02/05/07 by Mike Paul | Entertainment, Law & Justice, You & I | No Comments »
“One thing is not in doubt: a lot of parents are wondering about the effect our racy popular culture may have on their kids and the women they would like their girls to become. The answers are likely to lie in yet another question: where do our children learn values?” From The Girls Gone Wild Effect, Newsweek Magazine’s Cover Story.
According to Newsweek, like never before, kids are being bombarded by images of oversexed, underdressed celebrities who can’t seem to step out of a car without displaying their well-waxed private parts to photographers, writes Assistant Managing Editor Kathleen Deveny with Assistant Editor Raina Kelley in the current issue of Newsweek.
In a recent Newsweek Poll, 77 percent of respondents say young women celebrities like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have too much influence on young girls. Eighty-four percent of those polled say sexuality plays a bigger role in American popular culture than it did 20 or 30 years ago and 70 percent say this is more of a bad influence on young people today than a good influence.
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12/12/06 by Mike Paul | Business, Entertainment, Law & Justice, Politics, You & I | No Comments »
New York – The following is Mike “The Reputation Doctor” Paul’s Annual Top 10 List of Reputations in Crisis in 2006. This list is compiled by and solely the opinion of global reputation management expert Mike Paul, who is also a weekly guest in the media providing expert analysis of various reputations in crisis:
1. Donald Rumsfeld – The now-former Defense Secretary was the stubborn and poor-listening architect of the war in Iraq, and because the U.S. has still not “won the war,” he was finally asked to leave by President Bush under strong pressure from Democrats in Congress. Both the Bush administration and the U.S. as a nation have global reputations in crisis because of decisions in Iraq and Donald Rumsfeld ran the war in Iraq and tops my list this year for reputations in crisis.
2. The Duke case – D.A. Mike Nifong charged former Duke lacrosse players Collin Finnerty, Dave Evans and Reade Seligmann with allegedly raping a stripper hired for a team party in March. The case has made both national and international headlines for many months and highlights and importance of both the court of law and the court of public opinion. All the reputations in this case have been damaged, especially D.A. Nifong, who is up for re-election and has many thinking he only took the case in an attempt to get re-elected.
3. Mel Gibson – His drunken, anti-Semitic rant towards an L.A. police officer will blur our perception of him forever, mainly because it was not the first time he voiced similar opinions. To overcome a crisis, you must remove the root of the problem and sadly, the root has not been removed within Mel Gibson.
4. Floyd Landis – Floyd Landis was fired by his team and his sponsors and the Tour de France no longer considered him its champion after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone. The samples contained synthetic testosterone, indicating that it came from an outside source. This was the top steroid story in the world in 2006.
5. Halliburton – The Reputations Institute’s recent survey ranked Halliburton as the corporation with the worst business reputation worldwide. This is not a good thing. Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before becoming Vice President of The United States. Halliburton is a products and services provider to the oil and energy industries with major contracts in Iraq.
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11/25/06 by Mike Paul | Entertainment, Law & Justice, You & I | No Comments »
“Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f***ing fork up your ass!” Screamed Michael “Kramer” Richards as the actor tried his hand at comedy at the Laugh Factory in L.A. last week, but lost it in a racial rant after allegedly being heckled by two black men in the audience.
According to the Associated Press, two black men, who say they were insulted by actor and comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club, want a personal apology and perhaps some money, their lawyer says. Richards, who played the wacky Cosmo Kramer on the hit TV show “Seinfeld,” appeared onstage at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood last week.
Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, say they were part of a group of about 20 people who had gathered at West Hollywood’s Laugh Factory to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Their lawyer, Gloria Allred, says they were ordering drinks when Richards berated them for interrupting his act.
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09/19/06 by Mike Paul | Entertainment, You & I | No Comments »
“Smith ordered the follow-up autopsy to end “media speculation surrounding the matter.” Commented Anna Nicole Smith’s Bahamian attorney Michael Scott.
Anna Nicole Smith’s son was on prescription anti-depression medication when he died at the hospital bedside of the former reality TV star, a pathologist who did a second autopsy on the 20-year-old said Monday.
Daniel Smith began taking a ”quite low” dosage of prescription antidepressants four to six weeks ago, said forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht. He said he did not know whether the medication played any role in the death. He is still awaiting the results of toxicology tests to determine the cause of death.
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09/07/06 by Mike Paul | Business, Entertainment, Politics, You & I | No Comments »
“We had a wonderful time. It is time for me to move on. We remain friends.” Commented Carolyn Kepcher, formerly a star on NBC’s The Apprentice and formerly executive vice president in the Trump organization, on ABC’s Good Morning America after being fired by Donald Trump due to excessive self promotion as her full-time job suffered.
According to A.P., Carolyn Kepcher, who sat by while her boss Donald Trump dismissed one would-be apprentice after another on TV, has now felt the full force of his iconic phrase: “You’re fired.”
Kepcher, a co-star with Trump from the start of “The Apprentice” in 2004 and a long-time employee of the Trump Organization, has been let go.
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