'TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
David Morgan: Bush critics say US is losing war on terror (Reuters)
U.S. terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have reached a stark conclusion about the war on terrorism: the United States is losing. ... the two former Clinton administration officials say President George W. Bush's policies have created a new haven for terrorism in Iraq that escalates the potential for Islamic violence against Europe and the United States.
Al Gore: The Threat to American Democracy (truthout.org)
I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse ... I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.
Annalee Newitz: Why Mice Sing (AlterNet.org)
Two scientists have discovered that mice sing. Does this mean that mice are a lot more like people than we ever realized, or people are a lot more like mice?
Joy Press: Black Power Rangers (villagevoice.com)
How to tell white folks the truth: Boondocks creator McGruder and his underage stand-ins
Maggie Brock: Five Minutes With Janeane Garofalo (Campus Progress. Posted on alternet.org)
The actress and radio host talks about Hollywood, Washington and the right-wing media machine.
ROGER EBERT: Talkin' about the weather with Nicolas Cage
Cage and his wife, Alice Kim, have a new son, born Oct 3. "His name is Kal-El. Alice and I wanted a name that was exotic and American and stood for something good, because our son is exotic and he's American and we think he's good. And Kal-El was Superman's name when he was born. I just liked the sound of it."
ROGER EBERT: Aloha fest comes into its own
"Tell me about him," I asked two ladies in front of me, after he was introduced and approximately 500 teenage girls with digital cameras stormed the stage. "Oh, he's the Korean Brad Pitt!" one said. "He's bigger than that!" said the other one. "He's the American Brad Pitt!"
According to the Nurses' Health Study, reported by MSNBC, the five most important habits for living healthy are:
1. Maintaining a healthy weight,
2. Not smoking,
3. At least 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week,
4. A healthy diet (a high-fiber diet low in saturated and trans fats, with limited sweets and refined grains), and
5. Moderate (or no) use of alcohol.
According to the study, those who maintain these habits, though few (3%), were five times less likely to have heart problems and ten times less likely to suffer from diabetes than those who did not did.
Tarzan's Tripes Forever, and Other Feghoots : The Web's First Shaggy Dog Story Archive
Austin, Texas Web Publishing: Music Links
Hubert's Poetry Corner
JEFF GANNON OR JIM GUCKERT?
CHOICES?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Cooler, but sunny.
Ahnold got slapped around at a televised voter forum tonight - with video links.
Best supper-time TV I've seen in a long time. I could watch a show like that every night!
No new flags.
Quits Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Kenneth Tomlinson
Kenneth Tomlinson, the former board chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting accused by critics of trying to politicize public television and radio, has resigned from the board, it said on Thursday.
Tomlinson, a Republican, quit shortly before CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz was to publish a report after investigating his activities, including paying outside researchers to check public programming for liberal bias.
The CPB said both the board and Tomlinson believed it was in the best interest of the CPB that he step down.
Kenneth Tomlinson
Seeks New Home
'A Prairie Home Companion'
Here's the news from Lake Wobegon: Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" is looking for a new home.
Keillor said the show will leave the Fitzgerald Theater, which Minnesota Public Radio bought for the show in 1980.
"We have no plans to do the Fitz after Jan. 1 in the current season," Keillor said Wednesday.
Nothing yet is planned for the fall of 2006, he added. "Our 2006-2007 season is an utter blank; I have no idea where we'll be or what we'll be doing."
'A Prairie Home Companion'
Fox Comedy Script
Margaret Cho
Fox Broadcasting Co. is developing a comedy script with comedienne Margaret Cho, who unhappily starred in the short-lived sitcom "All-American Girl" on ABC in 1994-95.
The ethnic, multigenerational family comedy is said to involve a character based on Cho's mother that she has made a fixture of her stand-up routine.
"I'm very excited about this project because, finally, I get to become my mother," said Cho, who would also executive produce with "Just Shoot Me" writer Susan Dickes.
Margaret Cho
Video for Anti-War Song
Robert Cray
Surrounded by fall foliage and hundreds of military boots, Robert Cray filmed a video for "Twenty," the anti-war title track of his latest album.
"I just want people to see what I deem as a war for no reason, but only for greed," the 52-year-old blues musician said Tuesday. "There's been nothing proven about weapons of mass destruction or anything like that and all these boots out here are of innocent victims."
Cray was standing in a hayfield, surrounded by 2,027 pairs of black military boots supplied by the American Friends Service Committee traveling exhibit, "Eyes Wide Open." Each pair represents a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.
"This isn't going to be on MTV or VH1," Cray said, adding that the video will be more like a mini-film that he hopes will be played at festivals or on the Web.
Robert Cray
Comedy Central Extends
'Colbert Report'
Comedy Central said Wednesday that it has renewed its news-spoof show "The Colbert Report" through 2006.
The cable network initially ordered an eight-week run of the show, a companion piece to "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," in which "Daily Show" alum Stephen Colbert spoofs news-commentary programs. The news of the extension comes less than three weeks after "Colbert" debuted October 17 in the post-"Daily Show" slot at 11:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays.
"Colbert" is averaging 1.2 million total viewers per half-hour episode, a 141% increase compared with the same period a year ago, and is retaining 86% of its lead-in audience from "The Daily Show."
'Colbert Report'
National Civil Rights Museum
Freedom Awards
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroism in the face of genocide inspired the movie "Hotel Rwanda," were honored Thursday as recipients of the National Civil Rights Museum's 2005 Freedom Awards.
Winfrey received the National Freedom Award for working to improve the lives of poor children in Africa and helping create a U.S. database of convicted child abusers. Previous recipients include Coretta Scott King, and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Rusesabagina received the International Freedom Award, which has previously been given to former South African President Nelson Mandela and rock star Bono.
Actress Ruby Dee and her late husband Ossie Davis were honored with the new Lifetime Achievement Award. Dee and Davis risked their careers resisting McCarthyism in the 1950s and were close friends of King, whom they served with as masters of ceremonies for the historic 1963 March on Washington.
Freedom Awards
Reality TV Show Pilot
'Go Kinky'
Country Music Television is airing a preview next week of a proposed reality show based on Kinky Friedman's independent run for Texas governor.
The music network will show two half-hour pilot episodes of "Go Kinky" on Wednesday. The episodes officially are to premiere in early 2006 and could lead to a television series.
Each show follows Friedman and his campaign across Texas as he attends Rotary Club lunches and campaign fundraisers and makes trips to the barber.
'Go Kinky'
Sponsoring New Orleans Jazz Musicians
France
France plans to help Jazz musicians in New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina to recover by organizing concerts on their behalf in France and sponsoring residencies for them in the country.
French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres is due in New Orleans on Friday to unveil the project as well as several other cultural initiatives designed to help the region recover from the disaster.
The first concert next Monday will feature French singer Francis Cabrel and Louisiana singer and songwriter Zachary Richard at Paris' Palais des Congres. Proceeds from the event, expected to raise 130,000 dollars, will go to help Louisiana musicians.
And starting in December, artists from New Orleans will be provided with apartments and stipends to work and perform in the French capital for three-month stints.
France
Feud Feud Feud
Beach Boys
Beach Boys member Mike Love has filed a lawsuit against former band mate Brian Wilson over Smile--the famously unfinished Beach Boys opus that Wilson completed and released on his own last year to much acclaim, and at Love's expense.
Wilson, the Beach Boys' principal songwriter and general mastermind, scrapped Smile at the height of the seminal surf band's popularity in 1967, a few weeks before the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The lost sessions became the stuff of music legend; based on the surviving songs and snippets, some music aficionados argued Smile would have rivaled Sgt. Pepper's in the pop pantheon. Per rock history, it was Love who was fought against the release of Smile because it differed dramatically from the Beach Boys' standard surf sound.
Love, who cofounded the band with cousins Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, and friend Al Jardine, is the only member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame quintet to continue using the Beach Boys moniker.
The three surviving members--Love, Wilson and Jardine--each own a share of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records. However, due to legal wrangling through the years, Love is the only member allowed to use Beach Boys name for touring purposes.
Beach Boys
'Born to Run' Reissue
Bruce Springsteen
When Bruce Springsteen handed over a wealth of unlabeled concert film footage from a 1975 show at London's Hammersmith Odeon to editor Thom Zimny in 2004, neither party knew for sure what was inside.
But after a year of painstaking restoration, the full show will be seen for the first time on Columbia's 30th anniversary edition of Springsteen's classic album "Born To Run," due November 15.
Although footage from several other notable shows during this era (including a stint at New York's Bottom Line) has circulated in bootleg form for years, Zimny says the Hammersmith film "is the best representation of 1975" that exists. The DVD also includes three songs from a 1973 show in Los Angeles, the original film of which was in such bad shape that it required frame-by-frame retouching in Photoshop.
Bruce Springsteen
Leaving Las Vegas
Queen
We Will Rock You, the musical based on the seminal tunes of Queen, will end its Las Vegas run Nov. 27, Variety reports.
The show, which took London's West End by storm when it bowed in 2002, first made headlines last year after eschewing a Broadway run in favor of the 1,450-seat Theatre Des Arts at the Paris Las Vegas hotel and casino.
While the Vegas version of We Will Rock You will go dark at the end of this month, fans can still catch the show in England, Germany or Spain, and, beginning next year, in Switzerland and South Africa.
Queen
Sun Editor Arrested For Assault
Ross Kemp
The Sun editor Rebekah Wade has been arrested for allegedly assaulting her husband, EastEnders actor Ross Kemp. She is in police custody and Kemp, who plays a hardman in the soap, is said to have a cut lip. Sky News' Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said police went to their home in south London at 4am this morning.
Kemp is thought to be carrying on his work at television studios after recently returning to the hit soap.
The couple have been together for some years and married in Las Vegas in 2002.
Brunt added: "It will be cause for some embarrassment. As editor, she has campaigned against domestic violence."
Ross Kemp
Roasting 'Penguins'
Bob Saget
Comedian Bob Saget is writing, directing and will narrate "Farce of the Penguins," a mockumentary inspired by the box office hit "March of the Penguins."
The project will feature an adult-oriented voice-over with authentic and fake wildlife footage.
The film is expected to be released in the U.S. in the spring by indie distributor ThinkFilm, which secured worldwide rights under a deal worth in the low seven figures.
Bob Saget
Show at High Museum
Andrew Wyeth
After hard freezing scorches the fields, there comes a moment in late winter when it seems impossible that even a single green blade will ever pierce the solid brownness. In Andrew Wyeth's imagination, it never does.
"Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic," a retrospective covering seven decades of the 88-year-old Pennsylvania artist's career, opens at the newly expanded High Museum of Art Nov. 12.
By focusing on paintings of painstakingly realistic inanimate objects and monochromatic brown landscapes, the exhibit shows how Wyeth gradually erased human warmth out of his works and left aching, hopeless voids that won't be filled.
Andrew Wyeth
Summit Security Sickened
Bad Lasagna
The massive security force deployed by Argentina for an Americas-wide presidential summit this week suffered its first glitch on Wednesday -- food poisoning.
At least 70 federal police officers guarding the beach resort hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush and others will meet were overcome by diarrhea and vomiting after dining on lasagna at a nearby hotel late on Tuesday, police commissioner Daniel Rodriguez told local radio.
The hotel is the preferred eating grounds for the 700-strong police squad patrolling the city, but was closed by city inspectors following the incident.
Bad Lasagna
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