'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Louise Bernikow: Aunt Susan Blazed the Way for Single Women (womensenews.org)
Anthony herself took up the banner of single womanhood to resist a legal system where, as she said, "husband and wife are one, and that one the husband." ... And she was photographed seated at her own desk in front of a wall of pictures of other women's rights activists, thus redefining her "family" as friends and colleagues.
Mark Morford: I'm A Straight Liberal No More! (sfgate.com)
After three weeks of brutal counseling, I'm proud to say I am now, at long last, a sad gay Republican. Praise Jesus!
Anders Wright: Curling up with the Hedgehog: Porn star Ron Jeremy makes his literary debut (sdcitybeat.com)
Having a conversation with Ron Jeremy is a trip. It's not just because at 53 years, 200-plus pounds and seriously hairy, he's the world's most famous porn star. Or because in the last 30-odd years, he's appeared in more than 1,700 adult films and slept with-combining his film shoots and his personal life-something like 4,000 women. Seriously.
MIRIAM DI NUNZIO: Imagination triumphs in 'Bridge to Terabithia' (3 1/2 stars out of 4; suntimes.com)
Imagination is a terrible thing to waste. What a dull world it would be without it, how sad and colorless and boring, indeed. ... "Bridge to Terabithia" is all about meeting your first best friend, and holding on to that friendship with all your might. It's about childhood, about playing and running and just being a kid, with all the pitfalls and pratfalls, with all the joy and the pain. It's about real life. Imagine that.
The curse of the Oscar (Reuters)
It's awards season in Hollywood, with all red carpets leading to the Oscars. But winning that prestigious award can sometimes lead to nothing more than bad roles and even oblivion.
NOTABLE QUOTABLES (newyorker.com)
Humphrey Bogart never said, "Play it again, Sam" nor did Sherlock Holmes say "Elementary, my dear Watson." Never mind: quotations have a life of their own...
Rabbi Naphtali Hoff: Why Study Jewish History? (jewishworldreview.com)
The story of the Jews is unique in the annals of history. It began with one individual's search for Truth in the confusing world of paganism. The result: a revolutionary religious outlook that would become known as 'ethical monotheism', the belief that there is only one G-d over mankind, and that His primary concern is the ethical behavior of man.
Commentoon: Birth Giving Machines (womensenews.org)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Set a new record high - 88°. Old record was 80°.
Ready For Mardi Gras
James Gandolfini
The cops got Tony Soprano Friday. James Gandolfini, who plays the Mafia boss on the Emmy and Peabody-winning HBO series "The Sopranos," was surrounded by lawmen when he arrived in New Orleans to begin his reign over one of the city's biggest Mardi Gras parades. His limousine was escorted by 10 motorcycle officers and two police cars.
Gandolfini was crowned Bacchus XXXIX, and as such will ride in Sunday night's parade and rule at the Carnival Krewe's ball.
"Every time I've come to New Orleans I've had a wonderful time," Gandolfini told a crowd of patients, medical people and others who waited for him at Children's Hospital. "I love this city."
Gandolfini arrived 45 minutes late for the event, but the crowd did not mind. He threw handfuls of doubloons to them, and stayed for about 30 minutes to sign autographs and pose for pictures.
James Gandolfini
Meals On Wheels
Richard & Homer Gere
Richard Gere appears with his father, a longtime volunteer for the Meals on Wheels Association of America, in the organization's latest public service ads.
Father and son teamed up for a print ad and a television spot after the association learned that Homer Gere has been a meal delivery volunteer for almost 20 years.
Meals on Wheels officials said the actor was enthusiastic when approached about the daylong August shoot. They were working to get the full-page ad placed in other publications and hope the video will be picked up by broadcasters in the spring.
Richard & Homer Gere
Tour Postponed
David Crosby
David Crosby and Graham Nash, members of one of the top rock groups of the 1960s and 1970s, have postponed a U.S. tour due to Crosby's ill health, a representative said.
"The action was taken because of medical issues that have arisen for member David Crosby," the Web site http://crosbynash.com said in a posting on Friday which did not specify Crosby's illness.
An Australian newspaper reported earlier this month that Crosby had contracted pneumonia, which forced the postponement of a tour there.
David Crosby
Web Site Injunction
Paris Hilton
A federal judge on Friday barred a Web site from peddling Paris Hilton's racy photos, videos, diary entries and other personal items.
U.S. District Judge George King said he will issue a preliminary injunction prohibiting ParisExposed.com from displaying any of the items until a lawsuit Hilton brought against the site is resolved.
The judge had effectively shut down the Web site earlier this month when he issued a temporary order barring it from showing Hilton's medical records, Social Security number, phone number or other personal information.
Paris Hilton
Detained At Sydney Airport
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone was detained for hours on arrival at Sydney Airport after officials found prohibited imports in his luggage and that of his entourage, media reported Saturday.
Australian Customs Service national investigations manager Richard Janeczko did not say what the items were or whose luggage among Stallone's party they were found in during a routine screening late Friday.
Stallone emerged from the airport hours after his fellow passengers and signed autographs for fans, Ten reported. He declined to comment on the incident.
Sylvester Stallone
Feds Seize Fossils
Dinosaur Eggs
Customs agents have seized fossilized dinosaur eggs believed to have been smuggled illegally from China and auctioned for $420,000, officials said Thursday.
The 22 eggs, each 65 million years old, were so well-preserved that embryonic raptors are visible inside 19 of them. They were seized late last week from the Bonhams & Butterfields auction house in Los Angeles.
The eggs were auctioned in December to an undisclosed buyer, but the transaction was scrubbed before money changed hands after concerns were raised about the legality of their export.
Dinosaur Eggs
Room At The Vatican
Michelangelo
A 450-year-old receipt has provided proof that Michelangelo kept a private room in St. Peter's Basilica while working as the pope's chief architect, Vatican experts said.
While going through the basilica archives for an exhibit on the 500th anniversary of the church, researchers recently came across an entry for a key to a chest "in the room in St. Peter's where Master Michelangelo retires."
The ink-scripted entry for the key was contained in a parchment-covered volume listing the expenditures of the Fabbrica for the years 1556-1558. It refers to the payment of 10 scudos to the blacksmith who forged the key, but offers no details about the chest or the location of the room.
Michelangelo
Paraglider Survives High-Flying Ordeal
Ewa Wisnierska
A champion German paraglider said Friday she did not believe she would survive when she was lifted higher than Mount Everest by a thunderstorm in eastern Australia.
Paragliding 2005 World Cup winner Ewa Wisnierska, 35, was lifted to 32,612 feet by a storm that apparently killed a Chinese paraglider in eastern Australia on Wednesday. The pilots were preparing for the 10th FAI World Paragliding Championships next week, event organizer Godfrey Wenness said.
She lost consciousness for more than 30 minutes while her glider flew on uncontrolled, sinking and lifting several times.
She regained consciousness at about 1,640 feet and landed safely, but had ice in her lightweight flying suit and frost bite on her face.
Ewa Wisnierska
Found In Mexico
Frog In Amber
A miner in the state of Chiapas found a tiny tree frog that has been preserved in amber for 25 million years, a researcher said. If authenticated, the preserved frog would be the first of its kind found in Mexico, according to David Grimaldi, a biologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the find.
The chunk of amber containing the frog, less than half an inch long, was uncovered by a miner in Mexico's southern Chiapas state in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study.
A few other preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber - a stone formed by ancient tree sap - mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas appears to be of the genus Craugastor, whose descendants still inhabit the region, said biologist Gerardo Carbot of the Chiapas Natural History and Ecology Institute. Carbot announced the discovery this week.
The scientist said the frog lived about 25 million years ago, based on the geological strata where the amber was found.
Frog In Amber
Proves A Disaster
Tire Reef
A mile offshore from this city's high-rise condos and spring-break bars lie as many as 2 million old tires, strewn across the ocean floor - a white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.
The tires were unloaded there in 1972 to create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. But decades later, the idea has proved a huge ecological blunder.
Little sea life has formed on the tires. Some of the tires that were bundled together with nylon and steel have broken loose and are scouring the ocean floor across a swath the size of 31 football fields. Tires are washing up on beaches. Thousands have wedged up against a nearby natural reef, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life.
"The really good idea was to provide habitat for marine critters so we could double or triple marine life in the area. It just didn't work that way," said Ray McAllister, a professor of ocean engineering at Florida Atlantic University who was instrumental in organizing the project. "I look back now and see it was a bad idea."
Tire Reef
Cat Adopts Rottweiler
Charlie & Satin
Who says cats and dogs don't get along? Workers at the Meriden Humane Society are marveling at a short-haired mother cat that has adopted a 6-day-old Rottweiler puppy that was rejected by its mother.
The tiny pup, named Charlie by Humane Society volunteers, nurses alongside a jumble of black and gray kittens recently born to Satin, who was taken to the shelter by an owner unable to care for her.
Charlie's mother was found by the side of the road in Meriden a couple of months ago. She gave birth to two puppies, but one was stillborn. As sometimes happens with a stillborn in the litter, the mother refused to accept Charlie.
Charlie & Satin
InMemory
Peter Ellenshaw
Peter Ellenshaw, an Academy Award-winning special effects artist who worked on Disney classics such as "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" and "Mary Poppins," for which he won his Oscar, has died. He was 93.
The British-born Ellenshaw's more than 30-year association with Walt Disney Studios began in 1947 when he was hired in London to do matte paintings for Disney's first live-action film, "Treasure Island" (1950).
In 1953, he was brought to California to work on "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," for which he created several matte paintings of Capt. Nemo's secret island base of Vulcania.
He went on to do matte paintings and other special effects for more than 30 other Disney films, including "The AbsentMinded Professor," "Pollyanna," "Swiss Family Robinson," "The Happiest Millionaire," "The Love Bug" and "The Black Hole." He also did matte paintings for Disney TV fare, such as "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier," "Zorro" and "Texas John Slaughter."
Born in London in 1913, his family moved to the small town of Oxbridge, near the London film studios, he became friends with renowned matte artist Walter Percy Day, who eventually offered him a job. From 1935 to 1941, Ellenshaw worked as an uncredited assistant matte artist on a dozen films, including "The Thief of Bagdad" and "Major Barbara."
Ellenshaw served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and then worked as a matte artist on "Black Narcissus," "Stairway to Heaven," "Quo Vadis" and other films.
After doing special effects and the production design on the 1974 Disney adventure-fantasy "The Island at the Top of the World" - for which he shared an Oscar nomination for best art direction - Ellenshaw and his wife moved to Ireland, where he painted landscapes for a couple of years before returning to California.
From then on, he did only occasional film work, including the 1979 Disney space adventure "The Black Hole," for which he shared an Oscar nomination for best visual effects.
Ellenshaw, who also shared an Oscar nomination for art direction for the 1971 film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," came out of retirement for the last time to do matte paintings for the 1990 film "Dick Tracy."
Bobbie, Ellenshaw's wife of 58 years, died in 2000. In addition to his son Harrison, who is a visual effects artist, Ellenshaw is survived by his daughter, Lynda Ellenshaw Thompson, a visual effects producer, and two grandchildren.
Peter Ellenshaw
InMemory
Ray Evans
Oscar-winning songwriter Ray Evans, whose long collaboration with partner Jay Livingston produced such enduring standards as "Mona Lisa," "Buttons and Bows," "Silver Bells" and "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)," has died. He was 92.
Evans' musical partnership with Livingston spanned more than six decades, with Livingston providing the melodies and Evans writing the lyrics.
Often called the last of the great songwriters, the duo earned seven Academy Award nominations and won three - in 1948 for "Buttons and Bows" in the film "Paleface," in 1950 for "Mona Lisa" in the movie "Captain Carey, USA" and in 1956 for "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" from "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
They also produced the classic Christmas carol "Silver Bells," and the theme songs for the television series "Bonanza" and "Mister Ed."
Evans and Livingston wrote songs for dozens of movies, most of them when they were under contract with Paramount from 1945 to 1955. But the duo also wrote the music and lyrics for two Broadway musicals - "Oh Captain!" in 1958 and "Let It Ride" in 1961 - as well as many unproduced scores.
Evans was born in Salamanca, N.Y., on February 4, 1915. He met Livingston at the University of Pennsylvania, where they were both students, and formed a college dance band. After graduating in 1937, they moved to New York City and began their songwriting collaboration.
Evans, whose wife died in 2003, is survived by his sister.
Ray Evans
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