'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Comment
Re: Carol Leifer
I saw Ms. Leifer on tv, several years ago, doing some stand up.
She said one of the funniest lines, it still makes me laugh. She had
been talking about her relationships, then kind of swaggered about the
stage, like an arrogant quy who thinks he is koreshs' gift to women and
said "I don't have any kids.That I know of." Hysterical. Thanks for
the reminder.
~~Marla
Thanks, Marla. : )
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
While the weather is finally starting to cool off, it's still unusually warm.
Did the farmer's market/CostCo loop today. CostCo had dozens of 'food ladies' with everything from cream puffs to ravioli to soup. Another lap around the building and I probably wouldn't have bothered with supper.
The parent-teacher conference went well. The class has been studying CA-state history, so the room was decorated with lots of flags & animals - except from the kid. His art work was a series of carnivorous plants indigenous to CA...
Tonight, Friday, CBS starts the night with '48 Hours Investigates', then a fresh 'Hack', followed by a RERUN of one of the 'CSI''s.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave is Larry Miller.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers are LL Cool J and model Veronica Varekova.
NBC opens with a fresh 'Providence', then 'Dateline', and caps the evening with a fresh 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Rodney Dangerfield, Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper, and Dwight Yoakam.
Scheduled on a fresh Conan are Ice Cube and Matchbox Twenty.
Scheduled on a fresh Carson Daly are Tom Arnold, Joe Pantoliano, Jeff Ross, Ted Danson, and Saliva.
ABC opens with 'America's Funniest Home Videos', then a fresh 'Drew Carey', a fresh 'Whose Line', and then '20/20'.
The WB has a fresh 'What I Like About You', then a fresh 'Greetings From Tucson' followed by a 'special' hour-long fresh 'Reba'.
Faux has the movie 'Happy Gilmore'.
UPN has the movie 'Bulletproof'.
Check local PBS listing for 'NOW With Bill Moyers'!
Sci-Fi channel has the fresh 'The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
'Lunch Box Memories'
Beatles
Undated file photo of a Beatles lunch box, part of the 'Lunch Box Memories' exhibit which opens Nov. 16, 2002, at the Lafayette Natural History Museum in Lafayette, La. The Smithsonian Institution is sending a group of children's lunch boxes on a three-year tour to American museums.
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#4
Takes Radio Show To TV
Phil Hendrie
Syndicated L.A. radio comic Phil Hendrie, who claims to have "the funniest show in the history of radio," will soon see if he can bring his magic to the small screen.
Hendrie will star in an NBC sitcom as a former city cop who moves to a gated community, where he encounters the crazy residents as its new head of security. The network
has hired screenwriter Peter Tolan ("Analyze That") to create the show.
Hendrie, who's known for creating and voicing wild characters on his KFI-based nighttime talker "The Phil Hendrie Show" pacted with NBC and its NBC Studios wing earlier
this year to build a primetime series.
The show will focus on Hendrie's character, who has recently remarried to a woman with a sketchy past and a 14-year-old kid. Besides Hendrie's encounters with the weird
local folk, the project will also revolve around his attempts at trying to forge a new family.
Phil Hendrie
Seeks Indecency Definition Overhaul
FCC
A top communications official on Thursday called for an overhaul of the government's broadcast indecency standard as hundreds of complaints flooded his office about the Victoria's
Secret lingerie fashion show that aired on prime time national television Wednesday night.
Michael Copps, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, urged the agency to revise the definition of indecency and also look into whether it should be
expanded to include obscene, violent and profane programming.
Copps on Thursday also wondered if there was a link between the rise in what he described as more indecency in broadcasts and the consolidation in the media
industry, or whether it was merely a "simple coincidence."
Separately, the commissioner, the lone Democrat on the commission, said he would go ahead with plans to hold public hearings on the agency's review of ownership
limits in the media, even though the idea has not won support from FCC Chairman Michael Powell.
FCC
MS Society's Leadership Conference
Teri & David
Actor David Lander, right, gets a laugh from Actress Teri Garr as he presents her with the Shining Star Award for her courage and conviction in support of the Multiple Sclerosis cause
during the MS Society's Leadership Conference in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002. Both Lander and Garr have been diagnosed with MS and are speaking out about their challenges
to bring awareness to the disease.
Photo by John Russell
Free Books Online
'International Children's Digital Library'
A new Web site will make thousands of children's books from 100 different cultures available for free to Internet-savvy kids around the world.
When it's completed in about five years, the International Children's Digital Library will hold about 10,000 books targeted at children ages 3 to 13.
Designed by the University of Maryland and the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, the site's goal is to expand children's reading and learning skills while teaching them about other cultures.
The site has colorful icons that allow even the youngest children to navigate without knowing what all the words mean. With the click of a mouse, kids can see the thumbnail-sized pages of a book unwind in a spiral
or unfold like the panels of a comic book.
The site — www.icdlbooks.org — officially debuted Wednesday with 200 titles from more than 27 cultures in more than 15 different languages. Many of the titles are classics like "Alice in
Wonderland" and "Robinson Crusoe" that are no longer under copyright restriction. Some publishers, including Random House, Scholastic and HarperCollins, have contributed a few newer works from their extensive collections.
Access to the library initially requires a direct Internet connection, such as a cable modem or DSL line. Those connecting by phone modems will be able to access the site in summer 2003.
'International Children's Digital Library'
MTV Plans Variety Show
Snoop Dogg
MTV is unleashing Snoop Dogg to star in his own variety show.
The pilot for the rapper's half-hour program, "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle," is scheduled to air at 10:30 p.m. EST Monday.
Snoop will mix sketch comedy with music and man-on-the-street bits. (No word yet on whether he'll be rollin' in his '64, or sippin' on gin and juice.)
Snoop Dogg
Backs Title IX
Geena Davis
Amid signs reading "Don't Drop the Ball on Girls," actress Geena Davis joined women athletes at a rally to preserve Title IX, the federal law on gender equity in university sports.
Davis, an amateur archer, also addressed U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, which held its final public forum Wednesday in San Diego.
Statistics presented to the commission showing few girls were interested in playing sports were skewed, and weakening Title IX based on such numbers was "unfair," she told the commission.
"I am here to take you for a short ride in Thelma and Louise's car if you think it's fair and just to limit a girl's opportunity to play sports based on her response to an interest survey," Davis
said, drawing laughter and applause in evoking the 1991 film in which her character drove off a cliff.
Geena Davis
Cuts Jobs, Consolidates LA Office
Playboy Enterprises Inc.
Adult entertainment company Playboy Enterprises Inc. said on Thursday it was cutting 8 percent of its work force and would consolidate office space in Los Angeles in a move to cut costs and
boost the performance of its famous namesake magazine.
Playboy said it would eliminate about 70 positions, 20 percent of which were currently open, and expected a restructuring charge in the fourth quarter.
Earlier this month, Playboy posted narrower third-quarter losses thanks to tight cost controls, but revenue dropped 8 percent, hurt by weak performance at Playboy magazine and the absence of some
license fees while it reworked a television joint venture.
Playboy Enterprises Inc.
Wins National Book Award
Robert Caro
Author Robert Caro won the prestigious National Book Award on Wednesday for "Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson," his third book on the life of the late U.S. president.
Caro, who is working on a fourth and his intended last book on Johnson, said in a statement read at the National Book Foundation awards ceremony in New York that people often ask
if he gets bored spending so much time on one person.
"I consider each of my four books studies on political power, how it is acquired and how it is used," he said. "If you care about political power, every day with LBJ is an eye-opening
day. ... Every day I learn something I'd never thought of."
Winning in the fiction category was Julia Glass for her first novel, "Three Junes," published by Pantheon Books, about three summers in the lives of a Scottish family.
Ruth Stone won the poetry award for her collection, "In the Next Galaxy," published by Copper Canyon Press. It is her eighth published collection. Winning at age 87, she joked, "I think they probably gave it to me because I'm old."
Nancy Farmer won the award for Young People's Literature for "The House of the Scorpion," a Richard Jackson Book/Athenuem Books for Young Readers.
Novelist Philip Roth, author of "Goodbye, Columbus," "Portnoy's Complaint" and "American Pastoral," received an award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Robert Caro
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Loses Appeal Over Destroyed Pooh Documents
Walt Disney Co.
Walt Disney Co. will not be able to contest key evidence in a long-running suit over the honey pot of marketing rights to Winnie the Pooh after it destroyed key documents in
the case, a California appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
The court ruled on a technicality and said that questions on the original decision remained but denied Disney the chance before trial to contest the ruling.
The ruling is part of a bigger court drama over whether the holder of U.S. rights to Pooh, Stephen Slesinger Inc., was shortchanged by Disney over royalties due under a 1983 deal,
a case that Disney has said could cost it $200 million.
Slesinger in part says it is owed royalties on all commercialization of Pooh, which is expected to be the subject of a jury trial next year.
A Los Angeles judge had previously ordered Disney to pay $90,000 in lawyers' costs and suffer a number of non-monetary sanctions after destroying Pooh documents. For instance,
it was barred from contesting that a Disney executive had promised Slesinger royalties from Pooh videocassettes.
"Disney misused the pre-trial discover process by destroying evidence it knew or should have known was sought by SSI, making false and evasive responses to SSI's discovery,
and unduly delaying notification about the records destruction," Appellate Judge Norman Epstein wrote, referring to the decision on appeal.
Walt Disney Co.
Beijing, China
Temple of Heaven
As temperatures plummet in Beijing, a man passes by an an ice sculpture of the Temple of Heaven at a local museum of ice sculptures, November 21, 2002. The
exhibition features ice versions of famous world landmarks and traditional buildings in China by artists from the northern Chinese city of Harbin which is
famed for its ice sculptures
Photo by Guang Niu
The Adventures Of The Serial Philanderer
Rudy Giuliani
A new Rudy Giuliani movie that portrays his long-rumored love affair with former press spokeswoman Cristyne Lategano as fact began shooting in Manhattan yesterday.
In a tear-jerking fall sequence filmed in Central Park, actor James Woods, playing Giuliani, is seen breaking up with his alleged former flame, played by Michelle Nolden.
The scene, from the USA Network biopic "Rudy!" shows Giuliani cuddling up to the Lategano character, then gently giving her the heave-ho.
The scene ends with Rudy walking away from a heartbroken Lategano, who screams: "You just can't do this to me!"
USA said the controversial sequence could end up on the cutting-room floor, and a film publicist shooed a reporter away and warned her against taking notes.
Both Giuliani and Lategano, who now runs the city's convention and visitors bureau, have long denied the alleged affair, but Giuliani's ex-wife, Donna Hanover, has
referred to it as pivotal in her breakup with the former mayor.
Rudy Giuliani
Forgot Purse
Madonna
Multi-millionaire pop singer Madonna had to borrow money in a London restaurant after finding herself short of cash to buy a slice of cake for her son, a British newspaper reported on Thursday.
The Sun said Madonna told two sisters, Mimi and Titi Negussie, that she had forgotten her purse when she went into the restaurant with film director husband Guy Ritchie, their son Rocco and
her daughter Lourdes.
"A woman came up and said, 'Excuse me, but you look like really nice people. Can I borrow some money? We forgot our wallets'," Mimi Negussie told the Sun.
Titi, who did not recognize the singer, gave the Material Girl a two-pound coin to help her cover a 1.25 pound ($2) shortfall in her 5.25 pound bill.
Madonna
TV Debut In NBC Pilot
Alicia Silverstone
Actress Alicia Silverstone ("Clueless") is making her TV debut in an upcoming matchmaker pilot for NBC.
Silverstone -- who recently wrapped a nine-month run in the Broadway production of "The Graduate" -- will play a New York matrimonial attorney who doubles as a
high-end matchmaker even though her own love life is less than perfect.
Besides focusing on couples hooking up, the untitled hourlong comedic drama will be a legal franchise, with Silverstone's character also dealing with adoption
and divorce cases. Her relationship with her father will give the show elements of a family drama.
Alicia Silverstone
Schedule Shuffled
CBS
CBS is jiggering its schedule in a bid to boost a pair of struggling dramas.
While CBS has pulled this week's episode of "Robbery Homicide Division" in favor of a "CSI" repeat, the network is giving the critically praised but low-rated crime
drama a chance to find an audience in a new time slot. The show will air Saturdays at 10 on Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 as executives look to gauge whether the show fares
better when not opposite Friday juggernaut "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
In addition, sophomore spy drama "The Agency," which has shown some Nielsen softness on Saturdays, will get a one-week tryout in "Robbery's" usual 10 p.m. Friday slot
on Dec. 6. The goal is to give both shows added exposure in different timeslots.
While "The Agency" is picked up for a full season, CBS executives have not decided about "Robbery."
But CBS has ordered additional episodes of "Presidio Med," which has struggled Wednesdays at 10 p.m. but nonetheless remains a fave of network brass. Industry insiders
expect the medical drama will get a full-season order.
CBS
BartCop TV!
Fined After Dog Attack
Princess Anne
Queen Elizabeth's only daughter Princess Anne became the first British royal convicted of a criminal offence in 350 years on Thursday, pleading guilty to letting her dog bite two children.
Anne was fined about $790 after admitting violations of the Dangerous Dogs Act -- the first British royal guilty plea ever recorded. She could have faced six months in jail.
Constitutional experts could recall no other case of a senior royal being convicted of a crime since Charles I was beheaded in 1649.
Anne's three-year-old English bull terrier Dotty, who could have faced the death penalty, was spared, provoking criticism from the parents of the bite victims.
Princess Anne
Brasilia Zoo
Giraffes
Mutter Giraffe Bia, Vater Leo und der einjährige Giba betrachten am Dienstag im Zoo von Brasilia das neue Familienmitglied (L). Das Kleine erblickte bereits am Samstag
das Licht der Welt.
Photo by Amil Bittar
'Standards & Practices' Made Change?
'The Practice'
Did the brass at ABC change a scene in "The Practice" dealing with pervy priest Rev. Paul Shanley because the network wants to land an interview with his niece? On Nov. 7, the New York Times reported on the Nov. 10 episode
of the hit show starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Dylan McDermott and Camryn Manheim. Titled "A Catholic Writer Brings His Anger to 'The Practice,' " the piece praised the show's writer David E. Kelley - who is in fact Protestant -
for "not pull[ing] punches" and "not follow[ing] the standard television formula of walking a line to steer clear of controversy." In the advance tape of the episode screened by the Times, a reference was made to a "Father
Shane," who was sent to California "with praise," as Shanley was at one point. But when the episode aired a few days later, the name had been changed to "Perry" and the California reference cut. Insiders say it's because ABC
hopes to land an interview with Shanley's niece and principal defender, Teresa, for Diane Sawyer. But a network spokesperson disputes that, while acknowledging Theresa did speak to someone there. "I don't believe that it
was because of pressure from the niece," the ABC rep said. "And I'm not sure when the change happened, but it was made by broadcast standards and practices."
'The Practice'
Broke Foot
Justin Timberlake
'N Sync's Justin Timberlake canceled performances for the next two weeks after breaking one of his feet, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Timberlake, who recently released his solo album, "Justified," had been rehearsing for an awards party sponsored by Smash Hits magazine when the injury occurred. Details weren't available.
He'd been scheduled to host Sunday's T4 Poll Winners Party with Kelly Osbourne, June Sarpong and Vernon Kaye, but canceled on the advice of his doctor.
Justin Timberlake
German Comedy About Nazis
'Goebbels and Geduldig'
The first German-made film comedy about the Nazis has made its long-awaited debut on German television, shattering a half-century taboo on poking fun at the country's nightmare past.
"Goebbels and Geduldig," a farce about the Nazi propaganda minister and a good-humored Jewish lookalike who swap places in 1944, was aired on Wednesday evening, treating the
greatest tragedy in German history as a comedy.
The topic was so touchy that its nervous producers spent seven years developing it -- with a script rewritten 18 times -- and sent their finished project on a two-year odyssey to
small international film festivals to test the reception.
'Goebbels and Geduldig'
From 'The Guardian'
Expletive Deleted
The first time I heard the word fuck, I was seven. My 12-year-old brother asked me if I wanted to know the worst word in the world. He whispered it to me and, although he wasn't quite sure what it meant, we both loved the idea of a word so rude that it could barely be uttered.
Three decades on, the word is so commonplace that its shock value seems quite lost. Kenneth Tynan saying it for the first time on television in 1965 caused considerable scandal, albeit without mention anywhere of what he said. (It was: "I doubt if there are any rational people to
whom the word fuck would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden.")
In 1976, the Sex Pistols famously used the word on Thames Today, infuriating presenter Bill Grundy. And from the 1980s onwards, films have routinely contained a fusillade of fucks, with Hugh Grant's opening salvo in Four Weddings and a Funeral a notable example. Which made it little
surprise that by 1997, when several broadcasting organisations produced a ranking of words by severity, fuck only came in third, behind cunt and motherfucker.
Why did fuck lose its sting? Has its diminution left us bereft of a useful, powerful expletive? If it has, is language the poorer for its emasculation? And is there an unspoken agenda that it is still rude when the speaker is working class? Or if it is used in a work of art, such
as this year's Gilbert and George exhibition, The Dirty Words Pictures, 1977?
John Ayto, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Slang, concurs on the de-sexing of fuck. "Fuck is a sexual term but realistically, it is almost never used that way. The overwhelming amount of times it is being used in some figurative sense - 'I'm fucking tired' or 'We got fucked on that
deal'. I think it would be too much to say that fuck doesn't offend anybody. It hasn't finished the journey yet to becoming a milk-and-water word. But its impact is diminishing at a rapid rate. Young people tend not to think of it as offensive at all."
The decline is a matter of shifting taboos, says Jean Aitchison, the Oxford professor of language and communication who is married to Ayto. "In the last century, it was religious swearing that upset people," she says. "Then, in the mid-20th century, sexual swearing. But these days people
get far more upset about politically incorrect language: nigger, and even mad, are quite taboo. Most kids say fuck a lot, but haven't a clue what it means. They just know it gets adults upset, and so keep saying it - and I have upset teachers in the past by saying, 'Why don't you just
ignore pupils who say fuck? They'll soon get tired if they get no response.'"
"Ethnic slurs are regarded as the taboo," agrees Ayto. "Nigger is far more taboo than fuck or even cunt. I think if a politician were to be heard off-camera saying fuck, it would be trivial, but if he said nigger, that would be the end of his career."
Further verification that fuck is, well, fucked, comes from Andrea Wills, the BBC's chief advisor on editorial policy. "In research, 50% or more people said the words that should never be broadcast are cunt, motherfucker, nigger, Paki and spastic. Young women also don't like whore,
slag and twat. But fuck wasn't on the list."
For the rest - Expletive Deleted
'Rising Above Jim Crow: The Paintings of Johnnie Lee Gray,'
Johnnie Lee Gray
This 1999 acrylic on plywood painting entitled 'Afro County Clubbing' by artist Johnnie Lee Gray is part of the exhibit 'Rising Above Jim Crow: The Paintings of Johnnie Lee Gray,' at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in the Harlem section of New York. Most of Gray's vivid, detailed paintings are autobiographical, evoking his experience as an African-American living in the Jim Crow South and in the first decades of desegregation.
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'The Osbournes'
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