Daily Briefs: TV Is a Fake Faker; John McCain Likes Lobbyists; Lady Referees Are Fragile

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By CHRIS PACKHAM

• The Pitch sister paper The Village Voice has an exposé about fake pretend reality television that will chill you to the bone. Specifically, the bone that enjoys watching the American Iron Chef. I know, I know, reality is a construct and reality TV is an even more constructed construct, and we all know it. But seriously: TV is a liar who lies, and we’re all really, really easy to trick.

• St. Mary’s Academy headmaster Father Vicente A. Griego now says that female basketball referee Michelle Campbell was never told that there was any issue with her authority over boys. He now says that, out of deference to ladies, the boys would have felt inhibited on the court by their fear of slamming into a woman and causing her to explode into a lilac-scented cloud of flower petals.

• In an article John McCain’s lawyers have been trying to smother for a while, The New York Times implies that the senator might have been sexing up lobbyist Vicki Iseman with some old-man sex. Maybe! “A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet,” says the McCain-endorsing New York Times. “It is a shame that the New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign,” says The New York Times endorsement-accepting McCain campaign. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

• Independence teen’s mean parents won’t give him any money. So he allegedly hires someone to murder them. Now he’s going to learn an important life-lesson about what happens in D-block when you cross the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang.

• State gaming regulators voted to fill the casino-shaped hole in Sugar Creek by accepting applications for a casino in Sugar Creek.

• An Overland Park man died playing Russian Roulette. The Pitch reminds readers that blackjack played with perfect basic strategy has much better odds than Russian Roulette, so gamble responsibly. If you think you have a Russian Roulette problem, call the compulsive gambling hotline at 1-888-BETS-OFF.