'Best of TBH Politoons'
Monday, May 28th
Erin Hart
Please join Erin Hart when she fills in for Jay Marvin on AM760 Progressive Talk, Monday, May 28th, from 6am - 10am MDT (8am - 12noon EDT, 7am - 11am CDT, 5am - 9am PDT)
Kick off the Summer with searing discussion.
An immigration bill only Kafka would love, the Democrats pulling of the
deadline, Bush's intransigence on the veto if a deadline for withdrawal
present, and Monica Goodling's testimony about Attorney General Alberto
Gonzalez and the broken Department of (In)Justice.
All that and Memorial Day thoughts about the troops and the nature of war.
The Erin Hart Show
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
The Model Graduation Speaker
College graduation is one of the few occasions in life when speeches really matter. Jay Parini has heard many graduation speakers over the years. His favorite? Mr. Rogers...
Richard Horton: What's Wrong with Doctors (nybooks.com)
Few can doubt that Western medicine has been a phenomenal success. Heart disease kills two-thirds fewer people now than it did fifty years ago. The frequency of conditions as diverse as stroke and trauma is being gradually checked. Mortality from breast cancer has fallen by a quarter in less than two decades. Doctors would dearly like to attribute these impressive results in Western countries to their accumulated expertise and the advances of science. But as Atul Gawande points out in Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, his latest collection of lucid essays, the residual contradiction is that while medicine succeeds, it never seems to succeed well enough.
Jim Hightower: A CHOCOLATE MESS (jimhightower.com)
Shouldn't chocolate contain, you know... chocolate? By which I mean cocoa butter and solids, derived from the cacao tree, which the dictionary specifically says is "the source of chocolate." No, says Hershey, Nestle, and other industrial candy makers that are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to let them blatantly lie to us consumers about what's in their confections.
Salim Muwakkil: Blaming Hip-Hop for Imus (inthesetimes.com)
Instead of blaming rappers for vulgarity, social resources should be channeled to combat the conditions that create those lyrics.
You don't have to be mad to be a great actor ... but it helps (guardian.co.uk)
As Antony Sher gets ready to play a tortured genius, he looks back on the disordered lives of our top thespians.
Joel Stein: 'Cavemen' sitcom: art imitating advertising? (latimes.com)
YES, THE TV PILOT I wrote this year was rejected while a sitcom version of the Geico caveman commercials made the fall schedule. I get how that's embarrassing. And I understand why every sitcom writer I know, entertainment journalist I've read and George Lopez (who said, upon being canceled by ABC, "A Chicano can't be on TV but a caveman can?") has focused so much of their dismay about this week's "upfronts" - when networks unveil their fall lineups - on "Cavemen."
Heather Augustyn: Kurt Vonnegut's Last Interview (inthesetimes.com)
The late, great author on family, freethinkers and the entertainment in Indiana
My Kind of Book (guardian.co.uk)
Why don't straight people read gay fiction, asks author Nick Alexander.
A Letter from Michael Moore: 'Sicko' is Socko in Cannes! (michaelmoore.com)
... as you may have read by now, our premiere of "Sicko" at the Cannes Film Festival has been an overwhelming success. The 2,000 people inside the Lumiere Theater were alternately in tears and laughing during the two-hour film -- and when it was over, they gave it a standing ovation that seemed to go on for nearly 15 minutes!
Mikhaela B. Reid: Credit Card (Cartoon)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD's taking a well-deserved day off.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sun popped out by noon and the marine layer rolled back in before dinner.
Hosts Cannes AIDS Benefit
Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone played auctioneer, Kylie Minogue and Julian Lennon sang, and burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese did a saucy strip routine - all to raise money for AIDS research.
An annual benefit soiree on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday raised $7 million for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).
Stone, wearing a clingy silver dress, played hostess and fast-talking auctioneer throughout the night. When George Clooney and other cast members of "Ocean's Thirteen" came onstage to auction off a yacht vacation, Stone promised a bidder: "If you put up $350,000, George will kiss you."
Clooney went through with it, and he and Stone sold two yacht vacations instead of one for a total of $700,000.
Sharon Stone
Reunion In The Works?
Cream
Jack Bruce says Cream is once again rising to the top. The bassist for the legendary rock group told The Associated Press on Thursday that he agreed recently to play an unspecified show or shows later this year with guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker.
Bruce would not say when the reunion would occur, but that it would not be the seven-continent Live Earth shows on July 7: "It's a bit later than that."
Cream
Dead Guy Spokesmen
Doc Martens
Joe Strummer is one of four dead rock stars who will head up a new advertising campaign for Dr. Martens boots.
The Clash legend appears alongside Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, and Joey Ramone on posters for the well-loved footwear manufacturer.
Famed advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi isunderstood to be behind the campaign, which sees the music icons wearing their prized boots while dressed as angels.
Doc Martens
Reverts To K-Rock
Free FM
With a blast of Nirvana's "All Apologies," the 17-month effort to establish a talk station at New York's 92.3 FM ended abruptly Thursday afternoon with the return of K-Rock, the station's identity before Howard Stern departed for satellite radio in January 2006.
The new format is billed as "The Rock of New York," and returns the station to the familiar musical ground of bands such as Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica and Linkin Park. The station will remain anchored by the oft-disciplined morning drive-time pairing of Gregg (Opie) Hughes and Anthony Cumia, said station general manager Tom Chiusano.
The format change ends a failed experiment that briefly converted David Lee Roth from rocker to radio host with a show that lasted barely three months after Stern left the CBS Radio station. Opie and Anthony quickly stepped in, doing three hours on Free FM before moving over to XM Satellite Radio for the rest of their show.
Two weeks ago, the station dumped "The Dog House with JV and Elvis" program after its co-hosts made a prank phone call rife with offensive Asian stereotypes. For its Memorial Day weekend launch, K-Rock will air without DJs, although a search for on-air talent would occur in the next few weeks, CBS Radio said.
Free FM
'The Media Room'
TCM
Turner Classic Movies has launched an online video destination devoted to classic films.
Dubbed the Media Room, the video portal lives on the TCM.com site and launched on Tuesday with more than 3,000 pieces of video content in the form of short films, movie clips, trailers and interstitials from TCM programming.
The launch also featured the online premiere of the 1937 romantic comedy "Living on Love" in its entirety. In the future, Media Room will offer features in a widescreen Cinemascope format and without letterboxing, which is designed to duplicate the cinematic experience.
While TCM's Media Room content will be updated daily and drawn from the cable network's television programming, it also will offer users the ability to create playlists and search for content based on an actor, director or filmmaker.
TCM
Hot Authors
Angry Atheists
The time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the best-seller list, a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers.
Sam Harris was a little-known graduate student until he wrote the phenomenally successful "The End of Faith" and its follow-up, "Letter to a Christian Nation." Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" struck similar themes - and sold.
The writers see themselves in a battle for reason in a world crippled by superstition. In their view, Muslim extremists, Jewish settlers and Christian right activists are from the same mold, using fairy tales posing as divine scripture to justify their lust for power. Bad behavior in the name of religion is behind some of the most dangerous global conflicts and the terrorist attacks in the U.S., London and Madrid, the atheists say.
Angry Atheists
Manipulating The News
Rupert Murdoch
While seeking to polish his journalistic image in a bid to buy the prestigious Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch has landed in a gossip-page scandal of his own New York Post, which is accused of killing stories to advance his interests.
Murdoch has been wearing his Sunday best since his News Corp. offered $5 billion, or $60 per share, to buy the Wall Street Journal's publisher, Dow Jones & Co. Inc.
But the Bancroft family, which owns a controlling interest in Dow Jones, has so far snubbed the offer amid concerns raised by Murdoch's detractors that the hard-driving media mogul might undermine the journalistic integrity of one of the nation's top newspapers.
The column apparently was published as a "preemptive strike" in anticipation that the allegations, contained in an affidavit supporting another fired writer, Jared Paul Stern, who is threatening to sue the paper, might surface elsewhere.
Rupert Murdoch
Endorses NY Nuclear Plant
Paul Newman
Call him Cool Hand Nuke. Paul Newman weighed in Wednesday on the Indian Point nuclear power facility in the New York suburbs, pronouncing it safer than military bases he had visited.
The actor and salad dressing salesman visited the Buchanan, N.Y., facility on Monday, according to Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, the company that owns Indian Point.
Newman, the star of such films as "Cool Hand Luke," "Slap Shot" and "Nobody's Fool," praised the nuclear power facility as an important part of the region's energy future because it doesn't produce greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.
Paul Newman
Reuniting For 50th Celebration
Osmonds
The Osmonds will reunite this summer for a TV special celebrating a half-century in the entertainment business.
Seven Osmond siblings - Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay, Donny, Marie and Jimmy - are scheduled to be onstage Aug. 13-14 at The Orleans Hotel Showroom, publicist Kevin Sasaki said Thursday from Los Angeles.
The shows will be taped for "The Osmonds 50th Anniversary," which will air next March on PBS stations.
Osmonds
LA Judge Gives O.J. Funds
Goldman Family
O.J. Simpson must give any money a Florida lawyer is holding for him to the family of slaying victim Ronald Goldman to satisfy a multimillion-dollar wrongful death judgment, a judge has ruled.
Attorney Leonardo D. Starke is believed to be holding about $3,500 for Simpson in a client trust account in Florida, where the former football star now lives, Goldman attorney David Cook said Wednesday.
The amount is small but the court ruling could have broader implications for the Goldman family, which has tried for a decade to collect on a $33.5-million judgment against Simpson. Virtually none of the money has been collected, and the family has accused Simpson of trying to conceal his income.
Goldman Family
Ancestry.com Puts 90M Online
War Records
On Thursday, Ancestry.com unveils more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War's end in 1975. The site also has the names of 3.5 million U.S. soldiers killed in action, including 2,000 who died in Iraq.
The records, which can be accessed free until the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, came from the National Archives and Records Administration and include 37 million images, draft registration cards from both world wars, military yearbooks, prisoner-of-war records from four wars, unit rosters from the Marine Corps from 1893 through 1958, and Civil War pension records, among others.
Ancestry.com, part of parent company MyFamily.com Inc., spent $3 million to digitize the military records. It took nearly a year, including some 1,500 handwriting specialists racking up 270,000 hours to review the oldest records.
After June 6, users can pay $155.40 a year for unlimited access to thousands of U.S. record databases, Sullivan said.
War Records
The Bird Gets It
Sparrow
As resident Bush took a question Thursday in the White House Rose Garden about scandals involving his Attorney General, he remarked, "I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job."
Simultaneously, a sparrow flew overhead and left a splash on the President's sleeve, which Bush tried several times to wipe off.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino promptly put the incident through the proper spin cycle, telling ABC News, "It was his lucky day...everyone knows that's a sign of good luck."
To watch the video, CLICK HERE.
Sparrow
Crooks & Liars - Bird Sh*ts on Bush During Press Conference
Cable Rankings
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of May 14-20. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses.
1. "The Sopranos" (Sunday, 9:05 p.m.), HBO, 4.76 million homes, 7.34 million viewers.
2. NBA Playoffs: San Antonio vs. Phoenix (Wednesday, 10:38 p.m.), TNT, 3.73 million homes, 4.96 million viewers.
3. NBA Playoffs: Phoenix vs. San Antonio (Friday, 9:44 p.m.), ESPN, 3.54 million homes, 4.53 million viewers.
4. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.45 million homes, 4.71 million viewers.
5. NBA Playoffs: Phoenix vs. San Antonio (Monday, 10:01 p.m.), TNT, 3.36 million homes, 4.27 million viewers.
6. NBA Playoffs: Golden State vs. Utah (Tuesday, 10:36 p.m.), TNT, 3.27 million homes, 4.39 million viewers.
7. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.25 million homes, 4.45 million viewers.
8. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.96 million homes, 3.96 million viewers.
9. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.755 million homes, 3.51 million viewers.
10. NBA Playoffs: Detroit vs. Chicago (Thursday, 8:05 p.m.), ESPN, 2.753 million homes, 3.45 million viewers.
11. "Hannah Montana" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 2.74 million homes, 3.76 million viewers.
12. "Drake & Josh" (Thursday, 5:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.7 million homes, 3.31 million viewers.
13. Baseball: N.Y. Yankees vs. N.Y. Mets (Sunday, 8 p.m.), ESPN, 2.69 million homes, 3.55 million viewers.
14. Movie: "Sweet Home Alabama" (Saturday, 8:30 p.m.), USA, 2.61 million homes, 3.57 million viewers.
15. Auto Racing: Nextel Cup (Saturday, 7 p.m.), Speed, 2.55 million homes, 3.78 million viewers.
Ratings
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