TODAY!
Erin Hart
Join Erin Hart as she fills in LIVE on Colorado's Colorado's Progressive Talk AM760.net, from 5am to 9am pst | 6am to 10am mst | 7am to 11am cst | 8am to noon est, today, Dec. 26th, and Monday - Friday 29th, 30th, 31st and Jan. 1st and 2nd.
And Change is Coming-what do you love or hate about 2008? Can Obama really bring the change we need?
Enjoy Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa and Celebrate 2009 with us!
Check erinhartshow.com for details.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
MARILYNN PRESTON: Want To Get Thin In The New Year? Read This! (creators.com)
At a time when so many are dealing with horrifying losses, our nation's Oprah is dealing with embarrassing gains. "Oprah falls off the fat wagon," read a recent headline in what's left of the Chicago Tribune. "The talk show queen now weighs 200 pounds, up from 160 in 2006."
Torie Bosch: No Reason for the Season (slate.com)
The joy of celebrating a godless Christmas.
CATHERINE O'SULLIVAN, "Welcome to the season of celebrating the United States' true religion: Materialism" (tucsonweekly.com)
First of all, happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Dying of the Corn Festival or whatever it is you celebrate.
Andrew Santella: Are Christians Stingy? (slate.com)
When believers don't believe in giving.
Joshua Neuman: What Happened to Kwanzaa? (huffingtonpost.com)
Whether it's gone because nobody knew how to sell it, or because nobody wanted to buy it, Kwanzaa is now nowhere to be found.
Andrew Tobias: MADOFF-WHY NOT IN RIKER'S ISLAND? (andrewtobias.com)
Huh? He admits to a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that, among other things, is forcing charities to close their doors and leave poor children bereft . . . and he's confined to his home at night and the greater New York area by day? I don't mean to be a hard-ass, but he should be held in Riker's Island while the legal process unfolds. Bail: $50 billion. Seriously.
Rebekah Spicuglia: Chili's Fires Long-Time Employee After Sexual Harassment Claim (huffingtonpost.com)
My sister's manager at Chili's asked her if the offending employee had gotten a "full cup" when he had grabbed her breasts. Unfortunately, under Georgia law, you can suffer sexual harassment and still be fired.
Tom Danehy: The best of 2008, from Tom's very unique perspective (tucsonweekly.com)
At this time of year, with all of the holidays and my editor placing early deadline pressure on me, I like to share how I spend many of the 166 hours each week when I'm not writing my column. (OK, sometimes, it's 167.)
ROBERT COSTA: Mike Doughty's New Hope (popmatters.com)
The former Soul Coughing frontman talks with PopMatters about his new album Golden Delicious, the joys of being a solo artist and being addicted to... MSNBC.
Roger Ebert: "Tru3D: 2 good 2 b 2?"
I have seen the future of 3-D, and I know this much for certain: It is better than the present. I also know that Jeffrey Katzenberg, high priest of the new wave of 3-D, believes the technology will command a $5 ticket premium, that most movies may someday be made in 3-D, and people will buy prescription sunglasses that will double as 3-D glasses.
Forrest Carter's "The Education of Little Tree": A Discussion Guide by David Bruce
Free Download.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Christmas Conundrum' Edition
Christmas was established as a 'Federal Holiday' by Congress and President Grant in 1870. It has been said that their motivation for doing so was to help bring the country together during the difficult post-Civil War reconstruction period. Considering the 'establishment clause' of the constitution, the question is...
Should the status of Christmas as a 'Federal Holiday' be rescinded due to the religious nature of the celebration?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to BadToTheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
responded:
Reader Comment
R*I*P EARTHA KITT
The BEST Catwoman EVAH!!!
Here she is singing Santa Baby
I'm one bummed Woof, Notice that women tend to wait for the Holidays to die and men for their birthdays?
Vic in Ak
Thanks, Vic!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and windy with a bit of rain.
Prints Fake Letter
New York Times
The New York Times has identified as fake a letter it published on Monday that denounced Caroline Kennedy's bid to become a U.S. senator and was attributed to the mayor of Paris.
Kennedy, the daughter of slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy, has been touring New York state in recent days to drum up support for her bid for the U.S. Senate seat of Hillary Clinton, who has been nominated secretary of state.
The letter signed by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said Kennedy's bid to fill Clinton's senate seat was "surprising and not very democratic, to say the least."
"This letter was a fake," the Times said in an editor's note on its Web site later on Monday. It said the letter had been e-mailed to the paper and that staff sent an e-mail back to the mayor to verify it, but did not hear back.
New York Times
Copyright Ruling
'Watchmen'
A U.S. federal judge has ruled that 20th Century Fox owns a copyright interest in "Watchmen," potentially jeopardizing the superhero movie's March release.
U.S. District Judge Gary Feess of Los Angeles disclosed the decision in a written order Wednesday, The New York Times and Variety reported.
"Watchmen," based on the popular graphic novel of the same name, was shot by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures.
Fox sued to prevent its release and Feess had set a Jan. 20 trial, but reversed course in writing that Fox at least owns the right to distribute the film.
'Watchmen'
Fewer Viewers
Digital TV
Nearly a fifth of the nation's full-power television stations will no longer reach at least 2 percent of viewers now covered by their existing analog signals after they switch to digital broadcasts in February, federal regulators say.
The Federal Communications Commission report comes amid mounting concerns that some consumers who rely on analog-only television sets could lose some or all over-the-air broadcast channels following the Feb. 17 digital transition even if they have purchased and hooked up digital converter boxes.
That's because many television stations will shift their broadcast footprints with the mandatory transition by changing transmitter locations, antenna patterns or power levels. The FCC is not requiring television stations to replicate their analog coverage.
Some viewers could also lose signals because of what's known as the digital "cliff effect." Unlike analog signals, digital broadcasts either come in clear or not at all, meaning that those on the fringes of analog coverage areas will lose that reception entirely after the transition. Currently, they can still get fuzzy analog signals.
Digital TV
41st International Sahara Festival
Douz, Tunisia
The 41st International Sahara Festival opened here Thursday with camel races, desert dog hunting and Saharan music launching four days of cultural events with participants from around the world.
More than 75,000 people attended the opening ceremony led by Tunisian Tourism Minister Khelil Lajimi in the southern city of Douz, a desert oasis at the edge of the Sahara.
Participants from France, Italy, Japan and several Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are taking part in the festivities.
Douz, Tunisia
TV Tojo
Takeshi Kitano
Japan remembered World War II at Christmas time as acclaimed actor and director Takeshi Kitano starred in a television epic as General Hideki Tojo, who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Better known for playing gangsters and other underworld characters, Kitano managed to portray the militarist prime minister with surprising resemblance in a documentary-drama broadcast over four and a half hours on Christmas Eve.
"The script read somewhat differently from the image of Hideki Tojo as we have known him," said the 61-year-old, who started his career as a stand-up comic.
Kitano, who played opposite David Bowie as a tough army sergeant in Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," wore a bald wig, a moustache and a pair of round-lens glasses for his latest role.
Takeshi Kitano
Not Going To Mainland China
'The Dark Knight'
Batman landed in Hong Kong but that doesn't mean "The Dark Knight" will open all over China.
The movie opened in Hong Kong theaters. But Warner Bros. decided not to release the film in mainland China - or even submit it for censors' approval - because of "prerelease conditions" and "cultural sensitivities," the studio said Tuesday.
Warner Bros. officials may have been concerned the film - particularly scenes shot in Hong Kong, where Batman nabs a gangster - would offend censors. Hong Kong is a Chinese-ruled former British colony that maintains separate political and economic systems.
Bootleg copies have been available in Chinese markets for months.
'The Dark Knight'
Cracks Down On Low-Brow TV
China
China's broadcasting watchdog has ordered a crackdown on low-brow confessional talk shows as part of a campaign against base entertainment and because such programs often fake their content, media said on Wednesday.
China has seen a plethora of these television shows, mainly on regional stations, with names like "Real Love," "Here Comes the Litigant" and "Say It Like It Is," where people come on to talk about family disputes or appeal for money.
But many of them have resorted to faking their content to get higher ratings, the Xian Evening News said, in a report carried on popular Chinese web portal Sina.com.
Other things the censor has taken offence at have included reality shows featuring sex changes and plastic surgery and talent contests during prime-time, as well as "sexually provocative sounds" on television.
China
Genetic Engineering
DIY
The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.
Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering - a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.
So far, no major gene-splicing discoveries have come out anybody's kitchen or garage.
But critics of the movement worry that these amateurs could one day unleash an environmental or medical disaster. Defenders say the future Bill Gates of biotech could be developing a cure for cancer in the garage.
DIY
Busts Burglar
Tobacco Spit
A trail of tobacco spit has led investigators to a suspect in at least five burglaries across eastern Oklahoma, police said.
Randy Lee Shoopman Jr., 33, was charged with 11 counts of second-degree burglary after a sample of his DNA matched that taken from expectorant left behind at the scene of several burglaries in Oklahoma, said officer Brad Robertson, a spokesman for the Tahlequah police department.
Shoopman was taken into custody Friday in Merced, Calif., on an unrelated stolen property charge, Robertson said.
Tobacco Spit
In Memory
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.
Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.
Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.
Once dubbed the "most exciting woman in the world" by Orson Welles, she spent much of her life single, though brief romances with the rich and famous peppered her younger years.
Her first album, "RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt," came out in 1954, featuring such songs as "I Want to Be Evil," "C'est Si Bon" and the saucy gold digger's theme song "Santa Baby," which is revived on radio each Christmas.
The next year, the record company released follow-up album "That Bad Eartha," which featured "Let's Do It," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."
Kitt also acted in movies, playing the lead female role opposite Nat King Cole in "St. Louis Blues" in 1958 and more recently appearing in "Boomerang" and "Harriet the Spy" in the 1990s.
On television, she was the sexy Catwoman on the popular "Batman" series in 1967-68, replacing Julie Newmar who originated the role. A guest appearance on an episode of "I Spy" brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in 1966.
Kitt was plainspoken about causes she believed in. Her anti-war comments at the White House came as she attended a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson.
"You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," she told the group of about 50 women. "They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."
For four years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA, which allegedly found her to be foul-mouthed and promiscuous.
"The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth - in a country that says you're entitled to tell the truth - you get your face slapped and you get put out of work," Kitt told Essence magazine two decades later.
Kitt was born in North, S.C., and her road to fame was the stuff of storybooks. In her autobiography, she wrote that her mother was black and Cherokee while her father was white, and she was left to live with relatives after her mother's new husband objected to taking in a mixed-race girl.
While traveling the world as a dancer and singer in the 1950s, Kitt learned to perform in nearly a dozen languages and, over time, added songs in French, Spanish and even Turkish to her repertoire.
On stage, she was daringly sexy and always flirtatious. Offstage, however, Kitt described herself as shy and almost reclusive, remnants of feeling unwanted and unloved as a child. She referred to herself as "that little urchin cotton-picker from the South, Eartha Mae."
For years, Kitt was unsure of her birthplace or birth date. In 1997, a group of students at historically black Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., located her birth certificate, which verified her birth date as Jan. 17, 1927. Kitt had previously celebrated on Jan. 26.
Eartha Kitt
In Memory
Page Cavanaugh
Jazz pianist and singer Page Cavanaugh, whose popular trio in the 1940s and 1950s played in motion pictures and on Frank Sinatra's radio show, has died at 86.
The Page Cavanaugh Trio was one of Southern California's most popular nightclub acts from the 1940s to the 1990s, performing at Ciro's, the Trocadero, the Captain's Table, the Money Tree and the Balboa Bay Club.
The group played in the film "Romance on the High Seas" with Jack Carson and Doris Day. The trio showed up in movies such as "A Song Is Born," "Big City" and "Lullaby of Broadway."
Cavanaugh's trio also appeared with Frank Sinatra on his "Songs By Sinatra" radio show and played for NBC Radio's "The Jack Paar Show."
Their hits included "The Three Bears" and "She Had to Go and Lose It At the Astor."
Cavanaugh never married and had no surviving relatives.
Page Cavanaugh
In Memory
Harold Pinter
British Nobel laureate Harold Pinter - who produced some of his generation's most influential dramas and later became a staunch critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq - has died, his widow said Thursday. He was 78.
Pinter died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer, according to his second wife Antonia Fraser.
In recent years he had seized the platform offered by his 2005 Nobel Literature prize to denounce resident George W. Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the war in Iraq.
Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and put his hand to 22 screenplays.
The working-class milieu of his first dramas reflected his early life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London's East End.
Born Oct. 30, 1930, in the London neighborhood of Hackney, he was forced along with other children during World War II to evacuate to rural Cornwall in 1939. He was 14 before he returned. By then, he was entranced with Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway.
By 1950, Pinter had begun to publish poetry and appeared on stage as an actor. Pinter began to write for the stage, and published "The Room" in 1957.
A year later, his first major play, "The Birthday Party" was produced in the West End.
"Betrayal" (1978) was reportedly based on the disintegration of his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, who appeared in many of his first plays.
Their marriage ended in 1980 after Pinter's long affair with BBC presenter Joan Bakewell. He then married Fraser. Merchant died shortly afterward of alcoholism-related disease.
During the late 1980s, his work became more overtly political; he said he had a responsibility to pursue his role as "a citizen of the world in which I live, (and) insist upon taking responsibility."
Off-stage he was also highly political: Pinter turned down former Prime Minister John Major's offer of a knighthood and strongly attacked Blair when NATO bombed Serbia. He later referred to Blair a "deluded idiot" for supporting Bush's war in Iraq.
"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in his Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to the Swedish capital of Stockholm.
"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked, in a hoarse voice.
Pinter is survived by his son, Daniel, from his marriage to Merchant.
Harold Pinter
In Memory
John Costelloe
Police say the actor who portrayed the gay lover of a closeted mobster on "The Sopranos" has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New York.
Police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel says John Costelloe was found dead in an apparent suicide at his Brooklyn home on Dec. 18.
Police were called to his residence after family members were unable to reach him.
The 47-year-old actor gained fame in 2006 when he was cast as short-order cook Jim "Johnny Cakes" Witowski opposite Joseph Gannascoli, who played gay mobster Vito Spatafore on the hit HBO show.
John Costelloe
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