'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Nat Hentoff: The Obama Agenda (villagevoice.com)
Crowds love the candidate, but can he run a presidency on hope?
Pete Kotz: The Devil Wears Wal-Mart: America's favorite welfare queen cranks up the PR (clevescene.com)
Depending upon whom you ask, the average Wal-Mart employee makes between $11,000 and $17,000 a year. Even at the higher figure, that's still 10 grand below the poverty level for a family of two. Which means someone else picks up the difference in health care, school lunches, subsidized housing, and everything in between. Who might that be? You're looking at him in the mirror. ... Totaled out, the best estimate suggests Wal-Mart gobbles up $1.5 billion in welfare a year.
James Moore: Are You on the No Fly List, Too? (huffingtonpost.com)
A few years after the Department of Homeland Security developed its No Fly List and No Fly Watch or "Selectee" List, the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle reported the screening system was based on an algorithmic software known as Soundex. A crude, antiquated algorithm developed in 1918 to analyze U.S. Census data, Soundex is based on the English language and, as a result, has a few deficiencies when it comes to trying to match Arabic names.
Kathy Freston: One Bite at a Time: A Beginner's Guide to Vegetarianism (huffingtonpost.com)
How to become vegetarian -- and help save the environment -- in six easy steps.
Mike Miliard: Dunkin' Donuts: You Are What You Dunk (thephoenix.com)
How one little post-war doughnut shop became synonymous with Boston's identity and fostered a loyalty rivaled only by the Red Sox.
Stephen George: McKibben's America (leovia.com)
The other half, he said, is convincing people that there is little left for the individual American in endless expansion. He cites scientific studies indicating that possessions are not making Americans happy. In fact, a dramatic rise in depression in America has come concurrently with the vast economic expansion of the last half-century. There's little question that "stuff" has become more burdensome - you're stressed about your flat-screen TV breaking down, the car is starting to make weird noises, it's time for a new computer, the Internet is running too slow. This conversation, though, is still pretty much confined to academia.
Orgasmic Origami (villagevoice.com)
New Yorker probes frontier of paper folding.
Rick Perlstein: Who's Afraid of Peter Boyle? (inthesetimes.com)
Peter Boyle died in December. His wacky turn as Frankenstein's tap-dancing monster in a Mel Brooks movie led the obituaries, along with his role as the curmudgeonly father on a hideously popular sitcom. When I heard the news, however, I pulled out one of my old issues of Life magazine.
Commentoon: McCain Kissing Feet (womensenews.org)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, windy and much warmer.
Person Of The Year
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert, a faux conservative who often honors himself on his Comedy Central show, was lauded by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival as their "Person of the Year."
"What an honor. An honor to receive and an honor for you to give to me," Colbert said during the ceremony late Friday.
Often appearing to be a combination of Bill O'Reilly and Archie Bunker, Colbert emphasized that his television character is not him.
Colbert said he envisions his character preparing for each night's show by singing along with the Cheap Trick song "I Want You to Want Me," and doing a full-body shave.
Stephen Colbert
Sydney's Mardi Gras
Rupert Everett
British actor Rupert Everett and 250 men dressed as pop singer Kylie Minogue were among 8,000 revelers who marched through Sydney late Saturday for the 29th annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
The yearly parade began as a street demonstration in 1978, but has since morphed into one of the city's biggest outdoor parties, attracting thousands of spectators from around the world.
New South Wales state police said about 350,000 people packed the sidewalks of Oxford street - the center of Sydney's gay scene - to catch a glimpse of the colorful floats bearing messages both political and playful.
One of the largest displays featured some 250 Minogue impersonators dubbed the "Impossible Princesses," while another float titled the Unkultured Klub of Karma Kleaners honored the former Culture Club lead singer Boy George.
Rupert Everett
Returns To Broadway
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave is intense - on stage, screen or living room sofa.
It can be intimidating in an interview, but it's the quality Joan Didion sought for the starring role in the Broadway adaptation of "The Year of Magical Thinking," her best-selling memoir of the aftermath of her husband's sudden death.
It's a quality that is immediately evident in person. Redgrave does not do small talk. She speaks seriously and thoughtfully, both down-to-earth and wary.
Gray hair pulled back, wearing a simple V-neck sweater and slacks, she sits in the small front room of her surprisingly modest west London apartment, amid comfortable domestic clutter - shelves scattered with photographs of her children, ornaments and awards, shelves stacked with books. Didion is there, of course, alongside Harold Pinter, John LeCarre, James Ellroy, Noam Chomsky, Orhan Pamuk.
For the interview: Vanessa Redgrave
Pop Star Opens Closet Door
Christian Chavez
A 22-year-old pop star's announcement that he is gay, making him the first high-profile member of Mexico's show-business elite to "come out" in public, has caused a stir in the deeply conservative Catholic country.
Christian Chavez, one of six members of the glitzy pop band RBD, told fans he was homosexual after photographs were published on a gossip Web site purporting to show him tying the knot with his partner in a ceremony in Canada.
The news was splashed across the front pages of most Mexican newspapers on Saturday along with photographs of Chavez with the pink spiked hair that makes him stand out among the members of the band that grew out of a popular soap opera.
Media pundits doubted Chavez would have spoken out were it not for the photographs, but praised his courage in a conservative nation where few artists admit to being gay.
Christian Chavez
Wedding News
Hurley - Nayar
Elizabeth Hurley married an Indian businessman in a private civil ceremony at a 15-century castle, and photographers and spectators descended Saturday on this quiet town in western England to catch a glimpse of their lavish wedding party.
Gloucestershire County Council confirmed that Hurley and Arun Nayar married Friday at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe, 125 miles west of London. The pair planned to hold a blessing and party at the castle later Saturday, with guests including Elton John, Kate Moss and Hurley's ex, Hugh Grant.
Hurley, 41, and Nayar, 42, reportedly have signed a lucrative deal with Hello! magazine for exclusive rights to images of the event. Hurley made appearances in the "Austin Powers" movies and "Bedazzled" and for several years was the international face of Estee Lauder cosmetics.
Hurley - Nayar
Now Sumner Wants To Make Nice
Tom Cruise
Six months after publicly rebuking actor Tom Cruise for his off-screen behavior during a bitter split between the star and Paramount Pictures, Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone wants to make nice again.
The 83-year-old media mogul, whose company owns Paramount, was quoted by People magazine on its Web site on Friday as saying he has not spoken recently with Cruise but regards him as "a great, great actor -- one of the best."
"He was a great friend. And I look forward to being his friend again," Redstone said. He was speaking at a Hollywood premiere on Thursday for the new crime film "Zodiac," which is being released by Paramount.
Cruise's spokesman, Paul Bloch, declined to comment on Redstone's latest remarks.
Tom Cruise
Stolen Norman Rockwell
Steven Spielberg
"Russian Schoolroom," a Norman Rockwell painting stolen from a gallery in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, Mo., more than three decades ago, was found in Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday.
Spielberg purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement.
After Spielberg's staff brought it to the attention of authorities, an FBI agent and an art expert from the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino inspected the painting at one of Spielberg's offices and confirmed its authenticity Friday morning. Early FBI estimates put the painting's value at $700,000, officials said.
Spielberg is cooperating with the FBI and will retain possession of the Russian Schoolroom until its "disposition can be determined," the bureau said.
Steven Spielberg
From Commercial To Series
Cavemen
Those Geico "cavemen" shouldn't be so upset after all - they may get their own television series. ABC said Friday it had ordered a pilot for a comedy, tentatively titled "Cavemen," that features the characters used in a series of ads by the insurance company.
In the ads, cavemen appear insulted by a Geico pitchman's claim that the company's Web site is so easy to use that "even a caveman can do it."
The potential series, one of 14 pilots that will be produced by Touchstone Television this spring, features the cavemen as they "struggle with prejudice on a daily basis as they strive to live the lives of normal thirty-somethings in 2007 Atlanta."
The advertising copywriter who helped create the "cavemen" ads is writing the pilot, the studio said.
Cavemen
Russian Hit In DC?
Paul Joyal
US authorities were Saturday investigating the shooting of a US expert on Russian intelligence who was shot outside his house in a Washington suburb, an FBI spokeswoman said.
Paul Joyal, 53, was hit several times as he returned home on Thursday evening, FBI spokeswoman Michelle Crnkovich told AFP.
The shooting came four days after Joyal alleged in a a major television network interview that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the radiation poisoning of a former KGB agent in London.
US media reported that Joyal was in a critical condition, but Crnkovich said she could not confirm his state of health although he was still alive.
Paul Joyal
Abu Dhabi Annex
Louvre Museum
France's culture minister will approve the construction of an annex to the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, his office said Saturday, despite criticism in art circles that the government is playing loose with France's artistic treasures.
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres will sign an accord in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday paving the way for establishing the affiliate of the celebrated Paris museum, his office said, without providing details.
Louvre managers and the French government have drawn criticism for the museum's policy of lending out works to the High Museum in Atlanta in exchange for funding as part of a three-year agreement.
The Abu Dhabi deal appears to be along the same lines. Critics fear such accords will put French museums under strain, and complain that politicians are using art for strategic and economic ends.
Louvre Museum
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