Well, there’s nothing buzzier than the Academy Awards, that’s a given. But some other topics captured the attention of the Web this weekend, as well. Here are just a few of the stories that Buzz users found particularly clickable.
Public life, public death
Jade Goody has really walked that fine line between fame and notoriety. An object of mockery for her ignorance and boorish behavior on the „Big Brother” reality shows, Goody’s latest incarnation as a human spectacle has won over the British public and press. Unfortunately, it took a diagnosis of terminal cervical cancer to do it. Doctors have given Goody just weeks to live, but on Sunday, as she was married, the TV cameras rolled, capping intense media coverage of her medical struggle and wedding plans. Photo and video rights to the event were reportedly auctioned for 1 million pounds, and she has agreed to spend her last days as a public curiosity, she said, so she can leave the money to her two sons.
Obama deficit disorder?
After a trillion here, a trillion there for the bank bailout, stimulus, and other expenditures borne of the nation’s ever-worsening financial crisis, who’d have thought there’d be anything left in the national piggy bank to tackle the deficit? Well, Barack Obama does, apparently. One of Sunday’s most popular Buzz topics was the president’s plan to halve the federal deficit to $533 billion by the end of his first term. Short of reselling Manhattan at a huge profit, how can he do that? By slashing Iraq war outlays, letting the Bush-era tax breaks expire for those earning more than $250,000, and streamlining government, says the administration. We shall see…
NAACP takes aim at Post
Buzz users have been all over the New York Post chimp-cartoon story, and this weekend was no exception. On Saturday, the NAACP called for a boycott of the paper over a cartoon it published depicting a slain chimp as the author of the stimulus bill. Some have interpreted the cartoon as a racially tinged and violent slap at President Obama. The paper says it merely critiques the stimulus by satirically linking it to the recent mauling of a woman by a 200-pound chimpanzee. The Post did offer, however, an apology, which critics have called tepid. In addition to urging the boycott, the NAACP called for Post editor Col Allan and cartoonist Sean Delonas to be fired.
buzz.yahoo.com