The Weekly Poll
The 'Stimulate me... Please!' Edition
Are there any aspects of the pending 'Stimulus Bill' that you find to be inadequate or inappropriate?
Due to the ongoing negotiations (i.e. Republican stonewalling) over the 'Stimulus' Bill I'd like to postpone the results until the final bill has been decided. The 6 responders, so far, are invited to rethink their answers and change them if they so choose. Who the heck knows what the finished bill would look like. Or even if there will be one at all. What a frickin' mess!
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Destructive Center (nytimes.com)
President Obama's pursuit of bipartisanship, and the cuts imposed by "centrists," have led to an inadequate, insufficiently effective stimulus bill.
Trish Bendix: Graphic Designer Emy Storey Brings Art to Music (afterellen.com)
The queer graphic designer and artist has worked with Melissa Ferrick, Rachael Cantu, Death Cab for Cutie, and Tegan and Sara.
Bono on his love of Frank Sinatra (timesonline.co.uk)
Singers, more than other musicians, depend on what they know - as opposed to what they don't want to know.
Chris Ayres: Burt Bacharach strips down to talk Robbie Williams, money and marriage (timesonline.co.uk)
Our correspondent encounters the master of smooth listening Burt Bacharach oiling himself by his Los Angeles swimming pool.
DAVID STEINFELD: The Original Righteous Babe (curvemag.com)
Feeling Righteous: Ani DiFranco is back with a vengeance. She spills to Curve about her anthology Canon and never "selling out."
Duane Wells: An Audience With Heather Headley (advocate.com)
Heather Headley has been winning hearts with her rich, soulfully elastic voice since the moment she made her Broadway debut.
Brandon Voss: Hurricane Rita (advocate.com)
She's never played gay, but that doesn't stop sassy-mouthed stage and screen legend Rita Moreno from talking all things gay as she tours with her one-woman cabaret act.
Brandon Voss: "A-List: Toni Collette" (advocate.com)
She takes on multiple personalities in The United States of Tara, but to her many gay fans Toni Collette will always be Muriel.
Scott Foundas: Coraline in Wonderland (villagevoice.com)
Things are not as they seem in Henry Selick's stunning stop-motion fairy tale.
Dana Stevens: The Batman Goes Bananas (slate.com)
Does being a jerk prevent you from winning an Oscar?
Roger Ebert: Outguess Ebert '09: Who wants to bet on 'Millionaire'?
What if I get every category right? That has never happened, and I don't expect to start now.
Roger Ebert: The Class (4 Stars)
"The Class" might have been set in any classroom in the Western world, and I believe most teachers would recognize it. It is about the power struggle between a teacher who wants to do good and students who disagree about what "good" is. The film is so fair that neither side is seen as right, and both seem trapped by futility.
Commentoon: Octuplets
David Bruce: William Shakespeare's "Macbeth": A Discussion Guide (lulu.com)
Free download.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Steroid Age Mutant Baseball Players
Dareland
Bus Slogan Generator
"Atheists have started advertising on buses in the UK. Do you want to see your own message on the side of a bus? Well now's your chance."
wrote:
Reader Correction
Re: Terry Gilliam
Re: "British director Terry Gilliam arrives for the 2009 BAFTA..."
Terry is from the American branch of the Pythons.
Ed K.
Thanks, Ed!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
A little rain, a lot of wind.
RuperTV At Its Best
My Network
My Network TV said it will essentially get out of the business of presenting original programming except for professional wrestling, a sign of how the economy is hurting Rupert and deregulation killed the television business.
The network, created for stations left adrift when the old WB and UPN network combined to form the CW, will also turn its Saturday night schedule over to the local affiliates and stations owned by the parent News Corp, it announced Monday.
It will abandon the traditional broadcast television model, where networks pay a licensing fee to programming producers and attempt to make money be selling ad time within those shows. Instead, it will acquire primarily established programs in which the producers sell half of the advertising time and My Network gets half the cut.
Except for its "Friday Night Smackdown" wresting series, My Network's most popular show, the only other series it has committed to for next fall is two hours of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" reruns. My Network will also have a movie night.
My Network TV
New Season
`Dancing with the Stars'
The new season of "Dancing Season with the Stars" will feature three couples and - with the show's touch for the improbable - one computer guru.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is among 13 celebrities who will compete on the ABC series' eighth season that begins March 9, the network said Sunday.
Pop star Jewel and her husband, rodeo champion Ty Murray, will compete for bragging rights, ABC said, while country singer Chuck Wicks will take the floor with his girlfriend, two-time "Dancing with the Stars" champion Julianne Hough.
Olympic gold-medal gymnast Shawn Johnson gets to make her mark just by showing up: At 17, she's the youngest competitor to date, ABC said.
Another star athlete in the field is Lawrence Taylor, the former New York Giant and Hall of Famer.
The other celebrity hoofers are Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle; rapper Lil' Kim; actress Denise Richards; actor-comedian David Alan Grier (Comedy Central's "Chocolate News"); Gilles Marini, who played the neighbor ogled by Kim Cattrall's Samantha in the "Sex and the City" film; Steve-O (MTV's "Wildboyz") and TV host Nancy O'Dell of "Access Hollywood."
`Dancing with the Stars'
Grammy No-Show
Rihanna
Chris Brown's ad campaign with Wrigley was suspended Monday until his criminal case is resolved, and reports surfaced that pop superstar Rihanna, his longtime girlfriend and a fellow no-show at the Grammy Awards, was the woman who accused him of assault.
The Los Angeles Times, citing law enforcement officials familiar with the case and other sources it did not name, reported that Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, was the woman who told police that Brown had hurt her the night before the Grammy Awards.
A police statement released Sunday afternoon said Brown and an unidentified woman began arguing while riding in a car following a pre-Grammy party where they were spotted together Saturday night. The fight escalated when they got out of the car in the ritzy Hancock Park neighborhood, the report said, and Brown was gone by the time officers arrived.
Rihanna's publicist declined to say why the singer did not appear, and Brown's representatives also refused to discuss the allegations or his arrest. Repeated phone and email messages left beginning Sunday night with Brown's attorney, Mark Geragos, were not returned Monday.
Rihanna
New Host For 'America's Got Talent'
Nick Cannon
America's got Nick Cannon as the new host of "America's Got Talent," says NBC.
The musician, comedian, actor and producer will preside over the network's talent competition series when it returns for a fourth season this summer.
Cannon, 28, had his breakthrough role while a teen on the Nickelodeon series "All That," starred in his own MTV show, "Nick Cannon Presents Wild'n Out," and has recorded with artists including Kanye West and Diddy.
Cannon takes over from former "America's Got Talent" host Jerry Springer.
Nick Cannon
DreamWorks Distribution Deal
Disney
Walt Disney Studios confirmed that it had entered a long-term, exclusive film distribution agreement with DreamWorks Studios principals Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider.
Disney said in a statement on Monday that it would distribute and market about six live-action films per year for DreamWorks as part of Spielberg and Snider's partnership with Reliance BIG Entertainment.
The company will release the DreamWorks movies under its adult-oriented Touchstone Pictures banner. The first such title is set to hit theaters in 2010.
DreamWorks Studios will remain at its current quarters on the Universal Studios lot.
Disney
Sues AP Over Image
Shepard Fairey
An artist who created a famous image of Barack Obama before he became president sued The Associated Press on Monday, asking a judge to find that his use of an AP photo in creating the poster did not violate copyright law.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan said street artist Shepard Fairey did not violate the copyright of the April 2006 photograph because he dramatically changed the nature of the image.
The AP has said it is owed credit and compensation for the artist's rendition of the picture, taken by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.
Lawyers for Fairey acknowledged that the artist used the photograph. But they said he transformed the literal depiction into a "stunning, abstracted and idealized visual image that creates powerful new meaning and conveys a radically different message."
Shepard Fairey
Sues Village People
Victor Willis
The Village People's first cop wants a revamped version of the group to stop using his likeness and voice.
The lawsuit filed last week in San Diego by Victor Willis claims companies continue to use his voice and picture to promote the new Village People. He is seeking at least $1 million and a judge's order that they can no longer use his image or voice.
Willis was the original police officer in the group and helped pen the Village People's greatest hits, including "Y.M.C.A" and "Macho Man."
He is suing Sixuvus Ltd., a New York company that promotes the new Village People. He's also suing the William Morris Agency as well as Can't Stop Productions - which owns the trademark to the band's name - and several venues where the new group has performed.
Victor Willis
Sales Tumble
Magazines
Newsstand and retail sales of U.S. magazines fell 11 percent in the second half of 2008, with celebrity and women's titles taking a hit as supermarket and drugstore shoppers cut back on their spending.
"Single-copy" sales of magazines in figures released by the U.S. Audit Bureau of Circulations on Monday performed worse than paid subscriptions, which were up less than 1 percent.
Among traditionally popular titles at the grocery store checkout line, sales of US Weekly fell almost 21 percent to about 1 million copies. In Touch Weekly dropped 32 percent to about 1.2 million copies.
Hearst Corp's "O, The Oprah Magazine" fell 25 percent to 836,770 copies, and Star Magazine fell 13.45 percent to 712,980 copies.
Magazines
Newly Discovered Tomb In Egypt
Mummies
A storeroom housing about two dozen ancient Egyptian mummies has been unearthed inside a 2,600-year-old tomb during the latest round of excavations at the vast necropolis of Saqqara south of Cairo, archaeologists said Monday.
The tomb was located at the bottom of a 36-foot deep shaft, said Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass. Twenty-two mummies were found in niches along the tomb's walls, he said.
Eight sarcophagi were also found in the tomb. Archaeologists so far have opened only one of the sarcophagi - and found a mummy inside of it, said Hawass' assistant Abdel Hakim Karar. Mummies are believed to be inside the other seven, he said.
The "storeroom for mummies" dates back to 640 B.C. during the 26th Dynasty, which was Egypt's last independent kingdom before it was overthrown by a succession of foreign conquerors beginning with the Persians, Hawass said. But the tomb was discovered at an even older site in Saqqara that dates back to the 4,300-year-old 6th Dynasty, he said.
Mummies
Due In Court
Muntadhar al-Zeidi
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at ex-resident George W. Bush faces trial next week for allegedly assaulting a foreign leader after an appellate court refused to reduce the charge, a judicial official said Sunday.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, 30, who won folk hero status throughout the Arab world for his protest, has been in custody since the Dec. 14 outburst at Bush's joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
He had been due to stand trial in December but his defense team won a delay as it sought to reduce the charges to simply insulting Bush.
However, court spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said an appellate court rejected the request and ordered the journalist to face trial on Feb. 19 on the original charge. He did not say when the appeals court issued its decision.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi
In Memory
Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie, a classically trained pianist who transformed herself into a jazz singer with a unique baby-doll voice heard in New York and London cabarets for three decades, has died at 82.
Dearie died of natural causes Saturday at her Manhattan home, said her manager, Donald Schaffer. No specific cause of death was given.
Born April 29, 1926, in East Durham, N.Y., Marguerite Blossom Dearie dropped her first name to bolster a musical career that began with early training in piano and moved to jazz vocals. By the mid-1940s, she was a member of the Blue Flames, associated with Woody Herman's orchestra and with the Alvino Rey band.
Dearie began her solo career in postwar Paris. With an octet called the Blue Stars, she recorded a French version of the jazz standard "Lullaby of Birdland." She was briefly married to Belgian saxophonist Bobby Jaspar and later signed a six-album contract with jazz impresario Norman Granz, the owner of Verve Records. The New York Times called the resulting albums cult classics.
Dearie appeared regularly at London nightclubs in the 1960s. She founded her own label, Daffodil Records, in New York in 1974, writing the music to lyrics by Johnny Mercer and others. She gained national attention by appearing on NBC's "Today" show during its early years.
Dearie liked to poke fun at composers she thought pretentious or overrated. A favorite target was Andrew Lloyd Webber, responsible for the music for "Jesus Christ Superstar" and other hit musicals.
Her last record was the 2003 single "It's All Right to be Afraid," dedicated to victims and survivors of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. She last performed in 2006 at a cabaret in midtown Manhattan.
She is survived by an older brother, a niece and a nephew.
Blossom Dearie
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