Marc Don: Don't Shoot Anyone Important (Creators Syndicate)
Right now, in the wake of Giffords' shooting, the pious lies are coming out of Congress like blood out of a cut. That won't last. There's no money in "coming together," and nobody ever made a dime "soul searching."
Jim Hightower: GOP Gooberheads in Action
Time for another Gooberhead Award - presented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues running 100 miles an hour... but forgot to put their minds in gear.
Marilynn Preston: No Debate On This, Health Care Reform Begins At Home (Creators Syndicate)
Get enough sleep. Limit or avoid alcohol. Lose weight. (Being overweight or obese is a factor in more than 20 chronic diseases!) Exercise at least 30 minutes a day. Quit smoking. Eat real food. Cut way back on sugar. Reduce stress, and let go of negative emotions. Learn to meditate. Practice yoga. Nourish your friendships. Eat a plant-based diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
ROGER EBERT'S JOURNAL: The best documentaries of 2010
What a small but growing minority of Friday night moviegoers is beginning to discover is that there's a good chance the movie they might enjoy most at the multiplex is a doc.
Roger Ebert: Review of "The Illusionist" (4 stars; PG)
"The Illusionist" represents the magically melancholy final act of Jacques Tati's career. Tati, of course, was the tall Frenchman, bowing from the waist, pipe in mouth, often wearing a trench coat, pants too short, always the center of befuddlements.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
Black Swan is a very, very earnest movie about a very, very good but very, very mentally messed-up ballerina, played very, very earnestly by the usually very, very good Natalie Portman, who unfortunately isn't quite on her toes for this one.
Portman's character is given a chance at a career-making role, dancing both the white (very, very good) swan and the black (very, very bad) swan in an odd-sounding version of Swan Lake created by an egomaniacal choreographer (is that redundant?). Who is also very, very sleazy. And slimy.
However, she's very, very repressed, so while she can dance the white swan with technical proficiency, she can't let her inner black swan come out and be all evil and seductive on the stage. She also has to contend with a very, very domineering mother (well and creepily played by Barbara Hershey) and a very, very (very, very, very) hot rival (well and deliciously played by the very, very (very, very, very) hot Mila Kunis).
The rival has black wings tattooed on her back. Look! A symbol!
Portman's character is a sick puppy. She has bizarre hallucinations, can't separate dreams and fantasies from reality, scratches herself till she bleeds, and thinks there's a real black swan inside her that, from time to time, comes out - e.g., black feathers poking out through the deep scratches she has inflicted on herself, her neck lengthening into a swan's neck, black wings growing from her back. She wants to destroy the black swan inside her. She wants to liberate and become the black swan inside her. Everything ends messily.
This is psychodrama as filmed by very, very earnest young film students. The movie works so hard at being arty that it fails at being art. Or entertaining.
There is a fair amount of dancing. Unfortunately, it's almost all scenes of Portman dancing. She's a fine actress but only an amateur dancer.
There's a lesbian sex scene, less than convincing, as is usual in movies, but elevated to hotness because Mila Kunis is in it. (Kunis has one of the few good lines in the movie, and she delivers it with verve.)
Don't waste your time. If you want to see an entertaining dance movie, rent the delightful movie Center Stage, which starred actual professional dancers who turned out to be excellent actors. I think I need to watch that one again to wash away the black taste of swan crap.
The "Chicken Dance" is an oom-pah song composed by Swiss accordion (Handharmonika) player Werner Thomas from Davos, Switzerland in the 1950s and the corresponding fad dance.
This is not the same dance as "The Chicken" which was popular in American rhythm and blues in the 1950s, in which the dancers flapped their arms and kicked back their feet in an imitation of a chicken.
The name of the original Swiss song was "Der Ententanz" (The Duck Dance). Sometime in the late 1970s, the song acquired the name "Vogeltanz" (The Bird Dance) or "Vogerltanz" (Little Bird Dance or Birdie Dance), although these names never caught on seriously in Germany. On some sheet music and recordings it is called "Dance Little Bird." It appears that no one in Germany uses the term "Kükentanz" (Küken means chick).
The dance was introduced in the United States in 1981 during the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oktoberfest by the Heilbronn Band from Germany. They wanted to demonstrate the dance in costume, but there were no duck costumes available anywhere near Tulsa. At a local television station, however, a chicken costume was available which was donated for use at the festival, giving the "Chicken Dance" its name.
Source
Alan J was first, and correct, with:
The Chicken Dance
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
"Chicken Dance"
Adam wrote:
The Chicken Dance?
Yes, The Chicken Dance.
Sally said:
I am pretty sure that "Line Dancing" has its roots in, "Der Ententanz" (The Duck Dance).
If you are born and raised in NYC, travel the world, and land in Denver, CO in 1970 - then, venture into a bar and see the above, Your can't believe your eyes...
PS: Eventually, I did learn to do some of them, but I always felt as if I looked like a yokel, and probably did...
MAM wrote:
"Chicken Dance"
And, Joe S answered:
I had really hoped it was the Macarena, but it's the Chicken Dance.
Another perfect summer day in the middle of winter.
Tonight, Monday:
CBS opens the night with a FRESH'How I Met Your Mother', followed by a FRESH'Rules Of Engagement', then a FRESH'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'Mike & Molly', then a FRESH'Hawaii Five-0'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Jack Hanna and Steven Tyler.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Rashida Jones and Tony Goldwyn.
NBC begins the night with a FRESH'Chuck', followed by a FRESH'The Cape', then the SERIES PREMIERE'Harry's Law'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Gordan Ramsay, Kathleen Madigan, and Maroon 5.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 1/3/11) are Gwyneth Paltrow, Wyatt Cenac, Jeff Musial, and Best Coast.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 12/16/10) are Adam Carolla, Casey Pieretti, and School of Seven Bells.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'The Bachelor', followed by a RERUN'Castle'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 1/4/11) are Matt LeBlanc, Julie Benz, and Michael Carbonaro.
The CW offers a RERUN'90210', followed by a RERUN'Gossip Girl'.
Faux has a FRESH'House', followed by a FRESH'Lie To Me'.
MY recycles an old 'L&O: CI', followed by another old 'L&O: CI'.
A&E has 'Intervention', another 'Intervention', followed by a FRESH'Intervention', then a FRESH'Heavy'.
AMC offers the movie 'Pitch Black', followed by the movie 'The Chronicles Of Ruddick', then the movie 'The Chronicles Of Riddick', again.
BBC -
[6:00 AM] The Tudors - Episode 8
[7:00 AM] The Tudors - Episode 9
[8:00 AM] The Tudors - Episode 10
[9:00 AM] The Tudors - Episode 1
[10:00 AM] The Tudors - Episode 2
[11:00 AM] The Tudors - Episode 3
[12:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 4
[1:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 5
[2:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 6
[3:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 7
[4:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 8
[5:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 9
[6:00 PM] The Tudors - Episode 10
[7:00 PM] BBC World News America
[8:00 PM] Star Trek: The Next Generation - Ep 14 Devil's Due
[9:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 6
[10:20 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[11:20 PM] Top Gear - Episode 6
[12:40 AM] Top Gear - Episode 1
[2:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 1
[3:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 2
[4:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 6
[5:00 AM] BBC World News (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo'Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills', 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', another 'Real Housewives Of Atlanta', and 'Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills'.
Comedy Central has has the movie 'Scary Movie 3', 'It's Always Sunny In Philly', another 'It's Always Sunny In Philly', still another 'It's Always Sunny In Philly', and yet another 'It's Always Sunny In Philly'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Peter Bergen.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Sherry Turkle.
FX has '2½ Men', another '2½ Men', followed by the movie 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer', then the movie 'Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer', again.
History has 'Pawn Stars', another 'Pawn Stars', still another 'Pawn Stars', yet another 'Pawn Stars', followed by a FRESH'American Pickers', then a FRESH'Pawn Stars', followed by another FRESH'Pawn Stars'.
IFC -
[6:00 AM] Being Julia
[8:15 AM] Before Sunrise
[10:30 AM] Undeclared
[11:00 AM] Passion in the Desert
[1:00 PM] Being Julia
[3:15 PM] Before Sunrise
[5:30 PM] Happy Here and Now
[7:30 PM] F/X
[10:00 PM] Arrested Development
[10:30 PM] Arrested Development
[11:00 PM] The Larry Sanders Show
[11:30 PM] Havoc
[1:15 AM] Shopping
[3:30 AM] F/X
[5:55 AM] Occupations (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:10 AM] The Lady and the Reaper
[6:30 AM] Worlds Apart
[8:25 AM] Pleasure Of Being Robbed
[9:40 AM] Blind Date
[11:00 AM] Worlds Apart
[1:00 PM] Pleasure Of Being Robbed
[2:15 PM] Blind Date
[3:35 PM] Worlds Apart
[5:35 PM] Pleasure Of Being Robbed
[6:50 PM] I'm Gonna Explode
[8:40 PM] Full Grown Men
[10:00 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - The Perfect Couple
[10:30 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Three's a Crowd
[11:00 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Baby On My Mind
[11:30 PM] GIRLS WHO LIKE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS - Matchmaker Matchmaker
[12:00 AM] THE COMEBACK - The Comeback (Episode 1, Season 1)
[12:35 AM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Triumphs at the Upfronts (Episode 2, Season 1)
[1:05 AM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Bonds With the Cast (Episode 3, Season 1)
[1:35 AM] THE COMEBACK - Valerie Stands Up for Aunt Sassy (Episode 4, Season 1)
[2:05 AM] Zift
[3:45 AM] Full Grown Men
[5:05 AM] Pleasure Of Being Robbed (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Underworld: Evolution', followed by the FRESH'Being Human', then it repeats.
TBS:
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Cameron Diaz, Dax Shepard, and My Chemical Romance.
Scheduled on a FRESHLopez Tonight are Seth Rogen, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Sick Puppies.
Actor Jim Parsons holds his award for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Comedy Or Musical for 'The Big Bang Theory,' backstageat the 68th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, California, January 16, 2011.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
n a cautionary tale for users of social-networking sites, a California man has admitted using personal information he gleaned from Facebook to hack into women's e-mail accounts, then send nude pictures of them to everyone in their address book.
The California attorney general's office said Friday that George Bronk, 23, commandeered the e-mail accounts of dozens of women in the U.S. and England. He then scanned the women's "sent" folders for nude and seminude photos and videos, and forwarded any he found to all the women's contacts, prosecutors said.
Bronk coerced one woman into sending him more explicit photographs by threatening to distribute the pictures he already had. One victim told authorities the intrusion felt like "virtual rape."
Bronk, who lives in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, pleaded guilty Thursday to seven felonies in Sacramento County Superior Court, including computer intrusion, false impersonation and possession of child pornography.
A brick from The Cavern Club, a check for 11 pounds signed by Ringo Starr, an "authentic" Beatles wig. These and thousands of other objects related to the "Fab Four" are luring Beatles fans to a new museum in Buenos Aires.
The museum is the product of the particular "Beatlemania" obsession of Rodolfo Vazquez, a 53-year-old accountant who became a fan at the age of 10 when he got their "Rubber Soul" record. "With the song "In my life" I fell in love with the Beatles," he told The Associated Press.
Vazquez scooped up all the memorabilia he could find in Buenos Aires about history's most famous rock band, an obsession that grew until he made it into Guinness World Records in 2001 as having the planet's largest collection.
At that point, Guinness noted that he had 5,612 items in the attic of his home in Buenos Aires. His hoard has grown to more than 8,500 records, gadgets, puppets and games since then, more than 2,200 of which are on display in the Beatle Museum that just opened this month on Avenue Corrientes, in an area of the capital where tourists throng.
Cracker singer David Lowery will teach a music business class at the University of Georgia this spring.
Lowery, who co-founded the bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, will teach for UGA's music business certificate program. He was a guest lecturer at UGA in 2009 for the music business program.
Lowery started Camper Van Beethoven in 1983 but grew to prominence with Cracker, which produced such hits as "Low" and "Get Off This." He also founded Sound of Music Studios in Richmond, Va.
Camper Van Beethoven's "Take the Skinheads Bowling," was the title track for filmmaker Michael Moore's 2002 Academy Award-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine."
A New York City landlord has a message for the collector who recently sold the suit John Lennon wore on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album: You never give me your money.
The seller's former landlord has sued the gallery that auctioned the late Beatle's suit for $46,000, trying to get at the proceeds to satisfy a rent debt.
Braswell Galleries was told before the Jan. 1 sale that a court had determined in 2009 that seller Biond Fury - a psychic and memorabilia collector - owed more than $21,000 in rent for his former Manhattan apartment, according to landlord Mark Arrow's lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Manhattan state court. Arrow's lawyers say they told the Norwalk, Conn.-based gallery not to go through with the sale, and that the gallery should now have to fork over at least $21,463.
Arrow had been unable to collect the rent debt from Fury, but the prospects brightened when he learned of the coming auction from a newspaper report last month, said Arrow lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey.
The Obama administration on Friday ended a high-tech border fence project that cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion but did little to improve security. Congress ordered the high-tech fence along the border with Mexico in 2006 amid a clamor over the porous border, but it yielded only 53 miles of protection.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the department's new technology strategy for securing the border is to use existing, proven technology tailored to the distinct terrain and population density of each region of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S-Mexico border. That would provide faster technology deployment, better coverage and more bang for the buck, she said.
The fence, initiated in 2005, was to be a network of cameras, ground sensors and radars that would be used to spot incursions or problems and decide where to deploy Border Patrol agents. It was supposed to be keeping watch over most of this nation's southern border with Mexico by this year.
Instead, taxpayers ended up with about 53 miles of operational "virtual fence" in Arizona for a cost of at least $15 million a mile, according to testimony in previous congressional hearings.
Katey Sagal holds up her award that she won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama for her role in 'Sons of Anarchy,' at theGolden Globe Awards Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Photo by Mark J. Terrill
Exiled former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier returned unexpectedly to his Caribbean homeland on Sunday for the first time since he was deposed in a coup in 1986.
Duvalier, known as "Baby Doc," who had ruled Haiti following the 1971 death of his father, the authoritarian Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, had been living in France in exile.
Enthusiastic supporters greeted him at the airport, but it was not immediately clear why he had returned.
Bern has found signs that the US embassy in Geneva has been conducting illegal surveillance on Swiss territory, the justice ministry told AFP Sunday, confirming local press reports.
The Swiss government had in 2007 rejected requests made by the US missions in Bern and Geneva to protect their buildings through a surveillance programme "due to a lack of legal basis and bilateral accords on this domain," the ministry said in a statement.
However, it emerged late last year that US embassies in Norway and Denmark had been conducting similar programmes.
Swiss authorities have sought the immediate suspension of the programme and are "now proceeding with an in-depth examination of the situation in Geneva," added the ministry.
Since news broke in Scandinavia of the programme, Washington has acknowledged conducting surveillance through its embassies, but has insisted it is aimed solely at protecting its missions against attack and is carried out within the laws of the host countries.
Actor Ian McShane arrives at the 2011 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Tea Party in Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011.
Photo by Dan Steinberg
A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday.
The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.
"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.
Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.
"The Green Hornet" is buzzing away with the top spot at the weekend box office.
The tongue-in-cheek superhero film starring Seth Rogen as a playboy-turned-crimefighter earned $34 million during its opening weekend, according to studio estimates released Sunday. Sony Screen Gems' "Green Hornet," which was directed by indie auteur Michel Gondry, shot down Paramount's "True Grit," the Western that reigned supreme the previous weekend.
The weekend's other major new release, Universal's "The Dilemma," opened in the No. 2 spot. The comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James as partners at an automobile design firm earned $17.4 million. Despite driving away with the top two spots at the box office, Hollywood's first major new releases of the year didn't help to rev up ticket sales.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Tuesday.
1. "The Green Hornet," $34 million.
2. "The Dilemma," $17.4 million.
3. "True Grit," $11.2 million.
4. "The King's Speech," $9 million.
5. "Black Swan," $8.1 million.
6. "Little Fockers," $7.1 million.
7. "Tron: Legacy," $5.6 million.
8. "Yogi Bear," $5.3 million.
9. "The Fighter," $5.1 million.
10. "Season of the Witch," $4.5 million.
Romulus Linney, a prolific playwright whose work ranged from stories set in Appalachia to the Nuremberg trials, has died in New York. He was 80.
Linney's wife Laura Callanan said the playwright died Saturday at his home in Germantown, N.Y., north of Poughkeepsie. The cause was lung cancer.
Linney, father of actress Laura Linney, wrote more than 30 plays that covered a number of subjects. Some of his works were set in Appalachia, which he was familiar with through his youth growing up in the South. Others were historical dramas, some looking at moments in time like the Nuremberg trials or the Vietnam war and others taken from the lives of public figures like the poet Lord Byron or Frederick II, a king of Prussia.
Most of Linney's work appeared in regional theater and off-Broadway, with one play appearing in a Broadway theater.
He also taught at schools including Columbia and Princeton universities, Hunter College and The New School.
Callanan said he had been working on a novel at the time of his death, and had completed the libretto for an opera based on one of his plays.
Linney's first two marriages ended in divorce. He is also survived by another daughter, Susan Linney.
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
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How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
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wrote:
answered:
