Betty Bowers: Godless: A Book From One Who Knows (bettybowers.com)
This week, sweet Ann Coulter released her latest in a series of pre-rehab books, entitled Godless. Naturally, the title led me to believe that it was an unexpectedly candid autobiography. Alas, she may be saving that book until after she's been strapped to a bed at Hazelden for a month. Instead of using this book to dabble in the bracing novelty of introspection, Miss Coulter turns her two-setting mind ("off" and "off her rocker") to hector us about religion.
Molly Ivins: An About-Face on Iran
I realize it's silly to let really stupid people upset you, but I have had it with the wingnuts who go about claiming that liberals are delighted about Haditha or want to use it for nefarious public relations purposes. Listen, twits, if you can't stop your petty little partisan political games long to enough to recognize Sad when you see it, then shut up.
William Kohl: Calculator Dependence (irascibleprofessor.com)
Another effect of calculator dependence is that many younger people are not comfortable with numbers. In my generation we learned to do simple arithmetic (addition and multiplication) problems in our heads, and more complex ones with pencil and paper. We can do a quick calculation to check a price in the supermarket or to figure the tip on a restaurant bill without having to reach for a calculator.
Purple Gene's review of the New York performance artsy eclectic avant-garde sister girl duet known as "CocoRosie" playing one night only at the "Great American Music Hall" in San Francisco:
I had just moved into a live/work loft in an artists community here in Oakland and my wife Sharon and I had begun meeting some of the residents….Lulu is a painter with a Boxer dog named Sumi and she invited us in to drink some cheap red wine the other night and she played some music….I asked her what her favorite thing to listen to was and she put on "CocoRosie", a band consisting of the 2 Cassidy sisters from Brooklyn…I had never heard of them….the first song we listened to was full of kids toy sounds in the background and lots of harmonic high pitched singing….Lulu said they put her in a dreamy mood….pretty soon the cheap wine hit and we left…..Lulu called later and said that CocoRosie was coming to town and would we like to go? Why not!
Well we all got in the car and drove across the Bay Bridge and parked right by the Mitchell Brothers Strip Club and stood in line to See CocoRosie at the GAMH. Sharon was in a wheel chair so they put us almost back stage for the show…which was really cool…we were right next to the music and we could also see the adoring fans crushing themselves up in the front….a very energetic group called "Spleen" opened up with a wild throat/mouth hip hop percussionist spitting an insane beat into the mike while the lead singer bounced around the stage and a bass played just stood and bumped.
It was about 10 o'clock when we witnessed possibly the strangest ensemble since Yoko Ono in a bag in Toronto with Eric Clapton and John Lennon…..onto the stage strides 2 beautifully odd women…one in bright robes and a full Indian headdress the other in a baseball cap and a bathrobe……
But a little history first…..
Sierra and Bianca Cassidy are half Cherokee and when they were growing up they fought with each other like cats and dogs……when their folks split up they would spend the summers with their dad going from reservation to reservation while he performed shamanistic rites and peyote ceremonies. As teens they got split up and 14 years old Sierra was sent to boarding school. In 2000 Sierra moved to Paris to study opera at the conservatory….Bianca came over and stayed with her and they locked themselves in an apartment in La Maison de Mon Reve all summer and recorded their first album and it got picked up and downloaded and they got signed and ended up touring with "Bright Eyes" and "TV on the Radio" and other Indie Rock Psych Folk groups and with all their quirky pet sounds and toy noises. They recorded Noah's Ark in 2003 and the local college station here in Berkeley, KALX, played it a lot……back to the GAMH…
As CocoRosie stepped onstage … the unworldly wailing began…..somewhere between Billy Holliday on Helium, Yoko Ono on pitch …..and Minnie Mouse…. these two Operatic Art school drop outs proceeded to entrance the whole Hall with their Noir Nursery School noise makers, mini harp, piano and a guitar. It was also kinda like a dress up party with bazaar song lyrics and odd onstage antics……
"Jesus Loves Me"
…."Jesus loves me
but not my wife
not my nigger friends
or their nigger lives…"
~~~~~~
"Armageddon"
…"And oh what a pity the world's not white
Oh what a shame I don't have blue eyes
God must have been colorblind
If I made the world it would be all white!"
Some crunched up dude in the very front collapsed on stage after a histrionic high pitched number that sounded like Slim Whitman in "Mars Attack"….He had fainted and they just left him onstage, with a bottle of water, and as he came to he was in the middle of the final song with the girls jumping over him singing "Everyone wants to go to Japan…Everyone wants to go to Iraq…let's all just hold hands…"
Well we got out just before the curtain came down ……Sierra put her baseball cap and bathrobe back on and Bianca donned the headdress and to thunderous adoring applause…exited stage left.
Purple Gene gives CocoRosie 7 little talking mini toys out of 10 for be really entertaining, shrill and oh sooooooooooo tre cool!
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'NCIS', followed by a RERUN'Cold Case', then '48 Hours'.
NBC fills the night on the East Coast with LIVE'NHL Hockey', then pads prime time on the left coast with local crap and an old 'Dateline'.
'SNL' is a RERUN with Jack Black hosting, music by Neil Young.
The late, late 'SNL' is from 13 February, 1988, with Justine Bateman hosting, music by Terrence Trent D'arby.
ABC begins the night with the movie 'Toy Story 2', followed by a RERUN'The Evidence'.
The WB offers an old 'Friends', followed by an old 'Raymond', then panders with 'Cheaters'.
Faux has the traditional 'Cops', 'Cops', and 'America's Most Wanted'.
UPN has an old 'Alias', followed by an old 'Fear Factor'.
A&E has 'The First 48', 'Cold Case Files', another 'Cold Case Files', and 'American Justice'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Man From Snowy River', followed by the movie 'Hidalgo', then 'Hustle', followed by the movie 'Highlander'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] 'Sharpe's Eagle' - Ep 2 Eagle;
[4:00 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 1;
[5:00 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 2;
[6:00 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 3;
[7:00 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 4;
[8:00 pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 5;
[9:00 pm] 'Sharpe's Company' - Ep 1 Company;
[11:00 pm] 'Hex' - Episode 1;
[1:00 am] 'Sharpe's Company' - Ep 1 Company;
[3:00 am] 'Fawlty Towers' - The Hotel Inspectors;
[3:40 am] 'Fawlty Towers' - Gourmet Night;
[4:20 am] 'Fawlty Towers' - The Germans;
[5:00 am] 'Just For Laughs' - Episode 4;
[5:30 am] 'Just For Laughs' - Episode 3;
[6:00 am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has the movie 'Casino', followed by the movie 'Casino', again.
Comedy Central has the movie 'She's All That', followed by 'Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One For The Road'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Amazon Adventures', and 'Litle Ice Age: Big Chill'.
IFC -
[6:00 AM] Super Troopers;
[7:45 AM] Short: The Debt;
[8:00 AM] 47 Ronin: Part 1;
[10:00 AM] Jefferson In Paris;
[12:30 PM] Matewan;
[2:45 PM] 47 Ronin: Part 1;
[4:45 PM] At The IFC Center #14;
[5:15 PM] SXSW: Behind the Badge;
[5:45 PM] Jefferson In Paris;
[8:15 PM] Blue Car;
[9:50 PM] Short: Twenty Minutes of Immortality;
[10:00 PM] The Henry Rollins Show #11;
[10:30 PM] Samurai 7 Episode #11: "The Village";
[11:00 PM] Shallow Grave;
[12:35 AM] At The IFC Center #14;
[1:00 AM] The Henry Rollins Show #11;
[1:30 AM] Samurai 7 Episode #11: "The Village";
[2:00 AM] A Decade Under The Influence: Part 1;
[3:00 AM] Shallow Grave;
[4:45 AM] IFC In Theaters;
[5:00 AM] The Spaghetti West. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has the movie 'Earthquake: Nature Unleashed', followed by the movie 'Black Hole'.
Sundance -
[07:20 AM] Funny Ha Ha;
[08:50 AM] Powder;
[10:45 AM] Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties;
[12:00 PM] A Man's Gotta Do;
[01:35 PM] Photographing Fairies;
[03:30 PM] Small Faces;
[05:20 PM] La Vie Promise;
[07:00 PM] The Umbrellas of Cherbourg;
[08:30 PM] Janice Beard: 45 Words Per Minute;
[10:00 PM] Tarnation;
[11:35 PM] Margaret Cho's Revolution;
[01:00 AM] Orgazmo;
[02:35 AM] Debbie Does Dallas: Uncovered;
[03:30 AM] Walker;
[05:15 AM] Two-Lane Blacktop. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Actress Salma Hayak arrives at the Cartier and Interview Magazine Celebrate Love event at the Cartier Mansion in New York, June 8, 2006.
Photo by Eric Thayer
Sidelined since undergoing heart surgery in March, Charlie Rose returns on Monday to his nightly PBS talk show - and he'll be answering some questions instead of just asking them.
Rose had been on his way to Syria to interview that country's president when he felt shortness of breath during a Paris stopover. He underwent surgery to repair a heart valve, spending a month in the hospital.
Rose, 64, will spend half of Monday's show talking about his surgery with a guest interviewer, who had yet to be determined on Friday. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman will pay his 40th visit to the program - more than any other guest - in the second half.
Actor and comedian Eddie Izzard arrives at the American Film Institute's 'AFI Life Achievement Award, A Tribute to Sir Sean Connery' taping in Hollywood June 8, 2006.
Photo by Fred Prouser
Hank Williams Jr., who has sung the theme for ABC's "Monday Night Football" since 1989, will continue the tradition next season on ESPN when the football institution moves to the cable network, show officials said Friday.
ESPN - which has an eight-year deal for the Monday-night rights - said in a statement that Williams will continue with a theme based on his hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight."
Williams will perform with a band that includes guitarists Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick and Steven Van Zandt from the E Street Band; keyboardists Little Richard and Bernie Worrell from Parliament Funkadelic; fiddler Charlie Daniels; and saxophonist Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band.
The University of Chicago has announced a deal to acquire scores of boxes containing the drafts, unpublished essays and personal letters of the late Nobel laureate Saul Bellow.
About 150 boxes of Bellow's documents will be housed at the university's Regenstein Library, joining hundreds of other boxes of papers he left there.
The new papers cover his works since 1968 and include handwritten notebooks and unpublished stories, essays and speeches. There is also correspondence between Bellow and authors John Cheever, Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, among others.
Rock stars, country stars and even songwriters have their own halls of fame. Now their backing musicians are getting into the act, too.
The Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum opened Friday and honors those who have played and recorded with stars of all stripes, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Stevie Wonder to Hank Williams.
Located in an old warehouse just south of the city's honky-tonk district, the hall is the brainchild of Joe Chambers, a Nashville songwriter and guitar store owner.
A promotional video features remarks by performers such as Neil Young and Garth Brooks, with Young perhaps putting it best: "You can see the hood ornament on the car if you go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but if you want to look at the engine and see what's making it go, then you go to the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum."
Comedic legend Jerry Lewis kisses actor-comedian Richard Belzer at the Friars Club celebrity roast in Lewis' honor Friday, June 9, 2006 in New York City. Lewis has been 'roasted' previously in 1971, 1986 and also in 1955 with then partner Dean Martin.The comedian-philanthropist was named abbot of the Friars Club and then roasted by his peers.
Photo by Stephen Chernin
There was good news and blue news for Jerry Lewis on Friday. The comedian-philanthropist was named abbot of the Friars Club, taking over the leadership position vacant since Alan King's death two years ago. And then its members delivered a four-letter, foul-mouthed welcome to their new leader at one of the club's infamous annual roasts.
Friars Club Dean Freddie Roman announced Lewis' selection as abbot, a slot held previously by legendary club members like Frank Sinatra, Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan. He then wasted little time in lobbing a cheap shot at Lewis, who was inducted into the French Legion of Honor earlier this year.
"We're here to prove that 50 million Frenchmen can be wrong," said Roman.
The crowd was a typically strange mix: cast members from "The Sopranos" and "The Godfather." Guys in shades, and guys with hearing aids. Ice-T, and Joe Franklin. Richard Belzer served as the roastmaster for those ready to rip into the man responsible for "The Nutty Professor."
Hollywood's elite gathered to pay tribute to Sean Connery, who received The American Film Institute's annual lifetime achievement award.
Directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and actors Harrison Ford, Andy Garcia and Mike Myers were among the stars who cheered on the legendary actor Thursday at the ceremony at the Kodak Theatre.
Connery thanked the audience for "one hell of an evening."
A home video that appears to show R and B star R. Kelly performing sex acts on a 14-year-old girl will be made public during his child pornography trial in Chicago.
Cook County Judge Vince Gaughan ruled that preventing the press or the public from viewing the tape might undermine the public's confidence in the jury's verdict, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.
R. Kelly -- who faces up to 15 years in jail and could be fined up to 100,000 dollars if convicted -- grew up in the projects or public housing estates on the South Side of Chicago, and scored a massive hit with his 1997 tune "I Believe I Can Fly."
He was briefly married to pop singer Aaliyah, tying the knot with her in 1994 when the aspiring R and B star was just 15.
Actor Ian McShane (L) and wife Gwen Humble arrive at the American Film Institute's 'AFI Life Achievement Award, A Tribute to Sir Sean Connery' taping in Hollywood June 8, 2006. The show that honored Connery's long career will be telecast on the USA Network cable channel on June 21.
Photo by Fred Prouser
Authorities raided the Dartmouth College fraternity that inspired the 1978 movie "National Lampoon's Animal House."
Court documents regarding search were sealed, and authorities said only that the Alpha Delta house raid Thursday was part of a two-year investigation.
Police removed 10 crates and two bags of evidence, along with two sledgehammers, a videotape and a computer, according to the Valley News of Lebanon.
"National Lampoon's Animal House," starring John Belushi, portrayed college fraternity debauchery. One of the writers, Chris Miller, was a 1964 Dartmouth graduate and a member of Alpha Delta.
Some 100 years after he died, Paul Cezanne is returning home to the Provence which he loved and immortalised in his paintings, but which largely shunned him in both life and death.
A major exhibition of some 117 Cezanne paintings opens on Friday at the Musee Granet in Aix-en-Provence, showing off the works of the man deemed the father of modern art, a bridge between the impressionist and cubist movements.
For his great-grandson, Philippe Cezanne, the exhibition marks a homecoming and an end to the rift between Cezanne the artist and his native Provence, in southwestern France, in the year marking the centenary of phis death.
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej waves to the crowd during ceremonies Friday, June 9, 2006, in Bangkok, Thailand. King Bhumibol is the world's longest serving monarch and is celebrating his 60th anniversary of becoming Thailand's King. Although a constitutional monarch with limited powers, the king has used his prestige over the years during political crises to force opposing parties to compromise for the sake of peace and stability.
Photo by Sakchai Lalit
The site of Hitler's bunker was marked publicly for the first time Thursday by a historical group trying to demystify one of the Third Reich's most burdened places.
The bunker's buried ruins lie below a parking lot, playground and adjacent apartment building. The Berlin Underworlds Association unveiled its new marker - a sign bearing graphics, photos and a chronology of events in both German and English - at the edge of a sidewalk alongside the tree-dotted parking lot.
Berlin officials had been hesitant about pointing out the location because they feared that neo-Nazis could turn the site into a place of pilgrimage.
There's a new reality show in town - "Panda Cam." The Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in China's southwestern Sichuan province has set up a camera to capture the everyday life of pandas to be watched live on the Internet, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
"Panda Cam" will be aired in 20-minute segments from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 10:50 p.m. EDT and 2 a.m. to 2:50 a.m. EDT, Xinhua said.
The facility, in the heart of Sichuan's lush, cloud-wreathed mountains, is home to about 80 artificially bred pandas.
Japanese sumo wrestlers float in the water during a visit to the Dead Sea June 8, 2006. A team of Japan's and the world's top sumo wrestlers arrived in Israel on Sunday for a six-day visit.
Photo by Yannis Behrakis
Two fans of The Andy Griffith Show who planned to erect a statue of Don Knotts have new orders from CBS: Nip it!
Network lawyers and representatives of the actor's estate said this week that proper permission had not been granted for the project.
Tom Hellebrand and Neal Shelton were trying to raise $35,000 US to put a statue in Mount Airy - model for the town of Mayberry - as a tribute to Knotts, who portrayed the bumbling Barney Fife on the popular show.
The two worked out arrangements with the city for placing the statue, and thought they'd gotten a green light from CBS Corp., which owns the rights to the show's characters.
A commemorative U.S. postage stamp bearing the image of late actress Judy Garland is shown in this undated publicity photo. The stamp will be issued on what would have been her 84th birthday in New York City June 10, 2006.
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