Orpah Fries Frey It seems Frey’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” is more “A Million Little Lies,” and Oprah gave author Frey a metaphoric kick in his metaphoric lying ass. O as in Oprah Baby, we like it when you play rough. Next, we hope you knock the hubris stuffing out of publisher Nan Talese and Doubleday who seem to think they can peddle whatever, wherever, whenever.
Questions of the Week
1. Why can’t anyone find the CIA’s secret European prisons? Would that be because they’re secret?
2. Will Pixar break up Disney to sell the theme park and other non-film assets?
3. How many of the worst movies made this year will enjoy concurrent theater, DVD, and cable release?
4. Why was Pakistani gang-rape victim Ms. Mukhtar Mai denied an opportunity to speak before the UN simply because Pakistan’s prime minister was visiting? One would think that as prime minister of a country that claims to be an ally he would insist she speak.
Shama, Amash, Hamas No matter how you look at it, it’s a mess. Palestine’s terrorist Hamas party caught the world with its pants down when it won 76 of 132 seats in that country’s national election. Either the U.S. will get its head out of the sand and learn how to negotiate with terrorists, or start arming up Israel.
Our Friends in Washington Update
1. The White House is trying to declare Katrina confidential, like maybe it didn’t happen? Given its penchant for rewriting blunders, and Katrina ranks right up there with the top two or three, refusing to turn over Katrina papers perhaps isn’t all that surprising, even when oft-times Republican friend Democrat Joe Lieberman does the asking.
Surprise? Scores of projects aimed at rebuilding Iraq will not be completed because of unforeseen security costs, haphazard planning, and shifting priorities, which is political speak for fraud, incompetence, and confusion.
Stirrings In The Corporate Anthill
1. Remember Michael Ovitz, Michael Eisner’s friend who was president of Disney for a few minutes and pocketed $130 million in severance pay? Some mice (shareholders) are roaring; they want the decision to let the severance pay stand overturned. This wasn’t severance pay: it was a looting and pillaging masterminded by the two Michaels. Hey, if it walks like a mouse, talks like a mouse, and shits like a mouse, it smells.
2. Donald Trump is suing Warner Books and Timothy O’Brien, author of “Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald,” mainly, it seems, for understating his net worth by $2.5 billion, give or take a few hundred million. Donald 101: Never, never, never understate The Donald.
3. IBM, in a “we do not comment on pending or ongoing litigation” mode, is being sued for screwing tens of thousands of workers out of overtime. IBM, if for no other reason than your cockiness, needs its Big Blue kicked big time.
Smells From The Corporate Dungheap
1. We’ll know a lot about the Enron disaster by the time the trial ends. Meanwhile, you might want to rent or buy “The Smartest Guys In The Room” or watch for it and others on TV.
2. FirstEnergy Corporation paid a measly $28 million for covering up an acid leak that nearly ate through a reactor vessel’s cap in its nuclear plant on Lake Erie. What if the escaping waste had found its way into Lake Erie?
The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, more familiarly The Hudson’s Bay Company or The Bay, obviously thinking that Jerry Zucker, eclectic financier, not Jerry Zucker, eclectic movie producer, was an OK buyer since he owns part of a hockey team (Carolina Stingrays, a Washington Capitals farm team). I mean, can a guy with a hockey team be all bad? The Bay is Canada’s oldest company, incorporated May 2, 1670, with a Royal Charter from King Charles II. Zucker, who used to own Dominion Textiles in Montreal, is paying C$860 million for HBC, which has reported ten consecutive quarters of falling sales.
True Rome-ance Pope Benedict’s first novel, doubtless to be a best seller, talks a whole lot about love and sex. In church speak, the work is called an encyclical titled “God is Love,” or for the Alex Trebeker’s out there, “Deus Caritas Est.”
Corporate Crook Update
1. The Lay and Skilling show starts next week. Stay tuned.
2. Perennially grinning Maurice Greenberg, deposed king of AIG, is still fighting his ouster. Billions of dollars are at stake, not to mention the power and the glory.
3. While admitting no wrong,
Ameriquest is paying $325 million, $295 million to victims of its shoddy lending practices in two dozen states and $30 million for legal costs. It sure is a good thing they did nothing wrong.
If These Rocks Could Talk… It seems the Russians are upset because they found “property of MI6” listening devices imbedded in rocks. Would those be the devices placed there right before or right after the invention of the wheel?
CC on Ice No, not Canadian Club, but Canadian Conservatives, who booted beleaguered Liberals from their thirteen-year perch that had grown soiled by the excrement of scandal. Now Canadians, hoping for lower taxes and elimination of corruption, will have to “stand on guard” against their new government staking a claim to women’s wombs and bedrooms.
Sam’s Bank? Remember the joke about the rabbi who tells Hymie that he shouldn’t call his bank Hymie’s bank and Hymie responds by saying, “Why not, Irving did it?” So, the question is: will WalMart call its proposed new bank Sam’s Bank? Can Sam’s bucks, an official world currency, be far behind?
