'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Dr. Mark H. Shapiro: Access To Mediocrity (irascibleprofessor.com)
Periodically the paper pushers at the California State University Chancellor's Office produce a position paper intended to convince members of the public that the largest system of public higher education in country is on the right track, and that their children will actually have access to an affordable college education of reasonable quality if they make it through high school with halfway decent grades.
Barbara Ehrenreich: Writers Strike, Silence Falls (ehrenreich.blogs.com)
In solidarity with the striking screenwriters there will be no laugh lines in this blog, no stunning metaphors, and not many adjectives. Also, in solidarity with the striking Broadway stage-hands, no theatrics, special effects or sing-along refrains.
Nat Hentoff: Remembering Fred W. McDarrah, 1926-2007 (villagevoice.com)
Nat Hentoff on the man who defined the look of the Voice.
Harry Bruinius: Norman Mailer, 1923-2007 (villagevoice.com)
He changed American journalism and letters, and co-founded The Village Voice
Tom Danehy: The music young people listen to today has made Tom's bizkit limp (tucsonweekly.com)
It is a centerpiece of human nature to experience one's past through selective visions and enhanced sound. There's just no way that music is as good as it used to be, and that's a universal feeling, whether you're harkening back to the Big Band Era, doo-wop, the British Invasion, Motown, heavy metal, disco, hair bands, new jack swing or grunge. Chris Rock says that a guy's favorite music will always be that which was popular when he first experienced carnal pleasures, but I think it's more than that.
Mark Morford "Bush Death Watch: Countdown!" (sfgate.com)
It's official: Less than one year until history slaps Dubya to the curb. Can you feel the tingle?
Roger Ebert: Beowulf (3 stars)
In the name of the mighty Odin, what this movie needs is an audience that knows how to laugh. Laugh, I tell you, laugh! Has the spirit of irony been lost in the land? By all the gods, if it were not for this blasted infirmity that the Fates have dealt me, you would have heard from me such thunderous roars as to shake the very Navy Pier itself down to its pillars in the clay.
Roger Ebert: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (3 stars)
Mr. Magorium is 243 years old, he informs us. He has possibly survived so long by being incapable of boredom. Life for him is a daily adventure, which he shares with the children who pack into his magical toy store.
Suzanne Fields: Recalling my Mailer crush (washingtontimes.com)
I nurtured a crush on Norman Mailer from the moment the great counterpuncher walked into my house for dinner. I was his hostess at what he called "The Liberal Party," in the opening pages in "The Armies of the Night," his book about the great Vietnam War protest in Washington in October 1967.
Frank Wilson: Review of "Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life" by Harry Mount (popmatters.com)
If memory serves-and that tells you something right there-I had five years of Latin in school, three in high school, two in college. I think I started off pretty well: I remember some A's in my first year. Unfortunately, the Law of Diminishing Returns eventually exerted its irresistible power, and I was soon down to B's, and then C's.
Reader Comment
Trivia Question
Hey, Marty. I love the trivia questions. But I have problems with your indication of the correct answer. Maybe it's my old eyes or not paying attention, but I have trouble seeing the answer that you've made slightly larger or outdented by a space. Could you please do something like change the color of the correct answer (or as you did Thursday, make the wrong answers blue and leave the correct answer black and slightly larger)?
I know you have the correct answers that people have submitted below your listing of the question, but it would just be nice immediately to see the answer and then read over what others have said as they submitted their guesses.
Linda >^..^<
Thanks, Linda!
How does it look today?
Tried a larger font, and a new color.
Reader Recommendation
Kenny vs Spenny
Kenny vs Spenny is arriving on Comedy Central. It's already had three
seasons in Canada. The first two are out on DVD the third should be out
soon. This is the funniest show I've ever seen. I laughed so hard I nearly
passed out. Give it a try.
Walt
Thanks, Walt!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny and summer-like.
Not Laying Off Staff
Dave Letterman
David Letterman's production company (Worldwide Pants), which owns both The Late Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, told non-writing staffers this week that it will continue to pay them throughout the end of the year, even if both shows remain in rerun-mode.
"Next week's tapings of The Late Show and The Late Late Show have been cancelled and we will continue to make a week-by-week determination about future tapings," Worldwide Pants Inc. spokesman Steven Rubenstein said Thursday in a statement obtained by E! News.
"However, it is important to Dave that our staff members have some degree of support during this uncertain time. Therefore, Worldwide Pants, which independently produces both shows, will continue to pay the non-writing staff of the shows-fully compensating lower-salaried employees, and providing a substantial portion of salaries for those at the higher end-at least through the end of the year.
What happens next is anyone's guess, but at least Letterman's benevolence appears to have loosened the purse strings over at NBC a bit.
Dave Letterman
Negotiations Date Set
Writers Strike
Hollywood film and TV writers who've been on a nearly two-week strike against studios will return to contract negotiations on Nov. 26, their union and producers said Friday.
In a joint statement, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said both sides had agreed to return to formal negotiations.
The statement said no other details would be released.
Industry analysts had thought there would be enough scripts to produce shows well into January. But many shows have gone off the air at a faster pace than expected, as cast members and show runners have refused to cross picket lines.
Writers Strike
Italy Aims To Halt kKillings
"Black Cat Day"
Saturday is "black cat day", in Italy, an initiative by an animal rights group to try to stop the killing of thousands of the cats by superstitious citizens convinced they bring bad luck.
Black cats have a bad name in many countries, but nowhere more so than Italy, where a papal edict in the middle ages declared they were instruments of the devil. Black cats were thrown into the fires to join witches burned at the stake.
The Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment (AIDAA) estimates 60,000 were killed last year, to ward off bad luck but also for use in satanic rites and in cosmetics laboratories where black fur gives the best results.
The group has set up 200 information points in towns and cities around Italy, where passers-by will be given literature on black cats, asked to sign a petition and urged to adopt one of the 5,000 in cat refuges.
"Black Cat Day"
Admits Paternity
Goran Visnjic
Croatian star of hit television series "ER", Goran Visnjic, has admitted paternity of a baby girl, the product of an affair in 2006, local press in Croatia reported Saturday.
Visnjic, 35, did not fly over from the United States for a DNA test scheduled for Friday in Zagreb but instead sent a document confirming he was the father of eight-month old Lana Lourdes, the report said.
"He admitted paternity without DNA testing," a lawyer for the mother, 36-year-old Mirela Rupic, told the Jutarnji List daily.
Rupic, from Visnjic's central Adriatic hometown of Sibenik, said she was happy "everything was finally over," according to the newspaper.
Goran Visnjic
PC Beats WWII Computer In Code Challenge
Colossus Machine
A rebuilt World War II code-cracking computer developed to intercept Nazi messages lost to a desktop computer Friday in a contest to decipher an encrypted radio message.
The challenge marked the first time the Colossus machine had been used since former Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered models of the top secret computer destroyed, according to Britain's National Museum of Computing, which organized the contest.
However, not only was Colossus beaten by a home computer, but by one in Germany.
Bonn-based software engineer Joachim Schueth deciphered the message, which was encrypted by a Nazi-era Lorenz cipher machine and transmitted by radio from Paderborn, Germany. It took him two hours Thursday, an hour and 35 minutes faster than the Colosssus. He used ham radio equipment and a computer program he wrote especially for the challenge.
Colossus Machine
Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaway To Continue
James Brown
A Thanksgiving tradition sponsored by James Brown is being continued in this first year after the soul pioneer's death with the annual turkey giveaway in his hometown.
In his place, longtime confidant and civil rights activist Al Sharpton will hand out the first turkey Monday.
More than 1,000 turkeys are usually distributed at the pre-Thanksgiving event, said Rev. Larry Fryer, who assisted Brown with previous giveaways. The Brown family also will continue Brown's annual Christmas toy giveaway on Dec. 20.
James Brown
Museum Pays Tribute
'Help!'
Ed Sullivan introduced Americans to the Beatles, but "Help!" was the first time they saw the Fab Four in color. It may not sound like a big deal in an age of HDTV, but in 1965, at the height of Beatlemania, it was something to shout about.
Jim Henke, chief curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has helped pay tribute to John, Paul, George and Ringo's madcap movie with an exhibit that opens Saturday and runs through March 30.
One highlight of the exhibit is audio from a 1980 interview with Lennon for an article in Playboy magazine in which he talks about the band's state of mind at the time "Help!" was filmed. He said the movie, unlike "A Hard Day's Night," was out of the band's control.
"By then, we were smoking marijuana for breakfast," Lennon said. "Nobody could communicate with us because it was just four glazed eyes giggling all the time."
'Help!'
Berlin Shoots Down Meditation School
David Lynch
Filmmaker David Lynch's plans for a school of transcendental meditation in Berlin hit a snag this week when local officials said he was unlikely to get a building permit.
The producer-director, best known for off-beat works such as "Blue Velvet," "Mulholland Dr." and television's "Twin Peaks," was in Berlin this week to announce his plan to buy land on Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain) -- a large hill on the outskirts of the city that was used as a U.S. listening post during the Cold War.
Lynch is unlikely to get a permit to build on the Teufelsberg, district mayor Monika Thiemen told the Tagesspiegel newspaper. Deputy Mayor Klaus-Dieter Groehler also told the paper he saw no grounds to grant the permit.
The paper quoted a representative for the Protestant church of Berlin-Brandenburg as saying that transcendental meditation could be "very dangerous for some people, with a particular likelihood of loss of personal identity in young people."
David Lynch
Costume Flap Imperils Nepotism Post
Julie Myers
Julie Myers, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ran into trouble earlier this month after she and two other agency managers gave the "most original" costume award to a white employee who came to the agency's Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin.
The incident drew complaints of racial insensitivity and an apology from Myers. It also cast doubt on whether she'll get a confirmation vote before the end of the year, when her original appointment expires.
Myers met resistance in 2005, the first time resident Bush tried to appoint her to the Homeland Security Department post, after Democrats and Republicans said she had weak credentials for the high-profile job. To avoid a fight, Bush installed her during a Senate recess and her position expires at year's end unless the Senate votes to confirm her.
Questions about nepotism also came up because Myers is the niece of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She is married to John Wood, the U.S. attorney in Kansas City and former chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Julie Myers
Sells For $30 Million
Coin Collection
An anonymous buyer has paid more than $30 million for a collection of rare U.S. prototype coins, some from the 1700s, that never went into circulation, according to the dealer that brokered the deal.
The collection consists of about 1,000 coins that collectors refer to as pattern coins - trial designs that never went into production because the U.S. Mint chose other designs.
The coins span the period from 1792 to 1942. Highlights include test designs for the first pennies made in 1792 and six coins from 1872 that are often referred to as "Amazonian" patterns because the female figure portraying liberty is much stronger and regal looking than earlier versions.
Coin Collection
Auction At Christie's
Vintage T-Shirts
Once relegated to the backs of roadies and the bottoms of closets, the rock and roll T-shirt is hanging around some nicer venues these days - like Christie's auction house, where they're expected to sell for up to $4,500 apiece.
A collection of 30 vintage T-shirts goes on the block this month at the Rockefeller Center locale, featuring gear from the biggest bands of the '60s and '70s: The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Doors and Pink Floyd, among others.
The shirts came from a variety of different owners, said Sara Fox, a Christie's spokeswoman. Auction house officials believe it is the largest collection of rock T-shirts put up for auction.
Vintage T-Shirts
In Memory
Martha Kostyra
Martha Kostyra, whose daughter Martha Stewart credits her with teaching her many domestic tricks and techniques, has died at a hospital near her home in Weston. She was 93.
Kostyra, a retired teacher whose family long ago nicknamed her "Big Martha," died Friday at Norwalk Hospital of undisclosed causes, according to a notice published Saturday in local newspapers.
Kostyra and her husband, the late Edward Kostyra, raised the future domestic doyenne and her five siblings in Nutley, N.J., where, Stewart said, she learned many tricks of what later turned into her trade.
Martha Kostyra
In Memory
Masakazu Yoshizawa
Masakazu Yoshizawa, a musician whose mastery of traditional Japanese flutes graced the soundtracks of "Memoirs of a Geisha," "The Joy Luck Club" and other films, has died. He was 57.
Yoshizawa was asked by composer John Williams to play a bamboo flute called the shakuhachi and other Japanese instruments for the "Geisha" soundtrack.
The Oscar-nominated score was later adapted by Williams into a concert suite that featured Yoshizawa and Yo-Yo Ma on cello.
Yoshizawa played on soundtracks for dozens of films, including "Jurassic Park," "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" and the "Karate Kid" sequels. He also played the shakuhachi on the 1980 miniseries "Shogun."
Born in Takayama, Japan, Yoshizawa played the accordion, piano, Western woodwinds and the shakuhachi as a child. By 19, he was performing with orchestras in Tokyo and as a studio musician.
After studying at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music in the early 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a musician.
Masakazu Yoshizawa
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