Lopez was performing over the weekend in the small Soviet bloc country of Turkmenistan at an event hosted by the China National Petroleum Corporation. It was there that she, in the words of her publicist, "graciously obliged" a request to serenade the birthday boy, president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. "It was our pleasure. And we wish you the very happiest birthday," she said at the time. A Human Rights Watch report from just this past April cited the country's "high levels of repression," "harassment and intimidation of journalists" and "longstanding use of imprisonment as a tool for political retaliation." It did not, however, mention any predilection for Pitbull collaborations. On Sunday, Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen said that Lopez's actions "utterly destroy the carefully crafted message she has cultivated with her prior involvement with Amnesty International's programs in Mexico aimed at curbing violence against women," and asked, " What is the next stop on her tour, Syria? The dictator of Kazakhstan's birthday is July 6, maybe she will also pay him a visit?"

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Lopez's publicist said that the event was not political, and was sponsored by the China National Petroleum Corp., and "Had there been knowledge of human rights issues any kind, Jennifer would not have attended," the Associated Press reports.

According to the State Department's latest report on human rights in Turkmenistan, "security officials tortured and beat criminal suspects, prisoners, and individuals deemed critical of the government to extract confessions and as a form of punishment."

"Although the constitution declares Turkmenistan to be a secular democracy and a presidential republic, the country has an authoritarian government controlled by the president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov," the report says.

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When the gym chain LA Fitness polled 2,000 members on the sexiest male and female physiques on the planet, you'd expect renowned hotties like Nicole Scherzinger and this year's It Girl, Pippa Middleton, to make the list. And they did. But who'd have guessed that Inspector Jane Tennyson would blow away the competition for the top spot? Or that 48-year-old Elle Macpherson would come in second, and 42-year-old Jennifer Lopez would land in fourth? And lest you thinking defying Father Time is for the ladies, the male list is decidedly unyouthful too, with Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, David Hasselhoff and Simon Cowell all making appearances. Note to gravity: YOU LOSE.

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The portly bearded gentleman had spent weeks practicing his kissing technique at home on an upside-down mop, to which he had attached a photo of Jennifer Lopez's face from InStyle magazine. Every night, he would sing-whisper the last lines -- "It's getting harder and harder to breathe" -- while slowly inching his face toward the J. Lo cutout. For 14 days, he had planted a kiss on the "Idol" judge's paper lips, imagining her eyes turning moist and looking back at his with absolute love and devotion.

Casey knew he would make it to the Top 3 with this move. He was sure of it. He heard the beginning strains of the song and inhaled deeply.

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With pomp rivaling that of a U.S. Supreme Court appointment, Fox finally assembled the new pieces of the "Idol" panel that will be returned to its original three-member format for season 10.

Actress-singer-dancer Lopez and Aerosmith frontman Tyler will have the job of trying to match the offbeat chemistry of former judges Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

The likely Lopez-Tyler pairing had been reported so frequently that Fox would have had to produce Betty White and 50 Cent instead to generate any surprise.

Cowell announced last January that he planned to leave to launch a new talent show for Fox in 2011, with newcomers Ellen DeGeneres and Kara DioGuardi exiting this summer. Abdul left in 2009 over a contract dispute.

Jackson will be the only original judge when "American Idol" returns in January.

Lopez and Tyler could help "American Idol" reinvent itself for the new season, when it will try to stem a ratings slide and bring in younger viewers. The show's audience has been gradually aging, and advertisers prefer to pitch to young adults.

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Jennifer Lopez has avoided any such catastrophic meltdowns, as far as I know -- unless you're counting "Gigli," her misbegotten lesbian-mobster romance from 2003, and the botched betrothal to Ben Affleck whence it sprang. (That relationship might have counted, for both of them, as screwing the wrong people.) Actually, while "Gigli" is a very bad movie, it does not quite deserve its reputation among the most terrible ever made; as deluded pop-celebrity vehicles go, it's no "Glitter." But let us not grow distracted by that topic, alluring as it is. (We can discuss the relevance of Mariah Carey's second-act strategies some other time.)

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"This movie is about a woman who gets to a point in her life," Lopez says. "She's successful ... She has a full life. But, at the same time, she hasn't found that person to share her life with and to have a family with, and so she decides to do it on her own. She decides to have a baby on her own."

The film, opening Friday, is part of the mid-life movie genre that has served actresses well of late, including such blockbusters as "The Proposal" and "It's Complicated," starring Sandra Bullock, 45, and Meryl Streep, 60, respectively. "The Back-up Plan" marks Lopez's first film since turning 40 last July.

"It is a great time to be an actress," Lopez said at a recent convention of theater owners in Las Vegas. "It seems like you can work and do anything at any age ... It's a great time that people are just seeing people's souls."

"It's not so superficial anymore," the actress continued. "Women have proven that they are viable in this business, as well, and it doesn't matter if you're not 21 years old. It just matters that you're great at what you do. And that's exciting."

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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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Now, as the New York Post reports, that voluptuousness is burning off like a low-cal protein bar. In a piece titled "Et tu Booty?" Post writer Mackenzie Dawson notes that as more and more actresses and singers drift toward malnourishment and career trajectories rise according to the number of ribs displayed by backless dresses (a look exemplified by, but not exclusive to, Nicole Richie), the trend toward abundant backsides is in its death throes. Beyonci and J. Lo themselves haven't become emaciated to follow the wave (though the former is visibly thinner), and Details magazine rather dubiously noted earlier this year that some curvy women still thrive in Hollywood. But the celebrity-rag spotlight has simply turned from ample curves to gaunt images of predominantly white starlets like Kate Bosworth and Keira Knightly.

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Jane Fonda is the self-centered, meddlesome mom, who's hoping to keep her son (Michael Vartan) all to herself; Jennifer Lopez is the good girl with the sunny disposition who dares to enter the inner circle. The gags here are stultifyingly simple, and they pile up, one by one, into a groaning heap. "Monster-in-Law" is a mild, dull little picture that feels as if it was assembled from a kit: It's probably no worse than any number of other random moneymaker comedies churned out by Hollywood in the course of a year (it's certainly no worse than, say, the numbingly stupid "Meet the Fockers"), but its cheerful mediocrity is offensive by itself.

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In this remake of the 1997 Japanese film of the same name, Wells substitutes shtick for character -- an aging dance instructor secretly nips from a flask, a brash blond student wears tight outfits and instructs all the men to stop looking at her ass, and so on. So the flashes of charm we get from performers like Bobby Cannavale, Omar Miller, Richard Jenkins and the R&B singer Mya (whose lips and eyebrows curl like a cartoon kitty-cat's) have to suffice. There's just enough of Stanley Tucci as a lawyer who, with false teeth, flowing toupee and sequined clothes, moonlights as lord of the Latin dance, and too much of Lisa Ann Walter as that blond dance student -- she's abrasive where she intends to be brassy.

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Fleet Week includes a bunch of patriotic and super-manly activities: wreath-layings and 21-gun salutes, fast jet planes and arm wrestling, lots of historic frigates clogging the harbor, and that weird apotheosis of phallic power where big boats spray impressive jets of water all over the Hudson. But that's just the official stuff. Unofficially, it's due to be a banner week at dance clubs and strip clubs, as the Navy and Coast Guard's contingent of straight men get their chance at sexual release after months of being cooped up together.

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She said/she said: One month after Christina Aguilera called Britney Spears "very distant," "nervous" and a "lost little girl" in Blender magazine, Spears has seen fit to fire back in the magazine's January issue. "I can't believe Christina said that about me," Spears said, adding that her singing rival tried to "put her tongue down my throat" at a recent meeting. "I say, 'It's good to see you,' and she goes, 'Well, you're not being real with me.' I was like, 'Well, Christina, what's your definition of real? Going up to girls and kissing them after you haven't seen them for two years?' A lost girl? I think it's probably the other way around." Hiss. Scratch. (Blender magazine via the Herald Sun)

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More often than not, buzz is something created by the studio, and there are too many -- you should pardon the expression -- entertainment journalists and critics who report that buzz as if it's fact. Needless to say, critics who believe anything a studio tells them in advance are damn fools. I don't know how many times I've heard critics say, "It must be bad, the studio isn't screening it" as if marketability were a mark of quality.

I suspect that what's made Columbia nervous about the movie isn't that it's bad -- studios release far worse movies with no compunction -- but that it isn't a formula picture. There are no car chases or explosions, no boffo jokes that can become catchphrases before the movie opens, and only one gunshot. The ads, showing Affleck and J.Lo in a clinch, don't hint that she plays a lesbian. "Gigli" is a character-driven piece, pitched awkwardly between comedy and drama.

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It's good to know that a film career can help a gal get dates. Poor Lucy Liu had been having a hard time attracting guys, since they all thought that she was her tough, mean character Ling on "Ally McBeal." Guess now those same guys think that she really is the kinder, gentler person she plays in "Charley's Angels" so now she's getting asked out. Harrison Ford is a brave guy for taking a chance on Calista. But maybe he knew she was just acting. (Ananova)

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Well, judging from Britney and Christina's antics, it seems to involve showing even more of your ass, making a potentially career-killing film, and/or, lowest of the low, hanging with the likes of Fred Durst and Justin Timberlake, the biggest nobodies to become pop stars since ... um, wait. Nope, there really is no comparison. "Weird Al" Yankovic is cooler than those guys.

Jennifer Lopez, meanwhile, has gone through umpteen boyfriends, husbands, and publicists while trying to shake the gangsta associations she picked up back when she was club hoppin' with the former Puff Daddy. These days, J.Lo seems more focused on moviemaking (and her ever-impending marriage to Ben Affleck) than music making. With a halfhearted effort like "This Is Me ... Then" filling up remainder bins across the land, who could blame her? Jenny from the block indeed.

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But apparently the dirrty girl gets no ting in the ding for a certain fellow teen popster with whom people often suspect her of hooking up.

"I can read every day who is my new boyfriend," Aguilera told MTV News U.K., "and it's always the guys I don't find attractive at all, like Justin."

Justin Timberlake, that is, with whom she's planning to tour.

"Don't get me wrong. He sure is attractive to thousands of girls," she says, "but he's not my type."

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion he'd say the same thing?

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Lo born, she swears

"That's who I am. I started out in the Bronx, I know what it's like to get on the train every day and work 9-to-5 and to have dreams and aspirations. I definitely see a lot of me in the character."

-- Jennifer Lopez on how she's just like the hotel chambermaid she plays in the film "Maid in Manhattan," to reporters at the movie's U.K. premiere.

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Voir dire or pajama party? You be the judge!

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"No, my legs are not insured," Lopez insisted on German TV this weekend.

And what of a rumored policy on her rump? "No."

No ifs, ands or ...

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Speaking of famous rears

"I didn't just touch it -- I copped a feel. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was like a 58."

-- Justin Timberlake on his close encounter with Kylie Minogue's (also uninsured?) butt at last week's Brit awards.

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Dahl dis

A new reason to feel sorry for Salman Rushdie: British model Sophie Dahl doesn't think he's cute enough to date. Not even remotely. Even though he recently called her the "perfect combination of beauty and brains."

"I'm so not going out with Salman Rushdie," Dahl, former dater of Mick Jagger and Griffin Dunne, told the London Mirror when asked about rumors that she and the controversial author were an item. "There is no romance going on between us. I have dated older men and I like Mr. Rushdie, but he's not someone I would go out with."

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The actor is doing everything he can -- short of take out another full-page ad in the trade mags -- to buttress his fiancée's shaky reputation with the masses. It seems Affleck just can't understand why Jennifer Lopez, the woman he so publicly loves to love, is someone so many people love to hate.

In Affleck's opinion, all those J.Ho jokes and rumors about Lopez's diva-ish ways are just ... not ... fair.

"She's deeply misunderstood ... in my opinion," he says in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair.

Never mind the hanky dresses and the booty accentuation, those two split-second marriages and the long-term relationship with Puffy: Affleck sees Lopez as much more Madonna (not that Madonna) than whore.

"In the physical sense, she's extremely chaste," the man who once dated Gwyneth insists. "She is characterized as oversexed. I mean, the woman's had five boyfriends in her whole life!"

And another thing Affleck will have us know, Lopez is not some spoiled Hollywood creature. Oh no.

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