'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Viewing Suggestion
Monday Night
Monday, Jul. 14 at 10:00 PM (EDT), American Movie Classics will present
The AMC Project: Hollywood and the Muslim World.
How Hollywood films shape Muslims' ideas about America in documentary shot in Islamic capitals worldwide.
Thanks, Michelle!
In The Mail
from Christian
Dear believer and nonbeliever!
Vietnam is knocking on the door
After the raid because of weapons of mass destruction which can't be found,
after the raid because of free the iraqi people from Saddam Hussein who
could simple immerse with one billion Dollar in face of complete satellite
monitoring,
after killing over 7000 civilians and thousands of iraqi draftees,
after neglecting the promise of democracy because of iraqi people could
constitute theocracy by free elections and
after the invader troops have been convinced that they become celebrated as
liberators the responsible policy maker let now die their betrayed soldiers
one by one and day after day by a partisan war set off by the forlornness of
an promised self-governed nation and by permanent military occupation.
On this account it was now necessary to place a new generation of scrolling
body counter on the Internet to give people a simple possibility of protest
about all the mortal lies and the incredible betrayal of democratic values.
Reader Link
Ewwwwww
Selected Saturday Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Not a lot of overcast for the sun to 'burn through'.
Did the weekly run by the bank & grocery store. No where near the normal Friday crowd at either establishment.
A week from today we're going to see Rupert's Doggers host the St. Louis Cardinals in Chavez Ravine, courtesy of 'Radio Fred'.
Tonight, Saturday, CBS starts the night with '48 Hours', followed by a RERUN 'Hack', then a RERUN 'The District'.
NBC is scheduled to dump 2 FRESH episodes of 'Just Shoot Me', followed by the movie 'Critical Assembly'.
Of course, it's a RERUN 'SNL', and the odds are it bites.
ABC starts the night with the movie 'Deep Rising', and follows with a RERUN 'Dragnet'.
The WB offers the movie '48 HRS.'.
Faux has the usual RERUN 'Cops', followed by another RERUN 'Cops', then 'America's Most Wanted'.
UPN offers a RERUN 'The Parkers', followed by a RERUN 'One On One', then a RERUN 'Girlfriends',
followed by a RERUN 'Half & Half'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Cold Case Files', and a RERUN 'Crossing Jordan'.
AMC offers the movie 'Dutch', follwoed by the movie 'Saturday Night Fever', which is followed by the movie 'Saturday Night Fever', again.
BBC -
[6pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 5;
[6:40pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 6;
[7:20pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 7;
[8pm] 'Red Cap' - H-Hour;
[9pm] 'Red Cap' - H-Hour;
[10pm] 'Jonathan Creek' - Wrestler's Tomb (Part 2);
[11pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Dan Akroyd;
[11:30pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Whoopi Goldberg;
12:00 am 'Jonathan Creek' - Wrestler's Tomb;
[1am] 'Red Cap' - H-Hour;
[2am] 'Red Cap' - H-Hour; and
[3am] 'Shirley Valentine'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has the movie 'Internal Affairs', followed by the movie 'Internal Affairs'.
History has 'Mail Call from The Gulf', 'Save Our History', 'History's Mysteries', and more 'History's Mysteries'.
SciFi has the movie 'The Arrival', followed by the movie 'The Second Arrival'.
TCM has a little bit of something for everybody today - and a tribute to films made in
1939 at night.
[6am] 'The Hard Way' (1942);
[8am] 'The Courtship Of Eddie's Father' (1963);
[10am] 'Nobody Lives Forever' (1946);
[12pm] 'Apache' (1954);
[2pm] 'The Pride Of The Yankees' (1942);
[4:15pm] 'The Mark Of Zorro' (1940);
[6pm] 'Blackboard Jungle' (1955);
[8pm] 'Stagecoach' (1939);
[10pm] 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' (1939);
[12:15am] 'The Hunchback Of Notre Dame' (1939);
[2:15am] 'The Roaring Twenties' (1939); and
[4:15am] 'Confessions Of A Nazi Spy' (1939). (ALL TIMES EDT)
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Singer Jimmy Buffet (R) talks with NBC television 'Today Show' co-host Katie Couric during an appearance on the show in New York on July 11, 2003. Buffet, whose retrospective 'Meet Me in Margaritaville: The Ultimate Collection' was released this year, was performing as part of the show's Summer Concert Series. Buffet's fans, known as 'Parrot Heads', often wear colorful tropical hats.
Photo by Peter Morgan
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
'SpongeBob SquarePants' vs. Michael 'Savage' Weiner
Ratings
by Jon Carroll
So first up we have Michael Savage, the herbalist whose midlife crisis involved a small change of profession. "Sure, there's some money in nutrition, " he said to himself (warning: all internal monologue re-created), "but look at that Limbaugh. Maybe I could get a lot richer with right-wing hate speech."
And lo, so it happened. Then Savage decided to prove again what Limbaugh had already demonstrated -- success in radio does not translate to television. That could be because TV is a visual medium, and a cranky old guy spouting poisonous nonsense is just not good television.
Michael Savage, whose show was on basic cable channel MSNBC, had 347,000 viewers. By comparison, during the week of June 9, basic cable's "SpongeBob SquarePants" had an audience of 2.6 million, while "The Osbournes" had an audience of 2.7 million.
In other words, more than eight times as many humans wanted to watch a cartoon figure with square pants and/or an incoherent, aging heavy-metal rocker and his profane family. As a reality check: On network TV, a summer rerun of "CSI" had a viewership of more than 10 million people.
So let's say that Savage was not exactly streaking across the TV firmament like a comet. A consumer boycott led by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation had kept such big-ticket advertisers as Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and Dell off the show.
(Apparently, gay people buy a lot of cheese, soap and computer hardware. Talk about your alternative lifestyle.)
So I wonder idly to myself, if Michael Savage had been able to compete with SpongeBob and Ozzy, or even with the All Slanted Horse Manure All the Time ravings of Fox News, whether MSNBC would have taken the moral high road. I suspect that if Savage had brought in a million viewers, MSNBC would have decided that "I hope you die of AIDS" was vigorous social commentary, and Savage would still be on the air. It's Chinatown, Jake.
Jon Carroll
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the visitor's book after arriving at the Guildhall in the City of London for the progressive Governance dinner July 11, 2003. The dinner on Friday night was also attended by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair with his wife Cherie and the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
Photo by Dan Chung
Vow to Rock Iraq
Sex Pistols
As evident from the Sex Pistols' impromptu 1977 boat gig on the River Thames
-- wherein they serenaded Queen Elizabeth from a afar on the twenty-fifth
anniversary of her coronation with "Anarchy in the U.K." -- to their
ill-fated U.S. tour of southern honky-tonks and rodeos the next year, the
punk pioneers will play anywhere.
Add to the list of anywhere Atlantic City's Trump Marina and . . . Iraq.
That's right, along with setting the dates for their first U.S. tour since
1996's Filthy Lucre reunion outing, the Sex Pistols are promising to play
the war-torn capital city of Baghdad as a benefit for the people of Iraq.
"If the people of Iraq are being offered democracy," says singer John Lydon
(a.k.a. Johnny Rotten), "then they should understand it to its fullest
extent, and that is the Sex Pistols."
But first the Sex Pistols -- Lydon, Steve Jones (guitar), Paul Cook (drums)
and Glen Matlock (bass), the band's original lineup -- will take on the
U.S., a place Lydon refers to as "the new Russia" under the Bush
Administration. The tour kicks off August 20th in Boston and wraps up in San
Diego on September 7th.
For the rest & tour dates, Sex Pistols
Thanks, Kip!
Hosting Daytime TV Talk Show
Sharon Osbourne
Sharon Osbourne, the wife of rocker Ozzy Osbourne, who became a celebrity in her own right from their famously foulmouthed MTV reality show, is bringing her rough-around-the-edges act to daytime television.
The spiky-haired Osbourne, photographed wearing pearls and a pink sweater on the cover of the August edition of the wholesome Ladies Home Journal magazine, will launch an hourlong talk show, named "Sharon," in September on the WB network.
The 50-year-old mother of three is realistic about finding a niche on daytime TV.
The British-born Osbourne hopes people will connect with her working-class sensibility, which she attributes to having left school at 15 to start working two jobs. She plans to interview people who "really interest" her.
She may use her children as reporters to cover such events as the Teen Choice Awards for her show, which will be shot on a set made to look like her home. There will be a "Sharon-cam" hooked up to her house so she can talk to Ozzy when he is not touring.
Sharon Osbourne
Indiana Festival
Mayberry In the Midwest
If Deputy Barney Fife were here this weekend, he might say that traffic in this town (New Castle, Ind) is out of control as hundreds of visitors flock in for the second "Mayberry In the Midwest" festival.
This year's event is expected to draw people from 19 states to the city of 17,000 about 40 miles east of Indianapolis, said Christine Mallette, director of tourism and marketing for the Henry County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Two of the main events — Friday's charity auction and dinner at the Henry County Arts Park with some of the cast, and Saturday's cast reunion at Bundy Auditorium — are sold out.
Scheduled to appear are George Lindsey, who played Goober; Betty Lynn (Thelma Lou); The Dillards (the Darling Boys); Maggie Peterson (Charlene Darling); Jean Carson (fun girl Daphne); James Best (guitarist Jim Lindsey), better known as Rosco P. Coltrane on the "Dukes of Hazard"; Elinor Donahue (Ellie Walker); Bernard Fox (Malcolm Merriwether); and Margaret Kerry (Christmas episode characters Bess Muggins and Helen Scobey).
Since January of this year, the festival's Web site at www.mayberryinthemidwest.com has logged more than 127,000 hits for an event that can seat only about 1,700.
Mayberry In the Midwest
International Black Panther Film Festival
Danny Glover
Danny Glover will return to the International Black Panther Film Festival as its honorary chairman.
The festival, now in its third year, is scheduled for July 31-Aug. 4 in Harlem. Among the films being shown is 2000's "Lumumba," a political thriller about Patrice Lumumba, the Congo's first elected prime minister who was slain in 1961 during the tumultuous months after Congolese independence from Belgium.
"The festival emphasizes films that convey the spirit of resistance that the youthful Black Panthers and the Young Lords symbolized," said Kathleen Cleaver, who founded the festival in 1999 with fellow Black Panther member Jamal Joseph.
Danny Glover
www.pantherfilmfest.com
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Guitarist Breaks Finger
White Stripes
The White Stripes have canceled two weekend dates in Scotland and Ireland because guitarist Jack White has broken a finger, a British representative said Friday.
White was injured Wednesday in an auto accident in his hometown of Detroit, said Colleen Maloneys of Beggars, a London firm representing the duo.
The White Stripes had been booked at two festivals this weekend: the T in the Park festival in Kinross, Scotland, and the Witnness festival in Naas, Ireland.
White Stripes
www.whitestripes.com
Twelve-year-old Shane Bowman plays with his old heart in Edmonton, Canada on Friday, July 11, 2003. Bowman had a heart transplant and got a chance to see his old heart to have some closure on his illness. Bowman had dialated cardiomyopathy, a condition caused by a virus, and his heart was enlarged to about 555 grams. A normal heart is about 200 grams.
Photo by Perry Mah
Gets 'Lifetime' Role
Rick Fox
Lakers forward Rick Fox is playing a new role this summer — as the romantic interest of Gloria Reuben on the new Lifetime series "1-800-Missing."
He'll appear in five episodes of the series, starring Reuben as an FBI agent, which debuts Aug. 2.
Fox, 33, has said he'd like to pursue an acting career when his pro basketball days are over. He's married to actress-singer Vanessa L. Williams.
Rick Fox
More Stars Slated
Colosseum at Caesars Palace
The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, the state-of-the-art Las Vegas showroom built for Celine Dion, is getting some new, high-profile guests.
Latin superstar Gloria Estefan said Thursday she will play seven shows Oct. 10-19 at the venue. What's more, Billboard has learned that Elton John is in negotiations for a three-year, $54 million engagement beginning in 2004.
Dion completed her first run of dates at the 4,100-capacity, $95 million showplace on July 6, wrapping up 65 sellouts that grossed about $36 million. She resumes her three-year engagement on Aug. 6. Other artists scheduled to perform in the interim include Tim McGraw (July 18-19) and Mariah Carey (July 26).
"We always intended for other artists to play this venue," says John Meglen, co-president of Concerts West, producers of the Dion extravaganza and promoters for the Colosseum. "There are 12 weeks a year when Celine is not playing."
Colosseum at Caesars Palace
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
250 Years Old
British Museum
An exhibition that illustrates the concept of memory across different cultures and time has opened at the British Museum as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations.
"The Museum of the Mind: Art and memory in world cultures" also celebrates the museum itself as a receptacle of memory, and explores the concepts of ritual, commemorative sculpture, shrines and festivals.
Some 60 objects and images from the museum's vast collection have been drawn together to show how they have helped create a "collective memory" of human civilisation.
They also show how there have been deliberate attempts to distort and efface memory.
British Museum
Mongolians wear different kinds of headgear during the Naadam Festival opening ceremony in Ulan Bator July 11, 2003. Naadam is the biggest event in the Mongolian calendar held on July 11 to 13, on the anniversary of the Mongolian revolution of 1921. Concerts, fairs and traditional sports like wrestling, archery and horse racing are held during the celebration.
Photo by Claro Cortes IV
Summertime & Kids
Crop Circles
Four Fairfield teenagers claim they created the mysterious crop circles that popped up in a Rockville Road wheat field in June, drawing thousands of curious onlookers and nationwide media attention.
The four agreed to tell their story on condition their identities be withheld.
The young men - three 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old - claim they spent the wee hours of June 28, pressing Larry Balestra's wheat field with boards connected to a rope. They had watched a documentary the previous Friday about crop circles and decided to do it, just to while away summer boredom while showing off their creative sides.
They tried confessing several times to different visitors, but no one would believe them. To prove their role, the teens took a reporter to a set of circles that they say they created in a wheat field off Cordelia Road. No reports had been published on that second set of circles.
"This is where we practiced for the other ones," said George, 18.
For the rest, from a local perspective, Crop Circles
Ocean Currents
Bathtub Toys
A floating flock of the bathtub toys — along with beavers, turtles and frogs — is believed to be washing ashore somewhere along the New England coast, bleached and battered from a trans-Arctic journey. Oceanographers say the trip has taught them valuable lessons about the ocean's currents.
The toys have been adrift since 29,000 of them fell from a storm-tossed container ship en route from China to Seattle more than 11 years ago.
From a point in the Pacific Ocean near where the 45th parallel meets the international date line, they floated along the Alaska coast, reaching the Bering Strait by 1995 and Iceland five years later. By 2001 they had floated to the area in the north Atlantic where the Titanic sank.
"Some kept going, some turned and headed to Europe," says Curtis Ebbesmeyer of Seattle, a retired oceanographer who's been tracking the toys' progress. "By now, hundreds should be dispersed along the New England coast."
They are also a sobering reminder that about 10,000 containers fall off cargo ships each year, creating all manner of flotsam and jetsam.
"When trash goes into the ocean, it doesn't disappear," Ebbesmeyer said. "It just goes somewhere else."
Bathtub Toys
www.beachcombers.org
Beached "Blob" On Chilean Beach
Mystery Solved
Chilean scientists say their study of a huge blob of flesh found on a Pacific beach about three weeks ago has found it is the carcass of a sperm whale, ending speculation of a giant octopus.
Researchers at the Museum of Natural History in Santiago were the first to reach a conclusion after analysing samples of the decaying specimen and finding glands of a sperm whale.
When a sperm whale dies at sea, it rots until it becomes a "skeleton suspended in a semi-liquid mass within a bag of skin and blubber," the scientists said. Eventually, the skin tears and the bones sinks while the skin and blubber float.
"This washes up and has the appearance of an octopus because the spermaceti organ keeps its bulky shape," they added.
The spermaceti is a large bulbous organ that forms a sort of forehead and contains a milky wax which early whalers likened to sperm fluid.
Mystery Solved
Loosening Workers' Grooming Rules
Disney
The Walt Disney Co. is loosening grooming rules for workers at its theme parks, another shift from the squeaky-clean standards set by the company's founder decades ago.
Under a new policy adopted last month, male park workers for the first time can wear braids provided they are above the collar, neatly tied close to the scalp and in straight rows. Female workers have been able to braid their hair for years.
Men will also be allowed to wear different styles of shirts, while women can wear more revealing footwear and less conservative earrings. (Hosiery is still a must.)
The last time Disney changed its grooming policy was in 2000, when the company allowed workers to grow mustaches. In 1994, female theme-park workers were permitted to use eye shadow and eyeliner and balding men were allowed to wear toupees.
Men who don't wear costumes will no longer be limited to Oxford-style shirts — crewneck, turtleneck, mock turtleneck and three-button collared sweaters will be permitted. Golf and polo shirts are still forbidden.
Female workers can for the first time wear hoop earrings, provided they are no larger than a dime. Only one ring per ear is permitted and they must be worn on the bottom of the earlobe.
The new grooming rules also allow for some more fancy-free footwear for female workers, who now will be able to wear open-toe and open-heel shoes. Athletic shoes, sandals and western boots are still frowned upon.
Disney
The 14-meter white Humpback puts on a dramatic show off Tweed Heads for whale watching fans in Queensland, Australia, Thursday July 10, 2003. Nicknamed "the elusive whale", the albino is believed to have been last sighted at Moreton Island near Brisbane three years ago and weighs between 25 and 35 tonnes and has been spotted in the past along the east coast of Australia.
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'Ark of Darkness'
"The Ark of Darkness", a Political/Science-Fiction work, in tidy, weekly installments (and updated every Friday).
Grab a box of Kleenex and follow the adventurers as they confront their darkest inner demons.
'The Osbournes'
A new page! 'The Osbournes' ~ Page 5
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 4
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
