'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Keep Shockwave Radio On The Air
By Baron Dave Romm
I'm off to Washington DC to greet my new niece and perhaps visit my Senator. I hope Marty will indulge me for a column.
KFAI-FM released their new schedule, to be implemented July 1, and Shockwave is not on it! I'm submitting a proposal to fill one of the empty slots, but I need your support!
Call the station during our Pledge Drive, especially when Shockwave is on the air 3:30-4:00pm Central, Saturday April 21st. But you can call anytime during the Pledge Drive, operators are standing by. A perfect use for those Late Night minutes! 612-375-9030. You can also go to the Fresh Air Radio's web site. A pledge would be ideal (we have good premiums!) and even five or ten bucks will make a difference, but simply telling them how much Shockwave means to you, who listen on podcasts or read reviews and commentary on the web, would be greatly appreciated!
I'm trying to convince the station that Shockwave, in all its ramifications, extends well beyond the broadcast show, and that it should continue as one of the fine programs on a very eclectic schedule. We've been on the air since 1979, and are a fixture in many circles, not all of which are traditional broadcast media.
Please write to Program Director Dan Richmond and say, in your own words, how much you appreciate Shockwave Radio and our efforts, broadcast and otherwise. Dan, like everyone else at the station, is a really good guy and does an exceptional job, so be nice.
Thanks in advance!
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Brent Budowsky: Bush Demeans American Election
[A recent] radio address by George Bush included some of the most demeaning, deceptive, dishonest and delusional words ever spoken by an American President.
Steven Frank: What makes "Buffy" a gay icon? (afterelton.com)
Why gay men love the vampire slayer so much.
Sarah Warn: How "Buffy" Changed the World of Lesbians on Television (afterelton.com; from 2003)
Now that Buffy the Vampire Slayer has staked its last vampire, we can finally examine the series' contribution to lesbian visibility in its totality--for despite some controversial storylines and consistently low ratings, there is no denying that Buffy has had a lasting impact on the way lesbians are portrayed on television.
Sarah Warn: Buffy to Show First Lesbian Sex Scene on Network TV (afterellen.com; from 2003)
Over its seven-year run, Buffy has pushed the envelope in terms of of lesbian representation on television in many ways, but not on the physical-affection front. Although lesbian witch Willow (played by Alyson Hannigan) and her first girlfriend Tara (played by Amber Benson) were together for two and a half years, the sexual aspects of their relationship were subtextual rather than textual, especially in the beginning.
Karman Kregloe: Iyari Limon on Buffy, Bisexuality, and Adventures in Cooking (afterellen.com)
Actress Iyari Limon is a woman with a thirst for adventure. This Christmas she went to Peru on a lark. "It was great. I hiked the Amazon, I slept in hammocks in the jungle, fished for piranhas, got attacked by mosquitoes, climbed Machu Picchu on New Year's Day, did a ritual with a Shaman on the Amazon, I did it all. (laughs) And I only had a backpack. Just me, my friend Paula and our backpacks, not knowing where we were going next."
Neal Broverman: Glass on glass (advocate.com)
In an interview with Advocate.com, This American Life's handsome host, Ira Glass, defends his decision to bring his radio show to TV, reveals his favorite This American Life stories, and admits how living with the gym bunnies of Chelsea seriously messes with his self-esteem.
Malinda Lo: Interview With Kristanna Loken (afterellen.com)
Openly bisexual actress Kristanna Loken may have made her biggest pop cultural impact by playing the sleek and deadly Terminatrix in T3: Rise of the Machines (2003), but the 27-year-old actress has been acting almost all her life, beginning with a recurring role as Danielle Andropoulos on the daytime soap As the World Turns in 1994. More recently, she played a vampire hunter in the Guinevere Turner-penned horror flick BloodRayne (2005), a tree nymph in Sci Fi's In the Name of the King (2007), and single mom (and Shane's girlfriend) Paige on the fourth season of Showtime's The L Word.
Jeffrey Eps: Rose McGowan (out.com)
The actress talks about her gay dog, lesbians who won't talk to her, and why she can't stand to watch herself in movies.
Troy Riser: Bruce Campbell: On Making Love, Books, and Movies (the-trades.com)
It's easy to be a Bruce Campbell fan. One gets the sense that he is what he appears to be: capable, hardworking, smart, with a keen sense of his strengths and limitations.
KEN KNOX: A Different Method (frontierspublishing.com)
Bradley Michaud is on a mission to revitalize Los Angeles' dance community with his unconventional company.
How to Make Your Spending Spiritual (beliefnet.com)
Most money advice overlooks the spiritual side of financial health. But if you miss the spirituality of finances, you'll miss the truth about money and possessions in your life.
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Last Night
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GLAAD Awards
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation awarded "Grey's Anatomy" for the episode "Where the Boys Are."
"Little Miss Sunshine" won outstanding film in the wide release category, while "Ugly Betty" won for outstanding television comedy series and "Brothers & Sisters" took home the outstanding drama series award.
The Vanguard Award went to actress Jennifer Aniston for her efforts to increase visibility and understanding of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Tennis great Martina Navratilova was given the Stephen F. Kolzak Award, in honor of the late casting director who fought homophobia in the entertainment industry.
GLAAD Awards
Not Fans O'Faux
Democrats
Democrats running for president seem to find Fox News Channel as ripe a target as resident Bush, a development with dangerous implications for both the network and the politicians.
Fox has tried twice, without success, to set up a debate with the major Democratic contenders. Both times they failed because of pressure applied by online liberal activists, who consider Fox biased toward Republicans and conservatives.
The first debate, which was to be co-sponsored by Fox and the Nevada Democratic party, had been set for this August but was canceled. Fox then teamed with the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute for a Sept. 23 debate that is still scheduled, even though John Edwards, Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) and Hillary Clinton all said they won't attend.
The candidates will be at a debate sponsored by the CBC Institute and CNN, which seemed like "a more appropriate host," an Obama spokesman said.
Democrats
Rock Song
Aussie Miners
Two Australian miners who captured world attention by surviving for 14 days deep underground after a cave-in at a gold mine will commemorate their rescue in a rock song.
Todd Russell and Brant Webb and their wives will sing with an Australian rock band in a song called 321 Hours -- the length of time the men were trapped almost a kilometre underground at the Beaconsfield mine on the island state of Tasmania.
They will perform the song as part of an event marking the first anniversary of their rescue on May 9.
The two survivors became celebrities after their ordeal and sold their story to a local television network and its affiliated magazines for a reported A$2.6 million (1.1 million pounds).
Aussie Miners
Broadway Revival
'Inherit The Wind'
A revival of a major Broadway play that tackles the U.S. debate over Darwin's theory of evolution is more topical now than when it was first staged more than 50 years ago, the play's director and critics say.
"Inherit The Wind" pits Charles Darwin's theory of evolution against the biblical account of creation. It is the fictional account of the 1925 Scopes Trial, otherwise known as the "monkey trial," where science teacher John Scopes was tried and convicted in Tennessee for teaching evolution.
The play's Tony Award-winning director, Doug Hughes, citing efforts in recent years to weaken the teaching of evolution in public schools in such states as Kansas, Pennsylvania and Georgia, said the work had more relevance today than when it first opened in 1955.
The play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee was written in response to McCarthyism -- the post-World War Two era of anti-communist fervor and investigations.
'Inherit The Wind'
Needed Stitches
Steffi Graf
Andre Agassi accidentally hit Steffi Graf in the face with his tennis racket, cutting his wife's lip, as the pair played a game while holding hands for a fundraiser following the U.S. Clay Court Championships finals on Sunday.
Graf got three stitches from a doctor who had paid $70,000 for a trip to play tennis with the couple, officials said.
The couple was in town for Agassi's part in a reality show called 'The Big Give,' an upcoming Oprah Winfrey production. An auction raised at least $225,000 Sunday for a Houston-area elementary school chosen for the show.
Steffi Graf
MTV Reality Series
Menudo
The Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, which gave singer Ricky Martin his start, is coming back as part of an "American Idol"-style reality show.
Dozens of Latino teenagers showed up for auditions Saturday at a waterfront market in Miami, the Miami Herald reported. Judges included Johnny Wright, the music manager behind New Kids on the Block, 'NSync and the Backstreet Boys, and Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough.
Seven boys from auditions being held around the country will be picked to film the series "The Road to Menudo," airing next month on MTV Tr3s, MTV's bilingual Latin-American channel.
Menudo
Cops Say Time To End
Prohibition
It's a familiar scene on TV newscasts: wads of cash, rows of guns and bags full of drugs displayed neatly on a table by police officers seemingly posing by their latest set of trophies.
One more drug bust, another haul, and big-time traffickers facing the prospect of hefty jail time.
But some former law enforcement officials in Canada and the United States who have spent years fighting the ongoing war on drugs say it's a losing battle.
Their views about how prohibition has failed to make a dent in the drug supply while millions of dollars continue to be wasted on criminalizing recreational drug users are told in the National Film Board documentary Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey.
Prohibition
Settles Lawsuit
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen has settled a lawsuit against him filed by a woman who claimed that one of the characters on his hit TV show "Two and a Half Men" was based on her.
Ursula Auburn sued Sheen in April 2006, claiming the "wacky neighbor and female stalker Rose" on the show was based on her. The way Rose talks, dresses and looks all resemble Auburn, the lawsuit claimed. Sheen never sought Auburn's permission, according to the suit.
The lawsuit claimed there were numerous situations on the show involving Rose and Sheen's character, Charlie Harper, that resembled experiences Auburn had with the actor.
That included an episode where Rose creates a Web site detailing Harper's womanizing ways, according to the lawsuit. In real life, Auburn created a web site detailing her relationship with Sheen.
Charlie Sheen
Feels Worst Effects
Far North
Inuit hunters are falling through thinning ice and dying. Dolphins are being spotted for the first time. There's not enough snow to build igloos for shelter during hunts.
As scientists work to establish the impact of global warming, explorers and hunters slogging across northern Canada and the Arctic ice cap on sled and foot are describing the realities they see on the ground. Three of them recently spoke to The Associated Press.
"This is really ground zero for global warming," said Will Steger, a 62-year-old Minnesotan who has been traveling the region for 43 years and has witnessed the impact of warming on the 155,000 indigenous people of the Arctic.
"This is where a culture has lived for 5,000 years, relying on a very delicate, interconnected ecosystem and, one by one, small pegs of that ecosystem are being pulled out," Steger said by satellite phone from a small village outside Iqaluit, about 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Iqaluit is the provincial capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut.
Far North
Loyalty Only Runs One Direction
5-Deferment Dick
In the nearly six weeks since his close friend and former chief of staff was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney has not once spoken to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Why?
"Well, there hasn't been occasion to do so," Cheney said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Cheney's interviewer, Bob Schieffer, was so surprised to hear that news that he asked the vice president about it again.
Deferment Dick
Outrode Paul Revere But No Poem
Israel Bissell
Paul Revere gets all the glory for his midnight ride. After all, his was a stirring tale of patriotism told by a great storyteller.
But one young messenger who called the colonists to arms during a remarkable five-day dash across five states is a mere footnote - a man mentioned in historical documents that didn't even get his first name right. They called him Trail.
His name was Israel Bissell, and he is one of the U.S. Revolutionary War's most unheralded heroes.
Bissell, a 23-year-old postal rider when the war broke out on April 19, 1775, rode day and night with little sleep during an exhausting 555-kilometre journey from Boston's western edge to Philadelphia. On the first leg, he rode one horse so hard that the animal collapsed and died beneath him as he arrived in Worcester, roughly two hours after leaving Watertown.
Israel Bissell
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