'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Anne Applebaum: All Work and No Play Still Might Not Get Jack Into Harvard (slate.com)
HIGH-SCHOOL SENIORS ARE MORE STRESSED OUT THAN EVER-JUST LIKE THE REST OF US.
Allison Kilkenny: Apathy Doesn't Live in the Bronx (huffingtonpost.com)
Last Wednesday more than 160 students in the South Bronx refused to take another standardized test. They are sick of being dragged out of their classrooms to be treated as lab rats in the No Child Left Behind rotten matrix.
Juan Gonzalewz: Bronx 8th-graders boycott practice exam but teacher may get ax (nydailynews.com)
Students at a South Bronx middle school have pulled off a stunning boycott against standardized testing. More than 160 students in six different classes at Intermediate School 318 in the South Bronx - virtually the entire eighth grade - refused to take last Wednesday's three-hour practice exam for next month's statewide social studies test.
Instead, the students handed in blank exams.
Robin Tyler: My Reaction to the California Marriage Ruling -- As the Plaintiff (huffingtonpost.com)
After 15 years together, and 20 years before that as friends, Diane and I were finally getting married!
Matt Snyders: Indie comedy label Stand Up! has produced the edgiest comedy in the country (citypages.com)
The Twin Cities-based laugh factory offers smart hope in dumb times.
Brent Hartinger: The Cartoon Closet (afterelton.com)
Why are there (still) so few gays on the comics page?
Top of the class (film.guardian.co.uk)
Lanie Goodman meets the French director who made a film about an unruly classroom - and struck gold at Cannes.
Martin Bandyke: Five questions with soul artist Solomon Burke (Detroit Free Press)
When asked how he was feeling on the day of this interview, Solomon Burke genially replied, "Blessed with no stress."
SPENCER TRICKER: "Ripping It Off: An Interview With Times New Viking" (popmatters.com)
Singer and drummer Adam Elliott explains the importance of volume, mistakes, and equipment that you can spill beer on.
Audra D.S. Burch: Alicia Keys isn't just about music anymore - she's on a mission (McClatchy Newspapers)
When we first heard Alicia Keys' velvet voice and masterful piano strokes in 2001, she was a beautiful tomboy singing about falling in and out of love. Hers was a pure, unapologetic sound - authentic, magical, enriched by yesterday - that returned vintage soul to its place in the pantheon of music.
Interview by Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Ashley Walters, actor and rapper" (arts.guardian.co.uk)
'I spend most of my time in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.'
A thriller in ten chapters (books.guardian.co.uk)
The Observer's literary editor Robert McCrum stood down this month after more than 10 years in the job. And what a tumultuous 10 years. When he started it was a world of 'cigarettes, coffee and strong drink'. But that has all changed - new writers, big money, the internet, lucrative prizes and literary festivals have all helped revolutionise the books world. Here he charts the changes in 10 short chapters - and wonders if an 'iPod moment' is imminent.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Uncle Lemon's Revenge
With some people, when they receive a lemon - they make lemonade. Uncle Lemon made whiskey - and raised a whole lot of helll while he did it!
A: John Anderson
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny, but on the cool side.
Charity Auction
'What's Your Story?'
An 800-word Harry Potter prequel is one of 13 card-sized works to be sold at a charity auction in the British capital. Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd. says the cream-colored A5 papers - each slightly bigger than a postcard - were distributed to 13 authors and illustrators, including the boy wizard's creator J.K. Rowling, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing, novelist Margaret Atwood and playwright Tom Stoppard.
Rowling used both sides of her card to hand-write a prequel to her seven-book Harry Potter saga, while Lessing penned a story about the power of reading. Stoppard wrote a short mystery and Atwood was due to fill out her card remotely using a robotic arm controlled by computer linkup.
Other cards were completed by children's author Michael Rosen, illustrator Axel Scheffler, graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, Lisa Appignanesi, Richard Ford, Lauren Child, Irvine Welsh, Sebastian Faulks and Nick Hornby, who plastered his card with a collage.
The cards will go on sale at the "What's Your Story?" auction at Waterstone's flagship store in central London on June 10. The proceeds are to go to English PEN, the writers' association, and the British charity Dyslexia Action. Copies of the cards will be collated into a book to be made available at the bookstore and online in August.
'What's Your Story?'
Leaving Studio After 22 Years
David E. Kelley
After more than two decades at 20th Century Fox TV, Emmy-winning writer-producer David E. Kelley is moving to Warner Bros. TV with a three-year deal.
Under the pact, said to be worth around eight figures, the man behind such shows as "Boston Legal," "Ally McBeal" and "The Practice," will develop series for broadcast and cable as well as digital projects.
He has been at Fox his entire TV career, since joining the writing staff of "L.A. Law" in 1986. He went on to become one of the most prolific producers in television, creating the Emmy-winning series "Picket Fences," "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal."
David E. Kelley
3-Year Contract
AFTRA
Hollywood producers and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced a tentative three-year contract deal Wednesday that puts more pressure on a larger actors union to do the same and avoid a crippling strike.
AFTRA said its deal establishes higher fees for downloaded content and residual payments for ad-supported streams and clips while preserving actors' right of consent to online use of clips containing their images or voice.
The agreement involves a handful of prime-time TV shows such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Rules of Engagement."
AFTRA
Revealed As Ancient Persian Relic
Childhood 'Toy'
An ancient gold cup mysteriously acquired by a Taunton scrap metal dealer is expected to fetch some 500,000 pounds at auction after languishing for years in a shoe box under its current owner's bed.
Owner John Webber says his grandfather gave him the 5.5-inch (14-centimetre) high mug to play with when he was a child, back in 1945.
He assumed the golden cup, which is decorated with the heads of two women facing in opposite directions, their foreheads garlanded with two knotted snakes, was made from brass.
But he decided to get it valued when he was moving house last year and was told it was actually a rare piece of ancient Persian treasure, beaten out of a single sheet of gold hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ.
Experts said the method of manufacture and the composition of the gold was "consistent with Achaemenid gold and gold smithing" dating back to the third or fourth century BC.
Childhood 'Toy'
Gravesite In Need Of Repair
William Shakespeare
Fix the gravesite. But don't touch the bones. That's the work order, in a nutshell, for brave architects contemplating a fixup job for the deteriorating gravesite of William Shakespeare at the Holy Trinity Church in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
The illustrious bard is believed by many to have personally penned the threat on a stone marker above his grave: It promises to bless anyone who spares the stones but curse any intruder who moves his bones.
That's all well and good, but the stones above his grave are starting to flake and fall apart. Clergymen have trod on the stones for nearly four centuries, and the foot traffic is taking its inevitable toll.
"We're avoiding the curse," said Jospehine Walker, a spokeswoman for the Friends of Shakespeare's Church group. "We are not lifting the stones, we are not looking underneath, and the curse is for the bones underneath, so the curse is irrelevant for this work."
William Shakespeare
Rediscovered Sketches Set For Auction
Goya
Three sketches by Spanish master Goya that have been missing for 130 years will go on sale in London in July for an expected price of up to 3 million pounds.
The three, "Witches and Women", "The Constable Lampinos stitched inside a dead horse" and "Repentance", were last seen in public at a sale of Goya sketches in Paris in 1877.
Christie's, which will be auctioning the works on July 8 on behalf of the Swiss owners, said they were in good condition because they had had been kept away from daylight and had never been framed.
The Swiss family who have them had no idea they were missing and are unclear where they got them.
Goya
Won't Go To Jail
Gary Dourdan
Gary Dourdan won't do time. The "CSI" co-star pleaded guilty to two of three counts of felony drug possession Wednesday but will not face prison following his drug arrest outside of Palm Springs last month, according to his lawyer. Dourdan could have served up to three years and eight months behind bars.
"Once Gary completes 30 hours of a diversion program, his case will be entirely dismissed," lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley told The Associated Press in an e-mail. "There is no jail time involved."
The 41-year-old actor was arrested after police found him asleep in his car outside of Palm Springs on April 28. He was allegedly parked on the wrong side of the street with the car's interior light on. Dourdan was charged with felony possession of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy.
Dourdan has played crime scene investigator Warrick Brown on CBS' "CSI" since 2000. The character was recently shot and killed during the eighth season finale.
Gary Dourdan
Judge Approves Adoption
Madonna
A judge on Wednesday approved Madonna's adoption of a Malawian boy she met in an orphanage in 2006.
The 49-year-old pop star wasn't in court for the ruling, which took Justice Andrew Nyirenda an hour to read. Nyirenda said he was satisfied that Madonna and her British filmmaker husband, Guy Ritchie, "are perfect parents" for David, who will be 3 in November.
David's mother died when he was a month old. His father, Yohane Banda, has said he believed he could not care for him alone, and that placing him in an orphanage was the best way to ensure David's survival. The father has said he didn't object to the adoption.
Madonna
Gas Drilling Threatens Carvings
Nine Mile Canyon
Along Utah's Nine Mile Canyon lies what some call the longest art gallery in the world - thousands of prehistoric rock carvings and paintings of bighorn sheep and other wildlife, hunters wielding spears, and warriors engaged in hand-to-hand combat. But now, a dramatic increase in natural gas drilling is proposed on the plateau above the canyon, and preservationists fear trucks will kick up dust that will cover over the images.
The more than 10,000 petroglyphs have been a source of fascination and speculation since their discovery in the late 1800s. The art is believed to be the work of the Fremont people, who lived in present-day Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Nevada from 700 to 1300 A.D., and the ancestors of modern-day Ute Indians.
The federal Bureau of Land Management has pronounced it "the greatest concentration of rock art sites" in the country.
But the scrubby, rugged landscape around the canyon is also rich in minerals. Oil and gas development along the West Tavaputs Plateau has been going on since the 1950s, though for most of that time consisted of no more than several dozen wells.
Then, in 2002, Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. paid about $8 million for more than 47,000 acres of oil and gas leases in and around the plateau. The area now has 100 to 110 active natural gas wells by the BLM's estimate, and the agency is proposing to allow roughly 700 to 800 more to be drilled over eight years.
Nine Mile Canyon
U.S. Absent
Cluster Bombs
A draft treaty for a worldwide ban on cluster munitions was adopted on Wednesday although major powers including the United States did not attend the meeting.
The Dublin gathering attended by more than 100 nations made the final step towards agreement after a promise from Britain to stop using the devices. Cluster bombs can cause indiscriminate injury long after a conflict has ended.
Diplomats and activists said the text built on the lessons from the 1997 treaty to ban landmines and it did not allow exceptions.
Despite the draft treaty, the United States said it still opposed a ban on cluster munitions.
Cluster Bombs
Unearthed In Sinai
Ancient Egyptian City
Archaeologists exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed 3,000-year-old remains from an ancient fortified city, the largest yet found in Egypt, antiquities authorities announced Wednesday.
Among the discoveries at the site was a relief of King Thutmose II (1516-1504 B.C.), thought to be the first such royal monument discovered in Sinai, said Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It indicates that Thutmose II may have built a fort near the ancient city, located about two miles northeast of present day Qantara and known historically as Tharu.
A 550-by-275-yard mud brick fort with several 13-foot-high towers dating to King Ramses II (1304-1237 B.C.) was unearthed in the same area, he said.
The ancient military road, known as "Way of Horus," once connected Egypt to Palestine and is close to present-day Rafah, which borders the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
Ancient Egyptian City
Sales Rise As Economy Tanks
Spam
Sales of Spam - that much maligned meat - are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets.
What was once cheeky, silly and the subject of a musical (as Monty Python mocked the meat in a can), is now back on the table as people turn to the once-snubbed meat as costs rise, analysts say.
Food prices are increasing faster than they've risen since 1990, at 4 percent in the U.S. last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Many staples are rising even faster, with white bread up 13 percent last year, bacon up 7 percent and peanut butter up 9 percent.
The price of Spam is up too, with the average 12 oz. can costing about $2.62. That's an increase of 17 cents, or nearly 7 percent, from the same time last year. But it's not stopping sales, as the pork meat in a can seems like a good alternative to consumers.
Spam
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for May 19-25. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (2) "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 31.66 million viewers.
2. (1) "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 27.06 million viewers.
3. (6) "Dancing With The Stars" (Tuesday), ABC, 20.12 million viewers.
4. (4) "Dancing With The Stars" (Monday), ABC, 19.22 million viewers.
5. (10) "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 18.09 million viewers.
6. (14) "NCIS," CBS, 16.52 million viewers.
7. (14) "House," Fox, 16.36 million viewers.
8. (16) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 16.26 million viewers.
9. (17) "Two And a Half Men," CBS, 14.7 million viewers.
10. (22) "Criminal Minds," CBS, 13.15 million viewers.
11. (33) "Rules Of Engagement," CBS, 12.29 million viewers.
12. (26) "CSI: NY," CBS, 11.83 million viewers.
13. (25) "Hell's Kitchen," Fox, 11.44 million viewers.
14. (X) "Deal Or No Deal" (Thursday), NBC, 10.33 million viewers.
15. (47) "Bones," Fox, 10.3 million viewers.
16. (39) "Shark," CBS, 10.27 million viewers.
17. (54) "Ugly Betty," ABC, 8.75 million viewers.
18. (X) "Dancing With the Stars" special, ABC, 8.74 million viewers.
19. (57) "So You Think Can Dance" (Thursday), Fox, 8.74 million viewers.
20. (39) "Law & Order," NBC, 8.57 million viewers.
Ratings
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