'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
GINA HOLLAND: High court trims whistleblower rights (Associated Press)
The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote. In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.
Annalee Newitz: Anti-War Comics Surge (AlterNet.org)
An anti-war comic book series shows why comics are surging in popularity: because they can help us make sense of our troubled times.
Joel Stein: My career day at Beverly Hills High (latimes.com)
MOST MORNINGS I wake up at 9:30, make an inordinately complicated breakfast, read two newspapers, go to the gym, take a shower sometime around 3 p.m. and, if it happens to be a Sunday, write penis jokes for this column for two hours before making dinner. So it made sense that Beverly Hills High School asked me to be the keynote speaker for its career day. Who else has time to talk to high school students in the middle of the day?
The Chauffeur
Michael Roberts: Todd Rundgren is being paid well to drive the New Cars
Why the hell did '70s superstar Todd Rundgren agree to lead a faux reunion of the Cars dubbed the New Cars?
Lucy Mangan: Whose grave is it anyway? (guardian.co.uk)
It's official. The cemeteries are full. Like, seriously. So brimful of bodies are they that the government yesterday announced proposals to begin a doubling-up policy for graves. Older remains would be dug up and reburied at greater depth so that a newer arrival (or departer, depending on your point of view) can be placed on top. But with whom would you choose to share your final resting place?
Tomas Alex Tizon: Onward Christian Surfers (latimes.com)
Dean Sabate and his wave-riding friends spread the Gospel on Waikiki, searching for the hopeless, lonely and lost in paradise.
"Un. Able. To. Govern." (Video)
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) delivers a blistering indictment of the Republican Party in this speech from the floor of the U.S. House.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny early.
AOL admitted a 'glitch' with mail Thursday.
Some glitch - they added animated advertising to even blank e-mail-forms. Not that it mucks at all with a crappy dial-up < /sarcasm>.
No new flags.
Frontline Patriots
Four Librarians
Four Connecticut librarians who had been barred from revealing that they had received a request for patrons' records from the federal government spoke out yesterday, expressing frustration about the sweeping powers given to law enforcement authorities by the USA Patriot Act.
The librarians took turns at the microphone at their lawyers' office and publicly identified themselves as the collective John Doe who had sued the United States attorney general after their organization received a confidential demand for patron records in a secret counterterrorism case. They had been ordered, under the threat of prosecution, not to talk about the request with anyone. The librarians, who all have leadership roles at a small consortium called Library Connection in Windsor, Conn., said they opposed allowing the government unchecked power to demand library records and were particularly incensed at having been subject to the open-ended nondisclosure order.
"I'm John Doe, and if I had told you before today that the F.B.I. was requesting library records, I could have gone to jail," said one of the four, Peter Chase, a librarian from Plainville who is on the executive committee of Library Connection's board.
The librarians described many surreal moments from the nearly yearlong legal battle. When a judge heard arguments on their case in Bridgeport, they said, they had to watch a television hookup from Hartford because federal lawyers did not want them at the hearing.
Four Librarians
The Kids Are All Right
Murrieta Valley High School
Murrieta Valley High School seniors Chad King and Taylor Osland are popular, well-liked students at the campus. Both students have attended the Murrieta school district since grade school and have made lots of friends over the years.
But there are differences that set Chad and Taylor apart from the vast majority of students at their school, differences that can sometimes can be looked down upon or scoffed at.
Chad, 18, has been openly homosexual since his sophomore year. Taylor, 19, has Down syndrome and alopecia, which has caused her to be bald.
But instead of ostracism, the two teens have been embraced by their peers, who don't see them in derogatory ways. In fact, it's just the opposite, as the two students were recently voted prom king and queen.
Murrieta Valley High School
Hospital News
Roger Ebert
Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert, who has battled cancer in recent years, will undergo cancer surgery again, according to a published report.
In Thursday's Chicago Sun-Times, where Ebert has been the movie critic for nearly 40 years, columnist Robert Feder reported that Ebert will have surgery June 16 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland.
"It's not life threatening, and I expect to make a full recovery," the 63-year-old critic and host of the nationally syndicated movie review show, "Ebert & Roeper," told Feder. "I'll continue to function as a film critic during this time."
"This is known as a slow-growing and persistent cancer," Ebert said. "You live with it."
Roger Ebert
Baby News
Weisz - Aronofsky
It's a boy for Oscar-winning actress Rachel Weisz and her fiance, director Darren Aronofsky. The couple had their first child Wednesday in New York, according to Weisz spokeswoman Kelly Bush.
Weisz, 35, won an Oscar in March for her portrayal of a political activist in "The Constant Gardener." Later this year, she can be seen in "The Fountain," which Aronofsky directed.
Weisz - Aronofsky
'Yes, I Am Pregnant'
Anna Nicole Smith
Anna Nicole Smith has confirmed that she's pregnant, in a video clip posted on her Web site.
"Let me stop all the rumors. Yes, I am pregnant. I'm happy, I'm very very happy about it. Everything's goin' really, really good and I'll be checking in and out periodically on the Web and I'll let you see me as I'm growing," the 38-year-old former reality TV star and Playboy playmate says.
Smith, who is floating on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool as a small white dog barks in the background, did not provide any details.
Anna Nicole Smith
Sues Tabloid
Lark Voorhies
Lark Voorhies, who played Lisa Turtle in TV's "Saved By the Bell," has sued The National Enquirer for libel over an article that included claims she had a drug problem.
The suit says Voorhies, whom it describes as a "famous and popular actress," lost several "potential acting and hosting jobs" after the tabloid published a June 2005 article that said she was hospitalized for a cocaine addiction.
Her doctor wrote a letter confirming that she had no addiction and was not hospitalized for drug abuse, the suit said.
Lark Voorhies
Songwriter Charged
Hal Bynum
A country music songwriter and his wife have been charged with growing marijuana inside their home and possessing hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Hal Bynum, 71, and Jan Bynum, 48, turned themselves in Wednesday and were released after posting $73,500 bail each, police said Thursday.
Bynum wrote the Kenny Rogers' hit "Lucille" as well as songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Patty Loveless and Jim Reeves. His song "The Old, Old House" has been recorded by George Jones, Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, according to his Web site.
Hal Bynum
Letters Sold
Voltaire
A Russian art dealer bought 26 letters written by French philosopher and satirist Voltaire to Catherine the Great for a mystery buyer, a local paper reported on Thursday.
Alexander Khochinsky, a Moscow art dealer, told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper that he bought the letters for 583,200 euros ($750,800) at a Sotheby's auction in Paris.
He declined to comment when asked if he had bought the letters at the request of a Russian state official, the paper said. But he said the letters would be returned to Russia.
Voltaire
Titanic Medal Sold At Auction
Molly Brown
A bronze medal commissioned by Titanic passenger Molly Brown to honor one of her rescuers sold Thursday for $10,200 at a Christie's auction.
A corroded cast bronze flag from a Titanic lifeboat sold for $72,000, and a bronze name board, from another of the ill-fated liner's lifeboats, sold for $60,000.
Brown was known as "the unsinkable Molly Brown" for inspiring the people in her lifeboat to row and keep calm despite their fear and the frigid temperatures. She and other passengers were saved by the captain and crew of the ship Carpathia, whom Brown later honored with bronze medals, including the one sold on Thursday.
Molly Brown
Admits Paternity
Prince Albert
Monaco's Prince Albert II has acknowledged he is the father of a 14-year-old California girl, his lawyer said in an interview published Thursday in a French newspaper.
Jazmin Grace Rotolo is welcome in Monaco but she cannot take the throne and will not bear the Grimaldi family name, lawyer Thierry Lacoste was quoted as saying in Le Figaro.
French media reports have said Albert, 48, had a brief affair with the girl's mother, Tamara Rotolo, in 1991 when she vacationed on the Cote d'Azur. A 1992 Riverside County birth certificate identified the girl's father as Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre Grimaldi of Monaco.
Prince Albert
Adventures Continue In Costa Rica
Tom Green
Former MTV talk-show host Tom Green said Thursday that an accident near his house in Costa Rica has made him more respectful of the ocean.
Green, who was in Costa Rica this week collecting video for a new project, said he was fishing alone two months ago when a violent wave slammed him into a rock. He said he hit his head, broke two ribs and stumbled back to his house before driving to a hospital about two hours away by dirt roads.
"I have a tendency to leap into things, sometimes too hard. I think that definitely made me more aware. I'm looking both ways across the street more often," Green said.
Tom Green
Remains of Wife, Daughter To Be Repatriated
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne will soon be reunited with his wife - more than 130 years after they were buried an ocean apart.
The remains of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne and their daughter Una will be brought from England and reinterred June 26 in the Hawthorne family plot at Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord, where The Scarlet Letter author was buried in 1864, The Boston Globe reported Thursday.
Sophia and their three children, Rose, Una and Julian, moved to England, where the family had lived when Hawthorne was in diplomatic service. Sophia died there in 1871 and Una died in 1877. Both were buried at Kensal Green cemetery in London.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
In Memory
Thelma Bernstein
Former singer and actress Thelma Bernstein, the mother of comedy filmmaker-actor Albert Brooks and comedy writer-performer Bob ('Super Dave' Osbourne) Einstein , has died. She was 95.
Bernstein was discovered in a New York nightclub in the mid-1930s by a talent scout and signed to a contract by RKO. She had an uncredited part in the 1936 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical "Follow the Fleet" and supporting roles in "New Faces of 1937" and "The Toast of New York."
She gave up her career after marrying dialect comedian Harry ('Parkyakarkus') Einstein , a fellow "New Faces of 1937" cast member. He died in 1958 and two years later she married Irving Bernstein.
She played small roles in two Brooks comedies - "Real Life" in 1979 and "Modern Romance" in 1981, in which she played her son's mother. She also was the inspiration for Brooks' 1996 comedy "Mother," which featured Debbie Reynolds in the title role.
Thelma Bernstein
In Memory
Maya Miller
Maya Miller, a philanthropist who championed women's rights along with many environmental, liberal and progressive causes for decades, died Wednesday at her Washoe Valley ranch home. She was 90.
Miller's activism won her a spot on then-President Nixon's "enemies list" during the Vietnam War era. A board member of the national League of Women Voters, she resigned when the league voted down an anti-war resolution in 1969.
Miller also was a founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Campaign Fund and an early backer of Emily's List, which supports women candidates in national races. She ran for U.S. Senate herself in 1974, losing in the primary to now-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
In 1991, Miller was among several women who broke a U.S. embargo and trucked about $100,000 worth of medicine and food to Iraqi women and children. She helped drive one of the trucks from Jordan into Baghdad.
Miller was raised in Southern California and moved to Nevada in the early 1950s. She had a master's degree in English literature from Cornell and did doctoral work at Stanford.
Maya Miller
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