'Best of TBH Politoons'
Tonight
Erin Hart Show
Please join
Erin Hart Saturday and Sunday night from 9pm - 1am (pdt) on 710 KIRO.
Tonight we'll talk about all the scandals fit to talk about--Bush isn't only
faking a huge grimace at the news: Michael Scanlon indicted; the Iraqis
formally request us out; fewer and fewer people trust this administration
about anything! The truth is setting us free.
And Martha G. (or is it Marty?) entertainment editor at
BartCop.com
visits on Sunday night with loads of links and hot blogs.
Audio streams live - 710KIRO.com.
Southern Gothic Online
The latest edition of Southern Gothic Online
is now up. Please stop by and check out the new format, with more frequent updates. New poetry and fiction by Louis E. Bourgeois and Erik France, plus all of last week's poetry and fiction.
Jeff Crook
editor, Southern Gothic Online
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Linda Hirshman: America's Stay-at-Home Feminists (The American Prospect. Posted on alternet.org)
More and more women are leaving the workforce to stay home and raise kids. Has feminism failed?
Harmon Leon: The Manly Men of God (sfweekly.com)
No women allowed into the Promise Keepers, but that didn't stop Infiltrator from getting on the Prayer Team.
Andisheh Nouraee: What is White Phosphorus? (Creative Loafing--Atlanta)
Conveniently nestled between silicon and sulfur on the periodic table, phosphorus is one of nature's trendiest and most useful chemical elements. Find out its traditional uses and how the military uses it.
Maggie Brock: The Great Wal-Mart Debate (campusprogress.org)
Three experts talk wages, health care and the everyday low prices of our nation's largest employer.
Watch the first 26 minutes of THIS DIVIDED STATE
For a few days only!!! Split into two 13 minute segments.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
W DO VOODOO DOODOO
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny afternoon, followed by evening showers.
My niece is visiting over the weekend.
Battling for the Airwaves in Berlin
NPR Takes on Washington
The Berlin frequency 87.9 FM has been in American government hands since the end of World War II. But the frequency is now up for renewal and venerated US public broadcaster National Public Radio is mounting serious competition for the government propaganda channel. The battle has exposed the ugly underbelly of the Bush Administration's public relations strategy.
But what would normally be a boring procedural matter become a struggle for the image of the United States abroad. The 87.9 FM frequency in Berlin is currently in the hands of Voice of America (VOA), the US government sponsored station that broadcasts in dozens of countries around the world.
In addition to emphasizing the US government's decades-long presence on the Berlin airwaves, the Bush administration -- or at least its political appointees heading up the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington -- has been on the war path against National Public Radio. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels tax dollars into public television and radio broadcasters in the US, has significantly cut the amount allocated to NPR. Earlier this year the corporation's board also told staff it should consider redirecting money away from NPR news programs and toward music programs.
This behavior can be explained by the fact that many US conservatives -- including many in the Bush administration, as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's former chair, Kenneth Tomlinson -- consider NPR to be a bastion of left-wing journalism. Indeed, Tomlinson -- before he resigned in mid-November amid accusations of his own conservative bias -- even considered setting up a study (without the knowledge of other corporation board members) to determine whether NPR was being overly favorable to Arabs in the Middle East.
Some might argue that the Voice of America is anything but a government mouthpiece. Indeed, in its heyday, the station was seen as a reliable source of information and its coverage of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 was widely respected the world over. But in recent years, the Broadcasting Board of Governors under Tomlinson has turned its attention elsewhere. At the same time, the VOA has come under increased pressure to cast the US government in a positive light. Indeed, the station's Web site was forced to remove pictures of Abu Ghraib torture victims and VOA management has several times objected to stories quoting Democratic politicians or editorials critical of the Bush administration, according to a June article on the VOA in Foreign Affairs.
NPR Takes on Washington: Battling for the Airwaves in Berlin
Visit Quake-Ravaged Pakistan
Jolie & Pitt
Hollywood star and refugee advocate Angelina Jolie appealed Friday for the swift delivery of promised aid to Pakistan, saying a new disaster threatens earthquake survivors when winter hits devastated mountain areas.
Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, spoke a day after touring quake-devastated areas with actor Brad Pitt. A donor conference last week raised international aid pledges to $5.8 billion.
Jolie has made some 30 missions for the UNHCR since becoming a goodwill ambassador in 2001.
Jolie & Pitt
Craigslist Founder Slams U.S. Press
Craig Newmark
Saying U.S. newspapers "are afraid to talk truth to power," Craigslist founder Craig Newmark hinted that he's about to launch a major online journalism project within the next few months that will copy the successful "wisdom of the masses" approach to classified advertising and apply it to journalism.
When talked turned to the problems of the U.S. news industry, Newmark let fly: "The big issue in the U.S. is that newspapers are afraid to talk truth to power," the Guardian quoted him as saying. "The White House press corps don't speak the truth to power -- they are frightened to lose access they don't have anyway. The American public has lost a lot of trust in conventional newspaper mechanisms. Mechanisms are now being developed online to correct that."
Newmark also said coverage of the Iraq war and the press' involvement in the Valerie Plame case had damaged American journalism.
Craig Newmark
Program For Gulf Coast Musicians
The Edge
U2 guitarist the Edge and producer Bob Ezrin are the driving forces behind Music Rising, an initiative to provide instruments to musicians affected by the recent Gulf Coast hurricanes. The Edge spent November 17 in New Orleans, visiting with the first beneficiaries of the program.
The Edge said Music Rising will put instruments "back into the hands of those musicians and try to give them the first step toward regenerating the music scene that surrounds New Orleans and the whole Gulf Coast."
In tandem with Music Rising, Gibson Guitar and Guitar Center Music Foundation are collaborating on the creation and sale of an exclusive Gibson guitar, with proceeds benefiting the program. Music Rising is supported by the Recording Academy's MusiCares Foundation, which will manage the organization's grants process.
The Edge
Public TV Outlet Battling "Christian" Network
KOCE
For more than 30 years, public television station KOCE has dedicated coverage to Orange County in a media market otherwise dominated by the news and glitz of nearby Los Angeles.
But the small station is now battling in court to prevent Daystar, one of the nation's largest Christian networks, from taking over its airwaves.
The conflict began in 2003, when the Coast Community College District decided to sell KOCE-TV to the KOCE Foundation, the station's fundraising arm, over competing bidder Daystar.
Daystar Television Network sued, claiming its bid should have been selected because the sale was completed under a state law that allows college districts to sell surplus property "for cash" to the highest bidder.
KOCE
Mulls Clemency for Williams
$chwarzenegger
Gov. Arnold $chwarzenegger said Friday he would consider granting clemency to convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang founder who became an anti-gang activist while in prison and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The governor said he would meet Dec. 8 in a private hearing with Williams' lawyers, Los Angeles County prosecutors and others involved.
$chwarzenegger has the authority to commute a death sentence to life without parole, but he is not obligated to hold a hearing. In $chwarzenegger's case, he decides clemency requests on a "case-by-case basis," spokeswoman Margita Thompson said.
Two other clemency petitions have come before $chwarzenegger. Neither was granted.
$chwarzenegger
Plans Black Talk Radio Network
Radio One
Radio One Inc. has plans to launch the first national talk-radio network geared for a black audience, the chief executive said.
It is Liggins' latest effort to diversify Radio One from a pure radio company into a catchall for black consumers, who spend more than $750 billion a year. He hopes that strategy will mean growth for the 69-station company despite a national slowdown in the radio industry, which has been depressed for several years with competition from satellite radio, Internet radio and MP3 players.
Liggins has spent the last two years coming up with new ways for his company to reach black consumers. Last year, he launched TV One LLC, a cable network backed by Comcast Corp. that is aimed at blacks. Earlier this year he bought a 51 percent interest in Reach Media, which syndicates the popular "Tom Joyner Morning Show" on about 115 radio stations nationwide.
Radio One
Former 'Wash Post' Ombudsman Criticizes Arrangement
Boob Woodward
Former Washington Post Ombudsman Geneva Overholser criticized her former newspaper, saying it should either sever its ties with Bob Woodward or require the legendary Watergate scribe to work solely for the paper, not pen his best-selling books on the side.
"It isn't an arrangement that can really work at the Post," said Overholser, who served as ombudsman from 1995 to 1998 and later as a Post columnist for three years. "If I were editor, I would say, 'Bob, you've got to pick.'"
Overholser's comments come one week after Woodward revealed that he had testified before special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about a confidential conversation he had in 2003 with a White House aide about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA analyst. He also disclosed that he had kept that conversation from Post editors for more than two years, revealing it to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., just last month.
Boob Woodward
U.N. Adds to List
Cultural Treasures
The U.N. cultural body added dozens of regional traditions Friday to its list of intangible heritage treasures, including Brazil's samba, Turkey's whirling dervishes and a "cultural space" in a 17th-century walled Colombian village.
UNESCO head Koichiro Matsuura, who announced the list of 43 traditions, said he was glad it included developing countries from Africa and elsewhere. Cultural traditions are chosen based upon their risk of disappearing, as well as their cultural value and importance to their communities.
The list was the third issued by the U.N. organization, and "will probably be the last," a UNESCO statement said. Countries submitted 64 applications this year, which the agency whittled down to 43.
Cultural Treasures
Truck Puller
'Iron Crotch'
Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng, best known for his "Iron Crotch," attached himself not once, but twice, to a rental moving truck and pulled it several yards across a parking lot in Fremont. In lace-up leather boots and a black tank top, the 50-year-old tied a strip of blue fabric around the base of his penis and testicles and tugged to make sure it was on tight. An assistant kicked him hard between the legs before he lashed himself to the vehicle.
He groaned, grunted and pressed against two men for resistance. Then, slowly, the truck began to roll forward. About 20 people, most of whom study Qigong, the ancient Chinese art of movement and breathing to increase energy, gathered for the truck pull in an unassuming office park just off Interstate 880.
A documentary film director and a producer from London were on hand to shoot the jaw-dropping feat for a three-part series called "Penis Envy," scheduled to air next year on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. Footage from the truck pull will be used for the series' piece on building the perfect penis.
Jin-Sheng, the grandmaster of Iron Crotch, a branch of Qigong also known as 99 Qigong, is said to have 60,000 followers worldwide. Its practitioners are known to be able to lift hundreds of pounds with their genitals to increase energy and sexual performance.
'Iron Crotch'
Donates Pyramids to Mexico
Mel Gibson
Hollywood director Mel Gibson will donate sets from his new film "Apocalypto" -- including six replicas of Mayan pyramids -- to the Mexican state of Veracruz when work on the movie is finished, officials said.
Donated items also are to include several movie-set villages, local authorities said.
Mel Gibson
Didn't Report Accident
NBC
During its live coverage of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, NBC did not tell viewers that a giant balloon had caught on a street lamp and injured two sisters.
At the point in the broadcast when the "M&M's Chocolate Candies" balloon was supposed to have crossed the finish line, announcers Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker stuck close to their scripts and the network ran footage of the balloon from last year's parade.
Couric told the audience they were seeing old footage and bantered with Lauer and Roker, but there was no further mention of the accident.
NBC
Spending 2nd Winter Lost
Whooping Crane
Wildlife biologists believe a whooping crane that got separated from its parents while learning to migrate is spending a second winter lost and in the company of friendly sandhill cranes.
A bird watcher last week spotted the whooper near Hargill, about 110 miles south of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge where the world's only naturally migrating flock of whooping cranes winters each year.
Adult whooping cranes usually raise one chick at a time, teaching it the 2,500-mile migration route from summering grounds in Canada's Northwest Territories to Aransas.
During last year's fall migration, however, one juvenile was spotted in some offbeat places, including Colorado, Oklahoma, and finally Bay City, Texas, more than 100 miles from Aransas.
Whooping Crane
In Memory
Pat Morita
Pat Morita, whose portrayal of the wise and dry-witted Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" earned him an Oscar nomination, has died. He was 73.
In 1984, he appeared in the role that would define his career and spawn countless affectionate imitations. As Kesuke Miyagi, the mentor to Ralph Macchio's "Daniel-san," he taught karate while trying to catch flies with chopsticks and offering such advice as "wax on, wax off" to guide Daniel through chores to improve his skills.
He lost the 1984 best supporting actor award to Haing S. Ngor, who appeared in "The Killing Fields."
For years, Morita played small and sometimes demeaning roles in such films as "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and TV series such as "The Odd Couple" and "Green Acres." His first breakthrough came with "Happy Days," and he followed with his own brief series, "Mr. T and Tina."
Morita was prolific outside of the "Karate Kid" series as well, appearing in "Honeymoon in Vegas," "Spy Hard," "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" and "The Center of the World." He also provided the voice for a character in the Disney movie "Mulan" in 1998.
Born in northern California on June 28, 1932, the son of migrant fruit pickers, Morita spent most of his early years in the hospital with spinal tuberculosis. He later recovered only to be sent to a Japanese-American internment camp in Arizona during World War II.
"One day I was an invalid," he recalled in a 1989 AP interview. "The next day I was public enemy No. 1 being escorted to an internment camp by an FBI agent wearing a piece."
He is survived by his wife, Evelyn, and three daughters from a previous marriage.
Pat Morita
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