The Weekly Poll
The current question:
Who would make the best Secretary of State when (not if) Obama takes the helm in January 2009?
A. Hillary Clinton
B. Zbigniew Brzezinski
C. Bill Richardson
D. Chris Dodd
E. Evan Bayh
F. Your choice
Send your response to BadtotheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Results Tuesday
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Resentment Strategy (nytimes.com)
The G.O.P. is selling the politics of resentment; you're supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it's better than you.
Andrew Tobias: Daily Comment (andrewtobias.com)
Norm Coleman zinged Obama with . . . "John McCain would rather spend his time creating 200,000 new jobs in America than talking to 200,000 Germans in Berlin." Wide grin! Delighted applause!
But of course while Obama was talking to 200,000 Germans in Berlin, John McCain wasn't creating 200,000 new jobs in America - he was having lunch at Schmidt's "Sausage Haus."
Anne Kilkenny: ABOUT SARAH PALIN (Scroll Down; andrewtobias.com)
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
Linda Grant: Palin, with her meat loaf and rifles, reminds us that there are two hopelessly incompatible Americas (guardian.co.uk)
With the small-town Republican mindset in charge, the rest of America and the rest of the world is forced to live by small-town values.
Catherine O'SULLIVAN: Has our country come far enough to elect Barack Hussein Obama as president? (tucsonweekly.com)
I'm bound to say something in this column that will offend some people--so if you're easily offended, stop reading now.
Tom Danehy: In matters of race, our society still has a long way to go--so why make things even harder for minority kids? (tucsonweekly.com)
When the hate mail pours in, hot and heavy, I always read it, hoping I might learn something. After writing a column in which I recounted how I suggested that a former ballplayer of mine should not give her expectant child a name that, in our racist society, might retard the child's social and/or educational opportunities (July 31), I learned that letter-writers like to put words in my mouth. They get so fired up sometimes that they also concoct dead-end analogies.
Diane Dimond: The Patron Saint For Missing Kids (huffingtonpost.com)
Bazzel Baz is a former CIA agent who takes on the most impossible cases. And he doesn't charge the heartsick family of the missing a penny.
Lindsay Dittman: Not Just a Bunch of "Stupid Girls" -- Education and the Next Generation (huffingtonpost.com)
Heading into my senior year of high school, I'm entering it with a much clearer head because I know that somewhere in my four years, I did something constructive.
CYNTHIA OZICK: Writers, Visible and Invisible (standpointmag.co.uk)
Writers are what they genuinely are only when they are at work in the silent and instinctual cell of ghostly solitude, and never when they are out industriously chatting on the terrace.
File it in the bin (guardian.co.uk)
Most publishers no longer read unsolicited manuscripts - but that doesn't stop writers sending them in. Aida Edemariam, who has rejected more submissions than she cares to remember, investigates.
IAN MATHERS: "'My Head Is Filled With Fire': A Conversation With Retribution Gospel Choir's Alan Sparhawk" (popmatters.com)
Alan Sparhawk gives back what he's taken, but that's not to say he's not holding onto his hope and wit.
Will Harris: A Chat with Marshall Crenshaw (bullz-eye.com)
"A few weeks ago, somebody sent me a link to a performance of mine on YouTube. I watched it, and I was so proud of it, and really happy that it was out there for people to just sort of have at their fingertips. I just thought, 'This is really good. This isn't going to hurt me one bit!'"
Reader Comment
mat maid & sarah palin
Surprised the mainstream haven't glommed onto this yet
The Back Forty » Dairygate, or Sarah Palin's Boundary Problem
Sarah Palin's Dairy Industry Bailout?
Michelle in AZ
Thanks, Michelle!
Reader Comment
Just a Question
Just a question.
Do you think
John McCain looks like Henry Potter, from Its A Wonderful Life?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
A bit too toasty for me.
Not Palin Fans
Heart
The rock group Heart, angry that its 70's hit "Barracuda" is being used as the unofficial theme song for Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, is biting back at the Alaska governor.
The song, a nod to the "Sarah Barracuda" nickname Palin earned on the basketball court in high school, was dusted off for her appearance at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul on Wednesday.
Heart singers Ann and Nancy Wilson said a "cease-and-desist" letter has been sent to the Republicans asking them not to use the song.
"The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission," according to a statement issued late on Thursday on behalf of the sisters.
Heart
Diplomacy Envoy
Fran Drescher
Television star Fran Drescher will serve as the newest envoy for US public diplomacy, with trips planned later this month to eastern Europe, the State Department said Friday.
Star of the television comedy hit, "The Nanny," Drescher will join baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr and US figure-skating superstar Michelle Kwan as envoys who help polish Washington's image abroad.
Drescher is "a Golden Globe and Emmy nominee, cancer survivor and founder of non-profit organization the Cancer Schmancer Movement," the State Department recalled in a statement.
Her first trip in late September will include stops in Romania, Hungary, Kosovo and Poland, it said.
Fran Drescher
First Female Riders
Lipizzaner Horses
Two women have made history at Vienna's Spanish Riding School by becoming the first female riders to pass the entrance exam in 436 years.
An 18-year-old Briton and a 21-year-old Austrian must now pass a one-month trial to train at the school, set up in 1572. The school will not name the pair until they pass the trial.
If they pass, the new recruits will train for five years before they can take to the saddle in public on the white Lipizzaner dancing horses which are trained to perform tricky moves such as springing from their hind legs.
"There has never been a ban for women," Erwin Klissenbauer, the school's manager, said on Friday. The school has, however, had a masculine image because of its military background, he said.
Lipizzaner Horses
Tributes Planned
Luciano Pavarotti
The world will mark the first anniversary of the death of Luciano Pavarotti with a series of concerts, an exhibit and other events, organizers and his family announced Friday.
Among the tributes planned for the celebrated tenor, who died Sept. 6, 2007, are a concert at New York's Metropolitan Opera House on Sept. 18, and an exhibit on his life, with photographs, films and costumes collected by friends and colleagues, that opens in Rome on Oct. 17.
Another concert in Petra, Jordan, is scheduled for Oct. 12, organizers said, while conductor Leone Magiera, who worked with Pavarotti for years, is reportedly planning a tribute concert in Paris on Jan. 27.
The events were announced at a meeting at the culture ministry in Rome that included Pavarotti's widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, and the tenor's longtime friend, Italian film and opera director Franco Zeffirelli.
Luciano Pavarotti
Hits The Road
'Seinfeld'
Stroll around Manhattan's Union Square these days, and you come across billboards touting the start of the fall TV season with promotions for the likes of "Heroes," "The Mentalist" and "Private Practice." But an evergreen -- the '90s hit sitcom "Seinfeld" -- has stolen the spotlight here, not with a billboard but with a bus.
The show may have ended its primetime TV run a decade ago, but Sony Pictures Television expects one of TV's most valuable franchises to extend its longevity in syndication, on DVD and in new media -- and now with a 26-city "Seinfeld Campus Tour."
The "Seinfeld" bus entertains with show memorabilia and video highlights. Fans can try out a "Seinfeld" DVD game and get their picture taken with cutouts of the show's stars. Crucial to reaching young fans is the presence of laptops that show off the MySpace
'Seinfeld'
Loses Libel Suit
Berlusconi
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi lost a defamation suit he brought against The Economist over a 2001 cover story that accused him of being "unfit to lead Italy," the British news magazine said on Friday.
Berlusconi, one of Italy's richest men, was ordered to pay The Economist's legal costs of 25,000 euros ($35,760) after a Milan court rejected his libel claims.
The Economist's April 26, 2001, edition ran a front page photo of the media mogul with the headline: "Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy."
It accused him of having conflicts of interest, analyzed his business empire and detailed trials against him, in an issue which came out just ahead of elections that Berlusconi won.
Berlusconi
Draws Fire In Germany
Quentin Tarantino
A leaked script of Quentin Tarantino's World War II drama "Inglorious Bastards" already is stirring up controversy for scenes of vengeful Americans bashing, scalping, shooting and strangling German soldiers.
What began as an Internet murmur here went mainstream with a recent newspaper article by Tobias Kneibe, film editor of the Suddeutsche Zeitung, who predicted that the project could have an explosive effect similar to that of Tom Cruise's World War II drama "Valkyrie," which initially was barred from filming in certain locations and already has been savaged in the German media even though it doesn't hit theaters until 2009.
More potential fuel for the fire: Tarantino's pulp fiction version of German history will almost certainly get German state financing. Germany's DFFF film fund gives automatic tax breaks for local shoots, and "Bastards" is set to shoot almost entirely in Studio Babelsberg outside Berlin.
Quentin Tarantino
Yields Neolithic Trove
Melting Swiss Glacier
Some 5,000 years ago, on a day with weather much like today's, a prehistoric person tread high up in what is now the Swiss Alps, wearing goat leather pants, leather shoes and armed with a bow and arrows.
The unremarkable journey through the Schnidejoch pass, a lofty trail 2,756 metres (9,000 feet) above sea level, has been a boon to scientists. But it would never have emerged if climate change were not melting the nearby glacier.
So far, 300 objects dating as far back as the Neolithic or New Stone Age -- about 4,000 BC in Europe -- to the later Bronze and Iron Ages and the Medieval era have been found in the site's former icefields.
They have allowed researchers not only to piece together snapshots of life way back when, but also to shed light on climate fluctuations in the past 6,500 years -- and hopefully shed light on what is happening now.
Melting Swiss Glacier
Data Probe
Oil
The Energy Information Administration said on Thursday it is unaware of any investigation by federal market regulators of the agency's weekly report on oil inventory levels.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission is investigating whether companies are reporting false oil inventory levels to benefit their trading positions.
The commission is concerned that companies may have tried to manipulate short-term pricing on oil markets through physical oil sales and purchases, the Journal reported.
According to the report, companies could also theoretically push prices higher by under-reporting oil inventory and then sell their oil at a premium.
Oil
Drug Plane Connection
'Rendition' Flights
A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.
The plane was carrying Colombian drugs for the fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, when it crash-landed in the Yucatan peninsula on September 24, El Universal reported.
The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects."
It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.
'Rendition' Flights
Defines Personality
Musical Taste
Fans of classical music and jazz are creative, pop lovers are hardworking and, despite the stereotypes, heavy metal listeners are gentle, creative types who are at ease with themselves.
So says Professor Adrian North of Scotland's Heriot-Watt University who has been studying the links between people's personalities and their choice of music.
In what North said was the largest study ever conducted into individuals' musical preference and character, researchers asked 36,518 people from around the world to rate how much they liked 104 different musical styles before taking a personality test.
North is still looking for volunteers to take part in the research. Details on www.peopleintomusic.com/.
Musical Taste
Builds City On Rock 'N Roll
Horsens, Denmark
To stop local people from moving out, the town of Horsens in western Denmark decided to invite international rock stars in.
A typical provincial seaside town of 80,000 inhabitants about half-way up the eastern coast of Jutland, the municipal authorities had watched for years as its youth moved away.
Until 2001, when a local businessman, Frank Panduro, decided to do something about it.
According to official statistics, 1,200 people now move to Horsens every year, sharply reversing the previous trend. The town is expected to grow to about 85,000 by 2013.
Horsens, Denmark
In Memory
Robert Giroux
Robert Giroux, a distinguished giant of 20th century publishing who guided and supported dozens of great writers from T.S. Eliot and Jack Kerouac to Bernard Malamud and Susan Sontag, died in his sleep early Friday morning. He was 94.
Known throughout the industry for his taste and discretion, he began in 1940 as an editor at Harcourt, Brace & Company and had so great a reputation that when he left in 1955 to join what was then Farrar, Straus, more than a dozen writers joined him, including Flannery O'Connor, Malamud and Eliot, a close friend.
Giroux joined Farrar as editor in chief and was made a full partner in 1964, his reserved demeanor in contrast to the company's boisterous founder and president, Roger Straus. Straus and Giroux thrived together even as they endlessly complained about each other, with Straus regarding Giroux as a snob, and Giroux looking upon Straus as more a businessman than a man of letters.
During Giroux's 60-year career, some of the world's most celebrated writers published works for FSG, including Nobel Prize winners Isaac Bashevis Singer, Derek Walcott, Nadine Gordimer and Seamus Heaney. Authors were known to turn down more money from competitors for the privilege of being signed on by Farrar, Straus.
Even after FSG sold controlling interest in 1994 to German publisher Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, it retained the reputation as an upholder of old-fashioned standards, more attuned to lasting quality than to instant profit. Sometimes, it achieved both, with such works as Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" and Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead."
A native of New Jersey, Giroux was a star student at Columbia University, where his classmates included Berryman, Herman Wouk and Thomas Merton. In his mid-20s, he joined Harcourt, Brace, and was soon assigned Edmund Wilson's now-classic study on socialist thinkers, "To the Finland Station."
Among the debut novels he worked on were Malamud's "The Natural," Jack Kerouac's "The Town and the City" and O'Connor's "Wise Blood." Giroux also edited Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell and Hannah Arendt.
Robert Giroux
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