'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
States of Equality Scorecard (equalitygiving.org)
Are you a second class citizen in your own state? Review state by state comparisons of the score on equality and gay rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Americans.
Will Durst: President Whatshisname
Whatever happened to the Decider?
Mark Morford: Free Tibet? Hell, free America! (sfgate.com)
Support the humble monks? You bet. But oh, let's not forget our own wonderfully abundant atrocities
Jim Hightower: TOBACCO INDUSTRY SPIN (jimhightower.com)
How would you feel if a consortium of armed robbers was to call for decriminalization of robbery? It's a loopy idea, but they might claim that since police are so busy trying to catch other criminals, they should not be burdened with chasing robbers. Believe it or not, Reynolds tobacco is making just such a loopy argument.
LARA KILLIAN: Who Says Libraries Are Just About Books? (popmatters.com)
Quiet, Please author Scott Douglas speaks out about the future of libraries, being played by Oprah in the movie version, and his recent library-themed wedding.
The Vagina Monologues turns ten (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
Ten years on, writer Eve Ensler arranges a celebrity-studded event to campaign against violence towards women.
TOM GREGORY: Nun-Cents: or, What Would Debbie Do? (huffingtonpost.com)
As finances grew worse, Sister Smile revived her singing career, releasing an electronic version of her 1963 hit, but she was too late. In 1985 under self-perceived financial strain, she and her companion committed suicide by taking an intentional overdose of barbiturates and alcohol.
Jon Bream: Sara Bareilles offers a love song that has nothing to do with romance (Star Tribune)
The biggest pop hit of the year - Sara Bareilles' "Love Song" - is not a love song. Nor is it a kiss-off to an ex-lover or wannabe boyfriend, even though the refrain goes: "I'm not gonna write you a love song `cause you asked for it."
Walter Tunis: She's compared to Janis Joplin, but Susan Tedeschi is more like Bonnie Raitt (McClatchy Newspapers)
You might say Susan Tedeschi is accustomed to having things both way.
Susan Kepecs: "Laurie Anderson: Queen of Quirk" (Isthmus)
The pop-tech performance queen's subversive stories speak truth to power.
Erin Podolsky: Black Keys hook up with Gnarls Barkley producer for their 5th album (Detroit Free Press)
Load up your iPod with Black Keys songs, shut your eyes and press play, and you'd never guess you were listening to a couple of twentysomething white dudes from the home of the Goodyear blimp - that's Akron, Ohio, for you Uniroyal loyalists. You're hearing a blues racket that could easily be confused for the vinyl snap-crackle-poppin' jangle of a mid-century Mississippi field recording.
Simon McCormack: "Megadeth: The Rock that Never Dies" (Weekly Alibi)
By the time Megadeth bassist James Lomenzo joined the band's lineup in 2006, he'd built a 30-year career of rock with artists like David Lee Roth and bands like White Lion and Black Label Society.
Howard Cohen: Helen Reddy's miles away from her singing days (McClatchy Newspapers)
Q: You became an American citizen in 1974 but now live in Sydney. Why?
A: I made the decision to leave after the coup in Florida. At that point I could no longer trust the Supreme Court, and America had become a one-party state. I said, "I'm not going to live under totalitarianism, I'm out." That's why it's very important for me that Hillary wins.
Sarah Bailey: Kate Hudson is one hot mama (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
Goldie Hawn's girl is back on the market after a rock'n'roll divorce and that affair with Owen Wilson. She talks boys.
Jeff Crook
Short Fiction Web
Marty,
Last week I started a digest of the best fiction online. The reason I'm doing this is because there is a ton of great fiction being published online, but it can sometimes be difficult to find. There are over 800 webzines that publish fiction, but other than a few resource sites for writers, there isn't really a good place for readers to go and browse.
So I've put together a lengthy but by no means comprehensive list of webzine links. But more importantly, I try to go through and pick out the best stories I can find from those hundreds of magazines and thousands of stories.
I've already found several jewels, including one I link to today - "Plov" by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry. Maybe your readers will enjoy this new online resource.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and warmer.
China Snubs Apology
CNN
China on Thursday snubbed an apology from CNN over remarks by one of its commentators as a wave of verbal assaults on foreign media raised concerns over coverage at this summer's Beijing Olympics.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu rejected CNN's explanation that commentator Jack Cafferty was referring to China's leaders - not the Chinese people - when he described them as "goons and thugs." CNN said it apologized to anyone who thought otherwise.
But Jiang said at a regularly scheduled news conference that the CNN statement lacked sincerity and instead "turned its attack on the Chinese government to try to sow division between the Chinese government and the people."
CNN has been singled out by the Chinese government and unknown activists who have phoned and e-mailed death threats to Western reporters. Most of the criticism of the Atlanta-based network concerns a photograph posted on its Web site weeks ago which cropped out Tibetans throwing stones at Chinese security forces.
CNN
Interim Pact with Indy
SAG
The Screen Actors Guild has cut a deal that would let its members work for an independent film company regardless of a future strike against the major studios.
The deal with The Film Department guarantees completion of nine movies that haven't started filming yet. One of them, a romantic comedy called "The Rebound," stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and is scheduled to begin production Monday in New York City.
The union, which began contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Artists on Tuesday, declined to discuss the deal.
The trade paper Daily Variety said SAG was only offering such deals to independent feature producers.
SAG
Freed in Nigeria
Seattle Filmmakers
Members of a Seattle film crew detained in Nigeria over the weekend on suspicion of traveling in a restricted area have been released, a senator from Washington said Wednesday.
The five crew members will have to complete final processing by Nigerian authorities on Friday, said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell.
The Americans and their Nigerian companion were picked up by U.S. Embassy representatives at a detention center and taken to Abuja, said Leslye Wood, spokeswoman for "Sweet Crude," the documentary the crew was filming about oil production in the Niger River Delta.
This was their fourth trip to the Niger Delta during the past 2 1/2 years. Wood, who traveled with the group on two of those trips, said the filmmakers had no previous problems.
Seattle Filmmakers
Returns to Venezuela TV
`The Simpsons'
"The Simpsons" animated series has returned to Venezuelan television - shifting to a nighttime slot after regulators ordered it off the air in the morning.
Elba Guillen, a spokeswoman for station Televen, said Thursday the Fox series returned to the air Wednesday at 7 p.m. and will now be shown at that time each week.
The channel yanked "The Simpsons" off the air earlier this month after the National Telecommunications Commission said showing it each day at 11 a.m. - a time slot approved for all viewers - violated regulations to protect children.
"The Simpsons" was removed from its family friendly morning time slot in favor of "Baywatch Hawaii," featuring scantily clad lifeguards.
`The Simpsons'
Turns 50
Atomium
Belgium on Thursday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Atomium, an oddity of modern architecture touted as the "most astonishing building in the world."
Built for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, the Atomium is a towering structure made up of nine giant aluminum-clad spheres linked with steel tubes. The sci-fi design represents an iron atom magnified 165 billion times.
Originally planned as a temporary attraction, it became one of the best-known landmarks of the Belgium capital.
The Atomium now contains a permanent exhibition of the 1950s, temporary art shows and a gourmet restaurant 335-feet up in the highest sphere, offering spectacular views along with local delicacies such as Ostend oysters and Mechelen cuckoo.
Atomium
Backyard For Sale
HOLLYWOOD Sign
The world-famous HOLLYWOOD sign that has been used by TV and movie directors in more scene-setting shots than a film student could ever count was first erected in 1923 to promote real estate in the fledgling capital of celluloid.
Eighty-five years later, some fear the sign and the hillside on which it sits are threatened by, yes, a real estate deal.
An investment group that owns 138 sage-covered acres above and to the left of the 45-foot-high, steel-and-concrete H put the land up for sale last month for $22 million.
Some Los Angeles residents are afraid mansions will be built there, spoiling the sign's uncluttered, postcard-perfect backdrop. They worry, too, that the land will no longer be accessible to the hikers, sightseers and romantics who often climb the hill for solitude and a panoramic view of the Los Angeles basin.
HOLLYWOOD Sign
Loses Court Case
Garry Kasparov
Former chess champion turned opposition leader Garry Kasparov on Thursday lost a court case in Moscow claiming moral damages against a pro-Kremlin youth group that had called him a thief and a traitor.
Kasparov had sued for 1.28 million dollars (805,000 euros) in damages from Nashi over the leaflet, which was distributed after parliamentary elections in December 2007 that were swept by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.
Since giving up chess, Kasparov has been a strident critic of the Kremlin, saying it has crushed democratic opposition. He spent five days in jail last year for public order offences after leading an anti-Kremlin march.
Youth group Nashi said there was no proof that the leaflet had been produced or distributed by them. The leaflet said it was published by Nashi, listed the phone number of Nashi's office and was distributed at a Nashi rally.
Garry Kasparov
Radio's 'Lois Lane'
Joan A. Stanton
An actress who was the 1940s radio voice of Lois Lane, the reporter with a crush on Superman, has accused her financial adviser of losing and stealing tens of millions of dollars of her money.
Joan A. Stanton, 90, claims in court papers that Kenneth Ira Starr, "accountant and financial adviser to the rich and famous," ingratiated himself with her to take control of her fortune, then shielded her from the advice of others, including that of her children.
The court papers claim that Starr used Stanton's money as "his own unrestricted endowment," putting millions in speculative pet projects that he or his friends controlled instead of the conservative investments she wanted.
Stanton, who acted under the name Joan Alexander, was best known as the voice of Lois Lane in the 1940s radio show "The Adventures of Superman." She also was the first actress to play Della Street, Perry Mason's Girl Friday, on the radio version of the "Perry Mason" detective series.
Joan A. Stanton
New Exhibition
Ian Fleming
He worked for British intelligence and traveled the world in style. He loved fast cars, dry martinis and beautiful women.
His name was Fleming, Ian Fleming.
On the centenary of his birth, a new exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum looks at a writer whose life was almost as exciting as that of his most famous creation: secret agent James Bond.
"For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond" marks the first time the war museum - best known for displays recounting the Battle of Trafalgar and the London Blitz - has devoted a major show to a writer and his fictional creation. But Bond is larger than life - and so, it turns out, was Fleming.
Ian Fleming
Painting to Auction
Winston Churchill
A painting by Winston Churchill of a Moroccan sunset - a view he loved so much that he invited President Franklin D. Roosevelt to see it years later - is going on the auction block next week.
"Sunset Over the Atlas Mountains," a vibrant landscape painted in 1935 from Churchill's balcony at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech, is expected to bring at least $600,000 at Bonhams New York on April 23.
Churchill invited Roosevelt to travel with him to Marrakech after a conference in Casablanca in 1943 so he could experience the beautiful view for himself.
After Churchill's death in 1965, the 20-inch-by-24-inch oil went to a daughter, Lady Sarah Audley, who sold it to a private collector in Texas, who in turn sold it in 1992 to the family of the current San Francisco owner, whose name Bonhams did not disclose.
Winston Churchill
Found in Vietnam
Swinhoe's Soft-Shell Turtles
Researchers from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo have discovered a rare giant turtle in northern Vietnam, giving scientists hope for the species they believed was extinct in the wild.
The three other known Swinhoe's soft-shell turtles are in captivity, said experts from the Zoo's Asian turtle program. The discovery represents hope for the species, said Doug Hendrie, the Vietnam-based coordinator of the zoo program.
Turtle expert Peter Pritchard, president of the Chelonian Research Institute, confirmed the find based on a photo Hendrie showed him. The turtle was discovered late last year, probably in December, zoo spokeswoman Sue Allen said Thursday.
The turtle remains in the lake and researchers have notified the Vietnamese government of its existence, Hendrie said.
Swinhoe's Soft-Shell Turtles
In Memory
Hazel Court
Hazel Court, an English actress who co-starred with the likes of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price in popular horror movies of the 1950s and '60s, has died. She was 82.
While she had a substantial acting career both in England and on American TV, Court was perhaps best known for her work in such films as 1963's "The Raven." She co-starred with Price, Karloff and Peter Lorre in director Roger Corman's take on the classic Edgar Allan Poe poem.
"The Premature Burial," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Devil Girl from Mars" helped propel her to cult status and brought her fan mail even in her later years.
The daughter of a professional cricket player, Court was born Feb. 10, 1926, in the English town of Sutton Coldfield. As a teenager, she was appearing in stage productions when she was spotted and signed by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, which owned movie studios and theaters.
Court co-starred with Patrick O'Neal in the 1957 British TV comedy series "Dick and the Duchess." In the late 1950s, she came to the United States to work on the TV show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
Court is survived by daughters Sally Walsh and Courtney Taylor, son Jonathan Taylor and stepdaughters Anne Taylor Fleming and Avery Taylor.
Hazel Court
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