~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From 'TBH Politoons'
Great Site!
Thanks, again, Tim!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Went to the local 'Farmer's Market' today. Cherries are coming into season, and there were Bings & Queen Anne's. The strawberries are about as nice as they're going to get here, too. I feel pies coming on!
If you're lacking recipes, 
is the answer!
Yesterday I had a BAD link....think you know the one - 'Jeremy Kill' - I'm sorry about that.
I didn't look at the addy close enough, and it seems there are now 2 'correspondents' named Jeremy (the 'new' Jeremy obviously has a time/space/testosterone problem).
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Only had the TV on as background noise - working on some PTA-stuff for 'Fun Day'...just as well it was all reruns.
Tonight, Friday, CBS has reruns of 'JAG' and 'First Monday'. They are followed by '48 Hours'.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave are Charlies Grodin and Wendy Liebman.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers are Tommy Lee and Meredith Brooks.
Basketball intrudes on NBC primetime, so expect mostly local programming, except for 'Dateline', and Late Night.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Neve Campbell, Mekhi Phifer, and Willie Nelson & Leann Womack.
Scheduled on a fresh Conan is the Promise Ring.
ABC, who used to own Friday night, pisses away 2 hours with reruns they've shown all year - 2 back-to-back episodes of 'Funniest Home Videos'. They are
followed by '20/20' with Barbara Walters & her pet pinniped, John Miller.
Scheduled on a fresh Bill Maher are (Actor) Ben Affleck, (Columnist) Betsy Hart, (Comedian) Jay Mohr, and (Ex-athlete) John Salley.
The WB has 2 hours of rerun sitcoms - 'Sabrina', 'Raising Dad', 'Reba' and 'Maybe It's Me'.
Faux has reruns of 'Dark Angel' and 'X-Files'.
UPN has the movie 'High School High'.
Check out your local PBS station for 'NOW With Bill Moyers'. It's more than worth the effort!
Don't know who Dennis Miller has on, and as the weeks roll by, I see less & less reason to keep HBO (but, it's staying, regardless).
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Thursday Night
Ali & Aaron
Director Michael Mann, left, poses with former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, second from left, along with Aaron Sorkin, of NBC's "The West Wing," and Ramona
Ripston, right, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, at the ACLU 2002 Torch of Liberty Dinner, Thursday night, May 23, 2002, in Los Angeles. Ali
presented Mann with the Torch of Liberty award for his work on the film "Ali" and other socially significant works and Sorkin was present an award for his work on
the "The West Wing."
Photo by Mark J. Terrill
Soft? More Like Flaccid
Networks Soft on News
It's official: Network news has gone soft again.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism will on Thursday release the results of a study that claims broadcast news is as fluffy now as it was pre-Sept. 11.
"The world's at war, and we're back to the blithe times of last summer," said the Washington D.C.-based group's director, Tom Rosenstiel. "The ratio of hard news to soft news has shrunk."
The think tank, part of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, examined story topics on three networks during the first 13 weeks of 2002 on nightly and morning broadcasts.
Content was broken down into two major categories: hard news -- "front-page" types of stories relating to politics, policy and war, for example -- and soft news: celebrity info, science, crime and lifestyle.
For example, the study would have considered the San Francisco dog mauling a soft story because it related mostly to crime. Yet the Daniel Pearl murder would have fallen into the
hard-news category because of its international implications and its relationship to the war.
"Twenty-five years ago, you wouldn't have seen the dog-mauling (story) on the news," Rosenstiel said. "Networks are increasingly feature-driven organizations. So now we're back to
consumer investigations about dirty yogurt and bad teenage drivers."
Networks Soft on News
2 Pauls On The Road
Bono & O'Neill
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Irish rock singer Bono brought a roadshow studying debt, aid and social issues to Africa's economic giant on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters after meetings with South African President Thabo Mbeki and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Bono and O'Neill gently sparred about each
other's role in fostering aid for needy areas of Africa, the world's poorest continent.
O'Neill, an ardent advocate of private enterprise, said he had already seen enough in the opening part of his four-country visit while in Ghana to show that easy and practical
solutions to some basic needs were readily available.
Speaking separately to reporters, Bono said Mbeki had raised the issue of recently enacted U.S. farm subsidies as a stumbling block to promoting free trade.
U.S. Treasury officials traveling with O'Neill later denied Mbeki had raised the issue of farm subsidies as Bono had said. The officials said it was Bono who had begun discussing the topic at the meeting.
South Africa provides an unusually vivid palette to sketch out the differing positions of the altruistic rock star and the world's most powerful finance minister. It is both a regional economic superpower but also the epicenter of the
HIV/AIDS pandemic which afflicts a staggering one in nine South Africans.
Reporters traveling with O'Neill shouted questions to Mbeki, seeking clarification about his position on HIV/AIDS when he appeared with O'Neill and Bono during talks at a photo call. Mbeki has in the past questioned the link between HIV and AIDS.
But Mbeki refused to answer and cut short the session to begin talks his American and Irish visitors.
Bono & O'Neill
4-Year Donation Plan
Michael Eisner
Disney chairman Michael Eisner announced this week that his family foundation is donating $7 million to the University of California at Northridge to create a teacher- training
program. Still, some Eisner antagonists can't help but carp that the donation pales next to DreamWorks honcho David Geffen's $200 million gift to UCLA Medical Center. What's more,
notes one critic, "Eisner is stretching the $7 million over four years." Disney spokeswoman Zenia Mucha counters that university officials wanted the giving spread out. "It's unfortunate
that there are those who, instead of applauding a $7 million gift to help educate children, are criticizing it," says Mucha.
Michael Eisner
Asks FTC To Stop Book
Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking has asked the Federal Trade Commission to stop publication of an upcoming book.
The physicist alleges in a complaint that "The Theory of Everything" will "constitute a fraud on the public" because it simply repackages old material, including Hawking's
million-selling "A Brief History of Time." The complaint, filed last month with the FTC by Hawking's lawyers — Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker — alleges that New Millennium
Press had permission only to release an audio version of lectures the physicist gave in 1989. Those lectures are highly similar in content to "A Brief History of Time" and
appeared briefly in print form in 1996 under the title "The Cambridge Lectures: Life Works."
The material now has been retitled "The Theory of Everything" and is scheduled to come out next month in both audio and print form. New Millennium co-president and publisher
Michael Viner said he has the right to release the book.
The original contract was signed in 1988, when Hawking was preparing the lecture series and Viner was head of Dove Books-on-Tape. The contract gives Viner permission to
publish in "written form the text of said recording."
Viner left Dove in 1997 and founded New Millennium a year later. New Millennium started out in film and television development but now also publishes audio and print books.
Court injunctions, not the FTC, are the traditional way to prevent a book's publication. But Hawking's representatives said he is not physically strong enough to
withstand a courtroom proceeding. Hawking, 60, suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurological ailment also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He is confined to
a wheelchair and speaks through a computer synthesizer.
Stephen Hawking
Visited Larry King
Liza
Liza Minnelli performs during a taping of CNN's "Larry King Live" in Los Angeles, Thursday, May 23, 2002. Minnelli and her new husband, producer David Gest,
chatted with King and shared exclusive footage from their recent wedding.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
Considers U.S. Daily Chat Show Proposal
Sarah 'Fergie' Ferguson
Sarah Ferguson, the bubbly flame-haired duchess who married into and divorced out of the British royal family, is considering hosting her own daily chat show in the United
States, her spokeswoman said on Thursday.
"She is considering it, but it is not a done deal."
One problem for the Duchess of York, who married Queen Elizabeth's second son Prince Andrew in 1986 before divorcing him 10 years later, is her children.
The couple have two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, who divide their time between their mother and father in England.
"For her a factor is that this is a daily show, requiring her to be based in the United States, so it is not a decision she will take lightly," an informed source said.
"She would have to leave the kids behind and see them only at the weekends."
Sarah 'Fergie' Ferguson
St. Petersburg, Russia
Matrioshka Dolls
St. Petersburg, Russia's imperial capital and President Vladimir Putin's home town, is gearing up to welcome President George W. Bush with a mix of unmatched artistic
brilliance and edge-of-the-abyss disorder that makes the city a metaphor for Russia at its finest and most exasperating. A street vendor aligns Russian matrioshka dolls
portraying (L-R) Bush, Osama bin Laden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and book hero Harry Potter at a street market in the center of St. Petersburg, May 17, 2002.
Photo by Alexander Demianchuk
Declared 'Sexiest Woman'
Anna Kournikova
Anna Kournikova, the Russian tennis player as renowned for her glamorous image as her ground strokes, has finally won a title -- the sexiest woman in the world.
Despite having never won a singles title the Russian, who in 2000 earned an estimated $29,080 a day, came out on top of British men's magazine FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the
World 2002 poll published on Friday.
Kournikova, who is no longer in the top 50 of the tennis rankings, beat off competition from British group S Club 7 member Rachel Stevens, American pop star Britney Spears
and two-time winner of the poll, actress and singer Jennifer Lopez.
Pop stars figured prominently in the poll, with six out of ten women singers in the top 10, while the FHM top 100 also featured a record number of pregnant women, with
British topless model Jordan ranked highest at 16.
Anna Kournikova
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Source Of Human Intelligence?
Women
Like it or not, the human race may owe its intelligence to women, especially our female ancestors who had the good sense to chose brains over brawn in selecting the best mates.
"Humanity should be grateful, men especially," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday.
The theory that mothers are more likely to pass on their mental ability to their offspring than fathers and that intelligence genes are concentrated on the
X chromosome is not new.
It was suggested by American scientist Robert Lehrke 30 years ago, but German scientists think they have narrowed down the search for the genes.
Horst Hameister, Ulrich Zechner and their colleagues at the University of Ulm in Germany first looked at genes linked to mental impairment and found that
a preponderance of them is found on the X chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y.
"Most geneticists believe the German team have uncovered a real effect -- an excess of X-linked genes responsible for intelligence, known in genetic
parlance as the large X-chromosome effect," the magazine said.
Source Of Human Intelligence
Ach, Du Lieber
Berlin, 2002
To see pictures from Berlin, Berlin Bonus
''Nu au Collier'' To Auction
Pablo Picasso Painting
A painting of his mistress by Pablo Picasso goes to auction in London next month -- the first time it will have been seen in public for half a century.
"We have priced it at between six and nine million pounds ($8.8 million-$13 million), but that is a conservative estimate. Works of quality are being chased," said Conor Jordan,
director of modern art at auction house Christie's.
The painting, Nu au Collier, is one of a series Picasso painted in the early 1930s of his young lover Marie-Therese Walter.
It is part of a private European collection and has not been seen in public since appearing in two exhibitions in Oslo in the 1950s, Jordan told Reuters at a viewing of the work Thursday.
The 45-year-old Picasso, then married to Olga, famously bumped into the 17-year-old Marie-Therese in the street in Paris in 1927 allegedly blurting out the corny pick-up line "I
am Picasso. You and I are going to do great things together."
It worked, and they did -- although Picasso did not leave his wife until 1935 when Marie-Therese gave birth to their daughter Maia.
Nu au Collier, painted in 1932, is unusual for Picasso in its vibrant use of color and line that closely echoes the style of his friend and competitor Henri Matisse.
Pablo Picasso Painting
BartCop TV!
To Debut In UK This Weekend
'The Osbournes'
The hit U.S. docu-soap which charts the family life of heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne is to air in Britain this Sunday, cable channel MTV said Thursday.
"At Home With The Osbournes," which became a surprise hit in the U.S. earlier this year, follows the day-to-day life of the former Black Sabbath singer and
his family in their Beverly Hills mansion.
The series, consisting of 10-half hour episodes quickly established itself as MTV's most watched show in the U.S, attracting more than seven million viewers a week.
'The Osbournes'
The 2 Pauls On The Road
Sharp Dressed Men
Treasury Seecretary Paul O'Neill, right, and singer Bono from the band U2 wear the traditional outfits presented to them by the villagers of Wamali, in Tamale, northern
Ghana, Wednesday May 22, 2002.
Photo by Saurabh Das
Brings His Art Back to Liverpool
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney returned to Liverpool, home of the Beatles, Thursday to launch a showcase of his art in the gallery he visited as a child with John Lennon.
One of northern England's main art galleries, the Walker, is exhibiting over 60 of McCartney's works, including, for the first time, wooden sculptures.
The former Beatle took up painting 20 years ago, at the age of 40. Since then, he has produced some 600 pieces.
"For me it's an enjoyment thing," he told reporters. "I basically like to apply paint onto canvas. I just like the act of it -- I make it up as I go along."
McCartney's first exhibition was held in Siegen, Germany three years ago. The show in Liverpool is his first major exhibition in Britain.
Paul McCartney
Goddess Of Piercings?
Kali
Hindu devotees of Goddess Kali pierce sharp objects through their checks in the northern Indian city of Ludhiana in Punjab state May 23, 2002. The devotees, mostly from
southern Indian states, traveled north to display their obeisance to the Goddess, a ritual which is performed each year before the monsoon period.
Photo by Rajesh Bhambi
British Tabloid Cleared
Steve Bing
Britain's press watchdog ruled Thursday that a tabloid did not violate the privacy of producer Steve Bing when it printed his phone number and urged readers to call
and berate him for his treatment of actress Elizabeth Hurley.
Lawyers said he had received harassing and threatening phone calls after the article ran in the Daily Mirror, and argued to the Press Complaints Commission that the
tabloid had encouraged its readers to violate his privacy.
The commission said it "regretted any distress" Bing had experienced, but ruled that the Daily Mirror had not broken the newspaper industry's code of conduct.
The commission, an industry self-regulatory body, said the tabloid was right to argue that the phone number was already in the public domain, because it was for the
main switchboard at Bing's Los Angeles film company and was listed in phone directories.
Steve Bing
In Memory
Dave Berg
Dave Berg, who affectionately spoofed what he called "the human condition" in the pages of Mad magazine for more than 40 years, has died of cancer. He was 81.
Berg, who created the satirical magazine's enduring "The Lighter Side of" comic strip, died May 16 at his home in Marina del Rey.
He began working for Mad as a free-lancer in 1956, introducing "The Lighter Side of" in 1961.
"They were satirizing commercials, movies and TV programs," he once told Contemporary Authors. "I added something new - people. That's when `The Lighter Side' was born. It was more than just gags, it was a psychological and sociological study of the human condition, and truth in humor."
He often put friends, family members and colleagues into his cartoons, among them Mad's late publisher William M. Gaines, whose head appeared mounted, like a deer's, on the side of a wall.
He also drew himself into the strip regularly, as Roger Kaputnik, an everyman with an always-present pipe.
"Dave was a visual critic, but a warm-spirited critic, not a hard-nosed critic," said Nick Meglin, co-editor of Mad. "He saw the American scene as a wonderful example of our culture, our society and our life, and did comments on that."
Born in New York City, Berg attended Cooper Union Art School in New York, landing a job inking backgrounds for the newspaper comic strip "The Spirit" when he was 20.
Later, he worked under Stan Lee at Timely Comics (now Marvel Comics), before moving on to Mad, which he described as "the main attraction, the big event, the grand opening."
During World War II, he was a member of the Army Air Corps and served as a war correspondent in Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan and Japan.
In addition to his magazine work, he wrote and illustrated 17 books for Mad, including "Mad's Dave Berg Looks at Living," "Mad's Dave Berg Looks at Things," and "Mad's Dave Berg Looks at the USA."
He also produced two humorous books on religion, "My Friend God" and "Roger Kaputnik and God."
His final "Lighter Side" panels are scheduled for the September issue of Mad, marking the magazine's 50th anniversary.
Dave Berg
Reader Contribution
Jenna In Paris
Thanks, Adrian!
Still Seeking Volunteers
'The Osbournes'
Page 2 !
Put up a page devoted to 'The Osbournes'
C'mon....send your thoughts, your impressions, your views, your favorite quotes...
Scroll down for lots of addys to pick from (or 'from which to pick', for the truly anal retentive).
