Essay 594

• There’s a battle brewing over bling. Barbie and Bratz announced plans to launch summer lines of dolls sporting real jewels. Barbie will introduce My Scene My Bling Bling dolls with a “real gem ring.” Bratz will unveil its Diamondz collection, with real diamond chips. You know it’s bad when dolls wear more bling than their owners.

• A high school teacher in St. Joseph, Mo., apologized for having students write about who they would murder and how they’d execute the deed. “I made a horrible mistake that I regret,” said the teacher. “I want to apologize to my students, my colleagues and to the community.” No word if any of the essays detailed how Barbie wanted to strangle Bratz.

• The California attorney suing Major League Baseball teams for sex discrimination based on giveaway promotions is apparently a busy guy (see Essay 590). He allegedly has initiated up to 40 legal actions against all sorts of organizations and events — including blasting bars for holding “ladies nights.” Wonder where he’ll side in the upcoming Barbie-Bratz brouhaha.

• Rapper-actor DMX is the latest hip-hop artist to cause airline trouble in London. A few weeks ago, Snoop Dogg and his entourage staged a melee at Heathrow Airport (see Essay 586). Now DMX was arrested for refusing to use his seat belt during a flight to London. Airport security may have to start profiling rappers and posses.

• Now BellSouth denies it gave customer phone records to the National Security Agency (see Essay 592). “Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA,” BellSouth insisted. “We cannot find anyone within BellSouth who has ever been approached by the NSA.” Gee, if it took BellSouth this long to figure out they did not deal with the NSA, imagine their response time to customer billing errors.

• President Bush announced that he’ll send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexican border. “We do not yet have full control of the border and I am determined to change that,” Bush proclaimed. At this point, Bush can barely claim to yet have full control of his bladder.