'Best of TBH Politoons'
Freshly Updated!
Humor Gazette
Just a little papal humor for the masses.
Bless you.
John Paul also named "Sexiest Pontiff Alive" by Papal Magazine.
Saturdays 3pm - 4pm
Paul Berenson Show
In the 2004 election seven graduates of Camp Wellstone won seats in the Minnesota State Legislature. Six defeated Republican incumbents.
Founded by the sons of Sen Paul Wellstone after his death in a 2002 plane crash, Camp Wellstone trains activists who share Wellstone's ideals. The camps focus on serving as a staffer, working as an activist for a cause, and running for office.
Camp Wellstone comes to Los Angeles in April. Spokesman Bill Lofy will join us to talk about how they are helping rebuild the Democratic Party at the grassroots level.
Tune in to "The Afternoon Connection" with Paul Berenson, Saturdays 3 pm-4 pm on KTMS-AM 990. Your local phone calls are welcome at:
879-KTMS (5867)
If you're tired of the Limbaugh's, Fox News, etc. and want to hear a Democrat with attitude, this is for you!
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Steve Perry: The Undoing of America (City Pages)
Gore Vidal on war for oil, politics-free elections, and the late, great U.S. Constitution
Paul Krugman: America's Senior Moment (NY Review of Books)
America in 2030 will be "a country whose collective population is older than that in Florida today."
Sex--gay or otherwise--doesn't sell to U.S. movie audiences
You can laugh about it. Fantasize about it. Be punished or killed for it. But what you can't do is take sex seriously at the movies.
"Machines you can write off. People you can't." (This web site helps answer this question: Where can you donate a good, older, still-working, unwanted computer? )
Misquoting John Snow, AP overstated Social Security shortfall estimated in new trustees report (Media Matters)
Google Bombing the Far Right
newdonkey.com
Harry Shearer
New Cartoons (In These Times)
David Levine Gallery
Seriously Kidding
©2005 **********The Wall Street Poet
When Oil Prices...
When oil prices start to spiral
When oil prices start to spiral
While U.S. debt is soaring, too,
What actions might inflation stifle,
And what might Greenspan's minions do?
The chosen path must show great vigor,
(Though it's a step the market hates).
The Fed might pull a quicker trigger,
Speed up its hikes of int'rest rates.
For more satrical verse:
www.wallstreetpoet.com
Another Rant
Avery Ant
KIRO - Weekend Nights 9pm - 1am
Erin Hart
We are happy as blinking bloggers that
we're streaming on the internet again. Finally! After all these years! 9pm to
1am (pst). Saturday and Sunday.
Have we completely lost our sense of the separation of church and state?
Why are the cable networks replaying the loop of Terri Schiavo over and
over. Why is everyone exploiting her save her husband and those of us who
would vastly rather leave her alone? But we cannot because these government
tactics must be decried for what they are: a gross overreaching of the
government into private agony. Can you see the marching column of extreme
right wing nominations to the bench incoming to the Senate?
Sigh. And we hope to have the rebooked "sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com" on
Saturday.
We'll talk about felon voting; state priorities; hope for equal rights and
more locally.
Then we have a chance to talk to Kurt Eichenwald, author of "Conspiracy of
Fools" about the folks who ran Enron into the ground and drove us all up the
energy wall.
Speaking of which--why are gasoline prices so high, hummmmmm. Are we just
taking more and more and rebelling less and less?
And whatever fun topics I can come up with (frankly, I will have to think
after THIS week).
Check out
Erin Hart Show on
KIRO (now STREAMING).
Sometime this weekend I'll be visiting Erin's show.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Beautiful, sunny spring day.
Stopped by the old BofA moneywall, but the machine's keypad wasn't registering. Finally got the card out & went to another atm where I got the message there was a problem & to see customer service.
Very few things thrill me like a BofA on a Friday afternoon. 3 lines & 45 minutes later everything was resolved. Ack.
Either tonight or Sunday I'll be visiting Erin Hart's radio show on
KIRO (is Seattle) - the audio is streamed on the net (look for the 'Listen Now' button). Will update when I know more.
Bidder Pays $100K For Lunch
'Desperate Housewives'
While there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially in Hollywood, this may be a new budget-busting record: The tab for six, including "Desperate Housewives" star Teri Hatcher? $100,000.
That's what an anonymous female bidder shelled out Thursday night at The Beverly Hilton hotel in an auction to benefit the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. The $750-a-head fundraiser was part of an evening paying tribute to the charity's chairman emeritus, director Steven Spielberg.
Hatcher, in a red lace Dolce & Gabbana dress, kicked off her shoes and hopped on stage to help the auctioneer move the original offering of lunch for four, plus Hatcher.
The bidding went to $50,000, then jumped to and closed at $100,000, after which Hatcher promised, "It will be the best lunch of your life. I will make sure of it."
'Desperate Housewives'
Museum To Open In Recording Studio
Ray Charles
A museum chronicling the career of late soul legend Ray Charles will be opened in his former recording studio in Los Angeles, his publicist announced.
The museum will be set up at the Ray Charles Studio and offices, where the singer, who died in June at the age of 73, worked for years and where he recorded much of his final album "Genius Love Company," Digney said.
The city of Los Angeles declared the studio a historic landmark in May, just before the legend's death of liver disease.
Ray Charles
Feds to Probe HHS Contract
Maggie Gallagher
The Government Accountability Office will investigate whether the Department of Health and Human Services violated the law by awarding a $21,500 contract to Universal Press Syndicate columnist Maggie Gallagher for marriage-themed writing projects, according to a story in today's Washington Post by Howard Kurtz.
Gallagher, who didn't disclose receiving the money before press reports revealed it in January, has said the contract didn't influence what she wrote in her column.
The GAO inquiry was requested by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). Kennedy said that "the president should put in place sound policies that benefit all Americans rather than pay the press to promote bad policies," Kurtz reported. Lautenberg added that "the Bush propaganda mill has violated the trust of the American people."
Maggie Gallagher
Saved Her Life
'Fear Factor'
A prison guard who escaped a car that sank in a flooded creek credits an episode of the TV reality show "Fear Factor" with saving her life.
Debra Swaim's car was swept off the road into Cucamonga Creek during a flash flood late Tuesday. As her car sank, Swaim said she remembered a rerun episode of NBC's "Fear Factor" in which contestants had to escape from a car in the water.
Swaim said because of the show, she knew to quickly roll down her automatic windows because she wouldn't be able to open her doors underwater.
"I knew I've got to go through my window," she said. "That has everything to do with me watching `Fear Factor.'"
'Fear Factor'
'Still Can't Watch' His Own TV Show
Ozzy Osbourne
MTV may have aired the final episode of the Osbournes on Monday night (March 21), but the cable network will give the series a real send-off on April 17. Dubbing the event "Black Sabbath," the channel plans to air every episode from all four seasons of the Osbournes, starting at 5:30 a.m. Despite the show becoming a cultural phenomenon, Ozzy said he is not a fan.
"I still can't watch it," Ozzy said. "It's like a window in my past, and it's a really weird thing because we just go around and we forget how our behavior was yesterday -- I have a constant reminder. And there is hours and hours and reels and reels of film. There's enough stuff there to do a thousand more shows, you know."
Ozzy Osbourne
Files For Divorce
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston filed for divorce from Brad Pitt on Friday, court papers showed. The divorce petition filed in Superior Court seeks dissolution of the actors' marriage based on irreconcilable differences
A long-rumored split between the "Friends" star and the "Ocean's Twelve" star was confirmed in January when they released a joint statement saying they were formally separating.
Jennifer Aniston
No Domestic Violence If Unmarried
Homophobia In Ohio
Domestic violence charges cannot be filed against unmarried people because of Ohio's new constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman changed a felony domestic violence charge against Frederick Burk to a misdemeanor assault charge.
Before the amendment, courts applied the domestic violence law by defining a family as including an unmarried couple living together as would a husband and wife, the judge said. The gay marriage amendment no longer allows that.
Homophobia In Ohio
Discusses Suicide
Judy Collins
Folk singer Judy Collins used song and candid conversation to discuss her son's suicide and her own suicide attempt with mental health workers and advocates.
Collins spoke Thursday at a conference called "Saving Tomorrows Today" where about 50 people from across the state gathered to discuss North Carolina's first plan to prevent youth suicide.
She sang several stanzas from "Send in the Clowns" before discussing her son Clark's death in January 1992 at the age of 33. She is the author of "Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival and Strength."
Judy Collins
Special Rules For Special Interests
Ahnold
A judge cleared the way for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-2 Passports) to raise unlimited cash to promote his agenda to voters, ruling Friday that the state's political watchdog improperly limited donations for ballot measures.
Schwarzenegger and political allies special interests sued the Fair Political Practices Commission earlier this month to overturn the limits on contributions to ballot measure committees controlled by a candidate. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang agreed that the rule conflicted with the constitutional right to participate in the political process.
Schwarzenegger and his allies special interests are circulating petitions to qualify ballot measures that would increase the time it takes for teachers to earn tenure, privatize public pensions and change the way congressional and legislative districts are drawn.
Ahnold
Magazine Offers Reward
Tasmanian Tiger
A magazine has offered a $983,000 reward to anyone who can produce proof of the Tasmanian tiger - a dog-like, striped creature long believed to be extinct.
The bounty could help solve "one of Australia's most enduring mysteries," Garry Linnell, editor of The Bulletin said Tuesday.
The last known Tasmanian tiger - also known as Tasmanian wolf, or thylacine - died in captivity in 1936, after having been hunted to the verge of extinction by European settlers. Although it was once found across Australia, the animal's last stand was in the southern island state of Tasmania.
To cash in, Linnell said tiger hunters must produce evidence of a live and uninjured animal. A panel of experts and conclusive DNA testing will then be conducted.
Tasmanian Tiger
A German Giant In Gräfenroda
Lawn Gnomes
With his jolly face and little paunch, Reinhard the potter resembles the garden gnomes he produces by the dozen in this little village in Germany where, they say, the phenomenon began.
Reinhard Griebel grew up surrounded by gnomes in Gräfenroda, tucked in the forests of the eastern German state of Thuringia.
This village of 3,500 people claims to be the birthplace of "nanus hortorum vulgaris", or the common garden gnome, which local folklore says was dreamed up by a local potter in 1880.
The craftsmen of the village, including Reinhard's great-grandfather, wasted no time in capitalising on the idea and, in the land where the Brothers Grimm created Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the popularity of gnomes spread fast.
Lawn Gnomes
In Memory
Don Durant
Don Durant, who in the 1950s starred as gunslinger-turned-sheriff "Johnny Ringo" and also sang and wrote the television show's theme song, has died. He was 72. Durant, who had chronic lymphocytic leukemia since 1992, died March 15 at his south Orange County home, family members said.
The half-hour series "Johnny Ringo" ran on CBS from 1959 to 1960 and its fast-drawing title character brandished a LeMat handgun that featured an extra barrel that fired a shotgun round. Though it only ran for a season, the Aaron Spelling-produced show generated about 100 toys and other items, including board games, character puppets, gun sets and canteens.
Durant who was born in Long Beach in 1932, spent most of his youth at his stepfather's ranch in Elko, Nev., where he learned to ride, rope and shoot.
After stints in the Army and Navy, he pursued an acting and singing career and toured with a theater group.
He signed as a bit player with CBS in 1954 and appeared on "The Jack Benny Show," "The Red Skelton Show" and "General Electric Theater."
Durant also toured with the Tommy Dorsey, Frankie Carle and Ray Anthony orchestras. He had a leading role in Roger Corman's 1958 low-budget adventure film "She Gods of Shark Reef."
After guest spots on television shows, Durant was cast as Johnny Ringo and married actress Trudy Wroe the same year that he began starring on the show.
He left acting in 1964 and started a career in real estate and financial management.
He is survived by his wife and son, Jeffrey, daughter, Heidi Albus, and two grandchildren.
Don Durant
In Memory
Paul Henning
Paul Henning, who created the hit TV show "The Beverly Hillbillies" and wrote its theme song, died Friday of natural causes, his daughter said. He was 93.
Henning created "The Beverly Hillbillies," which debuted in 1962, based on his encounters with residents of the Ozarks during camping trips as a youth.
Henning also wrote the words and music to "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," which was sung by Jerry Scoggins while Nashville bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs played guitar and banjo.
In 1963, Henning created "Petticoat Junction," a "Hillbillies" spinoff.
Henning was born on a farm in Missouri on Sept. 16, 1911.
He graduated from Kansas City School of Law, but soon went to work writing for radio, including "Fibber McGee and Molly" and "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show."
Henning also worked in films, writing the 1964 film "Bedtime Story," starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. The film later served as the basis for the 1988 "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."
Later in his life, Henning and his wife Ruth donated land near Branson, Mo., to the state for a conservation area.
Paul Henning
