ARF's Celebrity 2010 calendar: Sully (of course), Warren Buffet, some other cool (and sexy) people--but Greta Van Susteren?

The East Bay's patron saint of animal rescue, former Oakland Athletics and current St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, has put out a 2010 celebrity calendar to raise money for his worthy and well-regarded Walnut Creek-based Animal Rescue Foundation.

On the cover of the calendar is none other than America's favorite hero commercial pilot, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, with his wife, Lorrie. The Danville couple are posed with "Twinkle," a retired canine member of Guide Dogs for the Blind, and an Animal Rescue Foundation adopted kitty. Sully and Lorrie, who have become international celebrities since Sully's last year's "miracle" landing of his crippled jet on the Hudson River in New York, are also featured in the calendar's month of April.

Other celebrities--local, national, and international--and pets who grace this "one-of-a-kind' calendar are: The Office star Jenna Fischer: Iron Chef Cat Cora; uber-cool filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (friend of George, Julia, and Brad); and iconic businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett. Each calendar costs $15 and benefits ARF's various programs: pet adoption; pet spay and neutering' and children's animal care education. ARF also provides financial assistance for veterinary care for low-income families in Contra Costa County. You can purchase one of your own calendars at ARF's website.

Also in the calendar is--va-va-va-voom--Holly Madison, described as a TV personality, model, and Vegas star. In the ARF calendar, the blond bombshell is more modestly attired, posing with two dogs. 

OK, now my quibble: Fox News Anchor Greta Van Susteren.  Ewww. "Mike," the big furry cat she's clutching is cute, but Greta?  BFF to Sarah and Todd Palin? Greta, who traded in her authentic hangdog legal analyst look of her O.J. Simpson trial coverage days for her current obnoxious, and highly publicized plasticized Fox Anchor persona?

Greta is, along with Nancy Grace, on my top 10 list of annoying TV cable "news" personalities. Couldn't ARF have done without her?

What? The Mayor of Claycord Ran For President? If I Had Known That ...

I wouldn't have voted for Sarah Palin and What's His Name.

Oh, I know in previous posts I have derided the Alaska governor and recent vice presidential candidate. But I was deluded! I don't call this blog Crazy in Suburbia for nothing!

Anyway, wish I had known about the presidential bid of the publisher of my favorite local news blog, claycord.com. I only just learned this while poking around the Mayor's blog on where he invites political commentary. And, on November 4, I guess I didn't look all that carefully at my ballot. I mean, I had to get through all those pesky state propositions, and then I kinda got thrown into a time warp seeing Ralph Nader's name on the ballot for president. For a second, I thought I was back in 2000.

Anyway, if the Mayor of Claycord runs again in 2012, I'll be in a tough spot. Especially if Governor Hottie becomes the GOP candidate. From these recent stories and blogs I've come across, it looks like she has a good shot:

Say it Ain't So, Sarah, Another 30K?

Palin Files Disclosure For 2007 Free Trips, Finally

Sarah Palin: The New and 'Explosive' Leader of the GOP

Do I Have Any Reason to Run Photos of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears?

To be honest, no, other than that I originally intended to run them with my recent post about Sarah Palin and her new entertaining celebrity status. My computer was just having trouble uploading the photos of these gals at the time. I guess they are just so smoking hot. Meanwhile, I'm a bit new to this blogging stuff, so technical difficulties are bound to arise. Anyway, here are the photos I was so eager to run.

And, hey, what's wrong with a high-toned media organization like Crazy in Suburbia running photos of celebrities? Us Weekly and other celebrity magazines run cover shots of gals like this all the time, concocting some lame new angle about their exploits just to have an excuse to publish their photos, attract more attention on the newsstands, and supposedly sell more magazines. Even another high-toned publication like Vanity Fair will trot out some allegedly hot new story about such global icons as Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Princess Diana, just to have a reason to publish more photos of them.

Meanwhile, here is a photo of Tonya Harding. Someone who commented on my Sarah Palin post noted a similarity between the Alaska governor and recent vice presidential candidate with Ms. Harding, the former figure skating champ, alleged co-conspirator in the 1994 Nancy Kerrigan knee-bashing incident, and one-time professional ladies boxer. It's always fun to revisit the glorious train wreck of a life and career that was Tonya Harding. The photo is from the, yes, official Tonya Harding website. Which means she's still out there, looking, we hope, to make her come back any day now.

Thank Heaven: Sarah Palin does not go gentle into that good night

Instead, she continues to give us an endless gusher of her special brand of Joe Six-pack fun!

She and her running mate, what’s his name (John McCain) lost the election, but Palin continues to be an entertaining presence in the political and pop culture media feed.

Her latest antic, as reported by the Huffington Post:

On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla, Alaska in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving. This proved to be a slightly absurd but ultimately unremarkable event. But what came next was positively surreal. After the pardon Palin proceeded to do an interview with a local TV station while the turkeys were being slaughtered in the background!! Seemingly oblivious to the gruesomeness going on over her shoulder, she carries on talking for over three minutes.

An accompanying video gives you the full sense of Palin’s usual obliviousness to how much she volunteers herself as fodder for satire and late-night comedy monologues.

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman writes that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is hardly retreating to the tundra. In fact, she continues to be all over the place, serving “exclusive” moose chili dinners to everyone from Matt Lauer to Greta (surgically enchanced beyond recognition) van Susteren.

As Goodman writes:

Now Sarah Unbound [from the McCain campaign handlers, who questioned her intelligence] is everywhere, serving the media moose chili and spin from her Anchorage crockpot. She's busily defending herself and her future: "If there's an open door ... then I'll plow through that door."

Plow, Sarah, plow. Drill, baby, drill.

I, for one, am happy that Sarah continues to expose herself to the pop culture media maw.

You see, up until a few months ago, I confess, I was a stealth reader of the Hollywood gossip website, TMZ.com. In the last year or so, a bottom-feeder gossip fiend like me was frankly enjoying the personal train wrecks involving celebutantes (see their official websites and Myspace pages) Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears.

Paris and her questionable acting and recording careers, topped off by her infamous lock-up in county jail: Lindsay’s drug and alcohol skirmisheswith treatment and with law enforcement; Britney’s public breakdowns, hospitalizations, head-shaving, child custody battles, and disastrous MTV movie award appearance.

Some would say I was giving into a sick, voyeuristic fascination with these's celebrities' personal tragedies. I'd say, I was just a cultural observer watching these women engaging in twisted celebrity reality shows, largely of their own attention-hungry design, that their train wreck lives were, in essence, an expression of themselves and of their true art. (Hey, according to seasoned observers of the show business scene, it's not like these pop princesses really avoided the media circus; in their own way they courted it, thrived on it.)

It seemed like the outrageously bizarre behavior that these famous-for-being famous gals couldn’t get anymore entertaining … but then, Paris, Lindsay, and Britney seemed to get their respective acts together, or, at least, to retreat from public sight and to avoid conveniently showing up at night clubs where they knew the paparazzi would be hoverng.

Meanwhile, the American presidential election heated up, and went red hot went Republican nominee John McCain selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The historical significance of the election, plus the economic meltdown, plus the personalities of the top White House contenders, especially of Ms. Palin, made the antics of Paris, Lindsay, and Britney seem miniscule by comparison.

I won’t repeat all the ways that Palin, the “hottie,” lipstick-wearing hockey mom, helped make the presidential election such a wild, intoxicating ride. It's ironic that the McCain campaign at one point tried to diminish Barack Obama as a mere celebrity, on par with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, considering he chose the insubstantial but celebrity-prone Palin as his running mate.

I thought I’d suffer a form of letdown after the end of this most eventful and historical of elections. I thought I'd miss Tina Fey's Saturday Night Live send-ups of Ms. Palin. To some extent, I did. But, at least Madame Palin continues to maintain a presence, and continues to entertain, even in a way Tina Fey couldn't summon.

Somehow, some Repulicans see her as the Next Great Hope for capturing the American imagination and the White House. No wonder the GOP is in such desperate straits these days. Just imagine: Sarah Palin, future leader of the GOP and leader of America and the free world. I just get a tingle down my spine, not of excitement but of disbelief.

She’s either a frightening, cautionary demagogue from a Sinclair Lewis novel or a comical figure from a political satire by Stanley Kubrick or Elia Kazan. She’s at best the next Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, or Greta van Susteren. Fox News: Yeah, that would be a fun and appropriate, since I could turn the dial or switch to another channel if her adorable winks and "you betchas" got too annoying even for this surprising-to-myself Sarah Palin fan.