'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Barbara Ehrenreich: Snooping Bosses (progressive.org)
Hi George! Since learning of the White House's electronic surveillance program, I'm adding a little greeting to the President in all my e-mails, phone calls, and voice-mails. After all, it must get tiresome combing through my correspondence with my brother on up-to-date dry-walling techniques, while searching for a coded message to Al Qaeda. And what did the National Security Agency make of the latest batch of baby pictures e-mailed by my nephew in Oklahoma?
Betty Friedan, 1921-2006 (thenation.com)
Betty Friedan is dead at 85--a brilliant, pugnacious woman who lived a big life and wrote a big book, a book that helped change our world, in every way for the better. The far-right magazine Human Events knew what it was doing when it put The Feminine Mystique on its list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
Martha Nussbaum: In a Lonely Place (thenation.com)
All the women were required to withdraw to the periphery, where, Vivian Gornick writes in her new book on Stanton, The Solitude of Self, "they could see but not be seen, hear but not be heard." Most of the men, including her husband, went along with this arrangement, unwilling to complicate discussion of the all-important antislavery issue. Only a few, notably William Lloyd Garrison, refused to participate on terms that excluded women. Stanton recalled later that it was on this day that she realized for the first time that "in the eyes of the world I was not as I was in my own eyes, I was only a woman."
Jim Hightower: BUSH'S IRS GOES AFTER POOR FOLKS (jimhightower.com)
You've gotta love the consistency of the Bushites. When they ram through their multibillion-dollar tax giveaways, it's the superrich and corporations that gain. And when they unleash their IRS to look into tax cheating, they don't probe the tax shelters of millionaires or the multibillion dollar offshore tax havens of corporate finaglers - instead, they go after the working poor who're entitled to tax credits of only a few hundred bucks each.
Molly Ivins: Impeachment: The Cure For Executive Excess (AlterNet.org)
In politics, as in kindergarten, the all-important word is 'no.'
Terry Odean: What I Know About How You Invest (leggmason.com)
Benjamin Graham once said that an investor's chief problem, even his worst enemy, is likely to be himself. I will spend most of my time here talking about things that investors do that make them their own worst enemies.
Liz Langley: Sex Clerks' Dirty Secrets (AlterNet.org)
Your friendly neighborhood adult novelty store is helping out regular folks like you -- in more meaningful ways than you might expect.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
INTIMATE FAILURE
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
Gone fishing.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and a bit cooler.
If all went well, here's a page of flags.
If things didn't go well the link will work - eventually.
No new flags.
Guardian Interview
George Clooney
George Clooney's handshake belongs to what I believe is known as the Bill Clinton school; firm grip, level gaze and that "special" touch, a discreet squeeze under the elbow that implies, "If you think it's exciting meeting me, just imagine how exciting it is being me." Actually, I imagine that a lot of the time it's kind of embarrassing being George Clooney. The path to his door is littered with the corpses of female journalists, who after spending half an hour in his company - smart, funny, so suave as to practically curve at the edges - simply expired on the way out and were left to petrify where they fell, on the green patterned carpet of the Dorchester Hotel.
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Clooney remains unimpressed. It is part of his regular-guy charm that, at 44, he has lived for more years in obscurity than fame and regards the excesses of the entertainment world with a sort of good-humoured condescension. His image as a rebel has as much to do with his manner as his politics; when he attacks Bush it's with a heavy irony that takes into account the fact that people don't, generally, like being preached at by actors. It is what separates him from other, politically outspoken celebrities whose laudable views are undermined somewhat by the exceptional self-regard that holding them seems to inspire. Clooney is as vain and materialistic as the next guy in Hollywood - "Fuck it, I love my house in Italy. It's big and audacious and ridiculous, and nicer than any human being has the right to have" - but he is also one of the few really grown-up movie stars. "I have Irish Catholic guilt," he says, smiling, "and want to make up for [my successes]."
The way Clooney atones is by making, alongside the romantic comedies and heist numbers, a range of films that bring him a different kind of attention altogether. He has just made two in a row, Good Night, and Good Luck, which he co-wrote and directed, and Syriana, which he says makes Good Night look like "a Disney film". They both tackle corruption in the American government; the first by telling the story of Edward R Murrow, the CBS journalist who took on Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s; the second, more directly, with an adaptation of former CIA man Robert Baer's memoir, in which al-Qaida-type terrorism is alleged to be partly the result of corrupt US policies in the Middle East.
Clooney relishes the battle. "I'm pretty good at the fight.
For the rest, George Clooney
'Inside the Actors Studio'
Dave Chappelle
Those who want to know what influenced the comedy of Dave Chappelle and who he looks to for inspiration will be well-served by the latest episode of "Inside the Actors Studio," extended to two hours.
Those curious about the events surrounding his sudden departure from his hip and hit series on Comedy Central likely will feel shortchanged.
It's not just that amiable host James Lipton refrained from asking probing questions. The guest chair on this show is known for being a safe haven from embarrassing queries. Even smoking, taboo on other TV shows for decades, is graciously tolerated by Lipton. In keeping with such genteel hospitality, Lipton practically steered the conversation elsewhere when Chappelle raised the topic of his famous disappearing act.
Dave Chappelle
Releases Report on Video Competition
FCC
Cable company revenues rose faster than inflation last year, but cable's share of the TV-viewing market declined as satellite services gained ground, the Federal Communications Commission said in a report released Friday.
The FCC's annual report on competition among video providers found that cable's revenues rose about 10.8 percent over the year through June 2005.
It also found that the number of cable households fell by nearly 1 million, and cable's share of households with something more than an antenna fell to 69.4 percent from 71.6 percent a year earlier. At the same time, satellite TV's share of those households rose to 27.7 percent from 25.1 percent.
The FCC didn't indicate how much cable rates rose, but Commissioner Michael Copps said they were too high. "Consumers are feeling the pain and paying the cost and not liking it," Copps said during a hearing. He added that the FCC doesn't fully understand the reasons for the increases.
FCC
Baby News
Elizabeth Vargas
ABC's "World News Tonight," scrambling to fill the gap left by its injured anchor, Bob Woodruff, is facing further instability: Elizabeth Vargas, Woodruff's co-anchor, is pregnant.
Vargas and her husband, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, are expecting their second child in late summer, they announced Friday. The couple have a son, Zachary, 3, and Cohn has two children - Max, 14, and Emily, 11 - from a previous marriage.
Vargas, who with John Stossel also co-anchors the ABC newsmagazine "20/20," will continue to anchor both programs through late summer.
Elizabeth Vargas
Pulled From Schedule
'Love Monkey'
CBS has gotten the low-rated Love Monkey off its back.
The hour-long series, which starred Tom Cavanagh as a New Yorker searching for love and career success, has been pulled from the network's schedule, a CBS spokeswoman said Friday.
Although the network declined to say the show had been cancelled, the sharp ratings decline makes its return unlikely. It joins another midseason entry, Emily's Reasons Why Not, in a quick death: ABC yanked the Heather Graham sitcom after one airing.
'Love Monkey'
More Probation
Tom Sizemore
A judge on Thursday sentenced Tom Sizemore to three years probation after the actor tearfully admitted he used methamphetamine last month.
Sizemore, 44, could have faced 16 months in prison after violating his probation stemming from a conviction for methamphetamine possession.
The judge's sentence included a 90-day stay at a drug treatment program. Sizemore also must submit to weekly drug tests the entire probationary term, said court spokesman Allan Parachini.
Tom Sizemore
Takes a Chance on a New 'Idol'
NBC
With Fox's "American Idol" showing no sign of going flat, NBC announced it's planning a singing competition based on a 50-year-old European show that helped launch the careers of Celine Dion and ABBA.
The U.S. version of "Eurovision Song Contest" will combine broadcast and online elements, NBC said Friday. As with "American Idol," which itself was patterned on the hit British series "Pop Idol," the winner will receive a recording contract.
As described by the network, the show will include an online competition to find singers from each state, with the winners advancing to the broadcast series to vie for the title. Voting will be in the hands of viewers.
NBC
Web Site Lets Public Track
Augustine Volcano
From his home in Nanwalek, Vince Evans can stare across the water at Augustine Volcano as it pumps out clouds of ash and steam, but like many residents in the isolated village, Evans prefers to check the Internet for the latest on the erupting island mount.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory's popular Web site lets the public track Augustine's activity, from live earthquake data to hourly updates on the blasts of ash and rocky pyroclastic flows that have rumbled down the snowy volcano since it began erupting in mid-January.
With a network that includes seismic stations, cameras and Global Positioning System receivers, Augustine is the most heavily instrumented volcano in the state. In the last decade, scientists have concentrated equipment on the uninhabited island because it is a short flight from Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula and has less vegetation, ice and snow than other nearby volcanos in the Alaska Range.
Augustine Volcano
Death Toll May Never Be Known
Katrina
Nearly six months after Hurricane Katrina, more than 1,300 bodies have been found, but the real death toll is clearly higher. How much higher, no one can say with any certainty.
Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for, and some of them - again, no one is sure how many - were probably washed into the Gulf of Mexico, drowned when their fishing boats sank, swept into Lake Pontchartrain or alligator-infested swamps, or buried under crushed homes, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, Louisiana medical examiner.
The remains of 1,079 people have been recovered in Louisiana; an additional 231 were found in Mississippi. But Louisiana officials have information on roughly 300 people whose loved ones are desperately searching for them, months after the Aug. 29 storm struck the Gulf Coast and scattered the region's residents.
Of the 2,300 on the list, most are from New Orleans, and nearly three-quarters are black. Before Hurricane Katrina, about two-thirds of New Orleans was black. Of the 668 Louisiana dead identified and released by the morgue, three-quarters were from New Orleans. About half were black, and 44 percent were white.
Katrina
In Memory
Franklin Cover
Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.
Cover died of pneumonia Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund of America home in Englewood, N.J., said publicist Dale Olson. He had been living at the home since December 2005 while recuperating from a heart condition.
In his nearly six decades in show business, Cover made numerous appearances on television shows, including "The Jackie Gleason Show," "All in the Family," "Who's the Boss?" "Will & Grace," "Living Single," "Mad About You" and "ER."
Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, in "The Jeffersons."
Cover also appeared in several films, including "The Stepford Wives" and "Wall Street."
He is survived by his widow, Mary, a son and a daughter.
Franklin Cover
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