Andrew Sullivan: America The Unfriendly
My elderly mother arrived for my wedding and started sobbing in my arms after the rough treatment she had received from airport security. ... When Bush goes, the country's reputation will instantly soar (unless he's succeeded by Giuliani, in which case, we're headed for pariah status).
FROMA HARROP: Nurturing Businessmen, Not Business (creators.com)
They say bad things come in threes. That includes economic milestones that most Americans would prefer not to pass. One is the prospect of $100-a-barrel oil. Another is an exchange rate of 1.50 U.S. dollars to one euro, a serious loss of face to the once cheaper European currency. The third is gold bolting over $850 an ounce, a sign of plunging confidence in the American economy. Analysts predict all three things.
SUSAN ESTRICH: The Wrong Line (creators.com)
My kids say I always pick the wrong line. Put me in a bank or airport or a grocery store, and whichever line I get in, it will move the slowest.
Steve Siegel: Croc Hunter's kindred spirit: Terri Irwin keeps husband's memory alive (popmatters.com)
The late Steve Irwin, Australian wildlife expert and TV personality better known as "The Crocodile Hunter," was one tough mate. He captured crocs by hand, diving into reptile-infested waters, wrapping his body around a thrashing creature, and hauling it into his dinghy. He didn't want to eat it, he wanted to help it survive.
Roger Ebert: Good country for dead men (4 stars)
The movie opens with the flat, confiding voice of Tommy Lee Jones. He describes a teenage killer he once sent to the chair. The boy had killed his 14-year-old girlfriend. The papers described it as a crime of passion, "but he tolt me there weren't nothin' passionate about it. Said he'd been fixin' to kill someone for as long as he could remember. Said if I let him out of there, he'd kill somebody again. Said he was goin' to hell. Reckoned he'd be there in about 15 minutes."
Roger Ebert's Mail: My egotistical "Grindhouse" review
From Joe Blevins, Arlington Heights, IL: I appreciate the fact that you are reviewing movies you missed while you were out sick, but I think your "Grindhouse" review was an unnecessary act of vanity and ego on your part, a gratuitous kick in the ribs to a picture which had already received plenty of undeserved abuse from the critics and viewers.
On 'The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,' Bob Denver played Maynard G. Krebs - what did the 'G' stand for?
A: Gaylon
B: Grabowski
C: Gribble
D: Walter Source
Alan J was first, and right with a succinct:
G stands for Walter!
Roy was second, writing:
Maynard G. Krebs' (yeah, I'm old enough to remember Dobie Gillis) middle name was Walter. I was pretty young then, so I don't remember exactly why he used G instead of W, but then, he was some kind of a free spirit.... ooobli-ow-wow-wow!
Purple Gene was third, with:
The "G" in Maynard G. Krebs (the slacker portrayed by Bob Denver) stands for "Walter".
But that's only half the story.
The writers for that 60's sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" first wrote that the "G" in Maynard G. Krebs stood for "Goofy" but they realized that it was already a Disney Dog....then they tried "Gumby" and found out that he (along with "Pokey") was already "Howdy Doody's buddy....
Well they desperately inserted "Gomer" and then "Goober" and found out that these characters already existed as the "Pyle" brothers on the "Andy Griffith Show".
So they threw their hands up in the air and said "Walter"..
No wonder we're having a writers strike!
mj said:
Walter. Because it was so Maynerd
ducks answered:
maynard G (which stands for walter) krebs did NOT want to work.
actually, I knew the answer without looking it up. I watched that show from the beginning.
great show and great characters.
Maynard was named after his Aunt Walter who was married to his Uncle Edith.
And, Sally P wrote:
I haven't the slightest idea what "Maynard Krebs'" "G" stands for!
But I am submitting this as a mild protest - please, please, let Bob Denver (and his, "Loves," snicker, snicker) AWA Gilligan, and his inept castaways, RIP!
Bob's characters created so many of the long-held myths of the 50s - that we were all dorks!
(Okay, maybe we were, by why advertise it after the fact!)
Note to Sally:
The TV Trivia questions are the easiest for me, so finding a reference isn't too time consuming.
Once again, it's a time thing.
Days where there's time to read, the more likely it'll be a trivia question that's a little smarter.
Days where I'm running late, well, it's TV time, again.
Re: Thursday's Star Trek question
Joe B's e-mail was sent in plenty of time, but the freaking Yahoo-ghawds got around to delivering it just before sunrise.
He answered correctly with:
When Kirk was forced to kiss Lieutenant Uhura
The kid & I attended the Poly Jackrabbits vs. the Jordan Panthers football game at Veterans Stadium.
Put bluntly, the Jackrabbits kicked ass and won, 45 - 0.
Lots of fun, but, jeez, I'm running late!
Tonight, Saturday:
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'CSI: The 3rd One', followed by a RERUN'Criminal Minds', then '48 Hours'.
NBC opens the night with a RERUN'Bionic Woman', followed by a RERUN'Chuck', then a RERUN'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
On a STRIKE-related RERUN'SNL', Jon Bon Jovi hosts, music by Foo Fighters.
ABC fills the night with LIVE'College Football', then pads the left coast with local crap and an old Oprah.
The CW fills the night with old episodes of 'Raymond' and 'Family Guy'.
Faux has the traditional 'Cops', 'Cops', and 'America's Most Wanted'.
MY has 'NFL Total Access', followed by 'IFL Battleground'.
A&E has the movie 'Erin Brockovich', followed by the movie 'Bridget Jones's Diary', then 'A&E Rocks: Bon Jovi'.
AMC offers the movie 'Psycho', followed by the movie 'Cool Hand Luke', then the movie 'Cool Hand Luke', again.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Gordon Ramsay's F Word;
[1:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep. 1 Bonapartes;
[2:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 8 They Keep Killing Suzie;
[3:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 9 Random Shoes;
[4:00 PM] Hotel Babylon - Episode 5;
[5:00 PM] Hotel Babylon - Episode 6;
[6:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5;
[7:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 10 Love & Monsters;
[8:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 9 Random Shoes;
[9:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 10 Out Of Time;
[10:00 PM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 4 John Waters and Joan Collins;
[11:00 PM] Torchwood - Ep 9 Random Shoes;
[12:00 AM] Torchwood - Ep 10 Out Of Time;
[1:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 4 John Waters and Joan Collins;
[2:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 10 Love & Monsters;
[3:00 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 12 Chertsey;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 13 Formby;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 6 Malvern;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 7 Detling;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 33 Hamilton;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 34 Porter;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives', another 'Real Housewives', and the movie 'Honey'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', followed by the movie 'Trading Places', then the movie 'Office Space'.
FX has the movie 'Elektra', followed by the movie 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'.
History has 'Engineering Disasters 21', 'The Universe', and 'How The Earth Was Made'.
IFC -
[08:00 AM] Blind Swordsman #18: Zatoichi and the Fugitives;
[09:30 AM] IFC Short Film Showcase;
[10:30 AM] Mansfield Park;
[12:30 PM] A Love Song For Bobby Long;
[02:35 PM] IFC News Special: Darkon;
[03:00 PM] The Golden Bowl;
[05:15 PM] Mansfield Park;
[07:15 PM] The Final Cut;
[09:00 PM] The Human Stain;
[11:00 PM] Lost Highway;
[01:15 AM] Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead;
[03:15 AM] The Human Stain;
[05:05 AM] The Final Cut. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Megasnake', followed by the movie 'Bats: Human Harvest'.
Sundance -
[04:45 AM] Flower & Garnet;
[06:30 AM] Blog Wars;
[07:30 AM] Arrowhead;
[08:00 AM] Episode 1;
[08:30 AM] Episode 2;
[09:00 AM] Episode 3;
[09:30 AM] Episode 4;
[10:00 AM] Episode 5;
[10:30 AM] Episode 6;
[11:00 AM] Episode 7;
[11:30 AM] Episode 8;
[12:00 PM] Household Saints;
[02:05 PM] Mike Myers + Deepak Chopra;
[03:05 PM] Loggerheads;
[04:45 PM] Blog Wars;
[06:00 PM] Episode 1;
[06:30 PM] The True History of The Traveling Wilburys;
[07:00 PM] Episode 5;
[08:00 PM] Episode 7;
[08:30 PM] Episode 8;
[09:00 PM] Karl Lagerfeld is Never Happy Anyway;
[10:00 PM] The Hi-Lo Country;
[12:00 AM] Episode 1;
[12:30 AM] Episode 2;
[01:00 AM] Episode 3;
[01:30 AM] Episode 4;
[02:00 AM] Episode 5;
[02:30 AM] Episode 6;
[03:00 AM] Saint Ange;
[04:40 AM] The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bob Schiller, 89, who wrote for 'I Love Lucy,' joins thousands of Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers and others in the fifth day of their strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in a rally at Fox Plaza in Los Angeles' Century City district Friday, Nov. 9, 2007.
Photo by Reed Saxon
Canada and the rest of the western world have failed the people of Darfur in "deplorable" fashion, actress Mia Farrow said Friday.
Farrow noted Canada's commitment to peacekeeping and said the international community has come to expect Canada to answer a call for help.
"There has been a silence from Canada," Farrow, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, told reporters following a speech at the Millennium Summit, a gathering aimed at promoting peace and poverty reduction.
Farrow called the lack of action from the international community "deplorable."
Yoko Ono - the world's most famous unknown artist, as her late husband John Lennon called her - brought an exhibition with about 80 of her works to South America's largest city.
The 74-year-old Ono also will take part in a theatrical performance titled "A Night with Yoko," organizers said.
The exhibition, called "Yoko Ono, a Retrospective," begins Saturday and will stay in Sao Paulo until Feb. 3.
Some of the artworks are from the 1993 exhibition "Blood Objects," including portrait frames, round glasses such as the ones used by Lennon and a blood-tainted T-shirt symbolizing urban violence.
It's a new Da Vinci code, but this time it could be for real. An Italian musician and computer technician claims to have uncovered musical notes encoded in Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last Supper," raising the possibility that the Renaissance genius might have left behind a somber composition to accompany the scene depicted in the 15th-century wall painting.
"It sounds like a requiem," Giovanni Maria Pala said. "It's like a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus."
Pala, a 45-year-old musician who lives near the southern Italian city of Lecce, began studying Leonardo's painting in 2003, after hearing on a news program that researchers believed the artist and inventor had hidden a musical composition in the work.
Pala first saw that by drawing the five lines of a musical staff across the painting, the loaves of bread on the table as well as the hands of Jesus and the Apostles could each represent a musical note.
It's rare to find kosher ham. Rarer still to find it carbonated and bottled. Jones Soda Co., the Seattle-based purveyor of offbeat fizzy water, said Friday that it was shelving its traditional seasonal flavors of turkey and gravy this year to produce limited-edition theme packs for Christmas and Hanukkah.
The Christmas pack will feature such flavors as Sugar Plum, Christmas Tree, Egg Nog and Christmas Ham. The Hanukkah pack will have Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and Latkes sodas.
"As always, both packs are kosher and contain zero caffeine," a Jones news release noted.
Jones' products feature original label art and frequently odd flavors. Last year's seasonal pack was Thanksgiving-themed, with Green Pea, Sweet Potato, Dinner Roll, Turkey and Gravy, and Antacid sodas. For its contract to supply soda to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, Jones came up with Perspiration, Dirt, Sports Cream and Natural Field Turf. The company - fortunately or unfortunately - prides itself on the accuracy of the taste.
Someone from Elvis Presley's home state of Mississippi has placed the highest bid in an EBay auction of memorabilia from a museum devoted to proving that the King is still alive.
The bidder had until the close of business Friday to put up the US$8,300 and arrange to pick it up from the Missouri museum, which is shutting down. The auction closed at 5:20 p.m. Thursday.
Bill Beeny, 81, placed the memorabilia on EBay late last month. He hoped someone would buy the collection and open a new museum dedicated to the idea that Elvis never died. The collection includes photographs, books, yellowed news clippings and replicas of Elvis' Cadillac and the casket and gravestone from his 1977 funeral - which Beeny believes was a fake.
Producers Norman Lear, left, and Garry Marshal join thousands of Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers and others in the fifth day of their strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in a rally at Fox Plaza in Los Angeles' Century City district Friday, Nov. 9, 2007.
Photo by Reed Saxon
Workers at Milan's La Scala opera house went on strike on Friday, forcing a performance of Verdi's "Requiem" conducted by Daniel Barenboim to be cancelled.
La Scala, one of the world's best-known concert venues, apologized on its Web site for the cancellation.
The stoppage stems from a dispute over pay and contracts.
Prince is taking legal action to stop Web sites from using copyrighted images, a concert promotion company announced Friday.
Contrary to reports, the Purple One is not suing his fans or looking to inhibit free speech in any way, AEG, which promoted Prince's concert series in London, said in a statement.
"The action taken earlier this week was not to shut down fan sites, or control comment in any way," the statement read. "The issue was simply to do with in regards to copyright and trademark of images and only images and no lawsuits have been filed."
Prince intends to offer some material for free online, bypassing "phony fan sites that exploit both consumers and artists," AEG said.
The holy Sikh shrine Golden Temple is illuminated on the eve of the Hindu festival of Diwali, the festival of lights, in the northern Indian city of Amritsar November 8, 2007. The festival will be celebrated across the country on November 9.
Photo by Munish Sharma
A priest accused of stalking Conan O'Brien was found fit to stand trial Friday, although his lawyer acknowledged he has been treated for psychological problems.
A judge found the Rev. David Ajemian, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was fit after a court-appointed psychologist examined him. State Supreme Court Justice Abraham Clott ordered him held on $2,500 cash bail.
Ajemian, who allegedly began writing O'Brien in September 2006, has been placed on leave by the Boston Archdiocese and can't minister publicly. He was removed in June from his last posting, at St. Patrick Parish in Stoneham, after two years at the parish.
The husband of troubled British soul singer Amy Winehouse has been arrested in an investigation into perverting the course of justice, days before he is due to go on trial for beating up a bartender.
Pictures in Friday's Daily Mirror newspaper showed Winehouse, 24, kissing husband Blake Fielder-Civil, 25, before he was led off in handcuffs by plainclothes police during an overnight raid at an apartment in East London.
Police said five people had been arrested following a tip-off by the Daily Mirror -- two 25 year olds, one 22 year old, a 19 year old and a 36 year old.
All were seized in connection with an allegation of perverting the course of justice.
The Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau) volcano sends up powerful clouds of hot gasses, rocks, and lava as a fishing boat is moored offshore early Thursday Nov. 8, 2007, in the Sunda Straits between Java and Sumatra, Indonesia. Sending a boom echoing across the bay, the volcano known as the 'Krakatau's Child' unleashes another eruption, but while impressive, the eruption was nothing compared to what took place in 1883 at this spot, when Anak Krakatau's predecessor blew apart in one of the most devastating eruption in recorded history.
Photo by Ed Wray
A big blob of molten rock appears to be pushing up remnants of an ancient volcano in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, scientists reported on Friday.
They say no volcanic explosion is imminent -- that already happened 642,000 years ago, creating the volcanic crater known as a caldera where part of Yellowstone Lake sits.
But satellite readings show just how volcanically active the area remains, the researchers reported in the journal Science.
From the middle of 2004 through 2006, the floor of the caldera rose 7 inches at a rate of 2.8 inches a year -- the biggest rise ever measured, they reported.
Civil rights advocates criticized plans by the Los Angeles Police Department to map the city's Muslim communities, calling it racial profiling.
The LAPD's counterterrorism bureau plans to identify Muslim enclaves in order to determine which might be likely to become isolated and susceptible to "violent, ideologically based extremism," said Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing on Thursday.
"We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities," said Downing, who heads the counterterrorism bureau.
Downing said the plan is still in its early stages, but the LAPD wants to work with a Muslim partner and intends to have the data assembled by the University of Southern California's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis.
Fernando Botero's "Abu Ghraib 65", which is on exhibit at American University till December 30, 2007 before travelling to Monterrey, Mexico, is seen in this undated handout copy.
The U.S. government has for years had secret evidence that could help a young Canadian prisoner defend himself in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, a military defense lawyer said on Thursday.
Prosecutors notified prisoner Omar Khadr's military lawyer two days ago of the existence of "potentially exculpatory evidence" from a U.S. government eyewitness to the battle in Afghanistan that resulted in Khadr's capture in 2002, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler said.
"It's an eyewitness the government has always known about," Kuebler told reporters after Khadr was arraigned for the third time on charges of killing a U.S. soldier. "This is something that was buried because nobody ever looked."
The evidence is secret and Kuebler would not say which government entity employed the witness.
Charges have been dropped against two siblings who inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare when they sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club.
New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who was visiting from Hamburg, Germany, had been charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.
The charges were dropped Thursday after Daniel Salchow agreed he and his sister would donate $4,000 to local charities. Prosecutors could reopen the case if the Salchows do the same thing again in the next 13 months.
The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a "drinking club with a running problem."
Kelly a 20-year-old lowland gorilla is photographed during the unveiling of the Los Angeles Zoo's new Camp Gorilla Reserve in Los Angeles on Thursday, Nov. 8,2007. Camp Gorilla Reserve closely resembles the gorilla's native West African environment with trees, brush , flowers and waterfalls.
Photo by Richard Vogel
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