'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Health Care Horror Stories (nytimes.com)
If being a progressive means anything, it means believing that we need universal health care.
PAUL CONSTANT: Bad Girls Gone Good (thestranger.com)
Times were lean-in a recent phone interview, Bannon recalls how Bradley "was heating up ketchup with some salt and pepper and crackers and calling it dinner" ...
Todd Camp: At age 70, George Carlin still calls it like he sees it (McClatchy Newspapers)
In just over five decades in show business, George Carlin has graduated from comedy's troublemaking Class Clown (the title of his 1972 Grammy-winning album), to one of its most respected deans, influencing scores of rising comics and quite a few established ones.
Dominick A. Miserandino: Interview with Bob Weber, cartoonist (thecelebritycafe.co)
DM) What do your children say about the comic?
BW) My 5 year-old son loves drawing the characters. I have a small drawing board in my studio for him. And he loves using the copy machine!!! My daughter is most interested in the "Find the six differences" puzzles. She has also memorized the Slylock Fox Brain Bogglers mystery cards that are sold in stores... When I go out to libraries or stores to promote the set and the strip, she shouts out the answers (laughing). I have to "shhh" her every time!
Echoes of the eternal seducer (music.guardian.co.uk)
He was a great conductor, in the studio as well as on the podium. On the centenary of Herbert von Karajan's birth, Martin Kettle introduces reflections from those he inspired - and irritated.
Jordan Levin: Home remains a dream for Haitian musician and poet Jan Sebon (McClatchy Newspapers)
Musician and poet Jan Sebon has lost many things in his life: use of his legs, the chance to be raised by his parents, as well as his country, Haiti-or at least the Haiti of his hopes.
Brett Callwood: "Crud'n'guts: Detroit's B-movie Metal Heroes" (Metro Times)
A new lineup renergizes a Detroit band known for its sleaze factor: Think Marilyn Manson featuring ex Dita Von Teese or Rob Zombie at a sleazy strip club
CHRISTIAN JOHN WIKANE: "Now Hear This: Kevin Grivois [Tahoe, California]" (popmatters.com)
A superstar in Europe, an unknown in America. Kevin Grivois (aka Ké) remembers the "strange world" of his major label ascent and why an election year is bringing him back to the spotlight.
The park bench balladeer (music.guardian.co.uk)
Adam Green's music, featured in the movie Juno, has brought him fame. That's fine, he tells Laura Barton, but he'd rather be at home eating lunch.
Rafer Guzmán: Norah Jones tries her hand at acting in 'My Blueberry Nights' (Newsday)
It was the kind of offer that most Hollywood A-listers would jump at: a chance to work with Wong Kar-Wai, the critically acclaimed Hong Kong director of "In the Mood for Love" and "Chungking Express." But the woman that Wong wanted wouldn't call him back.
Alan Scherstuhl: Fox 4's Shawn Edwards isn't just a blurb whore (news.pitch.com)
On a cold Saturday evening in late February, a line snakes out of the Gem Theater and onto 18th Street. People wait in anxious knots. The rumor, passed from way up front: There's no room left. Volunteers dash in and out of the packed theater, bringing word of open seats to the crew at the doors; they squeeze in two or three more people accordingly.
Colin Covert: Milos Forman looks back on a life in filmmaking (Star Tribune)
One of the leading lights of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s, Milo? Forman faced an uncertain future in 1968, when the creative and social freedoms of the Prague Spring were crushed under Soviet tanks.
MICHAEL RUSSNOW: "Deborah Kerr Rhymes With Star, and What a Star She Was: She Deserves to Be Remembered, Too" (huffingtonpost.com)
With the recent deaths of Charlton Heston and Anthony Minghella, and the resulting post-obit tributes that came their way, it bothered me that this was not the case when one of our greatest motion picture actresses passed away a little less than six months ago. In light of this, I thought it appropriate to share the moment I learned of the news. Perhaps some of you felt likewise.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD's on the road til Monday.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Over 25°'s hotter than yesterday. Ack.
Joins Writers' Call For Darfur Action
J. K. Rowling
Top children's writers including Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling have signed an open letter calling on world leaders to take urgent action over Darfur to protect the stricken region's children.
The letter by the 15 authors, also including Judy Blume and Cornelia Funke, was released Saturday ahead of Sunday's Global Day For Darfur organised by rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Other authors who have signed the letter include Gillian Cross, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo and Daniel Pennac.
J. K. Rowling
Broadcasting From Philadelphia
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert's bid for the presidency may have fallen short, but he's still determined to influence the race.
On Monday, "The Colbert Report" will begin a week of broadcasts in Philadelphia, where the all-important Democratic Pennsylvania primary is looming. Colbert hopes the relocation will return him to center stage in the election.
It's the first time the Comedy Central show (11:30 p.m. EST, Monday-Thursday) has broadcast anywhere but its snug Manhattan studio. Taping at the University of Pennsylvania's 900-seat Zellerbach Theater will be a drastic change for the program.
"The Colbert Report" recently won a Peabody for broadcasting excellence. To Colbert, the award is further proof of his sway.
Stephen Colbert
Opens Vaults For TV
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress will open its vaults to the History Channel in a deal to bring the library's vast public collections to a larger audience.
The History Channel and its numerous sister channels will draw from the historical content preserved by the Library of Congress for original specials and documentaries. An official announcement of the partnership is to be announced Monday.
In contrast to an exclusive deal made in 2006 between the Smithsonian Institution and CBS's Inc.'s Showtime Networks, the History deal is non-exclusive, meaning all items will still be publicly available.
The A&E networks also include A&E, Biography, History International, History En Espanol, Military History Channel and the Crime & Investigation Network.
Library of Congress
Quits Air America
Randi Rhodes
Randi Rhodes has quit the Air America radio network, a week after it suspended her for using a derogatory word for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during an event in San Francisco.
Air America Media released a statement Thursday saying the talk show host informed the company Wednesday night that she was severing ties with the liberal network.
Rhodes' lawyer, Robert Gaulin, said the company had told the host she couldn't begin broadcasting again unless she made contract concessions.
"Their actions caused the contract to terminate. They refused to give her her microphone back and put her on the air," he said. "It was a real shame. She was ready, willing and able to go to work."
Randi Rhodes
Russia Fetes Dog
Laika
Moscow on Friday feted Laika, a plain stray dog which became famous half a century ago as the first living creature from Earth to fly into space.
Russia's official RTR channel showed venerable grey-haired academics laying flowers at a monument near the city's Military Medicine Institute, depicting the agile, good-natured dog strapped into a dissected Vostok rocket.
The monument was unveiled on the eve of Cosmonauts' Day, marking Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin's April 12, 1961 space flight.
But long before Gagarin's flight, it was Laika who successfully blasted off into space on November 3, 1957, proving that a living creature could survive being launched into space and experiencing weightlessness.
Laika, trained for eight months -- including in a centrifuge and a pressure chamber -- died during her historic flight.
Laika
Former Cop Testifies
Anthony Pellicano
A former Los Angeles police sergeant charged in a federal wiretapping case testified Friday that he ran names through criminal databases for a now-indicted private eye but didn't accept bribes for the work.
Defendant Mark Arneson said he knew accessing people's private information was improper but thought it would bring only minor punishment, such as a reprimand.
Arneson said he also ran names for other people as personal favors.
Arneson testified that one request came from FBI Special Agent Stanley Ornellas, who wanted to find out information about his neighbor. Ornellas went on to become the lead investigator in the Pellicano case. He is now retired.
Anthony Pellicano
Appeals Courts Denies Rehearing Request
EchoStar
TiVo Inc on Friday said a federal appeals court has denied EchoStar's request to have a panel of judges rehear arguments related to their long standing patent dispute.
TiVo, the maker of television recording technology, said the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to deny EchoStar's request for a "rehearing en banc" brings their patent fight closer to a resolution.
In January, the court upheld a lower court's damage award of $74 million plus interest, saying that EchoStar infringed a TiVo patent in building digital video recorders. With interest, the damages would be $94 million.
That lower court had ruled that EchoStar's digital video recorders infringed what it called the "software" claims of a TiVo patent. But the appeals court reversed a portion of the lower court's decision that said the EchoStar devices also infringed on what it called "hardware" claims.
EchoStar
Confiscated At Gitmo
LOTR
Guards seized a copy of the "Lord of the Rings" screenplay and a box of legal papers from a young Canadian facing trial at Guantanamo, prompting harsh words between his military defence lawyer and a spokesman for the detention operation.
The exchange, which took place over Wednesday and Thursday, came as 21-year-old Canadian captive Omar Khadr faced another pre-trial hearing in the U.S. war court that has charged him with murdering a U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.
Khadr's military lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, told journalists that guards had seized a box of legal documents lawyers had given Khadr to review, returning only the empty box.
"He can't even look at materials he needs to look at in order to help us defend him," Kuebler complained, adding that rules for what prisoners facing trial can keep in their cells were constantly changing.
LOTR
Letters Sold
Ian Fleming
It turns out that James Bond creator Ian Fleming got a little help from an unexpected source - a real life Miss Moneypenny to whom he turned for advice on plot points and character development.
A series of letters between Fleming and Jean Frampton, a typist-turned-adviser, was sold to an anonymous private collector Friday for more than $28,000, far more than had been expected.
The novelist and the typist never met, but over time she became a trusted aide to Fleming, who was working in London as a newspaper editor in the 1950s when he dreamed up Agent 007.
At first, Frampton limited her advice to spelling mistakes and minor inconsistencies, but over time she took a more assertive role and gave Fleming substantial guidance on plot and character development, said Amy Brenan, as assistant auctioneer at Duke's of Dorchester, which sold the packet of letters.
Ian Fleming
Older Than Methuselah
Norway Spruce
Scientists have found a cluster of spruces in the mountains in western Sweden which, at an age of 8,000 years, may be the world's oldest living trees.
The hardy Norway spruces were found perched high on a mountain side where they have remained safe from recent dangers such as logging, but exposed to the harsh weather conditions of the mountain range that separates Norway and Sweden.
Carbon dating of the trees carried out at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, showed the oldest of them first set root about 8,000 years ago, making it the world's oldest known living tree, Umea University Professor Leif Kullman said.
California's "Methuselah" tree, a Great Basin bristlecone pine, is often cited as the world's oldest living tree with a recorded age of between 4,500 and 5,000 years.
Norway Spruce
In Memory
Nona Beamer
Nona Beamer, a noted authority on Hawaiian culture and matriarch of the musical Beamer family, has died. She was 84.
Winona Kapuailohiamanonokalani Desha Beamer was born in Honolulu and raised in Napo'opo'o in South Kona on the Big Island. She was of Hawaiian, German, French, Scotch and Swedish ancestry. Her Hawaiian name is an ancestral name that comes from Princess Manono and means precious flower.
Beamer attended Colorado Women's College, Barnard College and Columbia University. In New York, Beamer met Eleanor Roosevelt when she was first lady, and upon returning to Hawaii, took charge of Roosevelt's program to provide emergency food in all school cafeterias.
In 1949, Beamer began teaching Hawaiian culture at the Kamehameha Schools, and remained there for nearly 40 years. She also took over her mother's hula studio and taught hula in Waikiki for 30 years.
Since retiring as a classroom teacher, "Aunty Nona," as she was commonly called, spent her days sharing her extensive knowledge of Hawaiian culture with various groups and at numerous workshops. At Aloha Music Camp, she shared her knowledge of "Hawaiiana," a term she coined in 1948, and her stories of growing up as a Native Hawaiian.
Survivors include sons Keola, Kapono and Kaliko Beamer-Trapp, daughter Maile Beamer-Loo and a grandson.
At Beamer's request, no services will be held, and her ashes will be scattered privately on the Beamer family ranch at Kamuela on the Big Island.
Nona Beamer
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