'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: A History of America's Disappearing Middle Class (alternet.org)
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explains in simple terms how the American economy went from having the world's most dynamic middle class to being on the verge of a rich-poor state in only 30 years.
Kent Garber: Porn and Punishment (ctnow.com)
Julie Amero faces 40 years in jail for porn. A tech expert blames spyware.
Jennifer C. O'Donnell: Student Debt Mayhem (portfolioweekly.com)
Can't pay your student loans? Sallie Mae couldn't be happier.
Mark Morford: Should You Shave Your Head? (sfgate.com)
After all, those follicles hold all sorts of secrets. What sort of ritual do you need?
Christopher Hitchen: W.H. Auden: A poet for our times (latimes.com)
Auden had three of the qualities that make poets immortal. He wrote beautifully about love, movingly about war, and he was witty.
Steve Horowitz: The Three Stooges - Hapless Half-Wits (popmatters.com)
Before Sasha Baron Cohen was accused of bad taste for the way he made fun of anti-Semites in Borat, a different group of Jews vulgarly took the Nazis to task. The Three Stooges were the first people in Hollywood to crudely show the world what Hitler and his band of thugs were like.
David Michael Green: Your Genitals: The Great Moral Issues of Our Time (regressiveantidote.net)
It's time to restore the moral greatness of America again. We need a new campaign of sexual authoritarianism to purge this country of our evil influences. We need to purify our precious bodily fluids and refocus our priorities.
Dear Anna (guardian.co.uk)
I was charged £131 for a £1.02 debit refusal
Reader Comment
Re: John Popper
John Popper played for Jeb Bush's 2nd inauguration here in Tallahassee
and I don't remember details, but I remember checking to see if it was
just 'a payin' gig' and no, he was a believer and a darling of the right.
doug
Thanks, doug!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and cool.
A few weeks back 3 kittens moved in with us.
Coyotes have invaded urban LA, mostly because of the lack of water, and an acquaintance, with bad cat allergies, tossed
caution to the wind after his neighbors cat became coyote-chow, and took into his house the neighborhood stray, which promptly paid him back by
giving birth to 3 kittens.
He put the mom & kittens in his guest room and would run in a couple of times a day, wearing a surgical mask and gloves, to feed them & clean their box.
A guest room full of feral indoor kittens isn't very smurfy, so they were trapped and ended up here. They've been named Gigi, Clipper & Steamer.
We've been trying to civilize them - remedial string, basics of ball batting, and building to advanced laser pointer chasing.
Today, Gigi will be adopted by a nice lady from Yorba Linda.
Clipper & Steamer need more work, so they'll be here a bit longer - but they're coming along as well as can be expected.
Vie For 'Simpsons' Premiere
Springfields
Springfield, the Oregon one, is on a list of like-named towns competing for the big-screen debut of Homer, Bart and the rest of the TV Simpson family this summer.
City officials accepted an invitation from 20th Century Fox to compete for the honor of hosting the premiere screening of "The Simpsons Movie" in July.
Fox publicist Gwyne Ortiz said Fox has asked 16 Springfields from Oregon to Massachusetts to participate.
Fox will pick the winner after reviewing short film entries showcasing the community's positive aspects and links to the Simpsons, who live in their own fictional Springfield.
Springfields
2330th Star On Walk O'Fame
Rodney Bingenheimer
Dubbed the "Mayor of the Sunset Strip," Rodney Bingenheimer launched the careers of such bands as Blondie and Blur on his longtime radio rock show. On Friday, the Los Angeles disc jockey received some glitzy gratitude: a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Guests included Brian Wilson, the Bangles, Bingenheimer's sister and hordes of cheering fans.
For 30 years, the unassuming Bingenheimer - shy and thin, with a squeaky voice - has hosted "Rodney on the Roq" on local radio station KROQ-FM.
He is known as the first DJ to play records by such bands as Blondie, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Duran Duran, the Cure, Joan Jett, No Doubt, Blur, Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Coldplay.
Rodney Bingenheimer
Granted French Citizen
Jonathan Littell
American novelist Jonathan Littell, whose award-winning, 900-page World War II opus is written in French, has been granted French nationality.
Littell was officially granted French citizenship on Wednesday, months after he won France's most prestigious literary award, the Goncourt Prize, for "Les Bienveillantes," or "The Kindly Ones," last November, Le Figaro newspaper reported Friday.
Littell had already made two unsuccessful attempts to obtain French citizenship before his best-selling book was published last August.
But French authorities refused both applications because Littell - a former humanitarian aid worker and the son of American spy novel writer Robert Littell - did not meet a condition stipulating that applicants must live in the country for at least six months a year. Littell lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his two children and their Belgian mother.
Jonathan Littell
Spanish Voices Angry
'The Simpsons'
Mexican voice-over actors who have dubbed "The Simpsons" TV series into Spanish for 15 years are threatening to boycott the cartoon's upcoming movie if they are not hired to dub it.
Gabriel Chavez, the voice of Homer Simpson's boss Mr. Burns, told the Mexican newspaper El Universal that his union's voice-over actors were told they could work on "The Simpsons Movie" - to be released worldwide this summer - as a condition to the end of their strike in 2005.
"Gentlemen keep their word," Chavez told the newspaper.
Officials at Gracie Films, which produces the series, and 20th Century Fox in Mexico, which distributes the program, could not immediately be reached for comment.
'The Simpsons'
Busy Woman
Salma Hayek
Next up for Salma Hayek is a wedding - and a baby carriage.
The 40-year-old actress is engaged to businessman Francois-Henri Pinault and is pregnant with their first child, her spokeswoman, Cari Ross, said Friday in a statement. No further details were provided.
The Mexico-born Hayek has starred in films such as "Frida," "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over" and "After the Sunset." She is one of the executive producers of ABC's "Ugly Betty," in which she recently guest starred as a two-faced magazine editor.
Pinault is chairman and chief executive officer of the luxury goods company PPR SA, which owns high-end labels such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Stella McCartney.
Salma Hayek
Awarded Damages
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet was awarded substantial libel damages Friday after a British magazine wrongly stated that she had visited a diet doctor.
The 31-year-old actress, known for her criticism of excessive dieting, wasn't at London's High Court for the hearing on an article published last month by women's magazine Grazia.
Winslet's lawyer, Rachel Atkins, said the story wrongly stated that Winslet had sought the help of California-based Chinese herbalist Yi Pan for her weight, despite vowing not to bow to Hollywood pressure on actresses to be skinny.
Atkins said Winslet had visited Pan for a neck injury.
Kate Winslet
Sued By Rehab
Courtney Love
A drug rehabilitation center has sued Courtney Love, claiming the singer has repeatedly refused to pay her $181,000 bill for her stay there 1 1/2 years ago.
The lawsuit, filed March 1 in Orange County Superior Court, said Love paid $10,000 when she entered Beau Monde, an oceanfront retreat in Newport Beach, in August 2005, but she still owes $181,286.
"Although demanded multiple times by plaintiff, orally and in writing, none of the balance stated has been paid," the lawsuit said.
Courtney Love
Reprieve For British Beach Sculptures
'Another Place'
Cast-iron statues of 100 naked men can now continue to gaze out to sea from a stretch of beach in northwest England, despite accusations that they are offensive, an eyesore and a safety hazard.
The future of sculptor Antony Gormley's "Another Place" installation on Crosby beach looked in doubt last year when the local Sefton Council dismissed an application for the temporary exhibition to become permanent.
But the local authority reconsidered Wednesday night, although it ruled that 16 of the life-size, 650-kilogramme (1,433-pound) "iron men" that stand near a river mouth used by boats and known bird feeding areas would have to be moved.
'Another Place'
Finnish MP's Klingon Campaign
Jyrki Kasvi
A Finnish member of parliament is aiming for re-election by campaigning with a translation of his Web site into Klingon, used in the TV series Star Trek.
"Some have thought it is blasphemy to mix politics and Klingon," said Jyrki Kasvi, an ardent Trekkie. "Others say it is good if politicians can laugh at themselves."
He said his politics posed some translation difficulties, since Klingon does not have words for matters such as tolerance, or for many colours, including green -- the party under whose banner he is running in the national elections on March 18.
Non-warriors can also access the site, www.kasvi.org, in English, Swedish and Finnish.
Jyrki Kasvi
In Memory
Joel Brodsky
Music photographer Joel Brodsky, whose sexy, shirtless images of Doors lead singer Jim Morrison have taken on iconic status, has died. He was 67.
He succumbed to an apparent heart attack at his home in Stamford, Conn., on March 1.
Brodsky shot more than 400 album covers throughout his career, including Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks," Isaac Hayes' "Black Moses" and Kiss' self-titled 1974 debut. His images of the Doors graced the group's first two albums, 1967's "The Doors" and "Strange Days," as well as 1969's "The Soft Parade."
Brodsky, born October 7, 1939, in Brooklyn, N.Y., followed his graduation from Syracuse University with service in the U.S. Army in the early 1960s.
In 1966, he opened a photo studio in New York, where he would soon take the famous photographs of Morrison. Images from this session are among the most widely circulated photos of the Doors and have been used on a plethora of releases including 1985's "The Best of the Doors."
Other artists who sat for Brodsky's camera include Joan Baez, James Brown, Harry Chapin, Judy Collins, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, the MC5 and Tom Waits.
Later in his career, Brodsky photographed advertisements for Avon, Revlon, Bloomingdale's and Paul Stuart. He also directed TV commercials for Revlon.
Brodsky is survived by his wife Valerie, three daughters, a sister and three granddaughters.
Joel Brodsky
In Memory
Brad Delp
Brad Delp, the lead singer for Boston, a huge rock sensation in the 1970s, was found dead Friday in his home, police said. He was 55.
Atkinson police responded to a call for help at 1:20 p.m. and found Delp dead. Police Lt. William Baldwin said in a statement the death was "untimely" and that there was no indication of foul play.
The cause of his death remained under investigation by the Atkinson police and the New Hampshire Medical Examiner's office. Police said an incident report would not be available until Monday.
Delp fronted the rock band, who rose to fame in the late 1970s and had several hits, including "More than A Feeling." The group sold millions of records.
Brad Delp
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