17.07 Transmissions from a Lone Star: Why J-Lo Is More Ethical Than Our Greatest Statesmen

I am not sure when I first became aware of the oeuvre of the �singer� Jennifer Lopez � she of the two-note vocal range � but it may well have been when I was living in Kazakhstan in late 1999. As the new millennium approached, her track �Waiting for Tonight� was in heavy rotation on the German music channel I got with my satellite TV package. It was utterly rotten, but better than the works of Die Fantastischen Vier, so I sometimes let it play out.

Anyway, that early association of J-Lo + Central Asian autocracy might explain why I was neither shocked nor all that bothered when word got out that Jenny from the Block had performed for Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the dictator of Turkmenistan. I mean: commercial pop star accepts cash for performance � whoa, stop the presses.