Can Someone Explain Why Sally Quinn Still Has a Job?

I mean, really. She's touted as a contributor to the "On Faith" segment of the WashingtonPost.com website. She took communion at the funeral of Tim Russert and she's not a Catholic. (If you've been to Sunday School, you know of what I speak when it comes to sorting out that issue.) Here she tries to legitimize a discussion of Astrology, faith, and the Presidency.

Note: I was going to embed the video, but it kind of whiffed on me. Check it out if you dare.

Yes--a discussion about astrology and the Presidency. I know, I know. My brain hurts after that, too.

Is Sally Quinn the village idiot of Washington DC? Sure looks like it. She's a "Washington Post Reporter" who actually claims to be a "Washington DC Insider" in her biographical sketch. Isn't there something about that one might want to downplay?

No Sunday school necessary:

I took Holy Communion at Tim Russert’s funeral mass. I am not a Catholic. I wrote about it for “On Faith”. I wrote about how I had interviewed Tim and asked him about Communion and transubstantiation and what it meant to him. He knew I had not always been a believer and he would tease me about bringing me over to the other side. Before I started the website he had always called me “Miss Sal”. Afterwards he called me “Sister Sal.”

He was a dear friend and I was devastated by his loss. Cardinal McCarrick conducted the funeral mass. Communion was offered. I took it. All I could think about was Tim smiling down at me and saying, “We’re winning you over after all, aren’t we Sister Sal?” It made me feel uplifted, close to Tim and it assuaged my grief.

I guess that settles it. Hey, to each their own. But PZ Myers wants that cracker...

--WS

The Dumbing Down of America

I can't tell if this is for real, or for fun. I suspect it's just "for money" because there's no other way to explain why ridiculous bullshit like this would appear on The Huffington Post:



Since when does anyone actually believe in Astrology? I mean, WTF? I thought this was left in the dust when the clock rolled over the year 2000. I thought this inane, ridiculous shit went the way of other superstitions and money-making schemes. This is the stuff of Nancy Reagan, terrified housewives on Valium and quackery. And it gets prominent display on a website? And the people who perpetrate this shit actually get paid for it?

Many of you know celebrity astrologer Susan Miller as the uncannily accurate predictor of your fate. You're in good company: She's got A-listers like Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom paying her to do their charts and gets 15 million page views a month on her Website, Astrologyzone. She's asked to analyze the stars for actors, musicians, and starlets all the time -- but when we got the chance to talk with her, we wanted to know what the future holds for a group of guys even nearer and dearer to our heart. Guys like embattled IAC CEO Barry Diller, Blackstone CEO Steven Schwarzman, ousted Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince, and Merrill Lynch newbie John Thain. After all, these people have much more power to wreak havoc in our lives if the stars choose not to shine on them. After the jump, read Miller's uncannily prescient analysis (it would be more precise if she knew the times of day they were born) and learn what warnings these four financial powerhouses need to heed if they want to come out of 2008 on top.

I can understand a twenty-something piece of Hollywood trash believing in something best understood by looking at the world through the helter-skelter eyeballs of a torch-wielding mob, but would the CEO of Merrill Lynch really give a shit whether some twit could make up some lameass horoscope? Don't you think he'd probably be fired before lunch if he actually paid attention? Can't any of these people think clearly and rationally?

Apparently not.

Well, I just deleted "The Huffington Post" from my list of favorites. Not out of pique or anything like that--I'm deleting it because it is overpopulated with stories about twits. Celebrities. And for shit like "Huffpollstrology."