'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: THE DEFICIT (Jan. 13; andrewtobias.com)
On the news last night, the 2006 federal deficit was revised upward to $400 billion. But as usual, this is without the very real $200 billion or so we're borrowing from the Social Security surplus. So the real deficit this year is now projected at $600 billion or so, nearly a quarter of the federal budget. Got that? For every four dollars Uncle Sam is spending, three come from taxes and one is borrowed from your children. (Well, from the Chinese and Saudis, too, but it is your children whose future will be weighed down with the debt.) By the time keys to the White House change hands, in January, 2009, the National Debt will approach $10 trillion - nearly $8 trillion of it racked up under just three Presidents: Reagan, Bush and Bush. Meanwhile, the interest on all that debt - currently around $350 billion a year - amounted to nearly 40% of the $893 billion we paid in personal income tax in 2005. And that was at today's low interest rates, and on "only" the $8 trillion in debt. If interest rates rise, and as the debt itself rises, 40% will be remembered as the good old days.
Your Bankruptcies, Their Bonuses Break Records (villagevoice.com)
What a way to celebrate Friday the 13th: While the press is fixated on Sam Alito (he's in) and Iran (it's out), new reports bring disastrous financial news to Americans - even if you didn't read all about it. Adding up the damage: Wall Street bonuses for the securities industry are record-breaking, and so are personal bankruptcies for the rest of you.
Fernando Berckme: Lynndie England's Smile (watchingamerica.com)
Our times offer us a magnificent example of the beastialization to which war without IHR necessarily carries us: the infamous photo of American soldier Lynndie England posing next to the prisoners she tortures, and wearing a treacherous smile. That was not a "strategic" smile. That smile was pure sadism.
Christine Lagorio: Hot for Teacher: Students rate profs online-and vice versa (villagevoice.com)
"One of the things we find is that in human studies, the most effective kinds of teachers are ones who look like what you would like to be," Baylor says. So a 20-year-old, regardless of class, race, or political bent, will be most motivated by a professor who is "attractive and young" as a "motivator." But the agents that students regard as the "most effective" experts tend to verge on dorky, donning bow ties and glasses.
Megan Cossey: Tsunami Aid Maroons Thai Sex Workers (womensenews.org)
Immediately after the tsunami, Mam and many other sex workers threw themselves into the rescue effort, and since many speak English, helped local officials communicate with stranded tourists. Phuket wouldn't have recovered without sex workers, Mam told Women's eNews through a translator.
Meghan O'Rourke: Patti Smith, Meet Sylvia Plath: Rock stars who write poems (slate.com)
There is nothing tidy about Patti Smith. Her wiry hair is often tangled. She is called the "Godmother of punk," but her "punk" songs last much longer than the conventional three minutes, and have been known to involve digressions about William Blake.
Meghan O'Rourke: James Frey and JT LeRoy: Lying writers and the readers who love them
It's been quite a week for literary scandals.
Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Penalized for working swiftly
Customers feel they're being cheated by my prompt service. Can I shlep out the repairs?
Commentoon: Alito Reminisces About the Good Old Days
Empower Foundation
Scarlet Alliance
Sex Workers Outreach Project
Hubert's Poetry Corner
TWIN CHAGRIN AGAIN
DOUBLE TROUBLE!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rainy and cold.
Added another new flag - Cyprus.
U.N. Peace Ambassador
Yo Yo Ma
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said world renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma will take on a new role as a U.N. peace ambassador.
Ma was born in Paris to Chinese parents and was a child prodigy on the cello when he moved to the United States at the age of seven. By the time he graduated from Harvard University in 1976, he was already an internationally acclaimed cellist.
As a U.N. messenger of peace, Ma will join Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, boxing great Muhammad Ali, actor Michael Douglas, primate expert Jane Goodall and others in championing what Annan says is the world body's most urgent and important task: promoting peace.
Yo Yo Ma
Continues Mock Halonen Endorsement
Conan O'Brien
Finland's president finds her traditional support among women and the Social Democratic Party base, but lately to the surprise of many Finns - and her opponents in Sunday's election - she has gotten an endorsement of a different sort.
The redheaded late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien has been promoting President Tarja Halonen's re-election bid as part of a long-running joke about their supposed physical similarities.
"Why do I support Tarja Halonen? Because she's got the total package: a dynamic personality, a quick mind, and most importantly - my good looks," the comedian, whose show is broadcast on cable in Finland, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Halonen's opponents are not amused.
Conan O'Brien
San Francisco Celebrates
'The Beat Museum'
Decades after the novelists and poets who became known as the Beat Generation inspired a literary and cultural revolution, a museum celebrating the era with rare books, photos and memorabilia opened this weekend in the city that entranced Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The opening of "The Beat Museum" coincides with the arrival of the original scroll manuscript of "On the Road" at the San Francisco Public Library and the naming of renegade poet Jack Hirschman as the city's poet laureate. Shortly after receiving the honor Thursday, Hirschman read at an anti-death penalty rally at City Hall.
Carolyn Cassady, 82, who married Neal Cassady, said she's still amazed at how Beat literature resonates with younger readers.
"There's something powerful that speaks to every new generation," said Cassady, who lives in London but was in San Francisco to see the Kerouac scroll and visit her children.
'The Beat Museum'
First Non-English Run
'The Producers'
Mel Brooks' "The Producers," which went from Hollywood comedy classic to Broadway musical sensation, is to open in Danish - the first non-English version of the show.
The musical, carrying the original English name, will run at Copenhagen's Ny Teater from Jan. 26 until the end of May.
After seeing the musical in New York in 2002, manager Niels-Bo Valbro decided his downtown theater should have it.
"It was the most witty performance ever written," he told the AP.
'The Producers'
Wedding News
Mathers - Mathers
Rapper Eminem and his former wife remarried on Saturday, five years after an ugly divorce ruptured their turbulent relationship.
Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, and Kimberly Mathers exchanged vows in a small and tightly guarded ceremony at Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, near Detroit.
Little information was available from inside but Eminem's publicist, Dennis Dennehy, confirmed to Reuters that the wedding had taken place.
Mathers - Mathers
Some Filings Remain Sealed
Bill Cosby
Certain legal filings in the sexual assault lawsuit filed against comedian Bill Cosby will remain sealed for now.
The decision, ruled Friday by U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno Jr., covers some documents which contain extensive portions of depositions by Cosby and his accuser.
Cosby's lawyer said in court earlier this week that the woman wants the documents made public only to release "incriminating" and "salacious" information before the trial.
But the woman's lawyers contend that Cosby has given at least three media interviews about the case and joked about it during a performance, yet has managed to keep secret damaging court filings.
Bill Cosby
Norway Kicks Off Centenary Celebrations
Henrik Ibsen
Norway has kicked off celebrations marking 100 years since the death of its greatest playwright, Henrik Ibsen, whose works are still among the favourites of performers and theatre-goers worldwide.
King Harald V and Queen Sonja, together with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, were to attend a ceremony later Saturday at the town hall in Oslo, the city where Ibsen was born in 1828 and died on May 23, 1906.
Saturday's event features a prize-giving ceremony honouring international actresses who have played Ibsen's characters in recent decades, including France's Isabelle Huppert, Glenda Jackson from Britain, Germany's Angela Winkler, Indian Saoli Mitra and Norway's own Liv Ullmann.
Henrik Ibsen
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Challenge Reinstated
A group can sue the federal government over claims that resident Bush's faith-based initiative is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled.
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated the lawsuit brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The group claims Bush's program, which helps religious organizations get government funding to provide social services, violates the separation of church and state.
The Madison-based foundation filed suit against the administration in 2004. A federal district judge dismissed the case, ruling that taxpayers have no standing to challenge funding appropriations made by the executive branch, only those earmarked for specific purposes by Congress.
But the appeals panel, based in Chicago, said taxpayers can challenge executive-branch programs that allegedly promote religion using taxpayer funds.
Challenge Reinstated
Painting Expected To Fetch $48 Million
Rembrandt
A Rembrandt portrait of St James is expected to be sold for about 40 million euros (48 million dollars) at a Dutch arts fair coinciding with the painter's 400th birthday, organisers said.
New York gallery Salander-O'Reilly would offer the painting from a private American collection which has not been publicly displayed for 65 years at the Tefaf fine arts fair in the southern city of Maastricht, said Tefaf spokeswoman Titia Vellenga.
"The owner, who requested anonymity, and the gallery did not want to give a price but they have informed us that the painting is comparable, for example, to Raphael's "The Madonna and Child" at London's National Gallery," Vellenga said, adding the Madonna painting was valued at about 40 million euros.
Rembrandt
In Memory
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters, the forceful, outspoken star who graduated from blond bombshell parts to dramas, winning Academy Awards as supporting actress in "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "A Patch of Blue," has died. She was 85.
Winters died of heart failure early Saturday at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills, her publicist Dale Olson said. She had been hospitalized in October after suffering a heart attack.
The actress sustained her long career by repeatedly reinventing herself. Starting as a nightclub chorus girl, advanced to supporting roles in New York plays, then became famous as a Hollywood sexpot.
A devotee of the Actors Studio, she switched to serious roles as she matured. Her Oscars were for her portrayal of mothers. Still working well into her 70s, she had a recurring role as Roseanne's grandmother on the 1990s TV show "Roseanne."
In 1959's "The Diary of Anne Frank," she was Petronella Van Daan, mother of Peter Van Daan and one of eight real-life Jewish refugees in World War II Holland who hid for more than a year in cramped quarters until they were betrayed and sent to Nazi death camps. The socially conscious Winters donated her Oscar statuette to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
In 1965's "A Patch of Blue," she portrayed a hateful, foul-mouthed mother who tries to keep her blind daughter, who is white, apart from the kind black man who has befriended her.
Ever vocal on social and political matters, Winters was a favored guest on television talk shows, and she demonstrated her frankness in two autobiographies: "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1980) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989).
Winters wrote openly in them of her romances with Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Marlon Brando, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and other leading men. She also said after she came to Hollywood in the mid-1940s she was roommates with another rising starlet - Marilyn Monroe.
Shirley Schrift was born on Aug. 18, 1920, and grew up New York, where she appeared in high school plays.
She married businessman Paul "Mack" Mayer on Jan. 1, 1942. He entered the Army Air Corps, and after the war, the pair found they had little in common. They divorced in 1948.
Winters' second and third marriages were brief and tempestuous: to Vittorio Gassman (1952-1954) and Anthony Franciosa (1957-1960). The combination of a Jewish Brooklynite and Italian actors seemed destined to produce fireworks, and both unions resulted in headlines.
A daughter, Vittoria, resulted from the marriage to Gassman. She became a successful physician.
Shelley Winters
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