'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Response
Re: Neutered Cats
Great news that you got the female cat under control.
Driving down a Mesa, AZ street the other day, a huge flock of "urban"-type pigeons stole my attention as they voraciously attacked the front-yard of a house second from the corner of a busy intersection. Closer inspection revealed an elderly woman tossing seed/bread into the air in an evident attempt to "love" these vermin. It took no extraordinary intelligence to realize that her house was the morning-feeding haunt for the pigeons to get their food on the way to their more favorite spots at the Mall two blocks away.
There is NO WAY IN HELL that I will EVER be a fan of un-cared-for "pets". Too many un-educated people let the damned things just RUN!!. "It's just their nature", my fucking ASS!
DON'T feed strays or urban birds!!! Whaddya want? --more of the same??? They all die painful deaths due to the "help" of "loving" people who perpetuate more and more breeding. 'Sno such thing as human intervention that has ever made the life of a feral cat or dog better,'cept for the gratification of said human. You feed'em, you breed'em; -- and attach attendant woes onto the larger community not wishing to "love" your strays as much as you do. They fight, shit, deprade as their numbers increase due to all the "love" and food.
These animals never asked for this sort of "love", and would naturally have gone the way of all flesh but for our intervention. A disservice to people and animals is done when pet-care education is left out of the basics.
~~ Michelle V
Thanks, Michelle!
The 'pigeon lady' lives across the street. She's a Filipina, in her 70's, and has her own reasons for feeding the 'rats with wings'.
As a young girl during WW II, men & dogs were fed before anything female, so she was forced to kill & eat pigeons for survival.
She feels she 'owes' the pigeons.
She is a very strong woman, who only cries when she talks about the war years. Even her usually intolerant next-door-neighbor, whose fence is now colored white with pigeon shit, understands.
So, while I'm not crazy about the pigeon situation, I can live with it. ; )
Reader Response
More T-Shirt Ideas
I liked the T-shirt idea on Bartcop Entertainment (Dubya Dubya III), so I came up with a few others for T-shirts or protest signs...
George - you don't need a war
now that Viagra's been invented!
Where is Monica Lewinsky
when we need her?
Bush executed hundreds in Texas,
Trying for hundreds of thousands in Iraq
Where is Dietrich Bonhoeffer
when we need him?
George - where were you in 1972-73?
Does "AWOL" ring a bell?
- Sam
Thanks, Sam!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Beautiful, sunny, breezy, crisp day.
Talked to dear old Dad. He's been able to get around the frozen pipes with a hair-dryer.
The kid's grandmother from AK is going on a cruise, so she'll be stopping by this weekend and next.
Tonight, Friday, CBS opens the night with a FRESH 'Star Search', then a FRESH
'Hack', and then a RERUN 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Antarctic swimmer Lynne Cox and Steven Wright.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Bernie Mac and Kelly Hu.
NBC starts the night with a FRESH 'Mr. Sterling', then 'Dateline', followed by a FRESH
'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Pamela Anderson and Sommore.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Will Ferrell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Jim Gaffigan.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Ashanti, Barry Zito, Bill Burr, and D4.
ABC opens the night with 2 episodes of 'America's Funniest Home Videos', and then '20/20'. Wonder why they dumped 'Drew Carey' for the duration of February sweeps?
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are ESPN anchor Rich Eisen and Jennifer Garner, with this week's guest co-host Janeane Garofalo.
The WB begins the night with a FRESH 'What I Like About You', followed by a FRESH 'Sabrina', then
a FRESH 'Reba' (with Dan Castellaneta [the voice of Homer Simpson], guesting), followed by a FRESH
'Greetings From Tucson'.
Faux has the movie 'Nutty Professor II: The Klumps'.
UPN offers the movie 'Dumb & Dumber'.
Check local PBS listings for 'NOW With Bill Moyers'. This is the best series on currently, especially if you appreciate smart TV.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Members of the Singing group, The Dixie Cups, from the left Rosa Hawkins, Barbara Hawkins, Athelgra Gabriel and Joan Faust pose for a photograph during the reception for the 13th Annual Pioneer
Awards presented by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003 in New York.
Photo by Frank Franklin II
Anti-War TV Spot
Martin Sheen
Wielding his presidential-like appeal, actor Martin Sheen headlines a TV ad debuting in Los Angeles and the nation's capital on Thursday urging Americans to join a Feb. 26 "virtual march" on Washington to oppose a war with Iraq.
The umbrella coalition Artists United to Win Without War wants citizens to deluge the nation's capital with e-mails, faxes and phone calls.
Groups emerging in recent weeks to advocate a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis have had a difficult time buying national air time for anti-war spots. CNN and other networks say they are reluctant to air any advocacy ads, regardless of the issue.
To get around the skittish networks, groups are buying up time from local cable companies. Sheen's ad will appear on both CNN and Fox News Channel in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The spot will continue running throughout the next week.
For years, there were strict federal regulations governing advocacy ads, with networks required to give equal time to the other side. Although those rules have been all but erased from the books,
networks are still wary about airing such spots nationally.
Martin Sheen
Those 'strict federal regulations' mentioned above was called the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE. It was killed by the Raygun administration.
Considering a Grammy Reunion
Simon and Garfunkel
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have built a bridge over their troubled waters and may even sing at the Grammy Awards on Sunday in their first public performance together in 10 years.
A spokesman for Simon said the two -- who often had strained relations -- sang together in a private setting on Wednesday, uniting for the first time since 1993.
Sources close to the situation said the two were to meet the award show's writer-producer Ken Ehrlich on Thursday at Madison Square Garden, where rehearsals for the show were getting underway.
Simon and Garfunkel, considered the most successful folk-rock duo of the 1960s for creating such enduring hits as "Sounds of Silence" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water," will get a Lifetime
Achievement Award this week from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), the host of the Grammys.
The award, honoring their work, will be presented at a special pre-Grammy ceremony on Saturday night and will again be mentioned during the CBS telecast, beginning at 8 p.m.
Other performances are expected by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, No Doubt, James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Eminem, Norah Jones and Avril Lavigne.
Simon and Garfunkel
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Rare Recording Fetches Meager Sum
Lennon-Jagger
A rare recording of a jam session between Beatle John Lennon and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger brought scant satisfaction on Thursday when punters decided to let it
be and it was knocked down for just 1,400 pounds.
The news came as a shock to auction house Cooper Owen which had tentatively put a price tag of 10,000 pounds on the acetate.
The record was found by chance by London record dealer Tom Fisher at the bottom of a trunk full of records.
Jagger himself gave a rather vague authentication to the recording and said he didn't think it was worth much as bootleg versions had been in circulation for 20 years.
"Lennon possibly plays guitar. I sing with some girly backing vocals," he said on his web site.
"I have no reason to think that the acetate in question has any more value than the other bootleg versions. The original tapes are probably in an LA studio, or possibly
with Yoko (Ono) as I think John paid for the session," he added.
Lennon-Jagger
Boxer Mike Tyson, wearing his new tattoo listens to a question during a news conference at the Grand Casino in Tunica, Mississippi February 20, 2003. Tyson is scheduled to fight Clifford Etienne in Memphis February 22.
Photo by Peter Jones
Man With An Opinion
Larry Hagman
US actor Larry Hagman, former star of the television series "Dallas", slammed resident George W. Bush as a sad but dangerous figure with little education.
"If George Bush attacks Iraq, tens of thousands of people will die without reason," Hagman told Thursday's edition of the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
The actor, who played the notorious Texas oil baron JR Ewing in the Dallas series, said Bush was a "sad figure: not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards facism."
When asked whether Bush would appreciate his accusation, Hagman replied: "It's all the same to me, he wouldn't understand the word facism anyway."
He said Bush and JR Ewing both came from the Texas oil industry but that the president was not smart enough to be like JR.
"JR was so smart he always found a way to win without violence ... he ruined his enemies financially or socially."
Larry Hagman
Just In Time For 'Mother's Day'
'Who Wants to Marry My Mom?'
The Peacock net announced its intention to find suitable mates for single moms on Thursday as part of a spinoff from its dating reality series Meet My Folks, which debuted to strong ratings last summer.
However, the second season has seen a slight ratings dip with an average 6.7 million viewers tuning in.
Sure to renew viewers' curiosity, Who Wants to Marry My Mom? features adult kids picking a suitor for their mother from a pool of potential candidates. The lucky fella then gets to go on a fantasy vacation
to Hawaii with Mom, (while Jr. signs up for round-the-clock therapy for pimping his own mother).
Can it be a coincidence that the five-episode series airs this spring, right in time for Mother's Day? NBC reps are keeping mum on the fortuitous timing but released the following statement about the
show's concept on Thursday, "The idea of kids choosing which mate is best for their single mom just seemed like a fun, natural extension of Meet My Folks," said NBC suit Jeff Gaspin.
In fact, the spinoff was spawned by a special upcoming episode of Meet My Folks called Meet My Kids, airing March 10. In the 90-minute episode, Barbara Haegele's three grown sons select a male travel mate
to join their mother on a trip to Hawaii.
Singles competing to marry Mom (and win a ticket to paradise) will undergo the same type of grilling as occurs on the show's parental predecessor, which includes submitting to the show's signature lie-detector
test and 'fessing up to embarrassing secrets from the past.
'Who Wants to Marry My Mom?'
Thanks, Alex!
R&B Foundation to Honor
George Clinton
When George Clinton started his band decades ago, he hadn't yet come up with the wild costumes or tripped-out funk grooves that define it today.
"It started out as a doo-wop group," Clinton said of the Parliaments, which would eventually become the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, among other off-shoots of his "P-Funk" family.
"Once we decided to change from that, we went as far as we could ... from diapers to any kind of costume that anyone might have on."
Clinton's funky contribution to music, and to R&B in particular, was noted Thursday night when the Rhythm & Blues Foundation honored him as one of its pioneers.
Other honorees are saxophonist Maceo Parker, best known as James Brown's sideman; blues singer Koko Taylor; New Orleans-based musician Clarence "Frogman" Henry;
Johnny Nash, who had the hit "I Can See Clearly Now"; doo-wop group The Del Vikings; the '60s girl group The Dixie Cups; and Motown legends The Supremes.
The late R&B crooner Jackie Wilson received the foundation's legacy tribute; Dionne Warwick its lifetime achievement award.
Clinton describes Parliament/Funkadelic's sound as "definitely R&B based.
"But it's also the DNA for hip-hop, for alternative, for techno and everything else."
The Rhythm & Blues Foundation was founded to preserve the genre's legacy, but also to provide assistance to soul musicians who have fallen on hard times. They provide them financial, medical and other assistance.
George Clinton
The Rhythm & Blues Foundation
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Dvd Distribution
'Xena' & 'Hercules'
DVD distribution shingle Anchor Bay Entertainment has bought the home video rights to syndicated TV sensations "Xena: Warrior Princess" and "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys."
The company also has inked a deal with Davis-Panzer Prods. for subsequent seasons of "Highlander." Last year, Anchor Bay released the first season of "Highlander" as a boxed set along with a special edition of the 1986 feature film.
"Hercules" bowed in 1994 as a made-for-TV movie and went on to six seasons across 100 episodes. "Xena," a spinoff that debuted as a series in 1995, aired 130 episodes, also through six seasons.
'Xena' & 'Hercules'
Dancers perform at the 2003 Brit Awards in London, February 20, 2003. Pop stars including Britain's Ms Dynamite seized the chance on Thursday to add their melodious voices to the anti-war clamour
in Britain, at the Brits, the annual Oscar ceremony for Britain's music business.
Photo by Toby Melville
Leaving NBC After 27 Years
Jane Pauley
Jane Pauley, who began her NBC career as a 25-year-old "Today" show anchor and has been "Dateline NBC" host for a decade, said Thursday she's quitting in June to pursue new opportunities.
At 52, Pauley said the time was right to try a second career. Her contract with NBC expires in June.
"I expect that television will figure in my future in some way," she said. "It's less what I want to do than how I want to do it. I have some entrepreneurial instincts. I think the idea of being my own boss is appealing."
Pauley was plucked from a Chicago newscast in 1976 to be co-host of "Today" with Tom Brokaw. Bryant Gumbel replaced Brokaw in 1982 and, with Pauley, formed a team that led "Today" past ABC's "Good Morning America" to ratings dominance.
When NBC executives, seeking a fresher face, replaced Pauley with Deborah Norville in 1989, they badly underestimated Pauley's popularity and the move backfired.
NBC gave Pauley her own newsmagazine and, after that failed, she settled in at "Dateline" in 1992.
Jane Pauley
Drenched in UK Gallery Flooding
Dali Graphics
Graphics by surrealist Salvador Dali have been damaged by a gallery sprinkler system, a spokeswoman for the Dali Universe exhibition said on Thursday.
The sprinklers went off during building work on Wednesday at a soon-to-open Charles Saatchi gallery one floor above the Dali Universe.
Four graphics from the series "Bestiaire de la Fontaine" were damaged.
The Dali Universe is a permanent exhibition of more than 500 works by the Spanish master on London's South Bank.
Dali Graphics
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Ex-Fiancee Discusses Breakup
Helene Eksterowicz
After getting engaged in romantic, dramatic fashion before millions of people on TV's "The Bachelor," Helene Eksterowicz said she was dumped unceremoniously at a Starbucks near her New Jersey apartment.
Eksterowicz said Aaron Buerge broke up with her five weeks after the ABC reality show's Nov. 20 finale, telling her he was no longer "emotionally invested."
"It felt like a bomb dropped," the 28-year-old elementary school psychologist told People magazine for its March 3 issue. "I said, 'I feel very deceived by you. You've told me every single day that you love me, and now this is it?'"
Eksterowicz said she and Buerge, a 28-year-old banker from Springfield, Mo., "tried to talk every day on the phone, but it was hard." As for the 2-carat diamond engagement ring, which Buerge paid for
himself, Eksterowicz is keeping it in a safe-deposit box.
Helene Eksterowicz
Locals Denis White and Daphne Baxter toast their success with a new community roadside sign and a glass of wine at Tiddleywink, southern England, Thursday Feb.20 2003. The cluster of eight cottages
in Wiltshire was omitted from atlases and proved to be a headache for puzzled postmen and delivery workers.
Photo by Jay Williams
Purges Files to Avoid Searches
Bookseller
Some booksellers are troubled by a post-Sept. 11 federal law that gives the government broad powers to seize the records of bookstores and libraries to find out what people have been reading.
Bear Pond Books in Montpelier will purge purchase records for customers if they ask, and it has already dumped the names of books bought by its readers' club.
"When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it," store co-owner Michael Katzenberg said. "That's just a basic right,
to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading."
The Patriot Act approved after the 2001 terrorist attacks allows government agents to seek court orders to seize records "for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
Such court orders cannot be challenged like a traditional subpoena. In fact, bookstores and libraries are barred from telling anyone if they get one.
Peggy Bresee was in Bear Pond Books recently to buy "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" and "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" as birthday gifts for a son who lives in Utah. She had the store purge the purchase records.
"It really does make me feel so much better," she said. "They're protecting those of us who are readers. It matters."
Bookseller
Endorses Howard Dean
Rob Reiner
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, among the least known and worst funded in the field of Democratic White House hopefuls, found a big bucks Hollywood backer on Thursday in liberal activist Rob Reiner.
Actor-director Reiner, known to millions as "Meathead" in 1970s TV sitcom "All in the Family" and the head of California's early childhood programs, made his announcement backing Dean
nearly two years before the Democratic Party chooses its candidate.
He said he moved early to ensure that Dean has the cash to survive the expensive primary election season that begins in January 2004.
Dean, who also found early backing from "West Wing" star and TV president Martin Sheen, said Reiner's endorsement will go a long way toward helping him raise the $10 million he needs to
be competitive in a field of better-known and -funded candidates.
Reiner raised more than $4.5 million for Al Gore's failed presidential bid in 2000 and contributed valuable "face time" on Gore's campaign trail. He said he turned to Dean, who last year
raised about $300,000 toward his presidential bid, after Gore announced he would not seek the presidency in 2004.
Attendees at a recent Reiner-sponsored lunch for Dean included "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David, Haim Saban of Saban Entertainment, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, film producer Steven Bing,
writer-producer Nora Ephron and producers Norman Lear and Michael King of King World Productions -- all big party contributors.
Rob Reiner
50-Year-Old Moon Mystery Solved
Amateur Astronomer Vindicated
Nearly 50 years after an amateur astronomer photographed what he thought was a fireball of molten rock produced by the impact of an object with the moon, scientists have identified a crater likely left by the collision.
Dr. Leon Stuart used a camera attached to an 8-inch telescope to photograph what appeared to be a white-hot flash rising from the moon's surface on Nov. 15, 1953. His
claim to have caught on film the lunar impact of an asteroid-sized object apparently made him the first - and only - person ever to do so. The flash lasted less than eight seconds.
But what has come to be known as "Stuart's Event" was met with widespread skepticism: Some claimed the Tulsa, Okla., doctor, who died in 1968, had seen nothing more
than the flash of a meteorite entering the Earth's atmosphere.
In 2001, Bonnie Buratti, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Lane Johnson, then an undergraduate student at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., decided to take another look at the mystery.
Poring over Stuart's photograph, the two estimated the object - an asteroid was the likely culprit - would have been about 66 feet across and left a crater between 0.6 mile and 1.2 miles in diameter.
They began to look at images taken from moon-orbiting satellites, beginning with the Lunar Orbiter in 1967. Turning to more recent pictures, taken by the
Clementine mission in 1994, they struck pay dirt. They found a 0.9 mile-wide crater that appeared untouched by the "weathering" process that turns freshly exposed lunar soil from bluish to reddish.
The young crater is located right in the middle of the region photographed by Stuart.
"To me, this is the celestial equivalent of observing a once-in-a-century hurricane," Buratti said of Stuart's photo.
Stuart's son, Jerry Stuart, said the find would have left his father "quite pleased."
Amateur Astronomer Vindicated
www.jpl.nasa.gov/
Jack Kerouac's Last Blood Relative
Paul Blake
If truth is stranger than fiction, the current-events portion of Jack Kerouac's legacy may become a best seller - and nephew Paul Blake may be the man to write it.
Homeless in Sacramento, Blake, the last blood relative of the Beat Generation's "On the Road" icon, could be sitting on tons of dough - perhaps $6 million or more, a third of an estimated $20 million estate.
The main thing standing between Blake and the moolah is proving that Kerouac's mom's will is a forgery.
Bill Wagner, Blake's lawyer, said he has a handwriting expert who is "convinced it was forged."
"If she signed it, she misspelled her own name," noted Wagner, who has been fighting it out in a Florida court. "That signature was with a very strong hand, yet all the witnesses said she'd just had a stroke [in 1973] and was very weak."
Blake also said he has a deposition from a witness denying that Kerouac's mother, Gabrielle, signed the will. Estate executor John Sampas said detractors claim Kerouac's third wife, Stella Sampas Kerouac, did the dirty deed.
"That will was not forged," said Sampas, 70, who sees himself as defending the honor of the family - all six relatives - who currently divvy up $150,000 in annual royalties with two other parties, not to mention millions in sold Kerouac papers and letters.
The items already sold include the fabled Kerouac scroll, a 120- foot-long first-draft manuscript of "On the Road," which fetched $2.4 million in a 2001 auction.
Paul Blake
Focus on Cable Characters
Disney Marketeers
Movies are no longer the big picture for Walt Disney Co's consumer marketing machine. The small screen is the new deal.
Facing a crowded marketplace for animated movies, the Disney team that makes toys, clothes and other merchandise is looking to cable television for friends to join Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh
in the pantheon of profitable Disney characters, division president Andy Mooney said in an interview on Wednesday.
At the same time, Disney is still closing retail stores. It plans to reduce the number to 405 outlets over the next few years from a peak of 741 in 2000. The trimmer retail operation will seek a modest goal of roughly breaking even, Mooney said.
Disney Consumer Products, which brings in 10 percent of revenue at the theme park, movie and television entertainment conglomerate, made a splash with the debut of the stores in 1987. It profited
handsomely over the next decade as Disney ruled the animated movie realm with spin-offs from movies such as "Aladdin," "Hercules" and its billion-dollar feature, "The Lion King."
More recently, Disney has sought out retail alliances. The company must also contend with a change in the way kids bond with new characters, Mooney said.
Specifically, movies do not sell a character as powerfully as cable television and Disney home videos, which children watch an average of 37 times, he said.
Disney Marketeers
Original Wild Condor Shot Dead
Adult Condor 8
One of the original California condors brought from the wild into a captive breeding program during the 1980s has been shot to death.
The bird, a female called Adult Condor 8, was captured in 1986 and released into the wild in 2000 after giving birth to about a dozen chicks. The carcass was found Feb. 13 in a remote area of Kern County.
"This is a senseless death that strikes a blow at our efforts to bring these great birds back from the edge of extinction," Gov. Gray Davis said Thursday.
The bird was believed to be at least 30 years old and possibly as old as 40. It recently spent six weeks being treated for lead poisoning believed to have come from bullet pellets in a carcass it ate.
Now, there are 79 birds in the wild in California and Arizona and 118 in captivity at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.
Adult Condor 8
Indonesian zoo worker Watmo feeds three hippos -- Omon (R), Jaki (C) and Dania (L) -- at Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta on February 19, 2003. Watmo, who has worked at the zoo for 30 years,
said he loved the animals and enjoyed working with them more than with people.
Photo by Enny Nuraheni
'The Osbournes'
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