'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Holly Allen, Christopher Beam, and Torie Bosch: Bushies Behaving Badly (slate.com)
An illustrated guide to GOP scandals.
Brent Budowsky: Speaker Wins a Big One (pundits.thehill.com)
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) towers 10 points above both the president and the Congress in national approval, and therein lies the message of the moment.
Patrick Cockburn: Superpower Undone By Small War (tompaine.com; Posted on nevadathunder.com)
or
Patrick Cockburn: Superpower Undone By Small War (tompaine.com; Posted on nevadathunder.com)
The U.S. occupation has destabilized Iraq and the Middle East. Stability will not return until the occupation has ended. The Iraqi government, penned into the Green Zone, has become tainted in the eyes of Iraqis by reliance on a foreign power. Even when it tries to be independent, it seldom escapes the culture of dependency in which its members live. Much of what has gone wrong has more to do with the U.S. than Iraq. The weaknesses of its government and army have been exposed. Iraq has joined the list of small wars-as France found in Algeria in the 1950s and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s-that inflict extraordinary damage on their occupiers.
Mark Morford: Talkin' To The Steering Wheel (sfgate.com)
When everyday tech is nearly identical to magic, why don't our little bodies explode?
Emily Bazelon: Little Geniuses (slate.com)
What kind of praise do kids need to hear?
Patt Morrison: Living like a million bucks (latimes.com)
A day in the life of your average L.A. millionaire.
Joel Stein: Court jesters in our time (latimes.com)
The hardworking comics who play the Renaissance fair circuit.
Captain America #25: The Death of the Dream, Part One (popmatters.com)
What do we dream of, who are our heroes, and what does it mean when we lose them?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Cool and sunny.
Finally Joins Stars On Darfur
Steven Spielberg
Director Steven Spielberg on Friday joined the chorus of Hollywood stars seeking an end to killing in the Darfur region of Sudan by calling on China to pressure the African nation into accepting U.N. peacekeepers.
Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of blockbuster films ranging from "Jaws" to "Schindler's List," released a letter he sent to Chinese President Hu Jintao in April saying he recently came to understand China's strategic support of Sudan.
The letter comes at a time when Beijing is preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games, and some groups and politicians around the world are urging a boycott due to China's economic ties to Sudan. In his letter, Spielberg notes he will play a role in the Olympic Games as an "artistic advisor."
"I add my voice to those who ask that China change its policy toward Sudan and pressure the Sudanese government to accept the entrance of United Nations peacekeepers to protect the victims of genocide in Darfur," Spielberg wrote.
Steven Spielberg
Criticizes Al Gore
Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof, who organized the Live Aid and Live 8 benefit concerts, criticized the Live Earth music events Al Gore is putting together this summer, saying they lack a specific goal, according to a Dutch newspaper report Saturday.
The Live Earth concerts will be held in cities around the world on July 7, with proceeds funding a yet-to-be-named foundation to combat climate change, under Gore's direction.
"I hope they're a success," De Volkskrant newspaper quoted Geldof as saying in an interview.
"But why is (Gore) actually organizing them? To make us aware of the greenhouse effect? Everybody's known about that problem for years. We are all (expletive) conscious of global warming," he said.
Bob Geldof
Newest Inductees
RockWalk
The Mamas and the Papas, Al Kooper and Otis Redding - all performers at 1967's Monterey International Pop Festival - were inducted into Hollywood's RockWalk on Friday.
Redding, who died in a plane crash in December 1967, was posthumously inducted. His widow, Zelma Redding, and daughter, Karla Redding-Andrews, received a plaque on his behalf.
The Mamas and the Papas singer Michelle Phillips, the only living member of the '60s folk-rock group behind the hit "California Dreamin'," put her hands in wet cement at the gallery.
Kooper, the 63-year-old songwriter, pianist and record producer, also attended the ceremony.
RockWalk
Syd Barrett Tribute
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd have performed at a gig in honor of ex-bandmate Syd Barrett--but a full reunion didn't happen on the night.
Warring pair Roger Waters and David Gilmour, who famously fell out in the 1980s, appeared separately at the tribute gig at London's Barbican Centre last night (May 10).
Gilmour was joined by the band's drummer Nick Mason and keyboard player Rick Wright, while Waters performed solo.
However, Waters didn't join in the final performance of "Bike," which featured all the evening's other performers, including Damon Albarn and Chrissie Hynde.
Pink Floyd
Departing Aspen
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival
After 13 years, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival won't be returning to this resort town next winter.
"We've made the bittersweet decision not to host the festival there in 2008. We hope that circumstances will allow us to return to Aspen in the future," festival CEO Bob Crestani said in a statement released by HBO, the event's main sponsor, on Friday.
The announcement comes after a third of the comics set to perform this year didn't arrive on time because of bad weather. An HBO spokeswoman who didn't want to be identified said it's also become harder to get hotel rooms in Aspen because more hotels offer time-share rooms or minimum stays of four or five nights.
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival
Thailand
Miss Tiffany Universe
A 21-year-old student and aspiring social worker was named Thailand's most beautiful transsexual late Friday, in a pageant bursting with glitter and sequins that has become a national spectacle.
In a nation obsessed with beauty pageants and renowned for its sexual tolerance, the Miss Tiffany Universe competition is taken every bit as seriously as more traditional pageants here.
Wearing a white beaded evening gown, Thanyarasmi Siraphatphakorn won the crown in the early hours of Saturday after a glittering competition that was broadcast on national television.
Known locally as "kathoey," or the third gender, Thai transsexuals have slowly been leaving cabarets for mainstream success in music or other pursuits, helped in part by the popularity of the Miss Tiffany contest.
Miss Tiffany Universe
Turn To Comic Books
Novelists
Author Jonathan Lethem was a big fan of the comic "Omega the Unknown" when he was a boy growing up in Brooklyn, and he was pretty depressed when the superhero vanished from corner store shelves.
Never fear. He'll see Omega in print again soon, because Marvel Entertainment is reviving the comic after 30 years - with Lethem writing the story.
Lethem joins a growing list of novelists such as Stephen King and Michael Chabon, who have shifted to work on comic books as the medium gains critical and academic respect and becomes more mainstream.
Novelists
Plug Pulled
The Dog House with JV and Elvis
One month after CBS Radio fired radio host Don Imus, it has permanently pulled the plug on a pair of suspended New York shock jocks for a prank phone call rife with offensive Asian stereotypes.
"The Dog House with JV and Elvis," hosted by Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay, "will no longer be broadcast," CBS Radio spokeswoman Karen Mateo said Saturday.
Vandergrift and Lay broadcast a call to a Chinese restaurant in which the caller, in an exaggerated accent, placed an order for "shrimp flied lice," claimed he was a student of kung fu, and compared menu items to employees' body parts.
The initial airing of the call went unnoticed, but a rebroadcast after Imus's firing prompted an outcry from Asian-American groups. Vandergrift and Lay were initially suspended without pay, but Asian-Americans quickly demanded the same penalty applied to the much higher-profile Imus.
The Dog House with JV and Elvis
Yet, Pigboy plays 'Obama The Magic Negro' daily, with no notice from the MSM.
Accused of Groping DJ
Tracy Morgan
A disk jockey filed a misdemeanor battery complaint against comedian Tracy Morgan, saying the NBC sitcom star inappropriately groped her at a South Florida radio station Friday morning.
Yuleika De Castro told police that Morgan smelled of alcohol as he touched her shoulders and arms, kissed the back of her head, Miramar Police Department spokesman Bill Robertson said.
De Castro, whose on-air name is Sandy Domingo, said she filed the complaint because she felt "violated" and "dirty."
"He said he wants to impregnate me," Domingo told The Associated Press.
Tracy Morgan
Los Angeles Police Arrest
The Game
The Game was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats after police searched his home for more than three hours, authorities said.
The arrest Friday was related to an incident that occurred in February, said Officer Martha Garcia, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman. She declined to elaborate.
KABC-TV captured the 27-year-old rapper being driven off in the back of a patrol car as a bystander yelled, "We love you Game, we love you."
The Game stuck his tongue out at the camera and said, "I want to say that I'm not guilty, and I love California."
The Game
Japan Seeks Re-Write
Nanjing
Japan should take steps to ensure that films and exhibitions planned in China on the Nanjing massacre do not distort the truth, a government official said on Friday
China's official Xinhua news agency said in late March that no fewer than four Chinese films about the wartime atrocity were planned for this year, the 70th anniversary of Japan's capture of China's former capital.
China says invading Japanese troops slaughtered 300,000 men, women and children in Nanjing, then known as Nanking. An Allied tribunal after World War Two put the death toll at about 142,000.
But some Japanese historians say the 1937 massacre has been exaggerated and some conservatives deny there was even a massacre.
Nanjing
Mysterious Object
Space Junk
A mysterious metallic object that crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home earlier this year was not a meteorite after all, but probably a piece of space junk, scientists said Friday.
The silvery object was made of a stainless-steel alloy that does not occur in nature and is most likely "orbital debris" - part of a satellite, rocket or some other spacecraft, said Rutgers University geologist Jeremy Delaney.
Srinivasan Nageswaran, whose family discovered the object after it crashed through the roof and dented the tile bathroom floor at his home in Freehold Township in January, was disappointed by the news.
"That's the nature of science," said the 46-year-old information technology consultant "If the conclusion from the test says it's not a meteorite, then it's not a meteorite. We have to move forward."
Space Junk
Strikes Possible
Hollywood
Hollywood studios are speeding production on movies and TV shows, preparing for a possible strike by writers and more trouble next year when contracts with actors and directors expire.
TV networks, which are in the midst of planning fall schedules, also might pack their lineups with more reality shows and other unscripted fare as protection against a possible strike.
Among the shows accelerating production is NBC's "Las Vegas," which started three months earlier than usual with the aim of finishing 18 to 24 episodes before the fall. Normally, the show would have only about seven or eight episodes filmed.
The last time writers struck was in 1988, a bitter five-month walkout.
Hollywood
Hoof In Mouth Disease
Sam Brownback
Note to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Damed Fool): In Packerland, it's not cool to diss Brett Favre.
The GOP presidential hopeful drew boos and groans Friday at the Wisconsin Republican Party convention when he used a football analogy to talk about the need to focus on families.
"This is fundamental blocking and tackling," he said. "This is your line in football. If you don't have a line, how many passes can Peyton Manning complete? Greatest quarterback, maybe, in NFL history."
Realizing what he had said, the Kansas Republican slumped at the podium and put his head in his hands.
Sam Brownback
In Memory
Bernard Gordon
Bernard Gordon, a screenwriter blacklisted during Hollywood's anti-communist crusade in the 1950s, has died. He was 88.
Gordon wrote dozens of movies but many never carried his name until the Writers Guild of America began restoring credits to blacklisted writers in 1980. About a dozen of Gordon's credits were restored, more than any other writer.
Gordon's movies included "55 Days at Peking," "Battle of the Bulge" and the 1962 science fiction cult classic, "Day of the Triffids," along with low-budget fare like "Zombies of Mora Tau."
Gordon was born Oct. 29, 1918 in New Britain, Conn., and raised in New York City. He moved to Hollywood around 1940. He was declared physically unfit for the military and spent World War II working in the film industry.
In the 1950s, Gordon was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was investigating Communist influence in Hollywood. He was never called before the panel, but an acquaintance named him before the committee and he was fired from a studio and blacklisted, along with hundreds of other film industry workers.
For a decade, Gordon couldn't work under his own name but continued to churn out films using pseudonyms. He spent several years in Spain, where he wrote and produced movies. His last movie, "Surfacing," was in 1981.
In 1999, Gordon took the lead in protesting the awarding of an honorary Oscar to director Elia Kazan, who had named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Gordon wrote two books: 1999's "Hollywood Exile, or How I Learned to Love the Blacklist," and 2004's "The Gordon File: A Screenwriter Recalls Twenty Years of FBI Surveillance," which was based on his 300-page FBI file.
Bernard Gordon
In Memory
Dayna Ho-Henry
The late Do Ho's daughter, Dayna Ho-Henry, was found dead Friday, her brother Dwight said.
The 51-year-old's death comes less than a week after the Waikiki Beach funeral for her father, who died April 14 of heart failure at age 76.
No foul play is suspected, police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.
Dayna Ho-Henry
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