'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Jazz From Hills
Trimmed Bush and Hedges
BBC America Tonight
The Young Ones
This weeks episode of 'The Young Ones' is just sick. That's the title and the subject "Sick". The lads are all down with a very nasty bug. They suffer terribly and the neighborhood suffers as well. A fight breaks out over cleaning the toilet. 3-1 against doing it. Mikel walks to the corner store and is serenaded by Madness singing their one hit"Our House" while a street riot is going on.
They try various home remedies to cure themselves and are even rewarded with a visit from Vyv's mother.Then Neil's parents show up and we have a slight segue into "The Good Neigbors"
I really can't recomend this one as it is very gross, but if you've watched a Cheney speech lately you should be heave proof
~ Mr. Hawk
Kerry/Edwards
At stake is our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor
Thanks, Mr. Hawk!
Weekly Link
Humor Gazette
Kerry campaign shaken by Bush ineptitude
The Humor Gazette has obtained documents showing that John Kerry is a war hero and George W. Bush is an ass. The information has been authenticated by the same experts who verified President Bush's uranium yellow cake documents.
Link from Bruce
An Ashcroft Good Read
"Ashcroft: Not a Single Post 9/11 Terror
Conviction: Law Professor and civil liberities
expert David Cole has some astonishing news
[recently]. With the collapse of the Detroit
terror convictions a few weeks ago, Ashcroft's
record is Š zero terrorism convictions since
9/11."
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
For A Bumper Sticker
Too Long
Bush/Cheney: Where are we going?
And what are we doing in this handbasket?
Thanks, Bruce!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot - in the 90°'s.
So, last night, I turned everything off & headed to bed. The distance from the living room to the bathroon is about 7', and I never turn on the hall light - figure I know the way.
Turns out one of the cats kacked up a major load just inside the bathroom door. I hit the puddle of puke with my right foot & started to slip, still in the dark.
Had a 3-point landing, sliding through the bio-hazard, ass-first, smacking my right hand in the juiciest part, while becoming aware that something smelled very, very bad.
Finally turned on the light, realized what the goo was, cursed catdom, and then stayed up another hour dealing with the mess. Ack.
Journalist Bill Moyers delivers the keynote speech at the People for the American Way Foundation's Spirit of Liberty dinner in Beverly Hills, September 21, 2004.
Photo by Fred Prouser
Gets Political
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen, who once bemoaned the television wasteland in his song "57 Channels," offered some fresh criticism of the small screen and its political coverage: enough with partisan politics and "Fear Factor," let's focus on the facts.
"Things are distorted by ratings and by money to where you're getting one hour of the political conventions," Springsteen says in an interview for the Oct. 14 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. "No matter how staged they are, I think they're a little more important than people eating bugs."
The New Jersey rocker also offered harsh words for the Bush administration and its efforts to "sanitize" coverage of the war in Iraq.
"The fact that the administration refused to allow photographs of the flag-draped coffins of returning dead, that the president hasn't shown up for a single military funeral for the young people who gave their lives for his policies, is disgraceful," Springsteen says.
Bruce Springsteen
Pop Stars Band Together
Aung San Suu Kyi
Some of the world's top artistes and musicians have banded together to push for the freedom of Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, activists said as US legislators considered seeking UN Security Council action against the military regime in Yangon.
Bands U2, Pearl Jam, Coldplay, Sting, R.E.M., Travis, Indigo Girls and Matchbox Twenty and several top artistes including Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton will launch an album on October 26 dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi.
The album, entitled "For The Lady: Dedicated to freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and the courageous people of Burma" will be released by Rhino Records.
Proceeds from the sale of the double CD featuring 27 tracks will benefit the non-profit group US Campaign For Burma, comprising activists around the world seeking an end to the military dictatorship in the impoverished nation.
Aung San Suu Kyi
Receiving Lifetime Honor
James Garner
Veteran actor James Garner, whose career spans six decades and signature TV roles from "Maverick" to "The Rockford Files," was chosen on Wednesday to receive the Screen Actors Guild's highest honor.
Garner, 76, who built a career playing ruggedly charming, good-natured anti-heroes, will be presented with SAG's annual lifetime achievement award at its gala awards show on Feb. 5.
The show is carried live on the cable channel TNT. Garner, an Oklahoma native, entered show business in the 1950s after serving in the Korean War and gained fame on the TV western "Maverick." He played the wise-cracking Bret Maverick, a gambler and ladies man, who got by on his cunning rather than a six-gun and would just as soon duck a fight as face a showdown.
James Garner
From left, Cheech Marin, honoree George Lopez, Norman Lear and Ralph Neas pose at the People for the American Way foundation's annual Spirit of Liberty Celebration, in Beverly Hills, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004.
Photo by Alex Berliner
Calls Bush 'Blind' on Environment
Robert Redford
The Bush administration is "intentionally blind" to the needs of the environment and has rolled back years of advances in improving air and water quality, actor and activist Robert Redford said Wednesday.
"Sadly, the erosion that's occurred is disastrous, frightening and dangerous," Redford said.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the Environmental Accountability Fund, a political action committee, Redford said he is insulted when resident Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney tout their status as Westerners.
"I take particular offense as a Westerner when I see all the swagger and all the strutting. .... And I think, `What do they know about the West?'" said Redford, who has homes in California and Utah. "It's synthetic. It's fake."
"Remember the old days when we all fought tooth and nail, but we worked together to come to some sort of solution that could be bipartisan?" Redford said. "God forbid we could ever let things slide, that we lose that balance and we end up with something that could be divisive, totalitarian, mean, narrow. That's where we are now."
Robert Redford
Director's Anti-War Film Finds Distributor
David O. Russell
Film director David O. Russell's anti-Iraq war documentary "Soldier's Pay" has found a new distributor in independent film company Cinema Libre Studio after Warner Bros. balked at sending the movie to theaters or packaging it in a DVD.
In a statement, Cinema Libre said it will release Russell's movie in theaters along with "Uncovered: The War on Iraq" as a political documentary double bill.
Russell's 35-minute film, which was made with Tricia Regan and Juan Carlos Zaldivar, was set to be shown in theaters with a rerelease of Russell's fictional Gulf War movie "Three Kings" from Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. film studio.
It also was supposed to be part of the "Three Kings" DVD package, but Warner Bros. decided against releasing it out of concern it might put the studio in violation of U.S. election laws during this presidential election year.
David O. Russell
Ashes Scattered
Marlon Brando
The ashes of legendary actor Marlon Brando were spread in Tahiti and Death Valley, according to a newspaper report.
A memorial service for Brando, who died of lung failure at age 80 on July 1, was held at the home of Hollywood producer Mike Medavoy and was attended by Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn, the Los Angeles Times reported in Wednesday editions.
Some of Brando's ashes were scattered in Death Valley, a place that the actor cherished, his son Miko Brando told the newspaper. The ashes of Brando's late friend Wally Cox, who died in 1973, were also poured onto the desert landscape as part of the same ceremony; how Cox's ashes were in the possession of Brando's family was unknown.
Despite being known as a recluse, Brando ventured to Neverland Ranch more than a year before he died to visit pop star Michael Jackson, whom he'd first met through Quincy Jones in the 1980s. Jackson is the godfather of Brando's 9-year-old granddaughter Prudence.
Marlon Brando
Dinner With A Celeb
Charity Auction
A chance to see and be seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in Los Angeles. Or eat clam chowder with Ben Affleck in Boston. Or have a night on the town with Ricky Martin in Miami. These aren't necessarily fantasies for those with deep, charitable pockets.
These celebs - as well as Sarah Jessica Parker and Benjamin Bratt - will auction dinner in their company for charities they have chosen individually. The bidding begins Thursday and concludes on Oct. 3. It is being held on a Web site run by eBay, accessible through Godiva.com, the sponsor of the decadent fund-raiser.
The dinners will raise money for various causes including the prevention of global warming and UNICEF.
Charity Auction
Entertainer Kitty Carlisle Hart celebrates her 94th birthday by blowing out candles on her cake after a cabaret performance at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004. Hart, who is still remembered for her appearances on the television game show 'To Tell the Truth,' also appeared in the Marx Bros. 'A Night at the Opera' in 1935.
Photo by Richard Drew
Holds Auditions for Film
William Shatner
William Shatner, who played the commander of the starship USS Enterprise in the '60s "Star Trek" series, arrived in Riverside (Iowa) Tuesday to hold auditions for four small parts in a low-budget, sci-fi movie he wrote with "Star Trek" co-star Leonard Nimoy.
Although Kirk's hometown was never mentioned in the TV series, Gene Roddenberry, the show's creator and executive producer, wrote in "The Making of Star Trek" that Kirk was "born in a small town in the state of Iowa."
The Riverside City Council picked up on the idea in March 1985, declaring a site behind what used to be the town's barbershop the "future birthplace" of Kirk.
Shatner is a native of Canada.
William Shatner
Unveiling Statue in Hometown
Andy Griffith
Andy Griffith is coming home Friday, when he will unveil a TV Land statue that's a copy of the one that the cable placed in Raleigh last fall.
The statue shows Sheriff Andy Taylor from "The Andy Griffith Show" and his son, Opie, walking to the fishing hole.
The statue will be placed outside the Andy Griffith Playhouse, which once was the Rockford Street Elementary School that Griffith attended.
This will be Griffith's first visit to Mount Airy during Mayberry Days and just the third time in 47 years that he will make a public appearance in town. He was last in Mount Airy in October 2002 when more than 2,500 people greeted him as Gov. Mike Easley named a section of U.S. 52 in his honor.
Andy Griffith
More Episodes
SpongeBob SquarePants
"SpongeBob SquarePants," the popular animated Nickelodeon show, is returning with 20 all-new episodes, set to premiere on the cable channel sometime in 2005 after the big square sponge and his undersea friends soak on the big screen.
"What could be better than announcing that the world's most beloved and optimistic sea sponge is coming back with 20 new episodes?" asked Nick President Cyma Zarghami Wednesday. "SpongeBob is the most successful property in our 25-year history, and we're thrilled to bring his fans more adventures from Bikini Bottom. And maybe he'll finally get his driver's license."
SpongeBob SquarePants
Deported from U.S.
Yusuf Islam
Former pop singer Cat Stevens, a Muslim, was deported to Britain on Wednesday after U.S. officials said his activities could be "linked to terrorism" and his name was put on a U.S. no-fly list.
He was seen being escorted by U.S. security officials onto a United Airlines flight at Dulles International Airport bound for London's Heathrow Airport on Wednesday evening.
Born Steven Demeter Georgiou in July 1947 to a Swedish mother and a Greek Cypriot father, he changed his name to Cat Stevens when he entered the music world. He had a string of hits in the early 1970s including "Peace Train," "Moonshadow," "Morning has Broken" and "Wild World" before converting to Islam in 1977.
Yusuf Islam
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzen Gyatso, far left, bows to the University of Miami's president Donna E. Shalala, right, before receiving an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, honoris causa, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004, at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.
Photo by David Adame
Fined $550,000
CBS
Federal regulators on Wednesday fined CBS a record $550,000 for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," which exposed the singer's breast during this year's Super Bowl halftime show.
The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to slap each of the 20 CBS-owned television stations with the maximum indecency penalty of $27,500. The total penalty of $550,000 is the largest fine levied against a television broadcaster. Most of the FCC's bigger fines have been against radio stations.
The commission decided not to fine CBS' more than 200 affiliate stations, which also aired the show but are not owned by the network's parent company, Viacom.
CBS
Smoking Tent Led to Flooding
Ahnold
A tent constructed so Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could smoke his cigars at the state Capitol contributed to some of the water damage suffered during a sudden rainstorm Sunday, state officials said Tuesday.
The artificial lawn covering the Republican governor's smoking patio blocked at least one drain during the downpour, helping drench some offices, said Scott Edelen, a spokesman for the Department of General Services.
After taking office last year, Schwarzenegger, a cigar enthusiast, installed a small smoking tent in the middle of the ground-floor patio outside the governor's office. He also had a layer of artificial grass placed over existing concrete.
Ahnold
A man passes by a collection of 'mates' during an exhibition at the National Museum of Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004. More than 300 mates from seven countries of South America are exhibited through middle October.
Photo by Natacha Pisarenko
No Marriage License on File
Britney Spears
So, did she or didn't? Britney Spears most definitely got married last week, People magazine reports in its Oct. 4 issue filled with pictures of the pop star and her fiance, Kevin Federline, in wedding apparel and surrounded by family and friends.
What the couple didn't do, according to the Los Angeles County registrar's office, is file a marriage license after the ceremony.
"I know we're not completely legal until we file the license, which we'll do next week," the 22-year-old pop star said. "But in a real sense, a spiritual sense, we're married."
Britney Spears
Suit in Chicago to Proceed
Pritzker Heirs
A judge on Wednesday ruled that lawsuits accusing the Pritzker family, owners of the Hyatt hotel chain, of emptying the trust funds of two heirs had merit and a trial could begin in a year.
Cook County Chancery Court Judge Patrick McGann issued two rulings, one of which dismissed 10 older cousins as defendants in the lawsuit brought by Liesel, 20, and her brother Matthew Pritzker, who is a year older.
Remaining as defendants in the suit are the various family trusts and the two trustees accused of diverting money on the orders of Liesel and Matthew's father, Robert Pritzker, who is also a trustee.
The suits contended Robert Pritzker transferred assets from his two young children's trust funds out of anger at their mother, whom he divorced, and at Liesel's movie acting career.
As a child actress, Liesel starred in the 1995 movie "A Little Princess" against her father's wishes.
Pritzker Heirs
Hypocritical Philanderer Apologizes
Jimmy Swaggart
Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart apologized Wednesday for saying in a televised worship service that he would kill any gay man who looked at him romantically.
In the broadcast, Swaggart was discussing his opposition to gay marriage when he said "I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry."
Swaggart was a popular television evangelist during the 1980s until a 1987 sex scandal involving a prostitute that he met in a seedy New Orleans motel. Swaggart never confessed to anything more than an unspecified sin. A few years later, he was stopped by police while driving in California with a suspected prostitute in his car.
Jimmy Swaggart
In Memory
Ellis L. Marsalis Sr.
Ellis L. Marsalis Sr., the patriarch of a family of world famous jazz musicians, including grandson Wynton Marsalis, has died. He was 96.
Marsalis' son, Ellis Jr., is a prominent New Orleans pianist and music professor who mentored crooner Harry Connick Jr. as well as four musician sons: Wynton, the trumpeter; saxophonist Branford; trombonist Delfeayo and drummer Jason.
Ellis Sr., who died Sunday, was involved in the civil rights movement through ownership of a motel in suburban New Orleans whose guests included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and musician Ray Charles.
He was born in Summit, Miss., and had lived in New Orleans since 1921. In 1936, he became the first black manager of an Esso service station in the city.
Marsalis opened the Marsalis Motel near the Mississippi River in 1943, a converted barn that featured a restaurant, lounge and swimming pool. The motel's business dwindled after civil rights legislation in the 1960s allowed blacks to stay at formerly all-white inns. The motel closed in 1986 and was later demolished.
He is survived by his son, a daughter and seven grandchildren.
Ellis L. Marsalis Sr.
In Memory
Russ Meyer
Russ Meyer, producer-director who helped spawn the "skin flick" with such films as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and later gained a measure of critical respect, has died. He was 82.
Meyer died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills, according to his company, RM Films International Inc. Spokeswoman Janice Cowart said Meyer had suffered from dementia and died of complications of pneumonia.
Meyer's films were considered pornographic in their time but are less shocking by today's standards, with their focus on violence and large-busted women but little graphic sex.
Altogether he produced, directed, financed, wrote, edited and shot at least 23 films, including his debut, "The Immoral Mr. Teas," in 1959 and the 1968 film "Vixen," whose success earned him notice from major studios.
He went on to direct the major studio release "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", which was co-written by film critic Roger Ebert.
Meyer's work made him rich and earned him acclaim. He was honored at international film festivals and his movies were discussed in college courses. Even critics who disliked his movies often found something positive to note.
New York critic John Simon derided "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" as "awful, stupid and preposterous" but said the film was "also weirdly funny and a real curio, rather like a Grandma Moses illustration for a work by the Marquis de Sade," according to Halliwell's Film and Video Guide.
His 1966 film "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!," about three go-go girl club dancers who go on a vengeful murder spree against the men who did them wrong, still makes the art house rounds.
Other films by Meyer include "Fanny Hill" (1964), "Mudhoney" and "Motorpsycho" from 1965, "Mondo Topless" (1966), "Common Law Cabin" (1967), "Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!" (1968), "Blacksnake" (1972), "Up!" (1976) and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" (1979).
The director traveled widely, describing adventures with Ernest Hemingway in Paris and a fedora given to him by director Federico Fellini, to whom he compared himself.
In 1992, Meyer published his three-volume autobiography, "A Clean Breast: The Life and Loves of Russ Meyer."
Born in Oakland, Meyer got his start in film as a young boy when his mother bought him an 8 mm camera. As an adult, he made training films with the Army Signal Corps in World War II and then shot newsreels in France and Germany. He made industrial films for Standard Oil and lumber companies before making his own films.
Meyer was married three times, including to actress Edy Williams. His studio said he left no survivors.
Russ Meyer
The Hine's emerald dragonfly is shown in this undated photo. The dragonfly, a wetlands-dependent endangered species, is found in several Midwestern states including Michigan. Environmentalists who filed a lawsuit Feb. 4, 2004, to force the federal government to designate critical habitat for the endangered dragonfly say the two sides have reached an agreement.
