But think twice before you order Spears to remedial gym training. According to the Daily News, Madonna's "stringy," "veiny" arms are "more like a horror show than something out of a gym." "Time to quit the gym, Madge!" says writer Nicole Carter -- you are working out too much! Fellow Daily News writer wonders, "Are Kate Gosselin and Madonna workout buddies?" Because guess what? Kate's too-sculpted biceps, while not yet veiny, are on a slippery slope to mimicking the Material Girl -- "time to soften the image and drop the dumb bell now!" (Clearly, neither one learned their lesson from the first lady). Perhaps both are just trying to stave off the dread "bingo wings," also known as "dinner lady arms" that, according to the Daily Mail, are nearly impossible to remedy without hideously painful surgery -- "for most women of a certain age there's little to do except slip on a cardigan."

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• Madonna: "I can't stop crying over the sad news. . . I have always admired Michael Jackson…The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever! My heart goes out to his three children and other members of his family. . . God bless."
• Justin Timberlake: "We have lost a genius and a true ambassador of not only Pop music but of all music...He has been an inspiration to multiple generations, and I will always cherish the moments I shared with him on stage and all of the things I learned about music from him and the time we spent together. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones."
• Paul McCartney: “It’s so sad and shocking...I feel privileged to have hung out and worked with Michael. He was a massively talented boy-man with a gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever and my memories of our time together will be happy ones.”
• Steven Spielberg: "Just as there will never be another Fred Astaire or Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley, there will never be anyone comparable to Michael Jackson. His talent, his wonderment and his mystery make him legend."
• Britney Spears: "He has been an inspiration throughout my entire life and I'm devastated he's gone!"
• Lisa Marie Presley: "I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible. I am heartbroken for his children, who I know were everything to him, and for his family. This is such a massive loss on so many levels, words fail me."
• Cher: "I am having a million reactions...When I think of him, I think of this young boy, this teenager I first met … He was a great teenager, optimistic and adorable."
• Beyonce: "He was magic...He was what we all strive to be. He will always be the King of Pop!"
• Usher: "May God cover you Michael. We all lift your name up in prayer. I pray for the entire Jackson family particularly Michael's mother, children and all his fans that loved him so much. I would not be the artist, performer, and philanthropist I am today without the influence of Michael."
• Mariah Carey: "I am heartbroken. My prayers go out to the Jackson family, and my heart goes out to his children. Let us remember him for his unparalleled contribution to the world of music, his generosity of spirit in his quest to heal the world, and the joy he brought to his millions of devoted fans throughout the world. I feel blessed to have performed with him several times and to call him my friend. No artist will ever take his place. His star will shine forever."
• Whitney Houston: "I am full of grief."
• Marion Jackson: "He was looking well. He was getting ready to go into rehearsals for his tour. I don't know what happened."
• Quincy Jones: "I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news...I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”
• Jamie Foxx: "I hope he is remembered for the brilliance of his music and not for the circus sideshow his life had become."
• Celine Dion: “I am shocked. I am overwhelmed by this tragedy. Michael Jackson has been an idol for me all my life.”
• Sophia Loren: “It’s horrible news, so unexpected...The world has lost an icon and music has lost treasures. He wrote songs that generations of yesterday, today and tomorrow will all keep on singing. What he wrote was amazing.”
• Lenny Kravitz: "If not for him, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. He gave me joy as a child and showed me the way to go.”
• Brooke Shields: "My heart is overcome with sadness for the devastating loss of my true friend Michael. He was an extraordinary friend, artist and contributor to the world. I join his family and his fans in celebrating his incredible life and mourning his untimely passing."
• Hugo Chavez: Michael Jackson's death is “lamentable news.”
• Martin Scorcese: "Michael Jackson was extraordinary. When we worked together on Bad, I was in awe of his absolute mastery of movement on the one hand, and of the music on the other. Every step he took was absolutely precise and fluid at the same time. It was like watching quicksilver in motion."
• Imelda Marcos: “Michael Jackson enriched our lives, made us happy...The accusations, the persecution caused him so much financial and mental anguish. He was vindicated in court, but the battle took his life. There is probably a lesson here for all of us.”
• Jermaine Jackson: "May our love be with you always.”
• John Legend: "As a child of the '80s, I feel as though his music and his videos have been an inseparable part of my life and that of an entire generation," he said. "And the powerful thing about great music is that it will always live on. He was and always will be an icon."
• MC Hammer: "I have no words...I loved Michael Jackson."
• Tommy Mottola: Michael Jackson was “the cornerstone to the entire music business.”
• Miley Cyrus: "Michael Jackson was my inspiration. Love and Blessings."

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As you'll no doubt recall, just a little over a year ago Spears wobbled around in her underwear onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards in a performance universally dubbed disastrous -- from her lackluster dancing to her inability to remember the words to her own song (that she was lip-syncing). Among Britney's much-lamented MTV gaffes: Her scantily clad body didn't look exactly like it did before she had her two sons. (Did anyone need another reminder that the maternal body gets no respect in our culture? Right, I didn't think so.)

Well, guess what, folks? Now, apparently Britney's lost a bunch of weight, so it's time to revel in the sordid details of her long-rumored disordered eating! According to a source close to one of her bodyguards  quoted in Star magazine -- and every celeb gossip blog, not to mention the Sydney Morning Herald -- Britney has been bingeing and purging and abusing diuretic diet pills in pursuit of her newly svelte figure.

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The latest news is that Lynne Spears, not to be outdone by daughters Britney and Jamie Lynn, has just come out with an awkwardly titled memoir, "Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World." (It was supposed to be published last May but got pushed back after Jamie Lynn announced she was pregnant.) The book is being published, ironically enough, by Thomas Nelson, a Christian publisher of Bibles and inspirational books.

The Bible this is not. Instead, says Reuters, it "chronicles Spears' family during the phenomenal rise of Britney Spears in the late 1990s and her highly publicized meltdown."

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The ad, called "Temple," mocks Obama's speech at the Democratic convention before the throngs at Invesco Field, as a female voice-over intones: "Take away the celebrity. The thrilling words. What's left? Old ideas masquerading as change."

The spot then goes on to accuse Obama of planning to raise taxes on everything from your income to your electric bill.

Watch the ad here:

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By the time I boarded a return flight a week later, the next issue of the Atlantic Monthly was on the stands, bearing on its cover an image of embattled pop tart Britney Spears; it sat next to a new issue of US Weekly, whose cover bleated news of an interview with presidential candidate Barack Obama in which he refused to say whether or not he wears boxers or briefs; a few days later, US published an online interview with Camille Paglia, in which she held forth on Howard Wolfson, Harold Ickes and Hillary Clinton's "60 Minutes" appearance.

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The article, titled "Boys Will Be Boys, Girls Will Be Hounded by the Media," starts off with the fact, as we previously reported, that Entertainment Tonight decided to pull a video of Heath Ledger hanging out at a "drug-fueled party" out of "respect for [his] family." Around the same time, however, tabloids let loose with a storm of photographs of Amy Winehouse smoking what the British tabloid the Sun said was a pipe of crack cocaine. Owen Wilson attempted suicide, the article continues, and got on one cover of Entertainment Weekly. Britney Spears goes for psychiatric treatment (with no confirmed suicide attempts, despite widespread speculation), and she gets six stories during the same time period. Kiefer Sutherland gets out of jail after serving time for drunk driving and no one pays too much attention; Paris Hilton goes back to serve the rest of her 45 days in jail for alcohol-related reckless driving and invites "a level of attention that invoked the O.J. Simpson trial," the Times asserts.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/02/01/quote_40/feed/ 47 http://www.salon.com/2008/01/25/margaret_cho/ http://www.salon.com/2008/01/25/margaret_cho/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2008/01/25/margaret_cho Much has been written in defense of the beleaguered and besmirched Britney Spears, but nothing has been so viscerally moving as Margaret Cho's sisterly call to bleed, "Let She Who Is Without Period Stains Throw the First Tampon." Though many women might go so far as to scold the paparazzi for exposing the aging starlet in yet another vicious way, few would sacrifice their own placental privacy to the cause.

A choice morsel from the bloody cri de coeur: "I never move because my mattress is so so so so stained that whenever I change the sheets it just looks like a murder scene. I'm serious. Somebody should put crime scene 'do not cross' tape up."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/01/25/margaret_cho/feed/ 56 http://www.salon.com/2008/01/22/britney_economy/ http://www.salon.com/2008/01/22/britney_economy/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2008/01/22/britney_economy Considering all the publicity Britney Spears gets -- for her kids, her underpants, her body, her hair and, now, even her obituary (the Associated Press has already written it) -- you'd think there wouldn't be much new to discuss. But the February issue of Portfolio magazine has an article on an aspect of Britney that I've actually never seen reported on before: How much money she makes for other people.

For anyone who feels bad that Britney's personal problems have been padding the paparazzi's paychecks, I suggest checking it out -- it will give you concrete numbers on just how exploited she is. Sure, Spears herself isn't any slouch when it comes to raking in money -- at this point, Portfolio estimates that she still makes about $9 million a year. But as Portfolio puts it, that's "chicken feed compared with the overall Britney economy."

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