Martha is looking a bit haggard these days. I have never much enjoyed Martha Stewart as a "performer," so I think that has biased me against her as a person. As jury selection begins, the charges against her strike me as very dubious:

Filling out the questionnaires marked the beginning of jury selection in Stewart's trial on charges she lied to the government about her sale of ImClone Systems stock in 2001.

Lawyers on both sides will receive hundreds of completed questionnaires Wednesday, then spend two weeks reviewing them before interviewing some jurors in person on Jan. 20. Opening arguments should come several days after that.

....Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum has ordered the media not to speak to potential jurors, citing the need for an unbiased jury and saying she was acting at the request of both the prosecution and defense.

Stewart and her also-indicted former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, were not in court Tuesday. They are scheduled to make their first appearances at the trial Jan. 20.

The two are accused of concocting a false story about why Stewart sold nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems stock Dec. 27, 2001, a day before a negative government report sent its share price tumbling.

The government says they were tipped that ImClone founder Sam Waksal was selling his shares. Stewart and Bacanovic claim they had a previous arrangement to sell ImClone when it dipped to $60 per share.

On Monday, the government filed a new indictment against Stewart and Bacanovic, making mostly cosmetic and typographical changes. No new charges were contained in the new indictment.

Still, prosecutors did change some of the language in the indictment, substituting the phrase "false and misleading" for "false" when referring to explanations Stewart gave investigators for her ImClone sale. [AP]

Their styles couldn't be more different and their stars are currently hurtling in opposite directions. Still, Dolly Parton, the sweet Southern bombshell, and Martha Stewart, the proper Yankee domestic diva, are both icons of American femininity - icons identifiable by their first names, names that resonate with our mythic past.

At the far end of middle age — Parton is 57; Stewart, 61 — they remain youthfully attractive. But they are dipoles of American femininity. Parton's version is all Southern-belle warmth, highlighted curves, glamorous makeup and wigs, and she never is seen otherwise. She plays with her garish, hyper-glamorous image and lets you know she is in on the joke with a wink and a wiggle. Stewart is a cool — some would say cold — domestic queen, angular and stylish but sensible and muted, always outfitted precisely, whether for replanting the herb garden or sampling early summer merlot al fresco. She speaks in a droll restrained contralto, and never seems to have considered the possibility she might disappoint someone other than herself, while Parton's twangy soprano always seems eager to please. At the recent opening of her latest dinner theater, Parton chirped she hopes "people see the brain underneath the wig and the heart beneath the boobs." Imagine Stewart saying such a thing.

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