Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Depression And Bipolar Results Worth Striving For - A New Recovery Model For Mental Illness
Monday, 23 June 2008
Scott McClellan book moves beyond typical tell-nothing tale of Bush regime
The authorized spokespeople for George W. Bush who have written books generally put on paper what they had said endlessly from the lectern. These books stuck militantly to talking points about what a judicious, strong, honest leader Bush was.
When Ari Fleischer, Bush's first White House press secretary, wrote his memoir in 2005, one reviewer yawned: "Ari Fleischer: Still saying nothing after all these years." Now comes Scott McClellan's book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."
McClellan has burned the talking points - and his bridges - in writing this book, and the results are a more sophisticated assessment than most anything his former colleagues turned out.
"What Happened" provides a telling and unflattering glimpse of Bush and his White House, also makes an important commentary on Washington's poisonous political climate - one that Bush promised to change, but did not, McClellan writes.
In the days after the release of this book, attention focused on incendiary charges levelled by a consummate Bush insider: Bush has a penchant for self-deception if it "suits his needs at the moment"; the Bush administration orchestrated a "political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American people," trying to make the "WMD threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear just a little more certain, a little less questionable than they were"; Bush's "credibility, with Americans and people around the world, has been damaged by his refusal to talk honestly about his war and its costs."
Not surprisingly, Bush's defenders hit back, calling McClellan disgruntled, whispering that he had hired a ghostwriter (he denied it) or that he had otherwise come under the spell of some . . . liberal. How else could he betray the president who had made him? The counterassault raised doubts about the veracity of the charges against the president. Bush's opponents, meanwhile, asked why he didn't speak out while he had sway inside the White House.
I covered the Bush White House for four years, working closely with McClellan, and was thunderstruck to read such charges coming from this company man. Yet I could also relate to how his views evolved, and while I can't get inside his head, my personal experience tells me such changes of heart are plausible.
It would be impossible for a reader to block out questions of authenticity and motive, for they go to McClellan's credibility - but only up to a point. The broader observations about Washington still represent opinion, but would seem to fall outside suspicions of petty vindictiveness. These observations also give the book a heft that moves it beyond the typical tell-all.
Washington, he writes, "has become a breeding ground for deception and a killing field for truth."
Stitched together with McClellan's astonishing critique of a sitting president, it is an ambitious undertaking, and it works, even as McClellan swaps perspectives within the narrative. At times, he is the insider, drilling a peephole into a famously secretive White House. At times, he plays the journalist, offering evenhanded criticism of both political parties. At times, he is the political scientist, diagnosing the capital's ills and prescribing tough medicine to fix them.
These ills are not new, and wizened Washingtonians are apt to call McClellan naive for thinking Bush and his team could clean the town up.
But McClellan's very journey from wide-eyed Texan to embittered political casualty is what makes it so accessible to regular readers.
Journalist Sydney Blumenthal wrote "The Permanent Campaign" in 1980, and McClellan makes liberal use of the term (even giving a chapter that name) and the concept. He credits a 2000 book called "The Permanent Campaign and Its Future," which warned of "a nonstop process of seeking to manipulate sources of public approval to engage in the act of governing itself."
No one in the Bush White House, including McClellan, read the book, he writes.
If the syndrome that McClellan describes infects the next administration, there will be approximately one hour between the time when the new staff unpacks its boxes and when it begins plotting its re-election campaign.
One hopes that someone, somewhere in that incoming government reads this book.
-Scott Lindlaw covered the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency for The Associated Press.
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"What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception"
Scott McClellan (PublicAffairs)
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Monday, 16 June 2008
Mischa Barton Kicks It to the Curd ... Again
Not everyone can have the firm and taut body of a hot, young 22-year-old Hollywood starlet -- not even Mischa Barton!Last month, photos of a less-than-picture-perfect Ms. Barton had her publicist on damage control claiming the jiggly pics were "doctored." But this weekend the 22-year-old once again showed off some leg -- in her Kelly Bundy spandex skirt thing -- while standing on a NYC street.
How's this for a theory: Maybe these pics are the first of Mischa that have not been doctored.
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Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Lily Allen - Lily Allen Responds To Cannes Reports On Blog
Lily Allen has responded angrily to tabloid rumours that she had indulged in over-the-top partying while at the Cannes film festival.
The Smile star had been photographed swimming topless and some commentators had claimed she had been removed from a festival attendee's yacht for bad behaviour.
However, in a new blog on the MySpace page which shot her to fame in 2005, Allen has hit back at claims she was out of control while in the south of France.
"I don't really like to respond to things I read about myself in the press," she said, "but, for the record I was not thrown off anybody's yacht in Cannes, occasionally I drink wine with lunch and yes I swim topless.
"This in my book is not embarrassing behaviour - I'm 23 years old."
Reports had also suggested the singer was attempting to rekindle her relationship with Chemical Brothers star Ed Simons, with whom she split earlier this year.
The former Bedales pupil dismissed tabloid reports on her blog on Friday, stressing: "I went for lunch with my ex-boyfriend yesterday, lunch."
She continued: "I am not some failed baby-making machine desperately to trying to win my man back," making reference to the miscarriage she suffered shortly before her and Simons' split.
"No one knows anything about my relationships. Ed and I are friends, who went for lunch yesterday, that's it."
Allen added: "I work very hard at what I do, yes I like a drink and yes I have my bad days, but that doesn't mean I'm out of control. I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself thank you very much."
The young star also revealed that she is currently finishing off her second album with the help of producer Mark Ronson.
24/05/2008 09:59:07
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Saturday, 24 May 2008
Danny Cavanagh
Artist: Danny Cavanagh
Genre(s):
Instrumental
Discography:
A Place To Be
Year: 2005
Tracks: 11
Eminem recovering from pneumonia
Monday, 12 May 2008
Pete Doherty to play the Royal Albert Hall
Pete Doherty to play the Royal Albert Hall
Pete Doherty is to play the biggest solo performance of his life history so far at London's famed Royal stag Albert Hall this April.
The Babyshambles frontman testament act the historic venue, plate of the Proms, on 26 Apr. The locale has a capacity of around 5,000.
The 27-year-old is said to be concentrating on his medicine career after splitting from supermodel Kate Moss and attempting to stay out of trouble with the law.
He is presently working on his debut solo album and has played several small shows over the past few months.
He of late offered his support to troubled isaac M. Singer Amy Winehouse simply was branded a "scumbag" by her father and warned to stay away.
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Angelina Jolie makes surprise visit to Baghdad
Angelina Jolie makes surprise visit to Baghdad
UN grace ambassador and Hollywood star topology Angelina Jolie has travelled to Irak on a do-gooder commission and met with officials to demand help for multitude displaced by the war.
Although a scheduled press league at the US embassy was cancelled, the Oscar-winning actress rung to CNN telling the station that she wanted more to be done for the Iraki families driven from their homes.
The 32-year-old said: "At that place are over iI billion displaced people and thither ne'er seems to be a real coherent project to aid them. There's rafts of commodity will and slews of give-and-take but there seems to be a set of talk at the moment and a fate of pieces that need to be set together."
The US embassy in Capital of Iraq confirmed that Jolie had lunch with US troops service of process in Republic of Iraq and had held a meeting with their top air force officer Full general David Petraeus, senior diplomats and Iraq's diplomatic minister for displaced people.
A US embassy official told Alpha foetoprotein: "She is here in her official capacity as a UN good will ambassador to meet with US, Iraki and NGO officials to talk about internally displaced persons."
She likewise held dialogue in Baghdad's fortified Special K Zone with the UN head of mission Staffan di Mistura and thither were too plans for her to run across Iraq's Flower Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a US official said.
Jolie told CNN: "Of the two one thousand thousand internally displaced, it's estimated 58% are under 12-years-old. It's a real senior high number of people in a very, very vulnerable situation and a lot of lester Willis Young kids".
"So far, the different US officials I met with and different topical anaesthetic people I've met with all induce shared concerns, very, very strongly. They take in spoken come out about the humanitarian crisis, simply in that respect seems to be a block in," said the star.
Jolie continued: "What happens in Iraq and how Iraq settles in the years to add up is expiration to move the entire Middle East. And a big division of what it's departure to affect, how it settles, is how these people ar returned and settled into their homes and their community and brought endorse together and whether they canful go together and what their communities see like."
She added: "It's in our best sake to address a humanist crisis on this weighing machine because displacement canful lead to a portion of instability and aggression."
Jolie is no unknown to the country. In Aug 2007, she met more or less of the 1,200 Iraqis stranded on the boundary line betwixt Republic of Iraq and Syria and appealed for more international support for those affected by the Republic of Iraq difference.
During that enlistment, Jolie left UNHCR officials to chaffer privately with US and other multinational forces based in the sphere.
The chase month, she launched a $150m appeal by United Nations Children's Fund, the UN's fund for children, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to avail civilize 1m children affected by the state of war.
Louis Prima