'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Recommendations
from Bruce
Howard Dean: 'The future of the Democratic Party'
Let me tell you what my plan for this Party is:
We're going to win in Mississippi
...and Alabama
...and Idaho
...and South Carolina.
Reader Comment
from Alex
From the WTF? department
Reader Review
George Orwell's "1984"
ORWELL 30 YEARS OFF?
Orwell said " I saw history being written not in terms of what happened
but of what ought to have happened, according to the party ; this kind
of thing is frightening to me. If a leader says of such-and-such an
event that it never happened - well, it never happened. If he says that
two and two are five -well, two and two are five. "
I was perusing Marty's E! page one day when I stumbled across the link
for 1984 online. I went there out of nostalgia as much as anything
else. I remembered reading this book in high school - about 30 years
ago I guess - and it didn't really mean much to me then. I read the
online introduction and I was hooked - I had to read it again.
It only took me about 2 days to read this chilling tale of a State run
oligarchy and the supression of it's citizens. When I had finished the
book I was scared beyond my wits - there was just too much that
reminded me of what is going on now. The media run by the "Party" and
any dissent being turned over to the "Thought Police". It all strikes
such a chord with today's current lapdog press and the Patriot Act
nonsense that I have to admit that reading this scared the bejesus out
of me.
The story of Winston Smith is nothing if not bleak. He lives in what is
considered a Utopian world, perpetually at war and constantly in fear
of his government. There are shortages of goods and services to keep
the people in need and debt to the government. There is a ban on
non-procreative sex to keep the masses in a perpetual state of tension
and allows them to be easily manipulated by the "telescreens" which
broadcast propaganda and allows the public to be watched - constantly.
The picture Orwell paints is one of a gray and cold future where
individuality is forbidden. "If human equality is to be for ever
averted - if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places
permanently - then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled
insanity. " states Orwell. It also brings to mind the current political
climate in America where the hissing of the label "liberal" can be the
death toll on many a progressive. The object is power, and the people
mean nothing. Orwell believed that the State should provide a social
framework for its citizens but not dictate how their private lives are
to be lived; if it does, they become, in a basic sense, less than human
as evidenced in the following passage:
"We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him ; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation." The intellectuals in this novel are the worst kind - those that would use their collective energy and intelligence to preserve and support a dictatorship whose sole aim was to keep power. Orwell's warning is clear : Winston, with all the force of the State against him, comes not merely to accept that he is powerless against it, but actively to welcome his own defeat : he loves Big Brother.
Purple Gene Reviews
'L'Auberge Espagnole'
Purple Genes' review of the french movie "L'Auberge Espagnole" (2002), directed by Cédric Klapisch:
My 20 year old daughter, Heather, flew off to Barcelona last August to spend her Junior year from UC Santa Cruz doing Latin Studies in Spain. I didn't want her to go....I told her it would be dangerous abroad.....she was toooo young to go for so long....the truth was ...I didn't want her to go because I would miss her soooo much......Of course, she went anyway, and I am glad she did.....somebody told me I should watch a movie that came out a couple of years ago about a french student going to Barcelona to do latin studies for a year....he hooks up with 6 Europeans (Spanish-English-Belian-Italian-Danish- and a US Ass) and they all move into an apartment together - the Movie was called "L'Auberge Espagnole" or "Spanish Stew" - they said this movie had a similar plot to my Heather going to Barcelona..........
I couldn't find this movie anywhere....until late last night I saw it was playing on STARZ...so I got my flick ticket and flew to Barcelona via "L'Auberge Espagnole".
Romain Duris (Ives in "Le Divorce") plays Xavier, a french student who decides to go to Barcelona to live for a year and learn Spanish via the Erasmus Program (people in Barcelona speak Catalan though). He must leave his controlling girlfriend Martine - played by an out of place Audrey Tautou (Amelie in "Amelie" and Senay in "Dirty Pretty Things"). Xavier runs into a cross-section of western Europe and they all move into a cramped apartment together.
Cut to the "Angsty" wanky "Summer Lovers" meets "Reality Bites" lets all take Extacy, smoke dope, get drunk and have sex with the Barcelona architecture as a backdrop ....this movie was a light-hearted early twenty-something split screen romp through the night life and daytime drama of 7 people in Spain.......for a year......finally. Xavier says goodbye to all his new friends and goes back to Paris to a job that he starts and then abruptly quits because he realizes, from his experience in Barcelona, that he ain't cut out for a tight suit 9 to 5 life.....cut to the airport...Xavier wants to be a writer and must fly away from the pre-planned life he thought he wanted......and the end.
The truth is.....I was hoping to get a touch of Heather in Barcelona....but I guess I'm just going to have to fly over there myself and experience Spain for REAL !!!!!!!!!!
Purple Gene gives "L'Auberge Espagnole" 7 sweet sangrias out of 10.... too much of this will give you a hangover.
Purple Gene
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Weather has returned to seasonal - sunny & warm.
Retiring From TV Journalism
Bill Moyers
"I was just in the editing room, working on the last piece," Bill Moyers says. "I thought: `I've done this so many times, and each one is as difficult as the last one.' Maybe finally I've broken the habit."
It hasn't been so much a habit for Moyers as a truth-telling mission during his three decades as a TV journalist. But come next week, he will sign off from "Now," the weekly PBS newsmagazine he began in 2002, as, at age 70, he retires from television.
"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," says Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."
For the rest, Bill Moyers
Message To The Dems
MoveOn
Liberal powerhouse MoveOn has a message for the "professional election losers" who run the Democratic Party: "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back."
A scathing e-mail from the head of MoveOn's political action committee to the group's supporters on Thursday targets outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe as a tool of corporate donors who alienated both traditional and progressive Democrats.
"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," said the e-mail from MoveOn PAC's Eli Pariser. "But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers."
MoveOn
MoveOn California
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
John Hurt
John Hurt was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, at Buckingham Palace on Thursday - and chatted with the Queen about the life of an actor.
"The Queen insinuated that it was an interesting profession and that I'd been at it for some time. She said how fascinating it was," he told reporters after the ceremony. Hurt, 64, said his CBE, given for services to drama, was "a one-off. It's like a very high compliment. I'm very grateful and delighted."
Hurt said his favourite role had been as Quentin Crisp in the 1970s TV drama, The Naked Civil Servant.
John Hurt
Wins 'Alternative Nobel'
Bianca Jagger
Bianca Jagger of Nicaragua was awarded an honor known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize" on Thursday for her work to promote human rights and social justice.
Jagger, who first became famous for her eight-year marriage to rock star Mick Jagger, shares the 2004 Right Livelihood Award with two others.
Russian human rights and civil liberties lobby group Memorial was also awarded the prize along with Argentine environmentalist Raul Montenegro, for his work with indigenous people and conservation of natural resources.
The Right Livelihood Award, worth 2.0 million Swedish crowns ($297,300) this year, was set up by Swedish-German philatelist and former European Parliament member Jakob von Uexkull.
Bianca Jagger
Makers Recall How Classic Made
'Chinatown'
Thirty years after a broken Jack Nicholson was escorted off a blood-soaked street with the warning "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown," the movie's portrayal of dark, capitalist evil corrupting sunny Los Angeles remains as vivid as ever.
What is hard to believe, even after three decades, is the arguments and obstacles that "Chinatown," one of Hollywood's greatest movies, had to overcome to get made, even at a time when Watergate and Vietnam were forcing Americans to examine their society's values.
Nowadays, the movie which blends "film noir" thriller with a tale of incest and municipal corruption -- the theft of water from rural communities to make the desert of Los Angeles bloom into valuable real estate -- seems so perfect that it is studied in film schools.
But four of the men who made the movie, producer Robert Evans, screenwriter Robert Towne, assistant director Hawk Koch and star Jack Nicholson, gathered on the stage of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently to regale an audience of industry insiders with the troubles they had.
For the rest, 'Chinatown'
Met Debut This Weekend
Margaret Juntwait
A new voice will debut at the Metropolitan Opera this weekend, and she probably will never sing a single note.
Margaret Juntwait takes over as host of the company's national radio broadcasts each Saturday, only the third regular announcer since the series began in 1931. She plans to arrive at her booth on the opera house's grand tier about 60 minutes before she goes on the air at 1:30 p.m. for the season's opening broadcast - Verdi's "I Vespri Siciliani (The Sicilian Vespers)."
Milton Cross, with his deep, authoritative voice, was the announcer when broadcasts began on Dec. 25, 1931, with Humperdinck's "Hansel und Gretel." Peter Allen, with a warm, welcoming style, took over Jan. 4, 1975, a day after Cross' death, beginning with Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers)."
In 73 years, a fill-in host was needed just twice - Lloyd Moss took over for two broadcasts in 1973. The audience that tunes in, estimated by the Met at 11 million, is not used to change. Allen, who retired at the end of last season, will remain a part of this year's radio broadcasts in a new feature, which Juntwait called "A Word or Two From Peter Allen."
Margaret Juntwait
IOKIYAR - Keeps Tax Returns Private
Ahnold
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has broken with tradition and declined to release his tax returns, saying it could compromise a blind trust he set up to manage his wealth after winning office, an aide said on Thursday.
The former Hollywood action star, who has declined to accept an annual salary of $175,000 as governor, set up the trust last year to avoid conflicts of interest.
"To keep it blind from the governor you have to keep it blind from the public," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman.
Robert Johnson
Mississippi Court Reopens Litigation
Robert Johnson
The Mississippi Supreme Court has reopened litigation over who owns photographs and writings of bluesman Robert Johnson, nearly two months after declaring his son sole heir to royalties from the memorabilia.
The justices said a claim by Johnson's heirs to pictures and a note should be decided by a trial in the county where Robert Johnson died at age 27 in 1938. He left no will.
Presiding Justice Kay Cobb, writing Thursday for the Supreme Court, said there is a legal question about whether the photographs - only two are known to exist - and writings were part of the estate at time of the singer's death, and therefore the property of his son, Claud Johnson.
Robert Johnson
Offers to Donate Land for Airport
Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis stole the show at the Friedman Airport Authority meeting this week, offering to donate a portion of land he owns at the eastern end of Camas County in Idaho to help build a new airport.
Willis' property along Highway 20 is part of one of three sites being considered for a new airport. The offer was unexpected, Airport Authority Chairwoman Mary Ann Mix said.
The room erupted in applause when Willis announced his intended donation, saying he was concerned with the safety conditions at the current airport, Mix said.
The Airport Authority has been trying to upgrade its facilities for the past decade to meet stricter Federal Aviation Administration standards for larger, faster aircraft.
Bruce Willis
Five Die in Shooting
Damageplan
A man opened fire on a heavy metal band during a performance at a crowded bar in Columbus, Ohio on Wednesday night, killing four people and wounding two others before he was killed by police, officials said.
The incident happened at the Alrosa Villa on the city's north side where about 200 patrons were on hand for a performance by Damageplan, according to Sgt. Brent Mull, spokesman for the Columbus police.
The NBC television affiliate in Columbus, WCMH, reported that one of the dead was Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell. It said the band was playing its first song in a set when the gunman ran on stage and began shooting. Some members of the audience initially thought the affair might have been part of the band's act, the station said.
Dimebag Darrell and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul, were previously with Texan thrash metal band Pantera, which formed in the early 1980s.
Damageplan
Pontifical University Takes On
The Devil
Forget the new "Exorcist" film, the Vatican is offering the real thing.
A Vatican university said on Thursday it will hold a special "theoretical and practical" course for Roman Catholic priests on Satanism and exorcism in response to what the Church says is a worrying interest in the occult, particularly among the young.
The two-month course, which begins in February and will be limited to priests and advanced students of theology, will include themes such as Satanism, diabolic possession and "prayers of liberation."
In 1999 the Vatican issued its first updated ritual for exorcism since 1614 and warned that the devil is still at work.
The Devil
Legal Comedy for NBC
Wayne Brady
Comedian Wayne Brady has struck a deal with NBC for a workplace comedy set in the world of personal injury law.
Brady, who earned two Daytime Emmy trophies for his now-canceled syndicated variety series "The Wayne Brady Show," said he spent a long time honing the concept for the comedy with scribe Saladin Patterson ("Frasier"), who will write the pilot. He also cited the dearth of workplace comedies on the air these days as a factor in their decision to focus on the world of slip-and-fall lawyers.
Wayne Brady
What Free Press?
U.S. Book Ban
In the summer of 1956, Russian poet Boris Pasternak - a favorite of the recently deceased Joseph Stalin - delivered his epic "Doctor Zhivago" manuscript to a Soviet publishing house, hoping for a warm reception and a fast track to readers who had shared Russia's torturous half-century of revolution and war, oppression and terror.
Instead, Pasternak received one of the all-time classic rejection letters: A 10,000-word missive that stopped just short of accusing him of treason. It was left to foreign publishers to give his smuggled manuscript life, offering the West a peek into the soul of the Cold War enemy, winning Pasternak the 1958 Nobel in literature and providing Hollywood with an epic film.
These days, Pasternak might not have fared so well.
In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.
The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.
U.S. Book Ban
Buys Personal Pacific Island
Mel Gibson
Hollywood star Mel Gibson, flush from the huge success of his religious film "The Passion of Christ," has splashed out 15 million dollars on a private Pacific island, a report said.
The Australian-raised screen heartthrob and movie industry mogul flew to Fiji earlier this month where he bought the 2,160-hectare (5,400-acre) island of Mago from a Japanese hotel chain, People magazine reported.
Gibson plans to turn the Pacific paradise, that is home to 40 residents, mostly coconut farmers and their families, into his own personal retreat, the US magazine said in its edition due to hit news-stands on Friday.
Mel Gibson
Basic Cable Networks
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on basic cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Nov. 29-Dec. 5. Each ratings point represents 1,096,000 households. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses.
1. NFL Football: Pittsburgh vs. Jacksonville (Sunday, 8:28 p.m.), ESPN, 7.4, 8.06 million homes.
2. Movie: "The Librarian: Quest for the Spear" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), TNT, 4.1, 4.53 million homes.
3. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.5, 3.81 million homes.
4. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Sunday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.4, 3.76 million homes.
5. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), Spike, 3.2, 3.55 million homes.
6. "WWE Raw Zone" (Monday, 10 p.m.), Spike, 3.1, 3.4 million homes.
7. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.1, 3.39 million homes.
8. "NFL Prime Time" (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), ESPN, 3.0, 3.31 million homes.
9. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Sunday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.0, 3.26 million homes.
10. "Sportscenter" (Sunday, 11:40 p.m.), ESPN, 2.9, 3.22 million homes.
11. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.9, 3.16 million homes.
12. "Law & Order" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 2.8, 3.07 million homes.
13. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.8, 3.07 million homes.
14. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.8, 3.06 million homes.
15. "Fairly Odd Parents" (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.8, 3.04 million homes.
Ratings
In Memory
Jerry Scoggins
Jerry Scoggins, who sang The Ballad of Jed Clampett, which introduced the comical clan on The Beverly Hillbillies, has died. He was 93.
He died at his home Tuesday of natural causes, the Los Angeles Times reported. The song and the TV show premiered in 1962 and were instant hits. The series starring Buddy Ebsen as Jed drew up to 60 million viewers at its peak and ran until 1971.
The ballad, written by Paul Henning, begins: "Come and listen to a story about a man name Jed/ a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed/ then one day he was shootin' for some food/ and up through the ground came a bubblin' crude."
Scoggins sang the lyrics while bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs played guitar and banjo.
Scoggins came out of retirement to sing the theme again for a 1993 movie based on the TV series.
A memorial service is scheduled for Friday.
Jerry Scoggins
