'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Minneapolis Millers
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
Hidden Minneapolis
For the past few months I've been walking around Minneapolis taking pictures of murals, signs and locales that are public but off the beaten track. I post these in my LiveJournal, along with other bits 'o stuff.
(If you're on LiveJournal, Friend me!)
Most of the Hidden Minneapolis series so far has been within a few blocks of where I live. Finally, it occurred to me that one of the more interesting and yet obscure parts of the city is literally in my back yard. I thought I'd share it with Bartcop-E.
Nicollet Park
Here's what I see when I leave my apartment.
A standard bank in a standard location. But wait! The bank has provided a small green area between the parking lot and the bank building, which is in the center left of the above shot.
But, I hear you asking rhetorically, what is that plaque?
For sixty years, this block was Nicollet Park, home to baseball and football, ending the year I was born. (Coincidence?) It was home to the Minneapolis Millers, who had great success here. The Wikipedia entry on Nicollet Park includes a detail of the small picture on the back of the plaque, above.
Minneapolis Millers
Minneapolis is The Mill City, or at least we were when Mpls was the highest navigable point of the Mississippi and the falls provided power to grind the grain brought from America's Breadbasket. So naturally the minor league baseball team, through several incarnations was the Millers. Mpls is home to General Mills, and the Wheaties slogan "Breakfast of Champions" was unveiled at the park in 1933.
The Minneapolis Millers who called Nicollet Park "home" included Ted Williams, Willie Mays and Carl Yastrzemski, and were visited by many of the ballplayers of the day.
It's kind of neat to think that Babe Ruth once spit where my apartment is standing now!
The Millers moved to Metropolitan Stadium in 1956 and folded in 1960 when the Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961, bringing major league baseball (and eventually two World Series trophies) to the former backwater city. Their crosstown rivals, the St. Paul Saints, also folded in 1960 but were revived as a minor league team in 1993 and are still playing today. But not here.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Nat Hentoff: The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal' (villagevoice.com)
The House and a shot not yet heard 'round the world.
Elizabeth Gudrais: Unequal America (harvardmagazine.com)
Causes and consequences of the wide-and growing-gap between rich and poor
Susie Bright Interviews Paul Krassner (huffingtonpost.com)
Progressive sex author Susie Bright had some questions for me:
Q. Paul, what's the story of the first "dirty picture" you ever saw?
Jon Bream: Music remains a family affair for percussionist-drummer Sheila E (Star Tribune)
Sheila E was coming to Minnesota for a wedding recently so she decided to bring her family band along - not to play at her godson's reception but to do a rare club engagement.
'This is the devil's music' (music.guardian.co.uk)
Credited with inventing an entire genre and influencing some of the world's biggest metal bands, Venom are still seen as a bit of a joke in this country. So what's kept them going for 30 years, asks Stevie Chick.
Roger Ebert: Droid story (3 1/2 stars)
Pixar's "WALL*E" succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment and a decent science-fiction story. After "Kung Fu Panda," I thought I had just about exhausted my emergency supply of childlike credulity, but here is a film, like "Finding Nemo," that you can enjoy even if you've grown up.
Will Harris: A Chat with Mike Epps (bullz-eye.com)
"I enjoyed working on ('Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins'). You know, it had all those different talents come together. Me being a fan of Martin (Lawrence) all these years and working with Mo'Nique and Cedric (the Entertainer) and stuff, it just all gelled. It became a big family."
Jeffrey Jena: A Tribute to George Carlin (www.236.com)
I am taking a break from my usual ranting to pay tribute to one of my comedy heroes and influences, George Carlin who passed away on Sunday.
JACQUES STEINBERG: Refusing to Coast on 7 Infamous Words (nytimes.com; from 2005)
Ruth Richardson and Reuben Briggs were seated near each other at a theater here, but other than a shared admiration for the evening's featured performer - George Carlin - they did not appear to have much else in common.
DAVID HOCHMAN: What George Carlin Told Me About the Afterlife and What He'd Like on His Tombstone (huffingtonpost.com)
... I thought I'd ask what he'd like his tombstone to say. Carlin didn't miss a beat.
"I'm thinking something along the lines of, "Jeez, he was just here a minute ago."
Mary Beard: Isn't It Funny? (nybooks.com)
Laughter is one of the most treacherous of all fields of history. Like sex and eating, it is an absolutely universal human phenomenon, and at the same time something that is highly culturally and chronologically specific.
SUZANNE PODHAIZER: Pollan Perfect (7dvt.com)
Food expert Michael Pollan says Vermont agriculture is in flower.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
High Noon, January 20, 2009
Is George Carlin 'channeling' this thought?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
SAG's President
Alan Rosenberg
The leader of the Screen Actors Guild said Sunday the union remains committed to negotiating a new deal with Hollywood producers as contract expiration looms and is not calling for a strike.
Anxiety has been growing in Hollywood that actors might walk off the job or that studios could lock out performers on the heels of the Writers Guild of America strike that devastated production from November through February.
The SAG contract runs out at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
"We have taken no steps to initiate a strike authorization vote by the members of Screen Actors Guild," union president Alan Rosenberg said in a statement Sunday. "Any talk about a strike or a management lockout at this point is simply a distraction."
Alan Rosenberg
Working To Develop Haiti
Wyclef Jean
When Wyclef Jean went to Haiti recently, he had in tow the television cameras you might expect of a big-time rapper and producer.
But he also was accompanied by a pool of buttoned-down business types, including the likes of Canadian entrepreneur Belinda Stronach and other potential foreign investors.
The Haitian-born Jean, who rose to fame with the Fugees hip-hop group and became a homeland hero with his efforts to bring education and peace to the impoverished Caribbean nation, has set his sights on serious economic change.
The Grammy-winning musician said the poorest country in the Americas, roiled by food riots in April, needs foreign investment and help with sustainable development but not charity that could cause Haiti to become even more dependent.
Wyclef Jean
Researchers Recreate
Pre-Columbian Sounds
Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.
But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years. When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle.
Roberto Velazquez believes the Aztecs played this mournful wail from the so-called Whistles of Death before they were sacrificed to the gods.
The 66-year-old mechanical engineer has devoted his career to recreating the sounds of his pre-Columbian ancestors, producing hundreds of replicas of whistles, flutes and wind instruments unearthed in Mexico's ruins.
Pre-Columbian Sounds
Honorary Maltese Citizenship
Enrique Iglesias
Latin singer Enrique Iglesias has been handed an honorary citizenship in Valletta, Malta.
The Hero hitmaker was presented with the citizenship certificate and a commemorative gift by the city's mayor, Dr Paul Borg Olivier, in a low-key ceremony at the Grand Hotel Excelsior in the island's capital.
Iglesias is only the second foreigner to be given the honour. Italian maestro Riccardo Muti was the first to receive the gift in 2007.
Enrique Iglesias
Wedding News
Evert & Norman
Ex-golfer Greg Norman and tennis legend Chris Evert were married on Saturday in a seaside ceremony held under a veil of tight security on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
Officers from the Royal Bahamas Police Force and local security staff kept reporters, photographers and television crews from straying beyond checkpoints set up well around the perimeter of the One & Only Ocean Club resort where the celebrity couple tied the knot at sunset.
But People magazine said Evert and Norman, both 53, exchanged vows in front of 140 family and friends, including U.S. television personality Matt Lauer and singer-songwriter Corey Hart.
Evert & Norman
US Halts Projects For 2 Years
Solar Energy
The US government is putting a hold on new solar energy projects on public land for two years so it can study the environmental impact of sun-driven plants.
The Bureau of Land Management says the moratorium on solar proposals is needed to determine how a new generation of large-scale projects could affect plants and wildlife on the land it manages.
The move has angered some solar energy proponents who argue it could hold up the industry at a vital juncture, given the pressing need to secure alternative energy sources at a time of soaring oil prices. "This technology has been around for nearly three decades.
The environmental assessment was being "fast-tracked". During the study, the BLM will not accept any new applications to lease public land for solar developments. But it insists it is "not holding industry up" and will continue to process 150 existing applications for roughly one million acres of federal land considered to have the best potential for solar development.
Solar Energy
Death Ruled Suicide
Ruslana Korshunova
The death of a fashion model who plunged from the ninth floor of a Manhattan building has been ruled a suicide.
The medical examiner's office said Sunday that Ruslana Korshunova died in the fall the afternoon before.
The fall was from her apartment in the Financial District. The 20-year-old Korshunova was a native of Kazakhstan who graced the covers of top fashion magazines.
Ruslana Korshunova
Will Smith's School
New Village Academy
Will Smith's soon-to-open private school is not a Scientology facility, as some reports have suggested, the academy's director said.
The New Village Academy will use instructional methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard called study technology. And a few teachers belong to the church.
But the couple say they are not Scientologists, and the academy's director insists the facility has no religious affiliation.
In addition to reading and math, the school offers classes on yoga, robotics and etiquette.
New Village Academy
Wedding News
Anamoose, N.D.
Joe the Moose has long been the mascot on the sign leading into Anamoose, in north-central North Dakota. But officials of the town of about 260 decided to give him a mate, Ana, and held a mock wedding Saturday in celebration.
Maury Becker, a resident who acted as minister of the ceremony, told the guests he was joining Joe and Ana "in an estate of continual turmoil," and officially declared them "miserable mates."
The moose couple - Ron Cartwright as Ana and Barb Martin as Joe - cut the wedding cake and handed out what they called moose droppings.
"Really, you've got to have a little fun and live a little," said Danelle Olson, the pastor of the United Community Baptist Church of Anamoose. "It's a silly event. But, you know, sometimes you've got to act a little silly to keep your sanity in life."
Anamoose, N.D.
100 Years Later
Tunguska Event
A hundred years ago this week, a gigantic explosion ripped open the dawn sky above the swampy taiga forest of western Siberia, leaving a scientific riddle that endures to this day.
A dazzling light pierced the heavens, preceding a shock wave with the power of a thousand atomic bombs which flattened 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres (800 square miles).
Evenki nomads recounted how the blast tossed homes and animals into the air. In Irkutsk, 1,500 kilometres (950 miles) away, seismic sensors registered what was initially deemed to be an earthquake. The fireball was so great that a day later, Londoners could read their newspapers under the night sky.
What caused the so-called Tunguska Event, named after the Podkamennaya Tunguska river near where it happened, has spawned at least a half a dozen theories.
Tunguska Event
Admits Tiger Photos Faked
China
China has sacked a number of government officials and arrested a man in connection with a set of fake photographs that local authorities had said was proof of the existence of a highly endangered tiger.
In October, forestry officials in Zhenping county in northern Shaanxi province published photos of a tiger in a forest setting, saying they were proof of the existence of the South China tiger. A local farmer who produced the photos was paid a 20,000 yuan (1,453 pounds) reward.
Nine months later, officials admitted the photos were faked, state media said, citing sources at a press conference held by the Shaanxi province government.
The scandal has captivated local media and many Chinese who have viewed the saga as symbolic of common people's lack of trust in local authorities.
China
Weekend Box Office
'WALL-E'
"WALL-E," the Pixar Animation tale of a robot toiling away on a long-abandoned Earth, debuted as the No. 1 movie with $62.5 million in ticket sales, with Angelina Jolie's assassin thriller "Wanted" opening in second place with $51.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The two movies combined to keep Hollywood on a roll. The top 12 movies took in $179.2 million, up 22 percent from the same weekend last year, when Pixar's "Ratouille" opened with $47 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "WALL-E," $62.5 million.
2. "Wanted," $51.1 million.
3. "Get Smart," $20 million.
4. "Kung Fu Panda," $11.7 million.
5. "The Incredible Hulk," $9.2 million.
6. "The Love Guru," $5.4 million.
7. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," $5 million.
8. "The Happening," $3.9 million.
9. "Sex and the City," $3.8 million.
10. "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," $3.2 million.
'WALL-E'
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