■ • 11
SUMMER FUN
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Al
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PUMP ill UP
THE INFLATABLE PARTY ZONE
A private, indoor party facility featuring exciting, huge inflat-
•
ables with a separate room reserved for your very own private
party or group event. We provide party attendants and take
care of all the details so that you can sit back and enjoy the
party!
■
Just One of Our
Fantastic Party
Packages!
•
Ciatsic P arley
S
$
22
Monday thru
Thursday
'THE IN LATAOLE PA
ZONE
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Oit YOUR
F
AT KVA
t§ $5 Summer Drop In
Fri • Imo-Noon
E Mon, Wed,
(c
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865510
rawle
Friday thru Sunday
z holidays
•Invite up to 25 kids
•i iia hours in the play area
•i/2 hour in the party room
•Free invitations and
paper products
•Pizza, goodie bags and balloons
available at an
additional charge
28373 Beck Road, Building H
Beck Business Center
Wixom, Michigan 48393
248'374'2222
NAINA/W. PUMP
ITU PPARTY.COM
Metro-Detroit's Premiere Guide to Restaurants, Caterers and Specialty Shops
Lebanese Garden
Healthy Middle Eastern Cuisine
43259 Woodward Ave
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302
(Just N. of Square Lake — west side)
Dine-in, Carry-Out, Catering, Meeting Area
248.253.9300
To advertise in this special Dining Guide section,
call Sheryl Alpern at 248.351.5170
SN
7/30
2004
70
Last Call
Only In America
W hat do
Whoopi
Goldberg,
Michael Moore,
Rush Limbaugh,
the Dixie Chicks',
Natalie Maines and
Linda Ronstadt all
have in common?
HARRY
They've made dis-
KIRSBAUM paraging comments
about an acting presi-
Columnist
dent.
Sure, I sneaked a
square peg into a round hole by
adding good old Rush, but. I'm trying
to make a point.
There's nothing new in making crass
comments about elected leaders, and
that's the beauty of the First
Amendment. I just wish both sides
would play by the same standards.
Say you find yourself drunk at the
Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. You've
just busted out at the craps table, and
you don't want to call it a night, so
you join about 5,000 others and drop
in at the Aladdin Theatre for the
Performing Arts to catch a Linda
Ronstadt concert.
She sings, she makes a few cracks
about Vegas, then for an encore, she
dedicates "Desperado" to Michael
Moore, "someone who cares about
this country deeply, and is trying to
help."
So you and about 100 fellow drunks
go nuts, throwing drinks, ripping her
posters off the walls, then charging the
front desk, demanding your money
back for a political comment made by
an entertainer during her encore.
And if yothomehow find yourself
in the slammer the next morning,
what are your first thoughts? That you
went too far? That you should have
headed up to your room and called an
escort service instead?
And say you're Aladdin President
Bill Timmins and you've just been
informed that an unruly crowd of 100
has just stormed the front desk. Do
you send security guards to control
the crowd or make a few arrests?
Nah, you toss Linda on the street,
and tell the press that it was wrong for
her to bring politics to the stage.
Linda's July 17 Aladdin performance
made headlines for much of the fol-
Harry Kirsbaum's e-mail address is
hkirsbaum@thej ewishnews. corn
lowing week and she reaped the bene-
fits of a sell-out concert near San
Francisco on July 22. About 100 out-
raged, yet somewhat more mellow
fans took an early exit during her
encore.
What's going on here?
Do people forget that Linda, the
1970s rock star, was also the girlfriend
of then California Gov. Jerry
"Moonbeam" Brown? That she's been
an activist since then?
In other recent news:
• The Associated Press reported last
week that Grammy winner Bonnie
Raitt made some anti-Bush comments
during a July 20 concert in
Stockholm, Sweden — as if that's
news. Bonnie's been a lifelong activist
in political and environmental causes.
• Editor and Publisher magazine
reported on July 21 that Continental
Features, a North Carolina-based con-
sortium of 23 Sunday comics, polled
its 38 newspapers about replacing
Doonesbury "because it created more
controversy than other strips."
Oh, my God, who knew that
Doonesbury was controversial? Why,
something ought to be done about
that.
Twenty-one papers voted to replace
the strip.
• Whoopi Goldberg got some heat
from Republicans about comments
she made about Bush during a
Democratic fundraiser a few weeks
ago.
As if Republicans like talk show
host Rush Limbaugh never made
crude comments about outgoing
President Bill Clinton during the
2000 election.
I understand the outrage of some
people when they hear of rock stars
and celebrities making political state-
ments from outside the country.
But I'm having a hard time trying to
understand why people think that
celebrities can sway public opinion,
that an undecided voter will vote for
John Kerry for president or join
Greenpeace to save the whales because
he went to a Linda Ronstadt concert.
Whether you agree with the message
or not, Linda Ronstadt is allowed to
say what she wants, wherever she
wants. So can Whoopi Goldberg,
Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bo
Derek and Michael Moore. That's the
beauty of America. r1