Our Culture: August 2007 Archives

Last week, hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, of "only little people pay taxes" fame, died at age 87.

This week, we learned that she left $12 million to her 8-year-old Maltese named Trouble.

Two of her grandchildren received zilch for "reasons known to them," according to her will.

Twelve million to her dog. Zero to two of her grandchildren.

To be fair, she loved the dog. Her Romanian housekeeper -- what, you don't have a Romanian housekeeper? -- told the New York Daily News that Helmsley shared her bed with Trouble and believed her late husband Harry communicated to her through the dog.

"I never saw a human being so in love with an animal," the housekeeper said. They were always together everywhere. ... She would lick the dog tongue to tongue. It was unnatural. It was unhealthy."

She was known as the Queen of Mean.

And she will be remembered at the Queen of Loopy.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Joe Hardy, the founder of 84 Lumber Co. and a Fayette County commissioner, has filed for divorce from Kristin Georgi, his third wife.

Hardy is 84. Georgi is 23. They were married in Vegas on May 5.

Court papers cited irreconcilable differences.

No kidding.

So Mattel recalls millions of Chinese-made toys saying they contain lead paint or small magnets that can be harmful if swallowed.

Who knew that toys made by what is essentially slave labor in a country that has lax or non-existent environmental and worker safety laws could be unsafe?

So last week, the big news was a report that said a couple of NASA astronauts were drunk before liftoff.

This week, the NASA safety chief investigating the matter says, not so much.

USA Today reported that safety chief Bryan O'Connor investigated every space shuttle flight over the last 10 years and found no evidence of heavy drinking, much less drunken astronauts blasting off.

O'Connor, the newspaper reported, "examined records and interviewed astronauts, launch-pad personnel and the crews who help astronauts into their launch suits but didn't hear any reports of alcohol abuse or violations of NASA's alcohol policy."

It'd still be the only way they'd ever get me on that thing.

In my Sunday column, I referred to members of the Dubya administration as "clowns."

So I hear from Earl Shaffer and he's upset.

He's a clown and is upset with this kind of comparison. He clowns with the Tall Cedars of Lebanon, a group that does a lot of good in the community. He gets irritated when clowns are disrespected. And he was having a little fun too.

So don't be calling the bozos in Washington clowns.

Wait a minute...Bozos...

Uh, never mind.

When we last left the Keith Richards-snorted-the-ashes-of-his-deceased-father story, the Rolling Stones guitarist and marvel of modern medicine denied the story.

Now, though, he is reversing himself, again.

In a story in London's Daily Express -- "The World's Greatest Newspaper," according to the masthead -- Keef now says he did snort his dad's ashes. But he he said he didn't mix then with cocaine because that would have been disrespectful.

From the story: “The cocaine bit was rubbish. I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with. I’d opened his box up and said, ‘Jesus, I’ve got to do something with dad, y’know, plant the oak tree.’

“I pulled the lid off and out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I’m going, ‘I can’t use the brush and dustpan for this’. So you just gotta like, put it together.

“What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of… y’know, he went down a treat.”

Whatever, Keef.