Rumsfeld: I’m no stud
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off a magazine cover labeling the 69-year-old as “The Stud” and said his wife was amused by the description.
Rumsfeld laughed heartily in a television interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about the conservative political magazine National Review’s cover, which has a cartoon of the defense chief and the banner headline “The Stud. Don Rumsfeld, America’s new pin-up.”
Asked whether he saw himself as America’s stud at 69 years old, the man in charge of America’s war effort in Afghanistan retorted: “Come on, get onto something serious, Russert.”
PETA gets catty at Versace show
With Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and singer Sheryl Crow looking on, two anti-fur protesters jumped on the catwalk during designer Donatella Versace’s haute couture show Saturday in Paris, reports Reuters.
The demonstrators, who claimed allegiance to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), were tackled by security guards as models continued to strut down the runway.
One unfurled a banner that said “Fur Kills. Peta.”
The audience seemed stunned, but then the mood returned to normal as Madonna and Paltrow made jokes.
MLK Jr. on his side?
Danny Glover says the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would have endorsed the actor’s anti-death penalty message.
The civil rights leader is a man “who died committed to defending the principles of nonviolence,” Glover told a congregation at Christ Unity Baptist Church in Modesto, Calif., on Saturday.
Glover also clarified remarks made during a November speech, in which he was quoted as saying that Osama bin Laden should not be executed, even if he was involved in terrorist acts.
The actor said he repeated his opposition to the death penalty, without referring to the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Nowhere is Osama bin Laden’s name mentioned,” said Glover, who brought copies of his speech for the audience.
Spinning his promotional web
Tobey Maguire, leaping into action films this summer with “Spider-Man,” says it’s the right time for a superhero film set in New York, a city of real-life heroes.
“I think people will be ready this summer to watch a good guy in New York who has fun and goes around and beats up the bad guys,” he said.
The World Trade Center was featured prominently in a trailer that was pulled after Sept. 11. But the towers remain in the skyline of Spider-Man’s New York.
Compiled by Michael Hamersly
© 2002, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.