'Best of TBH Politoons'
Freshly Updated!
Dick Eats Bush
Reader Comment
Re: China's Celtic Mummy
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Increase in workers drives household median income higher (usatoday.com)
The nation's median household income rose last year for the first time since 1999 because more people worked in the households, albeit at lower paying jobs. Median earnings of men declined 1.8% last year. For women, the decline was 1.3%.
Keith A. Owens: The High Cost of Being Poor (metrotimes.com)
Why must those with less pay more? Cites recent research from Brookings Institution.
ANNE E. KORNBLUT and DAVID STOUT: Bush Cites Progress in Gulf Coast Visit (New York Times)
Mr. Bush delivered his remarks at an intersection in a working-class Biloxi neighborhood against a carefully orchestrated backdrop of neatly reconstructed homes. Just a few feet out of camera range stood gutted houses with wires dangling from interior ceilings. A tattered piece of crime scene tape hung from a tree in the field where Mr. Bush spoke. A toilet seat lay on its side in the grass
Paul Krugman: Katrina (New York Times)
Last September President Bush stood in New Orleans, where the lights had just come on for the first time since Katrina struck, and promised "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." Then he left, and the lights went out again.
Eliot Schrefer: The Working Class SAT (huffingtonpost.com)
Here's the rub: The most important factor in college admissions is a test that benefits those who are least prepared for college. It's the tale of the tax-funded Tortoise and the affluent Hare: the thousands of dollars that allow for tiny class sizes and PhD-educated teachers, that buy a private school kid the opportunity to think broadly, to argue nuance and forge unique connections, put him at a disadvantage in the final lap, when the plodding public school kid who has been drowning in stultifying but predictable standardized tests sails through.
Martin Sheen, the A-list undergraduate (guardian.co.uk)
Lucy Mangan: If I have read the annual reports right - it is possible to gain veritable fistfuls of A-levels, GCSEs and assorted other qualifications without having to demonstrate more intellectual ability or application than a monkey chasing a nut around the jungle floor.
David Hambling: How Phil K Dick took over the world (nthposition.com)
You don't expect eerily accurate prophecy from science fiction. It's especially weird when the work in question comes from the pen of Philip K Dick, a writer with no particular interest in science or the future. But somehow his 1965 novel The Zap Gun anticipates the modern world in a way that nobody else did.
Michael Standaert: The novel, Left Behind (nthposition.com)
A question I often ask myself, and one that others ask me as well, is: Should you really be making so much of the Left Behind novels? They are simply works of fiction. They are just novels after all. Right?
When is your food really past its best? (guardian.co.uk)
It's an issue that divides households: half of us throw out food that's a minute past its sell-by date, while the other half happily wolf it down weeks later. So how important are those dates? Aida Edemariam investigates.
Ladies - let yourselves go! (guardian.co.uk)
Michele Hanson is 64 and has wrinkles - lots of them. Which she wouldn't mind so much, except that celebrities almost the same age as her look about 30 these days. As Charlie's Angels appear on the Emmy awards red carpet looking remarkably youthful, she asks: surely it's time women stopped running away from old age?
Davuid Bruce: Wise Up! Baseball/Softball
In a column he wrote for Catholic New York, Cardinal John O'Connor criticized the playing of professional baseball games on Sunday. The New York Post covered the controversy in an article headlined, "Sermon on the Mount."
Highly Recommended Video: Have You Had Enough? (youtube.com)
Reading Suggestion
JD
A GOOD ARTICLE ON THE SOPRANOS.
Thanks, JD!
Reader Comment
Re: Mad Cat JD
Marty
I always enjoy reading that Mad Cat and his catchy titles...but yesterday was special...he could have called it the "Dick Cheney Day".
It was a funny thematic "Wank" with only Dick to spank.....
Keep on bloggin away because I can't find this kind of spew on any other site...
Gene
Thanks, Gene!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
No new flags.
Airbrush Diet
Katie Couric
Incoming "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric appears significantly thinner in a network promotional magazine photo thanks to digital airbrushing.
The touched-up photo of Couric dressed in a striped business suit appears on the inside of the September issue of Watch! which is distributed at CBS stations and on American Airlines flights.
Couric, 49, said she hadn't known about the digitally reworked version until she saw the issue. The former NBC "Today" show host told the Daily News, "I liked the first picture better because there's more of me to love."
Katie Couric
GM Pulls Sponsorship
'Survivor'
General Motors Corp. has decided to end its sponsorship of CBS' hit series "Survivor," but the world's largest automaker said Wednesday that the decision had nothing to do with the reality show's controversial decision to divide its contestants by race and ethnicity.
GM spokeswoman Ryndee S. Carney said the company made the decision in the normal course of making its media buys months ago, before the show made its announcement.
"I think it's just a coincidence. I know it's not cause and effect," Carney said.
'Survivor'
Chicks Row Looms Large
Country Music Liberals
Ever since the Dixie Chicks were boycotted by radio stations for insulting resident George W. Bush in 2003, country music liberals have felt under siege but that doesn't mean there aren't any in Nashville.
With 75 million country albums sold a year, and 2,000 radio stations devoted to it, country music is more than hillbillies in cowboy hats line dancing and singing "Stand by Your Man" -- it's big business, and it encompasses a broad range of fans and musicians, across the political spectrum.
The difference is some shout louder than others, and those who might agree with the Dixie Chicks often keep quiet.
Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters' Guild in Nashville, said there was "an inherent conservatism" in country music. However, Davidson County, Tennessee, which includes the home of country music, Nashville, voted for Democrat John Kerry over Republican Bush 55 percent to 45 percent in the 2004 election.
Country Music Liberals
Country Music Award
Nominees
Nominees for the 40th annual Country Music Association Awards, to be held Nov. 6 in Nashville, Tenn:
They snubbed the Chicks. If you gotta see the list - Nominees
NBCs Hank Jr.
Pink
Pink, the Grammy Award-winning singer known for her single, "Get the Party Started," has recorded the opening music for "NBC Sunday Night Football."
Pink has created "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night," set to Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself for Loving You," with new lyrics, NBC said Wednesday.
Film composer John Williams ("Star Wars" and "Superman") has written theme music for the network's "Football Night in America" studio show and "Sunday Night Football" broadcasts.
Pink
Glad He Left TV Show
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle doesn't regret his decision to walk away from a $50 million deal to continue his hit Comedy Central television show. However, he might miss the money.
Halting his "Chappelle's Show" two years ago was "one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life," the comedian said Tuesday while addressing the opening convocation at Central State University.
"Now, economically it makes no sense at all," he added.
Dave Chappelle
Alarms Flight Officials
Arabic T-Shirt
An Arab human rights activist was prevented from boarding a plane at Kennedy Airport while wearing a T-shirt that read, "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic.
Raed Jarrar was at the gate to board a JetBlue Airways flight to Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 12 when four officials from the airline or a government agency stopped him and told him he could not board with the shirt on, he said Wednesday.
Though rules banning liquids and gels in carry-on baggage went into effect at U.S. airports, JetBlue spokeswoman, Jenny Dervin said there are no specific rules governing clothing.
Jarrar, who directs the Iraq project for Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organization, said he refused a suggestion from the officials that he turn his shirt inside out. In the end, officials gave Jarrar another shirt to wear over his, and he put it on rather than miss his flight.
Arabic T-Shirt
Sorry For Potty Talk
CNN
CNN apologized Tuesday after an open mike transmitted an anchor's bathroom conversation with another woman live over the network as it was carrying resident Bush's speech in New Orleans.
"Live From" anchor Kyra Phillips had apparently left the set around 12:48 p.m. EDT Tuesday for a bathroom break while the news channel carried Bush's speech marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Phillips' wireless microphone was turned on and picked up about a minute and a half of a muffled conversation she had with an unidentified woman where she apparently talked about her husband, laughed and talked about her brother.
"I've got to be protective of him," she said without being aware that the mic was on. "He's married, three kids, and his wife is just a control freak." CNN anchor Daryn Kagan broke into the telecast immediately afterward updating viewers on what Bush had been saying.
CNN
Republican Shill Needs To Go
Kenneth Tomlinson
Three congressional Democrats asked resident Bush on Wednesday to dismiss the head of the agency that oversees government broadcasts, who is accused of misusing government money, overbilling for his time and hiring a friend as a consultant.
A summary of a report by the State Department's inspector general released Tuesday said Kenneth Tomlinson misused government funds for two years as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other U.S. government broadcasting abroad.
Reps. Howard Berman and Tom Lantos, California Democrats, and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said in a statement they were outraged by what has emerged from the investigation that they requested last year.
Kenneth Tomlinson
Christian Ethics
Thomas Kinkade
The FBI is investigating artist Thomas Kinkade and company executives on allegations they fraudulently induced investors to open galleries, then ruined them financially, a newspaper reported.
Relying on information from former Kinkade dealers contacted by federal agents, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the FBI is focusing on issues raised in litigation brought by at least six former Thomas Kinkade Signature Gallery owners.
At least 10 former dealers nationwide have alleged in arbitration claims that the "Painter of Light" - a California native beloved by some but reviled by the art establishment - exploited his Christianity to persuade people to invest in the galleries, which sell only Kinkade's work.
Some also say Kinkade - who claims to be the most widely collected living U.S. artist - schemed to devalue his public company, Media Arts Group Inc., so he could buy it on the cheap. In 2004, Kinkade and other investors paid $32.7 million to take Media Arts Group private, changing its name to Thomas Kinkade Co.
Thomas Kinkade
OK in School, Court Says
Anti-Bush Shirt
A middle school that censored the anti-drug, anti-Bush message on a student's T-shirt violated the boy's right to free speech, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The shirt bore images of cocaine and a martini glass - in addition to messages calling resident Bush a lying drunk driver who abused cocaine and marijuana, and the "chicken-hawk-in-chief" who was engaged in a "world domination tour."
Zachary Guiles, then a seventh-grader, wore the shirt once a week for two months in early 2004 and refused to cover the images after a parent and student complained. He was suspended for one day that May, and the next day wore the shirt with duct tape covering the images.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said in a 3-0 ruling that the school had no right to censor any part of the shirt.
Anti-Bush Shirt
Mummy Melting?
'Ice Maiden'
Peru's famed "Ice Maiden," the frozen mummy of an Inca girl sacrificed to the gods 500 years ago, might be at risk from humidity, Peru's leading newspaper reported Wednesday.
Dampness was detected inside the mummy's glass-enclosed refrigeration compartment by an expert from the U.S. Smithsonian Institution who was vacationing in the southern Andean city of Arequipa, where the mummy is kept, daily newspaper El Comercio reported.
Teodoro Nunez Medina, Arequipa's regional director of Peru's National Institute of Culture, was quoted by El Comercio saying that a group of specialists would inspect the mummy next week to see if there was already any damage.
'Ice Maiden'
In Memory
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz, who became the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novels depicting modern Egyptian life in his beloved, millennium-old corner of Islamic Cairo, died Wednesday, his doctor said. He was 94.
Mahfouz, who was accused of blasphemy by an Islamic militant and survived a stabbing attack 12 years ago, was admitted to the hospital last month after falling in his home and injuring his head. He died Wednesday morning after his health declined sharply, said Dr. Hossam Mowafi, head of a medical team supervising his treatment at the Police Hospital.
Mahfouz maintained a busy schedule well into his 90s. In his final years, he would go out six nights a week to meet friends at Cairo's literary watering holes, trading jokes, ideas for stories and news of the day.
It was his 1959 novel "Children of Our Alley," or "Children of Gebelawi," that brought him the most controversy. The book was an allegory for the series of prophets that Islam believes includes Jesus and Moses - Eissa and Moussa in Arabic - and culminates in the Prophet Mohammed.
Mahfouz spent most of his adult life working for the government, writing on the sidelines even as he grew more successful. He was a great defender of the Palestinian right to an independent state and a critic of U.S. foreign policy in the region, including the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But unlike the majority of Egypt's artists, Mahfouz has supported his country's peace treaty with Israel since it was signed in 1979.
A military funeral will be held for Mahfouz on Thursday at a Cairo mosque, with his coffin covered with an Egyptian flag and carried by caisson. Mahfouz was survived by his wife, Attiyatullah, and two daughters, Fatima and Umm Kulthoum.
Naguib Mahfouz
In Memory
Glenn Ford
Actor Glenn Ford, who played strong, thoughtful protagonists in films such as "The Blackboard Jungle," "Gilda" and "The Big Heat," died Wednesday, police said. He was 90.
Failing health forced him to skip a 90th birthday tribute on May 1 at Hollywood's historic Grauman's Egyptian Theatre. But he did send greetings via videotape, adding, "I wish I were up and around, but I'm doing the best that I can.... There's so much I have to be grateful for."
Ford appeared in scores of films during his 53-year Hollywood career. The Film Encyclopedia, a reference book, lists 85 films from 1939 to 1991.
He was cast usually as the handsome tough, but his acting talents ranged from romance to comedy. His more famous credits include "Superman," "Pocketful of Miracles," "The Sheepman," "The Gazebo," "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and "Don't Go Near the Water."
Glenn Ford
In Memory
Joseph Stefano
Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and was co-creator of television's science fiction anthology series "The Outer Limits," has died. He was 84.
Stefano graduated in 1940 from South Philadelphia High School and he went to New York as an aspiring entertainer. He played piano, sang, danced and wrote music and lyrics.
He toured with a modern dance troupe and worked temporary jobs as a typist. He met his future bride, Marilyn Epstein, in a bar in Manhattan in 1953.
Stefano's big TV break came in the 1950s when he was hired as a writer for the "Ted Mack Family Hour." He also wrote a number of scripts, including "The Black Orchid," which was made into a 1958 movie starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn.
Stefano then became a scriptwriter for 20th Century Fox in 1960, and he moved to Hollywood. Hitchcock soon had him adapt a Robert Bloch pulp novel for the screen. The movie became "Psycho."
He wrote several other screenplays, including "The Naked Edge" with Gary Cooper, but Stefano and screenwriter Leslie Stevens turned to TV to produce and write "'The Outer Limits," which ran from 1963 to '65.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote TV movies, including "Home for the Holidays" in 1972 and "Snowbeast " in 1977.
Besides his wife, Stefano is survived by his son Dominic. The funeral was private.
Joseph Stefano
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