'Best of TBH Politoons'
Reader Request
Phone Cards for the Troops
Phone Cards for the Troops
The number ONE request at Walter Reed hospital is phone cards.
The government does not pay long distance phone charges and these wounded soldiers are rationing their calls home.
Many will be there throughout the holidays.
Really support our troops -- Send phone cards of any amount to:
Recommended Readings
from Bruce
Annalee Newitz: O Joss! My Joss!
There was more truth in a single episode of Buffy or Firefly than there is in the entire two-year run of The Swan.
Arianna Huffington: What Our Troops Want for Christmas
The time has come to stop being cowed by accusations that criticizing the war is the same as criticizing the troops and to start speaking the truth.
John Feffer: Super-Size Me, Tokyo Style
With its mega-portions and big-box mentality, Costco is changing the way the Japanese shop and eat.
Michael Moore: Recommended Reading, and A Teacher's Guide for Fahrenheit 9/11
The lessons and activities in this GUIDE are designed to help students develop a critical analytical ability, historical perspective, and applied math skills that will open their minds beyond the current issues covered in Fahrenheit 9/11.
Bija Gutoff: "A Day Without a Mexican"
"I was waiting for my car to be washed, and this guy handed me a tip," says Sergio Arau. "In a restaurant someone heard me speaking Spanish and asked me to bring water. I'd say to myself, 'Do I look like I work here? " A well-known journalist, cartoonist, animator, musician and film and video director in Mexico City, Arau was used to being viewed as a serious professional. So it was a shock to discover how little his resume counted in the U.S.
ASSOCIATED PRESS : Billboard war erupts between Cuba, U.S.
HAVANA - Cuba retaliated for the U.S. diplomatic mission's Christmas display supporting Cuban dissidents by putting up a billboard today emblazoned with photographs of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a "Made in the U.S.A" stamp.
Mark Twain: The War Prayer
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country
was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the
holy fire of patriotism
Mark Twain In His Times
Mark Twain Etexts
Help Our Troops Call Home
No More Victims
No More Victims: Free Poster Download
TV Tip - Tonight
'The Cameraman'
TCM will be running
'The Cameraman' (1928);, which begins a celebration of the great
Buster Keaton. This film is a must see for anyone who loves a good laugh.
Keaton plays a man desperately trying to break in the news business, so he
buys a camera and goes out to become a photojournalist. Buster being Buster
he can't catch a break. He runs here and there always looking like he just
missed out. Despite being billed as the first Keaton film with a script,
Buster did his usual thing on this film of working one big gag aground a
story. All turns out well and Buster gets his break(and the girl).
Regretfully, this was the last great Keaton film as MGM tried to contain
him. He began a slow slide into alcoholism and evetually beacme a $50 a week
gag man. It wasn't until TV and Alan Funt came in that he was able to get
back a semblance of the glory that was his.
~ Mr. Hawk
Thanks, Mr. Hawk!
And for those who really like to stay up late
'Steamboat Bill Jr.'
TCM
does it again with
Buster Keaton's classic
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
This film is rated
as one of the three best he ever did (with
'The General'
and
'The Cameraman').
Our hero must prove himself worthy to his father, the great SteamboatBill.
Unfortunately Buster is just an eastern sissy. But Buster comes thru in the
end by saving his father and his girl during a raging hurricane. The sight
gags are great and this is one very enjoyable film.
~ Mr. Hawk
Thanks, Mr. Hawk!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny & mild by day, clear & cold by night.
$1.9 Million Book Deal
Barack Obama
U.S. Sen.-elect Barack Obama, whose 1995 book jumped onto best seller lists after his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, has landed a three-book deal worth $1.9 million.
Crown Publishing Group and Random House Children's Books, divisions of Random House Inc., announced Friday that Obama will write two books for adults and one for children.
He'll be paid an $850,000 advance for each adult book and $200,000 for the children's book, said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. Proceeds from the children's book, which Obama will work on with his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters, will go to charity, Gibbs said.
Obama, 43, becomes the sole black U.S. senator - and only the fifth in history - when he is sworn in next month.
Barack Obama
Voice Dubbed by Girl
Oliver!
The speculation is over. The angelic voice of the young orphan Oliver Twist in the hit 1960s movie was dubbed by a girl, Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper said.
Speculation has swirled for years over the origin of the piping voice given that Mark Lester who played the title part in the film has admitted to not being able to sing a note. But the Mail tracked down Kathe Green, daughter of the film's musical director John Green, who 36 years after the event said she was the voice of Oliver!.
"I knew nothing about lip synching. But I did the lot in a week-and-a-half," she told the newspaper. "I was 20 and got paid about 400 pounds ($780)."
Oliver!
Thins Out Personal Book Collection
John Updike
John Updike, like many a good book-lover, found the cellar of his house and shelves in his barn were being overrun with books he and his wife have collected over the years.
"They were just collecting dust and mouse droppings," the author told The Boston Globe in Friday's edition. Their solution? Find someone who would pay for the used books, and haul them away.
"I'm at an age when you think about lightening your load, rather than dumping it on your heirs," said Updike, 72, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Mark Stolle, owner of Manchester by the Book store, bought Updike's collection.
John Updike
Champagne & Cake From Diana's Royal Wedding
Memorabilia
Collectors of royal family memorabilia bought a 23-year-old piece of wedding cake and magnum of champagne from the marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles Friday.
A royal fanatic paid more than $2,000 US for the magnum of French champagne from the 1981 royal wedding, while a slice of matured wedding cake sold for $452. The 1961 vintage Dom Perignon - chosen for the year of Diana's birth - was one of 12 magnums bottled in a limited edition for the royal wedding.
It failed to sell at auction earlier in the week but the collector from northern England called the auction house Friday and agreed to pay $2,029 for the bubbly.
Memorabilia
Octopus Cannon
McDonalds
Armed with a high-pressure hose and a bucket of octopi, hundreds of protestors in a Mediterranean town pelted a McDonalds restaurant due to open this week with the slimy seafood.
Between 300 and 500 people gathered on the banks of the Sete canal, across from the fast-food outlet, playing music and yelling anti-junk-food slogans across the water, as police barred them from reaching the restaurant itself.
Aiming the hose across the water, they catapulted fresh octopi -- a local delicacy, known here as the "pouffre" -- towards the town's first McDonalds, which had been set to open on Saturday.
The demonstration caused the opening of the restaurant, the first fast-food outlet in the port town following years of resistance by the former communist mayor, to be put off until next week.
McDonalds
'Spawn' Publisher in Bankruptcy Court
Todd McFarlane
A $15 million jury award against "Spawn" creator Todd McFarlane has pushed his comic-book business into bankruptcy court.
Todd McFarlane Productions Inc. of suburban Tempe filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
A jury in St. Louis awarded former NHL player Tony Twist $15 million after concluding that McFarlane and his company profited by using Twist's name without permission and that Twist's publicity rights were infringed.
McFarlane gave the name Antonio "Tony Twist" Twistelli to a New York mob boss character in his "Spawn" comic books in the early 1990s.
The U.S. Supreme Court in January rejected without comment an appeal by McFarlane arguing that his work was free speech.
Todd McFarlane
Goes Home for Burial
Truffle
The world's most expensive truffle returned to Italy to be buried on Saturday.
The warty white fungus, once an aphrodisiac for the ancient Romans and now one of the most costly foods in the world, was bought by a London restaurant at auction last month.
Despite having paid a $52,000 for the precious tuber, the restaurant left the fungus in a safe for too long and it rotted.
When experts in Florence heard, they asked to have the 852 gram (1.9 lb) truffle returned for burial in the hope that it would sprout a even bigger one next year, local agency ANSA reported.
Truffle
Master Violin Maker
Joseph Rashid
Joseph Rashid has just finished making his 95th violin, in time for his 95th birthday.
"This is my best yet," he says, running his hand over the amber wood and pronouncing it as fine as his favourite, the esteemed No. 4, which he completed in 1937. Rashid has been a boxer, a carpenter and an engineer, and since he retired to Nevada City in the early 1980s, he has devoted his time to creating violins that have been played by such world-renowned musicians as Yehudi Menuhin, Glenn Dicterow and members of the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras.
Rashid has already surpassed the icon of the craft, Antonio Stradivari, in longevity, at least.
Rashid has always worked alone, and as he turns 95, he has no plans to stop. He expects to finish two more violins in 2005. And while he has received offers, he has never sold a single one.
For a good read, Joseph Rashid
Mourns Loss of Nephew in Iraq
Kato Kaelin
Brian "Kato" Kaelin, the aspiring actor who was a house guest of O.J. Simpson and testified at his murder trial, told a radio audience his family is mourning the death of his nephew in Iraq.
"It's devastating to our family," the Milwaukee native said during his Friday appearance on the Dave and Carole morning show on WKLH-FM.
Kaelin said he considered canceling his public appearance because of the death of his nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Richard Warner, 22, of Waukesha, but his sister urged him to go ahead with it in memory of her son.
During his appearance, Kaelin joked at length about a number of topics before discussing how the Iraq war now has touched his family - which took hosts Dave Luczak and Carole Caine by surprise.
Kato Kaelin
In Memory
Dick Heckstall-Smith
Legendary saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith, who played with a list of musicians that reads like a who's who of the international jazz and rock music scene, has died of cancer.
Heckstall-Smith, born Richard Malden in September 1934, played with the likes of John Mayall, Alexis Korner, Jack Bruce, Mick Jagger and Ginger Baker as well as fronting bands including Colosseum -- an influential jazz/rock ensemble in the late 60s.
Bruce, bassist of the legendary Cream -- one of the world's first so-called super groups -- described Heckstall-Smith as his "musical father".
When Colosseum folded in 1971 Heckstall-Smith went solo and formed his own band Manchild which toured the United States supporting Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple.
A severe spinal problem forced him to stop playing and touring for several years, but in 1981 he returned to the stage with a new band Mainsqueeze which toured supporting Bo Diddley.
Heckstall-Smith then directed his talents to Celtic folk music, African-influenced jazz and blues until illness struck again in 1992 in the shape of two severe strokes while on the operating table for a heart bypass operation.
A year later he was back in the studio with Bruce and in 1994 the original line-up of Colosseum reformed for a full-scale European tour the following year, releasing its first studio album for 27 years in 1997.
In his later years Heckstall-Smith divided his time between Colosseum and the hard-working Hamburg Blues Band.
In 2000 he returned to the studio again with a string of friends including Mayall, Bruce, one time Rolling Stone Mick Taylor and Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green to record Blues and Beyond -- a record he said he had always wanted to make.
Dick Heckstall-Smith
In Memory
Peter Palitzsch
Peter Palitzsch, a former assistant to Bertolt Brecht, died Saturday, according to a Berlin theater where he worked. He was 86.
Palitzsch died of lung failure, the Berliner Ensemble said in a statement. Born in 1918, he started his theatrical career at the Volksbuehne theater in the eastern city of Dresden.
In 1949, Brecht appointed him as an assistant and dramatic adviser at his newly founded Berliner Ensemble, in East Berlin. Starting in 1956, he worked as a co-director at the theater.
Palitzsch left the Berliner Ensemble in 1961, becoming director of drama at Stuttgart's Staatstheater and working as a guest director across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
He returned to the Berliner Ensemble in 1992, after German reunification, and served as a member of its board of directors.
Peter Palitzsch
