Christopher Stone: Author Fights Gay Book Ban in Tacoma, WA (afterelton.com)
"My partner (Michael Jensen) and I have applied to immigrate to Canada. We may or may not go through with it-we have three years to decide-but I've been so appalled by these last few years. Think about the national 'debates' we're having these days. Whether or not we should be teaching evolution in science classes? Whether it means you hate America and the troops if you criticize the president? Whether saying 'Season's Greetings' to someone is religious discrimination? Whether we should TORTURE people, or keep citizens in prison indefinitely without even accusing them of a crime?"
John Zmirak: Let Advent Be Advent (beliefnet.com)
It's worth pointing out as we start that Advent is a penitential season. It was once a "little Lent," during which fasting was required on Wednesdays and Fridays and weddings could not usually be celebrated. I first learned this from an attractive lady friend who'd grown up in a hyper-pious family; I asked her out for a date during Advent, and she informed me she was giving up alcohol and parties during those weeks. I was stunned: What was the point? She would miss all the Christmas parties? She nodded sadly, agreeing. "It's funny how when Christmas really comes, all the parties will be over."
Matthew L. Miller: Where's the beef from? (Prairie Writers Circle; Posted on workingforchange.com)
Becoming a mindful meat eater means acknowledging that life feeds on life, that regardless of our diet, all of our food has costs. Even those who shun animal products cannot escape this, whether in the loss of wildlife habitat to grain fields, poisoning by pesticide use or animals killed for crop damage on organic farms.
Karen Collins, R.D.: How to get more cancer-fighting nutrients (msnbc.msn.com)
Since vegetables, fruits and beans are major sources for these nutrients, to end any deficiency we might have, most of us should try to eat three-and-a-half to five cups of vegetables and fruits a day. The survey indicates that all of us need to expand our produce choices and learn to enjoy more dark green and orange vegetables and more fruit.
ROGER EBERT: Atlantic City (A Great Movie)
As for Lou and Sally, there is something tender and subtle going on. Neither was born yesterday. Both have dreams. Both have lived with disappointment. Even though they could be lovers, they have no future together, and maybe no future separately. They don't need to say this to each other. When he helps her, it is because she needs help, and equally because he needs to help. His payoff is not living happily ever after, but in having an eyewitness who knows that at least once during his descent into obscurity he stepped up to the plate and acted as he thinks a man should act -- a man like the men he admires, who may have been criminals but were powerful and respected. The movie does not deny reality; it ends with what must happen, in the way it must happen, given what has gone before.
WARNING: Not your grandmother's Christmas poem. If she does not already have blue hair, she will after reading about the rumored Christmas past of 1972 for Ol' W as we try to help him recover his conveniently lost memory of his imfamous lost year!
Pour Grandma an extra strong drink of eggnog before she reads this!
Jeff Gannon gives it a firm 5 stars way up!
I remember surfing at a place called Doheny Beach stoned on Sandoz LSD back in 1963! Long before the words "stoked" and "far-out" had been coined, I was having an experience with the forces of nature that, in a way, is still indescribable! The shape of the wave and the sheer power of "shooting the curl"…. I felt the mesmerizing Zen moment of being at one with nature….and a good fucking buzz from the acid!!!!
I have always been astounded with what human beings can do on a wooden board, with gravity and that good old "Angle of Incidence"…the perfect geometrically acute curve that sends you at high speeds through open space….a gnarly wave or a sick cliff!
Bruce Brown made a movie called "The Endless Summer" (1966) about the search for the "Perfect Wave"……the never before seen or surfed spot with the greatest ride!
Kemp Curly has made a movie that should be called "Endless Winter" about the search for the "Perfect Snow Drop"…..the never before done "High Mountain Heli-board" death defying extreme snow board solo run down the severe vertical face of #7601……code name for the scariest, sickest stand on top of the tip of a precipice and fucking jump off and fly down peak… on the planet……..
They called the movie "First Descent". In the vein of "Dog Town and Z-Boys" (2001) and "Riding Giants" (2004) what started out as "dudes" getting "air" at the edge of empty swimming pools…has become "dudes" (and chick) getting "air" at the edge of the "World"……with nothing but a board under you……
So 5 of the greatest competitive snow board icons get on a plane a fly to Valdez, Alaska to commune with nature and…..get dropped at the top of never before touched mountain peaks….psycho Snow boarding geezer Shawn Farmer (good 'ole boy Missouri skeet shootin' 40 year old white rapper) and almost geezer Nick Peralta (39 year old host and heli-board pilot) matched with whippersnappers Shaun White (18 year old long haired prodigy and child super star) and Hannah Teeter (18 year old doe-eyed slow glide plaid wearing sister of the Teeter boys). And rounding out the group, 30 something steel nerved Norwegian mountain monarch… Terje Haakonsen.
With Henry Rollins (tattooed former front man for "Black Flag) narrating and "Boozy" the snowboarding clown laughing, we follow the 10 day trek up to Alaska….we also get a little history lesson about the emergence of Snowboarding as a legitimate sport….
20 years ago the "two legged" traditional skiers wouldn't allow the hippie hoodlums on the hill…boarders were banned from most resorts…but "Ski Bums" were replaced by "Board Bums" and some in the sport even think that snowboarding saved the ASS of most money making down hill venues…..but just like surfers and skateboarders before them, snowboarders finally broke through to the general population (mostly the freaky younger generation X) …and the competitive side of the sport started to blossom….
My son, Smoky, was the D.J. for the Snowboarding competition at the winter Olympics in Utah in 2002….and the American women won the gold and the American men SWEPT…gold, silver and platinum…..all to the pounding thrashing beat of alternative rock, reggae and hippy-hop blasting down the half-pipe….
The movie showed an amazing spectacle held in Tokyo, Japan where 50,000 rabid fans watched the new "Rock Stars" of Boarding fly down an enormous man-made jump and catch major air, perform 720's, rodeos and Haakon-flips…….all doing the wave and roaring with delight……
Cut back to the silent wilderness of Valdez, Alaska. The helicopters dropped the group of 5 onto several precipitous crags and filmed them warming up by plunging down "lines" in fresh powder. One incredible scene showed Heli-poacher, Travis Rice hitting a huge snow shelf and starting an avalanche…getting partially buried and then escaping out one side and blowing past the whole thing. Farmer and Teeter take two tremendous tumbles and see god! Finally they all get precariously placed on the top of #7601! No one has ever dropped off and boarded down from this incredible spot….the scene of the 5 clinging to the tiny top as the wind howled past was really scary…and you could tell they were fucking scared……So the helicopter came back and pulled them all off and they went and dropped into some safer runs…..But Terje kept looking back at #7601 and finally, with his nuts swelling, said "take me back up there…The wind stopped …. I'm going for it!"
The only comparable insanity would be Laird Hamilton being dropped from a helicopter in the middle of the ocean, towed in to a swell by a jet skier and surfing two unbelievably huge monster waves…."Jaws" and "Millenium"…..So Terje gets dropped back up there on # 7601 and the tension is awesome…..Everyone is watching…Helicopter cameras ready…..This is it! This is the ride…this is the movie…this is truly amazing…..his 5 minutes of pure fall is poetry and perfection…..and balls!
Purple Gene gives "First Descent" 7601 vertical feet of sheer madness and manic inner peace out of a possible 10,000 (which will be "First Descent Two").
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'King Of Queens' (Kevin James shows how pole dancing is done), followed by a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'Out Of Practice', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
On a RERUNDave (from 11/4/05) are Billy Crystal and Ryan Adams.
On a RERUNCraig (from 11/23/05) are Regis Philbin and Maureen Dowd.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'Ls Vegas', followed by a FRESH'Las Vegas', then a RERUN'Medium'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Sarah Jessica Parker, Isaac Mizrahi, and Bo Bice.
On a RERUNConan (from 7/22/05) are Tim Robbins, Isla Fisher, and Common.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 11/2/05) are Donnie Wahlberg, Jeff Piotrowski, and David Gray.
ABC starts the night on the East Coast with a RERUN'Wife Swap', followed by the LIVE'MNF Football', where the Seahawks visit Philly.
On the left coast, the night starts early with the LIVE'MNF Football', where the Seahawks still visit Philly, followed by some local filler crap, then the RERUN'Wife Swap'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Ted Danson, Julie Bowen, and Floetry.
The WB offers a RERUN'7th Heaven', followed by a RERUN'Related'.
Faux has a FRESH'Arrested Development', followed by a FRESH'Kitchen Confidential', then a FRESH'Nanny 911'.
UPN has a RERUN'One On One', followed by a RERUN'All Of Us', then a RERUN'Girlfriends', followed by a RERUN'Half & Half'.
A&E has 'Cold Case Files', 'Serial Killer', 'Growing Up Gotti', another 'Growing Up Gotti', and 'Intervention'.
AMC offers the movie 'Antwone Fisher', followed by the movie 'Field Of Dreams', then the movie 'The Natural'.
BBC -
[2pm] 'Creature Comforts' - Episode 1;
[2:30pm] 'Peep Show' - Episode 1;
[3pm] 'Peep Show' - Episode 2;
[3:30pm] 'Peep Show' - Episode 3;
[4pm] 'At Home with the Braithwaites' - Episode 8;
[5pm] 'Monarch of the Glen' - Episode 4;
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'House Invaders' - Walton on Trent;
[7pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 13;
[8pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Hinton;
[9pm] 'Waking the Dead' - Episode 1;
[11pm] 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' - It's the Arts;
[11:40pm] 'Blackadder' - Beer;
[12:20am] 'Blackadder' - Chains;
[1am] 'Waking the Dead' - Episode 1;
[3am] 'Green Wing' - Episode 1;
[4am] 'Green Wing' - Episode 2;
[5am] 'Green Wing' - Episode 3;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Comedy Central has the movie 'Joe Dirt', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Comedians Of Comedy', 'South Park', 'Mind Of Mencia', and 'Reno 911!'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Former President Jimmy Carter.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Maureen Dowd.
History has 'Terror Tech', 'Boys' Toys', another 'Boys' Toys', and 'Detectives'.
IFC -
[6AM] The Bible And Gun Club (1997);
[7:30AM] At The IFC Center #8 (2005);
[10AM] Proof (1992);
[12:15PM] Jump Tomorrow (2001);
[2PM] Wild Man Blues (1998);
[4PM] At The IFC Center #8 (2005);
[4:30PM] The Road Home (2000);
[6:15PM] Waterland (1992);
[8PM] The Spaghetti West (2005);
[8PM] Wild Man Blues (1998);
[9PM] The Full Monty (1997);
[10:45PM] IFC in Theaters (2005);
[1AM] The Full Monty (1997);
[2:35AM] At The IFC Center #8 (2005);
[5AM] IFC Short Film Showcase: December (2005). (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Jurassic Park', followed by the SERIES PREMIERE'The Triangle'.
Sundance -
[5:30am] The Guggenheim and the Baroness;
[6:35am] The Umbrellas of Cherbourg;
[8:15am] King of the Hill;
[10am] Diamonds and Rust;
[11:15am] Dangle;
[11:30am] Raging Dove;
[12:30pm] The Other Final;
[2pm] Greendale;
[3:30pm] The Game of Their Lives;
[5pm] Monster Road;
[6:30pm] TransGeneration: Episode 2;
[7pm] An Injury to One;
[8pm] The Guggenheim and the Baroness;
[9pm] Bhopal: The Search for Justice;
[10pm] Torture: The Guantanamo Guidebook;
[11pm] Iconoclasts: Grazer on Redstone;
[12:40am] Lenny;
[2:35am] Saturn's Return;
[3:05am] Book of Love;
[4:30am] Oleanna. (ALL TIMES EST)
Singer and Kennedy Center 2005 Honoree Tony Bennett (R) poses with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (DE-CA) and her husband Paul as they depart the gala dinner at the State Department in Washington December 3, 2005. The Kennedy Center award is given for a lifetime contribution to the arts and American culture.
Photo by Mike Theiler
Artists from around the world joined resident Bush and Laura Bush in an evening ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The honorees are:
_Turner, 66, who has earned her seven Grammy awards for hits such as "Proud Mary," "What's Love Got to Do With It" and "Private Dancer."
_Redford, 68. The two-time Oscar-winning actor also created the Sundance Institute to foster independent film-making. He starred opposite Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
_Bennett, 79. He is best known for songs such as "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" and "The Best Is Yet to Come." Bennett has won 11 Grammys for his singing and has enjoyed success with a younger audience in recent years.
_Suzanne Farrell, 60. The ballerina was the lead dancer in such performances as "Meditation" and "The Nutcracker," both choreographed by George Balanchine. She is now an instructor.
_Julie Harris, 80. She has had a long acting career on stage and screen, and has won a record six Tony awards, Broadway's highest honor.
Jim Carrey (C) lifts Brian Grazer (L) and Ron Howard (R) on the red carpet before the Museum of the Moving Image Salute to Ron Howard in New York December 4, 2005.
Photo by Seth Wenig
Sean "Diddy" Combs made a surprise visit to Chris Evert's charity tennis tournament to meet a teenage cancer patient.
For Chalon Keen, 17, of Sunrise, who has been fighting for two years a cancer that creates tumors in her muscle cells, Saturday's visit was a dream come true.
Chalon, a patient at the Chris Evert Children's Hospital at Broward General Medical Center, met Combs through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Ava Keen, Chalon's mother, said her daughter cried the whole time. The meeting lifted the teen's spirits as she and her family prepared to travel to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to undergo tests for a possible bone marrow transplant.
Former "Golden Girls" actress Betty White joined more than 100 people rallying in front of the Los Angeles Zoo to try to keep the pachyderm exhibit from being closed.
The demonstration Saturday came in response to a study ordered by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to determine whether the exhibit should be shut down. Animal rights activists called for the study, saying the elephants need more acreage.
But fans say the Los Angeles Zoo's elephants - Billy, Gita and Ruby - are treated well. White, one of the zoo's commissioners, said removing the animals would deny children the opportunity to learn about them.
"They see these gorgeous animals and they know we must not let them perish off this Earth," White said. "You don't get that off a documentary."
For singer Rick Springfield, it's a little strange to be back on his old soap-opera stomping grounds.
Springfield is back as Dr. Noah Drake on "General Hospital," a role he first played in the early 1980s, when his hit song "Jessie's Girl" was a radio staple.
The singer-actor was looking for innovative ways to promote his new album, "The Day After Yesterday," and started pursuing guest appearances on several soaps. "General Hospital" liked the idea of his return but asked him to leave the band at home.
A woman shows her concern for the north as she marches in front of activists in polar bear costumes during a protest against global warming Saturday, Dec.3, 2005 in Montreal.
Photo by Ian Barrett
The largest union representing actors has promised a new, tougher stance in contract talks with powerful media conglomerates. But the Screen Actors Guild may self-destruct before it ever gets the chance.
The labor union's long-running infighting has escalated into what could become a mutiny after the election in September of SAG President Alan Rosenberg.
Rosenberg and his allies gained a majority on the national board by pledging to squeeze more money from the studios from the sale of DVDs and new technologies, including downloading of films and TV shows. He also pledged to unite SAG's feuding factions.
Rosenberg's election underscored dissatisfaction with last year's contract talks, which won higher wages but failed to budge the studios on paying a bigger share of the lucrative DVD market.
The new president of NBC News sees no reason to change a policy that allows his anchors to front entertainment events - like the recent Thanksgiving Day parade that saw Katie Couric and Matt Lauer miss an obvious news story.
NBC News President Steve Capus said he's comfortable with the explanation that the "Today" anchors didn't know that a balloon's tethers had knocked off part of a street lamp in Times Square, injuring two spectators, before parade coverage was done.
"It's safe to say that if a news event happens while news personnel are on the air, they are going to cover it as news," he said. "That's in their DNA. They want to cover stories."
That's exactly what happened during CBS' parade coverage, compounding NBC's embarrassment and raising anew the risk to a news person's credibility when involved in entertainment events. Even though news personalities were on the air, the parade coverage was produced by NBC's entertainment division.
A blown glass tower of red and yellow glass by renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly is exhibited at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, Fla., Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005. In this six month exhibition which opened Saturday a sequence of organically shaped and vibrantly colored glass sculptures are set throughout the 83-acre gardens.
Photo by Lynne Sladky
A television news producer. An emergency room doctor. Two NYPD beat cops. Before that December night 25 years ago, they shared little but this: As children of the '60s, the soundtrack of their lives came courtesy of the Beatles.
Alan Weiss, a two-time Emmy winner before his 30th birthday, was working at WABC-TV. His teen years were the time of "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." In his 20s, Weiss admired John Lennon's music and politics.
Dr. Stephan Lynn was starting his second year as head of the Roosevelt Hospital emergency room. He remembered the Beatles playing "The Ed Sullivan Show," although he didn't quite get the resultant hysteria.
Officer Pete Cullen, with partner Steve Spiro, did the night shift on Manhattan's Upper West Side. They'd occasionally run into Lennon walking through the neighborhood with his son, Sean. "The Beatles were a big part of my life," Cullen said.
On the night of Dec. 8, 1980, Lynn was in the ER, Weiss was heading home from the newsroom, Cullen and Spiro were on the job - and Mark David Chapman was lurking outside Lennon's home.
A new moon is seen behind a sixty meter tall illuminated cross at the top of Vodno Mountain just above Macedonia's capital Skopje, on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005.
Photo by Boris Grdanoski
Vandals set light to a giant straw goat Saturday night in a central Swedish town, police said - an event that has happened so frequently it has almost become a Christmas tradition.
It was the 22nd time that the goat had gone up in smoke since merchants in Gavle, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Stockholm, began erecting it to mark the holiday season.
Since 1966, just 10 of the 43-foot-high goats have survived beyond Christmas Day. Most were burned - sometimes within hours of being built during the first week of December. The 1976 goat was hit by a car, while in 1997, it was damaged by fireworks.
The vandals are seldom caught, but in 2001, the goat was set on fire on Dec. 23 by a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio. The culprit, Lawrence Jones, was convicted and spent 18 days in jail.
A man looks at a sign as people lay flowers on crosses at the 'Arlington West' war memorial on the beach in Santa Monica, California, December 4, 2005.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
A Dutch company began selling "Glowing Flowers" - freshly cut glow-in-the-dark roses and chrysanthemums - on Friday in what it claimed was a first.
The flowers appear white in regular light but emit an eerie green glow for several hours in the dark, FloraHolland BV said in a statement.
They are sprayed with an invisible chemical that is not harmful to the flowers or people, the company said.
The first batches were sold in an auction at FloraHolland's headquarters in the Dutch town of Naaldwijk. Chrysanthemums went for $1.09 and roses were $2.93 per flower, about 50 percent more than normal.
He was 87. Strock died of heart failure at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley following a car accident, said his daughter, Leslie Mitchner.
The Boston-born Strock moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was 13. By 17, he was director of gossip columnist Jimmy Fidler's Hollywood segments for Fox Movietone News.
Struck graduated in 1941 from USC, where he studied journalism and film. He served in the U.S. army's Ordnance Motion Picture Division before becoming an assistant editor on the 1944 film Gaslight for MGM.
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