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In The Chaos Household
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Here's a page with the Complete List Of Golden Globe Nominations
Honorary Oscar
Ennio Morricone
Italian movie composer Ennio Morricone, famed for his work on such "spaghetti westerns" as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "A Fistful of Dollars," will receive an honorary Oscar during the Academy Awards ceremony next February, organizers said on Wednesday.
Morricone, 78, has composed more than 300 motion picture scores during his 45-year career, but had never won an Oscar. He was nominated five times, for "Days of Heaven" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Malena" (2000).
The honorary Oscar, determined by the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, went this year to director Robert Altman, who died last month.
Ennio Morricone
Guest Of Honor In Iran
Borat
Intrepid Kazakhstan TV reporter Borat Sagdiyev was in Iran at a Holocaust denial conference, and accordingly unaware that the hit comedy about his exploits garnered two Golden Globe nominations Thursday.
Or so claimed a prepared statement from Sacha Baron Cohen, the British actor who plays the anti-semitic title character in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
"I am extremely honored," said Cohen. "I'm very proud as well for my fellow writers as well as our director Larry Charles, and our producer Jay Roach, and am very thankful for the HFPA's belief and acknowledgment of our film."
But then the irrepressible comedian couldn't resist adding, "I have been trying to let Borat know this great news but for the last four hours both of Kazakhstan's telephones have been engaged. Eventually, Premier Nazarbayev answered and said he would pass on the message as soon as Borat returned from Iran, where he is guest of honor at the Holocaust Denial Conference."
Borat
Challenged In Georgia
Harry Potter
The Georgia Board of Education voted Thursday to uphold a local school board's decision to leave Harry Potter books on library shelves despite a mother's objections.
The board members voted without discussion to back the Gwinnett County school board's decision to deny Laura Mallory's request to remove the best-selling books.
Mallory, who has three children in elementary school, has worked for more than a year to ban the books from Gwinnett schools, claiming the popular fiction series is an attempt to indoctrinate children in witchcraft.
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books have been challenged 115 times since 2000, making them the most challenged texts of the 21st Century, according to the American Library Association.
Harry Potter
Republican War On Science Continues
New Publishing Rules
The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for all scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer reviews. In that process, scientists critique each other's findings to determine whether they deserve to be published.
From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside peer reviewers' as well any exchanges between the scientists who are seeking to publish their findings and the reviewers.
New Publishing Rules
Memorabilia Sells For $83,000
Charlie Chaplin
Some 60 objects that once belonged to silent screen icon Charlie Chaplin fetched over 100,000 Swiss francs (83,000 dollars, 62,000 euros) at auction in Geneva, the auctioneer Bernard Piguet has said.
The lots at Wednesday's auction included a French Restoration chandelier that sold at over three times its asking price, he added Thursday.
A mahogany writing desk used by the London-born star of "Modern Times" "The Great Dictator", and valued at between 4,000 and 6,000 francs, sold for over 10,000 francs.
Charlie Chaplin
Wins UK Privacy Case
Loreena McKennitt
Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt won a privacy case on Thursday that may bolster celebrities' rights to prevent details of their private lives entering the public domain.
McKennitt had already won a High Court ruling last year in which the judge prevented disclosure of the details in a book by former friend Niema Ash called "Travels With Loreena McKennitt," but Ash sought to overturn that decision in the Court of Appeal.
The appeal was turned down, however, with the court ruling that McKennitt, internationally known for her harp-infused Celtic music, was "well entitled" to the protection the earlier decision had given her.
The injunction restricted publication of passages of the book which fell into categories including personal relationships, emotional vulnerability and McKennitt's feelings for her late fiance who drowned.
Loreena McKennitt
Chauffeur Trouble
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono's chauffeur tried to extort $2 million from her with embarrassing audio tapes and photos and threatened to kill John Lennon's widow, prosecutors said on Thursday as the man was charged with grand larceny.
Koral Karsan, 50, was arrested at his home in suburban Long Island on Wednesday and remanded in custody on $500,000 bail at Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday.
While handcuffed in police custody on Wednesday, Karsan accused Ono, 73, of sexually harassing him, New York newspapers reported.
On the 26th anniversary of Lennon's death, Karsan handed Ono a rambling, two-page, typed note complaining about long hours and threatening her with audio tapes and photos that would embarrass her, the New York Post reported, citing police sources.
Yoko Ono
Record For Sale Again
Velvet Underground
The cyberspace saga of The Velvet Underground's 40-year-old first recording was to continue after fetching a false eBay bid of more than $155,000.
The vintage Velvet was to be auctioned online again starting Thursday afternoon. The original bid bit the dust earlier this month when a young man in California e-mailed the seller and confessed he doesn't have enough money to buy the rare recording.
The first auction ended Dec. 8, with eBay showing a final bid of $155,401 for the recording of music that ended up on the influential New York band's first album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico." Warren Hill, a collector in Montreal who owns the acetate LP, says he bought it at a flea market in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood for 75 cents in 2002.
Velvet Underground
Rejects Restitution
German Court
A top German court rejected on Thursday restitution claims by relatives of a Nazi doctor for art confiscated by Soviet occupiers after the war in a ruling which could set a precedent for a host of similar cases.
Gustav Schuster, a gynecologist who worked in Nazi courts which ordered the sterilization of handicapped women as part of Adolf Hitler's drive to create a 'master race', had collected hundreds of paintings, graphics and etchings.
The paintings, among them a work by German impressionist Max Liebermann, reviled by the Nazis for his Jewish background, were confiscated by occupying Soviet forces in 1945. It was not clear where Schuster himself had obtained the works of art.
German Court
White Dolphin Declared Extinct
Baiji
A rare, nearly blind white dolphin that survived for millions of years is effectively extinct, an international expedition declared Wednesday after ending a fruitless six-week search of its Yangtze River habitat.
The baiji would be the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction since hunting and overfishing killed off the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s.
For the baiji, the culprit was a degraded habitat - busy ship traffic, which confounds the sonar the dolphin uses to find food, and overfishing and pollution in the Yangtze waters of eastern China, the expedition said.
Baiji
In Memory
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun, who helped define American music as the founder of Atlantic Records, a label that popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones, died Thursday at 83, his spokesman said.
Ertegun remained connected to the music scene until his last days - it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell, suffered a head injury and was hospitalized. He later slipped into a coma.
Ertegun will be buried in a private ceremony in his native Turkey, said Bob Kaus, a spokesman for Ertegun and Atlantic Records. A memorial service will be conducted in New York after New Year's.
Ertegun, a Turkish ambassador's son, parlayed his love of music into a career when he founded Atlantic with partner Herb Abramson and a $10,000 loan. When the label first started, it made its name with blues-edged recordings.
Once music tastes changed, Ertegun switched gears and helped bring on the British invasion in the '60s.
In later years, Ertegun signed Bette Midler, Roberta Flack and ABBA.
Besides his love of music, Ertegun was also known for his love of art, and socializing. It was not uncommon to find him at a party with his wife, Mica, hanging out until all hours with friends.
Ahmet Ertegun
In Memory
Fred Marsden
Fred Marsden, the drummer in the Merseybeat band Gerry and the Pacemakers, has died at age 66, his family said.
The band, fronted by Marsden's brother, Gerry, was the second group signed by Brian Epstein, whose first band was The Beatles.
Gerry and the Pacemakers become the first from Liverpool to have a No. 1 single with "How Do You Do It?" in 1963, followed that year by another chart-topper, "I Like It."
Later hits included "You'll Never Walk Alone," "Ferry Cross the Mersey," and "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying," co-written by Fred.
The group disbanded in 1967. Gerry Marsden reformed the Pacemakers in 1973 but without Fred, who had given up the music business to be a telephone operator and later established the Pacemaker driving school.
Marsden is survived by his wife, Margaret, and two children. A funeral will be held Friday at Our Lady's Church in Formby.
Fred Marsden
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