Michael Moore (michaelmoore.com)
CNN Throws in Towel, Admits to Two Errors, and States That All 'Sicko' Facts Are True to Their Source (or something like that)... Moore Realizes All This is Huge Distraction and Then Spends More Precious Time Thanking Paris Hilton for Seeing 'Sicko'... Meanwhile, More than 300 Americans Die Because They Had No Health Insurance During the 8-Day Gupta-Moore War...
Jim Hightower: ROPING IN CEO PAY (jimhightower.com/)
Among rank and file workers of major corporations, "CEO" is a four-letter word. That might not surprise you, but how about this: "CEO" has also become a four-letter word among corporate shareholders.
Ron Charles: Harry Potter and the Death of Reading (washingtonpost.com)
It happened on a dark night, somewhere in the middle of Book IV. For three years, I had dutifully read the "Harry Potter" series to my daughter, my voice growing raspy with the effort, page after page. But lately, whole paragraphs of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" had started to slip by without my hearing a word. I'd snap back to attention and realize the action had moved from Harry's room to Hagrid's house, and I had no idea what was happening. And that's when my daughter broke the spell: "Do we have to keep reading this?"
Roger Ebert: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2 1/2 stars)
Whatever happened to the delight and, if you'll excuse the term, the magic in the "Harry Potter" series? As the characters grow up, the stories grow, too, leaving the innocence behind and confusing us with plots so labyrinthine that it takes a Ph.D from Hogwarts to figure them out. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" still has much of the enchantment of the earlier films, but Harry no longer has as much joy. His face is lacking the gosh-wow-this-is-really-neat grin. He has internalized the secrets and delights of the world of wizards, and is now instinctively using them to save his life.
Jim Emerson: Black Sheep (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
Meanwhile, it's the buffoonish sheep-hugging animal rights activists, Grant (Oliver Driver) and Experience (Danielle Mason), who unknowingly release the ovine plague through their naive ineptitude. "This isn't going to be like the salmon farm, is it, Grant?" Experience beseeches her bumbling, pony-tailed eco-colleague. "Hey," he insists, "those fish died free!"
David Bruce: Wise Up! Baseball/Softball (athensnews.com)
* The great African-American pitcher Satchel Paige sometimes would call in his outfielders and have them sit down behind the pitchers mound. He then would strike out the batters facing him. Some people considered this a kind of bragging, but Satchel always replied, "If you can do it, it ain't bragging."
Free Download: "Bride of the Funniest People in Religion and Families"
Five hundred anecdotes, including this one: The 1930s were the age of the joke letter. When Joe Bryan, aka author J. Bryan III, and his wife had their first son in 1936, they asked Arthur H. Samuels, a magazine editor, to become the child's godfather. Mr. Samuels accepted, and he wrote a letter to the child, saying how delighted he was to be-come his godfather, because he had always admired the child's mother and had always found her very attractive and he felt very close to her, especially now. In fact, he wrote that since the child would no doubt grow up to be a man of the world he did not mind revealing that their relationship was not really that of godfather and godchild, but was indeed very much closer. Mr. Bryan and his wife never showed the letter to their parents, being afraid that they would not understand that it was a joke, but they saved the letter and gave it to their son when he came of age.
BILL MOYERS: Impeachment (pbs.org)
Welcome to the Journal. Impeachment...the word feared and loathed by every sitting president is back. It's in the air and on your computer screen, a growing clamor aimed at both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.
Jim Hightower: FAIR ELECTIONS NOW (jimhightower.com)
We have yet to cast a single vote in the 2008 elections - but winners are already being picked. Unfortunately, you're probably not one of the pickers, because ...
Will Durst: Skooter Skates
If Bush had explained that he wiped away the VP's right hand man's sentence of 30 months for perjury in federal court, because you can't send a man named Scooter to prison, I would have understood. But the excuse used was the sentence was "excessive."
Annalee Newitz: iPhone Politics
So what's the big deal? Why do people even want a $600 phone, and why has this luxury device for the pampered techie become such a hot political issue?
Roger Ebert: Hairspray, 1988 (3 stars)
The movie probably has the most to say to people who were teenagers in the early '60s, but they are, I suppose, the people least likely to see this movie. It also will appeal to today's teenagers, who will find that every generation has its own version of Corny Collins, and its own version of the Council, designed to make you feel like a worthless reject on the trash heap of teenage history. If there is a message in the movie, it is that Waters, who could never in a million years have made the Council, did, after all, survive to make the movie.
Bill Press: Republican Family Values (theforumnews.com)
Republicans routinely paint themselves as the party of "family values," without spelling out exactly what values they're talking about. Well, now we know. Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, one of the leading "family values" Republicans and Rudy Giuliani's Southern regional campaign chairman, is caught keeping company with prostitutes - and fellow Republicans rush to his defense.
Jim Hightower: COUNTRY-OF-ORIGIN LABELING (jimhightower.com)
Those steaks, veggies, and other foods you buy at the supermarket - where do they come from? Most consumers assume that since the USA is the greatest food producer in the world, that all of these staples come out of America's own good soil. But chances are that they come from China, Eastern Europe, or other countries where US processors and supermarkets can get food on the cheap. With the recent exposés of contaminated foods from China, however, we're learning that "cheap" imports can come at a heavy price for consumers.
Pamela Stephenson: Sexual healing (guardian.co.uk)
Rethink your idea of sex as being dependent on an erection. A woman's favourite part of sex is not necessarily intercourse, and if you become adept at the thousands of erotic activities that don't require an erect penis, you will go a long way to restoring your sexual confidence. Remove the goal-orientedness from your sexual paradigm, and you will be guaranteed lifelong pleasure, no matter how your penis behaves.
My son loves ballet but feels like a misfit (guardian.co.uk)
Our six-year-old son has a strong feminine side and loves dressing up, but is becoming isolated at school. My husband blames me, saying I have encouraged our child to be 'girly'. I disagree. What should I do?
Noam Chomsky: "Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities" (monthlyreview.org)
Regrettably, there are all too many candidates that qualify as imminent and very serious crises. Several should be high on everyone's agenda of concern, because they pose literal threats to human survival: the increasing likelihood of a terminal nuclear war, and environmental disaster, which may not be too far removed. However, I would like to focus on narrower issues, those that are of greatest concern in the West right now. I will be speaking primarily of the United States, which I know best, and it is the most important case because of its enormous power. But as far as I can ascertain, Europe is not very different.
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: Help Wanted: Peacemaker (The New York Times)
I've been in Baghdad in the summer and it is really hot. But you know what? It is a lot hotter when you're in a U.S. military uniform, carrying a rifle and a backpack, sweltering under a steel helmet and worrying that a bomb can be thrown at you from any direction. One soldier told me he lost six pounds in one day. I'm sure the Iraqi Parliament is air-conditioned.
Froma Harrop: In Face of Terror, We Press on (creators.com)
Six years after 9-11, we're not safer from terrorist attack, the intelligence agencies tell us. But we're back on airplanes and filling sports stadiums. Are we braver? Or just complacent?
Froma Harrop: No Way to Fight an Addiction (creators.com)
There's a bill floating around that would let our government sue OPEC members for driving up the price of oil. Surprise, surprise, it passed both houses of Congress. President Bush has vowed to quash the brilliantly named "NOPEC" (the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act), but the appearance of sticking it in OPEC's eye has such bipartisan appeal that the measure may enjoy a veto-proof majority.
Jim Hightower: SWEATFREE COMMUNITIES (jimhightower.com)
If you wish there was something you could do about some of the worst abuses of corporate globalization, check out a fast-spreading grassroots movement called SweatFree Communities.
'I'm thrilled to be different' (guardian.co.uk)
Nikki Blonsky stars as 'pleasantly plump' Tracy Turnblad in the new version of the film "Hairspray." She tells Alice Wignall why, for her, size has never mattered.
Laurel Wamsley: Who's not reading Harry Potter? His peers (slate.com)
Little kids were nuts for Harry; parents thought he was a godsend; young professionals were hopping on the Potter train. Yet there I was, potentially just a couple of classes ahead of Harry at Hogwarts, nestled securely in the age group least excited to read about a precocious wizard. One of the core tenets of youth is that you can only look up to someone older than you (which explains why only 13-year-olds will take advice from Seventeen).
The MAD War on Bush: REVIEW BY ERIK HENRIKSEN (portlandmercury.com)
There's an Iraq-inspired list of "Desperate New Army Enticements to Get More People to Enlist," which includes dog-tag lotteries ("If your number matches the one drawn, you're guaranteed one of the Humvees with full armor") and a TV movie about your war heroics ("written by the same people who fabricated Jessica Lynch's war story").
High art (advocate.com)
Wunderkind Ryan McGinley rounds up some of his favorite sexy artists.
Jenny Stewart: Getting Dirty with John Waters (planetout.com)
... I was very interested in the 9/11 Nympho. Remember her? ... She was the woman who was f**king all the police and firemen in Manhattan, and her husband said she did it all because of 9/11. He said, "I don't know why -- she didn't lose anyone or even know any of the victims." But after 9/11, she became like the Tracey Ullman character in my film, running around, the 9/11 Nympho. God, I love that name.
Roger Ebert: It's no drag (3 1/2 stars)
"Hairspray" is just plain fun. Or maybe not so plain. There's a lot of craft and slyness lurking beneath the circa-1960s goofiness. The movie seems guileless and rambunctious, but it looks just right (like a Pat Boone musical) and sounds just right (like a Golden Oldies disc) and feels just right (like the first time you sang "We Shall Overcome" and until then it hadn't occurred to you that we should). It bounces out of bed with Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a roly-poly bundle of joy, whose unwavering cheerfulness shines on the whole movie. "Good morning, Baltimore!" she sings, as she dances through a neighborhood where everyone seems to know and love her, even the garbagemen who let her ride on the roof of their back-loader. She's like a free-lance cheerleader.
Why Jews Don't Need Jesus (blog.beliefnet.com)
Jews ... have never adopted the individualistic concept of salvation that marks Christian theology, where salvation is granted on an individual basis to those who accept Jesus as their savior. Judaism, from its earliest stages, has been marked by a collective approach to redemption, rather than individual one to salvation: We pray together to witness the coming of the Messiah, to be taken up as a people to our Holy Land. We pray for God to hear our prayers. This is why Jewish liturgy is phrased almost exclusively in the plural. "Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement." Judaism is a religion of the "we," not the "I."
Got in after midnight last night & jet lag is chewing at my butt real good today.
We had a lovely time, saw cousins I haven't seen since I was in high school, and ate lots of great food, but between a foggy brain, and a plumbing crisis,
will delay the trip report til things clear (in more ways than one).
Dad's Mac is ancient, and there were connectivity problems (among other things). More about that later, too.
But, since today is officially the 6th birthday of this site, had to do something.
Check back tomorrow for a return to what passes for normal (I hope).
Tonight, Thursday:
I can't find the TV Guide, so today there're only the listings for channels I did in anticipation of the trip.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Daily Cooks! - Episode 12;
[12:30 PM] Rick Stein's Food Heroes - Episode 3;
[1:00 PM] The Naked Chef - Ep 9 Wedding Bells;
[1:30 PM] Beyond Boiling Point - Episode 4;
[2:00 PM] The Weakest Link - Episode 2;
[3:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 12;
[3:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 1;
[4:00 PM] Changing Rooms - Episode 6;
[4:30 PM] Changing Rooms - Episode 8;
[5:00 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 2;
[5:30 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 3;
[6:00 PM] My Family - Ep 6 My Will Be Done;
[6:30 PM] My Family - Ep 7 My Fair Charlady;
[7:00 PM] BBC World News;
[7:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 4;
[8:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 Rococo;
[9:00 PM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 15 Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Coolidge;
[10:00 PM] Hollyoaks - Episode 38;
[10:30 PM] Hollyoaks - Episode 39;
[11:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 Rococo;
[12:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 15 Enrique Iglesias and Jennifer Coolidge;
[1:00 AM] Hollyoaks - Episode 38;
[1:30 AM] Hollyoaks - Episode 39;
[2:00 AM] Weakest Link, The - Episode 3;
[3:00 AM] Changing Rooms - Episode 6;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Episode 8;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 25 Detling 32;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 26 Shepton Mallet 12;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 1;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 2;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
IFC -
[08:05 AM] Life Tastes Good;
[09:35 AM] Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.;
[11:10 AM] Sunshine State;
[01:35 PM] Life Tastes Good;
[03:05 PM] Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.;
[04:45 PM] Sunshine State;
[07:15 PM] The Daytrippers;
[08:50 PM] IFC News Special;
[09:00 PM] Mississippi Burning;
[11:15 PM] Monster;
[01:10 AM] Undertow;
[03:00 AM] Mississippi Burning;
[05:15 AM] George Washington. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Sundance -
[05:00 AM] La Vie Promise;
[06:00 AM] Emir Kusturica, A Tender Barbarian;
[07:00 AM] The Umbrellas of Cherbourg;
[09:00 AM] Pack Strap Swallow;
[10:00 AM] Simple Men;
[12:00 PM] Mickybo and Me;
[02:00 PM] The Umbrellas of Cherbourg;
[03:00 PM] Simple Men;
[05:00 PM] Mickybo and Me;
[07:00 PM] Flower & Garnet;
[09:00 PM] Episode 2;
[09:00 PM] In Short: Ireland;
[10:00 PM] Dr. John, Leann Rimes & Massive Attack;
[11:00 PM] Episode 4;
[12:00 AM] Episode 2;
[12:00 AM] Bhopal: The Search for Justice;
[01:00 AM] Fridays at the Farm;
[01:00 AM] Episode 2;
[02:00 AM] Stoned;
[04:00 AM] Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?. (ALL TIMES EDT)
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