Date: Fri 27-Nov-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Dr-Laura-Brand

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Dr Laura and the Net

Byb Bob Brand

In early November, the Net was abuzz with scuttlebutt that a dozen nude

pictures of talk radio personality Dr Laura were floating on the Web. My first

reaction was "Oh! No! Here we go again. Someone glued a twenty-something head

onto the naked body of an amateur exhibitionist with the intent of giving the

Internet another black eye." Wait! Let's back up a second.

For those folks who do not own a radio, Laura Schlessinger is the abrasive

talk show host who doles out "opinion" (she is careful not to characterize it

as advice because her doctorate is in physiology) to a daily audience of

almost 20 million listeners. An amalgamation of one part Leona Helmsley, one

part Tammy Faye Baker, two parts Bill Ginsberg, Dr Laura belts out a

continuous stream of "preaching, teaching and nagging" on almost 500 radio

stations in the US and Canada. With an underlying theme of personal

responsibility, her message gets infused with self-promotion colored by

religious undertones.

Raised in Brooklyn and Long Island with a Jewish civil engineer father and

Catholic Italian war bride mother, Yolanda Ceccovini, Schlessinger presides

over two camps -- one that loves her and another that is revolted by her talk

show. Her persona has spilled over onto the Internet via a steady barrage of

e-mails, websites and Usenet newsgroup postings.

The Websites

The Official Dr Laura Website stands as a monument to self-promotion. Top

heavy with hyperlinks drilled to geegaws such as coffee mugs, tee-shirts,

screen savers, key chains and even a banner ad for HotMail, it is the

motherlode of Dr Laura kitsch. An "Anti-Laura" undercurrent courses through

the Web as well. Venting of strongly held opinions surfaces at the Canadian

website, "Some Comments On Laura Schlessinger," where organized viewpoints

from e-mailers date back as far as November 1996. A recent Vanity Fair article

penned by Leslie Bennetts (posted on the site) provides cannon fodder for Dr

Laura's detractors. It details a frank but unflattering account of her "rise

to fame." This comes as a mirror incident detailed in the Dallas Morning News

of an ugly Texas visit in early 1997 when the Leona side of the Schlessinger

persona made a $30,000 appearance and insulted everyone in the house.

Gasoline on the Campfire

This brings us back to the nude photos. It turns out that a late

twenty-something Laura Schlessinger, separated from her first husband, was

living in California. Her boyfriend, Bill Ballance (29 years her senior)

snapped the cheesecake photos. In October, Balance sold the images to

cyber-porn-meister Seth Warshavsky for $50,000. Within nanoseconds, they were

disseminated over the Internet via his IEG Website in high profile fashion.

After an unsuccessful courtroom attempt to stop the cyber-broadcast,

Schlessinger admitted: "... I had a relationship with a man who was both

mentor and friend, a relationship that has never been a secret. I am mystified

as to why -- 23 years later -- this 80-year-old man would do such a morally

reprehensible thing." It is probably safe to say that they did not part under

amicable circumstances.

This whole melodrama plays out on the Internet. The nude pictures, e-mails

(both pro and con), in-depth articles and more are available for fans and

critics alike to witness and judge. For me, the situation is best summed up in

the words of one e-mail message posted to Achilles.net: "What most people

don't understand, is that Dr Laura is primarily an entertainer and her show is

not designed to be serious therapy, but rather radio entertainment; that's why

it's called the Dr Laura Show. As such it succeeds brilliantly. But it's still

just a show. It's for commercial entertainment." Judge for yourself.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.drlaura.com/frames.html http://www.achilles.net/~guy/

http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1998/11/03feature.html

(This is the 130th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, The Linda Tripp Tapes is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until

next week, happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet Info

for Real People (including links to sites mentioned in this article) can be

found: http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to:

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)