This is one of the worst news stories I’ve ever, ever heard.

Two young boys in the Czech Republic were kept for months in a basement dungeon by their mother. Not only were they sexually and physically abused, naked in their own urine and chained up, they were also forced to cut themselves. Why? So that their mother could feed their raw flesh to their relatives.

The entire torture was conducted in accordance with text messages from the leader of their “religious” group, the Grail Movement. This leader is referred to only as “The Doctor.”

And this is a true story.

The mother, who is currently on trial, now claims that she was brainwashed. She says she’s sorry and doesn’t know how she could have done such things.

I don’t buy it for one second. You know how this was discovered? A neighbor caught it on his baby TV monitor. According to various articles, that is because the mother had her own TV monitor hooked up so that she could watch the boys while they were in agony whenever she felt like it. To me, there is no coming back from that.

Now the questions seem to be (1) will the court buy the “brainwashed” excuse, and (2) how far is a religious organization allowed to go in the name of their beliefs? Read More »

Bill Murray’s wife has filed for divorce after some 11-years of marriage. Thusly, he is the latest in a long list of comedians who don’t seem to be so funny in real life, to the point that their long suffering wives leave them.

Murray’s wife, Jennifer Butler Murray, attributes the demise of their marriage to Bill’s “adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol, abusive behavior, physical abuse, sexual addictions and frequent abandonment”. Quite a laundry list of accusations that, yes, I have to take with a grain of salt because they are just that: accusations.

What I’ve heard about Murray’s real life persona and interactions with people on the sets of his movies make me inclined to believe Jennifer Murray, who has also sought out a restraining order on her soon-to-be former husband. According to an article from the UK Telegraph, (with strangely appropriate Bear PSA in the middle of the piece):

The [divorce] papers claim: “Defendant [Murray] has physically abused the Plaintiff on more than one occasion during the marriage. The latest altercation occurred in November 2007… when the Defendant hit her in the face and then told her she was ‘lucky he didn’t kill her’. Read More »

The “problem” with Dakota Fanning, in my opinion, is that she’s a REAL actress who happens to still be very young. This, of course, shouldn’t be a problem, but because Dakota’s abilities often overpower her actual age, people have a hard time figuring out what to do with her.

Dakota has always been able to bring to life realities in characters that I sincerely doubt most other actresses her age–or even older–could do. However, her desire to do more than simple ’sweet and innocent’ roles have caused some people to cringe.

Her much talked about film that will be released this summer, “Hounddog“, has had most of the acting community biting their lips since it first showed up at Sundance last year. The controversy surrounding this film has been building, and in case you haven’t already heard, here’s why: Read More »

Sometimes, words can hurt almost as much as punches or slaps.

At the beginning of freshman year, I started going out with a great guy. He was cute, smart, and (most importantly) had a fantastic sense of humor. The only problem was, the object of most of his jokes seemed to be me.

“Come on, Fatty,” he would coax along as we were climbing the stairs, or “Way to finish that whole pastry. You’re a whale.”

He said all of these things in a clearly joking tone, so I and those around us would realize he wasn’t being serious. But he also said them nearly every day, and we went out for almost a full year.

Here’s the thing. I am not now, nor have I ever been, overweight. I’m not rail-thin, either, but nobody except maybe Heidi Klum’s manager could call me anything bigger than average. I’ve been almost immune to peer pressure all my life, and I never questioned the way my body looked until my boyfriend started saying things about how fat I was. Read More »