there is beer to drink and Fenway Franks to eat, “Yankees Suck!” will be heard everywhere, from the most expensive box seats to the farthest reaches of the bleachers.

Steven Tyler brings his own heat to the Sox home opener.

Pedro was a surprise for the fans.  When he walked out for the ceremonial first pitch, the crowd went wild.  After signing with the New York Mets and playing a bit of last season with the Phillies, he is still beloved by Sox fans.  Once again, they chanted “Pe-dro!  Pe-dro!  Pe-dro” as he strolled onto the field, and he was as much a part of the team as he was when he actually played for them.  On March 10, Nomar Garciaparra—who had the most fun name to chant in a thick Boston accent (No-MAH!  No-MAH!  No-MAH!), and which I did even though I do not have a Boston accent naturally)—was signed to a one-day contract so he could retire with the Red Sox.

This is a team that inspires a bizarre, almost frightening loyalty and offers the only stadium in which the cheap seats are the most fun (Anothah bee-ah!  Who wants anothah bee-ah?).

Sox ownership pulled out all the stops for the home opener.  Steven Tyler sang “God Bless America” at the 7th-Inning Stretch.  Neil Diamond (yes, the real Neil Diamond) came out in the 8th to lead the fans in the traditional singing of “Sweet Caroline” (So good!  So good!  So good!), and Dr. Dre showed up to hawk his new Red Sox headphones which, according to him, are the best headphones ever, stating, “I guarantee, you won’t be mad at ‘em”.  Even Dre acknowledges the Power of Red Sox Nation.  Oh, yeah, and just in case you were wondering, the Red Sox beat the Yankees, 9-7. 

The Yankees will receive their 2009 World Series rings at their home opener on April 13.  Since their 2000 championship rings were each set with more than 3 carats of diamonds, we can imagine that these will be even more impressive. 

But that’s not what’s interesting about the Yankees this year.  Yes, they still have Derek Jeter (who did not give an engagement ring to Minka Kelly during the off-season) and Alex Rodriguez (dumped by Madonna after he dumped his wife for her) and Mark Teixeira and Jorge Posada.   They still have some impressive pitching with CC Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, AJ Burnett and Javier Vasquez.  Blah, blah, blah.  The big news in Tampa during Spring Training was some kid called Pat Venditte. 

When I say that Pat Venditte pitches from both sides of the mound, that isn’t a euphemism.  This is a kid who has a custom-made Mizuno glove with six fingers.  No, he isn’t a relative of the guy who killed Inigo Montoya’s father.  He has a six-fingered glove because he switches hands, depending on the batter.  He can pitch almost equally well with both hands, although he is aware that he doesn’t have overpowering stuff.  From the right, he throws harder and uses a curveball.  With his left hand, he is more likely to go with his slider.  On July 3, 2008, the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporations had to create a new set of rules regarding ambidextrous pitchers.  It hadn’t been an issue before that.  And because he can use both arms to throw, he can be used often, as he is less likely to tire out than pitchers who throw with the same hand all the time.  He’s going to be at Single-A Tampa to start this season, and, at 24, that’s a bit old.  But pitchers peak later than hitters, so we can still hope that he makes it to the big leagues, and we can watch a few of his games.  Sure, he’s more an oddity than a great pitcher, but oddities put rear ends in the seats.  He is also an oddity because he insisted on finishes college at Creighton, even after the Yankees offered to throw piles of money at him. 

The Red Sox and Yankees are still the greatest rivalry in all of baseball.  Maybe all of sports.  And, hands down, they are the most fun to watch.  Anothah Bee-ah, chief!

The most irritating couple on earth is feeling the earth crack beneath them.  They’re kinda used to that, though.  Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who managed to make reality TV even more of a train wreck, are having a little bit of trouble in their highly disturbing relationship.  A few weeks ago, it came out that Heidi was dumping Spencer as her manager.  This is big news, first of all because of the bizarre control he has over Heidi’s tiny little mind, and second, because of what a great job he was doing!  Did you see her performance at the Miss Universe Pageant?  He also got her the tasty gig they got to share for about 5 minutes on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.  Evidently, all of the silicone, collagen, and Botox has gone to her brain, because now, only one year after getting a suitably large diamond engagement ring and matching wedding ring from Spencer, she has thrown him under the bus in favor of the firm guidance of a psychic.   How very Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

Heidi acting, and inhaling more oxygen that could be put to better use.

Under the wise tutelage of Aiden Chase, Heidi has gotten herself a cameo role in an Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston film.  Upon showing up late to a cast photo shoot for The Hills—the show that made her more than just some random big-chinned, flat-chested girl from Colorado—she had in tow several bodyguards, insisting, “I’m a movie star now!”  If I were a betting person, I would imagine that, since she appears as herself in an Adam Sandler movie, she is probably the punchline of a larger joke.  But she’s also honing her screenwriting skills, having crafted a script herself in which she would, of course, star.  She is to play a lifeguard who saves a town from a shark attack by using her “3-D boobs”.  She said it, I didn’t.

After rumors flew that Heidi was moving out of the home that she shares with Spencer, and he announced that he was leaving The Hills to pursue ‘more important’ matters, the couple received the necessary amount of attention and the truth began to slowly emerge.  Heidi’s tearful admission to Lauren in the trailer for the final season of The Hills, when she says that she can’t believe she’s thinking of divorce only one year into her marriage, is another of her trademark staged events.  When Spencer “discovered a new passions and new purpose to my life”—working for American Defense Enterprises’ cyber-security division—that was code for ‘I threatened the life of a producer on my reality TV show and was given a mandatory six-week anger management course’.  He still tried to sound like the hero, of course, saying, “I’m saddened to take this break from filming MTV’s The Hills.  At this time, however, I feel I would not be honoring my country or myself if I were to continue this endeavor when I have the opportunity and the ability to assist our nation against…prevalent threats”.  He claims to have been inspired by Barack Obama’s speech in which he declared that “cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenged we face as a nation”.  Considering Spencer’s behavior, one might say that he is a threat to the nation.  He has certainly contributed to the ever-lowering intelligence of television viewers.

And it’s sorta funny how he gets so moved, so inspired, so motivated by a President that he wanted nothing to do with, as he and his estranged and strange wife openly campaigned for John McCain.  But hey, you have to do something while you’ve been kicked off the set of the show that made people give a rat’s behind whether you live or die.

Guess which way the votes are leaning, Spencer.

Now the couple is standing strong together, and have even taken (you can’t make this stuff up) “true Native American names” to get closer to their spiritual sides.  In case you’re curious, she’s White Wolf and he’s Running Bear.  Running Bear gave up his previously adopted name, “King Spencer” because (again, not making this up) he felt “too much of a burden to have to carry the weight of royalty”.

There are no words to describe him that don’t contain 4-letter words.

Now that the “burden of royalty” is off and Heidi has once again proclaimed her love for her completely insane husband, he and Heidi are to be forever known “…as the name out Creator has given us—our true Native American names”. 

That’ll look spiffy on the credits for this last season of The Hills, starring Lauren and Lo and Audrina and Justin Bobby and Brody and Kristen and…White Wolf and Running Bear as the clinically insane, totally delusional pair of freaks.

There's only one word for why this woman can't keep a man: NEEDY

When Jennifer Love Hewitt first became famous in teen movies as the All-American Girl Next Door, everyone thought she was a babe.  First, she was the Party of Five young babe.  Then she grew into the I Know What You Did Last Summer babe.  It is some slight perversion men have with her angelic baby face on the body of a porn star.  And the girlish voice to match.  She’s 31 now and still sounds like she’s 9.  But from her first famous boyfriend (Blossom’s Joey Lawrence, famous for playing dumb guys convincingly) on, J Love was looking to get married. 

When she and Jamie Kennedy started dating, it took about five minutes before everyone was asking when the couple would get engaged.  This caused a bit of panic in Kennedy, who seems to revel in being single.  After he called her “pear ass” while they were on vacation together, the relationship was on the rocks, but J Love loves love and stuck with him.  She told the press that she didn’t want to get married right away, but that if she didn’t get an engagement ring after a year, there would be a problem.

Here we are, a year later.  And Jennifer Love Hewitt finds herself single again.  Rumors of her possessiveness started early.  She seemed to buy Tiffany eternity rings by the crate, giving them to each boyfriend along the way to mark her territory.   She gave one to boy-bander Rich Cronin in 1999, and then ended up dumping him over the phone when she found someone more marriage-minded.  This self-proclaimed “relationship girl” went through Carson Daly, Wilmer Valderrama, Craig Bierko, John Mayer, John Cusack and a few others before she found her soul mate in Ross McCall.  But then they broke up.  Ten minutes later, Kennedy was at the plate.

And after a year of the sweet-faced girl nagging him to death, the two declared an “amicable split”.  Working together on Ghost Whisperer should be a total blast for them now. 

The split came just in time for the publishing of Hewitt’s first book, entitled “The Day I Shot Cupid: My Name Is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I’m A Love-Aholic”.  How embarrassing.  But, after a sassy new haircut, she bravely went to her book signings and posed for the cameras.  Basically, it seems that her book is how she sees her dating history, and how it is unlike the stories from the media.  “My dating life has been written about really since I was 15,” she told the Associated Press.  “So this book is my way of saying, ‘No, this is who I am and this is what I’ve really thought about that, and these are the things that I’ve done that maybe you didn’t read about”. 

Sounds fascinating.

It shouldn’t be long before she has another man on her arm.  She’s great at finding them. 

And what’s sexier to a man than a woman who writes a book with the word “love-aholic” in the title?

Barack Obama tickled someone.  The President has admitted to the media that he has, indeed, tickled.  He did not say, “Tickling was done”, but admitted outright that he tickled, and that his victim was male, no less.  To top it off, this tickling resulted in the ticklee breaking his arm.  Tickling and violence?  The President?  So why isn’t Fox News jumping all over the President for this indiscretion when he just passed his Health Care Bill a day ago?  Where is the right-wing uproar over Barack Obama’s inability to control his urges to tickle others? 

President Obama utilizes a tickle-avoidance technique.

After all, when Congressman Eric Massa of New York (but born in Charleston, South Carolina—yet another feather in the cap of good ol’ SC) was accused of the same kind of conduct with several younger male staff members, it was all OVER the news.  Finally, a Democrat had committed sexual misconduct worthy of mockery.  And how did Massa respond?  By accusing White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel of confronting him for not supporting the President’s health care reform, and going so far as to poke the Congressman in the chest.  Emanuel was, by the way, naked at the time, with his little Chief of Staff in full view.  Of course, they were in a locker room.  And Emanuel had just finished showering.  But Massa had to try something to take the heat off of him and put it on “Au Naturel” Emanuel.  Nice try.

But back to Tickle Me Obama.  What was he thinking?  Is that the way the President of the United States should behave?

Absolutely not!

Of course, he was about 10 years-old at the time, and he and his friend were riding a bike together.  This was when Obama lived in Indonesia.  In an interview with Indonesian media, Putra Nababan of RCTI asked him if he remembered breaking someone’s arm.  Obama admitted that he did, in fact, do so, but that it was an accident.  Evidently, he tickled his friend from behind, and the bike fell, throwing both of the kids off.  The friend broke his arm, and Obama said that he was traumatized by the whole thing.  Nababan had already spoken to Obama’s old friend, and knew of the alleged tickling. 

“He said you tickled him,” Nababan told the President, armed with actual quotes from the victim.

Obama indicated his remorse, and asked that Nababan pass his apologies along.  “I felt so bad,” said the President.  “I remember feeling terrible.”

Having read the new health care legislation carefully, one has to wonder:

Where is the No-Tickling Law?  It is clearly proven that tickling directly results in injury to others. 

The President, however, has changed his ways.  Although he has not claimed to be a non-tickler, and has not undergone Tickling Avoidance Therapy, he is able to control his urges.  He now is able to focus his perverse behavior on one person: the woman he gave an engagement ring to in 1991, and is still married to after all this time.  Now only Michelle Obama is at risk of an Executive Tickle Assault. 

She is the luckiest woman alive.