'Best of TBH Politoons'
Tonight
Erin Hart Show
Please join
Erin Hart Saturday and Sunday night from 9pm - 1am (pdt) on 710 KIRO.
Rabbi Daniel Weiner and Dean Robert Taylor check in about their
recent trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories--avail yourselves of
their fresh perspective.
And Marty
(or is it Martha G.?) checks in from
Bartcop.com
with all the news too fierce to
mention from the blogosphere. Join us!
Please check out erinhartshow.com and
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Reader Movie Suggesions
Political Movie Titles
Hi, Marty,
If you get HBO Latin, check out the start of the movie"¿De Que Lado Estas? "which is like "The Battle of Algiers", a collage of political protest footage with a pretty intense soundtrack.
TiVo tells me that for Directtv, it comes on again at 9/29 5 PM and
9/30 8:45 PM.
If you haven't seen "Don't Tempt Me ('Sin noticias de Dios')", with Penélope Cruz and Victoria Abril, you should make a beeline -- very funny in spots.
Again, with HBO Latin, you can get the Spanish version (with Spanish subtitles for the English parts), with the original title Sin Noticias de Dios (Without News of God)
.
Also, if you like getting your pants scared off, check out "Ju-on", which is a Japanese horror film with a RIVETING soundtrack. It's not bloody, it's CREEPY.
Paul in LA
Thanks, Paul!
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Chris Thompson: War Pornography -- Gore-for-porn swap by US soldiers in Iraq makes Abu Ghraib look like kid stuff (eastbayexpress.com)
If you want to see the true face of war, go to the amateur porn Web site NowThatsFuckedUp.com. For almost a year, American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to Web site administrator Chris Wilson. In return for letting him post these images, Wilson gives the soldiers free access to his site. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography.
Six of the photos originally posted on NowThatsFuckedUp.com -- Horrible and Graphic -- Strong Stomach Required for Viewing (eastbayexpress.com)
We have decided to make available six of the photos originally posted on NowThatsFuckedUp.com, along with the soldiers' original subject headings. This decision to repost them was not made lightly, but we concluded that the graphic nature of the photos, juxtaposed with their flippant treatment by members of the US military, is newsworthy as a statement on US military culture. WARNING: These are brutally graphic war images that many readers will find disturbing. They should NOT be viewed by children or the faint of heart. With that disclaimer, you will find them here. Click on the small photos to view the larger photos with captions.
Cary Stemle: Moral Mendacity (Louisville Eccentric Observer)
In his new book [The Sanctity of Marriage Handbook] -- a stocking stuffer for the pissed-off liberal in your family -- first-time author Bryan Harris lays out the facts about moralistic rightwingers who have their own skeletons. Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, you've been served.
Harry Belafonte Belafonte & Danny Glover Speak Out on Katrina (AlterNet)
More than anything else, Hurricane Katrina revealed a poverty of imagination.
Will Durst: Empty Promises Are the New Black (AlterNet)
If one color stood out, it could be called ochre, auburn, burnt sienna or, as it is probably referred to in the House of Bush: good ol' brown. But not Brownie. You could see it in [Bush's] speech, for although his breeding and discretion kept him from describing the river of human feces that floated past former parade routes, his verbal weave was oddly reminiscent of it.
Goodbye to Bag End
An Elder Day
September 24 - Frodo sees his first Black Rider and begins to believe he is being pursued. A wandering company of elves saves the book from an early and disappointing end when they appear just as a Black Rider is about to sniff out Frodo in a tight spot. The elves are led by Gildor Inglorian of the House of Finrod. Frodo, Sam and Pippin spend the remainder of the evening in the company of elves in the woods above Woodhall. This is fortunate, for it is the word of Frodo's journey and pursuit by Black Riders spread by Gildor and his fellow elves that has Tom Bombadil down by the Withywindle, and causes Elrond to send out searchers, including Glorfindel, thus saving Frodo later on. This is also where Frodo acquires his battle cry, from a song sung by the elves - "Elbereth Gilthoniel!" Gandalf crosses the Isen.
Here we also get a taste of the history of the elves, for Gildor Inglorian is, as Frodo says, a High Elf. He is of the House of Finrod. Finrod was one of the great elves who joined Feanor in exile while they sought to recover the Silmarils. He died defending Beren, who was the great-grandfather of Elrond.
An Elder Day
Jeff Crook
Poetry Corner
Secret Life of Dick Cheney?
Reader Responds
Re: Identify The Hawk
Purple Gene
'Real Time with Bill Maher'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
It was an overcast, but humid day.
We took the Blue Line to downtown LA for the march/protest today.
Out of the +/-60 people who got on the train, 50 of them had signs and/or t-shirts/backpacks and were going our way.
We arrived in time to pick up our BartCop signs & meet up with the always fabulous Joe Bacon & he-who-must-not-be-named.
Some kind people gave the kid a 'War is not healthy for children & other living things' sign, which he proudly waved.
We were amazed at how many city bus drivers gave us a 'thumbs up' or friendly wave on our walk back to the Blue Line station for the return ride to Long Beach.
And, as the backwoods newspaper would phrase it: "A good time was had by all."
Hosting 'SNL' Season Premiere
Steve Carell
Steve Carell will host the season premiere of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" on Oct. 1 with Kanye West as the late-night show's musical guest.
Also scheduled as hosts during October: "Napoleon Dynamite" star Jon Heder, Oscar-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones and seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, with his fiancee, Sheryl Crow, as musical guest, NBC announced Thursday.
Steve Carell
New SAG President
Alan Rosenberg
TV actor Alan Rosenberg was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild on Friday as the more militant wing of the nation's largest performers union regained control of the Hollywood-based labor group.
Rosenberg, best known for playing attorneys on such shows as "L.A. Law" and "Civil Wars," succeeds two-term SAG president Melissa Gilbert, the former child star who led a comparatively moderate rival faction that swept to power in 2001, after a bitter six-month strike against the advertising industry.
In the three-way race to fill her post, Rosenberg gained nearly 40 percent of the vote to defeat Morgan Fairchild, a soap opera veteran and Gilbert ally, and longtime TV actor Robert Conrad, best known for his roles on "Wild, Wild West" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep," who ran as an independent.
"I ran a campaign that offered a simple and straightforward promise: I will fight like hell to get actors their fare share," said Rosenberg, 54, who was active in the 1960s anti-war movement and the Black Panther Party. He is married to actress Marg Helgenberger, who stars on the hit CBS police drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
Alan Rosenberg
Getting Rocker Painted Guitars
Phoenix
Chicago fancifully painted fiberglass cows, the streets of Washington were decorated with donkeys and elephants, and now the Phoenix area is getting 10-foot guitars transformed by artists including Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Nicks and Alice Cooper.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona hopes to raise $1 million by auctioning off 90 giant guitars painted by celebrities and local artists that will be on display across the metropolitan area from Monday through early February.
Along with Van Halen, Nicks and Cooper, guitars were painted or sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Gavin DeGraw and Wayne Gretzky.
Phoenix
Retiring Gimmick
Axe Jeeves
Search site Ask Jeeves is getting rid of the iconic valet that has been its companion since its earliest days.
Citing "user confusion" over what the butler character represents the search site has said that Jeeves will soon be phased out.
There is no firm date for when the character will disappear from the Ask site, but it will soon stop being the brand's most prominent icon.
Axe Jeeves
Va. Home Gets Landmark Status
Patsy Cline
The home of Patsy Cline, already a favorite stop for country music fans, is now recognized by Virginia as a landmark.
Cline, born 1932 as Virginia Paterson Hensley in Winchester, was in 1973 the first solo female to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She is best known for "Crazy," the torch song penned by Willie Nelson.
Cline lived at 608 South Kent St. from age 16 to 21, and lived there off and on through 1957. The home was listed this month on the Virginia Landmarks Register. It also has been proposed for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Patsy Cline
Dialing Up Katrina Donors
Brian Wilson
"Iowa Jim" was suspicious. Was Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson really putting messages on his official Web site urging people to contribute to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts?
The Web surfer using that screen name e-mailed a challenge: If Wilson called and proved it was really him, Jim would gladly donate $100.
"So I called him up!" a jovial Wilson told The Associated Press. "I was surprised that he said he didn't think I was involved because I really was. So I called him up."
Then Wilson and his wife, Melinda, got another brainstorm. Why not have the legend behind such musical standards as "Good Vibrations," "California Girls" and "Surfin'" call everyone who donates $100 or more? And he decided to match any contribution of $100 or more posted through his Web site by Oct. 1.
Brian Wilson
Scientist Criticises U.S. Climate 'Loonies'
Sir John Lawton
A leading British scientist said on Friday the growing ferocity of hurricanes hitting the United States was very probably caused by global warming and criticised what he termed U.S. climate loonies over the issue.
Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which advises the government, made what the Independent newspaper said was a thinly disguised attack on the stance of U.S. resident George W. Bush's administration.
"If this makes the climate loonies in the States realise we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation," said Lawton.
Sir John Lawton
Home-Made Porn
Tom Sizemore
Legally-embattled Hollywood actor Tom Sizemore, who rose to fame in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Blackhawk Down," has a new starring role: in a home-made porn movie, distributors said.
The 43-year-old, who is in court-ordered drug rehabilitation after he violated probation handed down for drug possession, will allow an adult movie firm to market his sexual escapades provided he gets a slice of the profits.
"This is the maraschino cherry on the banana split of bad luck I have been having," the self-proclaimed sex-addict Sizemore said in a statement issued by Los Angeles-based sex film studio Vivid Entertainment.
Tom Sizemore
Arab Super Heros
AK Comics
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Jalila, the new Arab super heroine, coursing across the sky, black hair flying, in her battle to right the wrongs and ensure that justice prevails in the Middle East.
Tough as she is, Jalila, the creation of 36-year-old Egyptian Ayman Kandeel, is not left on her own to fight the forces of evil.
There are also Aya the Princess of Darkness, Zein the Last Pharaoh and Rakan the Lone Warrior. Each month, an entire issue is dedicated to just one of the four.
Kandeel founded AK Comics in Cairo in 2003 to create a comic to compete with Superman, Batman and other Western super heros, in hopes of dominating the local market.
AK Comics
When The West Helps China Spy
Yahoo
The last time Gao Qinsheng saw her son, she hardly recognized him. She remembered Shi Tao, 37, as a large and powerful man. But all she saw now was "skin and bones." Gao told prison officials that her son needed a doctor.
His crime? Shi Tao, a journalist with financial daily Dangdai Shang Bao, electronically forwarded an internal Communist Party directive concerning the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre to a "foreign hostile element." The document contained little more than a general warning about the return of certain dissidents. But it was precisely this word -- dissident -- that was probably picked up by the state security apparatus' filter programs, focusing the attention of one of the country's 40,000 internet censors on Shi Tao.
But because the journalist had taken the precaution of sending his e-mails from an anonymous address, the Chinese authorities had to turn to Yahoo for help. And the American internet company, through which Shi Tao had sent his e-mails, apparently had no qualms helping out the Chinese. According to the organization Reporters without Borders, Shi Tao could never have been arrested without the servile Americans. When he was sentenced in April, the People's Court expressly referred to information "provided" by Yahoo: the journalist's personal account and the exact transmission time of the incriminating message.
Yahoo
Barbie With a Prayer Mat
Fulla
In the last year or so, Barbie dolls have all but disappeared from the shelves of many toy stores in the Middle East. In their place, there is Fulla, a dark-eyed doll with, as her creator puts it, "Muslim values."
Fulla roughly shares Barbie's size and proportions, but steps out of her shiny pink box wearing a black abaya and matching head scarf. She is named after a type of jasmine that grows in the Levant, and although she has an extensive and beautiful wardrobe (sold separately, of course), Fulla is usually displayed wearing her modest "outdoor fashion."
Fulla's creator, NewBoy Design Studio, based in Syria, introduced her in November 2003, and she has quickly become a best seller all over the region. It is nearly impossible to walk into a corner shop in Syria or Egypt or Jordan or Qatar without encountering Fulla breakfast cereal or Fulla chewing gum or not to see little girls pedaling down the street on their Fulla bicycles, all in trademark "Fulla pink."
Young girls here are obsessed with Fulla, and conservative parents who would not dream of buying Barbies for their daughters seem happy to pay for a modest doll who has her own tiny prayer rug, in pink felt. Children who want to dress like their dolls can buy a matching, girl-size prayer rug and cotton scarf set, all in pink.
Fulla
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