'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Feel riled? Get random! (guardian.co.uk)
If you're fed up with lads' mags or sexist language, random acts of feminism are the answer. With help from readers, Wendy Roby explains how to fight back.
Nat Hentoff: What the CIA Had to Destroy (villagevoice.com)
The many reasons this torture evidence was too hot to handle.
Paul Krugman: Don't Cry for Me, America (nytimes.com)
Although we won't have the kind of financial death spiral Argentina experienced, the next year or two could be quite unpleasant.
If you had to vote for one of them ... (guardian.co.uk)
In all the excitement over Obama v Clinton, the race for the Republican presidential candidacy has been overlooked. So who are the main contenders? How rightwing are they? And should liberals be afraid? Ed Pilkington considers the evidence.
Former chess champion Bobby Fischer has died at 64 (latimes.com)
Bobby Fischer, the reclusive American chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died. He was 64.
Susan Estrich: The TV Diet (creators.com)
It's been nearly three months since the writers went on strike. The TIVO broke a month into it, and no one in my house has bothered to fix it. We watched the last episode of "House," and that was that. We've seen all the "Law and Order: SVU's," given up on "Grey's Anatomy," and the big TV has pretty much turned into a dust collector.
Joel Stein: Into the golden void (latimes.com)
Sure, as a member of the Writers Guild, I feel awful about all the camera operators, editors and grips out of work because of our strike.
Jim Hightower: THE STRANGE SCIENCE OF PSYCHONOMICS (jimhightower.com)
Time for another Gooberhead Award [Beaniecap Breakdown] - presented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues going 100 miles per hourŠ but forgot to put their brains in gear.
Walter Tunis: Peter Rowan and Tony Rice work well - and closely - together (McClatchy Newspapers; Posted on popmatters.com)
To explain the depth and often-literal closeness of the working relationship Peter Rowan enjoys with guitarist Tony Rice, he goes straight to the source. He recalls the kind of instincts that bluegrass boss (and onetime Rowan employer) Bill Monroe shared with one of his most celebrated disciples, Del McCoury.
Michael Shermer: Why people believe weird things about money (latimes.com)
Evolution accounts for a lot of our strange ideas about finances.
Reader Comment
Re: Lindsay
Marty:
Reading Bartcop E I see Lindsay Lohan is doing her community service by working in a morgue. The experience will do her good. It will probably be the first time in her life that some guy has given her the cold shoulder.
EJ2E
Thanks, Ed (but that's a groaner)!
Reader Comment
Re: Met At The Movies
Hey, Marty.
I watched the Met broadcast here in Fairfax, Virginia. Got hooked on them last year. Besides all the other advantages--HD broadcast, up close camera work, interviews with the stars at halftime, running subtitles--you also get to have your popcorn and soda! Who doesn't love a little popcorn while watching Opera?!
Linda >^..^<
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
Vows To Defy Cambodian Darfur Rally Ban
Mia Farrow
Hollywood actress Mia Farrow says she will ignore a deportation threat and pursue plans to light a symbolic Olympic torch in Cambodia's "Killing Fields," as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.
"We will pass the flame, the flame to honor those have perished, to celebrate the courage of those who survived," Farrow, who fronts the Dream for Darfur pressure group, told Reuters in an interview.
The group has held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia as part of a campaign to persuade China to push Khartoum into ending the violence in Darfur.
Cambodia's cultural ministry has barred Farrow and her supporters from holding a rally at Tuol Sleng, where they have pledged to lay flowers, she said.
Mia Farrow
Visits Sierra Leone As UNICEF Envoy
David Beckham
English soccer star David Beckham met with children in Sierra Leone on Saturday as part of his role as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, the U.N. child agency.
The LA Galaxy midfielder arrived in West Africa late on Friday on a two day trip to a country struggling to recover from a 1991-2002 civil war.
"He's here as a guest of UNICEF," the charity's spokeswoman Alison Parker told Reuters by telephone. "He's covering programs on child survival in Sierra Leone; visiting a number of UNICEF programs in the northern part of the country on malaria prevention and immunization."
David Beckham
No Longer Middle-Aged
Stephen King
Best-selling author Stephen King has turned 60, a milestone that forces him to accept that he's no longer middle-aged.
"I look the same as I ever did when I look in the mirror. I can still see the kid there. But people seeing you see someone who's older. I went to a movie theatre, and the woman asked if I wanted my golden-ager discount. I asked how old you have to be for that, and she said 65. I said 'Not yet, dear,"' King, whose birthday was in September, told the Bangor Daily News.
In a wide-ranging interview, the longtime supporter of Democratic candidates said he is backing Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for president.
"We need a big change," King said. "It's an amazing thing to see the two frontrunners be a woman and a black man. Obama has the least baggage of the two and is willing to try new things. It wouldn't be business as usual. Also it would do wonders for us in the world community to have a black man in the White House," he said.
Stephen King
Mystery Man's Annual Grave Visit
Edgar Allan Poe
Undeterred by controversy, a mysterious visitor paid his annual tribute at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe early Saturday, placing three red roses and a half-filled bottle of cognac before stealing away into the darkness.
Nearly 150 people had gathered outside the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church, but the man known as the "Poe toaster" was, as usual, able to avoid being spotted by the crowd, said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum.
The visitor did not leave a note, Jerome said, electing not to respond to questions raised in the past year about the history and authenticity of the tribute.
Sam Porpora, a former church historian who led the fight to preserve the cemetery, claimed last summer that he cooked up the idea of the Poe toaster in the 1970s as a publicity stunt.
Jerome disputes Porpora's claims and says the tribute began in 1949 at the latest, pointing to a 1950 article in The (Baltimore) Evening Sun that mentions "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of excellent label)" against the gravestone.
Edgar Allan Poe
Iceland Donation
Mountain, North Dakota
A small North Dakota town is getting a bit of foreign aid to help build its community center: a $75,000 donation from Iceland.
Officials in Mountain, a northeastern North Dakota community with a rich Icelandic heritage told Iceland Prime Minister Geir Haarde about the $1.3 million community center project when he came to the town last year for the 108th annual August the Deuce Icelandic Celebration. It commemorates the beginning of Iceland's journey to independence from Denmark.
"The ongoing effort by our family and friends in North Dakota to preserve and honor their rich and unique Icelandic heritage, history and culture is an inspiration to the people of Iceland," Haarde said in a statement. "We recognize the necessity of this project and the commitment of those who are involved ... and we feel that it is important for us to assist them in their efforts."
Mountain's community center will house the local fire department, a cafe and other businesses, a banquet room and a church office. Mountain Mayor Tim Moore said it will serve not only the town but the region, where people from Iceland settled in the 1870s.
Mountain, North Dakota
Buys LA Home
Conan O'Brien
TV talk-show host Conan O'Brien has bought a Los Angeles home valued at just under $10.5 million in preparation for his move from New York to take over the reins of NBC's "The Tonight Show," the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.
The home, in the upscale neighborhood of Brentwood, boasts six bedrooms, a screening room, library, 1,500-bottle wine room, outdoor kitchen, pool and spa, the paper said.
O'Brien, 44, who is married with two preschoolers, is scheduled to replace Jay Leno at the helm of "The Tonight Show" next year, although Leno has reportedly had recent misgivings about stepping aside from the top-rated U.S. late-night show.
Conan O'Brien
Wins Alabama Case
Sacha Baron Cohen
Borat to the Alabama Supreme Court: High fives!
The nine-member court sided with British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen on Friday in a lawsuit filed by etiquette teacher Kathie Martin, who unwittingly appeared in his hit movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
The justices overruled a lower court and said Martin can't sue Cohen and the companies that produced the movie in Alabama because she signed an agreement stating only courts in New York could hear any disputes that arose from her appearance.
A lower court sided with Martin in April and let the case go forward. But the Supreme Court ruled that the agreement Martin signed specifying New York as the site for any disputes meant Alabama courts could not hear the case.
Sacha Baron Cohen
Good Inmate
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland, who plays the hard-as-nails agent of TV's "24," was a softy during his 48 days in jail on a drunken-driving charge.
Sutherland, scheduled to be released Monday, has spent his sentence cleaning sheets, pillowcases and blankets on laundry duty, police Officer John Balian said Friday.
"He was very humble, never complained," Balian said. "He didn't give us any problems at all."
Kiefer Sutherland
Witnesses Back Assault Assertion
Sean "Diddy" Combs
Four eyewitnesses support a man's assertion that Sean "Diddy" Combs assaulted him and his girlfriend at a post-Oscar party at a Hollywood nightclub last year, according to court papers filed by the plaintiff's attorney.
Marianna Ruiz, one of the witnesses deposed by an attorney for Gerard Rechnitzer, said in papers filed Wednesday that the rap and fashion mogul struck Rechnitzer unprovoked.
"I just kind of remember seeing him go flying, not flying as in like feet off the ground, but he went back significantly," said Ruiz, who was part of a group at the club with the Rechnitzer. "I was just in shock that somebody would ... just kind of strike somebody out of nowhere."
Attorneys for Combs have called the suit "completely baseless" and in court papers filed Wednesday said he is "in no way legally responsible for what happened to Rechnitzer."
Sean "Diddy" Combs
Botulism Risk Recall
Beans
New Era Canning Co is expanding a recall of canned green beans and garbanzo beans because of potential botulism contamination, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.
The FDA said the beans might be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, which can cause botulism, a serious and sometimes life-threatening condition.
The affected cans are large institutional-sized containers, weighing approximately six and a half pounds, the FDA said.
"To date, no illnesses have been reported to the FDA; however, consumers should not consume these products, even if they appear to be normal," the agency said in a statement.
Beans
A New Generation
Homeless Vets
Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.
This is not a new story in America: A young veteran back from war whose struggle to rejoin society has failed, at least for the moment, fighting demons and left homeless.
But it is happening to a new generation. As the war in Afghanistan plods on in its seventh year, and the war in Iraq in its fifth, a new cadre of homeless veterans is taking shape.
For as long as the United States has sent its young men - and later its young women - off to war, it has watched as a segment of them come home and lose the battle with their own memories, their own scars, and wind up without homes.
Homeless Vets
In Memory
Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette, the beautiful, husky-voiced film and theater star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died, said her attorney Robert Finkelstein. She was 70.
Born Jan. 31, 1937, in New York City, Pleshette began her career as a stage actress after attending the city's High School of the Performing Arts and studying at its Neighborhood Playhouse. She was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice.
She met her future husband, Tom Poston, when they appeared together in the 1959 Broadway comedy "The Golden Fleecing," but didn't marry him until more than 40 years later.
Although the two had a brief fling, they went on to marry others. By 2000 both were widowed and they got back together, marrying the following year.
Among her other Broadway roles was replacing Anne Bancroft in "The Miracle Worker," the 1959 drama about Helen Keller, in New York and on the road.
Meanwhile, she had launched her film career with Jerry Lewis in 1958 in "The Geisha Boy." She went on to appear in numerous television shows, including "Have Gun - Will Travel," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Playhouse 90" and "Naked City."
By the early 1960s, Pleshette attracted a teenage following with her youthful roles in such films as "Rome Adventure," "Fate Is the Hunter," "Youngblood Hawke" and "A Distant Trumpet."
She married fellow teen favorite Troy Donahue, her co-star in "Rome Adventure," in 1964 but the union lasted less than a year. She was married to Texas oilman Tom Gallagher from 1968 until his death in 2000.
Pleshette matured in such films as Hitchcock's "The Birds" and the Disney comedies "The Ugly Dachshund," "Blackbeard's Ghost" and "The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin." Over the years, she also had a busy career in TV movies, including playing the title role in 1990's "Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean."
More recently, she appeared in several episodes of the TV sitcoms "Will & Grace" and "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter."
Suzanne Pleshette
In Memory
Allan Melvin
'Allan Melvin, a character actor best known for playing Sam the Butcher on "The Brady Bunch," has died. He was 84.
Melvin died of cancer Thursday at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, said Amalia Melvin, his wife of 64 years.
The jowly, jovial Melvin spent decades playing a series of sidekicks, second bananas and lovable lugs, including Archie Bunker's friend Barney Hefner on "All in the Family," and Sgt. Bilko's right-hand man Cpl. Henshaw on "The Phil Silvers Show."
Born in Kansas City, Mo., in 1923, Melvin grew up in New York and attended Columbia University.
He saw steady employment as a voice actor from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, most famously providing the voice of "Magilla Gorilla" for the Hanna Barbera cartoon of the same name.
His other credits include several guest appearances on "The Andy Griffith Show," "Gomer Pyle: USMC," and "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
In addition to Amalia, Melvin is survived by daughter Jennifer Hanson and grandson Jon Hanson Jr. A daughter, Mya, died in 1970.
Allan Melvin
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