'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Contribution
Clem And Jane
Hey Marty...
This is a really cool deal...instant (almost) comics. I love this song and really enjoyed incorporating it into my Clem and Jane series.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
John Powers: Not the President's Men: Frank Rich and I.F. Stone's Fight Against Propaganda (The Nation. Posted on alternet.org)
A review of Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold and two books on I.F. Stone show how media politics have become about repeating the same few things until they seem inevitable, especially if they aren't true.
Jane Smiley: The End of the World As We Know It? (HuffingtonPost.com. Posted on alternet.org)
There aren't many tyrants in history who can truthfully say they put the entire future of civilization at risk just to make a buck -- but Dick Cheney can.
Confession that formed base of Iraq war was acquired under torture: journalist (news.yahoo.com)
An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after being tortured, a journalist told the BBC. [Carolyn Kay comments, "See the harm that torture does? Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives have been lost because this man, under duress, told the Bush administration what it wanted to hear."]
PAUL KRUGMAN: The Arithmetic of Failure (The New York Times)
Iraq is a lost cause. It's just a matter of arithmetic: given the violence of the environment, with ethnic groups and rival militias at each other's throats, American forces there are large enough to suffer terrible losses, but far too small to stabilize the country.
Gilbert Garcia: Black Moses: Interview with Isaac Hayes (zwire.com)
By their very nature, email interviews are a drag. It's hard enough to establish a semblance of rapport with a stranger over the phone, but when your "conversation" involves written questions, you inevitably get dry, non-spontaneous responses.
Harold Goldberg: Controversial Game Revisits Horrors of High School: Bully (villagevoice.com)
Back in junior high and high school, I was a constantly sickly, little odious smartie who lived in mortal fear of getting less than an "A" on anything.
Tristan Taormino: Plug Me, Jesus (villagevoice.com)
The world of religious sex toys.
Reader Question
Re: Farley Mowat
Does anyone know if Farley Mowat is still banned from entering the U.S.?
He was banned in the early 1980s by the Reagan Administration when he
threatened to shoot down American cruise missiles, being tested in Canada,
with a rifle.
Kris H
Thanks, Kris!
According to the Wikipedia, Farley Mowat's ban was rescinded back in the Raygun era.
Not that Wikipedia is right about everything.
Reader Comment
Re: Punctuation
Hi Marty,
Little did I think that an email dashed off to you just before bedtime would end up in print on your website!
In fact, I just meant it for your eyes only - my bad, as I did not WRITE that in the mail.
That being said, however, I was delighted to see not one, but two replies - both thought-provoking and well-written! Who'd that thunk, in this day and age - dialogue about punctuation? My question for you is: Does that make your devotees, Liberal elitists?? :)
You guys are the best!
Sally P
Thanks, Sally!
Mostly, it's a well-educated and thoughtful crowd.
We save mean and snarky for sanctimonious monkeys.
Don't know if I'd call us liberal elitists - more like pragmatic progressives with a sense of humor. ; )
Reader Comment
'Too Much Medicine'
Michael Fox's spasms are the result of taking his medicine. If he's off his
meds he can't move. So I'm sure what Rush meant was that he shamelessly
took too much medicine to be a better tool of the left.
Doug G
Thanks, Doug!
I think it's Pigboy's inner junkie screaming that there's an untaken drug somewhere and he wants it.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and dry.
Rekindles Feud
Dave Letterman
David Letterman and Fox News Channel talk show host Bill O'Reilly renewed their prickly confrontation from January, when Letterman told him "I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap."
As part of their confrontation, O'Reilly said Letterman was guilty of oversimplifying a complicated situation.
"You're putting words in my mouth," he told Letterman at one point.
"You're putting artificial facts in your head," Letterman responded.
Dave Letterman
'The Daily Show' Goes To Ohio
Jon Stewart
Comedian Jon Stewart will make a special preview appearance Saturday as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" gears up for a week of broadcasts from Ohio.
The Ohio "Midwest Midterm Midtacular" excursion marks the popular news parody show's fifth trip outside New York in 10 years, but its first to "a random zone" outside a big city on the East or West Coast, Stewart said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Stewart said many of the big-name politicians the show approached - including U.S. Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine, Gov. Bob Taft and gubernatorial candidates Ted Strickland and Ken Blackwell - declined.
As for Taft, he said, "We had a shot at him for a bit there. Then we realized that his approval ratings actually make Cheney seem likable."
Jon Stewart
Still Campaigns for Peace
George McGovern
The air outside the book emporium tonight is cut by the first October chill. Inside, George McGovern must compete with the din unleashed by a gaggle of preschoolers ignoring the grandfatherly figure for the store's wooden train set. But as customers fill the metal folding chairs set before a microphone, the man one longtime friend calls "Should've-been-President McGovern" sticks with his quietly fervent sermon, drawing knowing laughter and grim nods of approval.
And now, a generation after he was ridiculed and rejected for a similarly resolute call to abandon another unpopular war, McGovern is one unshakable stride ahead of naysayers - certain that time and a nation's reflection have proven he was right before.
"We were told that even though it had been a mistake to go to war in this little tiny jungle strip 10,000 miles away, it would be a mistake to leave," the long-ago senator and Democratic presidential nominee tells all who will listen. His voice, more professorial than pastoral, quavers slightly as he recalls the morality trap set by Vietnam. "Now I see the same thing happening in Iraq."
George McGovern
Celebrates 60th Birthday
Bill Clinton
Celebrating your birthday on the day of your birth is common. Celebrating it by getting your wealthy friends to donate to your charitable foundation is presidential.
Former President Bill Clinton was celebrating his 60th birthday this weekend, with deep-pocketed donors forking over sizable checks to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation for the chance to dine, play golf and attend a Rolling Stones concert with him.
This weekend's bash - a fundraiser - is being co-hosted by Chelsea Clinton and by Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton friend and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Sen. Hillary Clinton is expected to attend at least some of the events.
The festivities were to include a series of cocktail parties and dinners across New York, and golf in New Jersey. The centerpiece events were a dinner Saturday night at the Museum of Natural History, and a private Rolling Stones concert at New York's historic Beacon Theater on Sunday.
Bill Clinton
Border Fence `Absurd'
Gael Garcia Bernal
Gael Garcia Bernal, promoting a new movie in which his character gets in trouble with U.S. immigration authorities, criticized the newly approved U.S.-Mexico border fence as "absurd."
"They are wasting so much money on this instead of using it on a real development plan," the star of "Amores Perros," "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "The Motorcycle Diaries," told The Associated Press on Thursday.
"It was argued before that the wall was to secure the borders after Sept. 11," Garcia Bernal said, "but (the terrorists) weren't Mexican, they didn't even pass through Mexico."
Gael Garcia Bernal
Visits Ontario Liberals
James Carville
The man who ran Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign and gave political advice to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former South African president Nelson Mandela is lending his expertise to Ontario's Liberals.
James Carville, the man known as the Ragin' Cajun, spoke to 1,200 Ontario Liberals at their annual general meeting in Toronto Saturday, the last such gathering before the party tries for re-election next October.
Carville opened by joking that based on U.S. talk radio, he expected to find the Canadian audience freezing to death while waiting in line for health care.
He earned huge laughs and applause for an impression of U.S. resident George W. Bush as a reformed drunk who loved Jesus Christ "and was going to fight terrorists in Iran and homos in Hollywood."
James Carville
South African Author Assaulted
Nadine Gordimer
Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer was assaulted in her home by three men who robbed her of cash and jewelry, police said Saturday.
Gordimer, 83, did not sustain serious injuries and no arrests had been made, police spokesman Sergeant Sanku Tsunke said.
Tsunke said three unarmed men broke into Gordimer's home Thursday morning, and one took her to a bedroom and demanded she open the safe. She handed over cash and jewelry, but would not part with her wedding ring from her marriage to art dealer Reinhold Cassirer, who died in 2001.
He said the domestic worker managed to press a panic button, triggering an alert with a security company. Tsunke said guards arrived about half an hour later and released the women.
Nadine Gordimer
Cooperating With Press Is Mandatory
Lt Gen David Petraeus
Lieutenant General David Petraeus -- the 101st Airborne Division commander during the Iraq invasion who has been both lionized and, he says, mischaracterized by the press -- told a group of journalists Thursday night that the military must be accessible to the press.
"What I tell my officers is, it's not your Army, it's not the officers' Army -- it's Americans' Army, and they have a right to know what we're doing," Petraeus said. "We talk about the tone you set, and one of the tones has to be that we will deal with the press."
Petraeus and former Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran were the keynote speakers at the opening of the annual conference of Military Reporters and Editors at Northwestern University.
Petraeus' generally pro-press presentation came at a time when the issue of embedded journalists in Iraq has heated up for the first time since the 2003 invasion. Michael Yon, a freelance writer and photographer who was embedded with troops in Iraq in 2005, wrote in the current issue of The Weekly Standard that the number of embedded reporters had dropped to 9 this fall from 770 during the invasion largely because of resistance from "key military officers" and "the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn't manage the media so much as manhandle them."
Lt Gen David Petraeus
New Bio Says Was Spy
Harry Houdini
Eighty years after his death, the name Harry Houdini remains synonymous with escape under the most dire circumstances. But Houdini, the immigrants' son whose death-defying career made him one of the world's biggest stars, was more than a mere entertainer.
A new biography of the legendary performer suggests that Houdini worked as a spy for Scotland Yard, monitored Russian anarchists and chased counterfeiters for the U.S. Secret Service - all before he was possibly murdered.
"The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero" will be released on Halloween - the anniversary of Houdini's untimely death at age 52. Chasing new information on the elusive superstar eventually led authors William Kalush and Larry Sloman to create a database of more than 700,000 pages.
The biography lays out a scenario where Houdini, using his career as cover, managed to travel the United States and the world while collecting information for law enforcement. The authors made the link after reviewing a journal belonging to William Melville, a British spy master who mentioned Houdini several times.
Harry Houdini
Statue Stolen
Dennis the Menace
The mischievous Dennis the Menace has gone missing - except this time, he's not hiding because he broke the rules.
A statue of the perennial pint-sized troublemaker that stood for almost two decades in a city park was unbolted and stolen sometime between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, police said.
The statue was crafted by Carmel artist Wah Ming Chang. It was commissioned by Hank Ketcham, the cartoon character's creator who died in 2001.
Dennis the Menace
Portrayed As Cabbage Patch Doll
Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth maintained a dignified silence on Monday after being depicted as a toothless Cabbage Patch doll in a controversial new portrait being shown at one of Britain's most popular museums.
But at least the monarch was spared from New York artist George Condo's original idea -- he wanted to paint her as a nude in the style of Spanish master Diego Velazquez.
Long gone are the deferential days in the 1950s when Pietro Annigoni painted the monarch as a stately young woman in flowing robes.
Queen Elizabeth
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