"What does Callahan hope to add to this vale of tears? Only her residual and, yes, partisan and ideological suspicion..."

"... that despite ample testimony (in many cases from the victims themselves), the Kennedy men have somehow gotten away with it all. So unfurls her multigenerational perp walk, which begins, as it must, with Big Joe.... Joe’s habit of treating women as, in Callahan’s words, 'accessories, broodmares, chattel' was inevitably passed down to his sons. John Kennedy’s White House notably featured what one aide called 'a conveyor belt of young women' running up and down the back stairs, 'leaving blond hairs and bobby pins,' Callahan writes, 'dripping water and passing their half-finished drinks to Secret Service agents as they scurried out the door, no doubt hearing that the first lady was on her way home.' In one particularly repellent act, she writes, the president commanded the 19-year-old intern he was having sex with to fellate one of his aides...."

Writes Louis Bayard, author of the novel "Jackie & Me," in "A Horror Story Starring the Monstrous Men of Camelot/Maureen Callahan’s lurid 'Ask Not' paints the Kennedys as mad, bad and dangerous for women to know" (NYT).

"He said at first he felt she was the 'perfect partner.' They bonded over a love of obscure blues music.... 'Then things just started to change. Or things started to reveal themselves'..."

"... he said, pointing to the fact that Heard would have 'unusual reaction' over small things, such as if he didn’t go to bed at the same time as her.... The actor said that when Heard made her allegations, people in the entertainment industry — where he never had problems over a career of 30-plus years — began to think he was a 'fraud.' ... 'Very strange, when one day you’re Cinderella, so to speak, and then 0.6 seconds [later], you’re Quasimodo. I didn’t deserve that, nor did my children, or the people who had believed in me all these years. . . . I pride myself on honesty. I pride myself on truth,' he said. 'Truth is the only thing I’m interested in. Lies build upon lies build upon lies. It’s too much to cover. I’m obsessed with the truth.'... Depp was also asked about [his text message about her]  'rotting corpse is decomposing' in the 'trunk of a Honda Civic.' Depp said his language and vocabulary was influenced by authors such as Hunter S. Thompson, Philip K. Dick, J.D. Salinger and James Joyce, and sometimes he had a tendency to exaggerate. 'I am ashamed of some of the references I made... I tend to be quite expressive in my writing and after the unfortunate words of Ms. Heard made their way into my heart and my head, those are two very opposing things...."

From "Depp takes stand, says Heard’s abuse allegations are untrue, ‘heinous’" (WaPo). 

At YouTube, there are many clips, long and short, if you want to see how he looks and sounds. He speaks very slowly, haltingly, and often touches his face.

How do you judge the testimony of an actor? He ought to be able to sell the script. Maybe you end up assessing his acting. The writer at the NY Post, Maureen Callahan sneers at his acting/testimony, in "Johnny sinks to new Depps: Star’s testimony a disaster class in acting":

"I understand why the name of this award has changed, but I really love being a woman and being a female artist. I do! I’m really, really proud of us. I really, really am."

Said Adele, accepting the Brit Award for Artist of the Year and referring to the change to gender neutrality, after years of awarding the best female and the best male, quoted in a NY Post column, "Good on Adele for celebrating female — not gender-neutral — achievement" by Maureen Callahan. 

Callahan writes that Adele is being "slandered a TERF — a trans-exclusionary radical feminist." I'd like to see the wording of that "slander," because I can't even understand it. How are trans people involved in gender neutrality? It seems to me they're at the opposite extreme. Adele says "I really love being a woman," but isn't that what a trans woman would say? Gender is especially important, not neutralized. 

What would be "trans-exclusionary" would be to keep the male and female categories but refuse to allow artists to compete for the award that goes with their declared gender. You could even say that switching to gender neutrality just as trans people are coming to the fore is trans-exclusionary — a bit like reacting to racial desegregation by closing the public swimming pool.

Quite aside from the TERF charge, there's the problem of excluding artists who declare themselves non-binary, notably Sam Smith. Here's an article from The Guardian from last March: "Sam Smith excluded from gendered categories at 2021 Brit awards/Solo male and solo female categories mean no room for chart-topping non-binary singer, who calls for awards to reflect society."

A Brit awards spokesperson later responded, saying: “Sam is an extraordinary British artist and we agree with what they have said today. The Brits are committed to evolving the show and the gendered categories are very much under review. But any changes made to be more inclusive need to be just that - if a change unintentionally leads to less inclusion then it risks being counterproductive to diversity and equality. We need to consult more widely before changes are made to make sure we get it right.”

There are winners and losers — in awards and in structuring and re-structuring awards — and maybe the best answer is screw awards. This is art, not sports.

"Is there a bigger joke in broadcast news than Chris Cuomo? Now, he says, he cannot cover his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, because it’s a conflict of interest...."

"Apparently no such conflict arose when Chris constantly hosted his brother during the height of the pandemic, tastelessly turning his nightly news show into 'The Cuomo Brothers Variety Hour.' The governor took time out of his busy schedule — consisting of daily ego baths dressed up as press conferences and writing a book about leadership while allegedly sexually harassing at least one young employee and eugenically shunting old people with COVID into nursing homes and certain death — to answer hard-hitting questions and accusations such as these, posed by little brother Chris: 'No matter how hard you’re working, there’s always time to call Mom. She wants to hear from you.' “'ou know that what people are saying about how you look really can’t be accurate, so it must be hard for you to make sense of what is real and what is true now. I feel for you.' 'Now I’ve seen you referred to a little bit recently as the LuvGuv and I’m wondering if that’s bleeding into your demeanor at all and making you a little soft on the president?' 'Do you think you are an attractive person now because you’re single and ready to mingle?'"

From "How is Chris Cuomo still on the air at CNN?" by Maureen Callahan (NY Post).

The Clintons kick off their national speaking tour, and the NY Post writer thinks it reenacted "why Hillary lost: Over-promise, under-deliver, avoid accountability, and expect the masses to nonetheless be satisfied."

Maureen Callahan says she spent $210 for a balcony seat and got "90 minutes of longtime Clinton lackey Paul Begala launching such softballs" at the Clintons:

Is the two-state solution dead?
What is happening to American politics?
How did it feel to watch the bin Laden raid?
Why are the Dems losing rural voters?
How did you raise such an amazing daughter?

I wish I were exaggerating. The only current event touched upon was that day’s arrest of Julian Assange — astonishing given the surfeit of recent headlines really worth discussing: Jussie Smollett, race relations and hate crimes; the one-percenters caught up in the college admissions scandal; the push to federally legalize marijuana and reform the criminal justice system; the role of Silicon Valley in curbing, if not eliminating, foreign governments hacking our elections [ahem]; Elizabeth Warren’s call to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook — to say nothing of the 20 or so declared Dem candidates for president....  Oh, and #MeToo.

The best part for Callahan was when a guy in the front row stood up and yelled "Bill, this is boring!" and "Why don’t you talk about... Jeffrey Epstein!"