We have been getting several questions about industry consolidation, so we wanted to share American's current position.

We generally don't comment on what role AMR might play, if any, in consolidation. Consolidation could benefit shareholders, customers and employees by creating a healthier industry in which airlines are better equipped to improve services, pay off debt, reinvest in their businesses and grow. But there are many challenges to consolidation, mainly labor, regulatory issues and integration, and it remains to be seen whether it will produce benefits in the airline industry. Regardless, we will continue to manage our business prudently, work to improve our performance and continue to monitor the industry landscape.

Billy S.
American Airlines

I for one am glad that we had this conversation, Billy.

[via Jaunted]

The statements:

"This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false. Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during, or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story." - Sean "Diddy" Combs

"In the past 14 years, I have not even been questioned by law enforcement with regard to the assault of Tupac Shakur, let alone brought up on charges. Chuck Phillips, the writer who in the past has falsely claimed that the Notorious Biggie Smalls was in Las Vegas when Tupac was murdered and that Biggie supplied the gun that killed Tupac — only to be proven wrong as Biggie was in New Jersey recuperating from a car accident, has reached a new low by employing fourth-hand information from desperate jailhouse informants along with ancient FBI reports to create this fabrication. I simply ask for all Rap fans and fans of Tupac to analyze this fiction for what it is along with Phillips' motives behind it. I am baffled as to why the LA Times would print this on its website when a simple and fair investigation would reveal that the allegations are false. I am currently consulting with my attorneys about my legal rights regarding this libelous piece of garbage." - Jimmy Rosemond

[via XXL]

Biggie's two verses on "Who Shot Ya?":

Who shot ya?

Seperate the weak from the ob-solete

Hard to creep them brooklyn streets

Its on nigga, fuck all that bickering beef

I can hear sweat trickling down your cheek

Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet

Thundering, shaking the concrete

Finish it, stop, when I foil the plot

Neighbors call the cops said they heard mad shots

Saw me in the drop, three in the corner

Slaughter, electrical tape around your daughter

Old school new school need to learn though

I burn baby burn like disco inferno

Burn slow like blunts with ya-yo

Peel more skins than idaho potato

Niggaz know, the lyrics molestin is takin place

Fuckin with b.i.g. it aint safe

I make your skin chafe, rashes on the masses

Bumps and bruises, blunts and landcruisers

Big poppa smash fools, bash fools

Niggaz mad because I know that cash rules

Everything around me, two glock nines

Any motherfucker whispering about mines

And im, crooklyns finest

You rewind this, Bad Boy's behind this

(Hook)

I seen the light excite all the freaks
Stack mad chips, spread love with my peeps
Niggaz wanna creep, got ta watch my back
Think the cognac and indo sack make me slack?
I switches all that, cock-sucker gs up
One false move, get swiss cheesed up
Clip to tec, respect I demand it
Slip and break the, 11th commandment
Thou shalt not fuck with raw c-poppa
Feel a thosand deaths when I drop ya
I feel for you, like chaka khan Im the don
Pussy when I want rolex on the arm
Youll die slow but calm
Recognize my face, so there wont be no mistake
So you know where to tell jake, lame nigga
Brave nigga, turned front page nigga
Puff daddy flips daily
I smoke the blunts he sips on the baileys
On the rocks, tote glocks at christenings
And my cock, in the fire position and...

[via Lyrics Freak]

The Times obtained FBI records that say the attack was masterminded by manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond and promoter James Sabatino. Rosemond was a thug-turned-music businessman, and Sabatino was a young promoter whose father was in the mob. They offered Tupac $7,000 to record a track at the studio—where Puffy and dozens of Bad Boy associates were also recording that night—and then hired some guys from Brooklyn to beat and rob Tupac. He pulled a gun, and ended up getting shot, but surviving.

On Nov. 29, 1994, two dozen Bad Boy executives and associates gathered on the 10th floor of the Quad to record songs for a debut album by Junior M.A.F.I.A., a group formed by the Notorious B.I.G., Bad Boy's leading artist.

On hand were Combs, B.I.G., Rosemond, Agnant and Sabatino. Also present, among others, were rapper James "Lil' Cease" Lloyd and music executive Andre Harrell.

Rosemond had booked an adjacent studio to produce a recording by rapper Little Shawn, whose career he managed. This was the session at which Shakur was to be paid $7,000 for a guest vocal.

In fact, Rosemond never intended to record the session, according to the FBI informant and the other sources.

He had enlisted a trio of his friends from Brooklyn to ambush Shakur in the lobby of the Quad, the sources said.

Agnant and Sabatino helped plan the attack, working out the timing, arranging for the three assailants to be driven to the studio and mapping out their escape route, according to the informant and the other sources. Sabatino informed Combs and Wallace in advance that a trap had been laid for Shakur, the sources said...

The FBI informant said the shots were audible in the 10th-floor studio. "Sabatino, Rosemond and Combs did not seem concerned about this," the informant told the FBI, though others in the studio "were very upset."

The Times contacted the three guys who sources told them did the crime, all of whom are in prison on unrelated charges. One denied it; "one of the men said that Rosemond orchestrated the ambush. Another was cryptic. He wrote that the statute of limitations for the assault had expired, and he offered to produce, for an unspecified fee, the medallion stolen from Shakur."

Puffy declined to comment. Tupac was murdered in September of 1996; Biggie Smalls, Puffy's greatest rapper, was murdered the following March. Puffy is now a mainstream star; needless to say, this could further complicate his already complicated image.

Dear Oprah Winfrey,

I am writing to inform you that I cannot accept your kind offer to name this book as your October, 2007 selection for Oprah's Book Club™. I realize this letter may come as something of a shock, given my reputation for shameless self-promotion, which I hope precedes me. I also realize that authors who cross you tend to wind up with an awful lot of egg on their faces. Fortunately, I walk around most days with a four-cheese omelette hanging from my chin, so no problem there.

The truth is, I don't give a shit how many books you sell. I don't care how much dough you give away, or how many famous people you make cry. At the end of the day, you're a TV star. You show up on a tiny screen and give lonely people a place to park their emotions for an hour. You're the world's leading retailer of inspiration. You're the Wal-Mart of Hope.

Literature, though, isn't supposed to be a convenient shopping experience. It's a solitary imaginative endeavor aimed at arousing the anguish hidden inside us, the bad news of our hearts. There's no celebrity shrink on hand to dispense hankies, no empathic host to buzz manage our tears. There's no assurance that our frail human experiment will end in triumph by the final commercial break. You tell me, Oprah: should the Savior of Publishing be available with your basic cable package?

I can already hear your fans howling for my head. But from where I'm sitting, you're just another zillionaire narcissist for whom fame (the illusion of unconditional love) has become the true goal and your public acts of good merely the means. Whatever noble cause you're pimping this week, in the end you're pimping yourself. Because if you really gave a shit about all us little people, you'd hoist your fluctuating ass out of the luxury self-help suite and express some outrage over the state of this nation: the young Americans snuffed over in Iraq, the poor ones economically sodomized by your pal Dubya, a realpolitik that dependably rewards bigotry over policy.

But outrage isn't your thing, Oprah. To express such a vulgar emotion would violate the dictates of the brand. All we have to do to solve the crisis of empathy in this country is buy your lousy magazine, right? The one with you on the cover every single fucking month. Forget confronting evil. Just keep dreaming and hoping and snuffling with Oprah, keep gulping down the aspirational sugar pills. What a crock.

The answer is no.

If that makes me an asshole, fine, I'm happy to be an asshole on behalf of literature. Someone has to be.

Until we meet again,

Phil Donahue

P.S. - Kidding! My real name is Steve Almond.

Dear Ms. Winfrey,

I'm not sure if you got the last letter I sent. I hope not. I don't want to make excuses, so I'm not going to mention that I suffer from depression, or that my infant daughter was ill, or that I'd just finished a truly disappointing blackened grouper sandwich that left me queasy and out of sorts.

The point is contrition. I'd like to apologize for the things I wrote. I talked this over with some of the folks at my publishing house yesterday - there were twelve in all, I guess - and they felt that I had done both of us a disservice by refusing your gracious (potential) offer to select my book for Oprah's Book Club™. Their contention was that insulting you may have gratified my own righteous indignation, but did little to promote the greater cause we share. That crack about your ass, for instance. I didn't mean that it literally fluctuates.

A lot of this boils down to insecurity. There's a part of me that worries you won't really choose my book for Oprah's Book Club™. The letter was my way of rejecting you before you could reject me. Pretty third-grade on my part.

I have deep respect for the work you do, not just as a media figure, but as a literary philanthropist. You could easily have hitched your wagon to the Freakshow Express, like Springer. Instead, you've spent your cultural capital encouraging people to read writers like Toni Morrison and William Faulkner. That I failed to acknowledge this reflects nothing beyond my own chronic bitterness.

This is all by way of saying that, on the off chance that you have read my previous letter, I hope you will file it under Unintended Satire, or perhaps Temporary Dementia. Rest assured, I have no plans to pull a Franzen. It would be an honor to appear on your show. And I promise not to jump on your couch! (Unless you'd like me to.)

Also, as I mentioned, I have a new daughter. Despite her recent near-fatal illness, she has fully recovered - something of a miracle, the docs say - as you can see from the photo I've enclosed. Her mother bought her the Oprah 4 Prez T-shirt.

Yours in apology & admiration,

Steve Almond

Dear Oprah,

This is going to seem a little crazy, but I'm enclosing another copy of the letter I sent along earlier this week. I know how much mail you must get. Better safe than sorry.

Great show yesterday, by the way! I have to admit that I had not given a great deal of thought to the challenges of menopause, but I appreciated how you handled the jerk who referred to his wife as Senora Hot Flasha. My wife and I had a long talk after the show and I came away with a whole new perspective. It's like you say, "Menopause isn't a process, people, it's a journey."

Let's talk soon,

Steve

P.S. Yes, another photo of our little angel. That's her peeking out from an official Oprah tote bag. What can I tell you - she's a fan!

Oprah,

One thought I had, in terms of planning - one of the essays in my book is about Condoleeza Rice. Long story short, I slam her pretty hard. I'm thinking it might be cool to do a show that's about "healing" the rift between Condoleeza and myself. She could (for instance) apologize for the lies that got us into the Iraq war, and I could apologize for referring to her as "the President's office wife." Then we might hug. Or do some music together. Or both.

Think about it.

Steve

Oprah!

Just a silly note to tell you that my wife and I rented The Color Purple. Again. What can I tell you? You got jobbed at the Oscars. Your performance made Anjelica Huston's look like dinner theater. Also: my publicist was wondering when I might hear back from you. (I explained about your schedule, but you know how these people get.)

Also also: Would it be too forward for me to refer to you, in future correspondences, as my homegirl?

Oprah in '08!

Steve

Dearest O,

Last night I was looking through The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey: A Portrait in Her Own Words and I came across this quote.

"I don't do anything unless it feels good. I don't move on logic. I move on my gut. And I have a good gut!"

You were talking about your business philosophy. But it got me thinking about your actual gut, and the way the tabloids cover it so obsessively. (Extra! Extra! Oprah Gains Four Pounds!) It's like, in a way, your body has become public property, up there on display for everybody to gawk at and poke and prod. I'm sure this thought has occurred to you a few million times, but here you are, the most influential black woman in human history, and somehow you're still the white man's slave.

That's fucked up.

Steve

Herbert's larger point (and it is a very large point) contends that this lack of emphasis is just another symptom of our society's overall misogyny. We are, as a nation, indifferent to crimes against (or degradation of) women, as opposed to similar abuse of minorities. Rachel Sklar at HuffPo's Eat the Press takes it to the next level, noting the general lack of shock-response to Herbert's shockingness, which yet is another indicator of our collective misogyny. These issues are of course debatable, but setting all that aside (because we also hate women), we have another question. Has anyone ever been successfully shamed into feeling shocked?

Herbert's article is an example of the "WHERE is the OUTRAGE" trope, quite popular in news commentary and blogs both. You're meant to feel guilty about not getting angry, which, we suppose, might cause you to reflexively agree and become suddenly faux-shocked in order to cover your ass, empathy-wise. Blogs in particular are largely fueled by indignation, and we're certainly no exception. But it takes a particular kind of hubris to not only make an argument and express indignation, but to fault the reader (and society) for not instinctively sharing your own gut reaction. The lack of outrage becomes the real outrage, and that lack becomes the real story — and in a neat trick, insufficiently vocal disapproval of a negative issue becomes overt endorsement of same. If you don't share Herbert's outrage, or at least admit that he's right and you probably should be outraged, then you're part of the problem.

But really, when was the last time someone convinced you to be angry? Either you're shocked and outraged, or you're not. And either way, it doesn't mean you couldn't agree to recognize different facets of an issue (like the misogyny component of the shootings), but getting shamed into it doesn't speak much for the strength of the argument. It's probably fair to say that most everyone was quite shocked indeed by the Amish shootings. Herbert may find the public's spectrum of shock and the media's spectrum of emphasis insufficient for his own sensibilities, but regardless of his point, his outrage at the void of outrage doesn't make him any more credible.

Why Aren't We Shocked? [NYT]
Herbert Column Makes Barely A Ripple; Why Aren't We Shocked? [ETP]