Dixie Chicks ruffle some feathers

Those Dixie Chicks are some brave — or foolhardy — ladies.

The singing trio was boycotted by some conservative fans and yanked from the play lists of some radio stations owned by the chain Clear Channel after they criticized George W. Bush — but now they’re taking on Sinclair Broadcasting. The chain of 62 television stations plans to broadcast parts of an anti-John Kerry documentary .

“We have a giant television company that is making Clear Channel’s antics look like a day at the beach,” the Dixie Chicks say in a “Media Alert” posted on their Web site. “Sinclair is the Clear Channel of TV, producing news segments at ‘News Central’ in suburban Maryland and forcing local stations to air them as ‘local news.’ Great for Sinclair’s bottom line ... terrible for our democracy.”

They provide a link so that fans can take further action. “During the past week there has been a massive backlash, and Sinclair is on the defensive,” they write — and in fact, Sinclair recently announced plans to scale back how much of the documentary it’s asking affiliates to broadcast. “They are on the ropes and we need you to help us keep them there,” the Chicks add.

(Editor’s note: After this item was posted, the “Media Alert” was removed from the Dixie Chicks’s Web site.)

We are family

Are Madonna and Celine Dion related?

That’s the claim being made by genealogist Troy Dunn, who traced back the ancestry of the two very different songbirds and found they shared roots.

Dunn, of MyFamily.com says that the company contacted both Madonna and Dion with the happy news. “Madonna’s people had no comment,” he said. “Celine’s people were horrified.”

Dunn also claims that George W. Bush and John Kerry are related. They’re distant cousins, he revealed on "The View," so the election “is one big family fight.”

Notes from all over

Was Richard Dreyfus fired from the London production of “The Producers”? Dreyfus announced he was quitting the musical because of “the effect of the physical demands of the show.” But the U.K. paper The Mirror claims that Dreyfus was told to the leave the production, quoting a source as saying, “He wasn’t up to putting together the whole massive performance. He was behind in most of the dance moves, behind in the lines, and most importantly of all, he wasn’t funny.”  . . . Donny Osmond’s son uses his father’s former fame when he’s doing Mormon missionary work abroad. “Sometimes the door gets slammed in your face, which can be hard to take, but it comes with the territory,” 19-year-old Brandon Osmond told The Scotsman. “People get angry with us, but I don’t put it past them. Once or twice the family name has come in handy, though. The person goes to shut the door and they see the name or the resemblance to my dad and they change their minds.”  . . . Nicky Hilton thinks that the actresses who played her and her sister in “White Chicks” weren’t, like, you know, hot enough. Stuff magazine asked Hilton what she thought of being spoofed in the film. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” Hilton told the November issue of the mag. “I just wished the two chicks who played us were hotter. They were kind of funny looking.”

Jeannette Walls Delivers the Scoop Mondays through Thursdays on MSNBC.com

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