arts & entertainment
Straight Talk
In a new book, Lisa Bloom offers steps for women to reclaim their brains
and take charge of their lives ... (nix the reality shows, ladies!).
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
W
hat could be wrong with the
flattering picture of journalist,
legal commentator and trial
attorney Lisa Bloom as it appears on the
cover of her first book?
For that matter, what could be wrong
with her polished appearance each time
she is seen on television offering insight
into law-related news events?
Paying considerable attention to looks,
according to Bloom, represents a distrac-
tion, too much time spent on the super-
ficiality of makeup and hairdo and not
enough time thinking about and acting on
substantive issues.
Bloom explains her outlook in Think:
Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart
in a Dumbed-Down World (Vanguard
Press; $25.99). For her next book, she will
address men and their distractions.
"Our culture is dumbing us down in
that American women in particular have
become focused on a lot of things that are
not really significant," says Bloom, 49, a
CBS and CNN analyst who also runs her
own law firm.
"I believe that God gave us brains and
wants us to use our brains, and I think
it's a shame when we don't. We spend too
much time on worrying about silly issues,
Jew s
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Three Is Enough
Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the
third installment in the fantasy/sci-fi
movie series just released in theaters,
once again stars Shia LaBeouf, 25, as
lead character Sam Witwicky. The film
is directed by Michael Bay, 46, who
directed the previous
two films.
Bay was adopted
at birth by a Jewish
couple and was a bar
mitzvah. His cousin,
Susan Bay, is the
wife of actor Leonard
Nimoy, 80, who
Shia LaBeouf
provides the voice
of Sentinel Prime,
one of the main
Transformer charac-
ters in this flick.
LaBeouf says
this is his last
Transformers
Michael Bay
movie. Megan Fox,
36 June 30
like whether we're wearing
"Twenty-five
the right shoes, or we're
percent of young
watching hours and hours
American women
of reality shows:'
would rather win
Bloom, a Yale Law School
America's Next
graduate, decries media
Top Model than the
pandering to celebrity and
Nobel Peace Prize,"
writes about the personal
writes Lisa Bloom.
experiences that led to her
conclusions while making
"In the book, I talk
suggestions for lifestyle
about an incident where
changes to bring about
one of my networks
meaningful pursuits.
Straight Talk for Women to Stay:
asked me to suggest
Smart in a Dumbed-Down World
Her recommendations
three legal stories to
involve reclaiming time for
talk about for the next
thinking, reading impor-
day. I tried to get the
tant books (she provides
tribunal story as one of
a reading list), taking charge of one's life
the three, but all turned out to be about
and engaging in productive actions.
celebrities.
Part of the impetus for the book
"This was a wakeup moment for me. If
involved media choices, such as lack of
we can't talk about a genocide trial as one
coverage of the Khmer Rouge war crimes
of three stories, then we've really gone off
tribunal a few years ago in Cambodia.
track. There are so many worthy stories,
Her message is punctuated by continuing
and yet, over and over again, I'm asked
media attention to celebrity scandal, such
to talk about the things Americans seem
as Anthony Weiner's sexting.
interested in and journalists are focused
"I tried to get the Khmer Rouge story on on."
one of the networks I was working for at
Bloom and her mother, women's civil
the time, but I couldn't get it on anywhere," right attorney Gloria Allred, actually
she explains. "While hundreds of news
debated the Weiner issue for the TV show
organizations in Europe and Asia were
Extra. While Bloom doesn't think the story
covering the story, very few American
is significant, her mother thinks it's very
journalists had been out there.
significant that Weiner lied about sending
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who played the female lead in the first
two films, has been replaced by British
model Rosie Huntington-Whitely (who
has some remote Jewish ancestry).
Fox was plucked out of obscurity
by Bay to star in the first film (2007),
which made her a star. Then, in 2009,
she told the press that Bay "ran the set
like Adolf Hitler."
Fox said it was her decision to leave
the franchise, but reportedly her com-
ment so outraged producer Steven
Spielberg, 64, that he said to get rid of
her.
Medal Of Honor
Earlier this month,
NBC Nightly News
ran segments about
the return to Vietnam
of retired Army Col.
Jack H. Jacobs, 65,
a Medal of Honor win-
Jack Jacobs
ner and retired banker
who currently works
as a military analyst for NBC.
The most dramatic moment of
Jacob's trip was when he met with the
I
former Vietcong officer who led the
1968 ambush of a South Vietnamese
unit that Jacobs was attached to as a
military adviser. Jacobs was awarded
the Medal of Honor for his actions dur-
ing that ambush, which included saving
the lives of 14 men, despite being heav-
ily wounded himself.
The two segments plus many
extra features, like essays about the
trip by Jacobs, can be found on the
MSNBC news site at http://tinyurl.
com/5rd58bp.
Facing Tomorrow
As reported by JTA, last week, pop star
Shakira, comedian Sarah Silverman
and Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales helped open the third Israeli
Presidential Conference with President
Shimon Peres, 87.
"The best decisions we can make
for a better tomorrow are those about
educating and caring for our children,"
said Shakira, a Colombian singer whose
father is Lebanese and who serves as a
UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
"Israel is the perfect place to discuss
lewd photos and text.
"I think the fixation on the case is lurid
and sensational," she says. "We don't have
to guess what he'd do as a congressman;
he's been in office. We know what his
record is and what his votes have been.
Would that we had 1/100th interest in his
voting record on health or the economy."
With parents divorced early in her life,
the author still was influenced by the intel-
lectual interests of her father, who suffered
from mental illness, and her paternal
grandmother, who snuck her into a church
to have her baptized.
"When I was a college freshman, I
became friends with a group active in the
Hillel program at UCLA," Bloom recalls.
"We would have Friday night Shabbat din-
ners, and I really enjoyed them.
"I enjoyed the religious aspect and the
discussion. We would photocopy articles
about the issues of the day and pass them
around the table. We discussed politics
and international affairs and what our
moral obligations were as Jews.
"I always felt that I was Jewish because
my mother was Jewish, but I really
embraced the religion when I was in col-
lege. I think there's an emphasis in our
culture on learning, questioning authority
and debate, and I would hope that Jewish
women might be more receptive to my
message." II
education and our future because it is
the melting pot, the location where all
nations and religions were born. We
are all inheritors of Abrahamic culture,
therefore we are all Israel."
This was the first visit to Israel for
Shakira, who was urged in a Facebook
page liked by about 2,000 people to
cancel her trip.
In presenting her recipe for a better
tomorrow, Silverman,
39, whose sister
lives in Israel, noted
that the differences
between Israelis and
Palestinians are not
as great as thought
to be.
"My recipe for
Sarah
a better tomorrow
Silverman
would be to raise an
entire generation
without hate," she said at the confer-
ence, titled "Facing Tomorrow."
Wales called for harnessing technol-
ogy to give the younger generation
a voice. More than 4,000 Jewish and
world leaders attended.