'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: There Should Be Blood: Liberal Democrats Left Out in the Cold
Whether I'm a rare bird or a typical victim of self-denial, I didn't know how I was going to vote until election day--or, to be more precise, a election minute. Roughly 15 to 20 percent of 2008 primary voters have had similar trouble getting their unconscious to talk to them.
Debra Shore: Be Kind to Candidates (chicagopublicradio.org)
Over the next few days, many of you are likely to see men or women at a train station or an el stop handing out literature or shaking hands. They'll be adorned with name stickers and surrounded by signs. These people are candidates for public office. Be nice to them, please.
Jim Hightower: AUSTIN MAKES "THE LIST" (jimhightower.com)
People here in my hometown of Austin, Texas are not merely excited, we're ecstatic! From every corner of our city comes shouts of hip-hip hooray and hallelujah, because - O, Sweet Jesus - Austin has made "The List!" Yes, at long last, our fair city has been designated by the Homeland Security Czar as one of 60 in the nation considered to be at "high risk" of a terrorist attack.
RICHARD ROEPER: Wax museum patrons really getting stiffed (suntimes.com)
Can't understand fascination with creepy 'works of art'
Ron Hart: "The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History by Jim Walsh" (popmatters.com)
A veritable talking book of everything you wanted to know about the Replacements but were afraid to ask: great tales and a wealth of visual treats.
Kevin Friedman: The Legend of Ornette Coleman (portlandmercury.com)
There was a time when jazz was one of the most radical of art forms. And at the vanguard stood Ornette Coleman.
Michael Hamersly: Q&A with '70s disco icon Donna Summer (McClatchy Newspapers; Posted on popmatters.com)
The Queen of Disco is still going strong at age 59. Donna Summer's groundbreaking disco anthems have provided the soundtrack for countless gyrating hedonists on the dance floor.
JILL ZEMAN: Roy Scheider, 1932-2008 (Associated Press)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.---- Roy Scheider, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his role as a police chief in the blockbuster movie ''Jaws,'' has died. He was 75.
Roger Ebert: THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES (PG; 3 1/2 stars)
"The Spiderwick Chronicles" is a terrific entertainment for the whole family, except those below a certain age, who are likely to be scared out of their wits. What is that age? I dunno; they're your kids.
Zoe Williams: Teething problems (guardian.co.uk)
Breastfeeding is wonderful. I couldn't get enough of it - until T decided to grow some teeth ...
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny and still on the cool side.
The Next Strike
Screen Actors Guild
Ordinarily, the banding together of George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro would be a producers' dream. But the A-list foursome's latest group project may not be exactly what Hollywood had in mind.
The influential thesps-Oscar winners all-have teamed up to urge the Screen Actors Guild to begin early contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to avoid another Industry-debilitating work stoppage. The actors' union's contract with producers is set to expire June 30.
In full-page advertisements in the Industry trade papers Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, the superstar four addressed their 120,000 or so peers in the guild.
The actors' call to fast-track the often excruciating negotiation process comes in the wake of the 100-day strike by the Writers Guild of America, which SAG wholeheartedly supported. While the scribes formally settled this week, several major studios have put feature development on hold until a new contract is worked out with SAG. Filmmakers are wary about ramping up production on projects only to have another labor dispute force a shutdown.
Screen Actors Guild
Fans Try To Save Former Home
The Carpenters
Owners of The Carpenters' former home aren't feeling on top of the world about the legions of fans who keep stopping by to pay tribute.
The five-bedroom tract house, where siblings Karen and Richard Carpenter lived and penned some of their greatest hits, was featured on the cover of their 1973 hit album "Now & Then." It was also where an anorexic Karen Carpenter collapsed in 1983 before dying.
Manuel and Blanca Melendez Parra have submitted plans to officials in Downey, a city about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles, to raze the 39-year-old main house, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The Parras have already torn down an adjoining house and have begun construction on a larger home.
The Carpenters' parents lived in the residence until Harold Carpenter's death in 1988 and Agnes Carpenter's in 1996. Richard Carpenter sold the house a year later.
The Carpenters
Takes Stage Amid Protests
Johannes Heesters
Several dozen people protested outside a theater Saturday where a 104-year-old singer who once performed for Adolf Hitler took the stage in the Netherlands for the first time in four decades.
Johannes Heesters was never accused of being a propagandist or anything other than an actor who was willing to perform for the Nazis, and the Allies allowed him to continue his career after the war. But in his native country he is viewed by some as irredeemable.
In 1964, Heesters was booed off the stage in Amsterdam when he tried to appear as Nazi-hating Captain von Trapp in "The Sound of Music."
Heesters, who lives in Germany, has been a popular figure in German-language cabaret since the 1930s. On Saturday, he performed "The Merry Widow," the German song that made him famous, and "There by the Windmill," a Dutch classic, among others. At times he asked his wife, on stage with him, to remind him of lines but his voice was steady.
Johannes Heesters
Donates $1.75M To Denison University
Michael Eisner
Former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner has donated $1.75 million to Denison University to honor one of his favorite professors, the school said Friday.
Eisner is a 1964 graduate of the liberal arts university in central Ohio. He made the endowment gift from The Eisner Foundation to establish the Dominick Consolo Endowed Professorship.
Consolo, an emeritus professor of English, was an active faculty member at Denison from 1958 until his retirement in 1992. Eisner has said that he was one of the inspirations for Robin Williams' character in the movie "Dead Poets Society," according to the university.
In 2003, Cal State Northridge named its education college after Eisner after his foundation gave $7 million to the school.
Michael Eisner
Toshiba To Give Up On
HD DVD
Toshiba Corp is planning to give up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp, a company source said on Saturday.
The move will likely put an end to a battle that has gone on for several years between consortiums led by Toshiba and Sony vying to set the standard for the next-generation DVD and compatible video equipment.
The format war, often compared to the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, has confused consumers unsure of which DVD or player to buy, slowing the development what is expected to be a multibillion dollar high definition DVD industry.
Toshiba's cause has suffered several setbacks in recent weeks including Friday's announcement by U.S. retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc that it would abandon the HD DVD format and only stock its shelves with Blu-ray movies.
HD DVD
Feds Nip State Efforts To Slash
Mercury
While arguing in court that states are free to enact tougher mercury controls from power plants, the Bush administration pressured dozens of states to accept a scheme that would let some plants evade cleaning up their pollution, government documents show.
A week ago, a federal appeals court struck down that industry-friendly approach for mercury reduction. It allowed plants with excessive smokestack emissions to buy pollution rights from other plants that foul the air less.
Internal Environmental Protection Agency documents and e-mails, obtained by the advocacy group Environmental Defense, show attempts over the past two years to blunt state efforts to make their plants drastically reduce mercury pollution instead of trading for credits that would let them continue it.
The federal plan capped overall mercury releases from power plants nationwide. But it allowed plants to avoid reductions by purchasing emission credits. Critics have said that creates "hot spots" of mercury releases harmful to communities.
Mercury
New L.A. Times Editor
Russ Stanton
The new editor of the Los Angeles Times defended himself on Friday against suggestions he lacked the stature to run the fourth-largest U.S. newspaper, saying his Internet savvy made up for the Pulitzer Prizes missing from his resume.
Russ Stanton's appointment to the top editorial job at the Times on Thursday, one day after the newspaper announced its latest round of job cuts, raised eyebrows because the low-key former business editor lacked, as the paper itself asserted in its story, "the same range of experience of his predecessors."
The New York Times reported that during the selection process some of Stanton's colleagues had lobbied against the appointment of the 49-year-old journalist and 10-year Los Angeles Times veteran.
Stanton, who is the fourth top editor of the Times in the past three years, said the paper had some 900 journalists and editors, including "dozens of people" who had won Pulitzer Prizes, to rely on.
Russ Stanton
Spotted In Scottish Highlands
White Stag
A mythical and ghostly creature has appeared in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands -- and has been caught on camera.
The rare white stag, from the red deer species, is believed to be among just a tiny handful living in Britain, according to a conservation group.
The John Muir Trust is now keeping the stag's location secret for fear of poachers.
In Celtic traditions, white stags represent messengers from the afterlife. Arthurian legend has it that the creature can never be caught -- King Arthur's pursuit of the animal represents mankind's spiritual quest.
White Stag
In Memory
Steve Gerber
Steve Gerber, the comic book writer and creator whose signature character was the alienated, cigar-chomping Howard the Duck, has died. He was 60. Gerber, who also co-created Marvel's "Omega the Unknown" and created the 1980s animated series "Thundarr the Barbarian," suffered from pulmonary fibrosis.
The "Howard the Duck" series became a fast hit after its January 1976 debut on Marvel and remains a cult favorite. Its lead, a disgruntled duck from another universe with a bombshell sidekick named Beverly "Thunder-Thighs" Switzler, was hailed as both smart and subversive.
Gerber split with Marvel in 1978 amid a dispute over the rights to the character. He sued the company and settled out of court.
Gerber was not closely involved in George Lucas' 1986 "Howard the Duck" film, which fared poorly at the box office.
Gerber also worked in television as a story editor on "G.I. Joe" and "Dungeon & Dragons."
More recently, Gerber and Skrenes created "Hard Time" for DC Comics, the story of a 15-year-old boy convicted in a Columbine-like school shooting who discovers he has special powers. Gerber was working on a revival of the DC Comics' Dr. Fate series at the time of his death.
Gerber was born Sept. 20, 1947, in St. Louis and received a bachelor's degree from St. Louis University, before joining Marvel as an assistant editor in 1972. He is survived by his mother, Bernice; his daughter, Samantha Voll; and three siblings.
Steve Gerber
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