Baron Dave Romm
Baron Dave's on the road.
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The Executive Order Edition
What action would you have our President-elect do in his very first Executive Order?
1. Issue a new order pertaining to___________....
2. Repeal Dubya's outrageous order to_________ ....
There it is, Poll-fans! Short, sweet and so very important, don't ya know...
So, think hard! This a big deal! The very first one! One shot only! Bring it on (haha)!
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to BadToTheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Results tomorrow
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Anonymous: Dear Racist Asshole (thestranger.com)
I'm the one who found your lost cell phone on the street. My first instinct was to find out whom it belonged to and return it, to do my Good Samaritan deed. It wasn't password protected, so I looked around on it to find some identifying information. That's when I found all your Election Day text messages between you and your other racist buddies. "Did you hear that Hallmark has a new Obama presidential Christmas ornament? Now everyone can hang that nigger from a tree!"
Roy Edroso: Reverend Billy Leads Buy Nothing Day Service in Union Square (villagevoice.com)
Comparing this to the civil rights movement and the struggles of Harvey Milk, the Reverend raised cheers when he said people were contacting him "from around the world, and they're saying, I've got it, I get it! I'm waking up, I'm not shopping and I won't shop in those stores! Change-ellujah!"
FROMA HARROP: Health Care Reform Must Start Now (creators.com)
This would seem a heckuva time to unfurl a national health plan. Washington has big fires to put out in the financial markets. Taxpayers, meanwhile, face a zillion-dollar bill for economic stabilization on top of already soaring deficits. Can we afford a big new government program right now? We have no choice.
Beth Broderick: Poor... It's The New Rich (huffingtonpost.com)
I walk my dog past the projects every night and there is one young man who arrives home at 5 PM and rushes inside to change out of his auto mechanics uniform before hitting the streets pushing an ice cream cart. He does this with a smile. On Sundays there is a bent mostly toothless old woman who roams the block selling home-made tamales out of a rusted red wagon.
Bob Burnett: Bush's Recession, Rooted in Self-Interest (huffingtonpost.com)
While making a revealing documentary about the 2000 Bush campaign, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi asked the candidate why she should vote for him; Bush replied. "It's in your interests." Pelosi observed, "He didn't push my country's interest - but rather, my own." Bush's primary consideration was what's in it for me?
Philip N. Cohen: What Will Obama's "Good Jobs in America" Mean for Women? (huffingtonpost.com)
Obama says he wants to address the immediate economic crisis in a way that supports long term goals. If one of those goals is reducing gender inequality, then universal pre-k education might be a good place to start.
Hugo Rifkind: Samuel the angry power prophet (timesonline.co.uk)
In his new film Samuel L. Jackson plays a violent, racist cop, a portrayal informed by his 60 years as a black American.
Roger Ebert: Death to film critics! Hail to the CelebCult!
A newspaper film critic is like a canary in a coal mine. When one croaks, get the hell out. The lengthening toll of former film critics acts as a poster child for the self-destruction of American newspapers, which once hoped to be more like the "New York Times" and now yearn to become more like the "National Enquirer." We used to be the town crier. Now we are the neighborhood gossip.
Roger Ebert: MY NAME IS BRUCE (R; 2 stars)
Many's the actor who has brooded in his trailer and pondered: "Maybe I could direct better than this idiot." With Bruce Campbell, that is often true, with the exceptions of such directors as Sam Raimi, with whom he has worked 11 times, and the Coen brothers, four. You know you're in trouble when your top-user-rated title at IMDb is a video game, although the game boys are such generous raters, they place the game "Evil Dead: Regeneration" right above the film "Fargo."
wrote:
Reader Suggestion
Re: Creationism
Check this out!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and mid-60°s
Long Beach Activism
'You Can't Hide Your Hate'
Proposition 8 opponents are using the Internet to expose Long Beach-area residents who gave campaign donations to the same-sex marriage ban.
After aggregating public records, they've created numerous Web sites that list donor names, their resident cities, occupations and the amounts they gave to the campaign, which passed Nov. 4 and is headed early next year to the California Supreme Court for review.
Long Beach resident Raphael Mazor, 31, co-publishes "You Can't Hide Your Hate."
The site is a community forum, identifying donors and helping viewers make informed decisions about conducting business, promoting tolerance and civil rights, Mazor said.
The site states, "We do NOT advocate blacklisting or boycotts, only informed decision making and awareness. We are 100 percent opposed to violence, vandalism and threats and do not endorse using any information in a nefarious way."
'You Can't Hide Your Hate'
News Crew Beaten In China
Belgian TV
A Belgian TV journalist and his crew were assaulted while reporting on AIDS in Central China.
The incident underscores the ongoing difficulties in bringing a new media openness to the provinces under an official change in policy that the government adopted around the time of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
After interviewing several representatives of AIDS groups on Thursday, Belgian journalist Tom Van de Weghe and his production team from Flemish public television VRT were beaten and robbed of cash and equipment by 12 men recruited by authorities in Henan province, a VRT spokesperson said.
The incident echoes one in the spring in which a crew from U.S. broadcast network CBS' newsmagazine show "60 Minutes" was assaulted when trying to film a plant processing toxic waste near the South China boomtown of Shenzhen.
Belgian TV
Dino De Laurentiis Wasn't Impressed
Meryl Streep
Movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis was so appalled when a young Meryl Streep was brought in to audition for him for King Kong - he called her a "pig".
The moviemaker/producer, who eventually picked Jessica Lange for the role in the 1976 film, thought he was being clever by using Italian to convey his disgust - but Streep understood every word.
She tells America's Entertainment Weekly magazine, "He said, 'Why did you send me this pig? This woman is so ugly... so I looked at him and I said, 'I'm very sorry that I disappoint you.'
"He was so used to treating girls like bimbos (and) never imagined that a blonde person could speak Italian."
Meryl Streep
PA's First Agricultural College
Eau de Penn State
Fans of Penn State can smell like the school for just $60.
A fragrance developer says it has made a perfume and a cologne inspired by Pennsylvania State University's blue and white colors and its campus vegetation.
Masik Collegiate Fragrances says the perfume for the school in State College, Pa., smells of vanilla, lilac, rose and white patchouli. The cologne smells of blue cypress and cracked pepper.
Masik also has captured the smell of the University of North Carolina, and plans to offer scents for six other universities next year.
Eau de Penn State
Sales Drop By Half
Asian Art
Half the lots in Christie's evening sales of Asian contemporary and Chinese 20th century art went unsold on Sunday, reflecting the bleak global economic outlook and cooling Chinese art market.
Bidding was lacklustre with many collectors and dealers not drawn to valuations seen as overpriced given the current market conditions. Only 56 percent of 32 lots of Asian Contemporary art sold, while 46 percent of Chinese 20th Century artwork was sold.
Major works by artists like China's Zeng Fanzhi, Yue Minjun and Cai Guoqiang, Taiwan's Chen Cheng-Po and India's Subodh Gupta fell short of reserve prices -- which six months ago would most likely have attracted highly competitive bidding.
The top lot in the Asian contemporary sale was Zhang Xiaogang's "Bloodline: Big Family No. 2" -- a large family portrait from the collection of Hollywood director Oliver Stone which sold for HK$26.4 million -- though well below its pre-sale estimate of around HK$40 million.
Asian Art
Pioneering Legal Heroin Program
Swiss Voters
Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved Sunday a move to make permanent the country's pioneering program to give addicts government-authorized heroin.
At the same time, voters rejected a proposal to decriminalize marijuana.
On a separate issue, 52 percent of voters approved an initiative to eliminate the statute of limitations on pornographic crimes against children before the age of puberty.
The heroin program has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s, supporters say.
Swiss Voters
Ant Aphrodisiac Conman
Wang Zhendong
China has executed the leader of a bogus scheme for breeding ants to make aphrodisiacs that conned investors out of 3 billion yuan ($439 million), the official Xinhua news agency said.
Wang Zhendong was executed in the northeastern province of Liaoning, Xinhua cited an unnamed local official as saying.
The fictitious ant-breeding project that Wang fronted features prominently in posters and other government educational materials warning of the risks of pyramid schemes and other investment schemes that sound too good to be true.
Wang promised investors in the fictitious project returns of 35 to 60 percent, Xinhua said. The ants were to be used for making liquor, herbal remedies and aphrodisiacs.
Wang Zhendong
Report Reveals Effect Of Stasi
German TV
An investigation published by German public broadcaster ARD reveals that the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, influenced German television and radio reports on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
In the East, the Stasi dictated the official propaganda broadcast by the German Democratic Republic's state broadcaster. In the West, it infiltrated German broadcasters and tried to plant misinformation.
But while the Stasi did manage to slip a few misleading reports into the West German media, the report finds that it did not influence programing or personnel decisions.
"The Stasi acquired a broad overview of the structures and personnel of ARD channels but still did not understand how a public broadcaster works in a democracy," the report said.
German TV
Ethics Survey
Students
In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards.
Educators reacting to the findings questioned any suggestion that today's young people are less honest than previous generations, but several agreed that intensified pressures are prompting many students to cut corners.
The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, surveyed 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected high schools nationwide, both public and private. All students in the selected schools were given the survey in class; their anonymity was assured.
Michael Josephson, the institute's founder and president, said he was most dismayed by the findings about theft. The survey found that 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls - 30 percent overall - acknowledged stealing from a store within the past year. One-fifth said they stole something from a friend; 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative.
Students
Weekend Box Office
'Four Christmases'
Thanksgiving weekend movie crowds gobbled up the Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn holiday comedy "Four Christmases," which debuted at No. 1 with $31.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Summit Entertainment's vampire romance "Twilight," which had a huge No. 1 opening the previous weekend, took a steep 62 percent decline from its $69.6 million debut and was neck-and-neck for second place with Disney's animated family flick "Bolt."
Sean Penn's drama "Milk" got off to a great start in limited release, coming in at No. 10 with $1.4 million in just 36 theaters. The film had a strong average of $38,375 a cinema, compared with $9,571 in 3,310 theaters for "Four Christmases."
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. "Four Christmases," $31.7 million.
2. "Bolt," $26.6 million.
3. "Twilight," $26.4 million.
4. "Quantum of Solace," $19.5 million.
5. "Australia," $14.8 million.
6. "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," $14.5 million.
7. "Transporter 3," $12.3 million.
8. "Role Models," $5.3 million.
9. "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," $1.7 million.
10. "Milk," $1.4 million.
'Four Christmases'
In Memory
Bill Drake
Bill Drake, who set the tone at hundreds of pop stations with a radio format that placed music-rather than disc jockeys-at the center of the broadcast, has died.
Drake died of cancer Saturday at West Hills Hospital in the San Fernando Valley, his domestic partner Carole Scott said. He was 71.
At the height of his career as a radio programming consultant in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Drake championed a streamlined format that came to be known as "Boss Radio," which made announcers' personalities secondary to the Top 40 hits they were spinning.
Under Drake's guidance, radio stations such as KGB in San Diego, KHJ in Los Angeles and KFRC in San Francisco shot to the No. 1 slots in their markets by promising more music and less chatter.
Drake, whose given name was Philip Yarbrough, was born Jan. 14, 1937, in southwest Georgia and began his professional radio career as a disk jockey and later program director at WAKE in Atlanta.
Drake later moved to California, where he directed programming at stations in San Francisco, Stockton and Fresno, before launching his radio consulting business with longtime partner Gene Chenault. The two launched numerous high-profile radio careers, including that of Top 40 disc jockeys "The Real" Don Steele and Robert W. Morgan.
Drake sold his interest in Drake-Chenault Enterprises Inc. in 1983. He was developing a new Top 40 format for satellite radio at the time of his death.
He is survived by his daughter Kristie Philbin.
Bill Drake
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