'Best of TBH Politoons'
Library Of Congress
Avery Ant
Hey Marty,
How hilarious is this? Avery Ant is to be included in the Library of Congress on its materials related to the death of J2P2.
~ Avery
The United States Library of Congress preserves the Nation's cultural artifacts and provides enduring access to them. The Library's traditional functions, acquiring, cataloging, preserving and serving collection materials of historical importance to the Congress and to the American people to foster education and scholarship, extend to digital materials, including Web sites. The Library has selected your site for inclusion in the historic collection of Internet materials related to the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of a new Pope. The following URL has been selected:
VoteAveryforPope
The Library of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of content from your Web site at regular intervals. The Library will make this collection available to researchers onsite at Library facilities. The Library also wishes to make the collection available to offsite researchers by hosting the collection on the Library's public access Web site. The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving Web materials about the death of Pope John Paul II and permitting researchers from across the world to access them.
If you agree to permit offsite access to your materials through the Library's Web site, please...
That's pretty freaking COOL, Avery!
Another Rant
Avery Ant
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
David Sirota: Bush: Bad Data Means Stop Publishing
President Bush has said that "in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency."
ROBRT L. PELA: Never Been Funnier (Phoenix New Times)
The beauty in this deeply derisive and wildly funny comedy is in its details: the plastic-fetus-topped coffee stirrers at the cafe, where booths are posted with small signs that read, "What Would Jesus Order?" ... or the poster in Shelly's Abstinence Hotline cubicle with the slogan, "Keep her on the phone and she won't get the bone."
Malinda Lo: Behind the Scenes at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (afterellen.com)
For the thousands of women who converge on a 650-acre piece of land in rural Michigan every August, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival is "home."
Thomas H. Maugh II and Rosie Mestel: U.S. Goes for an Even Dozen on Dietary Rules (LA Times)
The revised guidelines stress exercise and reflect the nation's diverse lifestyles.
My Pyramid
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny but cool.
No Show In New Orleans
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, the longtime lead singer of The Kinks, didn't return to testify against a man who allegedly drove a getaway car for a gunman who robbed Davies' companion and shot the singer in the leg.
Defendant Jerome Barra was released Wednesday after prosecutors dismissed charges. District Attorney Eddie Jordan said the 60-year-old Davies had sent word to prosecutors that he is on tour and unavailable until December.
Barra, 26, was to face trial on charges of armed robbery and principal to aggravated battery in the Jan. 4, 2004, attack.
"We'll see if we can reinstate the charges once the victim is able to return to New Orleans," Jordan said. "But we do need victims in order to prosecute an armed robbery case."
Ray Davies
FHM's List - 2005
100 Sexiest Women
British men have made some bizarre choices in their quest to find the world's sexiest women. Here's the results of the FHM British poll
1. Kelly Brook
2. Cheryl Tweedy
3. Angelina Jolie
4. Michelle Ryan
5. Elisha Cuthbert
6. Britney Spears
7. Abi Titmuss
8. Sarah Harding
9. Beyonce Knowles
10. Charlotte Church
The Full List - FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2005
Engagement News
Garner & Affleck
Nine months after they started dating, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner are engaged, People and Star magazines are reporting.
Citing a "close friend" of Affleck's, People says the "Pearl Harbor" actor has been privately spreading the news. A friend of Garner's told the magazine in February that she expected Affleck to propose.
Affleck's publicist, Ken Sunshine, would not comment on the reports. A call to Garner's rep was not returned.
Garner & Affleck
Discusses Transplant, firing
Steven Cojocaru
Three months after Steven Cojocaru's kidney transplant, Oprah Winfrey rolled out the red carpet for the fashion maven.
"I hit bottom at the beginning," he said. "I got the news and I was just completely shattered."
But after his best friend, Abby Finer, gave him one of her kidneys, his spirits were raised - which led to some eye-opening self-discovery.
Cojocaru was less positive discussing how he lost his job on "Today," after being part of the show for over four years. He said that three weeks after his surgery, he was fired after making plans to appear on "Oprah."
"I wasn't just fired, I was dumped," he said. "I was shot at the crack of dawn, I was left in the gutter, I mean, it was so cold."
Steven Cojocaru
Fell Out Of Bed
Phyllis Diller
Comedian Phyllis Diller injured her head and neck after falling out of bed at her Brentwood mansion, her manager said Thursday.
"She has a big bruise on her forehead," Milt Suchin said. "I think she blacked out. ... She just awoke and a housekeeper came in and found her on the floor."
Diller, 87, was hospitalized after the accident early Monday, Suchin said. She was undergoing diagnostic tests, including tests on her pacemaker that was inserted in 1999.
Phyllis Diller
Spared Jail
Alex Lifeson
The lead guitarist for the rock group Rush and his son accepted plea agreements Thursday and will not go to jail for a New Year's Eve 2003 altercation with Collier County sheriff's deputies.
Alex Lifeson, whose real surname is Zivojinovich, and his 34-year-old son, Justin, will serve 12 months probation and pay court costs as part of the agreement. The charges against them were reduced to misdemeanors from felonies that could have resulted in the men going to prison.
The agreement calls for each to plead to a single misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest without violence. Adjudication is being withheld, meaning there will not be a formal conviction on their records if probation is successfully completed.
Alex Lifeson
NBC Close to Renewal
'Will & Grace'
After months of on-and-off negotiations, NBC and the producers of "Will & Grace" are said to be closing in on an agreement to bring the Emmy-winning sitcom back for another season.
Sources said the network is prepared to give the NBC-produced series a full-season order, albeit at a license fee that will be lower than the fees paid this season, estimated to be in the neighborhood of $5 million per episode.
Sources said NBC is expected to field a proposal to the actors this week. It's expected that the actors will be asked to take pay cuts as well, given the reduced license fee and the sharp ratings drop that "Will & Grace" has suffered this season along with the rest of NBC's Thursday slate.
'Will & Grace'
Gets Star on Walk of Fame
Ryan Seacrest
The "Idol"-maker has become an idol himself. "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday in a ceremony attended by his TV colleagues, "Idol" judges Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell.
Seacrest, 30, a 15-year radio veteran, confessed, "I remember getting up this morning at 3:30 a.m. on my way in to do the morning show, and I thought, 'One person is going to come today. . . . . I thought this would be the most unpopular star dedication ever."
Ryan Seacrest
It's Too Complicated
'Da... Nyet, Nyet, Nyet!'
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried out her rusty Russian in a Moscow radio interview Wednesday, only to get caught out by a question on whether she might run for president.
"Da (Yes)," Rice answered in Russian, before realizing her misunderstanding and hastily adding "Nyet" (No) -- seven times.
Rice's interview on Ekho Moskvy radio turned into a linguistic ordeal when the Soviet expert and former provost of Stanford university fielded a schoolgirl listener's question on how she achieved her career success.
"It's too complicated to answer!" Rice, in Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, started out in English. "It is an opportunity for me to come back to Russia, a place I love very much. I love the culture and the language."
She then switched into Russian, but quickly hit trouble.
Apparently meaning to say that she would like to do her next interview in the language of her host, she chose a verb that sounded more like "to earn money" than the Russian for "to do."
'Da... Nyet, Nyet, Nyet!'
Pleads Not Guilty in DUI Case
Stockard Channing
Emmy-winning actress Stockard Channing pleaded not guilty Wednesday to drunken driving charges stemming from an incident late last year on the Hollywood Freeway.
Channing, 60, who won an Emmy for her role as the first lady on NBC's "The West Wing," was arrested Dec. 14 after allegedly trying to drive around a roadblock set up so a tow truck could removed a disabled tractor-trailer.
California Highway Patrol Officer Alex Delgadillo said Channing's blood-alcohol levels were .12 and .13. The legal limit in California is .08.
Stockard Channing
Experts Confirm Portrait Fake
Shakespeare
One of the best-known portraits of William Shakespeare is a fraud, painted 200 years after the playwright's death, experts at Britain's National Portrait Gallery said Thursday.
Many art authorities had long suspected the work, known as the Flower portrait, was painted much more recently than the 1609 date on the image.
The work shows Shakespeare gazing out at an angle and wearing a wide white collar. It has been widely reproduced and is often printed on the covers of his plays.
Tarnya Cooper, 16th Century curator at the National Portrait Gallery, said an analysis had uncovered chrome yellow paint from around 1814 embedded deeply in the work.
Shakespeare
Recommended Reading
Armaggedon Porn
On April 13 NBC began pumping Armageddon pornography into the homes of millions- Revelations, their new fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping, mystery/thriller mini-series based on an extremely dangerous interpretation of the last book of the Bible.
Whatever their intentions, NBC is marking a major leap into the mainstream by the ministers of Christian fascist propaganda. This series does more than simply dramatize metaphysics or even Christianity in a general sense. When asked, "Why not [a] 'Touched by an Angel'-type [series]? Why Jesus ?" executive producer Gavin Polone answered that the majority of Americans believe in a Christian God and that making it "more specific is more real" to viewers.
On NBC's own website, the blurbs about this film set up the two main characters as unlikely allies-"one who worships God and one who worships Science." Excuse me? Since when did any real scientist ever capitalize the word "science"? Since when does the word "worship" have anything to do with a scientific method for understanding the world around us?
For the rest - Armaggedon Porn
In Memory
Ruth Hussey
Ruth Hussey, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as James Stewart's wise-cracking girlfriend in 1940's "The Philadelphia Story," has died. She was 93.
Hussey died Tuesday at a convalescent home in Newbury Park in Ventura County of complications from an appendectomy, according to her son, John Longnecker.
From the late 1930s through 1960 Hussey made dozens of films and appeared with such leading men as Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Melvyn Douglas and Robert Taylor.
Born Oct. 30, 1911, in Providence, R.I., Hussey graduated from Pembroke Women's College at Brown University and the drama school at the University of Michigan.
Her first movie role, in the 1937 Tracy film "Big City," was uncredited. Three years later, she was Tracy's leading lady in "Northwest Passage."
She received an Oscar nomination for supporting actress for playing Elizabeth Imbrie, the sassy photographer who accompanies Stewart to cover a socialite's wedding in "The Philadelphia Story."
She lost to Jane Darwell, who was Ma Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath."
Her last feature film role was in 1960 in "The Facts of Life," playing Bob Hope's wife.
Hussey also had a long career in television, including guest appearances in "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Time Out for Ginger."
She also played the love interest of Robert Young in the 1973 television movie "My Darling Daughters' Anniversary."
Ruth Hussey
In Memory
Gene Frankel
Gene Frankel, a theater director and acting teacher who directed the landmark off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's "The Blacks," died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at New York University Medical Center, his daughter said. He was 85.
Although Frankel also directed on Broadway - most notably a 1969 production of Arthur Kopit's "Indians," starring Stacy Keach as Buffalo Bill - it was off-Broadway where he enjoyed his greatest success.
His production of "The Blacks," Genet's sardonic drama about role-playing in society, opened in 1961 and ran for more than 1,400 performances. Its original cast included such actors as James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett, Cicely Tyson and Godfrey Cambridge, all at the beginning of their careers, as well as two performers who later would gain more fame as writers, Maya Angelou Make (before she dropped her last name) and playwright Charles Gordone, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "No Place to Be Somebody."
Among Frankel's other Broadway productions were "A Cry of Players" (1968); a revival of the Kurt Weill musical "Lost in the Stars" (1972); and "The Night That Made America Famous" (1975), a musical revue featuring the songs of Harry Chapin and starring the composer.
Gene Frankel
