Muslim Riots - Charles Hebdo

There have been protests in the Muslim world during the past week over the anti-Islamic film that depicts the Prophet in a derogatory way. Likewise, there were protests last year when a Danish publication ran some cartoons in their magazine, which ignited Muslim riots everywhere. The western media should get with the program and realize that Muslims don't like their beliefs mocked.  Westerners wouldn't understand the jokes anyway because most don't know dick about the Islamic religion.

Muslims could also take the high road and ignore western media, particularly sensationalist magazines that are just out to make a buck, and prove to westerners that Islam really is a peaceful religion.   
    
Anybody who has lived in the Muslim world knows that Muslims take their religion very seriously. The unfortunate thing about the violent protests that are sure to result from Charlie Hebdo publishing cartoons of the Prophet, is that they will further portray Muslims as violent fanatics. This is unfortunate because after having lived in Jordan, Morocco and now Oman and traveled through other countries in the Muslim world, I have known these people to be generous, respectful and family-oriented. Perhaps more so than their western counterpart.Yes, there are fanatics in any religion, just like there are Christian fanatics and Jewish fanatics and I have met a few of them, too.   

Although the French government has criticized the cartoons, they are still sending riot police to guard the offices of this provocative magazine. They should be fed to the wolves. Let them suffer the results of their stupidity and hire their own private security to stop their windows from being broken. Why is the French government paying to protect them? The Rector of the Great Mosque of Paris Dalil Boubakeur said: “I think that what they’ve done here is beyond comprehension. It breaches normal reasoning, and is a breach of responsibility.”

This latest provocation does not make any sense whatsoever and has nothing to do with freedom of speech, but instead is an attention-seeking gimmick to sell more copy, and with tensions as high as they are over the film, totally irresponsible. The editor of the magazine, Stephane Charbonnier, is quoted as saying 'we do caricatures of everyone every week, but when we do it with the Prophet, it’s called a provocation.'  He said that the images would 'shock those who will want to be shocked.'  It seems an auspicious time to run these cartoons for his magazine, yet what's more unbelievable is that they have run out of western politicians to ridicule.  

By the way Stephane, the Prophet is not 'everyone.'      

Plastic Surgery Gone Wrong

Cosmetic surgeons are making millions of dollars taking advantage of entertainers who don't know when to stop. Case in point – Joan Rivers. Evidently, Joan Rivers has had an astounding 739 plastic surgery procedures and, judging by her tortured face, 500 were done on her nose alone. Joan gave an interview to The Daily Telegraph saying "Every weekend I just go in and I do something new. I get a 10th one free. It's a little like coffee, you just keep going."

Other notable entertainers who went too far are Michael Jackson, Burt Reynolds and Kenny Rogers. There is no need to discuss Michael Jackson because we all know how he lost his nose, nor Burt because he's not important anymore, but I was surprised and disappointed when I recently saw a photograph of Kenny Rogers. He used to have a handsome, man-the-skip type of ruggedness about him and with his sexy eyes, he was a knockout. I watched a video of him singing with his old sidekick, but his face was so tight he had a hard time singing, let alone talking and mugging with old Dolly. It wasn’t Kenny Rogers anymore; it was some facsimile of Kenny Rogers. It wasn't the original Dolly either, but then, we've never seen the original Dolly.

Other disasters in the long list of plastic surgery overkill are those women that have received triple X breast implants such as Pamela Anderson, Katie Price and the directionally-challenged, Heidi Montag. Heidi is a fourth-tier reality star trying to get some attention who had multiple procedures done in one day, including a nose job, a chin reduction, neck liposuction, a buttock augmentation, waist liposuction, and breast enlargement, all with the aim of attaining 'inner' beauty. Any one of these procedures carries serious risk for bleeding, infection, scarring, nerve damage and adverse reactions to anesthesia. We wouldn't want to see a bartender serve an alcoholic two fifths of vodka, so why would anyone allow a surgeon to perform 10 procedures in one day.  On a 25-year-old bimbo?

As sorry as the above situations are, the woman who has everybody beat for the worst plastic surgery imaginable is Jocelyn Wildenstein, a.k.a. Cat Woman, a rich New York City socialite originally from Switzerland. Jocelyn was an attractive young woman who married billionaire Alec Wildenstein. She suspected a few years into her marriage that he was cheating on her, and knowing how much he loved his cats from his private jungle, she asked a plastic surgeon to give her catlike eyes in the hope of keeping him around for a few more months. However, upon seeing her after her surgery, Alec screamed and ran out the door and kept running, and Jocelyn returned for more plastic surgery to mend her broken heart.

She is now in her seventies and still doing 'touch-ups.' What does she see when she looks in the mirror?

Jocelyn has had brow lifts, botox in her forehead, an upper and lower blepharoplasty, canthopexy, fat grafting, cheek implants, a mid-face lift, breast implants, lip plumping injections, a facelift and a chin augmentation. To date she has had approximately three million dollars worth of surgery, about five million dollars less than Joan, however. While passing through security at Los Angeles Airport, it was reported that Jocelyn gave the officers a terrible 'fright.' She also has a boyfriend who is almost 20 years younger and I wonder if she ever gave him a fright. No doubt. Can you imagine waking up to that every day without its hair and makeup?

Although we have dissected and labeled every emotional and physiological disease known to man, I rarely have, if ever, seen the words 'illness' and 'plastic surgery' used in the same sentence. Perhaps it's time we start thinking of new reality television shows that every washed-up actor would be clamoring to be on for a second shot at fame. How about these shows: Plastic Surgery Rehab with Dr. Drew, Plastic Surgery Mishaps, Plastaholics Anonymous, Plastic Surgery Re-do, Dancing With The Plastic Surgery Stars, the Real Plastic Surgery Housewives (oh, that's been done already!), or Real Stories of the Plastic Surgeons. I would definitely tune in.