Media Crisis Alert: Ani Difranco was supposed to perform on Dave Letterman, but the producers CANCELLED her performance and REPLACED HER with another act. Why? Ani was going to sing "Subdivision," a song about racism in America. The producers asked her at the last minute to "sing something more UPBEAT" and she refused - good for her! Dave's staff says the choice wasn not about the CONTENT of the song, but about what was more "preferable musically." what a lie. the opening line of "Subdivision" goes like this:

"White people are so scared of black people, they bulldoze out to the country and put up houses on little loopy-loop streets."

gee, i wonder why they wouldn't want that playing on David Letterman's show - because those streets are their core demographic?? Now, as for the upbeat part, let's note that the chorus of the song goes:

"And I'm wonderin' what it would take for my city to rise, first we admit our mistakes, and then we open our eyes."

what a concept. like the song says, "America the beautiful is one big subdivision." read all about it here. boycott Dave, watch The Daily Show instead.

today is a day for juicy celebrity gossip. Amy Reiter's column on Salon contains, to my mind, three delicious bombshells: Minne Driver is marrying Josh "Goonies"/"Flirting With Disaster" Brolin, thus soon her stepmother-in-law will be Barbra Streisand, yikes. even better, Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz are aparently dating, a power couple in the facial bone structure dept., but isn't he a little old for her? but best of all, and this truly boggles my mind, Laura Dern is pregnant, with BEN HARPER's baby! where have i been? that sounds like a pretty good way to get back at Billy Bob, though, doesn't it?

ok people, for once, Chris Schueler has stumped me. well, not him exactly, this bizarre website he forwarded to me did. i can't explain it, but this thing can read my thoughts. yours too. just think of a dictator or a sitcom character and it will guess who it is. i had in mind Idi Amin and Nellie Olson from 'Little House on the Prairie,' and it got both. ah, the gifts of technology!