'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Greeley: Wild Greed Chase Rolls Over US Economy (commondreams.org)
In the 1980s, the Reagan Era, an attitude slipped into the corporate world, especially with the young people who were pouring into the financial services sector of the economy: Greed is good! The purpose of a corporation is to promote the net wealth of the stockholder. CEOs should be rewarded for producing stockholder wealth by getting huge salaries - more in a day, or even an hour, than their workers earned all year.
Jim Hightower: A MOUNTAINTOP REVELATION (jimhightower.com)
There is environmental degradation - and then there is environmental degradation that punches you right in the stomach. Mountaintop removal is in this last category.
Richard Roeper: Facing a draft, Nugent bravely wet his pants (suntimes.com)
So Ted Nugent roams a concert stage while toting automatic weapons, calls Barack Obama "a piece of -----" and says he told Obama to suck on one of his machine-guns. He also calls Hillary Clinton a "worthless bitch" and Dianne Feinstein a "worthless whore." That Nugent, he's a man's man. He talks the talk and walks the walk, right? Except when it was time to register for the draft during the Vietnam era. By his own admission, Nugent stopped all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showed up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment. Creative!
Richard Roeper: Life of a porn star more like a horror flick (suntimes.com)
When newly retired porn star Jenna Jameson recently talked about having her breast implants removed, the mainstream press made a big fuss.
Gregory Rodriguez: Jason Bourne trusts his wits over technology (sfgate.com)
In the raging pop culture battle between James Bond and Jason Bourne, I'm going to have to side with the latter. Not because Bond is "an imperialist and a misogynist" - as "Bourne" actor Matt Damon has charged - but...
Annalee Newitz: Mouse Politics: To Kill or Not to Kill?
Mice genomes are about 85 percent similar to humans, but when the pesky creatures invade our home do we treat them as equals or shift into predator mode?
John Walsh: A Social History of the Bra (Independent UK; Posted on AlterNet.org)
One hundred years ago, Vogue coined the term 'brassiere' and launched a billion-dollar industry that changed the way women dress for ever.
Roger Ebert: Answer Man
Mark Twain's "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," "may have had a greater influence on my critical style (in certain moods) than any other single thing I've read. Mark Twain can make me laugh out loud, as in 'The Innocents Abroad,' where an Egyptian guide shows a tour group a mummy that is 3,000 years old. An American tourist says: 'How calm he is - how self-possessed. Is, ah - is he dead?'"-Roger Ebert
David Bruce: "Wise Up! Good Deeds" (athensnews.com)
Bill Mosher is a filmmaker who created documentaries in the "Visionaries" television series about charitable people and organizations that make a positive difference directly in people's lives. For example, he went to Bolivia, where some Polish nuns were running an orphanage and taking care of children. He asked one of the nuns where the money came from to run the orphanage. She replied, "I go into the town, and I beg."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot.
The kid's new school had orientation this morning - they had one for parents, too.
Announces London AIDS Concert
Nelson Mandela
Former South African president Nelson Mandela announced Wednesday a giant benefit concert in London next June to promote his 46664 campaign against HIV/AIDS.
The gig will take place in Hyde Park on June 27 to mark his 90th birthday the following month, Mandela said at the unveiling of a statue of him in London's Parliament Square.
The campaign, named after Mandela's prison number during his 27-year incarceration, aims to raise awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic which is rife in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mandela lost a son to AIDS in January 2005.
Nelson Mandela
New `Sunday' Football Voice
Faith Hill
Faith Hill will sing the opening theme to NBC's "Sunday Night Football" this season, the network announced Wednesday.
The country star will perform "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night" before each game. The song, which pop singer Pink sang last season, is set to the tune of Joan Jett's '80s hit, "I Hate Myself for Loving You."
"I'm honored to have been asked," Hill told The Associated Press in a phone interview from her home near Nashville. "I truly am a football fan. Particularly, men find it hard to believe that women can be big fans of football, but I love it. I loved it in junior high and high school, but being married to a man who schedules his life around football games, it makes it a lot easier."
Faith Hill
Visiting 'Oprah'
Dave Letterman
Talk-show host David Letterman will make his first appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" next month, another sign the talk-show powerhouses have buried the hatchet after a rift that lasted more than a decade.
Winfrey's production company says Letterman will appear on the show airing September 10.
Their reconciliation began in 2005 when Winfrey was a guest on Letterman's CBS "Late Show." They also appeared together in a Super Bowl commercial in February.
Dave Letterman
The Man To Be Rebuilt
Burning Man
The Man at the center of Black Rock City will be rebuilt after an overnight fire which damaged the effigy at the center of the Burning Man event. Rebuilding is expected to take about two days.
Black Rock City officials say there was structural damage to the figure of the Man, but relatively little damage to the art and exhibits at the base of the Man. No injuries were reported.
An arson investigation is underway, and one arrest was made shortly after the fire was set. No charges have been announced, and the name of the suspect is being withheld. There has been no discussion of motive in the episode.
This is not the first time the Man has required rebuilding. In 1990, the Man was accidentally cut up with a chain saw while in storage prior to the event. It was fully rebuilt in time to be transported to the desert.
Burning Man
Contestants Announced
'Dancing with the Stars'
Singers Marie Osmond and Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown are among the celebrity contestants in the upcoming season of ABC's popular "Dancing with the Stars" show, the network said on Wednesday.
Osmond, a member of 1970s showbusiness family The Osmonds, and Brown, a member of the reunited pop group the Spice Girls, will join boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, actress Jane Seymour and Brazilian car racing champion Helio Castroneves in the new, fifth season which starts September 24.
Rounding out the 12 celebrity contestants are singer Wayne Newton, actresses Sabrina Bryan and Jennie Garth, Dallas Mavericks basketball team owner Mark Cuban, models Josie Maran and Albert Reed and "All My Children" actor Cameron Mathison.
'Dancing with the Stars'
Tourist Resort In Brazil
Francis Ford Coppola
US film director Francis Ford Coppola is looking for land in southern Brazil where he can build a tourist resort, the G1.Globo.com news site said Tuesday.
The five-time-Oscar winning director arrived this week in Florianopolis, on the Atlantic coast some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of here, in search of real estate for his business venture, said the website without further details.
Coppola, 68, already has several investments including a couple of wineries in the US state of California and resorts in Guatemala and Belize.
In June, the director of "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now" was in Buenos Aires where he bought a hotel boutique and where he also plans to set up a film production facility and shoot a movie in 2008, G1 said.
Francis Ford Coppola
On The Rise
Segregation In Schools
Public schools in the United States are becoming more racially segregated and the trend is likely to accelerate because of a Supreme Court decision in June, according to report published on Wednesday.
The rise in segregation threatens the quality of education received by non-white students, who now make up 43 percent of the total U.S. student body, said the report by the Civil Rights Project of the University of California in Los Angeles.
In its June ruling the Supreme Court forbade most existing voluntary local efforts to integrate schools in a decision favored by the Bush administration despite warnings from academics that it would compound educational inequality.
"It is about as dramatic a reversal in the stance of the federal courts as one could imagine," said Gary Orfield, a UCLA professor and a co-author of the report.
"The federal courts are clearly pushing us backward segregation with the encouragement of the Justice Department of resident George W. Bush," he said in an interview.
Segregation In Schools
Guess He Doesn't Listen To AM Radio
Democrats
A conservative media watchdog organization charged Wednesday that the network morning news shows have spent considerably more time this year on Democrats running for president than on Republicans.
Network news executives rejected any suggestion of bias, and said they have a considerably harder time getting Republican candidates to appear on their shows.
Through July 31, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning news shows devoted 284 campaign segments to Democratic candidates and 152 to Republicans, according to the Media Research Center. Another 81 stories discussed both parties or a possible independent run by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"The double standard has got to stop," said whined L. Brent Bozell, the group's founder. "What you hope is that there would be fairness. If you are going to give that much coverage to the Democrats, give it to the Republicans, too."
Democrats
Hasselhoff's Ex-Wife's Trial Trouble
Pamela Bach
David Hasselhoff's ex-wife, Pamela Bach, is trying to halt her trial on a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge stemming from a fender-bender earlier this year.
Attorney Mark Geragos argues the delay is necessary because a judge made an error by ordering her booked on the charge even though she hadn't been arrested or issued a citation in the case.
The case started when Bach allegedly backed into a car Jan. 22 in North Hollywood, inspected both cars, and left because she didn't see any damage. An onlooker took down her license plate number and called police.
Pamela Bach
Pranksters Wrap Car
Turd Blossom
White House pranksters wrapped Karl Rove's Jaguar in plastic wrap on the private driveway next to the West Wing. Rove's car is easily recognizable because of its "I love Barack Obama" bumper sticker and the twin stuffed-animal eagles on the trunk. Oh, and there's a stuffed-animal elephant on the hood.
Rove, the top White House political strategist liar who recently announced his resignation, left his car on the driveway while visiting Texas and traveling with resident Bush. He was due back in Washington Wednesday evening.
Turd Blossom
Japan Copyright Court Decision
Charlie Chaplin
A Japanese court on Wednesday ruled that late comedy icon Charlie Chaplin still holds the copyright for his work until 2015, in the first ruling of its kind.
The decision came as the Tokyo District Court ruled that two Tokyo-based DVD producers violated the copyrights of nine Chaplin movies by duplicating and selling cheap DVDs.
"Their copyright should be protected for 38 years after the death of the rights holder," presiding Judge Misao Shimizu said. "The authorship of the nine movies belongs to Chaplin."
The court suspended the sales of the DVDs and ordered the companies to pay 10.5 million yen (91,400 dollars) in compensation to the Roy Export Company Establishment, which holds the rights to Chaplin's movies.
Charlie Chaplin
Becoming Less And Less Great
China's Great Wall
Sand storms in northwest China are reducing sections of Great Wall to mounds of dirt and may cause them to disappear in about 20 years, state media said on Wednesday.
The Great Wall, which was chosen last month as top of the new seven wonders of the world, snakes its way across more than 6,400 km (3,980 miles) and receives an estimated 10 million visitors a year.
More than 60 km of the wall in Minqin county in Gansu province, built in the Han Dynasty which lasted from 206 BC to 220 AD, had been "rapidly disappearing", Xinhua said, citing the head of the local museum, Zhou Shengrui.
"This section of Great Wall was made of mud rather than brick and stone, so is more prone to erosion," it quoted Zhou as saying, adding the wall had become brittle and the mud sanded down and blown away over time.
China's Great Wall
Burglar Can't Escape
Houdini Museum
A man accused of breaking into Scranton's Houdini Museum was unable to escape from police.
Officers said they apprehended the man about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, based on descriptions by three witnesses of two men seen fleeing from the museum. One witness told police he chased the men for several blocks. One man remained at large.
Charles Watkins, 25, of Scranton, was charged with a felony count of attempted burglary and misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass and loitering.
Museum co-founder Dorothy Dietrich said nothing was taken or badly damaged in the break-in, and the museum devoted to early 20th century escape artist Harry Houdini was open on Tuesday.
Houdini Museum
In Memory
Hilly Kristal
Hilly Kristal had no idea what he was unleashing when he welcomed a rash of unknown bands onstage in his dank Bowery dive: Television, the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Patti Smith Group.
Kristal, a New Jersey farm boy whose musical tastes ran to tamer fare, had opened CBGB as a haven for country, blues and bluegrass music. Instead, his cramped club became the epicenter of the punk rock movement, setting off a three-chord musical revolution that spread around the world.
Kristal, 75, died of complications from lung cancer at a Manhattan hospice after a long fight with the disease, his family announced Wednesday. CBGB closed last October with a blowout concert by Smith and her band, ending a 33-year run for the dingy space where Kristal operated from a small desk just inside the entrance with its familiar white awning.
He became a beloved figure to the performers who used his small venue as a launching pad to stardom, including several that reached the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also served as manager for the Dead Boys, whose appeal was summed up by their album title "Young Loud & Snotty."
Kristal, who once hoped to have his own singing career, was survived by son Mark Dana; daughter Lisa Kristal Burgman and her husband Ger; two grandchildren, "and the thousands of artists and musicians who played the club," the family said in a statement.
Hilly Kristal
In Memory
David Garcia
The broadcasting industry is mourning one of its own today. David Garcia died at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage yesterday from complications of a liver ailment. He was 63 years old.
An Emmy Award-winning Los Angeles newscaster who was also one of the first Latinos to work as a network news correspondent, Garcia won 14 Emmys and received 30 Emmy nominations.
A graduate of Baylor University, Garcia began his career at a radio station in Temple, Texas and by 1968 he was working for the ABC radio network in New York.
He became an ABC television correspondent in the early 1970s and went on to work for several Los Angeles TV stations in the 1980s and '90s, including KCBS, KNBC and KTTV.
David Garcia
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
