At 51 Kathy Griffin has worn every single hat in the Show Business, the former D-lister, in reference to her Emmy Award winning reality show My Life On The D-List, is now a media mogul who collects Emmy, Grammy, GLAAD Media Award nominations while penning some New York Times best-selling books, hosting events or raising awareness about LGBT issues.

Reading up on her website we find out that she has been making audiences laugh for years discussing Hollywood gossip and celebrity blunders but according to her detractors she’s far from funny. Her act could be described as a commentary on Celebrity lifestyle, Show business scandals, Top-secret spilling and a lot of cursing that will target anyone from Oprah Winfrey to a whole religious group.

Her infamous moments include her Emmy speech mentioning Jesus Christ, her swearing on CNN, open feuds with radio phenomenon Ryan Seacrest or derogatory comments on Sarah Palin and her daughter. She claims to have been banned from most of the shows on National Television, kicked out of A-List events and confronted by celebrities at after-parties.

But is it all valid for a laugh? Where is the line between funny and offensive? Do we take some jokes too seriously? Comedians have always stirred up some, or a whole lot of, controversy in the name of comedy. It worked out just fine for Chris Rock, George Lopez or even Jay Leno.

As for the female headliners Chelsea Handler landed a TV gig that will pay her rent forever and Joan Rivers is one of the busiest artists out there. But what is so different about Kathy Griffin that enrages some so many people and yet maintains a growing loyal army of fans? It seems like no other comedian has been so honest about their social status, fans believe her stories and haters are horrified by her jokes but she seems to be frank to all audiences.

There’s  even more to Kathy Griffin’s enchanting side, she is also one of the biggest LGTB rights advocate, she lent her voice to the Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell campaigns where she would march with the crowds and even perform for the troops in Irak and Afghanistan. Let alone her mother Maggie, whose rising popularity and old-fashioned way of thinking may sweeten  and  smoothen her daughter’s image.

2011 has been a extremely successful year for Kathy Griffin who made a Broadway debut, landed roles on Glee and Drop Dead Diva and by the end of the year Bravo will have aired 4 of her comedy specials. She’ll strut the red carpet on September 18th as an Emmy Nominee and while the world discuss her artistry she will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Funny or not, it seems like Kathy Griffin knows what she is getting herself into. The day after the Emmys her special Kathy Griffin Emmys Aftermath will premiere on the TV Guide Network, just another excuse for spilling all kinds of inside details from a star-studded Show, classic Griffin.
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At his incredible 70,000 square foot mansion in Orlando, Florida on Friday, Shaquille O’ Neal announced his retirement from professional basketball after 19 successful seasons in the league.

Nobody can help but like Shaq. He is one of the most popular players in league history, unarguably the biggest character in professional sports history, and of course was a phenom on the court. He will forever rank among the best players ever to grace a basketball court in the way that he changed the way the game was played in his time in the NBA.

His numbers speak for himself. He has incredible accolades that could be written about for pages and pages, and have been over the past few days, but that is not what this article will be about. Too many people seem to be focusing on what Shaquille did on the court, and it is incredibly deserved, but I want to focus on the person Shaquille O’ Neal, which even transcends the player.

As expected, he was incredibly jovial leading up to the press conference, dancing in the background of the camera shot before the actual conference even began. Always a consummate entertainer, he had a smile on his face the entire time leading up to the big speech, making everyone believe this would be another slew of silly moments out of Shaq for possibly the last time. He has us fooled.

Never have I seen Shaq nervous in front of a camera throughout my entire life of watching him. Today was different. He obviously had a lot invested in today, in his speech, and in his career.

Shaq’s mother Lucille made the introduction for seven-foot son on Shaq’s private basketball court turned podium, an homage to the impact she had on both his career and his life growing up.

She then handed the microphone to Dale Brown, the man that originally recruited and coached Shaq at Louisiana State University. Shaq often refers to brown as one of the biggest helping hands he had in shaping his career, and Brown seemed both sincere and deserving of such praise. He too wanted to focus on what Shaq did off the court, the things that nobody knew or talked about, but should know.

Brown spoke about Shaq’s incredible parenting which goes far too unnoticed. He spoke about his lack of violations or problems off the court throughout his entire career, a sparkling record (even serving as a sherrif at one point in Miami, Florida). Lastly he touched on Shaq’s stress of the importance of education, which came from his parents. Little did everyone know that Shaq is not just a monster athlete, but he led his team in GPA at LSU, and has already obtained a Masters degree, and is now working on his Doctorate in Human Resource Development from Barry University in Miami.

This man works to the best of his abilities, no matter the task, and should be incredibly respected for it.

The diesel finally made his anticipated arrival to the podium and of course, made his first quick joke about being the new GM of the New York Knicks. Of course, everybody laughed. Though he was lighthearted, the tone was serious, incredibly thankful, and appreciative to all of those who had helped him along the way. It was evident that Shaq really wanted to let everybody know how much they really meant to him, giving countless thanks to everyone down to the security guards at the stadiums he played at along the way.

He of course spoke about the fun he had with the media in his time in the NBA en route to officially retiring every one of his many nicknames, and moving on to only one: “The Big AARP.”

He also gave himself his own plug, one fans should be incredibly excited about, in hinting that he will field calls from various television networks should they have interest in putting him in front of a camera, and giving him a career as an analyst, something I, and many other fans would love to see. The more Shaq, the better.

Shaq took a bunch of questions, telling heartfelt stories about his life and career as a basketball player, father, and role model. His emotion was obviously bittewrsweet, but he didn’t cry on camera for effect and he didn’t draw the conference out longer than it needed to be. It was never about him, it was about his fans and the people around him. He wanted to throw a party for everybody else celebrating his illustrious career. “It’s about you guys, I wanted to host you guys and thank you personally,” Shaq said in some of the closing words of the conference.

To me, this day summed up Shaquille O’ Neal in just a few minutes.

Humble, happy, sincere, professional, thankful, the list goes on and on, but one thing is for certain, Shaq is the utmost role model for not only basketball players, but all people, young and old, to look up to. Never have I seen an athlete like him on or off the court, and he will be very missed around the league for a long time.

What will he do now? Rapper, actor, investor, coach, analyst, doctor? He of course has a plethora of options (even later hinting at having a hand in bringing an NFL team to Los Angeles), but I have no doubt that he will have incredibly deserved success in whatever he should choose. Good luck to Shaquille O’ Neal, my favorite athlete of all time.

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U.S. President Barack Obama delivered the speech he was born to give on Monday night, addressing the nation on the military intervention in Libya.  Obama utilized his speech to both remind Americans of all the steps taken prior to military action while also outlining the future plans of the operation.   His 30-minute speech on the North African nation was clear and detailed.  Obama made is apparent that, despite what his critics say, he acted swiftly to the threat that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi presented.

Obama used the beginning of the speech to recap the events that led up to the military action.  As the crisis in Libya began, the Obama administration immediately began taking decisive steps to stop Gadhafi.   “As President, my immediate concern was the safety of our citizens, so we evacuated our embassy and all Americans who sought our assistance.  Then we took a series of swift steps in a matter of days to answer Gadhafi’s aggression.  We froze more than $33 billion of Gadhafi’s regime’s assets.  Joining with other nations at the United Nations Security Council, we broadened our sanctions, imposed an arms embargo, and enabled Gadhafi and those around him to be held accountable for their crimes.  I made it clear that Gadhafi had lost the confidence of his people and the legitimacy to lead, and I said that he needed to step down from power.”  Obama also talked about the difficult choice that he faced after Gadhafi refused to back down.

“The United States and the world faced a choice.  Qaddafi declared he would show “no mercy” to his own people.  He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment.  In the past, we have seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day.  Now we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city.  We knew that if we wanted — if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.  It was not in our national interest to let that happen.  I refused to let that happen.  And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. “

The speech then looked at the future of Libya.  He reminded Americans that the U.S. is now playing a “supporting role” in the campaign against Gadhafi.  NATO is now taking responsibility to enforce the no-fly zone, the arms embargo, and protecting Libyan citizens from Gadhafi’s force.  Obama said that “the United States will continue to handle tasks such as intelligence gathering and search-and-rescue operations for downed pilots. “  As a result of the limited U.S. role, he said, “the risks and costs of this operation to our military and to American taxpayers will be reduced significantly.”

The president also stated that Libya will not be another Iraq War.  The primary goal for military force in Libya is for humanitarian intervention and not for regime change.  “If we tried to overthrow Gadhafi by force, our coalition would splinter, we would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground to accomplish that mission, or risk killing many civilians from the air” and enlarging “our share of the responsibility” for running post-Gadhafi Libya. “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq,” he said.

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