'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jim Hightower: WHERE ARE THEY NOW (jimhightower.com)
Those who say that George W lied when he claimed in the 2000 election campaign that he was a "compassionate conservative" are simply ignoring the touching compassion that he has shown for one group: the neo-con architects of his disastrous misadventure in Iraq.
Men should beware of the misery years (guardian.co.uk)
Stuart Jeffries: Are you 35-44, male, balding, paunchy, no longer a tiger in the sack, juggling family and job? Well, stop whining.
Bruce Dancis: Comedy boils over when Lewis Black hits the stage (McClatchy Newspapers; Posted on popmatters.com)
Picture an angry bull or bulldog in an old cartoon: His hoofs/paws beat the ground, his nostrils flare and steam is coming out of his ears. Then picture the human equivalent-Lewis Black.
Chrissy Iley: Farewell French and Saunders (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
After 20 years, French and Saunders are still our funniest female duo. So why are they calling time on their partnership?
David 'Honeyboy' Edwards - The last bluesman (telegraph.co.uk)
He grew up in near-slavery, survived the chain gang and played with America's greatest blues musicians. At 92, David 'Honeyboy' Edwards is still going strong. He talks to Garth Cartwright.
'It's surreal madness' (guardian.co.uk)
Judith Mackrell hears how a cult ballet, unperformed for a decade, catapulted a struggling dance company to worldwide fame and a leading slot at the festival.
Tim O'Neil: The Implacable Progress of 'Porn' (popmatters.com)
Porn appears inherently inhospitable to subtext, context, or artistic aspirations, cruel, mechanistic, and antithetical to sustained narrative. Porn filmmaking is practically a contradiction in terms: any "artistic" obfuscation of the action on display risks alienating the genre's core audience.
Jimmy Lee Shreeve: "The Stone Age Diet: Why I Eat Like a Caveman" (Independent UK. Posted on alternet.org)
Desperate to lose weight, one person found that only one diet did the trick: that of Paleolithic man. Bring on the meat.
Reader Suggestion
Made You Think
Hey there Marty,
I thought you might want to check out a project I've been
running for oh, 4 years or so. Not particularly
thought provoking, but people seem to love it.
Keep up the good work,
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot and humid.
While we were in PA, our beloved next-door neighbor had central air installed. The unit is about 10' from our bedroom window, and I don't think
it could be advertised as quiet.
Richest Rap Mogul
Jay-Z
Jay-Z wins all around, says Forbes.com. He's got Beyonce on his arm - and more millions than 50 Cent and Diddy.
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson ranks second with an estimated $32 million. The 31-year-old rapper-businessman oversees his G-Unit record label, clothing line, ring tones and other enterprises, and has sold more than 11 million albums. His latest record, "Curtis," is due out Sept. 11.
Diddy (real name: Sean Combs) placed third with an estimated $28 million. A fashion plate, he has a clothing line, Sean John, and heads Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment and its record label. Diddy, 37, is also host of MTV's "Making the Band" series.
Rounding out the top five are Timbaland ($21 million) and Dr. Dre ($20 million). They're followed by Eminem ($18 million); Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams and Scott Storch (all $17 million); Ludacris and T.I. (both $16 million); Outkast and Lil Jon (both $14 million); Ice Cube ($13 million); Jermaine Dupri and Swizz Beatz (both $12 million); Chamillionaire and The Game (both $11 million); and Young Joc ($10 million).
Jay-Z
Mistaken For Vandal In Aussie Outback
Stephen King
Best-selling author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal as he horrified an Australian outback bookstore, local media reported Thursday.
A customer at the store in remote Alice Springs raised the alarm after noticing a man walk in off the street and begin writing in several books, manager Bev Ellis told national radio.
"As the owner of a bookshop, when you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey (touchy)," Ellis said.
"So we immediately ran to the books and lo-and-behold here was the signature in several books. We sort of spun around on our heels, (saying) 'where did he go, where did he go'?"
Stephen King
Not A Romney
Capt. Beau Biden
The son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is preparing for deployment to Iraq next year. Capt. Beau Biden, a Judge Advocate General in the Delaware National Guard and the state's attorney general, is part of the 261st Signal Brigade that has been told to prepare for duty in Iraq in 2008. They have not been given a date of deployment yet.
"I don't want him going," Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said from the campaign trail Wednesday, according to a report on Radio Iowa. "But I tell you what, I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years and so how we leave makes a big difference."
Biden criticized Democratic rivals such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama who have voted against Iraq funding bills to try to pressure resident Bush to end the war.
"There's no political point worth my son's life," Biden said, according to Radio Iowa. "There's no political point worth anybody's life out there. None."
Capt. Beau Biden
Entries Edited
Wikipedia
People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program.
The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a Web site that was quickly overwhelmed with searches.
It was not known whether changes were made by an official representative of an agency or company, Griffith said, but it was certain the change was made by someone with access to the organization's network.
Wikipedia
Production Problems
"24"
The seventh season of the spy thriller "24" is facing another production delay.
The real-time Fox drama starring Kiefer Sutherland was scheduled to start filming August 27, but will now begin shooting September 10 so that the writers can complete enough scripts for the new seasonlong plot.
Production was originally set to begin in late July-early August, but the producers' original set-in-Africa story line fell through and they went back to the drawing board.
"24" is going through a major revamping this year after coming off a lackluster sixth season.
"24"
No Date Set
Jenna Bush
US resident George W. Bush's non-virgin, tequila enthusiast daughter Jenna is engaged to be married to long-time boyfriend Henry Hager, US First Lady Laura Bush's spokeswoman announced Thursday.
No wedding date has been set, Sally McDonough said in a statement.
"Resident and Mrs George W. Bush are happy to announce the engagement of their daughter, Jenna Bush, to Mr. Henry Hager, son of the Honorable and Mrs. John H. Hager of Richmond, Virginia. Miss Bush and Mr. Hager became engaged Wednesday, August 15, 2007," she said.
Jenna Bush
City Council Yanks Permit
Home Depot
The Los Angeles City Council yanked Home Depot's building permit and directed the national home-improvement giant back to the drawing board for its planned Sunland-Tujunga store.
The decision won't prevent Home Depot from eventually opening its Foothill Boulevard site, but it will require the company to first study traffic and environmental issues.
The council voted 12-1 in favor of revoking the building permit. Councilman Tony Cardenas cast the lone opposing vote.
Home Depot
One of my pals was involved in this protest and highly recommends this site - no2homedepot.com
Feds Eye Polar Contract
Ted Stevens
Federal authorities investigating Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Bridge To Nowhere) have turned their attention toward a federal contract that made millions of dollars for one of the senator's friends, a wealthy Alaska oil field contractor.
The Justice Department recently asked the National Science Foundation for records related to VECO Inc., the company at the center of a sweeping corruption investigation. VECO's founder, Bill Allen, has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers and oversaw a complicated home renovation project at Stevens' house in 2000.
VECO and its subsidiaries have so far gotten more than $50 million from the science agency for contracts to provide transportation, equipment and other support for Arctic researchers. The contracts could be worth much more in the coming years. They represent the company's most lucrative federal contracts, according the federal procurement data.
Ted Stevens
Norwegian 'Angel School' Opens
Princess Märtha Louise
A school newly created by Norway's Princess Märtha Louise for students who wish to "get in contact with (their) angels" was due to open on Thursday at an undisclosed location because of the clamour it has caused.
The project has been criticised in the Scandinavian country where some have called for the 35-year-old princess, a devotee of alternative therapies, to renounce her official title or even get medical help.
Märtha Louise, who claims she is clairvoyant, says the Astarte school will offer students the chance to get in contact with their angels, described as "forces that surround us and who are a resource and help in all the aspects of our lives."
Fourth in line to the throne, she already renounced most of her official duties and title of "her royal highness" after she married Ari Behn, a commoner, in 2002.
Princess Märtha Louise
Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Compact Disc
It was Aug. 17, 1982, and row upon row of palm-sized plates with a rainbow sheen began rolling off an assembly line near Hanover, Germany.
An engineering marvel at the time, today they are instantly recognizable as Compact Discs, a product that turns 25 years old on Friday - and whose future is increasingly in doubt in an age of iPods and digital downloads.
The CD still accounts for the majority of the music industry's recording revenues, but its sales have been in a freefall since peaking early this decade, in part due to the rise of online file-sharing, but also as consumers spend more of their leisure dollars on other entertainment purchases, such as DVDs and video games.
Compact Disc
Found In Rubbish
Medieval Crucifix
An 800-year-old, gold-plated crucifix that went missing after being seized by the Nazis has been found in a rubbish skip in Austria, police said.
The crucifix, made of copper and enamel, was crafted in Limoges, France, and was part of a Polish art collection brought to Austria during Nazi rule, Josef Holzberger, police spokesman in Salzburg, said on Thursday.
It was found in 2004 in the lakeside winter resort of Zell am See by a woman combing through a skip filled with the discarded possessions of a neighbor who had just died.
Last month the woman showed the crucifix to a friend who realized it might be something special and took it to a museum.
Medieval Crucifix
In Memory
Max Roach
By his 30th birthday, Max Roach was already considered the greatest jazz drummer ever by his peers. By the time he died this week, the 83-year-old master percussionist was known worldwide as much more: innovator, activist, teacher, genius.
Roach, whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness.
No additional details were available, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records, where Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. Roach was elected to the Downbeat magazine Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Grammy Hall of Fame 15 years later.
In 1988, he became the first jazz musician ever honored with a MacArthur Fellowship - receiving a $372,000 "genius grant."
The creatively restless Roach, who debuted with Ellington's band as a self-taught 16-year-old drummer in 1940, challenged his listeners and himself by making music that connected the jazz of the pre-World War II era with the beats of the hip-hop generation.
The North Carolina native was born on Jan. 10, 1924, and moved to Brooklyn with his family four years later. A player piano left by the previous tenants gave Roach his musical introduction.
He would take often the nickel train ride from Brooklyn to Harlem, listening to the music spilling out of the Apollo Theater or the Savoy Ballroom. While there, he befriended saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzie Gillespie as the burgeoning bop movement took flight. By 1942, he was playing behind Parker in a Harlem after-hours club; two years later, Roach joined Gillespie and Coleman Hawkins in one of the first bebop recording sessions.
What distinguished Roach from other drummers were his fast hands and ability to simultaneously maintain several rhythms. By layering different beats and varying the meter, Roach pushed jazz beyond the boundaries of standard 4/4 time. His dislocated beats helped define bebop.
Through the jazz upheaval of the 1940s and '50s, Roach played bebop with the Charlie Parker Quintet and cool bop with the Miles Davis Capitol Orchestra. He joined trumpeter Clifford Brown in playing hard bop, a jazz form that maintained bebop's rhythmic drive while incorporating the blues and gospel.
In 1952, Roach and bassist-composer Charles Mingus founded Debut Records. Among the short-lived label's releases was a famed 1953 Toronto performance in Massey Hall, featuring Roach, Mingus, Parker, Gillespie and pianist Bud Powell.
But bad times were lurking. Roach watched several friends - including Parker - die from heroin addiction. He was further devastated when Brown and Powell died in a 1956 car accident, slipping into his own battle with drugs and alcohol.
Roach re-emerged in the free jazz era with a new political consciousness, becoming one of jazz's loudest voices for civil rights. Albums like "We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite," released in 1960 to celebrate the upcoming centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, reflected his support of black activism.
He is survived by five children: sons Daryl and Raoul, and daughters Maxine, Ayo and Dara.
Max Roach
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