16th JULY 2004

I'm not particularly inventive when it comes to interior design or table decorations or cooking. Usually I just make what I have to make and it's semi-attractive and that's that. But when it comes to extreme attractiveness of household items, no one does it better than Martha Stewart. Except for maybe when she had to do it via correspondence.

What?! You don't know what I'm talking about. Well, then. I'll just have to explain it, won't I? (Aren't I just the little schemer? No? Rude.)

On this day in 2004, Ms. Stewart was sentenced to prison for conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding and making falls statements to federal investigators. Basically insider trading and embezzlement. Not very fashionable Ms. Martha!

Found guilty in March, 2004 of selling 3928 shares of her ImClone Systems stock on December 27, 2001 preceding a market fall of 16%, Ms. Stewart avoided a loss of $45, 673 after receiving material, non-public information from her broker at Merrill Lynch.

Given a term of five months behind bars and with a two year period of supervised release, including five months of house arrest by a New York federal judge, Ms. Stewart didn't officially enter prison until October 8, 2004 and was release on March 4, 2005.

Supposedly, Stewart's nickname in prison was M. Diddy. M. Diddy up the house!!

What I think I love about Ms. Martha is that after being in prison for that period of time, and basically just the fact that she went to prison, everybody believed that her days of telling us to sauté and stir-fry were over, but no! Launching a comeback career almost as soon as she was released from prison, by September 2005, The Martha Stewart Show and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart both premiered, with somewhat acceptable ratings. Ms. Martha has appeared in Law & Order: SVU and still has a magazine running. She didn't care that people thought she wouldn't make it. She just went for it.

M. Diddy lived on!

But despite all that, there were a number of people who said that Ms. Martha was a finished entity. That her media empire preceding her entry into prison would never again be hers. And I suppose that is true in some regards. But I've watched The Martha Stewart Show on TV when I've been sick from school. You know, trashy daytime television. I learnt how to make a Thanksgiving Day turkey tabs decoration from an apple, a printed image and toothpicks. So you know valuable stuff that I will be able to apply in my day to day life. And I don't really think that those television stations would play those re-runs as fillers for no reason. There are always other fillers. Although, come to think of it, I haven't actually seen  M. Diddy on TV for a while.

Maybe the TV stations are beginning to drift away from pot plant covers made from ribbon and leftover fabric from those curtains that you made and the sweater that you knitted. Who knows what happened really. I'm sure M. Diddy's out there somewhere, doing something.

Probably.


Image available: http://www.thatsweird.net/news29.shtml