By ryan
Suits, Sweeps, and Survivor Last week, the consensus among many media analysts was that Friends would win the Thursday night programming showdown between the hit comedy and the reality-based series Survivor. Boy were they wrong. Survivor actually wallopped the NBC sitcom by almost 7 million viewers, making it the second most-watched program of the week. This episode’s rating was the third highest ever for the show, only surpassed by last season’s finale and this season’s post-Super Bowl premiere. Yet despite Survivor’s February sweeps success, there may be some trouble brewing in paradise. Former cast member Stacey Stillman filed suit Monday against the show’s producer, Mark Burnett, claiming that he rigged the “tribal council vote” so that she would be voted out instead of Rudy Boesch. According to Stillman, Burnett feared criticism if all of the older contestants were voted out early, so he persuaded two cast members to avoid voting for Boesch, 72. Burnett, however, denies these allegations. “I’m absolutely certain that once the entire claim is looked into, it will be proved completely groundless,” he told USA Today. Before filing the lawsuit, Stillman asked CBS to cast her in a non-manipulated reality show. When executives denied her this request and refused to settle, Stillman decided to sue for unspecified damages. Days of Thunder Tom Cruise made his separation from Nicole Kidman official yesterday, by filing for divorce in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. According to E! Online, Cruise requested joint custody of the couple’s two adopted children. But everyone has their own opinion as to why the couple decided to split after 10 years of a seemingly happy marriage. Us Weekly magazine, for example, reports the rumor that Australian actor Marcus Graham was the homewrecker. Other Hollywood insiders have suggested that Cruise and Penolope Cruz, a costar on the set of his current film, are getting it on. Still others are speculating that the two held divergent views on religion, which ultimately led to the break-up. From Kathie Lee to Kelly It’s official. After informally testing the talk show knack of dozens of female candidates, the producers of Regis Philbin’s syndicated talk show have finally made a selection. Kelly Ripa, currently starring in the ABC daytime soap All My Children, will take the seat next to Reege, which has been vacant ever since Kathie Lee Gifford exited the show early last summer. Apparently Ripa connected well with Philbin, who is 38 years her senior. “… Look it’s not a cure for cancer. It’s a fun show where we just riff off of each other and show our similar acerbic sense of humor,” she told USA Today. Ripa will likely add a breath of fresh air to the talk show, but why does she look so much like Kathie Lee? Hmm…. E-News Quickies Another witness has testified that she saw Sean “Puffy” Combs brandish a gun during a 1999 nightclub shooting … Britney Spears has signed a commercial deal with Pepsi … Fox’s Temptation Island will be extended through the end of the month … Seinfeld alum Jason Alexander will star as a motivational speaker in an upcoming sitcom … Italian police have charged Marilyn Manson for two acts of public indecency … HBO will televise last summer’s Bruce Springsteen concert on April 7 … Despite opposition, Eminem will attend this year’s Grammy Awards.Archived article by Matt Chock
By ryan
The Ithaca Common Council met yesterday for the first of two public hearings to consider the adoption of the Southwest Natural Area Master Plan. The plan, approved internally by the Common Council on Jan. 4, is now undergoing a secondary process of public review. As part of the broader Southwest Area Land Use Plan, the Natural Areas plan prescribes appropriate uses for undeveloped land — or parkland — adjacent to the Widewaters site, recently approved for large-scale development. Two city-appointed environmental committees — the Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) and the Natural Areas Commission (NAC) — presented criticism to the plan as well as recommendations for its improvement. Betsy Darlington, speaking for the CAC, urged for the protection of wildlife habitats and visual treasures of the greenway corridor — a series of connected green spaces and water courses. Darlington criticized the current Widewaters proposal for ignoring the impact that storm water runoff from the developed site would have on the Cayuga Inlet. During NAC recommendations, she proposed redirecting drainage to the “elbow” of the inlet to minimize possible erosion and contamination of the natural areas. After calling the Common Council’s plan “simplistic, narrow, and self-defeating,” Daniel Hoffman, chair of the NAC and a CAC member, added that if Ithaca is to allow Widewaters to use surrounding land as a buffer zone for runoff, the City should seek compensation by requiring the developer to designate an equivalent area as additional parkland. Ithaca resident Fay Gougakis, outraged that development was not being carried out “holistically,” directed several incriminations at the Common Council and told the City representatives that “a lot of you guys don’t know anything about planning.” A fact not mentioned during the hearing was that Widewaters Group obtained its current site as part of land-swap arrangement with the City. In exchange for the Southwest area, the company gave Ithaca a parcel of decommissioned parkland considered more favorable for environmental preservation. In addition, state law requires the proceeds of the land-swap to be used for maintaining the greener parcel now controlled by the City. “A significant number of people who oppose this plan do so because they don’t want any development,” said Alderperson Ed Hershey in a recent interview, suggesting that Widewaters’ efforts have been generous in respect to the City’s environmental concerns. “They [local opponents to development] simply want their concept of Ithaca to exist and don’t want anybody else’s [vision for the City] to exist,” Hershey said.Archived article by Sana Krasikov