'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Byron Williams: The true meaning of a fundamentalist Christian
As Christians, Falwell et al need work on the fundamentals.
Fiona Sturges: Shirley Manson: Shirley temper (The Independent)
Shirley Manson has a reputation for being a little ... difficult. But she's not scary. OK?
ROGER EBERT: Turtles Can Fly (4 Stars)
I wish everyone who has an opinion on the war in Iraq could see "Turtles Can Fly."
Suggest Your Own Billboard Slogan in Tom Delay Country
Nude Republicans (Adult)
Froma Harrop's Latest Column
Wonderful Bush Videos
Reader Review
'Fever Pitch'
REVIEW OF "FEVER PITCH"
Initially the daughter thought she had a date to see this; but that didn't pan out so she badgered me to take her to see it. I wanted to see it but not necessarily last night - but she talked me into it. All the way there she kept saying what a loser she was that she was almost 16 and had to spend a Friday night going to the movies with her mother. However, her passion to see the movie won out and we went and saw a Fever Pitch.
The movie is about Ben (Jimmy Fallon) a guy who moved to Boston when he was seven-years-old. His parents had just gotten divorced. He's from New Jersey. He had no friends and he we was devastated that he left his father back in New Jersey. His mother was working all the time so he was all alone. No brothers and sisters. And one day his Uncle takes him to a Boston Red Sox game, and all of a sudden his world opens up and that becomes his salvation. It's a guy who is not just a fan, it's a guy who sees being part of Red Sox Nation as part of his life. He's not able to have a functioning relationship with someone else because the Red Sox take up too much of his time. He meets Linday (Drew Barrymore)who is just fantastic, and he really falls for her to the point where he realizes that there's more to life than the Red Sox, but the Red Sox are pulling him back, too. He has to make up his mind as to what's more important to him. This girl who is the love of his life or this team who is the love of his life.
The story is narrated by Al (Jack Kehler) who has shared season ticket seats with Ben for 23 years and has watched him grow up. Lindsay, who falls hard for Ben, works as hard at learning the lore and legend of the Red Sox, including the horror of Bill Buckner's Error and the Curse of the Bambino. It is a cute romantic movie about compromising for love and how far you need to go to make a relationship work. The chemistry between Fallon and Barrymore is fantastic and as much as I hate to admit it - Jimmy Fallon worked his acting chops here.
The best part for me, which had me weeping in the first 5 minutes, was how this was most of all a love letter from The Farrelly Brothers to the city of Boston and the shrine that is Fenway Park. The scene of young Ben, aged 7, walking into the stadium shown from a 7 year old's point of view was poignant and illustrated how mystical it is. It makes you realize what Paul Simon meant when he sang "the cross in in the ballpark".
I give this movie 4 out of 5 WORLD CHAMPION RINGS for capturing the spirit of the Red Sox AND being a good love story.
Heather
houndog2@cox.net
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny & breezy.
Had hoped to get tomatoes planted, but between errands & some pals dropping by, there wasn't any daylight left.
Looks for New TV Watcher
Jimmy Kimmel
ABC late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel is looking to hire a new professional couch potato.
One of the four staffers he pays to watch TV all day and gather humorous clips for his opening monologue each night is leaving the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show, so the comedian is launching a nationwide search for a replacement.
The job pays about $500 or $600 a week, "and that's still more than they deserve, honestly," he said in an interview with Reuters on Friday.
Kimmel planned to announce the unusual job opening on his show Friday, and applicants were directed to seek details on the network Web site, ABC.com.
Jimmy Kimmel
Newest Doctor Who
David Tennant
Actor David Tennant, star of BBC period drama Casanova, has been officially named the new Doctor Who. Tennant, 33, will become the 10th Time Lord when filming starts on the new series in Cardiff this summer. He is taking over from Christopher Eccleston, who announced he was quitting last month after only one series as the Doctor. Tennant, who will star alongside assistant Billie Piper, said he was "delighted, excited and honoured".
Other actors linked with the time-travelling role had included Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Richard E Grant, David Thewlis and Alan Davies.
Tennant, from West Lothian, has also appeared in BBC shows Blackpool and He Knew He Was Right and the Stephen Fry movie Bright Young Things.
A new 13-part adventure and Christmas special will start filming later in 2005.
David Tennant
Paper Warns About Comic
'La Cucaracha'
The Star Tribune warned its readers Saturday that some might be offended by a comic strip about the Red Lake Indian Reservation shootings.
In the syndicated "La Cucaracha" strip that also ran Saturday, a teacher asks what resident Bush might have said to console those affected by the shootings last month which left 10 people dead, including the teenage gunman.
One student answers, "I'm really so sorry you're not an Anglo suburban reservation." Another says, "You shoulda stuck to arrows." A third says, "Pow? Wow!"
Editor Anders Gyllenhaal, in a note to readers, said the paper was not aware of the topic of the comic strip until after the section had been preprinted. He said the paper gives broad latitude to comics and rarely pulls a strip, but it wanted to recognize that some readers could find the cartoon inappropriate.
'La Cucaracha'
Apollo 13 Astronaut Donates Memorabilia
Jim Lovell
Former astronaut Jim Lovell, whose near-fatal trip to the moon was made famous in the movie "Apollo 13," has given a planetarium the handbook whose cardboard cover was used to save the space crew's lives.
Lovell donated several items from his career to the Adler Planetarium to mark the institution's 75th anniversary.
The handbook's cardboard cover was torn off and used in an air purifier to let Lovell and his fellow astronauts breathe. "If it hadn't worked, we would have been poisoned by our own exhalation," Lovell said on Wednesday.
The planetarium will also receive the two-man Gemini 12 spacecraft that Lovell flew with Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the first mission in which two spacecraft docked. That capsule will be at the planetarium next fall on long-term loan from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Jim Lovell
Former Ziegfeld Girl Plans Return
Doris Eaton Travis
She began dancing on Broadway while the doughboys were still fighting in France. In the 1920s, she was Al Jolson's leading lady, and later was the first to perform "Singin' in the Rain" - years before Gene Kelly.
On Friday, 101-year-old Doris Eaton Travis, a former Ziegfeld Girl, was back on a 42nd Street stage, rehearsing for Broadway's 19th annual fund-raiser to fight AIDS.
The 5-foot-2, silver-haired dynamo, who lives in Norman, Okla., is the featured performer in an opening number for the benefit show (scheduled for Monday and Tuesday).
Part of a show business family, she began performing with her brothers and sisters at age 5. She was hired by the legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld in 1918 and danced with the troupe for several years before heading to Hollywood, where she appeared in a number of films. In 1926, she was back on Broadway, starring with Jolson in "Big Boy."
In 1929, she was a featured dancer at the Music Box Review Theater on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, where she first introduced the song "Singin' in the Rain."
For more, Doris Eaton Travis
Chairing Portsmouth Art Show
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono has agreed to serve as honorary chairwoman of an art competition and exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War.
"The Portsmouth peace treaty is a very important and enduring symbol of peace that is worthy of honoring and celebrating with this visual arts competition and exhibition," said Ono, wife of the late Beatle John Lennon.
The exhibition of works reflecting visions of peace and harmony is scheduled for July 20 through Sept. 5.
Yoko Ono
Writers To Pay Homage
'Don Quixote'
Some of the literary world's most prominent figures, including British novelist Salman Rushdie and US author Paul Auster, were expected to pay homage to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and his immortal classic, "Don Quixote of La Mancha."
Canadian author Margaret Atwood, Algerian writer Assia Djebar, Italy's Claudio Magris, Norman Manea of Romania, Antonio Munoz Molina of Spain and Colombia's Laura Restrepo were also scheduled to honor Cervantes at a special event here commemorating the quadricentennial of his fanciful book.
The celebration, to be held Saturday evening at the city's public library, is part of New York's Festival of International Literature, sponsored by the PEN American Center and New York's Cervantes Institute.
'Don Quixote'
Honored at Istanbul Film Festival
Harvey Keitel
Actor Harvey Keitel was awarded a lifetime achievement prize Saturday at the closing ceremony of the 24th Istanbul Film Festival.
Italian film legend Sophia Loren received the achievement award at the opening of the festival.
A Belgian film about a woman dealing with her husband's affair with her sister and a Japanese film about an unmarried reporter's unexpected pregnancy were joint winners at the ceremony. "Gille's Wife" by Frederic Foteyne and "Cafe Lumiere," a Japanese film by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, picked up the Golden Tulip prize.
Harvey Keitel
Arrested in Crash of NYC Police Car
DMX
Rapper DMX was arrested after a three-car crash involving a police cruiser on a major New York City expressway, police said on Saturday.
Police said a car driven by DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, hit another car, which then slammed into the cruiser late Friday on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx. Two police officers were treated for minor injuries.
The 34-year-old hip-hop star was charged with driving with a suspended license and released, police said.
Last year, DMX was jailed for weapon and drug possession, and criminal impersonation after trying to steal a car then crashing into another vehicle through a parking lot gate at New York's Kennedy Airport.
DMX
Shooting At Detroit TV Station
WDIV
A former employee visiting Detroit's WDIV television station was shot shortly after walking into the building Friday by a man police and the station said had previously assaulted WDIV employees.
The suspected gunman was standing inside the downtown station's doors when the victim walked in and was shot about 4:30 p.m. EDT, Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said. The gunman then fled. An unidentified man police were calling a "person of interest" was taken into custody later Friday evening in southwestern Detroit, Bully-Cummings said.
Joe Berwanger, WDIV's general manager, identified the victim as John Owens, a producer and editor for Southfield-based Mort Crim Communications, whose clients include the Archdiocese of Detroit and General Motors Corp., as well as the station.
Bully-Cummings said the suspect entered one set of unlocked doors at the station but was not allowed to enter a second set of doors into the lobby because a receptionist recognized him from a picture, posted around the station, of a man who allegedly had assaulted employees.
The receptionist was notifying security when Owens came in the door and was shot, the chief said.
WDIV
Named for Designer Marc Ecko
Rhino
Marc Ecko, who made a rhino logo into a fashion statement, now has a zoo rhino named in his honor.
A 3-month-old Indian rhino born at the San Diego Wild Animal Park has been named Ecko in honor of the designer, who donated $150,000 to launch the International Rhino Foundation's project to save the species, park officials said Thursday.
The project will work with the Wild Animal Park to move Indian rhinos to reserves in India, protecting them from poachers who hunt the species for its horn. It also will support breeding exchanges among the park and zoos in India.
Ecko founded his rhino-branded apparel line in 1992.
Rhino
Offensive Name?
Mt. Diablo
An Oakley man has asked the federal government to rename Mount Diablo, saying the current name, which means devil in Spanish, is offensive to his religious sensibilities.
Art Mijares applied to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names for the change and suggests naming the mountain Mount Kawukum, which he believes has American Indian roots.
"Words have power, and when you start mentioning words that come from the dark side, evil thrives," Mijares told the Contra Costa Times. "When I take boys camping on the mountain, I don't even like to say its name. I have to explain what the name means. Why should we have a main feature of our community that celebrates the devil?"
The name Kawukum first surfaced in 1866, when a church group tried to change Mount Diablo's name for reasons nearly identical to Mijares', according to San Francisco Bay area researcher Bev Ortiz.
Mt. Diablo
