'Best of TBH Politoons'
Sneak Peek Across America Tonight
SiCKO
Interested in a sneak preview of Michael Moore's new film SiCKO before it opens on June 29th? Well, if you live anywhere near the 32 cities listed below, this Saturday night, June 23rd, there will be sneak screenings of SiCKO in 43 theaters across the country.
Albany, NY
Albuquerque, NM
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Baltimore, MD
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Detroit, MI
Flint, MI
Houston, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Kansas City, KS
Las Vegas, NV
Miami, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN
Philadelphia, PA
Phoenix, AZ
Pittsburgh, PA
Portland, OR
Sacramento, CA
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
St. Louis, MO
Tacoma, WA
Tampa - St. Petersburg, FL
Washington, D.C.
Order tickets online here: michaelmoore.com/sicko/about/sneak/.
Please feel free to share this information with your readers. SiCKO opens nationwide on June 29th!
Jen
Thanks, Jen!
Wish there was one near me.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Froma Harrop: A Bad Breed of Brazen Republicans (creators.com)
Republicans hardly have a lock on corruption in Washington, but they do seem to hold the patent on an especially brazen breed of dodgy politician. This is the official who combines devious dealing with abusive behavior. Alaska Rep. Don Young seems to fit the mold, as did former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now doing jail time for bribery, fraud and tax evasion.
Froma Harrop: Bloomberg Hero to the Fed Up (creators.com)
Whatever Bloomberg ultimately decides to do, his departure from the Republican Party is not insignificant. The day after announcing he had become an "independent," Bloomberg launched a goodbye missile toward the administration of George W. Bush. He said that "we're in danger of losing our lead in many parts of science and medicine and education, economics." That doesn't leave us many things to be a leader of. Bloomberg blamed both parties, but we know whom he means.
Jim Hightower: ADS EVERYWHERE (jimhightower.com)
"O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties... and ads from sea to sea."
RICHARD ROEPER: Readers rant on liberals, 'Evan' and getting ID'd
... I'd rather give money to the guy with the sign saying, "I'm broke and you're not." It's not the panhandling that bothers me as much as the con job..
Roger Ebert: AFI 100: 'Kane' still number one
Welles' "Citizen Kane" is still the greatest American film of all time. Coppola's "The Godfather" is second. Scorsese's "Raging Bull" and Hitchcock's "Vertigo" have cracked the Top 10, booting out "The Graduate" (No. 7 to No. 17) and "On the Waterfront" (No. 8 to No. 19). And Ford's "The Searchers" hurtled from No. 96 to No. 12.
Roger Ebert's Great Movies Review: Woman in the Dunes
"I love staying at local homes,'' the man says, accepting an offer of hospitality after he misses the last bus back to the city. He has been collecting insects in a remote desert region of Japan. The villagers lead him to a house at the bottom of a sandpit, and he climbs down a rope ladder to spend the night with the woman who lives there. She prepares his dinner, and fans him as he eats. During the night, he awakens to observe that she is outside, shoveling sand. In the morning, he sees her sleeping, her body naked and sparkling with sand. He goes outside to leave. "That's funny,'' he says to himself. "The ladder is gone.''
RICHARD ROEPER: Throw this god-awful sequel a life jacket: Even funnyman Steve Carell can't save a movie that's drowning in its own low expectations
Oh, my God, this movie [Evan Almighty] sucks.
Mark Morford: Should You Get A Bad Tattoo? (sfgate.com)
Why not? It's easier than ever to get it removed. So much for ritual and permanence
Reader Comment
RE: Paul Link
Marty,
First congratulations on 1030 days in a row. I'm impressed, I'll bet most of your readers don't know what an accomplishment this is. Wow!
Now the other thing; a day, or so, ago you carried a link that offered proof that
Paul McCartney is dead. Please don't tell him, he just had his 66th birthday and information like that would probably send him into deep depression. Just let him carry on. I'm just sayin'.
Peace
--Joe
"Iraq is clearly hubris carried to the point of insanity - it's damn hard to convince people you're killing them for their own good."
- Molly Ivins -
Thanks, Joe!
That link was on last Sunday's page.
I remember rolling my eyes when I first saw it - figured there were others who's eyes needed a little exercise. ; )
Reader Stat
Every 9.62 Days...
Every 9.62 days, Iraq & Afghanistan Have A September 11th. A lot of interesting statistics and graphs comparing recent
terrorist attacks in the West (September 11th, Madrid bombings, July 7th
attacks in London) compared to everyday civilian casualties in Iraq and
Afghanistan:
Reader Correction
RE: Dragonfly Photo
Hi Marty
That's not a Dragonfly but a Damsel fly.
Dragon flies don't hold their wings like that and have much thicker/sturdier bodies.
Paul of Seattle
Thanks, Paul!
When I was a kid, bugs never bothered me - except for dragonflys. Don't know why, but they would send me shrieking and wailing.
Now I think they're pretty cool.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD took a well-deserved day off.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Comfortable on the coast, hot inland.
Joins Protest
George Clooney
George Clooney has joined a protest to stop construction of parking lots and a promenade in the northern Italian lakeside town where he owns a villa because he fears his presence is turning the quiet town into a tourist attraction.
Clooney was among some 300 townspeople who signed the petition against the planned construction in the town of Laglio on Lake Como, according to organizers.
"My concern is that this village that has stood for hundreds of years would be destroyed simply because I happened to have lived there for the last six years. I told my neighbors that I would do what they wanted. And it seemed that they didn't want to demolish the harbor where all the local fishermen keep their boats," Clooney said.
George Clooney
Hoax Or Business Fraud?
JT LeRoy
For years, writer Laura Albert went to strange lengths to hide her identity behind an alter ego named JT LeRoy.
Friends donned wigs and posed as the fictitious LeRoy at book signings. They snookered journalists with a phony back story about a past as an underage male prostitute. Albert even made phone calls to a psychiatrist while posing as the troubled teen, and grabbed the attention of such authors as Tobias Wolff and Dave Eggers, and filmmaker Gus Van Sant.
A literary hoax? Yes. But is it fraud?
A federal jury in New York City began deciding Friday whether Albert defrauded a film producer who optioned the rights to her book "Sarah" by failing to reveal that LeRoy didn't exist.
JT LeRoy
New HIV Campaign
1 in a Million
Regina King, Howard Hesseman and Jimmy Jean-Louis of NBC's "Heroes" are among a group of performers getting HIV tests next week to raise awareness of the spread of the virus in black communities.
They will be screened Monday in front of cameras at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) headquarters in Los Angeles as part of a new campaign called "1 in a Million." The goal is to motivate 1 million black Americans to get tested for HIV/AIDS by Dec. 1, 2008.
Other celebrity participants include Hill Harper ("CSI: NY"), musical stage star Sheryl Lee Ralph, Gloria Reuben of the HBO movie "Life Support" and former "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" star Tatyana Ali.
1 in a Million
Organizers Scrap Show
Live Earth Istanbul
The Istanbul edition of the July 7 global Live Earth concerts has been cancelled. Organizers are now seeking a site to erect giant screens in the Turkish city to take TV feeds from the remaining eight shows around the world.
Reports in the Turkish press pointed to the non-appearance of promised government support and a failure to attract sponsorship from big business as the reasons for the concert being nixed.
Turkish music industry sources say local businesses have shied away from sponsoring the show for fear of criticism from environmental groups who may accuse their factories of helping stoke global warming. Politicians are also preoccupied with the Turkish general election, to be held on July 22.
Live Earth Istanbul
Most Expensive Living Artist
Damien Hirst
Britain's Damien Hirst has been crowned the world's most expensive living artist at auction, lifting a title held for years by America's Jasper Johns.
Hirst took the title on Thursday when Sotheby's sold his "Lullaby Spring" pill cabinet for 9.6 million pounds ($19.1 million).
Johns has held the title off and on since the mid-1980s, swapping in November 189 with Willem de Kooning who held it until his death in 1997.
The Hirst sale was just 24 hours after Lucian Freud's portrait of "Bruce Bernard" sold at Christie's for 7.9 million pounds briefly making him the most expensive living European artist.
Damien Hirst
Baby Daddy
Eddie Murphy
A DNA test has confirmed actor-comedian Eddie Murphy is the father of the newborn daughter of Spice Girl singer Melanie Brown, People magazine reported on Friday, citing Brown's representative.
Brown, 32, gave birth to Angel Iris Murphy Brown in April and listed Murphy as the father on the child's birth certificate, but the star of movies like "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Dreamgirls" has never publicly acknowledged paternity.
Earlier this month, media outlets reported that Murphy, 46, had taken a DNA test and Brown's representative, Liza Anderson, told People the results, confirming Murphy's paternity, were given to Brown on Thursday.
Eddie Murphy
Scraping Direct-To-DVD Animated Sequels
Disney
In a major strategy shift, the Walt Disney Co. said it will stop making lucrative direct-to-DVD sequels of such classic animated films as "Cinderella," a move that reflects the growing influence of former Pixar Animation executives John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, who once called the films "embarrassing."
The change comes with a shake-up at the company's DisneyToon Studios, including the removal of longtime president Sharon Morrill, who will continue with the company in another capacity, Disney said Friday.
DisneyToon will now only produce original DVD films, including an upcoming film starring the fairy Tinkerbell. It is not clear whether sequels already in production, such as "Cinderella III," will continue.
Disney
Two Networks Pass On Interview
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton appeared to be a celebrity without a spotlight on Friday after two major U.S. television networks snubbed the hotel heiress they initially fought over for a first post-jail interview.
An ABC executive said his network declined interview offers from the multimillionaire socialite after Hilton and her mother, Kathy, personally sought to secure a deal in a flurry of telephone calls to ABC News veteran Barbara Walters.
Meanwhile, rival network NBC issued a statement saying it, too, had informed Hilton's representatives that it was "no longer interested in pursing an interview with her."
CBS News, which had not been deeply involved in the initial tug-of-war for a Hilton interview, likewise said it was not interested.
Paris Hilton
Demands Apology From Tabloid
David Hasselhoff
David Hasselhoff has demanded an apology from a British tabloid for publishing a story that claimed he was drunk at a Hollywood nightclub while celebrating his victory in a child custody battle.
Hasselhoff, star of TV's "Baywatch" and "Knight Rider," was awarded custody of his daughters Hayley, 14, and Taylor, 17, by a Los Angeles judge on June 15. The 54-year-old actor had been in a long-running legal battle with ex-wife Pamela Bach.
The Sun's story, published Tuesday, claimed a "boozy" Hasselhoff was knocking over tables and demanding drinks from strangers at Les Deux nightclub in Hollywood.
David Hasselhoff
Cutting Jobs, Restructuring
ABC News
ABC News said Friday that it will cut 35 jobs over the next two years as part of a companywide restructuring that will move more resources into digital news.
The network's news president, David Westin, announced the "two-year process to take a fresh look at ABC News from top to bottom" in an e-mail to his staff on Friday.
The effort will involve consolidations and job changes, Westin said. ABC is also adding jobs, having recently posted openings in India, Australia, Iran and Brazil, he said.
As for viewers, "they will see no difference whatsoever," ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider lied.
ABC News
Macabre Relics For Sale
Titanic
Hand-written accounts of the Titanic disaster's aftermath go on sale next week, including log entries describing how bodies of passengers who drowned were buried at sea with 50-pound (23-kg) weights attached.
Thursday's sale in New York will feature haunting reminders of the RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg. Its deck chairs are not in the auction.
The auction also will include an eight-page hand-written account of the disaster by survivor Laurie M. Cribb, a New Jersey native whose father perished.
A teenager at the time, Cribb's account details the moment the ship hit the iceberg, the chaotic evacuation, her separation from her father and watching the Titanic's lights go out.
Titanic
Last Film
Orson Welles
The new "Transformers" movie boasts a good cast, but it's got nothing on the original.
In a classic bit of movie trivia, the little-seen 1986 animated film "Transformers: The Movie" was Orson Welles' last film. Yes, that Orson Welles.
The filmmaking legend who remade cinema with "Citizen Kane" (which just again topped AFI's list of 100 greatest movies), directed "Touch of Evil," starred in "The Third Man," impeccably adapted Shakespeare to the screen and panicked the nation with his infamous radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" - concluded his career by playing Unicron, an evil shape-shifting planet moon.
Welles was 70 at the time and in poor health. His last released film was 1987's "Someone to Love," but that was shot before Welles lent his voice to "Transformers." Late in his career, Welles often took to commercials and narration work as a source of income.
Orson Welles
Ties County Record
Rebecca G. Lingbloom
A Pierce County woman apparently tied a record for the amount of alcohol in her blood when the Washington State Patrol toxicology lab measured a blood-alcohol content of 0.50 two hours after she was arrested for investigation of drunken driving.
Ann Marie Gordon, manager of the lab in Seattle, said the reading - more than six times the legal limit of 0.08 - tied the highest level ever found by technicians at the patrol's lab. A King County driver also registered 0.50 on a blood test in 2000, Gordon said.
Rebecca G. Lingbloom, 45, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to one count of driving under the influence of alcohol on May 10. Authorities contended in an affidavit that she nearly hit a pedestrian that day and was seen swerving all over the road.
Rebecca G. Lingbloom
Hazardous Fumes
Warehouse Fire
Firefighters who spent half an hour fighting a blaze in which 2,000 pounds of marijuana went up in smoke breathed so much of it that they would have failed a drug test, a fire chief said.
It took more than 35 firefighters, 1,000 gallons of water and five gallons of chemical suppressant to extinguish the warehouse blaze on Wednesday, Fire Chief Shawn Snider said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were investigating the origin of the drugs. The Hidalgo County fire marshal was investigating whether arson was the cause.
Warehouse Fire
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