Liz Smith’s ‘New Moon’ Column … The Bare Facts on Levi Johnston – Can Sarah Forgive Him? … And ‘Twilight’ – Bad Enough to Be Good?

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  You were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us. It’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

This is from the Nelson Mandela inaugural speech made in 1994. 

People like Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Tom Cruise, Sean Combs, Donald Trump, Jon Bon Jovi, Paul McCartney, et al, don’t need this kind of encouragement, but I suppose the rest of us do.

***

Let’s talk here about Levi Johnston and then, possibly, we can forget about him for 2010. I was amused reading the gay columnist Michael Musto’s interview with Sarah Palin’s almost-son-in-law. Here, Levi displayed uncommon good sense in refusing to discuss the details of his romance with Palin’s daughter, Bristol. He said: "I’m not gonna get into that. That’s too personal."

But Levi got in another shot across the bow of the ex-governor of Alaska, saying he actually voted for her in the last election: "At the time, she was gonna be my mother-in-law, and everything was good. I knew some things but I was gonna marry her daughter. I wouldn’t vote for her again – I’ll tell you that. She puts on a big front. She’s a big backstabber. She said things to me and things behind my back. And the truth really comes out now!"

Now we have seen almost all that Levi has to offer. The Playgirl photos of him escaped onto the Internet and there he is, nude, if not in the mood.

He doesn’t look all that confident after deciding against frontal nudity. So there’s only "backal" nudity.

Levi is an attractive young man. But he comes off with a "dumb-as-a-stump" affect. For those girls who desire an Erica Jong-type zipless you-know-what, that might be appealing. But I fear this is it for Levi.

Perhaps Sarah Palin is sincere in saying she’ll welcome him back into the fold. (It would be better to have him, in the words of LBJ, "pissing out of the tent instead of pissing into the tent!" She does need him to shut up about her. Maybe he’ll go back to Alaska, return to school or get a real job. 

But ongoing celebrity? Hmmm, for some wannabes the limelight is a big lemon that can never be made into lemonade.

***

Well, we wOws are not giddy teenage girls. Yet, I feel it’s our duty to go see the "Twilight" movies, beloved of tween and teen girls worldwide. We have to understand what’s going on.

I confess I wasn’t impressed by the first "Twilight" entry – to the point of not commenting at all. I find the vampire genre really all too predictable and silly in spite of the fact that I was raised on Bela Lugosi’s original "Dracula" and then I actually appeared in the movie "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." (I still get residuals in the amount of a few cents.) 

But the current craze is based on the wildly popular books of devout Mormon novelist Stephenie Meyer. Here the tales substitute vampirism for sex – neither is any good for good little girls, no matter how much they want to give up their … necks?