'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Sean Gonsalves: Repeal of Estate Tax Benefits Wealthy (AlterNet.org)
Disproving the many myths Bush would have you believe about the estate tax.
America's Worst Governors (Stateside Dispatch. Posted on Alternet.org)
Bush might be the worst president ever, but some Republican governors are giving him a run for his money.
Emily Udell: Putting the IRS to Political Use? (inthesetimes.com)
In September 2005, an Internal Revenue Service auditor darkened the door of Greenpeace, the organization known for its frontline environmental activism against nuclear testing, commercial whaling and destruction of wilderness, and stayed for three months.
Patrice Elizabeth Grell Yursik: Ghetto Pirates (miaminewtimes.com)
After his first film was widely bootlegged and sold on the street, Kevin Clarke decided to observe these urban pirates in their natural element.
RICHARD ROEPER: Starring in the latest hit DVD: As many as 14 million people (suntimes.com)
For at least one day -- that would be Tuesday -- a little movie that grossed just $4 million when it was released in 2004 was one of the more popular DVD selections on Amazon.com.
Devin D. O'Leary: Cold Turkey: TV Turnoff Week 2006 (alibi.com)
Are you watching TV this week? Well, you're not supposed to be. At least according to the organizers of the annual TV Turnoff Week, taking place April 24-30. They say no TV news, no "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," no "Desperate Housewives," no "Married ... With Children" reruns for a full week. Are they insane?
Doonesbury Straw Poll: Is Bush the Worst President Ever? (doonesbury.com)
The Wall St. Poet
Cash, Cash, Wonderful Cash
With markets so edgy today, is there any asset in which you can still have absolute faith? Yes there is. Cash
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sun didn't poke through after 4pm. Quite nice.
No new flags.
Holly Family Not Happy
Dixie Chicks
A reference to Buddy Holly on an upcoming Dixie Chicks album isn't setting right with brothers of the 1950s music legend.
In "Lubbock or Leave It," Natalie Maines, a native of this West Texas city, sings: "I hear they hate me now/Just like they hated you./Maybe when I'm dead and gone/I'm gonna get a statue, too."
Holly, whose statue is in downtown Lubbock, was born here and died in a plane crash along with singers Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson in Iowa in 1959.
On the Chicks Web site Maines writes that the song "is not just about Lubbock, but about any small, hypocritical town."
Dixie Chicks
'Commander' Shelved For Sweeps
Geena Davis
On the same day Geena Davis accepted an award for her portrayal of a female president, ABC shelved "Commander in Chief" for the crucial May ratings sweeps.
That's an ominous sign for the series' future. The remaining three episodes will air in June, the network said.
Meanwhile, Davis accepted an award for her portrayal of President Mackenzie Allen Tuesday night at the United Nations from The White House Project, a nonprofit organization that works to promote women's voting, political participation and leadership, with a goal of electing a woman president.
Geena Davis
Upfront Presentation
MTV
MTV Networks rolled out Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Stephen Colbert and even Dora the Explorer to sell advertisers on its schedule for the coming season Tuesday.
"The Daily Show" host Stewart got the ball rolling at the annual "upfront" presentation, saying that MTV Networks really understands the young-adult viewer. "They have a show that is delivered through Jell-O shots," he joked.
Silverman, who will have a new show on Comedy Central, told advertisers that her character will eat Domino's pizza and wash it down with Sierra Mist every episode. "I'm a team player," she said.
Also on board were celebrities who have aligned themselves with one or more of the networks, including Jerry Seinfeld, Ludacris, Lucy Liu and Jessica Alba. Musical guests included Kanye West, country singer Miranda Lambert, actor-singer Jamie Foxx and, closing the presentation, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
MTV
Surrenders Hybrid Car
Larry David
Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld fame put his Toyota Prius where his mouth is - giving away the hybrid car in a contest aimed at increasing awareness of global warming.
David and his wife, Laurie, an environmental activist, surprised a class Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, to award the car to Erick Tarula, a medical student at the school. The couple also served as guest lecturers.
Tarula, 24, of Azusa, California, was among those who registered for the year-long Virtual March to Stop Global Warming, an online petition organized by Stop Global Warming. The group was co-founded by Laurie David to spur politicians to act on the issue.
Larry David
Photographer Says Dame Edna Punched Him
Barry Humphries
Internationally renowned comic character Dame Edna Everage's alter ego, Australian actor Barry Humphries, punched a photographer who pursued him outside a Sydney restaurant Wednesday, his publicist said.
The 72-year-old - who has found enduring fame in the United States, Britain and Australia on stage and screen through the purple-haired housewife character he has been playing since the 1950s - struck celebrity freelance photographer Malcolm Ladd, 54, publicist Suzie Howie said.
Ladd's photographs of Humphries at lunch appeared in early Thursday editions of News Corp. newspapers in Australia.
Barry Humphries
Cho, Ferguson & More
Just for Laughs
Craig Ferguson will host a gala at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival, while solo acts by Margaret Cho and John Pinette ("Hairspray") have been added to the lineup of the 24th edition (July 13-23), organizers said Tuesday.
Ferguson will also serve as a roving correspondent for his CBS vehicle "The Late Late Show" while in Montreal. Gala hosts announced earlier by the festival include Jason Alexander, John Cleese and Ed Byrne.
Stand-up veterans performing on the main stage at the St. Denis Theater include Drew Carey, Jon Dore, Shaun Majumder, D.L. Hughley and festival stalwart Dom Irrera.
Just for Laughs
Splitsville
D'Errico - Sixx
"Baywatch" actress Donna D'Errico has filed for divorce from her husband of nine years, Motley Crue bass player Nikki Sixx.
D'Errico cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split, according to court documents filed Friday in Superior Court.
She is seeking physical custody and joint legal custody of the couple's five-year-old daughter, Frankie-Jean, and her 13-year-old son, Rhyan, from a previous relationship. D'Errico also is seeking spousal support.
D'Errico - Sixx
Resists Fast Vote On Decency Fines
Senate
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-Cat Killer) quest for a quick vote to hike fines on broadcast television stations, radio outlets and entertainers that violate decency standards met fast resistance from both Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday.
Frist, a likely contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, asked senators if they had objections to considering a House of Representatives bill that would boost fines to as much as $500,000 per violation, up from $32,500.
Senate
ABC Prime Time
National Spelling Bee
For the first time in its 79-year history, the National Spelling Bee - the original "reality TV" - will go prime time for next month's drama-filled finals. Thanks to recent movies, books and even a Broadway musical, young spellers are suddenly hot. After 12 years of showings by the sports cable network ESPN, the final rounds of the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee will be shown live Thursday evening, June 1, on the ABC network.
Previously, the entire second day of spelling aired on ESPN. Under the new arrangement, the bee's early final rounds will be broadcast by the sports network in the afternoon, with ABC showing the process-of-elimination championship rounds to a larger viewing audience in prime time.
ESPN spokesman Mac Nwulu said the bee really is a sport, though without the physical contact. The pint-sized spellers endure rigorous practices and training; some even have coaches.
National Spelling Bee
Three Sentenced For Theft
'Scream'
A Norwegian court sentenced three men to between four and eight years in prison for their role in the theft of Edvard Munch's masterpiece "The Scream", which is still missing.
Two of the three were also fined 750 million Norwegian kroner (122 million dollars, 96 million euros).
Three other suspects were released, including one man earlier believed by police to be one of the two hooded men who stormed into the Munch Museum on August 22, 2004, and threatened a staff member with a gun as stunned tourists looked on.
'Scream'
Archeologists Discover Maya Tomb
El Peru Waka
Archeologists outsmarted tomb raiders to unearth a major Maya Indian royal burial site in the Guatemalan jungle, discovering jade jewelry and a jaguar pelt from more than 1,500 years ago.
The tomb, found by archeologist Hector Escobedo last week, contains a king of the El Peru Waka city, now in ruins and covered in thick rainforest teeming with spider monkeys.
El Peru Waka was discovered in the 1960s, but Escobedo and his team began scientific excavation three years ago. They had to stabilize the pyramid where he found the tomb after looters opened two tunnels the size of elevator shafts in it, leaving it close to collapse.
That tomb has yet to be opened, but judging by an elaborate offering of a dozen miniature figurines of ball players, elegant women, dwarfs and seated lords found inside the pyramid, the burial site is likely to contain more royal remains, archeologists said.
El Peru Waka
The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus
'Flock of Dodos'
The biologist in Randy Olson cringed at news reports of evangelical Christians challenging the teaching of evolution to schoolchildren in places such as Kansas on the grounds it was just a theory.
But the filmmaker in him feels just as strongly that scientists have done a lousy job explaining their side of the debate.
The result is "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," a humorous and entertaining documentary that premiered at New York's Tribeca Film Festival this week.
'Flock of Dodos'
Sells For $40 Million
Van Gogh
A van Gogh portrait of a French cafe owner sold for more than $40 million at the season's first major Impressionist and modern art sale on Tuesday.
Led by the 1890 van Gogh work, "L'Arlesienne, Madame Ginoux," which went for $40.3 million, Christie's took in $180.2 million including commissions.
It was the fourth-highest price obtained for a van Gogh painting at auction, Christie's said.
Van Gogh
Mystic Judge
Florentino Floro
A Philippine judge who claimed he could see into the future and admitted consulting imaginary mystic dwarfs has asked for his job back after being fired by the country's Supreme Court.
Trial judge Florentino Floro was sacked last month and fined 40,000 pesos ($780) after a three-year investigation found he was incompetent, had shown bias in a case he was trying and had criticized court procedure, a ruling showed.
He told investigators that three mystic dwarfs -- Armand, Luis and Angel -- helped him carry out healing sessions during breaks in his chambers.
Florentino Floro
Torture Widespread
Amnesty International
Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons.
It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight," much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques.
Amnesty International
In Memory
Rosita Fernandez
Tejano music pioneer Rosita Fernandez, who was better known simply as "Rosita" and was one of the first Mexican-American entertainers to appear on U.S. national television, has died at the age of 88, her family said on Wednesday.
Fernandez headlined several national radio shows out of San Antonio in the 1930s, recorded hundreds of songs and was a regular on television in the 1950s performing on programs such as the Ed Sullivan Show.
One of 16 children of an officer in the Mexican Army, she was born in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey in 1918 during the Mexican revolution.
Her family moved to Laredo, Texas, then to San Antonio where, at age of 8, she began singing with her uncles in a family group called the "Trio San Miguel."
She sang at President Jimmy Carter's inauguration, for Pope John Paul when he visited San Antonio in 1987 and was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and first lady Lady Bird Johnson, whom she entertained often at barbecues on their ranch in the Texas Hill country.
Mrs. Johnson called her "San Antonio's First Lady of Song."
A bridge over the San Antonio River in downtown San Antonio is named "Rosita's Bridge" in her honor.
Rosita Fernandez
In Memory
Jay Presson Allen
Jay Presson Allen, a famed adapter of novels for stage and screen who stood out in an era when few women worked in that field, died early this week at her home in Manhattan after suffering a stroke. She was 84.
In the 1960s, Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith, as well as Zoe Caldwell, portrayed a liberated schoolteacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which Allen adapted for both the theatre and film from Muriel Spark's novel. It was perhaps the best critical success for Allen, and it yielded Caldwell a Tony Award and Smith an Oscar.
In 1972, Allen's film adaptation of the musical Cabaret was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Liza Minnelli, in the role of Sally Bowles, won best actress.
Born Jay Presson in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 3, 1922, she moved to California at age 18 to act but soon turned to writing instead. She published a novel in 1948 titled Spring Riot.
Other works by Allen include a 1968 English adaptation of the French play Forty Carats and Hothouse, a television drama she created. Using Truman Capote's writings, Allen wrote and directed the 1989 play Tru.
Brooke Allen said her mother did not want a memorial service but that the family may hold a private party to celebrate her life. Her body will be cremated, her daughter said.
Jay Presson Allen
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
