'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Behold, The Lost Americans (sfgate.com)
Who are the 13 percent of us who've never heard of global warming? And how can they be stopped?
SAXON BURNS: Watch Your Mouth (tucsonweekly.com)
Conservatives in the Legislature try to remove free speech from schools and universities
Tom Raum: 'Coalition of the willing' shrinking (Associated Press)
President Bush's "coalition of the willing," long seen by much of the world as a shell for a largely U.S. operation in Iraq, is quickly becoming a coalition of the unwilling.
Alexander Chancellor: The elderly are being robbed and exploited (guardian.co.uk)
Parents are sitting ducks. They can't imagine that their children would want to do them any harm.
Greg Toppo: Grades rise, but reading skills fall, data suggest (USATODAY.COM)
High school seniors are taking more challenging classes and earning higher grades than ever, but their reading skills have actually worsened since 1992, data released Thursday by the U.S. Education Department suggest.
Susie Bright: You Say Scrotum, I Say Hoo-Ha (SusieBright.com. Posted on AlterNet.org)
Squeamish school librarians, screaming at a single word they deemed "offensive," have put the screws to an award-winning children's book.
PAUL B. FARRELL: Youth movement (marketwatch.com)
How an 8-year-old crafted a simple, winning, 'lazy' [stock] portfolio.
Michael Shermer: (Can't Get No) Satisfaction (sciam.com)
Are you happy? The answer will depend partly on your genes but it's also a matter of where you stand in life relative to other people...
TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Hardback Mountain: Giving my books the kiss-off (opinionjournal.com)
"There are worse crimes than burning books," Joseph Brodsky said. "One of them is not reading them." Yeah, but what about just leaving books behind?
Emily Bazelon: Sudden Death (slate.com)
What Bridge to Terabithia still teaches us.
Lauren Winner: What Lewis Wouldn't Do (slate.com)
In his essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," C. S. Lewis enumerated "two good ways and one that is generally a bad way" of creating children's literature. To illustrate the latter, he recounted reading a manuscript of a story about a magic machine that a fairy had given to a child. "I had to tell the author," wrote Lewis, "that "that I didn't much care for that sort of thing. She replied 'No more do I, it bores me to distraction. But it is what the modern child wants.' " Better, Lewis argues, to start with the question "What moral do I need?" and better still "not to ask the questions themselves."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny but cold.
Not a single Oscar™ prediction in the mail!
Consolation Gift Basket
Oscars
The US tax man has helped put a stop to the 100,000-dollar goodie bags, but celebrities will still be showered with an eye-popping array of lavish gifts at this year's Oscars.
Lash Fary, the founder and president of Distinctive Assets, a Los Angeles-based entertainment marketing and gifting company, said tighter tax rules had little or no effect for super-rich movie stars.
For the past five years, Fary's company has put together an unofficial "consolation gift basket" which is sent to Oscars nominees the day after the awards show.
This year's edition is valued at 71,000 dollars and is stuffed with dozens of items ranging from a 26,000-dollar all-inclusive trip to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas to a humble box of sweets.
Oscars
Edward R. Murrow Award
'Frontline'
The PBS show "Frontline" and two of its producers will receive Edward R. Murrow Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism, Washington State University announced Friday.
The 2007 awards for "journalistic integrity and courage" will be shared by the program and producers David Fanning and Michael Sullivan at a campus ceremony on April 10.
"'Frontline' has set a standard for excellence in journalism as part of our lives for years," said V. Lane Rawlins, president of WSU, where the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication is located. "Recognition of 'Frontline' is a fitting tribute to the Murrow legacy."
'Frontline'
Appeals For U.N. Force In Chad
Mia Farrow
Actress Mia Farrow on Friday called for U.N. peacekeeping troops to be deployed in eastern Chad to protect refugees there after she made a five-day visit to the region.
"From the people I spoke to the message was so clear. Again and again - even above the need for water which is so crucial - the plea was for protection," said Farrow, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF.
Tens of thousands of people in eastern Chad have been displaced by an uprising against President Idriss Deby's government and by violence from across the border in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
Farrow was in the Chadian capital after visiting refugee camps in the landlocked state's desolate east, at the end of a two-week tour of central Africa. It was her second visit to eastern Chad.
Mia Farrow
Performance Artist
Mark McGowan
New Yorkers got to kick resident George W. Bush's butt on Thursday, sort of.
Performance artist Mark McGowan kicked off his bid to crawl for 72 hours across Manhattan dressed as the president, offering the opportunity to kick his backside.
The controversial artist from London began his odyssey from New York's Lincoln Centre wearing a rubber George Bush mask, a business suit, knee pads, work gloves and a sign stuck to his cushioned posterior reading simply: "Kick My Ass".
"It felt real good to kick Bush," said Casmirr Sharp, 52, of New York's Queens borough. "He really deserves more than a kick."
Mark McGowan
'Flushed Away' Film Pirate
Salvador Nunez Jr
A man who allegedly uploaded a copy of the film "Flushed Away" onto the Internet after getting a copy from an Oscar voter faces a felony charge.
Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, was charged with copyright infringement and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1.
Prosecutors said he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and a digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.
Salvador Nunez Jr
Baby News
Frances Pen Benioff
Amanda Peet is a new mom. The "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" actress gave birth Tuesday to daughter Frances Pen, who weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces, Peet's publicist Brit Reece said Friday. Peet, 35, and screenwriter David Benioff were married last fall.
Peet starred in the movies "Something's Gotta Give," "Syriana" and "The Whole Nine Yards" and its sequel, "The Whole Ten Yards." In the "Yards" films she starred opposite Matthew Perry, her co-star on "Studio 60." Her pregnancy was written into the show's storyline.
"Studio 60" was pulled from NBC's schedule this week after 15 episodes, although the network said the backstage Hollywood drama will return at some point this season.
Frances Pen Benioff
'Sopranos' Actor Facing Murder Charge
Lillo Brancato Jr.
Former "Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato Jr., charged with the real-life murder of a police officer, insists he isn't the thug he believes he has been made out to be.
Brancato and a co-defendant are awaiting trial in the December 2005 shooting of police officer Daniel Enchautegui, who was shot while off-duty.
Prosecutors said Enchautegui confronted Brancato and Steven Armento while they were breaking into a Bronx apartment in search of prescription drugs. Armento is accused of firing the fatal shot.
Lillo Brancato Jr.
Taxpayers Not Seeking Refund
Phone Tax
Taxpayers have already received almost $87 billion in income tax refunds this year, but many are neglecting to ask for a modest refund from a now defunct telephone tax.
So says the Internal Revenue Service, which reported Friday that as of Feb. 17 it had processed refunds worth $86.9 billion from about 31.8 million returns, up 5.8 percent in dollar amounts compared to the same time in the 2006 filing season. The average refund was $2,733, up 3.6 percent from the previous year.
The agency said more than 10 million early filers did not request the telephone tax refund, which is worth $30 to $60 if taxpayers apply for the standard refund amount set by the IRS. It noted that nearly half of those returns were completed by tax preparers.
The government stopped collecting the long-distance excise tax last August, and has authorized a one-time refund of tax collected on service billed during the period from March 2003 to July 2006.
Phone Tax
Study Defended
Psychic Powers
The Ministry of Defence has defended a decision to fund secret tests into the ability of volunteers to use psychic powers to "remotely view" hidden objects.
The study, conducted in 2002, involved blindfolding test subjects and asking them to "see" the contents of sealed brown envelopes containing pictures of random objects and public figures.
Defence experts tried to recruit 12 "known" psychics who advertised their abilities on the internet, but when they all refused they were forced to use "novice" volunteers.
Commercial researchers were contracted at a cost of £18,000 to test them to see if psychic ability existed in case it could be used in defence, according to previously classified report released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Psychic Powers
Postponed Indefinitely
Divine Strake
The Pentagon has abandoned plans for a massive test explosion in the Nevada desert, the first time a mushroom cloud would have been seen near Las Vegas since a nuclear test in the 1960s, officials said on Thursday.
The detonation of conventional explosives had been designed to test the effectiveness of weapons against deep underground targets but critics had expressed concern that dust containing background radiation could be spread into the air.
The test, dubbed "Divine Strake," had been scheduled to take place last year over a tunnel at the U.S. Energy Department's Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
But it was postponed indefinitely in May after the National Nuclear Security Administration said it was withdrawing its finding that the detonation of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil would cause no significant environmental impact.
Divine Strake
Nashville Thrift Shop Find
Declaration of Independence
A rare, 184-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a Nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2.48 purchase price.
Michael Sparks, a music equipment technician, is selling the document in an auction March 22nd at Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina. The opening bid is $125,000 and appraisers have estimated it could sell for nearly twice that.
Sparks found his bargain last March while browsing at Music City Thrift Shop in Nashville. When he asked the price on a yellowed, shellacked, rolled-up document, the clerk marked it at $2.48.
It turned out to be an "official copy" of the Declaration of Independence - one of 200 commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820.
Declaration of Independence
In Memory
Lothar-Guenther Buchheim
The author of the German war novel "Das Boot," Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, has died, his spokeswoman said on Friday. He was 89.
An artist, art collector and director of his own museum, Buchheim will be best remembered for the 1971 novel that presented a new perspective on the Nazi era by detailing the claustrophobic life on board a war-time submarine, or "U-Boot."
In 1981, director Wolfgang Petersen turned the book into a 6-hour film, which at the time was the most expensive movie in German history.
Returning to Germany as the war came to an end, he made a career writing art books, including works about Expressionists Max Beckmann, Otto Mueller and Pablo Picasso.
In 2001, he opened the "Museum der Phantasie" (Museum of the Imagination) in Bernried, Bavaria, in which he displayed a collection of mainly German Expressionist paintings that he had acquired before the war when such art was seen as degenerate.
Lothar-Guenther Buchheim
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
