'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Baron Dave's Ultra-Duper Trivia
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
Send your answers to Marty. Answers tomorrow.
Enjoy, There are no cash prizes and, as always, no wagering.
Matching: Geography
Study after study points out how bad American kids are in geography, with six in ten not being able to find Iraq on a world map. Bartcop-E readers are more geo-literate.
Match the country with the (or a) country directly North of it. This is not a trick question, so see if you can do it without looking anything up.
| 1. France | A. French Guiana |
| 2. Italy | B. Panama |
| 3. Brazil | C. Turkey |
| 4. Columbia | D. China |
| 5. Pakistan | E. Belgium |
| 6. Iraq | F. Switzerland |
Matching: Cartoon Voices
Match the voice actor with one of their notable roles. Answers may be used more than once.
| 7. Spongebob Squarepants | A. Daws Butler |
| 8. Bullwinkle J. Moose | B. Tom Kenny |
| 9. Elroy Jetson | C. Bill Scott |
| 10. Santa's Little Helper | D. Mel Blanc |
| 11. Bugs Bunny | E. Frank Welker |
| 12. Hampton J. Pig | F. Don Messick |
| 13. Marvin the Martian | |
| 14. Yogi Bear | |
| 15. Scooby Doo |
Essay Question, judged on creativity and appropriatess
Essay question: How many Bartcop-E readers does it take to screw in a lightbulb.
You get to decide, Marty!
Multiple Choice Questions appearing daily (at Marty's convenience)
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
Mike Miliard: Meet the Wikipedians (Boston Phoenix)
Wikipedia doubled its number of articles in just 18 months. But who are the "Wikipediots" writing them? And why do they do it?
Richard Roeper: Seeing Clemens' name in steroid report no shock (suntimes.com)
'McNamee injected Clemens approximately four times in the buttocks over a several-week period [in 1998] with needles ... Clemens provided. Each incident took place in Clemens' apartment at the SkyDome." -- from page 169 of the Mitchell Report.
Jon Stewart's Greatest Lesbian Moments (afterellen.com)
When it comes to lesbians, "The Daily Show" has been inclusive and funny.
LESLIE BAYNES: His Dark Material (opinionjournal.com)
The unsubtle atheism of Philip Pullman's books.
Reviewed by Sarah Vine: "Pontoon" by Garrison Keillor (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
If you move in literary circles which I don't saying that you enjoy Garrison Keillor is a bit like standing at the bar in the Crown and Anchor in Hoxton and declaring that you really like Jack Vettriano's paintings; or extolling the virtues of Edwardian terrace housing to a group of newly qualified architects. It is astonishingly uncool, and likely to mark you out as a philistine and a hopeless sentimentalist.
Martyn Palmer: Javier Bardem is killing them softly (entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
Javier Bardem, the gentle giant of Spanish cinema, is about to hit the global big time as a killer in the new Coen brothers film.
Roger Ebert: STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING (PG-13; 4 stars)
Do you sometimes feel like you're the last serious reader left? Do you remember when the New York Times best-selling novels were by Faulkner, Mailer, Updike, Cheever, Welty or O'Hara? Do you thank heaven when Oprah chooses a great novel like A Fine Balance? Have you noticed that people have stopped obsessing about J.D. Salinger's disappearing act? Have you never found a later novelist as entertaining as Dickens? Did you study English in college and carry around Shakespeare a little conspicuously?
Roger Ebert: Juno (4 stars)
Jason Reitman's "Juno" is just about the best movie of the year. It is very smart, very funny and very touching; it begins with the pacing of a screwball comedy and ends as a portrait of characters we have come to love. Strange, how during Juno's hip dialogue and cocky bravado, we begin to understand the young woman inside, and we want to hug her.
Roger Ebert: Answer Man
Income from streaming on the Internet is currently negligible. But it may become a considerable, even dominant, distribution channel in the future. The studios obviously think so. That's why they're taking a hit of millions of dollars to fight your strike. The studios should do the decent thing and concede that their "product" is created by artists and craftsmen who deserve a fair share of the income.
Interview by Roger Ebert: "Schrader: Indies are scavenger dogs, scouring the planet for scraps"
All you need to know going in is that Schrader's film stars Woody Harrelson as an unpaid gay escort of rich society women in Washington, D.C. One of his friends, a senator's wife, finds the dead body of her lover. My review appears Friday.
Steven Rea: James McAvoy gets a big role as a man wronged in 'Atonement' (The Philadelphia Inquirer; Posted on Popmatters.com)
"Don't do that stupid thing with your mouth that you do." Those were James McAvoy's marching orders-"probably the most useful thing" that director Joe Wright said to him as he prepared for the biggest role of his career, the leading, and profoundly, unjustly wronged man in "Atonement."
Joe Bob Briggs: Review of "Jesus and Archaeology," edited by James H. Charlesworth
In December 2004 the remains of the Siloam Pool were discovered. This is the place where, according to John, Jesus healed a man who had been blind from birth. Jesus spat on the ground, made clay from the dirt, anointed the man's eyes with it, then told him to go wash himself in the pool of Siloam. Now that they've found the pool (in the Jerusalem suburb of Silwan), they know from its configuration-50 yards long, with a water channel from a spring, an esplanade and a paved street leading up to the Temple-that this was a place of ritual purification. Since the blind were not allowed to enter the Temple, Jesus was performing this miracle so that the man could worship in the Temple for the first time in his life.
Joe Bob Briggs Sings The Monstervision Song (youtube.com)
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Hubert's Poetry Corner
The Pretty and The Stink
How to appropriately honor an egomaniacal TexasS Governor bent on totally
mucking up higher education?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and almost seasonal.
Talked to Dear Old Dad. He said there's about an inch of ice on top of a foot of snow, and the wind was blowing hard enough to make the windows rattle.
Just a typical winter night in NW PA, as he phrased it.
90th Birthday
Arthur C. Clarke
Turning 90 on Sunday, British science fiction writer and visionary Sir Arthur C. Clarke has three birthday wishes: For E.T. to call, for man to kick his oil habit and for peace in his adoptive Sri Lanka.
Marking his "90th orbit of the sun," the prolific author and theorist who was one of the first to suggest the use of satellites orbiting the earth for communications, would like to be remembered foremost as a writer -- and predicts commercial space travel will one day be commonplace.
Born in England in 1917, Clarke first came to the island in the 1950s for scuba diving and said he became a resident after he "fell in love with the place."
He has written more than 80 books, including "2001: A Space Odyssey" and 500 short stories and articles, and says his mind continues to roam the universe as much as it did as a young space cadet in the 1920s and 1930s, despite the fact he is now wheelchair-bound.
Arthur C. Clarke
Studio Heads Show Unity
Hollywood
The heads of Hollywood's film and TV studios signed a statement of unity on Sunday, a day after striking screenwriters signaled they would try a "divide and conquer" strategy in an increasingly bitter strike that is paralyzing the industry.
The Writers Guild of America, representing 10,500 scribes, will demand on Monday that members of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the studios' bargaining arm, negotiate individually.
But, signaling the industry remains firmly united, eight corporate chieftains put their names to a simple banner statement on the AMPTP Web site: "Different assets... Different businesses... Different companies... One common goal. To reach a fair and just agreement with writers and get back to work."
Among the signatories was Letterman's boss, CBS Corp. president and chief executive Leslie Moonves. He was joined by Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of 20th Century Fox parent News Corp; Brad Grey, Chairman of Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures; Robert Iger, president and chief executive of Walt Disney Co; Michael Lynton, chairman and chief executive of Sony Corp's Sony Pictures; Barry Meyer, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros; Harry Sloan, chairman and chief executive of privately held Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; and Jeff Zucker, president and chief executive of General Electric Co's NBC Universal Inc.
Hollywood
Lists Year's 10 Best
AFI
The crime tale "No Country for Old Men," the oil saga "There Will Be Blood" and the legal drama "Michael Clayton" were among critical favorites that landed on the American Film Institute's list of the year's 10 best movies.
Also on the AFI's list, released Sunday, were the jewel-heist story "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," the stroke-victim tale "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," the road drama "Into the Wild," the pregnancy comedies "Juno" and "Knocked Up," the animated rodent comedy "Ratatouille," and the sibling comic drama "The Savages."
The AFI also released a top 10 list of TV shows and movies for 2007, featuring "Dexter," "Everybody Hates Chris," "Friday Night Lights," "Longford," "Mad Men," "Pushing Daisies," "The Sopranos," "Tell Me You Love Me," "30 Rock" and "Ugly Betty."
AFI
Baby News
Baby Girl Burton
British actress Helena Bonham Carter has given birth to a daughter, her second child with director Tim Burton, People magazine reported on Sunday.
The baby was born in London on Saturday, People said, quoting the actress' publicist. The couple already have a 4-year-old son, Billy.
She revealed in the latest issue of Playboy that she became pregnant midway during the production, causing continuity problems since the film was not shot in sequence.
"I start off with huge breasts, and then I walk upstairs and suddenly I've got tangerines again," she said. "It's melons to tangerines."
Baby Girl Burton
Wedding News
Whitaker-Bono-Baxley-Mack
Mary Bono, 45, who was married to late singer-turned-politician Sonny Bono and replaced him in Congress after his death, has married U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, 40.
Bono's sister, Katherine Whitaker, told The Associated Press the couple were married Saturday in a private ceremony attended by 35 family members.
Mack, a Republican representative from Florida, and Bono, R-Calif., had been dating for two years. Bono's chief of staff, Frank Cullen Jr., said Mack proposed in late August while the couple were on a camping trip in Arches National Park in Utah.
Whitaker-Bono-Baxley-Mack
Contrition Tour 2007
Duane 'Dog' Chapman
TV bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman appeared Saturday at a holiday toy giveaway sponsored by a black advocacy group, weeks after publicly apologizing for using a racial slur.
Chapman handed out toys to dozens of children and signed copies of his book "You Can Run But You Can't Hide," said Ermias Alemayehu of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.
"We don't condone racial slurs, but upon hearing Dog's apology and after meeting with him and his family, we don't believe he's a racist. We also believe that Duane 'Dog' Chapman sincerely wants to make amends to the black community, and deserves a second chance," BOND founder the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson said in a statement.
Duane 'Dog' Chapman
100-Year-Old Recordings
The Paris Opera
The Paris Opera and National Library are to put on display two urns next week containing recordings buried a century ago to preserve the leading voices of the era for posterity, they announced.
On December 24 1907 24 records were sealed in two urns during a solemn ceremony in the basement of the Palais Garnier opera house in central Paris.
Each urn contained 12 discs representative of the best of French and Italian opera from Bizet and Gounod to Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi as interpreted by the leading artistes of the day -- including the legendary diva Dame Nellie Melba and the Italian lyric tenor Enrico Caruso.
They will be shown to the public at a formal ceremony on Wednesday but not opened because of the potential danger from the bands of asbestos used at the time to protect the records.
The Paris Opera
Dad Sells Son's Video Game
'Guitar Hero III'
After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get "Guitar Hero III" video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.
The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.
"So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn't wait to spread the jubilance to my son," the father wrote on the eBay website.
"Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends."
'Guitar Hero III'
Suit Over Socks Costs $95,000
Redwood Middle School
Officials in a Northern California school district might not think Tiggers are such wonderful things after agreeing to pay $95,000 in lawyers' fees to five families who sued the school over its dress code.
The parents went to court after a student was disciplined for wearing socks with the "Winnie the Pooh" cartoon character Tigger on the first day of school last year.
The district's superintendent said Thursday that the settlement money is for the plaintiffs' lawyers; the district is also on the hook to pay the lawyers it hired.
The settlement also says Redwood Middle School may no longer require students to wear only solid-color clothing.
Redwood Middle School
Weekend Box Office
'I Am Legend'
For the last man on Earth, Will Smith sure has a lot of friends. The Warner Bros. tale "I Am Legend," starring Smith as a plague survivor who may be the last living human, debuted with $76.5 million, the biggest December opening ever and a personal best for one of Hollywood's top box-office champs, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The 20th Century Fox family flick "Alvin and the Chipmunks," starring Jason Lee in a big-screen take on the cartoon critters, opened a strong No. 2 with $45 million. The two films combined to give Hollywood a year-end surge after a drowsy fall season.
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. "I Am Legend," $76.5 million.
2. "Alvin and the Chipmunks," $45 million.
3. "The Golden Compass," $9 million.
4. "Enchanted," $6 million.
5. "No Country for Old Men," $3 million.
6. "The Perfect Holiday," $2.97 million.
7. "Fred Claus," $2.3 million.
8. "This Christmas," $2.3 million.
9. "Atonement," $1.85 million.
10. "August Rush," $1.8 million.
'I Am Legend'
In Memory
Laura Archera Huxley
Laura Archera Huxley, the widow of "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley, who worked to preserve his legacy for nearly half a century after his death while authoring her own books, has died. She was 96.
Huxley died of cancer Thursday night at her Hollywood Hills home, said Karen Pfeiffer, her legal ward, who helps direct Huxley's nonprofit foundation, Children: Our Ultimate Investment.
During the seven years of her marriage and for the decades after Aldous Huxley died of cancer in 1963, Huxley explored the vistas of psychotherapy, New Age spirituality, consciousness-raising and natural health regimens.
She and her husband experimented with LSD, Huxley wrote in her memoirs, and well into her 90s she was doing yoga and other exercises.
Born in Turin, Italy, in 1911, Huxley was a violin prodigy who performed at Carnegie Hall as a teenager in the 1940s. She later became a film editor, meeting Huxley and his wife, Maria, in 1948 while trying to interest him in writing a film she wanted to make. The movie never happened, but she became friends with the Huxleys. After Maria died in 1955, Huxley proposed, and they were married the next year.
Huxley wrote several books herself, including a 1963 best-selling self-help guide, "You Are Not the Target," and a memoir of her life with Huxley called "This Timeless Moment."
Laura Archera Huxley
In Memory
Diane Middlebrook
Diane Middlebrook, a leading feminist scholar who wrote acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, died Saturday. She was 68.
Middlebrook, who helped launch feminist studies at Stanford University, where she taught literature for 35 years, died of cancer in San Francisco, according to Stanford officials.
She is best known for her 1991 best-seller "Anne Sexton: A Biography," which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and "Her Husband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath, a Marriage," a 2003 best-seller about the tumultuous marriage of the poets.
Middlebrook also wrote "Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton," a 1998 biography about a female jazz musician who lived as a man. A biography about the Roman poet Ovid is expected to be published next year to coincide with the 2,000th anniversary of his birth.
Born in Idaho in 1939, Middlebrook grew up in Spokane, Wash., graduated from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1961 and earned her doctorate at Yale University in 1968. She was among the first women to teach in Stanford's English department.
Survivors include her daughter, two sisters, stepson, stepgrandson and husband, Carl Djerassi, professor emeritus of chemistry at Stanford.
Diane Middlebrook
In Memory
Dan Fogelberg
Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg, famed for the soaring vocals and elegant instrumentation of tunes such as "Longer" and "A Love Like This," died on Sunday, three years after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. He was 56.
Fogelberg, a native of Peoria, Illinois, broke into the music industry in the early 1970s, at a time when it was embracing introspective songwriting, or "soft rock," by such acts as the Eagles and America.
Fogelberg, who distinguished himself with his angelic vocals and lyrics that celebrated beauty and romance, hit his commercial and creative peak in 1981 with "The Innocent Age," which yielded three top-10 singles, "Hard to Say," "Same Old Lang Syne" and "Leader of the Band."
His most recent release, "Full Circle," came out in 2003. The following year, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, and urged men over the age of 50 to get tested for the disease.
Dan Fogelberg
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