SHOULD R. KELLY'S 'IGNITION' BE THE NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM?

You can't pick up a right-leaning newspaper or flick on an episode ofHannity or listen to your grandfather clamor on over a bowl of stewed cabbage without being smacked with the following affirmation: this country has taken quite the dive. Yes, the good old days are far behind us — the days of Perry Como, High Noon, and expensive hats. And yearn as we might to bring our homeland to its glorious pre-ironic state, we only really have enough gigawatts of plutonium for a trip back, say, 10 years or so. Such seems to the be the motivation for the latest petition to hit the White House website: a movement to replace our current national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner," with R. Kelly's 2003 hit "Ignition." Some big dreaming traditionalist longs to return the U.S. of A. to its golden years... and he's apparently willing to settle for a time when people still loved American Idol and hated comic book movies.

But if we're going to propagate the efforts of this revolutionary — this free-thinking radical who'd rather bend the pulse than follow it — then we're going to need more than just some R. Kelly song. We're going to need to sweep the national identity as a whole, injecting each and every pop culture fixation of our decade-younger selves into the country's brand. So what other irrelevant bits of mainstream yore, which long-frayed fabrics from the template of 2003, can we revive for an America of which we might once again be only marginally ashamed?

New National MottoFrom "In God We Trust" to "You're my boy, Blue!" It's emphatic, it's uniting, it's affectionate, and it's practically the only sentence any of your a**hole friends would say to each other for the entire year after Old School came out.

New Country Capital
From Washington D.C. to the Matrix. (Reloaded. You know, the better one.)

New Presidential ResidenceFrom the White House to House of 1000 Corpses. That was a movie!

New Dollar Bill
From the likeness of our first president, George Washington, to that of Ali G. Ah, the good old days before Sacha Baron Cohen sung close-up numbers in impoverished France... 

New National BirdFrom the Bald Eagle to the Raven. As in, That's So.

New National Beverage From bourbon whiskey to "Milkshake." Remember that? Remember when that was a thing? Yes. Now you do. Now you do.

The year was 2003... and the time, as we can see, was one of fortitude. A time of Luke Wilson, of teen sitcoms, of Kelis. If we work together, we can bring our country back to this eon of perfection. And the movement, as so many things are, is all thanks to R. Kelly.

TINA FEY RESPONDS TO TAYLOR SWIFT: 'IT WAS JUST A JOKE'

Hey Taylor Swift: You might be mad about a mild punchline from more than a month ago, but Tina Fey — and her close friend and formerSaturday Night Live costar Rachel Dratch — have something to tell you.

"It was a just joke," Fey tells Hollywood.com of her teensy jab at the singer during the Golden Globes ceremony. "I think it was a very benign joke," Fey tells us — and a small group of reporters — at the red carpet premiere of her new movie, Admission, in New 

In Swift’s just-released interview with Vanity Fair, the emotional and extremely vocal singer admitted she was not too pleased with Globes hosts Fey and Amy Poehler. At one point during the broadcast the jokingly "drunk" duo told told Taylor to "stay away" from Michael J. Fox’s son lest she write a song about him. In response to the light mocking, the 23-year-old singer used a quote that Katie Couric once told her to express her feelings: "There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women." Fair, or over-reaction?

Dratch was also up to date on the Swift/Fey/Poehler controversy, and thinks the entire situation appears to be one big overly dramatic misinterpretation. "I don't think Tina meant [the comment] in the way that Taylor took it," Dratch tells Hollywood.com. "I just think Taylor — I'm talking about Taylor like I know her — but she's probably just sick of all of this."

The actress continues: "I get what she was saying about [how the press] create this persona for her and she's probably really sick of that, and that was probably some lightening rod for her. But I think Tina and Amy were ladies and probably just joking about it.”

Poehler has already graciously responded to Swift’s Vanity Fair/Dear Diary rant — and it was a beautiful tropical fish moment — so now that both hosts and an SNL alum have presented their two cents can we please move on? That is until Swift inevitably releases her newest song that bashes the "Mean Girls" of Hollywood…

VALERIE HARPER, 'MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW' STAR, DIAGNOSED WITH TERMINAL BRAIN CANCER

2013 is going to be a sad year for fans of the The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off, Rhoda. Star of the two shows, Valerie Harper, has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, People reports. And doctors say that the beloved star has as little as three months left to live.

Harper received the news on Jan. 15. A series of tests revealed that she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a condition where cancer cells invade the membrane that protects the brain. This diagnosis carries a high rate of mortality. 

Despite the diagnosis, Harper has put on a brave face about her remaining time. "I don't think of dying," the 73-year-old actress, who has been battling lung cancer since 2009, says. "I think of being here now."

SHIA LABEOUF CALLS HIMSELF 'HUSTLER' AND ALEC BALDWIN 'CHIEF' IN BIZARRE EMAIL THREAD

Such big egos, such little self-control. Shia LaBeouf is prolonging his cyber-war with Alec Baldwin, which began last month and continued when they exchanged barbs in a Twitter kerfuffle earlier this week. The two actors had been set to star together in the Broadway playOrphans, until LaBeouf decided to leave the production last month. Then, just earlier this week, he tweeted something that apparently ticked off Baldwin. The ex-Transformers star wrote, "theater belongs not to the great but to the brash." Baldwin quickly tweeted in response, "I can tell you that, in all honesty, I don’t think he’s in a good position to be giving interpretations of what the theater is and what the theater isn’t."

Now LaBeouf has responded to Baldwin’s reply by upping the cyber ante. He’s released screengrabs of a private email exchange with a mysterious individual named “Sulyboy,” who’s either someone who’s a big fan of Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent or Orphans directorDaniel Sullivan. It’s probably Daniel Sullivan. These appear to benotes from a director to his actor about what to expect in terms of the behavior of his even bigger-name actor co-star: "Don't be too surprised if Alec doesn't look up from his script much for the first few days. I suspect he's not nearly as prepared as you are. Not unusual at all when actors have a good long rehearsal time like we have. I just don't want it to throw you. I did a reading of another play once with Alec and about 10 minutes in I thought, 'Oh, I guess he's just going to read it.'"

In another exchange between LaBeouf and Baldwin himself, the 30 Rock star indicated that he was “so f***ing tired.” That drew a smug response from LaBeouf: “I’m a hustler. I don’t get tired. I’m 26, chief.” Then Baldwin replied, “Listen, boy. I'm not your f***in' chief. You got that? Ha. Hahahahaha. Let's go." Sullivan himself then responded this exchange with, "I thought it was a very good first. Even if Alec never looked up."

Right… so that clears that up. Can you read between the lines of this very publicly aired dirty laundry?

SENDING GOOD THOUGHTS TO VALERIE HARPER, REVOLUTIONARY, INSPIRATIONAL 'ACTOR'

With Valerie Harper announcing in today’s People magazine that she’s been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, anyone who’s a fan ofThe Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, women’s rights, comedy, or good in the world should take a moment to send healing thoughts her way. 

As I learned in researching my upcoming book about The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Harper is a class act. She’s friendly to everyone she encounters, and she can’t help but help anyone who needs it. Her character, Rhoda, gave Mary Tyler Moore its feminist heart — because of the friendship between Rhoda and Mary, and because Harper herself was an outspoken feminist. She refused or revised lines she deemed unliberated. She talked in the press about her desire to be called an “actor,” not an “actress,” and argued with fellow actor Ed Asner about the importance of “Ms.” (This was before Asner himself became a feminist.) Her headscarf-wearing Rhoda was supposed to be the schlumpy sidekick, but instead she became the cool-girl role model.

Even Gloria Steinem got a little slobbery over Harper’s awesomeness. In a 1978 Ms. magazine cover story, Steinem interviewed Harper, calling her Rhoda character “one of the few realistic women on television.” Harper and Steinem discussed the subject of women and money, on which she had loads to say. In a statement that inadvertently summed up her entire personality, she said: “That’s the best part of having money — being able to give gifts. I bought my mother her first real gold earrings. I got a great feeling out of being able to pledge $5,000 for the ERA. And I give to a Chicana center in Los Angeles, and a project to convince people that worldwide hunger isn’t something natural; that it can be eliminated completely, like the plague. And I loved being able to pay for an ad in the trades thanking Charlotte Brown, our new executive producer on Rhoda, who’s literally doing the work of four men who used to be there.”

Yes, Harper is a talker. But her life has made even more of a statement. Please send her your best thoughts today.

Hollywood.com correspondent Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is the author of two forthcoming books, Sexy Feminism and Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted, a history of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. For more information visit  JenniferKArmstrong.com.