'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
AP Gets Shocking New Report on Gitmo (The Associated Press; Editor and Publisher)
San Juan - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were "enemy combatants," according to a new report.
Bonnie Goldstein: Inside Fox News (slate.com)
Judging from Moody's Nov. 13 memo, reprinted below (a second memo appears on the following two pages), it is "fair and balanced" to gloat, prior to the vote to elect House leaders on Nov. 16, "The Pelosi effect is being felt. ... Let the blue bloodbath begin."
David Barber: The Emperor's New Poem (boston.com)
The latest translation of Virgil's 'Aeneid,' the epic poem of Rome's founding commissioned by Augustus Caesar, has a timely resonance at this moment of American imperial angst.
Michael Blowhard: 1000 Words -- Gold Medal Books (2blowhards.com)
What if you could trace the French New Wave, Sam Peckinpah, cyberpunk, "Pulp Fiction," "Mulholland Drive," and "Sin City" back to one business gamble taken by a third-tier publisher in 1949? In fact, you can, and without being guilty of too much overstatement. A little, sure, but not that much.
Jody Rosen: Thou Hast Made a Great Album (slate.com)
The startling, anachronistic world of Joanna Newsom.
Mark Morford: When Apple Rules The World (sfgate.com)
What does it mean when you really, really want to lick a new MacBook Pro, and swoon?
Borrow Bruce's Book "The Funniest People in Books and Music" from the UNIV OF RIO GRANDE
Borrow Bruce's Book "The Funniest People in Books and Music" from the UPPER ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
Borrow Bruce's Book "The Funniest People in Books and Music" from the WESTERVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY
Borrow Bruce's Book "The Funniest People in Books and Music" from the SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY
Borrow Bruce's Book "The Funniest People in Books and Music" from the DENVER PUB LIBRARY
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
We're having a heat wave - feels like July.
Christmas tree stands are starting to sprout up - just the stands, no trees, yet.
Donates Book Collection
Roger Mudd
Retired journalist Roger Mudd has donated his 1,500 volume collection of 20th-century Southern writers to Washington and Lee University, the school said.
First issue or first editions of the complete works of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Robert Penn Warren and almost 200 other writers are included in the gift, a university statement said Friday.
Mudd, 78, of McLean, is a 1950 graduate of Washington and Lee. He began collecting books as an undergraduate, inspired by one of his professors, Marshall Fishwick. Fishwick was a professor of American Studies at the university from 1949 to 1962, and later at Virginia Tech. He died earlier this year.
Roger Mudd
Wants Deadwood Development
Kevin Costner
Actor Kevin Costner (R-take paradise, put up a parking lot) has asked the city of Deadwood to annex eight acres so he can build a housing development.
The project lies on 160 acres along Highway 14A, and preliminary plans call for 88 single family houses and 72 town house units. The homes will be middle- to higher-end and the owners will have to abide by covenants, said Costner's attorney, Mike Reynolds of Rapid City.
City managers said the city's water and sewer infrastructure would support the new subdivision. A tax district would help pay for some of the added costs.
Kevin Costner
Thai Government Censors Opera
Ramayana
Thailand's new military-appointed government has threatened to shut down an operatic version of the Hindu epic Ramayana, ostensibly over fears one of its scenes may bring bad luck.
"Ayodhya" premiered Thursday night and is scheduled for repeat performances on Saturday and Sunday, albeit with the 'offensive' scene toned down under pressure from Culture Ministry officials.
Composer Somtow Sucharitkul said Friday that ministry officials approached him a few days before the show's opening to complain about a scene involving the on-stage death of a key character, the demon-king, Thotsakan.
The officials, whom Somtow did not identify, said that portraying Thotsakan's death on stage was taboo in Thai culture and would be a "bad omen," the 53-year-old composer told The Associated Press.
Ramayana
Embraces Elvis Impersonators
Graceland
The Elvis Presley impersonators who have hung around the fringes of Graceland for years are finally being invited up to the big house.
On the 30th anniversary of Presley's death next August, the managers of Graceland, Presley's former Memphis home, will stage their first official impersonator competition.
It's a big change for managers of Presley's estate, who have always kept the tacky, kitschy and outrageous Elvis impersonators at arm's length.
But the new managers of the multimillion-dollar Elvis business think such a contest, properly run, could help keep the shine on Presley's image and attract a new generation of fans.
Graceland
Hospital News
Michael Flatley
Irish-American dancer Michael Flatley left a private London hospital Saturday, two weeks after being treated for an unspecified illness.
The 49-year-old dancer and choreographer left The London Clinic with wife Niamh O'Brien, telling reporters, "I am on the mend."
The lightning-footed Chicago native, who rose to international fame as the male lead of "Riverdance" in the mid-1990s, was married last month to his "Celtic Tiger" co-star, O'Brien, 32. It was his second marriage.
Michael Flatley
Full Collection Published In Russia
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The wife of Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn has presented the initial three volumes of the first full collection of his works to be published in Russia, a country still struggling with the legacy of the oppressive era he documented.
The ceremony Thursday was a cherished moment for the aging writer, who has been through prison camps and exile and, Natalya Solzhenitsyn said, feels the "draining of the life force" as his 88th birthday approaches. But he was not at the presentation.
With financial support from a state-owned bank, the 30-volume project marks the latest twist in what Solzhenitsyn's wife called the "very dramatic fate of Solzhenitsyn's books," which helped reveal the brutality of the Soviet system and dictator Josef Stalin's labour camps.
Natalya Solzhenitsyn recounted how that drama began on Nov. 18, 1936 - exactly 70 years ago Saturday - when Solzhenitsyn, then a first-year university student, conceived what eventually became "The Red Wheel," the 10-volume saga about the Russian Revolution he finished in 1990 and considers his most important work.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
New Film Clears China Censors
James Bond
Chinese censors have cleared "Casino Royale" to be shown in the country without asking for any changes, a movie executive said Friday. "The film has been approved and no cuts or changes have been requested," Li Chow, general manager at Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International and Sony Pictures Entertainment, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
China usually only imports 20 foreign films a year and censors them carefully.
"Memoirs of a Geisha," which starred Chinese actresses Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li as Japanese geisha escorts, wasn't shown in China amid speculation of concerns that it might fan anti-Japanese sentiment.
There were also concerns about scenes set in Shanghai showing tattered underwear hanging from laundry lines in "Mission: Impossible III," starring Tom Cruise. Chinese censors eventually approved the movie.
James Bond
Conservative Values
Afghan Women
Blood dripped down the 16-year-old girl's face after another beating by her drug addict husband. Worn down by life's pain, she ran to the kitchen, doused herself with gas from a lamp and struck a match.
Desperate to escape domestic violence, forced marriage and hardship, scores of women across Afghanistan each year are committing suicide by fire. While some gains have been made since the fall of the Taliban five years ago, life remains bleak for many Afghan women in the conservative and violence-plagued country, and suicide is a common escape.
Reliable statistics on self-immolation nationwide are difficult to gauge. In Herat province, where the practice has been most reported and publicized, there were 93 cases last year and 54 so far this year. More than 70 percent of these women die.
Five years after the fall of the repressive Taliban regime, domestic violence affects "an overwhelming majority" of Afghan women and girls, according to a recent report from Womankind, an international women's rights groups.
Afghan Women
Fewer Cubs Survive In Alaska
Polar Bears
Far fewer polar bears cubs are surviving off Alaska's northern coast, a federal government report released Wednesday has concluded.
The study of polar bears in the south Beaufort Sea, which spans the northern coasts of Alaska and western Canada, also found that adult males weigh less and have smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades ago.
The study does not directly blame the changes on a decline in sea ice. However, fewer cubs and smaller males are consistent with other observations that suggest changes in sea ice may be adversely affecting polar bears, the study said.
The study warns that the decline in cub survival and the smaller adult males are the same conditions that preceded a decline in the polar bears of western Hudson Bay, Canada, where the population dropped 22 percent in 17 years.
Polar Bears
'The Fat Is in the Fire'
Deep-Fried Flags
Art student William Gentry said his piece, "The Fat Is in the Fire," was a commentary on obesity in America. "I deep-fried the flag because I'm concerned about America and about America's health," Gentry said.
Customs House Museum executive director Ned Crouch took down the artwork Wednesday less than 18 hours after it went up in this community next to Fort Campbell.
Clarksville resident and Navy veteran Bill Larson said the museum shouldn't restrict the free speech of an artist based on public response.
"The museum is obligated to the citizens of the community to present art, and it totally failed in that regard," Larson said.
Deep-Fried Flags
Police Halt Strip Show
International Order of Old Bastards
No more bare bodies for the old boys. Police on Monday stripped the local chapter of the International Order of Old Bastards of the exotic dancers who have performed at their meetings for decades.
The club, which consists of about 600 members, has met quarterly for at least 40 years, according to a police report. Members must be at least 35 years old, although the average age is mid-60s, said Richard Story, who described himself as the club's newly installed Arch Old Bastard.
But police showed up at Monday's quarterly meeting at the Eastside Businessman's Association and warned them that they needed an adult entertainment permit to have strippers. The State Journal said police learned about the strippers after one of the paper's reporters started asking about it in June.
The International Order of Old Bastards began in 1945. The founder was Fred Kibbe, an American soldier stationed in Australia who was inspired by the Australian greeting "Hi, you old bastard."
International Order of Old Bastards
In Memory
Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown, whose recordings of "Teardrops in My Eyes," "5-10-15 Hours" and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" shot her to rhythm-and-blues stardom in the 1950s, died Friday. She was 78.
Brown, who later in life won a Grammy, died of complications from a stroke and heart attack at a Las Vegas-area hospital, said Lindajo Loftus, a publicist for the Rhythm & Blues Foundation.
Brown's soulful voice produced dozens of hits for Atlantic Records, cementing the fledgling record label's reputation as an R&B powerhouse.
But as R&B and rock 'n' roll fell out of style in the late 1950s, Brown and her musical contemporaries were forced into retirement. She spent most of the 1960s raising her two sons alone and earning a living as a maid, school bus driver and teacher.
Brown enjoyed a career renaissance in the mid-70s when she began recording blues and jazz tunes for a variety of labels and found success on the stage and in movies.
She won acclaim in the R&B musical "Staggerlee" and won a Tony Award for best actress in the Broadway revue "Black and Blue."
She also played a feisty deejay in the 1988 cult movie "Hairspray." A year later, she won a Grammy for best jazz vocal performance for the album "Blues on Broadway."
Brown continued to perform and record in her later years, becoming a popular host of National Public Radio's "Harlem Hit Parade."
She also formed the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit dedicated to providing financial and medical assistance for aging R&B musicians.
Ruth Brown
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