Michael Dare eating hemp seeds (imported from Canada and sold at a Whole Foods blocks away) in front of the sentencing of Marc Emery for five years in federal prison for exporting hemp seeds from Canada - Seattle, 9/10/10.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
David Bruce: Here's why 'WiseUP' columnist supports gay marriage (athensnews.com)
I know some gays and lesbians, and I like them and realize that they are capable of long-term, committed, same-sex relationships. I would not deny them the ability to marry someone they love simply because they love someone of the same sex as themselves. Therefore, I am for same-sex civil marriage.
Mark Shields: We Have Seen This Movie Before (creators.com)
After a fleeting up-tick of optimism after President Obama's inauguration, pessimism has returned. Today, 30 percent of voters, in the most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, saw things "headed in the right direction," while 61 percent believe they're "off on the wrong track."
Jim Hightower: DIRTY COAL MONEY
Old King Coal - what a dirty old soul! Not merely dirty in terms of the gross pollution, mountain destruction, and mineworker deaths that the Appalachian coal giants are causing, but also in terms of the massive loads of campaign cash that they're shoveling into America's elections in a crass effort to get lawmakers who'll do their bidding in Congress.
Francis Beckett: Welcome to my dream school (guardian.co.uk)
If you cannot read, you cannot learn anything else. Most of what is done in other lessons goes over your head, and you end up disaffected and disruptive, leaving school with no qualifications and no prospect of work. Prisons are packed with adults who never learned to read properly.
"The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America" by Robert Love: A review by Winifred Gallagher
Victorian mores still dominated mainstream America at the dawn of the 20th century, but an eclectic proto-counterculture stirred in more adventurous circles. Spiritual teachers including the mystic G. I. Gurdjieff, the feminist evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, and the prosperity-minded African-American minister Father Divine preached new religious ideas to big followings. Pierre Bernard has faded from the ranks of such well-known names, but the man who popularized yoga in the United States, where 20 million people now practice it, was once the much-chronicled glittering sage of the Jazz Age.
"Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History" by Yunte Huang: A review by Elinor Langer
A few years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations forced many of the students who participated to leave China, Yunte Huang, a lonely graduate student in English in upstate New York, stumbled on the Charlie Chan detective series at a garage sale and became an "avid fan."
Michelle Pauli: How a Viking burial at sea became child's play for Ally Kennen (guardian.co.uk)
The author of three teen novels, Kennen drew from her experience of foster parenting to write, but her latest children's story turns a grandfather's funeral into a 'rollicking adventure.'
Jack Shafer: The Fallen Status of Books ( slate.com)
Hard times for hardcovers.
"History of Beauty" ((2ND)05 Edition) by Umberto Eco: A review by Arthur Krystal
Beauty is a mess, a sinkhole, a trap. Approach it philosophically and you're immediately bogged down in questions of idealism, empiricism, subjectivity, and objectivity.
DAVID COLMAN: AT HOME WITH: ROBERT INDIANA; Mr. Love Finds an Island, If Not Entirely to Himself (February 6, 2003; nytimes.com)
VINALHAVEN, Me.- A WINDBLOWN island 80 minutes by ferry from Maine's rocky coast might not be everyone's idea of paradise in frigid winter. But the artist Robert Indiana, who moved here from Manhattan 25 years ago, prefers his chilly exile on Main Street.
Dareland
Eating Hemp
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Odd Bedfellows?' Edition...
On Labor Day, the Michigan's largest construction trade union (Carpenters and Millwrights with 18,000 members) broke ranks with other major unions (UAW, AFL-CIO, AFSCME) and endorsed the GOP candidate, Rick Snyder, for governor instead of the Democratic candidate, Virg Bernero.
Breaking with Dems, carpenters union planning to back Snyder | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
Is it ever appropriate for a Union to back a GOP candidate?
(Please feel free to comment with yer response)
1.) No! Never! _________
2.) Yes, sometimes _______
Send your response to
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
PURPLE GENE'S MINI REVIEW
MACHETE
MACHETE
Directed by Ethan Maniquis and
Robert Rodriguez
Written by Robert Rodriguez and
Álvaro Rodríguez
PURPLE GENE'S MINI REVIEW: MACHETE
BLOODY GOOD TIME WITH INTESTINAL ESCAPE ROPE, BEHEADINGS, STAB THROUGHS, BRAINS ON THE WALL, MEXICAN ICE CREAM TRUCKS, BOUNCING TRICKED OUT OLD CARS, UGLY ASS
DANNY TREJO, DUMB
DENIRO, DUMBER
DON JOHNSON, PORKY SAMURAI
STEVEN SEGAL, GORGEOUS
JESSICA ALBA, MACHO
MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ,,,,,,AND JAIL BIRD
LINDSAY LOHAN'S BREASTS!
7 OUTA 10 FOR THE FINAL BIKE FUCKING SCENE
Link from RJ
Spain on the Edge
Hi there...
I wanted to show another side to Spain here...
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, but it feels like fall.
Honored In France
Olivia de Havilland
Oscar-winning actress Olivia de Havilland, whose memorable performance in Gone With The Wind still touches hearts 70 years later, has been awarded the Legion of Honour by the president of France.
At 94, de Havilland looked radiant as Nicolas Sarkozy pinned on the insignia of the chevalier, or knight, of the Legion of Honour at the presidential palace.
Sarkozy told de Havilland that "you honour France for having chosen us". The American actress of British origin has lived in Paris since 1953.
De Havilland played the role of fragile southern belle Melanie Wilkes in Gone With The Wind and is the last surviving major star of the 1939 classic. Her performance in another movie, To Each His Own in 1946, gave her a first Oscar.
Olivia de Havilland
Berlin Installation
Yoko Ono
At the center of Yoko Ono's new installation is a perfectly round bullet hole shot through a large pane of glass that John Lennon's widow says challenges viewers to confront "incredible violence and abuse" in the world today.
Titled "Das Gift" - a play on the word's meaning in English, a present, and German, poison - the exhibit opened in Berlin Friday. The 77-year-old artist told The Associated Press she hoped it would force viewers to confront violence without losing hope.
"I want all of us to understand what is going on in the world now, which is incredible violence and abuse," Ono said. "Instead of just putting that reality under the rug and just forget about it, we have to face it."
The centerpiece of the installation is called simply "The Hole," the oversized bullet hole in the window that Ono said she made with the idea of the violence that takes place daily around the world.
Yoko Ono
Urged To Scrap Israel Show
Pete Seeger
Folk music legend Pete Seeger has been asked to abandon an upcoming concert in Israel and show his support for a Palestinian-led cultural boycott of the nation.
The singer/songwriter is billed to perform at the With Earth and Each Other: A Virtual Rally for a Better Middle East - an event organised by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and the Jewish National Fund in November and his involvement has upset activists calling on all musicians to scrap Israeli shows.
Officials at steering human rights group Adalah New York insist they are among 40 organisations urging Seeger to change his mind about the show, and join the likes of the Pixies, Elvis Costello and Carlos Santana in boycotting concerts in Israel.
Seeger has also been asked to call off the gig by Israeli activist Jeff Halper, chairman of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - an organisation to which Seeger has been a donor for over 10 years.
Pete Seeger
World's Biggest Chocolate Bar
Armenia
Anyone looking for huge amounts of free chocolate should book a flight to Armenia's capital next month. That's when the world's largest chocolate bar will be up for grabs in Yerevan's main square. The Guinness Book of World Records certified the 9,702-pound (4,410-kilogram) chocolate bar at a ceremony Saturday.
It was made by Grand Candy factory and contains all natural ingredients, including 70 percent cocoa mass. The chocolate bar is 224 inches (560 centimeters) long, 110 inches (275 centimeters) wide and 10 inches (25 centimeters) thick.
The factory owner, Karen Vardanyan, said that the chocolate bar was produced to mark the 10th anniversary of the company. He said it will be divided up and handed out Oct. 16.
Armenia
Oprah's Reality Star
Sarah Ferguson
Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson is coming to the Oprah Winfrey Network next year.
The network announced Friday that Ferguson will star in a six-part reality series called "Finding Sarah." On the series, Ferguson plans to open up about her lifelong battles with weight, relationships and finances as she shares with viewers her struggle to rebuild her life.
"Finding Sarah" is scheduled to premiere in early 2011.
The cable network will launch on Jan. 1. Its full name is OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. It is a joint venture of Winfrey's Harpo Inc. and Discovery Communications Inc. The network will replace the Discovery Health channel.
Sarah Ferguson
Withdraws Dueling NY Lawsuits
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga has resolved her legal wrangle in New York with a music producer who says he launched her career and has sued her for $30.5 million.
Court papers filed this week show the Grammy Award-winning pop star and songwriter-producer Rob Fusari have withdrawn the lawsuits they filed against each other in March.
It's unclear whether they made any monetary deal. Lawyers for both sides and a Gaga spokesman didn't immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages Friday.
Fusari had said the star shoehorned him out of her lucrative career after he co-wrote some of her songs, came up with her stage name and helped get her record deal.
Lady Gaga
Woman Retracts Previous Claim
Anna Nicole Smith
A key witness at the Anna Nicole Smith drug conspiracy trial retracted previous statements and testified Friday that she never saw defendant Howard K. Stern or anyone else inject Smith with anything.
Quethlie Alexie, who worked as a nanny for the celebrity model in the Bahamas, acknowledged under tough cross-examination that she had signed a sworn affidavit saying she saw Stern inject Smith with a white substance.
She then retracted that claim and a number of other statements.
Alexie has testified that she saw Stern, who was Smith's lawyer-boyfriend, and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, another defendant, take Smith into a bathroom. When they left, she found a bloody syringe, cotton and burned spoon of liquid, Alexie said.
Anna Nicole Smith
Belgian Ex-Bishop Goes Into Hiding
Roger Vangheluwe
The former Belgian bishop who resigned in April after admitting he sexually abused a nephew for years said Saturday he would go into hiding to assess his future, despite calls for him to leave the church immediately.
Roger Vangheluwe said in a statement he would immediately leave an abbey in his bishopry of Bruges, where he has been staying since his April 23 resignation. His bishopry has urged him to seek another place to live, and several victims of sexual abuse by clergy as well as a prominent senator have called on him to leave the church as an institution.
Vangheluwe gave no response to the calls for him to step out of priesthood, but said that "as of today, I will contemplate my life and future somewhere hidden, outside the bishopry of Bruges."
His April admission triggered a huge crisis in the Belgian Roman Catholic Church. On Friday, a commission presented a report of hundreds of sex abuse victims over the past half century with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides.
Roger Vangheluwe
Network Faces Challenges
Discovery: Hasbro Kids
10/10/10. That's the date when the kids TV market will get even more crowded with the launch of the Hub, a network joint venture of Discovery Communications and toy giant Hasbro.
Replacing the Discovery Kids channel, which has a reach of 60 million homes (to which the Hub plans to add over time), the network aims to carve out its own audience and advertising dollars in a space dominated by conglomerate-controlled players including Viacom's Nickelodeon, Disney's Disney Channel and Disney XD and Time Warner's Cartoon Network.
Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite alone will make more than $1 billion in ad revenue this year on top of nearly $574 million in affiliate-fee revenue, according to SNL Kagan estimates. The research firm eyes $375 million worth of ads and $209 million in affiliate money for Cartoon and $111 million and $125 million for Disney XD. All tower over Discovery Kids' estimated $13 million and $49 million, respectively.
Although that proves it will be an uphill battle, it also means the Hub has a lot of room to grow. Taking all Nickelodeon networks, Cartoon, Disney Channel and Disney XD and PBS Kids Sprout together, SNL Kagan sees about $1.6 billion in kids TV ad and $2.3 billion in affiliate revenue this year.
Discovery: Hasbro Kids
MTV Orders More
"Jersey Shore"
MTV is planning more "Jersey Shore" this year.
The network is lining up a pair of specials to air after the Miami-set second season finale October 21. The first will be a cast reunion show, scheduled for October 28. The second is a behind-the-scenes special, for which a premiere date has not been determined. Season 3, for which the crew goes back to the Shore, will launch next year.
"Jersey Shore" has been the cable ratings phenomenon of the summer, with each recent week setting an all-time record for the show. The most recent episode drew 6.5 million viewers.
"Jersey Shore"
In Memory
Irwin Silber
Irwin Silber, who as founding editor of the small but influential magazine Sing Out became a towering figure in the 1960s American folk music renaissance that brought Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie and numerous others to prominence, has died at age 84.
Silber died Wednesday at an extended care facility in Oakland, his stepdaughter Nina Menendez told The Associated Press on Friday. She said the cause of death was complications related to Alzheimer's disease.
Silber founded Sing Out in 1950 with legendary folk singer Pete Seeger and musicologist Alan Lomax. He also published more than a dozen books, wrote for several other publications and produced numerous folk music concerts.
At Sing Out, he worked on a shoestring budget, noting in 2001 that most of the time he collected only half of his $50 weekly salary. Nonetheless, he built the magazine into a bible of American folk music, reporting on such seminal figures as Seeger, Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
As a result, when a new generation of folk singers burst onto the music scene in the early 1960s, he was perfectly positioned to cover them. Sing Out carried some of the earliest reports on Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Judy Collins and others.
Before starting Sing Out, Silber was executive director of People's Songs, an organization created by Seeger and others to promote the music of the American labor movement.
Because of his ties to left-wing causes and his association with the Communist Party in the 1950s, he was called before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1958. Silber said in a 2005 interview that he was asked by a committee member if he had ever taught at a New York City school said to have Marxist ties.
When asked what he taught at the school, Silber said he replied "square dancing" and the questioning ended.
Among Silber's books were "Lift Every Voice," "Songs of the Cil War," "Songs of the Great American West" and "Songs of Independence." He also edited the landmark folk song publication "Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People" and published such non-music books as "Socialism: What Went Wrong?" and "A Patient's Guide to Knee and Hip Replacement."
In addition to his stepson, Jesse Cahn, and stepdaughter, Silber is survived by his wife, jazz singer Barbara Dane.
Other survivors include a stepson, Pablo Menendez, and children Nina Silber, Fred Silber and Josh Silber.
Irwin Silber
In Memory
Carlton "King" Coleman
Carlton "King" Coleman, a pioneer in American rhythm and blues, died Saturday morning from heart failure at a Miami hospice, his son said. He was 78.
Coleman was known for providing the lead vocals on the 1959 hit "(Do The) Mashed Potatoes," recorded with James Brown's band. According to a 2003 Miami New Times article, Brown had initially planned to do the vocals himself, but a dispute with his record label made that impossible.
To avoid any lawsuits from Brown's label, a Miami producer had Coleman sing on the mostly instrumental track, while the group officially credited with the song was "Nat Kendrick and the Swans," named for Brown's drummer.
Besides working with Brown, Coleman also released numerous singles of his own during his singing career, including "Mashed Potato Man" and "The Boo Boo Song."
Coleman also performed with many other rhythm and blues legends, such as B.B. King and Jackie Wilson. He performed at venues all over the country, including the legendary Apollo Theater in New York.
Coleman's son, Tony, went on to become B.B. King's drummer.
Besides performing on stage, the elder Coleman also worked many years as a radio disc jockey. He started at Tampa's WTMP and eventually moved on to Miami's WFEC. He finally ended up at Miami's WMBM, where he was one of the city's most popular DJs in the late 1950s.
In recent years, Coleman returned to the airwaves with a nightly radio show on WMBM, which is now a gospel station.
Carlton "King" Coleman
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