'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Suggestion
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
GARY LAVERGNE: Opinion: The Legacy of the Texas Tower Sniper (chronicle.com)
On August 1, 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman ascended the University of Texas Tower, in Austin, and in 96 minutes fired 150 high-powered rounds of ammunition down upon an unsuspecting university family. Students, faculty and staff members, and visitors heard "strange noises" and thought nothing of it until they saw bodies and blood on the sidewalks. The shooter killed or wounded nearly 50 people that day.
Blake Morrison: Can a killer's literary efforts tell us anything about his motives? (guardian.co.uk)
Cho Seung-Hui's literary experiments neither caused his psychosis nor purged him of it. Psychoanalysing them for clues to his behaviour is a pointless distraction from the underlying cause of the massacre: American gun law.
RJ Eskow: Confessions of a Gun Lover
We've been hearing from a lot of people on the left who hate guns. Good for them. They're saner than I am. I like guns. I always have. Allow me to explain.
Elayne Boosler: We Are Getting Tired of Prying Your Guns out of Your Cold Dead Hand (huffingtonpost.com)
3,300 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last four years. 120,000 Americans have been shot to death in America in the last four years. Where is the outrage?
Mark Morford: Everyone Should Get A Gun! (sfgate.com)
Then no one would kill anyone, right? Also: Guns are fun. Americans like fun!
Jean Carnahan: So You're Still a Republican? (huffingtonpost.com)
I almost feel sorry for my Republican friends. They once belonged to a respectable political party that could be trusted from time to time to run the country--with some oversight of a Democratic congress, of course.
Jim Hightower: Circuit City's "Wage Management" Scam
Corporations keep inventing Orwellian words of newspeak to disguise the nastiness of their continuous job cuts. For example, instead of using the honest term, "fired," the latest fad is for companies to say they have "eliminated redundancies in the human resources area." No doubt that makes the fired workers feel much better.
Michael Abernethy: Queer, Isn't It?: "Faggot! Sissy! Queer!" (popmatters.com)
Increasingly, the sound echoing from our school playgrounds is the sound of hatred and bigotry.
Lissa Harris: Working Class (weeklydig.com)
It's time to show trade schools some respect.
Dr. Gerry Lower: Genes Do Not Cause Obesity
An increased risk of 70% translates into an odds ratio of 1.4. A 100 per cent increased risk translates into an odds ratio of 2.0. Prior to the corporate marketplace take over of western society during the 1970s, the standard rule in epidemiology was that odds ratios of 2.0 or less can almost always be explained away as Type 1 error and happenstance (5).
Dara Colwell: Why Are Americans Afraid of Being Naked? (AlterNet.org)
In the Netherlands people can be naked in their gardens, the beach and recently the gym. But in America, even chocolate sculptures can't be without clothes. What gives?
Reader Suggestion
Cool Music Video
Hi:
A friend of mine has made this video about Army wives and mom's. He is a soldier and has experienced this process himself.
The song is called "Toughest Job of The War."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
A rainy day! Woo Hoo.
Directing Anti-War TV Ad
Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone will direct a TV commercial as part of a campaign by MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq.
The Oscar-winning director and Vietnam veteran will direct a 30-second spot that will air in about three weeks on national TV. It will feature a U.S. veteran of the Iraq war or the family of a veteran discussing the war's impact.
"They're giving it from their personal experience, either being on the ground or being at home waiting for their mother, father, husband to come home," MoveOn.org spokesman Alex Howe said Friday.
Stone, 60, is donating his services, Howe said.
Oliver Stone
Visits South Africa
Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker met Nelson Mandela on Friday and received a rapturous welcome from university students at the start of his visit to the country.
Accompanied by his wife Keisha and three daughters, the Academy Award-winning star of "The Last King of Scotland" arrived on Thursday as a guest of South African tourism promotion officials. It's Whitaker's first visit to South Africa.
On Friday, Whitaker met Mandela in a private visit at the former South African president's offices after telling students at the University of Johannesburg about his journey from a small Texas town to his Oscar win for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
Forest Whitaker
Rockers Fight AIDS
LIFEbeat
Third Eye Blind, Duncan Sheik, and Lesley Gore will kick off a series of after-concert parties to fight AIDS beginning next week.
LIFEbeat, the U.S. charity dedicated to informing youth about HIV/AIDS prevention, is giving fans the opportunity to party with these and other musicians after their shows for a minimum $10 donation.
The charity is currently organizing several events and afterparties throughout the U.S. to promote AIDS awareness and raise funds to support their fight against the disease.
LIFEbeat
Mural Whitewashed
Banksy
Transport workers in London have painted over a mural by world-renowned graffiti artist Banksy, erasing a piece of art estimated to be worth $500,000 (250,000 pounds).
The mural, depicting a scene from the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction in which Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta are holding bananas instead of guns, was spray-painted on the side of an electricity substation around five years ago.
It became one of the most famous graffiti paintings by Banksy, a reclusive artist whose work has attracted star-studded buyers including Angelina Jolie and Jude Law.
Transport for London, whose workers white-washed the mural near the Old Street tube station earlier this month, was unapologetic, saying its policy was to remove all graffiti that created an atmosphere of "neglect and social decay".
Banksy
Count As Health Food
Fruity Cocktails
A fruity cocktail may not only be fun to drink but may count as health food, U.S. and Thai researchers said on Thursday.
Adding ethanol -- the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits -- boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found.
Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they report in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
Any colored fruit or vegetable is rich in antioxidants, which are chemicals that can cancel out the cell-damaging effects of compounds called free radicals.
Fruity Cocktails
Replacing Brandy On `America's Got Talent'
Sharon Osbourne
Brandy is being replaced by Sharon Osbourne as a judge on NBC's "America's Got Talent."
Osbourne, the 54-year-old wife/manager of rocker Ozzy Osbourne, will make her debut May 29, when the reality competition returns for its second season, NBC announced Thursday.
Osbourne will join returning judges David Hasselhoff and British media figure Piers Morgan. Jerry Springer is the new host of the $1 million-prize contest.
Sharon Osbourne
Offers Explanation
Alec Baldwin
As Alec Baldwin's angry words to his daughter were being broadcast around the world, the 49-year-old actor explained himself Friday on his Web site.
"Although I have been told by numerous people not to worry too much, as all parents lose their patience with their kids, I am most saddened that this was released to the media because of what it does to a child," he wrote. "I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child. I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now. You have to go through this to understand. (Although I hope you never do.) I am sorry for what happened. But I am equally sorry that a court order was violated, which had deliberately been put under seal in this case."
Baldwin and his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, have been engaged in bitter custody disputes over their daughter, Ireland, since the couple divorced in 2002.
Alec Baldwin
Presenter Refuses To Reveal Winner
MTV Russia
Scandal hit MTV Russia's movie awards ceremony Thursday when a presenter refused to announce the viewer-voted award for best movie after realizing which film had won.
Vladimir Menshov, one of Russia's leading directors, was onstage at Moscow's Pushkin Theater when he opened the envelope with details of the winning film -- the World War II drama "Svolochi," in which a group of teenage criminals is sent on a suicide mission behind German lines.
Menshov gasped as he read the contents of the envelope, looked up and said: "I'm not going to hand over an award to a film that discredits my country, let Pamela Anderson (another of the evening's presenters) do it instead."
"Svolochi" -- directed by Alexander Atanesyan -- tells the supposedly true story of a group of teenage convicts given the choice by the Soviet high command to serve severe sentences or cleanse their past crimes in a highly dangerous guerrilla mission. It provoked a storm of controversy when it was released last year in Russia.
MTV Russia
Washington Calls On Conservative Canadian
Rich Little
As far as veteran comedian Rich Little is concerned, official Washington can relax. He won't rock the boat, be rude to resident George W. Bush or mention the war in Iraq.
Canadian-born Little, who shot to fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his imitations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and then lost the limelight, is the featured comedian at this year's White House Correspondents Association Dinner on Saturday.
The event is usually billed as a one-night truce in the war between the journalists and public officials, who don tuxedos and gowns to attend along with a smattering of celebrities.
But last year, thanks to sharp comments from comedian Stephen Colbert, who specializes in mocking conservatives by pretending to be one, the night had for some an unusual, bitter taste.
Rich Little
Out Of Work
Bernard McGuirk
The longtime producer for Don Imus' syndicated radio show joined his boss on the unemployment line one week after the disgraced broadcaster was booted from the airwaves for racist and sexist comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
Bernard McGuirk, who joined the "Imus in the Morning Show" as producer in 1987, was let go late Thursday by WFAN-AM for his role in the ugly incident, CBS Radio spokeswoman Karen Mateo said Friday. CBS Inc., the parent company for WFAN, pulled Imus off the air on April 12.
Mateo declined to provide any further details about the McGuirk situation. McGuirk was noticeably absent this week when other Imus contributors, including newsman Charles McCord and sportscaster Chris Carlin, were on the air with the WFAN replacement team of Mike Francesa and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. Another Imus regular, comedian Rob Bartlett, appeared Friday on the Opie and Anthony morning show. But McGuirk has made no public comments about the controversy since the Imus firing.
Bernard McGuirk
Army Clamped Down
Pat Tillman
Within hours of Pat Tillman's death, the Army went into information-lockdown mode, cutting off phone and Internet connections at a base in Afghanistan, posting guards on a wounded platoon mate, and ordering a sergeant to burn Tillman's uniform.
One soldier carried a particularly heavy burden of secrecy.
Ranger Spc. Russell Baer had witnessed Rangers shooting at Rangers. Afterward, he was directed to travel from Afghanistan to the United States with his friend Kevin Tillman. But he was ordered not to tell Pat Tillman's brother and fellow Ranger that friendly fire was the likely cause of the former football player's death.
He kept the secret, fearing he did not know the whole story. But in a personal protest, Baer later went AWOL and was demoted as punishment.
Pat Tillman
Anti-Poverty Video
UN
Brazil and Milan striker Ronaldo and retired French World Cup star Zinedine Zidane will star in an anti-poverty TV advert made by award winning filmmaker Wim Wenders, a UN agency said Friday.
The video for the United Nations Development Programme will encourage poeple to join a global campaign to cut poverty by 2015.
It will be the third time Ronaldo and Zidane have appeared side by side in a video since they became goodwill ambassadors for the UNDP, which is spearheading the drive for better lives in developing nations.
UN
Off Australian Coast
'Ghost Ship'
Australian rescuers were on Friday trying to solve the "Mary Celeste" style mystery of a yacht found floating off the coast with its engine running, food on its table ready to eat, but no crew.
The 12-metre (36 feet) catamaran was found 80 nautical miles off Townsville on the northeast coast, but there was no sign of the three crewmen who had set sail from Queensland state bound for Australia's west coast Sunday.
"What they found was a bit strange in that everything was normal, there was just no sign of the crew," Jon Hall from emergency management in Queensland told local radio Friday.
Hall said the yacht's sails were up but one was badly shredded. He said the engine was running, there was food on the table, a laptop was turned on, and the radio and global positioning satellite (GPS) were working.
'Ghost Ship'
Odd Birthday Event
Nanaimo
A Canadian man has been arrested after he was found walking around naked with a swastika taped to his body to mark Adolf Hitler's birthday, police said on Friday.
Police in Nanaimo, British Columbia, on Canada's Pacific coast, said they were called to the scene by concerned residents, and the man told them he was "honouring Hitler's birthday." He was detained and will undergo a psychiatric assessment.
"Although the swastika symbol causes some concern and is usually associated with hate and the Nazi regime, in this instance this male posed no threat to the community," police said in a news release.
Nanaimo
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