'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Question
Jim Morrison Lives?
Hey Marty -
Came across this -
Jim Morrison A Living Legend
WTF??
~ Lar
Thanks, Lar!
Had heard about this, but hadn't visited the site before.
Then who is buried in Paris?
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
George Lakoff: The Foreign Language of Choice (AlterNet)
Winning the debate over unwanted pregnancies requires Democrats to embrace four powerfully moral ideas -- and none of them have to do with 'choice.'
Martha Burk: The Democrats' Woman Problem (TomPaine.com. Posted on Alternet)
More likely they get up and think, "I hope the baby sitter shows up, nobody gets sick, the car holds together one more year, the older kids don't get shot at school, and the boss doesn't pat me on the rear and promote the guy I trained over me."
Annalee Newitz: Everybody Loves Vader (AlterNet)
Interestingly, as the country has grown more conservative, the Star Wars films have tipped further toward liberalism.
Molly Ivins: The view from the 'Owner's Box'
So, the Texas Legislature decided it's OK for gay couples to be foster parents, but only if they're not married.
What Went Wrong In Ohio: Review by Thom Hartmann
Two weeks before the presidential election of 2004, The Washington Post ran an article titled "Some Fear Ohio Will Be Florida."
Kim Ficera: Don't Quote Me! (afterellen.com)
The concept of an unexpressed thought eludes people everywhere, but nowhere is a considered moment of silence harder to come by than in Hollywood.
Career Activism (out.com)
Republican strategists aren't telling their followers that gays and lesbians are already better educated, more successful in their careers, and earn substantially more money than the fundamentalists who gave George W. another four years to further erode American civil liberties.
Roger Ebert: Mon Oncle (1958) (Bruce's Video Recommendation)
Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.
Meet the Press: Transcript for May 22
Guest: Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic Party
Why-us.org
Hello, Neo, Is something wrong with the world?
Reader Comment
This is scary
This is from "The Register"...holy crap, pretty soon we really will just be a bunch of dumb sheep!:
Scientists from Switzerland and the US reckon they have discovered a way of making people trust you - just give 'em a dose of hormone Oxytocin and away you go...
Oxytocin is, according to Reuters, a hormone released during sexual orgasm. It's nickname of "cuddle" hormone gives you an idea of what its effect is, viz; "We find that intranasal administration of Oxytocin causes a substantial increase in trusting behavior," as the scientists explain in Nature. Put another way: "Oxytocin specifically affects an individual's willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions."And apparently, test subjects "exposed to the hormone but faced with a computer did not show increased willingness to take risks". All of which translates thus: Oxytocin makes you more likely to trust someone.
Naturally, the scientists did offer a warning as to possible misuse of this touchy-feely hormone, concluding: "Of course, this finding could be misused to induce trusting behaviors that selfish actors subsequently exploit."
That's to say, you might find yourself suddenly finding Tony Blair and George Bush strangely plausible, without realising that your entire neighbourhood has been dosed with Oxytocin deployed via aerosol from stealth black helicopters. You have been warned. Source
Tiera
Thanks, Tiera!
Kinda makes me wonder if all that chemtrail stuff is totally tinfoil-helmet...
Reader Find
Re: Harper Lee
Click here: HoustonChronicle.com - Mockingbird author makes rare public appearance
Photo of Harper Lee in above article.
MAM
Thanks, Marianne!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Got sunny early.
Performs at Two Comedy Clubs
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle served up some impromptu standup to stunned audiences at the Hollywood Improv and the Comedy Store.
"The place went ballistic. The kids were on their feet. We had a college night going on," said Reeta Piazza, special events manager at the Improv.
Comedy Store general manager Dean Gelber said Chappelle joked about politics and other topics but did not indicate whether he would return for another season on Comedy Central.
Dave Chappelle
Backs Off Claims
Paid Snitch
A paid informant who told police that rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight and a rogue police officer orchestrated the killing of rapper Notorious B.I.G. has admitted that most of the information he passed along to the FBI and LAPD was "hearsay."
The informant said in a recent deposition that he had no evidence to back up earlier statements that Knight and former Officer David A. Mack planned the rap star's murder, according to the Los Angeles Times, which reviewed a deposition transcript for the story in its Friday edition.
The rapper, who was born as Christopher Wallace, was gunned down March 9, 1997, after a music-industry party in the Mid-Wilshire district. The case remains unsolved.
The informant, known to police as "Psycho Mike," contacted detectives four months after Wallace's death from the county jail and offered information about the rapper's killer in exchange for an early release.
Paid Snitch
Documentary Gets Rare L.A. Screening
Artie Shaw
In 1987, director Brigitte Berman won an Academy Award for best documentary feature for "Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got," a portrait of the jazz clarinetist. It has been virtually unseen since then -- thanks largely to a legal confrontation with the film's late subject over control of the picture.
The Toronto-based filmmaker first interviewed Shaw in 1980 while making "Bix: Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet," about the early jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. Impressed by the director, Shaw consented to become the subject of Berman's next picture.
During the course of nearly three years, Shaw sat for several interviews with Berman, who also shot such veterans of Shaw's bands as drummer Buddy Rich and singers Mel Torme and Helen Forrest. Actress Evelyn Keyes, the last of Shaw's eight wives (who also included Lana Turner and Ava Gardner), also was caught on film.
Artie Shaw
13 New Episodes Ordered
'American Dad'
Fox has given a 13-episode order to the freshman cartoon "American Dad," which already had secured a spot on the network's fall schedule.
"American Dad," from "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, had an original order of 19 episodes, including the pilot. Four have aired so far, with several more slated to run in the summer. Because Fox already had ordered several additional scripts of "Dad," production on the new batch of 13 episodes will start immediately, and the segments will become available in the spring. The new 13-episode order ensures that "Dad" will stay in continuous production.
'American Dad'
Family Values
Charles A. Lindbergh
In shaky handwriting on blue onionskin, the man who signed himself only as "C." sent his final farewell.
A photograph of the letter, dated Aug. 16, 1974, is part of a book published this week in Germany with the cooperation of three siblings who say they are the out-of-wedlock children of the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic.
Astrid Bouteuil, Dyrk Hesshaimer and David Hesshaimer worked with biographer Rudolf Schroeck on the 368-page "The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh," published by Heyne Verlag, a division of Random House. The book describes a longtime secret relationship between Lindbergh and their mother, Munich hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer.
The book also says Lindbergh had two children each with Brigitte Hesshaimer's sister, Marietta, and with his German private secretary, Valeska, whose last name is not given. There are now no plans for an English edition of the book, the publisher said.
For more, Charles A. Lindbergh
Rush Guitarist Sues Hotel
Alex Lifeson
The lead guitarist for the band Rush, his son and daughter-in-law are suing the Ritz-Carlton, its security director and three sheriff's deputies stemming from a New Year's Eve 2003 altercation at the Naples hotel.
Alex Zivojinovich, whose stage name is Alex Lifeson, his son Justin and daughter-in-law Michelle are seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages for injuries, pain and suffering, mental anguish and the costs of their defense in criminal cases.
The lawsuit alleges that deputies who responded to a call by hotel security "applied illegal and unjustified force, and such force was excessive," causing Justin Zivojinovich "severe discomfort and pain."
Alex Lifeson
30 Years Later
'Jaws'
Cue the ominous bass line and close the beaches. This weekend, some 30 years after "Jaws" premiered on the big screen, hundreds of movie buffs have flocked to Martha's Vineyard off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts to celebrate the great white shark that terrified millions of moviegoers.
This island's JawsFest '05 also brought back some of the cast and crew, including screenwriter Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel that inspired Steven Spielberg's enduring classic.
And, of course, the weekend wouldn't be complete without an appearance from the real star.
The festival's organizers hired a special-effects artist to build a replica of "Bruce," the mechanical shark from the movie. Mounted on a truck, it was expected to pop up all over the island - which was disguised as Amity Island in the film.
'Jaws,'
Sues the National Enquirer
Cameron Diaz
Actress Cameron Diaz is suing The National Enquirer for more than $10 million, alleging the celebrity tabloid libeled her in a story that claimed she cheated on boyfriend Justin Timberlake by kissing another man.
The suit filed Wednesday in Superior Court concerned the tabloid's May 23 issue, which featured a photograph in which Diaz and Shane Nickerson, an MTV producer who works on her reality show, "Trippin," were shown outside a Los Angeles sound studio.
Nickerson and his mother-in-law, Jeanne Martin, a Connecticut schoolteacher, are also plaintiffs in the suit.
Cameron Diaz
Rediscovered Novel Published
Alexandre Dumas
The last unfinished novel of prolific 19th-century novelist Alexandre Dumas, author of "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Christo," was published for the first time as a book on Friday after it was rediscovered by a French academic.
Parisian scholar Claude Schopp, who has studied Dumas for over 20 years, said he came across a letter 10 years ago in which Dumas mentioned "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine," or "The Knight of Sainte-Hermine."
The book is part of Dumas' vast historical project to document French history through his literature.
"Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine" fits into a series of dozens of novels, just ahead of The Count of Monte Christo, even though it was the last novel he wrote.
Alexandre Dumas
New Theme Restaurant
Marton
Taiwanese restaurateur Eric Wang has given new meaning to the traditional revelers' cry of bottoms up. His eatery in the southern city of Kaohsiung delivers its food not on conventional plates and dishes, but in miniaturized Western and Asian style toilets, both the flush and non-flush variety.
Located in a downtown area with a variety of competing eateries, Marton - the name means toilet in Chinese - attracts its customers through its dazzling bathroom decor.
For all its scatological excess, the Marton is following in the noblest tradition of Taiwanese novelty restaurants.
Other successful ventures have purposely confined scores of contented diners to coffins or jail cells, or exposed them to full-scale pictures of Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, Taiwan's political nemesis until his death in 1976.
Marton
Painting Emerges From Tehran Vault
Francis Bacon
A painting by British artist Francis Bacon will go on display for the first time in 25 years on Saturday after being found in a vault in Tehran, where it was mothballed following the Islamic Revolution.
The painting -- "Reclining Man with Sculpture 1960-1961" -- was bought by the Shah of Iran in the mid-1970s and hung in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
But when the Shah was deposed in 1979, the state took possession of it and stored it in the museum vaults. Like many pieces of Western art in Iran, it has not been seen since.
Francis Bacon
Archaeologists Find In The Netherlands
Celtic Coins
Archaeologists have uncovered 17 ancient Celtic coins in a field in the south of the Netherlands, the first hoard of such coins found in the country.
Amsterdam's Free University excavated the site in April and will display the coins, which are made of silver and mixed with copper and gold, in the Limburgs Museum in the city of Venlo on Saturday.
They are estimated to date from 20-50 B.C., shortly after Julius Caesar began the Roman conquest of the region.
Celtic Coins
In Memory
Leon Askin
Leon Askin, the actor who played Gen. Albert Burkhalter in the 1960s television comedy "Hogan's Heroes," has died, Austrian officials said Friday.
Askin was best known for his role as the Nazi general who constantly threatened to send the prisoner of war camp's inept commander, Col. Wilhelm Klink, to the Russian front because of his stupidity.
Born Leo Aschkenasy in Vienna on Sept. 18, 1907, Askin worked as a cabaret artist in the 1930s before fleeing first to France and then to the United States to escape persecution by the Nazis.
He had roles in dozens of films, including Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three" and the remake of Austrian director Fritz Lang's "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse." In the course of his career, he appeared opposite Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Peter Ustinov.
Askin took up residence in Vienna in 1994, returning to his roots in cabaret. He also took roles in Vienna's Festwochen and the city's second opera, the Volksoper.
He was decorated with Vienna's Gold Medal of Honor, one of the most distinguished prizes the city offers.
Leon Askin
