His name is Charles Stuart and while he might be unknown today, several years ago he had the entire country in the grip of his terrifying story.
Only it was all a lie.
Here's a book review of Stuart's story by Joe Sharkey..."Deadly Greed".
====
It's coming upon the TV doldrums of summer and America's Got Talent steps up to fill the void.
Can a guy whose claim to fame is his ability to put a drill of his nose really win this thing?
Also, the new BravoTV cooking contest doesn't quite meet the standards of its cousin "Top Chef". For the "Top Chef Masters" cook up stuff way too heady for the humble home cook.
All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.
It's a whimsical collection of oddities, pics and smiles in this week's Thoughts. To include pics of the Obamas doing tasteless things, a story of a big star trying to reach his dead pig and an X-rated Burger King ad you gotta see.
"Bachelorette" Jillian's down to 5 fellows vying for her hand. She will soon visit their home towns and meet their parents.
There's lots of scripted drama going on in this reality series including some live stripping and one fellow out for no one but himself.
All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.
While BravoTV's "Top Chef Masters" disappoints, Food Network's "The Next Food Network Star" churns on. We've got drama between the contenders, all sorts of believable food, the ones you'll hate, the ones you'll love, liars and charletons.
All with pics of food AND people you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.
============
Pic of the Day
Sublimal Burger King Ad
It’s not that I don’t appreciate a bit of cleverness, x-rated or otherwise. So the new Burger King advertisement makes me smile with the whimsy.
What about our children and grandchildren I must ask? Do we really want a society where an advertisement for such a simple thing as a fast-food hamburger is filled with sexual connotation? Will it soon be that everything that we sell is advertised with double-entrendres that the children will understand as well as we do? Isn’t a society based on the notion, defacto, that it is a-okay to see our goods using sex as a lure, isn’t this a society sliding down to a depth where maybe we don’t want to go?
I mean it’s not like we can keep such double-entrendre advertisements away from the youngsters. Yon reader may smile but Burger King, may favorite hamburger joint by the way, alleges that this ad will only be shown overseas.
Heh.
Note that this “overseas” advertisement uses American dollars in the ad.
Should any reader desire to contact Burger King about this ad, and this Blogger is not espousing such an action one way or the other, contact information is provided below:
Burger King Corporation
5505 Blue Lagoon Drive
Miami, Florida 33126
Corporate Headquarters - 305-378-3000
Marketing/Advertising Information Requests - 305-378-7200
Consumer Relations - 305-378-3535
HAVE IT YOUR WAY® Cards Consumer Help Desk - 1-800-522-1278
Chubby People Live Longer
While I quite like this study I am a bit skeptical. Bearing in mind, also, that the study was taken in Japan and Japanese people are, as a rule, on the smallish side.
From Breitbart.com
Health experts have long warned of the risk of obesity, but a new Japanese study warns that being very skinny is even more dangerous, and that slightly chubby people live longer.
People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found.
I do think that a bit of pudge, using common sense here, is better for us than an obsession with an ideal weight that has many of us over-exercising and stressing out over one point in our body indices.
For all I know, “chubby” to a Japanese person is around what? 125 pounds?
Heh.
Iran and Obama At the Ice Cream Parlor
I don’t begrudge President Obama his day on the golf course this past weekend even though the beleaguered citizens of Iran were being slaughtered by their own government. I don’t even begrudge Obama and his family their trip to the ice cream parlor, also this past weekend when Iran was boiling over. Let us recall please that if George W. Bush even took a crap while Katrina’s wind blew the media and fine, fine fair Democrats trashed him up one side and down the other.
Double standard aside did he have to make it a photo-op? Because that’s what it was. Those photographers knew the Obamas were making a trip to the ice cream parlor and there were plenty of them onhand to photograph the event.
Isn’t this just the poorest of taste? Why couldn’t the Obamas have sent someone out for a cone, complete with sprinkles, fudge, and waffle cones, and have that person bring it back for the enjoyment of Sasha and Melia? Surely the big deal was pre-arranged that all of America see the Obamas as just your average American family, complete with a love of ice cream.
Couldn’t they have did this photo-op maybe another day, perhaps a day when citizens aren’t dying for their right to have their vote properly counted?
More Obama Photo-Ops
Again, I give Michelle Obama credit for serving up grub at a soup kitchen in D.C. But you can’t blame us fools out here in la-la land for being amused at one such soup recipient all involved taking a picture of the First Lady with his $300 Blackberry.
Heh.
George Clooney Tries to Contact Dead Pig
Speaking of talentless goofballs. And they make fun of the creative contenders on “America’s Got Talent”!
From All Headlinenews.com:
Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - George Clooney has hired to psychic to help him contact his dead pig. The "Leatherheads" star is still mourning the loss of his beloved potbellied pet Max, who died in 2006, and asked a medium to get in touch with the swine.
George reportedly told a friend: "The psychic told me Max had a great life with me. He is very happy in spirit and still hangs out with me sometimes."
O.J.’s Girlfriend Says He’s An Awful Man
Heh. So everyone who is surprised by this, please raise your hand.
From the NYPOST:
A dump-all book by O.J.'s last lady friend is making the rounds. Chris tine Prody, the nubile blond wait ress who took up where his murdered blond wife,Nicole, left off, is now looking to rat on 13 years of cocaine, pregnancy, abuse, jealousy, possessiveness, manipulation, rage. And those are just her nicer topics.
Well I don’t suppose she’s got much else going for her but being a dimbulb and the chance to write a book about it.
O.J. is where he belongs. For if America’s learned anything from the very tragic saga of O.J. Simpson, it’s that even if you do get away with the crime with tricks and shenanigans, people NEVER forget.
Shameless Bragging About Garden
They’re Stargazer lilies and the blooms are as big as my head. Here they are in my kitchen window, all happy and making the entire house smell like a funeral parlor.
Ending With a Smile
”Deadly Greed”-Joe Sharkey
Amazon code for this book
If one were to utter the name Charles Stuart most of us would likely shrug in non-recognition. Yet a few years back Charles Stuart was on the national news almost 24/7. For Charles Stuart had just attended a birthing class with his expectant wife Carol and as they were driving home their car was hijacked and his wife was shot dead by a bullet to her head.
Charles too was shot and almost mortally wounded but he managed to survive. The infant of Charles and Carol Stuart was removed from his dead mother’s womb but he too died from lack of oxygen via the placenta of his dying mother.
Even though the incident happened in Massachusetts, the nation was shocked. It was the nightmare of all of middle-class white America, the fear that a ride through the bad part of town would have the dark-skinned criminals come out from the shadows to rob and kill us without mercy.
Charles Stuart’s wounds were deadly, so deadly that the cops dismissed the notion that Charles had killed his own wife and set up this criminal scenario. For the word out in the ghetto where the Stuarts were attacked was that no self-respecting robber would shoot the woman BEFORE killing the man. The Boston police too questioned this sequence of events, indeed the entire manner in which the crime went down. Carjackings like this just weren’t normal in the ghetto. And the small time hood who Charles identified as the killer, one Willie Bennett, was considered too shrewd to attempt what was basically a small time robbery in such a dramatic way.
But Charles Stuart almost died from his wounds. If Stuart himself shot his wife and then shot himself to make it all look believable, would he damn near kill himself in the process?
Except Charles didn’t mean to harm himself so badly. In fact he’d read about the proper way to shoot oneself in the gut that would cause the bullet to enter basically the fat area and exit another skin and fat area without causing much damange.
Carol Stuart died shortly after the bullet hit her head. She did not, however, die immediately. It was death thrashings that caused Chuck to shoot himself in the gut in the wrong place and at the wrong angle.
“Deadly Greed” is the behind-the-scenes story of Charles Stuart, a man who wanted more out of life, indeed who rightfully DESERVED more out of life. He wanted the most bucks. He wanted the prettiest girl. He wanted to go on the best vacations, to dine in the best restaurants, to drink in the swankiest clubs and he for damn sure didn’t want a bunch of kids around using up all his funds.
Chuck Stuart was not smart enough by half to carry off this crime. In fact it was only his miscalculation of his shot to his own torso that had him half getting away with this crime. Otherwise he’d have been caught right away. For Chuck Stuart also included two of his brothers in his dirty deeds and how dumb is this?
If Chuck Stuart is to be respected for one thing during his sorry life, it is the fact that he was brave enough to climb to the top of a tall bridge known across the state of Massachusetts for the execution of successful suicides. Chuck Stuart climbed this bridge and threw himself off to his death after his brothers came forth and told the police the truth about that fateful night.
Chuck Stuart saved the country the expense of a trial, the cost of housing him the rest of his life, who knows, maybe God will forgive Chuck Stuart at some point during the expanse of all eternity.
It’s a good read. Author Sharkey was a Massachusetts newspaper reporter at the time. The book is not a big read; it is, after all, a short and very pathetic story. But it’s written well and all facts are presented without prejudice.
Good for a quiet afternoon’s reading enjoyment.
The Next Food Network Star Sets Up the Drama
Food Network Star Web Site HERE
Reality shows all need a bit of drama that will keep the viewers interested and returning. So while The Next Food Network Star is a “foodie” show, in order to keep the rest of us intrigued we must see some drama unfold before our very eyes.
Contender Teddy comes to mind. Here’s a guy who’s a lying snake and he is handily depicted as same as the program unfolds. The producers could, just throwing it out there, remove those program parts that have the contenders looking bad. EXCEPT, perhaps, if they WANT the contenders to look bad. In the first episode, Debbie lied about the cost of the groceries she’d purchased. In the past two episodes, Teddy’s lied about his relationship with other contenders. In this last episode Teddy really overplayed his hand.
The elimination challenge had contenders forming 2-person teams. Each team was charged with creating one dish from each team member and also creating a dish that would be a collaberation between both team members. The contenders had already been sent on a shopping trip with a $60.00 budget. They thought, at the time of the shopping trip, that they would each singularly be preparing a guest meal for 12 people on that $60.00 budget. It wasn’t until AFTER the shopping trip that the contenders were told that they would be teamed up and the terms of the dishes they would be preparing.
The teams consisted of:
Michael and Jeffrey
Melissa and Eddie
Teddie and Debbie
Jamika and Kate
Some of these team combinations amuse. Jamika is a cook with an emphasis on down-home, earthy soul food. Katie is a health food nut who irritates with her constant lecturing on the good-for-us-food that we should be eating.
Debbie, in a solo camera vignette, expressed reservations about being teamed with Teddy because she didn’t trust the snake. Last week Teddie lied that he’d been a major factor in helping Melissa prepare her elimination challenge dish when all he did was help her plate the dish. Indeed the fine, fine Teddy did do the dirty on Debbie so her fears were well-placed.
\
Florence Tyler hosted this episode’s mini-challenge. His job was to help each contender tape a short segment that had each giving a food tip for viewers. Melissa gave a great tip involving green onions and how to keep them on hand at all times. She didn’t win this mini-challenge, however. That honor went to Jeffrey, whose tip involved the creation of a quick dessert and how he enjoyed preparing it with his daughter.
Ina, the Food Network’s “Barefoot Contessa”, was to be the host of the dinner party that would have the contenders’ entrees featured.
Jamika prepared a good salmon appetizer and gave a great presentation. I look for this contender to be part of the final three.
Eddie, who got kicked off this past week, spent his cooking time with his team mate Melissa rolling his eyes in mockery of this woman who is this year’s only entrant who does not have a job in food service. Eddie should talk, his fine self. He revealed during the elimination challenge’s critique session, that his dish, a watermelon/onion concoction that was considered overwhelmed by the onion, was copied from a Paula Deen cookbook. This revelation caused the judges to chastise Eddie as evidently they should be cooking their own recipes and not copying those of other Food Network Stars. Well damn, we can watch Paula Deen if we want HER recipes.
The team of Jeff and Mike won this elimination challenge with their fine presentations. Mike did not do well in the presentation. Mike is not headed for the finals as his personality seems to be missing.
It was the Debbie and Teddy team that gave the drama in this past episode. Debbie and Teddy collaborated on a meatloaf concoction that received great praise from the judges. At the presentation Debbie and Teddy both offered this meatloaf as their collaborative effort. Debbie prepared an appetizer as her sole contribution and Teddy offered a rather lackluster dessert as his sole contribution.
However, at the judge’s critique session, when Teddy heard that his dessert offering was so badly received, Teddy shouted out that it was the meatloaf that was his sole dish and NOT the dessert.
Heh.
Damn, they had the man on tape offering this meatloaf as a collaborative effort of Teddy and Debbie and here he up and lies like a rug. I thought HE should have been sent home but I suspect that the producers allowed Teddy to sneak through for another week because hey, next week we will all tune in to see Teddy finally get his comeuppance.
Below a remix of some of the more shocking bits in the Next Food Network Star aired 6/21/09.
No comments:
Post a Comment