Portman visits her roots, Stern drunk dials, Bialik writing a parenting book

By JTA Staff, 6nobacon.com

According to Ynet news, the couple stayed at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and traveled throughout the country, including Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea. Portman was spotted leaving a note at the Western Wall, sipping coffee with friends at cafes around Jerusalem and shopping at the city’s famed Machane Yehuda market.

Although the family tried to keep things low key by traveling in cars with tinted windows and using fake names to check into hotels, Portman reportedly was quite pleasant to fans who came up to her in public.

Howard Stern drunk dials Twitter fans

‘Tis the season — to give drunken online gratitude, that is.

On Saturday night, Howard Stern and his wife, Beth, spent a couple of hours calling Twitter fans and shootin’ the breeze with them. Stern tweeted on New Year’s Eve, “Beth and I are drunk dialing. What’s your phone number?” to which a plethora of fans responded. Surprisingly, Stern followed through and actually called up a few lucky folks.

While some might think the Sterns have nothing better to do than talk about beer and boobies, fans tweeted that the conversations were, in fact, lovely.

“Howard Stern just called me! This new year rules already!” one fan wrote. Another one called Howard and Beth “the cutest couple ever!!!”

The Sterns allegedly were models of decorum, speaking only of things like their New Year’s plans and how much everyone loves their pets. After a few hours, Stern tweeted, “Just made my last call. Going to bed. Wishing everyone a happy new year. If u get a call after this … it’s not me.”

Mayim Bialik writing a parenting book

Child TV star and recent Jewish non-profit supporter Mayim Bialik announced recently  that she will write a book on the attachment theory of parenting.

“I’ve become sort of an accidental advocate for attachment parenting, which is a style of parenting that … basically, the way mammals parent and the way people have parented for pretty much all of human history except the last 200 years or so,” Bialik told USA Today.

Although she admits that by no means is she a parenting expert, her experience as a neuroscientist certainly adds some legitimacy to the venture. If I were a parent, I know I’d want to hear what a popular actress cum scientist has to say about parenting philosophy!

Jon Stewart bests Fox News

TVNewser ratings came out last week, and let’s just say that Fox caught a huge break with the stats coming out during “The Daily Show” vacation. The report shows that Fox News viewership has dropped by 9 percent this year, officially averaging fewer viewers than “The Daily Show.”

Jon Stewart’s fake news show on Comedy Central, on the other hand, has seen a 7 percent increase in overall viewership. In fact, with the exception of Bill O’Reilly, all Fox News broadcasts (including the biggies like “Hannity” and “Fox and Friends”) are raking in fewer than 2 million viewers each, while “The Daily Show” hits an average of 2.3 million. Even O’Reilly, Fox’s most popular segment, only beats Stewart by about 700,000 viewers. Tee hee hee! Stewart rulez, you droolz.

Worst baby name for Alicia Silverstone’s son

Baby Blu Jarecki will grow up to be either the cool kid with a funky name or just a total nerd whose moniker will forever haunt him. Either way, it was sort of a jerky move on mother Alicia Silverstone’s part to take that risk. And the merciless teasing has officially started, with Baby Blu winning the title of worst celeb baby name of 2011, tied with Mariah Carey’s son Moroccan.

The poll at babynames.com had more than 10,000 responses, so there is no way the poor guy is gonna be like, “Sorry if you don’t like my name, but that’s just your opinion.” Apparently it’s EVERYONE’S opinion, my little Blu friend.

To be honest, I sort of like both Baby Blu and Moroccan. At the very least, they are better than the winner of worst celebrity baby girl’s name: Zuzu Peterson, the daughter of pastry chef Tania Peterson, a contestant on “Top Chef Just Desserts.”

Click to login and write a letter to the editor or sign up for the Daily Briefing.