The week in one liners:

Kevin Rudd committed his government to transparency, while the Liberal party boasted they had beaten him to the punch by electing a leader everyone could see through…

President Bush continued to insist that Iran remains a nuclear threat in the face of intelligence reports to the contrary, pointing out that the CIA is totally unreliable as that Iraq nonsense showed…

Kevin Rudd confirmed that states would be allowed to honour same-sex marriages, prompting an Age leader on the neglect of bis-xuality, continuing its editorial commitment to having it both ways…

Bullets killed eight people in Omaha, Nebraska. The NRA dismissed suggestions of involvement by a gun in the vicinity as circumstantial evidence…

A British teacher released after being jailed for naming a school teddy bear “Mohammed” told a press conference at Khartoum airport that said she was relieved to be out and on her way home to her family and her pet dog, Dirty Allah Bastard…

There were sporadic reports of voting regularities in the Russian elections…

The painful sound as Bronwyn Bishop re-entered Parliament House as part of the Liberal shadow ministry, initially thought to be the effect on her hair on the metal detector, was later identified as barrel-scraping…
Sources close to Peter Garrett denied he was being sidelined, as Wayne Swan took responsibility for climate change questions in parliament, Penny Wong represented Australia at Bali, and Robert McClelland was confirmed as lead singer in Midnight Oil’s latest tour…

Romulus, My Father scooped the pool at the AFIs, winning four awards, and prompting hopes that the story of poverty, despair and joy among Yugoslav immigrants will be remade by Will Ferrell as a pick-up artist who learns the value of love after a judge orders him to dress as a woman for a week…

Best direction was won by “towards Los Angeles” for the thirtieth year running…

Convicted fraudulent cheat Rodney Adler described his jail term as a “boring and barbaric” episode he would do anything to avoid in an apparent effort by the HIH genius to convince people that prison doesn’t work…

Brad Pitt was forced to abandon plans to help house more than 150,000 New Orleans residents after Angelina Jolie adopted them all…

Katie Holmes says she was growing as an actress, at a rate estimated from recent photos to be about 5cm a year…

A story about a brothel featuring a host of Australian TV identities went on air as Channel Nine launched a fly-on-the-wall doco of its own boardroom…

The irreplaceable human cost from rising sea levels in our coastal cities was revealed as exaggerated this week, when the story about Jemma Bush phoning the White House live from the Ellen show got third on The SMH most-read list…

Following a new initiative by Australian airlines, Garuda has introduced a new programme of “mystery flights” focused largely on the jungle beneath their existing flightpaths.

And the week in trash with Helen Razer:

Gertrude Stein wore unflattering suits and built hard, masculine prose that made Henry Miller read like Jilly Cooper by contrast. This was long the source of a personal distress. Why should anyone wish to moderate her feminine identity?

Jennifer Love Hewitt. That’s why.

Chief among a company of pointless bints, Hewitt made me and other sane female persons scream UNSEX ME NOW this week.

Apparently, pictures of Hewitt romping in her underthings were posted on the world wide interwebs. Apparently, the candid pictures failed to reproduce JLH’s usual standards of svelte and smoky. Apparently, unkind comments such as “We know what you ate last summer” soon appended the shots.

And apparently, the credible star of Garfield and similar Brakhage influenced edgy film, was not happy.

As is the wont of wounded young women, Hewitt etched her sadness on her blog.

“I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized,” lied the putative human before snapping her fingers powerfully in the style made famous by Oprah.

Then, second wave feminist style NOT, she enjoined, “all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, (to) put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong.”

Oh. F-ck off. Don’t make me hate my gender with any more force.

Further, if you’re going to refigure yourself as Naomi Wolf-lite, first remove those pictures on your website wherein you’re arranged to resemble the vacant, hammered-up star of a Ljubljana stick flick.

Hypocrite. Harlot.

It seems less eminent tarts are also feeling pressure “from the media.” A study conducted by Deakin University found that many women are dissatisfied with their post-natal bodies. Really? Actually, I’d already surmised that this was a danger as my mother, nearly forty years on, gets to the third pinot grigio, looks at me with real aversion and says, “You ruined my body. Ruined it.”

My mother is far brighter than the clinical subjects selected for survey in this study. She, quite properly, blames me for her misfortune. She does not apportion it to “the media”.

Unlike The Australian , a Mission Australia survey of 28,000 self-absorbed teenagers revealed “body image” as a primary concern for girls. In reviewing this data, the writer cautions against, “damaging messages from popular culture.”

“The media” here is to blame for the poor esteem of Jennifer Love Hewitt, post partum tubsters, young women and, now, according to the Mission Australia data, young men.

Yes. I know. Visual culture is toxic. But so are reflexive and easy explanations. I do not hold Mischa Barton, or whomsoever is currently personifying Hotness, responsible for the ragged self-esteem of children. Anymore than I blame High GI foods for that gut of mine that took a year of sit-ups to diminish.

No. I’ll blame my mother for that.

And then I’ll dress like Gertrude Stein. Unsex me now.