Results tagged “huffingtonpost”

Betsy Perry is a marketing consultant, but her byline on the Huffington Post notes that she's a "New York Commissioner for Women's Issues, appointed by Mayor Bloomberg." Her post today, titled, "Montezuma's Revenge: Can The Best Thing About Mexico Really Be Beverly Hills Chihuahua?" opines, "Nowadays the best PR Mexico has is the movie 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua.' Between the guns, drugs, kidnappings and swine flu, this poor country can't catch a break and, maybe it shouldn't." Which was pretty poorly received by readers (one comment: "Wow. Really? Someone with such a lofty title actually wrote this?") and the mayor himself; City Room reports that Bloomberg said, "Inappropriate would be the word that came to mind... I don’t know what she was thinking about." Perry told CityRoom she was embarrassed, "That’s the way I write. I have a sense of humor that obviously wasn’t funny. I’m appalled at myself. I couldn’t possibly insult anybody... I’m sorry that in any way I reflected badly in this wonderful mayor. I hope that I am forgiven." Still, Perry couldn't quite explain why Beverly Hills Chihuahua was great for Mexico since the movie takes place in...California (where Beverly Hills is).

Saturday Night Live is back! Wasting no time digging into primary season, the opening skit was a debate between Hillary and Barack, immediately answering the big question posed this week: who will be our Fauxbama? The answer: Fred Armisen! The Huffington Post raises the controversial points of this decision, given the previously-noted lack of minority players on the show (Armisen is not black - he's Venezuelan and Japanese - but has played Prince on SNL) and the whole "Is Obama black enough?" debate. As for the sketch itself, it was about the media's infatuation with Obama - and it even included Obama Girl!

Mayor Bloomberg may deny any desire to run for president in 2008, but his non-NYC homework seems to suggest otherwise. According to the Huffington Post, he has regular foreign policy briefing session "on a wide variety of topics...from non-proliferation to the defense budget, with a specific focus on the war in Iraq." Who has been briefing him? Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and an adviser during the Clinton administration Nancy Soderberg: "One source...

Saturday night viewers of NBC didn't get a new episode of Saturday Night Live, but 150 audience members at the UCB Theater did! Live and un-aired, the show was to help raise money for crew members affected by the strike. Amy Poehler, who organized the event, made this statement:"The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is a second home to a lot of these performers and writers. We are doing this to raise spirits, raise awareness, and...

While the jury is still out on whether Mayor Bloomberg's improvements to the public school system have really worked, he, along with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and School Chancellor Joel Klein, announced new initiatives to help middle schools improve academic performance and provide better resources for students, parents, and teachers alike - plus $5 million to fund them. The money will go to the 50 lowest-performing middle schools, so they can staff up with guidance counselors, offer mentoring programs to less experienced supervisors, and offer Regents-level classes.

Last night, eight Democratic candidates met in the first debate of the already very long road to the 2008 presidential election. And the debate, which included Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, and Joseph Biden, as well as former Senator John Edwards and Mike Gravel, Representative Dennis Kucinich, and New Mexico Bill Richardson, was more an opportunity to criticize President Bush's policies, versus each other. With eight candidates vying to make the most of the time, it was a somewhat underwhelming debate.

Jon Benjamin started performing in Boston in the early 90's with comedian Sam Seder before getting involved with the David Cross lead Cross Comedy. Since then, he's been a fixture of comedy in all mediums. Home Movies, Wet Hot American Summer, and the popular live revue Tinkle are amongst his many credits. Gothamist sat down with Benjamin to find out more about this highly saught after comedic talent.

THEATER: John Fugelsang, the son of an ex-nun and a former monk, declares war on right-wing evildoers in his one man comedy All the Wrong Reasons. Targets include sex, politics, Klansmen, stem cells and the drug war (which Fugelsang recently skewered on the Huffington Post.) Theater blogger What’s Good/What Blows raves: “…once he settles in to tell the story of trying to get through Orlando airport with an 1/8th of weed in his sock and another 1/8th in his girlfriend's bra, you're pretty much on the edge of your seat till the end. He even throws in some touching realizations. This is a great evening to take a date to.” - John Del Signore

Things were getting a little quiet over at The Village Voice, but now they've gone and started a racket again by firing their new editor, David Blum. At first watching the decline of the paper was somewhat amusing, but now it's just getting sad.

The New School's student speaker who spoke out against Senator John McCain during commencement exercises last Friday says she apologized to McCain afterwards. Jean Sara Rohe, whose speech about McCain drew a standing ovation, has been been in a pissing match on the Huffington Post with one of the McCain aides who wrote the senator's speech. Apparently McCain himself said he understood why Rohe had to make her remarks, and New School president Bob Kerrey noted both McCain's and Rohe's bravery for their speeches at the ceremony. What's funny is that Kerrey makes fun of McCain's friendship with President Bush in this month's Vogue (thank goodness Maureen Dowd is reading Men's Vogue to let us know that).

Oooooh! This is so cool. The guys at Eyebeam, the techno-art atelier in Chelsea, have cooked up a way to electrify graffiti with LEDs:

Just what the world was waiting for! The NY Times reports that Arianna Huffington is starting a celebrity group blog with people like "Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman." Huh. Did Huffington read the Businessweek article about blogs changing business and decide, "It's on"? It'll be called Huffington Post, the NY Times article positions it as a competitor to The Drudge Report, but it seems less that than a celebrity vanity project like, oh, we don't know...maybe like an episode of The Love Boat with more street cred and an ability for readers to comments. Huffington says it's "an affirmation of [blogs'/the blogosphere's] success and will only enrich and strengthen its impact on the national conversation," but Sure, it'll be cool to read what Walter Cronkite thinks, but we fear he'll get bogged down with despamming the system. And don't get us started on wondering if certain celebrities are actually posting or making a minion post for them.