n a setback for complete bitches everywhere, Martha Stewart was convicted of four criminal charges by a jury of twelve of her peers, only much poorer. A deleted phone message and testimony from a "friend" of Stewart put the nails in her defense's coffin and doomed the austere homemaker and queen bitch to almost certain prison time.

With no television cameras in the courtroom, the prosecution spent less time on their hair and suits and focused on building a concrete case against Stewart, who was found guilty for trading her shares of ImClone based on an improper stock tip and attempting to cover up evidence of the illegal action. Stewart's defense claimed the ImClone stock was sold because Stewart had meant to buy stock in the Raelian company that made the clone baby, but got the name wrong. The defense claimed Stewart believed ImClone, a pharmaceutical company working on a cure for cancer, was "sure as shit not going to show profit."

Though Stewart has yet to be sentenced, with the severity of the crime, a term in a minimum-security prison is most likely. Stock in her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, dropped 25% in value when her conviction was made public. Stewart didn't do anything to help her sentencing hearing when she dumped all shares shortly before the announcement.

Stewart met the court proceedings with confidence, even showing up the first day of the trial with a $12,000 handbag in tow, prompting members of the jury to murmur, "Jesus, you believe this bitch?" As she was found guilty on all counts, courtroom witnesses described Stewart as "surprised, with an underlying current of bitchy just below the surface."

Since the end of the trial Stewart has professed her innocence and vowed to appeal the case until she is exonerated. She didn't stand on the steps of the courthouse frantically smacking her lawyers about the face and pushing them down the steps, hair frazzled and face manic like a comic Cruella DeVille, but wouldn't it have been great if she had?

Judge Miriam Cederbaum instructed the jury Stewart was subject to guilty or not guilty findings based only on the evidence, and not on the obscure "what a bitch" clause the prosecution proposed, which was originally founded to justify temporary insanity in spousal murder cases. The jury deliberated seven hours before returning, and according to juror Shelby Thucker, they were very conscious of the media attention their verdict would be given.

"We were all extra careful to argue both sides of the case, to make sure our decision wasn't based on anything but evidence," said Thucker, via phone interview. "The men in the jury were quick to call her a bitch, while most of the women found her to be a very successful self-made woman. Finally, we came to the conclusion we were both right. I know lots of people consider powerful women to be bitches, and that's not fair. But Martha Stewart… don't you get the feeling she could be penniless and still be the world's biggest, poorest bitch?"

Clearly, Stewart could be idolized by young upwardly-mobile women everywhere for her shrew business sense and formidable demeanor. For those who find bitchiness a virtue, she was a true beacon in the business world. Even her ethical behavior in making more money and protecting her interests can be respected by aspiring self-made women. However, she got caught, which should be enough to lose all of our respect.

Stewart would not return calls placed to her attorneys by the commune—the bitch.

espite claims that they suspended shock jock Howard Stern's syndicated morning show for vulgarity, and not for his recent anti-Bush statements, radio behemoth Clear Channel Communications replaced the controversial on-air personality this week with Ramblin' Dick Walker, a pro-Bush shock jock popular among the wealthy and humorless.

Walker, known nationwide for his offensively conservative views and on-air skits that include humorous vocal impressions of the poor, calls the allegations against Clear Channel "abnanmious."

"Look, if Clear Channel wanted to get some sycophantic Bush-booster in here, I'm the last person they would have called," claimed Walker. "Check the record, I've called Bush to task on everything from his over-generosity to his weak game of horseshoes. I take Georgie to the mat at horseshoes. To the mat!"

Others disagree, calling Walker "a soulless shill for big business" and "human dogshit." Walker is no stranger to controversy, coming under fire from the FCC in 1998 for his on-air campaign to bait listeners into bombing welfare offices, and again in 2000 when the United Nations heard a complaint from the island of Cuba that they considered being within radio range of Walker's show to be an act of war.

"Hey man, free speech," Walker explained, when asked to defend his record of FCC fines and history of inspiring Amnesty International protests. "If Howard Stern can talk about masturbation on-air, it's hypocrisy that I catch so much flack for talking about sterilizing the indigent."

Though Clear Channel's official reasoning behind dropping Stern's show has been that the program was "vulgar, offensive and insulting," the company was using those exact same terms to promote the show only weeks ago. And many find the timing to be curious, as Stern had begun criticizing the president only days before the announcement, while the rest of his show's content remained unchanged. Some point to the "Janet Jackson Superbowl Half-Tit Show" debacle as either the justifiable impetus or lame-assed excuse for Clear Channel's house cleaning, which also included canceling several other programs that had criticized Bush and America's war on Iraq.

Meanwhile, in the last week Stern has embarked on his own campaign to raise public awareness of his masturbation habits and the close ties between the Bush Administration and Clear Channel's CEO Lowry Mays and vice chairman Tom Hicks, not to mention FCC chairman Michael Powell. Political pundits fear that if Stern's crusade should ever evolve beyond the "What a bunch of assholes!" phase, with popular Republican ballast Rush Limbaugh working at only half-power while learning to propagandize sober, it could tip the upcoming election in favor of Kerry in November.

Ramblin' Dick Walker, however, finds this scenario unlikely. "No way the poor people vote in this election. You ever try to take a bus somewhere? Forget about it. You might as well stay home and smoke crack. Bush in a landslide."

Guilt is a pretty super thing.

Fortune has taken an upturn since the last column. Actually, it took a swift downturn, plummeted into a crash, then whatever remained took an upturn. Which is usually how things go in my life. But it all started with my dad getting beat into a coma in that rumble last month.

Dad's in the hospital, head injury and all, and the only way he can communicate is to do Dave Letterman's Uma-Oprah bit from the Oscars years back. Put there by Steve, my sister's life partner, during the lesbian-old fogey turf war they had. But check it out, even though Steve clearly put a beating on dad, she's still suing him for punitive damages with the shit he called her. And on top of that, she filed a lawsuit against me for calling her Steve all the time instead of "Stephan," which she alleges is her name. I thought it was a compromise, since I stopped calling her "Marcy" when she asked me. But no. Some lesbians are pretty touchy about name issues.

See? I said some lesbians. My sister is teaching me not to make generalizations about people. Lawyers are always trigger-happy with lawsuits on about generalizations like that.

But none of this sounds good, of course, and it wasn't. Isn't, since the lawsuits are still pending—I guess they have to get in line behind my other libel suit. For about two weeks, though, I'm on whatever cloud is below cloud 9 and gets their plumbing overflow. Dad is in the hospital, but his gang is mending their wounds in my living room, mom is still sharing the same bed, and I'm having trouble making the rent since lawsuit # 1 Jayme Kristofson stole my Metallichick job. Just when things look their bleakest, I manage to pull it out of the fire again.

How I managed to pull it out of the fire was, my sister Cassandra felt so guilty about her old lady suing me and the mom and pop, so she took me out to lunch (her treat, natch). She said she was sorry it was turning out like this, and she was trying to talk Butch out of the lawsuit and whatever, but in the meantime, she was going to help me by cutting me a check to pay the legal bills. And sis hit me with this big-time check, like four zeroes, and said she'd slip me another one if I needed it, until the lawsuit thing passes. Siblings can be beautiful things, dudes.

She had plenty of suggestions on how to spend the money, of course, like telling me the name of this big fancy-pants lawyer in downtown Manhattan, apparently he's the last word in civil litigation. But I don't need to be told how to spend money, just how to come up with it. So I dipped into the lawyer fundage and rented me a place out in L.A. right near the action, so close to Warner Brothers you can hear them making the director's DVD commentaries. It's quality real estate. Pricey, yeah, but I'm not footing the bill.

Needless to say, it doesn't help my New Jersey apartment rent problem none, and mom and the gang might be kicked out on their asses, but I've prepared for that as well—I didn't give them the address of my new apartment. No midnight visits to Clarissa when the eviction notice comes.

I even had enough money left over to get a lawyer, too. He's not top-of-the-line like the Winston Price guy my sister told me to get, he doesn't own a suit or anything, but he's got to be good. His name is Jerry Nascar and he has an office as the same building as the commune, so you know he's legit. He's got a law degree from somewhere on the wall right next to the picture of this huge fish he caught, so the guy's no joke. And now, best of all, I only have to make one trip when picking up my commune paycheck and sorting out my legal issues. Life is sweet.

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