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The Liz Smith Column | 08/13/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith: Jennifer Westfeldt and Isabel Keating Triumph in 'A Lifetime Burning'

Also from Our Gossip Girl: Barbra! She’s gold, she’s platinum, she’s buttah … Vogue declares – sequined blazers are back!
Jennifer Westfeldt © James Leynse

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday."

This is the quote on the gravestone of actor John Wayne at Pacific View Memorial Park.

***

Barbra Streisand’s very much in the news these days. (She was "in the news" in this column only yesterday!) Now, her three-disc DVD set titled "Streisand: The Concerts," has gone gold and platinum after a three-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Charts. This makes her set the biggest selling music DVD of 2009.

Her gold DVDS or videos No. 8 and her platinum DVDS or videos No. 5. Three of them have also gone multiplatinum.

Yeah, she’s all washed up!

2008_0916_ap_streisand_0.jpg
Barbra Streisand © AP

***

On September 2, a parole board will hear the plea of Susan Atkins that she be allowed out of prison because she is suffering from a terminal brain tumor that has nearly paralyzed her.

This 61-year-old member of the Charles Manson hippie drop-out "family" is the same killing machine who stabbed Sharon Tate 16 times as the actress begged for the life of her unborn child on the night of Aug. 8, 1969, in Hollywood.

Vincent Bugliosi is supporting Atkins’s release because her family hopes to see her out of this world, but he doesn’t believe in parole for the other two female murderers, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten. And not for Manson himself nor for his lieutenant Tex Watson. "Remember, I sought the death penalty for them all," says the lawyer who wrote Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. This book remains the bestselling crime tome in history. Over 7,000,000 in sales to date.

***

Opinions, or oops! Someone told me this week that Eunice Kennedy Shriver had wanted to be buried by her brothers, Bobby and John, at Arlington Cemetery.

I didn’t really believe that this sensible woman, one of the most effective of all the Kennedys, would have asked for such special treatment. But she was already given the nation’s highest civilian honor in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan conferred on her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She also was the first living woman to be depicted on a U.S. commemorative coin, bearing her portrait as founder of the Special Olympics.

Vogue, Bazaar and Marie Claire have recently offered up the perennials that now burn brightly again – statement tights, high-heeled boots, great big bauble necklaces, short biker jackets and … sequin blazers. (I better go dig out my collection of Arnold Scaasi sequin blazers. Glad I didn’t give them away.)

It seems to me that the guys who now confess to having offered up their semen for the Michael Jackson children now number in the double digits. Aren’t these jerks ashamed of the worry, onus, distress they put on these poor children who believed Michael was their true father? Some people don’t seem to use common sense or common decency anymore.

2009_0709_getty_michael_jackson_paris_prince_blanket_88888756_0.jpg
Michael Jackson’s children © Getty Images

The Perseids, which happen every August as earth passes through rock and dust fragments left behind by the Comet Swift-Tuttle, put on a show last night. There were 80 shooting stars a minute. As I had just seen a trailer of the coming apocalypse movie "2012," I enjoyed the Perseids less than usual.

There ain’t no justice. When U.S. forces killed Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban chief, with a barrage after aerial surveillance, they sent him to paradise (maybe?) just as he was enjoying a massage on the roof of his father-in-law’s house.

Well, if you have to go, whattaway to go!

26 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Baby  Snooks

I cannot fathom this compassion by a man who prosecuted this woman  who showed no compassion as she brutally murdered another woman and her unborn child.  Has Vincent Bugliosi lost his mind? 

Hopefully the parole board has not lost its mind and will remember that Sharon Tate begged this monster to spare her child as this monster brutally stabbed her to death.  Something Vincent Bugliosi has forgotten.

By Baby Snooks on 08/14/2009 1:21 am
Elizabeth Newman
I don’t think he has forgotten. For all intents and puposes, she has served life in prison. She is the end stages of her illness, and her death is imminent. Many prison system will release terminally ill patients if they family to care for them, simply so that they don’t have to shoulder the exorbinant cost of caring for them. Not to mention, doesn’t spitting in the face of dying woman and telling her that her suffering is unimportant, make us no better than the murderers?
By Elizabeth Newman on 08/14/2009 10:57 am
holly shawn
Exactly, my thoughts, Elizabeth.
By holly shawn on 08/14/2009 3:09 pm
Kim Howell

My goodness, no one is "spitting" in her face. She is in prison because she committed a dreadful crime and that is the punishment. Believe me, I’m sure Sharon Tate, Rosemary LaBianca and Abigail Folger would have loved to live their lives into their sixties. Instead, they were brutally murdered by a person who later said she enjoyed watching the blood gush out of the victims.

By Kim Howell on 08/14/2009 6:31 pm
Laura Ward
Why give MERCY for Susan Akins if she wouldn’t give MERCY for Sharon Tate who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, which means Susan Akisn took two lives. Or is God is turning the table on Susan Akins? Why can’t people follow the simple rule? Do unto others as you would unto you. The table can turn unto you. But if you’re a good person, you don’t need to live under this rule. You should just do it on your own.
By Laura Ward on 08/14/2009 2:04 am
Janet Hunt
This is insane. I cannot believe that paroling any of the Manson people is even being discussed. I am reading prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s book on the case because of the anniversary and if you’ve never read it, you should pick it up. It’s an extremely detailed account of the case and the most interesting true-crime book ever written.

Show Susan Atkins mercy? Compassion? Do you want to know what kind of compassion she showed Sharon Tate? Here are some examples: 1) Tate (while still alive) had a rope tied around her neck that was hung over a rafter with the other end tied to the bloody body of a dead friend. Anytime Sharon tried to move, she choked. 2) When Tate pleaded that she wanted to have her baby, Atkins looked her straight in the eyes and said something like "look b-tch, I don’t care about you OR your baby - you’re going to die." 3) After stabbing Tate repeatedly, Atkins tasted the dead woman’s blood. She later compared stabbing someone to having an orgasm. 4) Atkins revealed to a prison inmate that the Manson group wanted to mutilate the victims. They had wanted to cut off their fingers - and also gouge their eyes out and smash them against the wall. But they felt rushed. 5) The coroner said that Tate’s baby was a fully formed boy. Atkins admitted she had wanted to cut the baby out of Tate’s womb. 6) Atkins laughed during the murders and throughout the trial. And there’s so much more.

Please spread the word. Susan Atkins and these monsters must NEVER get out of prison.

By Janet Hunt on 08/14/2009 8:21 am
Eileen Alannah
OH. Just to read that again, those details about the killings. I was a child when those murders happened and it made me scared to be in the world. I don’t know what Bugliosi is thinking but someone should ask him.
By Eileen Alannah on 08/14/2009 10:06 am
Kim Howell

Janet…to your list, I would add the fact that Susan Atkins was the one who personally dipped a towel into Sharon’s blood and wrote "PIG" on the wall.

These people were given the death penalty until California abolished capital punishment and their sentences were reduced to life in prison. The State already showed them the mercy they didn’t give their victims! 

By Kim Howell on 08/14/2009 10:38 am
Elizabeth Newman
Here is the thing-While i agree that none of the participants in those murders should ever live life outside of prison again, Susan Atkins is dying. They are asking for release to a hospice. She will never live life outside of prison. Apparently the woman is hardly even conscious of her surroundings anymore. She is no longer any danger to society. If she was hale and healthy, I would be totally against her being released. However, she isn’t, and I say it’s a far more compassionate and CHRISTIAN thing to show her mercy in dying days, the same mercy she didn’t show 40 years ago. Otherwise, we really aren’t any better.
By Elizabeth Newman on 08/14/2009 10:53 am
Kim Howell

I couldn’t disagree more. To my knowledge, this woman is not exactly being kept in a cold cell and sleeping on a cot.

I read a good post from someone today on another site. He said that 40 years is a long time but these crimes were just too horrible. And he also suggested that anyone who believes these people deserve to be out should Google images of the Sharon Tate and LaBianca crime scenes. I did. There are photos in color. You need a strong stomach and I might have trouble sleeping tonight but it reminded me that those deeds were unimaginable. 

By the way, one of the Manson killers sells erotic art with his wife from prison. What a "lovely" system we have in this country! :(

By Kim Howell on 08/14/2009 11:14 am
Elizabeth Newman
I never said she was. What I DID say was that for all intents and purposes, she has served her sentence which is life in prison. I’m not advocating she be given parole to live a normal life; what I’m saying is that in view of the fact that she is near death, she is not risk to society, and should be released to family members so that THEY can shoulder the cost of her care for however long she has. I have seen the pictures, as I have read the book written by the prosecutor. However, I feel no desire to ogle the graphic color images of someone’s dead body…to me that is a gross invasion of their privacy, and they don’t deserve to be exploited yet again for macabre puposes. 
By Elizabeth Newman on 08/14/2009 11:50 am
Kim Howell

Perhaps instead of considering the killer’s family, you should think about giving more weight to what the victims’ families feel about this. And no one that I know is "ogling" the crime photos. However, we live in a world in which some people have refused to believe the guilt of these people or they downright idolize them. The director John Waters is proud to call Leslie Van Houten his "friend" and is pushing for HER release. She certainly isn’t near death.

Today, "Squeaky" Fromme got out of prison and Michael Vick is proudly talking about his new NFL deal. We live in a really sick world…

By Kim Howell on 08/14/2009 12:03 pm
Elizabeth Newman
Maybe if YOU took the time to actually read what I wrote, instead of responding with knee jerk statements, you would see that I wasn’t expressing sympathy for the killer’s family (although I feel for them too…they lost their daughter just as much as the other families…it wasn’t like THEY made her do it). What I SAID was that the state of California might consider giving her parole, so that her family can shoulder the cost of her medical care till she passes away…which she will, seeing as how she has late stage terminal cancer.
By Elizabeth Newman on 08/14/2009 3:44 pm
Kim Howell

Well, why don’t you just volunteer to help take care of her if she were to be released? You’re so forgiving. Or how about having her as your neighbor? You just might sing a different tune in that case…

Let’s face it, you can express all the sympathy you want for her family and you can want compassion for this monster - but this one is not getting out in her lifetime. And that’s as it should be.

By Kim Howell on 08/14/2009 6:40 pm
Elizabeth Newman
Oh, that’s SO mature….If I was a nurse I might. However, seeing as how I have no medical training, I fear I wouldn’t be of much use. I wouldn’t care if she was my neighbor….SHE’S DYING!!!! I doubt she could much harm in a freakin coma. I’m failing to see why you take it so personally…if she doens’t get out then she doesn’t, but she’s going to die anyway, so I don’t see what good it does to keep her locked up.
By Elizabeth Newman on 08/14/2009 7:37 pm