'Best of TBH Politoons'
Would You Even Vote for the Man for Dog Catcher?
Jeff Crook
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Roger Ebert: Sicko (PG-13; 3 1/2 stars)
If you heard the story, you remember it. A few weeks ago, a woman bled to death in an emergency room, while her husband and a bystander both called 911 to report she was being ignored. They were ignored. She was already in the E.R., wasn't she?
Adam Bonin: The Supreme Court Just Took Us Back to the Days of Segregation (Daily Kos; Posted on AlterNet.org)
A 5-4 decision guts the vital Brown vs. Board of Education case that attempted to desegregate public schools.
Froma Harrop: Democrats Who Do Billionaires' Bidding (creators.com)
One of the less appetizing sights in politics today is Democrats defending laws that tax high-finance buccaneers at lower rates than the police who guard their Aston Martins. While many Democrats are trying to close these loopholes, some are trying not to. It's about raising money, of course.
Froma Harrop: The Madness of Plan Colombia (creators.com)
How to make enemies, squander billions and accomplish nothing: That's a U.S. program called Plan Colombia. Its central idea is to slow the flow of cocaine into the nostrils of American night-clubbers by poisoning crops in the Andes.
Jim Hightower: WHY NOT "DRINK LOCAL?" (jimhightower.com)
In a triumph of marketing over reasoning, the bottled water industry has turned us into conspicuously silly consumers.
Leslie Joseph: One Woman's Journey to Conquer Her Fear of Porn (popmatters.com)
Ayn Carrillo-Gailey's new book Pornology chronicles a self-described good girl's exploration of the world of porn -- an industry whose fastest growing audience is women.
Dana Stevens: Happy Meal (slate.com)
Ratatouille moved me to tears.
Elbert Ventura: The Original Tarantino (slate.com)
How Sergio Leone ushered in our borderless pop culture.
Roger Ebert: Answer Man
And to paraphrase Pauline Kael, the movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, there is no reason to go.
Monte Williams: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 #1-4: The Long Way Home (popmatters.com)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer hasn't felt this confident, charismatic or hungry, indeed this essential, in many years.
DVD Review by Paul Schultz: Hannah Montana - Pop Star Profile (the-trades.com)
People with the last name of Cyrus continue to be the weakest actors on this show. But that hardly matters, since they certainly aren't going away anytime soon. And that's just fine, because Hannah Montana is enchanting despite it's rather feeble plots. The cast is eminently likeable and I find that I can't tear myself away from watching.
Purple Gene Suggests
Henry Rollins
Purple Gene's YouTube hit of the week:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD's taking another day off.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Looks like we're heading into a heat wave. Oh joy.
Jazz Journalists Association
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman, who earlier this year became only the second jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, swept the top honors at the Jazz Awards 2007 on Thursday, winning in four categories, including musician of the year.
Coleman's "Sound Grammar," the first purely improvised live recording to win the Pulitzer, was chosen album of the year in balloting among more than 400 members of the Jazz Journalists Association.
The 77-year-old Coleman's unorthodox "Sound Grammar" quartet - with two bassists (one plucking the strings, the other using his bow), his son Denardo on drums, and Coleman playing alto saxophone, trumpet and violin - was chosen the year's best small ensemble.
Coleman, whose CD was his first new recording in 10 years, won individual awards as alto saxophonist and musician of the year.
Ornette Coleman
42nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito will receive a special award for his outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the 42nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The festival in the western Czech spa of Karlovy Vary opened Friday with 14 mostly European movies competing for the Crystal Globe top prize.
DeVito, 62, will present "The Good Night," directed by Jake Paltrow, which is screening in the festival's competition. DeVito co-stars in the comedy.
Danny DeVito
Mexican Rockers Mock US Border Wall
Mana
Mexican rockers-with-a-conscience band Mana derided Friday the decision by the United States to build a 1,200 kilometre (745-mile) fence along the US-Mexico frontier by descending from a makeshift wall on to the stage of a concert in Madrid.
Mana, playing the Spanish capital's Las Ventas bullring for a second straight sellout night to some 20,000 fans, have spoken out in recent months against the barrier, accusing the US government of hypocrisy for allowing its construction after condemning the old Berlin Wall.
Mana, who merge hard rock with Latin and reggae-influenced ballads and have a major following in the Hispanic community in the United States, won a Grammy award this year for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album for their 2006 album "Amar es Combatir" (to love is to fight).
While much of their work over three decades has comprised dreamy ballads with a rocking twist their work equally focuses on social issues.
Mana
Heckuva Job, Chimpy
Border Fence
The 1.5-mile barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border was designed to keep cars from illegally crossing into the United States. There's just one problem: It was accidentally built on Mexican soil. Now embarrassed border officials say the mistake could cost the federal government more than $3 million to fix.
The barrier was part of more than 15 miles of border fence built in 2000, stretching from the town of Columbus to an onion farm and cattle ranch.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said the vertical metal tubes were sunk into the ground and filled with cement along what officials firmly believed was the border. But a routine aerial survey in March revealed that the barrier protrudes into Mexico by 1 to 6 feet.
The Mexican government was notified and did what any landowner would do: They sent a note politely insisting that Mexico get its land back.
Border Fence
Hosting Virtual Anti-Fur Protest
Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney will co-host a virtual anti-fur protest next month in the online fantasy world known as Second Life.
The weeklong protest will begin July 12 on a dedicated island in the computer-generated alternative universe, it was announced this week by animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The island will feature stables, a lake, picnic tables and Linda McCartney mini-veggie-burger stalls.
Visitors to SecondLife.com will be able to clothe their digital proxies, called avatars, in T-shirts bearing the slogan: "I'd Rather Be Pixelated Than Wear Fur."
Stella McCartney
Stars Auction Rackets
Tennis
Major tennis stars are auctioning off rackets and pieces of clothing to benefit two Austrian tennis players and twin sisters recently diagnosed with a rare kind of cancer.
World number one Roger Federer has donated a signed shirt while stars like Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal have put signed rackets up for auction to help pay for treatment for Austrian doubles players Sandra and Daniela Klemenschits, according to the WTA Tour website, which organised the auction.
The 24-year-old sisters, who were ranked in the doubles top 100 in 2005 and competed in tournaments as recently as last year, were diagnosed in January with a rare kind of cancer in the lower abdomen.
Tennis
Failed To Testify
Foxy Brown
A woman charged with assaulting and robbing Foxy Brown was released from jail after the rapper failed to appear before a grand jury to testify against her.
Roshawn Anthony, 23, was released from Riker's Island on her own recognizance Thursday but still faces charges of robbery, assault and grand larceny in the alleged attack last Saturday, according to a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office. She has denied the charges.
Police say Anthony and three other people teamed up to rob Brown of a Louis Vuitton bag, $500 in cash and credit cards in the East New York section of Brooklyn.
Foxy Brown
2 Die Dismantling Stage
Rolling Stones
Two workers dismantling a Rolling Stones' stage at a stadium in Madrid fell to their deaths from a metal scaffold on Friday, officials said.
Two other Spanish workers were injured in the accident at the Vicente Calderon stadium, one critically. Police said three of the workers fell about 30 feet from the scaffold, and landed on the fourth worker.
Rolling Stones
Has To Pay Speeding Ticket
Barbie Cummings
A porn actress who claimed she performed oral sex on a state trooper who stopped her for speeding lost her chance to avoid the ticket he issued because she failed to appear in court Friday.
Justis Richert, 21, of Knoxville, must pay the $159 ticket within two weeks, but she could have avoided it altogether because the trooper has resigned and wasn't in court, officials said.
Traffic charges were dropped against the 16 motorists who did appear in court for tickets issued by Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper James Randy Moss.
Under her porn film name "Barbie Cummings," Richert wrote on her blog that Moss took photos and video of their encounter in May and sent copies to her. She said she acknowledged having drugs she described as "happy pills," but claimed the trooper threw them into brush near the highway.
Barbie Cummings
Find Trove Of Whale Fossils
Chilean Teens
Chilean teenagers on a field trip have found what experts say could be a treasure trove of fossils from whales which died millions of years ago.
Teenagers from a school in Concon, a town on the Pacific coast, found the fossils last month in the hills near the village of Los Maitenes, nearly four miles from the sea and 100 miles from the capital Santiago.
They found fossilized jawbones, backbones and ribs of four whales which scientists say likely died 5 million years ago.
The teenagers found the fossils while on a field trip with their biology teacher Veronica Andrade.
Chilean Teens
Running Wild
Decorative Plants
Bamboo-like plants that grow taller than adults have choked out native plants in a marsh that once teemed with life at Maumee Bay State Park along Lake Erie.
Wild flowers at the park have disappeared. Migrating birds have gone elsewhere. The parkland has changed so much that naturalist Dana Bollin no longer leads tours past the common reed grass towering along Maumee Bay's boardwalk.
Environmental groups hope to slow the spread of decorative but invasive plants by persuading nurseries to stop selling them and instead promote native species.
Decorative Plants
Hot Vehicle
Wienermobile
Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer ... car thief? An Arizona Highway Patrol officer who ran the Wienermobile's plates as the vehicle traveled for a promotion briefly thought the giant hot dog on wheels was, well, hot.
The 27-foot-long, 11-foot-tall vehicle was in a construction zone in downtown Tucson Wednesday, slowing traffic. Officer Korey Lankow caught up to it and ran its "Y-U-M-M-Y" license plate to make sure it was street legal.
The plate came back as stolen. Lankow pulled over the Wienermobile, and two more officers arrived to help.
It turns out someone had indeed stolen the "Y-U-M-M-Y" plate off the Wienermobile in Columbia, Mo., back in February. Oscar Mayer officials reported the theft to police there, company spokeswoman Syd Lindner said. The company got a replacement YUMMY plate that same month and notified police in Missouri, Lindner said.
But the plate still came back as stolen Wednesday, with no note that it was OK if found on Wienermobile itself. A message left with the Columbia Police Department seeking to clear up the discrepancy wasn't returned.
Wienermobile
In Memory
Joel Siegel
Joel Siegel, a longtime movie critic for WABC-TV and "Good Morning America" who racked up five New York Emmy Awards for his insightful work, died Friday, the television station said. He was 63.
Born in Los Angeles on July 7, 1943, Siegel graduated cum laude from UCLA. After college, he started writing for The Los Angeles Times, where he reviewed books.
He landed in New York City in 1972 and worked as a reporter for WCBS-TV. He also hosted "Joel Siegel's New York" on WCBS Radio. Four years later he jumped to WABC-TV, cementing his reputation as a film critic over the next three decades.
In 1981, he joined "Good Morning America" and became a regular as the network's entertainment editor, easily recognizable by his thick mustache and glasses.
He survived by his son, Dylan, and wife, Ena Swansea.
Joel Siegel
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
