BartCop Entertainment Archives - Tuesday, 22 February, 2005

Tuesday

22 February, 2005

big hammer - bigger hammer

(Updated Daily)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Issue #140

Disinfotainment Today

 By Michael Dare



Issue #140
is brought to you by

Fear and Loathing at the Funeral Parlor
or
The savage, brutal, ugly, treacherous, and cruel death of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
 
"Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist. You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it."
- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson -
 
The last thing I expected was to start out the day with a healthy cry, so allow me to wipe away the tears and expose my grief at the sudden loss of my idol Hunter S. Thompson. I don't use the word idol lightly. I idolized him like no other writer, and my brain can barely grasp the loss. I expected to be reading him forever, for Thompson to become an elder spokesman of a myriad of lost causes, and now that he's joined Hemingway in the pantheon of literary suicides, all I can do is mourn the loss of words to be. My joy in his life has now been paired with equal despair at his death. How the fuck could he do this to me?
 
Yeah, I'm taking it personal. I never met the guy, but when someone who has absolutely everything you lack - fame, fortune, an enormous following, and an endless capacity to turn drug consumption into creative thought - and they deliberately take it away from themselves, they send the message that those items aren't enough to overcome the abject misery of existence. All of that couldn't ease his agony. What the hell does it take? I'm afraid I'm going to have to pick up where he left off and consume as many illegal drugs as possible and SURVIVE, just to prove it can be done.
 
"I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone but they've always worked for me."
- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson -
 
This is all, of course, simply my way of dealing with the pain of an irreplaceable loss. There is no one on earth I wanted to be more than Hunter S. Thompson. Okay, maybe Warren Beatty, but that's my penis talking. Who doesn't dream of becoming a character in Doonesbury? My brain has always striven for the unbelievable wordplay of the Doc, and I recently, very publicly, adopted pieces of Hunter's style in a lame attempt to sound like him. Fat chance.
 
"Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous 'trickle-down' theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow 'trickle down' to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to pre-industrial America, when only white male property owners could vote."
- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004 -
 
My influences are incredibly varied, a stew of styles appropriated from dozens of authors whose work delighted and opened me to new worlds of word combinations. Every journalist who has ever injected himself into his work, abandoning all hope of objectivity, creating an amalgam of incontrovertible facts with hilarious mind-games, owes an immeasurable heap of gratitude to the doctor for breaking down the fourth wall. He was the king of tangents and hyperbole, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is simply one of the most entertaining, enlightening, hilarious, and damned important books ever written.
 
The publication of it in Rolling Stone owed just as much to the open-mindedness of Jan Wenner as to the amazing talent of the author. Every professional journalist knows what it's like to be given a specific assignment, only to find in the process of discovery that there's a bigger story. Write that bigger story, hand it in, and you're sure to get the standard editorial slap on the wrist. "This isn't what I asked for" is a refrain I heard dozens of times from editors over the years, and more often than not, the piece would be reigned in to something more to the editor's liking. The editor who asked for a film review only to receive a flowchart, the editor who asked for a simple piece about a swap meet only to receive an indictment of the capitalist pigs on Melrose, they went ahead and printed what I wrote, and they are to me the supreme examples of what editors should be.
 
"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years. It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible. But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story. They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with their readers."
- Paul Krassner -
 
I can think of no greater example than the magnificence of Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, who asked Hunter S. Thompson to write about a dirt bike race in Las Vegas, only to receive Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in return. When you've assigned a writer a piece on a dirt bike race, the last thing on earth you expect back is something that starts "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." Thompson was the king of trying editor's patience.
 
But Wenner went ahead and printed it, knowing full well it wasn't what he asked for. That took not only a healthy pair of knee-knockers but an admission that what was handed in far exceeded the assignment in scope and style. I know of whence I speak when I say that handing in something BETTER than what you were asked for is always a dangerous sport, and more often than not the editor will take your work and diminish it to his meager expectations, which is why I'm so much happier as my own editor, and why you get to suffer through run-on sentences that only exist through my endless capacity to allow myself such indulgences.
 
Yep, I actually had editors say to me "I didn't ask for Hunter Thompson," and my invariable reply would be "Why are you complaining about an improvement?" I wasn't trying to BE Hunter Thompson any more than I'm trying to be Tom Robbins or H.L. Mencken or Michael O'Donoghue or dozens of other writers I've absorbed. I simply allow their talent to wash over me and to embrace whatever sticks - in a constant to quest to be no one but myself. Everyone knows that the only way to be the best at what you do is to do something no one else is doing.
 
The Doc and I already share a bit in common. His life was made into two feature films, my life was made into one cheesy MOW. His work consistently insisted that his personal life and idiosyncrasies were just as interesting as whatever story he was covering, and I admit to the same egocentricity.
 
"We are living in dangerously  weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic."
- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Hey Rube -
 
So now we've got the autopsy to look forward to. As Paul Krassner pointed out to me, it would be the ultimate irony if, after years of illegal substance abuse, Thompson's depression turned out to have been caused by the use of some legal prescription drug like Zoloft.
 
Let us at least acknowledge the word "apparent" that inevitably precedes the phrase "self-inflicted gunshot" in the coverage of Thompson's death.
At this point, we don't know if he left a note. It's hard to imagine he wouldn't. Why would he leave us guessing? Was it a last minute, impulsive decision, or did he know years ago when he was typing an entire Hemingway novel into his typewriter that he was planning on following his idol's particular path into oblivion?
 
They use the word "apparent," apparently to allow more for the possibility it was an accident than for the possibility he was "suicided" by an enemy, so let the conspiracy theories start now. Someone's got to say it. I can't allow myself to believe that Hunter S. Thompson shot himself any more than I believe Margie Schoedinger shot herself or Paul Wellstone's plane crash was an accident. Allow me to point out that his latest book was titled Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and The Downward Spiral of Dumbness, a savage indictment of the current administration. I find myself asking the two obvious questions: Would they have wanted him dead? Yep. Could they have made him dead? Yep. Case closed. I have no evidence to back my claim that a Bushie stooge put the gun in Hunter's hand, and no way to prove that I am simply deluding myself out of stunned disbelief.
 
"A civilian gang of thieving lobbyists for the military industrial complex is running the White House. If to be against them is considered unpatriotic, hell, then call me a traitor."
- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, 8/30/02, ABC Radio Network -
 
He had back pain. I have back pain. That's no excuse. I can tell you right now that if I'm ever found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, you can immediately start searching for the real killers because I'm sticking it through to the bitter end. No suicide for me. No thank you. There isn't a chance in hell I'd ever kill myself, other than through the exercise of a living will by the paroled Dr. Kevorkian to prevent extraordinary life-saving measures to be taken in the unlikely event I turn into a vegetable other than a couch potato.
 
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep."
- Hunter S. Thompson: The Great Shark Hunt -
 
The one aspect of Thompson's writing and persona that I never understood or related to was his irritating and maniacal focus on guns and firepower, and that, of course, turned out to be his undoing.
 
So Hunter, wherever you are, I'm taking up the cause minus the guns. I've never touched a handgun and never will. If I can't outshine you, at least I can outlast you.
 
"Yeah, it is the end of the world. What, do you think it's going to come on a TV show, right on schedule? Shit. They've been digging this for a long time. Read the fucking Book of Revelations The end of the world is not just coming; it's here. Until Bush came in it was still possible to be successful, happy. That was two years ago, but now the wheel is turning and I don't think what we're in now will possibly get any better."
- Hunter S. Thompson interviewed by Marty Beckerman -
 
"Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date, even to eternity"
- William Shakespeare: Sonnet CXXII -
 
Today in History
Ten years ago today, the first dogs were circumcised.
 
Paranoid E-Mail of the Week
 
    So there's this guy with a scruffy beard living an a palatial complex of caves in the Tora Bora hills of Pipelineistan and he decides on a plan of world domination by sending 20 of his buddies to America to brush up on their flying skills.
    Trouble is though they cannot fly and they cannot stay off the slash or stop leaving their Korans and Driving Licenses in the bars that they frequent.
    Not to worry though, the good people at the CIA and FBI coincidentally have plans as well, in fact they are so ahead of the game that the put options have been doing the rounds on the world financial markets for around a fortnight, Skin Job has warned all of her buddies about flying and government buildings, Ashers has even got the wrong month by not flying commercial since mid July, Dick has organized 5 supposed practice drills for the USAF around the nation and Jeb has signed the Florida Martial law on the Friday so he doesn't have to come in on Monday the 10th. [Because he could not remember if the operation said the 10th or 11th]
    Right, it's Tuesday the 11th, Reichstag 1, 2, 6, and 7 have all been set and charged for demolition and so presumably has the Pentabunker. Then off we go, trouble is though nobody said anything about the Fire Crew filming Reichstag 1, hope they don't see the Missile go before the plane hits or notice that it is a military plane with an under slung missile that hits Reichstag 2 or they notice Reichstag 6 and 7 detonate at the moment of Reichstag 2s impact.
    Meanwhile at the Pentabunker a 20-seat airplane loaded with a missile makes a maneuver that Baron von Ricthoven would have been proud of, slams into the empty wing of the building destroying the Navy computer. Thus setting a white hot and intense local fire, this intensity cannot be achieved with aviation fuel, as this does not contain oxygen within its chemical compound like high explosive or high incendiary compounds.
In the 1930s after the Reichstag fire it took 12 years and 50 million lives to rid Europe of fascists and 70 years later the citizens of the nation or any nation that turned the blind eye to the events are still held in suspicion and contempt by many.
    Will the roll over pussies of the democrat party or the Red neck south of America be held in the same contempt in the future?
    We only have the word of the great liberator and the Hollywood video clip to implicate Osama, he has constantly denied any involvement and there is only hear say to implicate him further. The reason the Bin Laden's were flown out of America on the 12th is that they knew more than anyone that Osama was not involved.
    Regarding the 4th plane that was supposedly heading for the White House, well ask yourself, would you bomb your own home? What will the American mainstream press be telling us next, that they have been to the moon?
 
The Final Word on Gay Marriage
 
To Michael Dare,
 
As a man who skipped across the Canadian border a few months ago to marry my boyfriend of 6 years, I can tell you why we, and the gay community, want and must use the word "marriage" to describe, well, "getting married."
 
For formalized homosexual relationships to mean anything legally, the arrangements have to be called "marriages." All of the laws that make being married mean anything use the word "Marriage."
 
If every local to federal law that had the word "marriage" in it was rewritten overnight to also include "domestic partnership" or whatever, I would be all for calling same-sex marriages something else. But the fact is we are all stuck with the word "marriage" because you and I both know all of that law rewriting just isn't going to happen.
 
Until straight people are happy being in "domestic partnerships," we are all going to have to live with "getting married."
 
Thank you for listening - keep up the good work.
 
Adam D. Sperry C.A.S.
N. Hollywood, CA, USA
 
Adam,
Thanks for pointing out something that never occurred to me. "Gay marriage" it is.
MD
 
"I may be straight"
- William Shakespeare: Sonnet CXXI -
 
Calling All Catholics
 
Forget confession. Go here and wash your hands of everything you've done.
 
The Real Reason
 
Dare,
 
In perusing my favorite email (Disinfotainment Today) I am as usual, a few weeks behind. I came upon this quote:

"Not long ago one sniper in a Falluja building pinned down 150 Marines for a day. The Marines called in two air strikes, 35 rounds of 155mm artillery and pumped hundreds of rockets and 30,000 rounds of automatic fire from helicopters and ground troops into the small building. A short time later the sniper killed another Marine. They think they may have gotten that guy, now we only have a billion more to go."
- Rack Jite -
 
    ...which speaks to me of what I believe is the real reason for the war in Iraq.
    It's not oil, although oil was a factor. It's not the spreading of the Bush Doctrine (which looks like it has finally given millions of Luddites their desperate justification for this horrible war after WMDs and Al Qaeda ties failed). No, the real reason for the war is much simpler - to test and deplete the supply of weapons, thereby created financial windfalls for those who provide their constant replacement. Whereas many have scrutinized the oil and Halliburton connections, every bullet, every high tech gizmo that is used must be replaced. Thus the flow of weaponry goes virtually unquestioned as Tens of billions of dollars are expended "off the budget" in addition to the Pentagon's increases and hidden caches. All this money is going somewhere while we all point our fingers at the straw targets. Bush needed a country which he could vilify sufficiently to convince us of the need for war. It had to be a country whose ass we could kick fast,with no danger of troublesome nukes, but where resistance to our occupation would require lots and lots of munitions.-----
- Howard Anshell -
 
Calling All Screenwriters
 
From InkTip
 
Bonsai Entertainment
---------------

FOR TELEVISION:
    I am looking for original one-hour drama pilot scripts and original half-hour sitcoms suitable for network or cable.  I will consider reality proposals if the concept is unique and the proposal is well-developed - NO ONE-LINERS.  We will NOT look at animation scripts.  Please type 'InkTip - TV' in the subject heading.
    Our current projects include:  Susan's Last Letter with Wes Craven attached to direct; That's Amore; I Never Really Loved You; I Just Drank Too Much; Isabel Crawford of Saddle Mountain with Marlee Matlin to star; Engaging Dexter with James Cromwell to star, and the novel Cleopatra's Needle.
    Please type 'InkTip - TV' in the subject heading.
    Please email a logline and synopsis followed by a resume (if available) in the body of the email (NO email attachments. Those emails will be deleted without being read) to:
Janet Loftis BonsaientTV@AOL.COM
 
Don't Take My Word For It
 
"To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer."
- Wystan Hugh Auden -
 
"A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention."
- Aldous Huxley -
 
"So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious..."
    "A man who has in mind an apparent advantage and promptly proceeds to dissociate this from the question of what is right shows himself to be mistaken and immoral. Such a standpoint is the parent of assassinations, poisonings, forged wills, thefts, malversations of public money, and the ruinous exploitation of provincials and Roman citizens alike. Another result is passionate desire - desire for excessive wealth, for unendurable tyranny, and ultimately for the despotic seizure of free states. These desires are the most horrible and repulsive things imaginable. The perverted intelligences of men who are animated by such feelings are competent to understand the material rewards, but not the penalties. I do not mean penalties established by law, for these they often escape. I mean the most terrible of all punishments: their own degradation."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) -
 
"Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
- Frederick Douglass -
 
    "I learned something new yesterday. Channel One News, the 'educational' TV show that my daughter Isa and millions of other American kids watch every morning at school, is busy recruiting our teenagers into the military.
    "'Mom, they're really aiming at the black kids, and the Hispanic kids too. I'm so sick of seeing those military ads everyday. The Power of One, and all, that lots of my friends are falling for it!'"
 
    "If you're in the United States and reading this on the Internet, the Federal Bureau of Information (FBI) may be spying on you at this very moment.
    "Under provisions of the USA Patriot (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act, the Department of Justice has been collecting e-mail and IP (Internet protocol, a computer's unique numeric identifier) addresses, without a warrant, using trap-and-trace surveillance devices (pen-traps). Now, the FBI, Justice's principle investigative arm, may be monitoring the web-surfing habits of Internet users - also without a search warrant - that is, spying on you with no probable cause whatsoever."
 
"Central Park was the first landscaped public park in the United States. A dream refuge for the swarms of immigrants seeking a better life, a bold experiment of its designers to lift the spirits of every member of the great metropolis, no matter what the race or the class, above the drudgery of urban life. But what it's really needed all these years was a French couple sprucing it up with curtains."
 
    "A subject was told under hypnosis that when he was awakened he would be unable to see a third man in the room who, it was suggested to him, would have become invisible. All the 'proper' suggestions to make this 'true' were given, such as 'you will NOT see so-and-so' etc... When the subject was awakened, lo and behold! the suggestions did NOT work.
    "Why? Because they went against his belief system. He did NOT believe that a person could become invisible.
    "So, another trial was made. The subject was hypnotized again and was told that the third man was leaving the room... that he had been called away on urgent business, and the scene of him getting on his coat and hat was described... the door was opened and shut to provide 'sound effects,' and then the subject was brought out of the trance.
    "Guess what happened?
    "He was UNABLE TO SEE the Third Man.
    "Why? Because his perceptions were modified according to his beliefs. Certain 'censors' in his brain were activated in a manner that was acceptable to his ego survival instincts.
    "The ways and means that we ensure survival of the ego is established pretty early in life by our parental and societal programming. This conditioning determines what IS or is NOT possible; what we are 'allowed' to believe in order to be accepted. We learn this first by learning what pleases our parents and then later we modify our belief based on what pleases our society - our peers - to believe. This is 'transference.' We transfer our desire/need to please our parents to our society, even our government.
    "Anyway, to return to our story, the Third Man went about the room picking things up and setting them down and doing all sorts of things to test the subject's awareness of his presence, and the subject became utterly hysterical at this 'anomalous' activity! He could see objects moving through the air, doors opening and closing, but he could NOT see the SOURCE because he did not believe that there was another man in the room.
    So, what are the implications of this factor of human consciousness? (By the way, this is also the reason why most therapy to stop bad habits does not work - they attempt to operate against a 'belief system' that is imprinted in the subconscious that this or that habit is essential to survival.)
    "One of the first things we might observe is that everyone has a different set of beliefs based upon their social and familial conditioning, and that these beliefs determine how much of the OBJECTIVE reality anyone is able to access.
    "Realities, objective, subjective, or otherwise, are a touchy subject. Suffice it to say that years of work inside the minds of all kinds of people has taught me that we almost never perceive reality as it truly IS."
- Laura Knight-Jadczyk : Comments on the Pentagon Strike (mandatory reading!) -
 
"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."
- H.L. Mencken -
 
"I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. But you can stalk them & hope they panic & give in."
- Brandon Tikalsky -
 
"I didn't see a thing."
- Stevie Wonder's testimony at Michael Jackson's trial -
 
    "The warnings provided by intelligence agencies to the FAA were far clearer and more specific than suggested by Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission when she reluctantly conceded the existence of a presidential briefing that warned of impending Al Qaeda attacks. Rice had dismissed those warnings as 'historical,' but according to the newly released section of the 9/11 report, an astonishing 52 of the 105 daily intelligence briefings received by the FAA and available to Rice before the Sept. 11 attacks made specific reference to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
    "Given this shocking record of indifference on the part of the administration, it is politically understandable that it tried to prevent the formation of the 9/11 commission in the first place, and then for five months prevented the declassification of key sections of the final report. Commission members, including its Republican chairman, Thomas Kean, stated in the past that there was no national security concern that justified keeping those sections of the report from the public.
    "And let's be clear: The failure to fully disclose what is known about the 9/11 tragedy is not some minor bureaucratic transgression. Not since the Soviets first detonated an atomic bomb more than half a century ago has a single event so affected decision-making in this country, yet the main questions as to how and why it happened remain mostly unanswered."
 
"More and more of our imports come from overseas." 
- George W. Bush -
 
    "The boundless murders committed by the government of the United States under variously false pretexts make the government of the United States and its armed forces 'Killers without Borders'. The group that I chose to use as an antonym in describing the heinousness of the United States crimes worldwide is 'Doctors without Borders'. The reason I chose this group to serve as an antonym in this essay is rather straightforward. That is, 'Doctors without Borders' engage in benevolence with the sole purpose of saving lives irrespective of national borders, while, the US policy makers and armed forces serve as 'Killers without Borders' ready to murder innocent people without the slightest regard to basic human decency, national sovereignty or official borders. 
    "The group 'Doctors without Borders' as its name connotes are doctors who do not value political and geographic borders in bringing life saving treatments and medicines to the needy whenever violence and disease have taken their toll on the poor and the disenfranchised. There are no material gains for these selfless doctors except the intangibles, feeling that they have done something good and decent amidst vast indecency in the world today. This group does not care about peoples' political affiliations, religious beliefs, national origin or ethnic descent. After all decency does not recognize the world in such clear terms as the evil portrayed and perpetrated by the United States of America. The government of the United States with the blessing of majority of its people 52% voting for Bush -have chosen the role of a gigantic mass killer aimed at satisfying its lust for material gains and imposing sheer pain on other people, who choose to be different. 
    "Similar to 'Doctors without Borders', the United States does not recognize borders, however, contrary to the 'Doctors without Borders', the US does not aim at helping the poor and the needy, instead, it targets the weak militarily, depriving people of lives worldwide under the false banner of democracy and liberation."
- Mohammed Daud Miraki, Director Afghan DU & Recovery Fund: Killers Without Borders -
 
    "[H]ere is the really funny thing about the personal/private accounts debate. Not only are they not personal accounts, they're not private accounts either. They are in fact U.S. government loans. (Bear with me now, because this will only hurt for a moment.) You see, your payroll taxes will still be used to cover the benefits of current retirees, but under Bush's scheme the government will place a certain 'diverted' amount into an account in your name. It sounds like a personal retirement account, but it's not. It's a loan. Because if your account does really well (above 3 percent), when you retire the government will deduct the money it lent you (plus 3 percent interest) from your monthly Social Security check leaving you with almost the same amount you would have received under the current system. If your account does really poorly (below 3 percent), you are out of luck. According to Congressional Budget Office, the expected average return will be 3.3 percent, so the net gain will be zero.
    "But wait, it gets better. These personal accounts aren't exactly U.S. government loans either, because our government under the fiscal stewardship of George W. Bush no longer is running a surplus and therefore does not have the $4 trillion or so needed to cover the transition costs, and Bush refuses to raise taxes on his base (BUSH'S BASE, n. the wealthy).
So our government will have to borrow that cash. And if the last three years are any guide, our largest single loan officer will likely be the Central Bank of China. And who runs China's Central Bank, China, and the Chinese people with an iron fist? Why, it's our old friends, the democracy-loving, freedom-marching Chinese Communist Party. So Bush's personal retirement accounts = private retirement accounts = U.S. government loans = U.S. government borrowing = Chinese government lending = Chinese Communist Party loans.
    "Or as we like to say in Republican Dictionary land: PERSONAL RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS, n. Chinese Communist Party loans."
- Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Republican Dictionary -
 
    "Dogs in Australia's Northern Territory are becoming addicted to a hallucinogenic cane toad poison, according to local vets. Desperate for a canine high, dogs have been seen licking the backs of cane toads for a poison secreted from glands. Megan Pickering, a veterinarian in the town of Katherine, claims to have seen many cases of dogs affected by the deadly toad poison. 'There seem to be dogs that are licking the toxin to get high,' she told the local newspaper. 'They lick the toads and only take in a small amount of the poison, they get a smile on their face and look like they are going to wander off into the sunset.'"
 
"I don't want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago. And I mean that. It doesn't matter if it's LSD, cocaine, pot, any of those things, because if I answer one, then there will be another one. And I just am not going to answer those questions. And it may cost me the election."
 
    "A gay prostitute, a phony media organization that managed to sneak its 'reporter' into White House press briefings, and the lies that were fed to the media and the American people in the run-up to war with Iraq what possible connection could these items have to one another?
    "The answer: a man called Jeff Gannon.
    "Amid the media frenzy over Gannon's journalistic bona fides, or lack of them and the lurid speculation going on in the left lane of the blogosphere about how a purported male hooker got admitted to White House press briefings before his Talon News Agency (a front group created by GOPUSA) was even created one has to ask: who cares?
    "Answer: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, for one, the chief prosecutor in an investigation that could rope in several high-ranking administration officials and even lead to the White House itself. And those of us who have been awaiting the come-uppance of this White House, for two, and are ready to get out the popcorn and the chips-and-dip and settle down for a nice long juicy scandal.
 
"The United States needs to lose the war in Iraq as soon as possible. Even more urgently, the whole world needs the United States to lose the war in Iraq. What is at stake now is the way we run the world for the next generation or more, and really bad things will happen if we get it wrong."
- Gwynne Dyer: Future Tense: The Coming World Order quoted here -
 
    "You'd scarcely know it from the mainstream media, but we're now the biggest debtor nation in history, owing far more to foreign countries than they do to us, and running up $500 billion more on our credit card every year.
    "Why does this go on? Dyer argues what other economists have told me in whispers: 'The U.S. economy is a confidence trick based on everybody else's perception that the United States is centrally important for the world's security and that its economy is centrally important for the world economy.
    "That was absolutely true in 1945, and largely true even in 1985. But not anymore. If you look at only those foreign investments that could be liquidated fairly quickly, the total, he estimates, would come to about $8 trillion. If those investments started to move elsewhere, the value of the dollar could be cut in half, Dyer estimates, overnight."
- Jack Lessenberry: Why we must lose this war -
 
    "The greatest crime against humanity in all historic time has now been committed by the United States government. It dwarfs Joseph Stalin's killing of 7,000,000 Ukrainians in the 1930s and Adolph Hitler's killing of 6,000,000 Jewish people in the 1940s. This crime will cause the premature deaths of TENS of MILLIONS of people and will give a horribly debilitating disease to TENS of MILLIONS more. It is indiscriminate mass murder - genocide. My statements may be dramatic, but they are absolutely true.
    "Since October of 2001, the United States military has used approximately 3,000 tons of depleted uranium munitions against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. This will soon cause the serious health problems to include respiratory disease, kidney problems, rashes, birth defects, and the number of cancers of those people to jump to over 500,000 people each year. How do I know this? Because the United States military used 375 tons of depleted uranium munitions against Iraq in 1991 and the cancer rate in children measured in Iraqi hospitals rose from 32,000 per year in 1990 to 130,000 in 1997. According to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official reports, U.S. casualties from Gulf War 1 now exceed 180,000 and already over 30,000 are now disabled from Gulf War 2. We've now used eight times what we did in 1991 and radiation has long been known to cause cancer. This is well known by our federal government."
 
    "Is it true that Social Security is in crisis? Is bankrupt? Is collapsing?
    "The answer is a resounding NO. According to the most conservative estimates, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits for 38 years. In other words, a 37-year-old worker today will get full benefits until he or she is 75 years old if we do nothing to make adjustments to the Trust Fund. A 47-year old worker today will get full benefits until he or she is 85 years old if nothing is done.
    "So clearly, Social Security is not in crisis, is not bankrupt, and is not collapsing...
    "Am I being partisan? Am I being unfair by stating in a very clear way that I believe the true goal here is to destroy Social Security? Not at all. I am simply telling the truth as told by this very White House.
    "On January 6, 2005, the White House wrote a Social Security memo. Although marked 'not for attribution,' fortunately, we have it.
    "The most telling sentence in the entire memo is this: 'For the first time in six decades the Social Security battle is one we can win and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country.'
    "Imagine: for six decades, that's 60 years, the right wing has been after Social Security."
 
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."
- G.K. Chesterton -
 
"Art is either plagiarism or revolution."
- Paul Gauguin -
 
    "A big Republican donor goes to his governor and senator, saying he was told by President Bush's chief fund-raiser he'd be getting a plum ambassadorial appointment but it wasn't delivered. The senator takes his case right to the top of the White House. Nothing happens for two years.
    "The donor then helps stage a fund-raiser for Bush. A week later, the donor lands an appointment as the chairman of the federal board overseeing billions of dollars of student loans...
    "Federal bribery laws prohibit public officials from directly promising a government action in return for donations or fund-raising help... At least two dozen of Bush's 2000 'pioneers' - $100,000-plus fund-raisers - or their spouses won ambassadorships."
 
    "The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world's oceans.
    "The present trend of warmer sea temperatures, which have risen by an average of half a degree Celsius (0.9F) over the past 40 years, can be explained only if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, new research has revealed.
    "'The results are so compelling that they should end controversy about the causes of climate change,' one of the scientists who led the study said yesterday.
    "'The debate about whether there is a global warming signal now is over, at least for rational people,' said Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. 'The models got it right. If a politician stands up and says the uncertainty is too great to believe these models, that is no longer tenable.'"
 
    "[W]hat's so frightening is that we're seeing the beginnings of the first post-9/11 generation, the kids who first became aware of the news under an 'Americans need to watch what they say' administration, the kids who've been told that dissent is un-American and therefore justifiably punished by a fine, imprisonment or the loss of your show on ABC.
    "President Bush once asked, 'Is our children learning?' No they isn't. A more appropriate question might be, 'Is our teachers teaching?' In four years, you can teach a gorilla sign language. Is it too much to ask that in the same amount of time a kid be taught what those crazy hippies who founded this country had in mind?"
 
"You'll all spend yourselves into the poorhouse after I'm gone."
- Joe Kennedy to his sons -
 
"Dad, you'll just have to work harder."
- JFK in reply -

"Since others have to tolerate my weaknesses, it is only fair that I should tolerate theirs."
- William Allen White -
 
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower -

"My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted."
- Steven Wright -
 
"Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
- Woodrow Wilson: The New Freedom -
 
"It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear."
- Dick Cavett -
 
"The only disability in life is a bad attitude."
- Scott Hamilton -
 
"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."
- Mignon McLaughlin -
 
    "Heimert said developers experimented with a host of possible ice-cream tributes to the best-selling author, including Stupid White Chocolate, Green Tea Nation, and Dude, Where's My Coconut?
    "Even after Ben & Jerry's decided what the new flavor would contain, developers struggled to perfect the name.
    "'We thought about calling it Cherry-heit 9-11, but we already have Cherry Garcia,' Heimert said. 'Fahrenheit 31.1 was the next choice, but we didn't think everyone would make the connection between the proper temperature for storing ice cream and the film that broke the theatrical documentary box-office record by seamlessly blending comedy with hard-hitting fact.'
    "'We also considered a name reminiscent of our popular Chubby Hubby flavor,' Heimert said. 'But in the end, we decided The Waffle Truth would be more respectful to Moore's achievements than a flavor called Hefty Lefty.'
    Other Ben & Jerry's flavors slated for introduction in 2005 are Praline Kael, Noam ChompChompsky Crunch, Ché Guava, and Nelson Vanilla, an anti-apartheid flavor that consists of a dark-chocolate sorbet swirled in an equal amount of vanilla ice cream."
 
    "The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast masses of a nation are, in the depths of their hearts, more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad.
    "The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them more easy victims of a big lie than a small one, because they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones. Such a form of lying would never enter their heads. They would never credit others with the possibility of such great impudence as the complete reversal of facts.
    "Even explanations would long leave them in doubt and hesitation, and any trifling reason would dispose them to accept a thing as true. Something therefore always remains and sticks from the most imprudent of lies, a fact which all bodies and individuals concerned in the art of lying in this world know only too well, and therefore they stop at nothing to achieve this end."
- Adolph Hitler: Mein Kampf -
 
"America is a mistake, a giant mistake."
- Sigmund Freud -
 
    "Why isn't Bush looking for a way out of the greatest strategic blunder in American history? Why, instead, is Bush and his government doing all they can to spread the conflict into Syria and Iran?
    "The neo-conservatives goal is the same as Osama bin Laden's to spread instability in the Middle East. The neocons seek to foment instability in order to justify more US invasions in an insane quest to remake the Middle East in the American image. Bin Laden seeks instability in order to topple the secular rulers and recreate Islamic rule. Bin Laden does not want US troops out. He wants to suck America in deeper in order to create revolutionary insurgency throughout the Middle East.
    "The Bush administration is moronic enough to oblige bin Laden."
- Paul Craig Roberts: Bush Outfoxed By Bin Laden -
 
"Everyone's life is an object lesson to others."
- Karl G. Maeser -
 
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease."
- R. D. Laing -
 
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights."
- J. Paul Getty -
 
"Journalists do not gather or report information merely to satisfy their own curiosity or for their employer's profit. They do so as surrogate stewards of the people's right to speak and publish as they choose. The existence of a free press going about its responsibilities unfettered by governmental intrusion is the practical vindication of the individual's constitutional liberties."
 
"Don't waste time trying to persuade people who believe that the earth was created in seven days. You're not going to persuade those people of anything."
 
    "I fell for him the moment I saw him in person (his cartoons don't really do him justice). He was, as ever, nattily dressed with a lovely tie, freshly creased shorts and jaunty cap atop his head. But it was his eyes that captivated me. And the way his mouth curled up when he smiled. I knew that I was smitten.
    "We spent a week together laughing, talking, laughing, eating, laughing, sight-seeing and laughing some more. We shared stories about our childhoods (his father had been a contraceptive sponge and his mother was a sponge cake). We talked about our previous relationships (his longest relationship had been with Mr. Clean).
    "And he cried, repeatedly, while telling me of the pressure he felt living in the closet. 'I feel like I've been wrung dry,' he said on more than one occasion.
    "Of course, we became physically intimate as well. And while I prefer to keep those special memories to myself, I will state that SpongeBob is all sponge! That gentle Porifera had no problem making this Homo erectus just that."
 
    "American soldiers traumatized by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares. The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
    "Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.
    "Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist leading the trial, said: 'It's looking very promising. It's too early to draw any conclusions but in these treatment-resistant people so far the results are encouraging. People are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact they are safe now.'"
 
"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others."
- Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary -
 
"If you must hate, if hatred is the leaven of your life, which alone can give flavor, then hate what should be hated: falsehood, violence, selfishness."
- Boerne: Der ewige Jude -
 
"It has taken me all my life to understand it is not necessary to understand everything."
- Rene Coty -
 
"One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason."
- Oscar Wilde: The Critic as Artist -
 
"To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself."
- Simone Weil -
 
"To love with the spirit is to pity, and he who pities most loves most."
- Miguel De Unamuno -
 
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to use the internet and he won't bother you for weeks."
- Xarvon, alien investigator -
 
"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."
- George Jackson -
 
"Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
- Pooh Bah: The Mikado -
 
Everything Else
 
Go here to figure out exactly how much Bush's Social Security plan is going to cost you.
 
Mark Fiore's Torture Time is a lovely ad for our new improved foreign policy.
 
If you roll your own cigarettes, the choices here will boggle your mind.
 
Go to Zipdecode, type in your zipcode, and watch what happens.
 
The beta version of Google Maps has an interface that's already better than Mapquest or Yahoomaps.
 
 
Contact George W. Bush - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact the Freemasons - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Skull and Bones - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact the Carlyle Group - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact the Illuminati - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Satan - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact both houses of Congress - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact the Supreme Court - president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Dick Cheney - vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Halliburton - vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Saddam Hussein - vice.president@whitehouse.gov
Contact Osama bin Laden - thetwins@whitehouse.gov
Contact Jeb Bush - jeb.bush@myflorida.com
Contact Fidel Castro - jeb.bush@myflorida.com
Contact Kim Jong Il - eng-info@kcna.co.jp
Contact Jacques Chirac - france-presse@un.int
Contact the Pope - accreditamenti@pressva.va
Contact God - president@whitehouse.gov
 
 
 
Don't let this happen to you

Subscribe to dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY
 
Link to Disinfotainment Today with one of these tasteful banners.

dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY archives are here.
 
I can't believe you haven't already read my adventures on a porn set.


Boo hoo
How can I write like Hunter S. Thompson if I can't afford any acid?
Won't you donate to my drug cache?
 


Acknowledgment

dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is free and may be reproduced in any form. It consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and recycled randomly. It is sent all over the place, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice. If you see a joke, graphic, or news item that came from or through you, thanks, send more, and please accept the fact that much of dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is unacknowledgeable, and if I sought permission from everyone whose bastardized material showed up here, I'd never get anything else done. Please note that I don't even put my own name on it. If you're still pissed off, hey, it's either satire or fair use.

Thanks,
Les Filling
 
 
 
 
 

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'Best of TBH Politoons'

Click Here!



Thanks, again, Tim!

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Weekly Link

Sick Of This Crap!

 Please continue to ignore Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the easy fixes for Social Security, the massive federal debt and the human costs of the Bush agenda. It's Presidents' Day, babies!!!! Come celebrate with the crap sickened masses. This week, we put the solar powered spotlight on:
     * Whoops! Did I leave Iraq out of the budget again???!?!?!
     * Kyoto Train Left the Station
     * Tort Reform - those corporations have been way too accountable, 'til now!

Join us won't you? We're just a click away....

Sick Of This Crap!


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Reader Comment

Re: Did anyone notice?

 Did anyone else notice from the newly released "Bush Tapes" that he can turn on or off his Texas accent at will?

Pete SW.


Thanks, Pete!
Bet that's not all he can turn on & off at will...

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Subscribe to BartCop!

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Recommended Reading

from Bruce

 Mark Z. Barabak: Presidential Also-Ran Shows No Signs of Fading Away (LA Times)


G.R. Anderson Jr.: Clear Channel Rules the World (Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages)


Interview by Jess Kornbluth: Transformation in the Ring (beliefnet.com)


Joel Dossi: Fluff and Politics: Gay Films Grow Up? (afterelton.com)


Roger Ebert: Answer Man


Bruce's Video Recommendation: The School Of Rock (Review by ROGER EBERT)


Republican Jesus Cartoons

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Reader Comment

Re: HST
I saw Hunter speak in Boulder, CO when we lived there. He came to Boulder from Aspen and was 3½ hours late. He took the stage, lit his cigarette holder, took a bottle of Chivas out of his knapsack and said "what do you assholes want to know?". When one of the Journalism majors got up and tried to ask him a question on the responsibility of journalists he told them to sit down and shut up - that wasn't why he was there. He spent most of the time ranting about Nixon and this was in 1982(?). It was a great event and I left with a renewed reverence for Dr. Gonzo. I will miss his columns on ESPN, I will miss knowing he's out there shooting golf balls on the Aspen Golf Course and knowing that he's watching our back
Heather
Phoenix, AZ
http://houndog2.blogspot.com/



Thanks, Heather!

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Thanks, JD!

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Selected Readings

from that Mad Cat, JD

GO SUCK A TAIL PIPE

CREEPING WITH THE ENEMY

DIE ASSHOLES! COURTESY OF CHIMP BOY

IT'S LIKE ASKING A FRIEND TO HELP YOU MOVE

SAME ASSHOLES, DIFFERENT SHIT

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STUPID, BY THE STUPID AND FOR THE STUPID

I'M JUST A REPUG DICK SUCKER TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING

BOXER VS THE MUSHROOM CROWD

THE ACID RAIN MAKER

THROWING MONEY DOWN A REPUG HOLE

NOW LET'S GO OUT AND KICK SOME REPUG ASS

THE CHIMP SNUBS WINGNUT

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In The Chaos Household

Last Night

 Still raining.

There's a 'One Day At A Time' reunion on CBS, so here's a trivia question - who portrayed the character 'Vicki Cooper'?

She's not listed at IMDb (for this role), but appeared in 2 episodes, as the new step-mom to Julie & Barbara.

She had been a regular on 'Somerset' (the soap opera), and guested on 'CHIPs' & 'Charlie's Angels', among other shows.

Any guesses?

Also - anybody want to register their Academy Award predictions?



Tonight, Tuesday:

CBS begins the night with a FRESH 'NCIS', followed by the FRESH 'One Day At A Time Reunion Special', then a FRESH Judging Amy'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Barbara Walters, Rachel Bilson, and Kings of Leon,
Scheduled on a FRESH Craig are Peter Boyle, Ethan Zohn, Jenna Morasca, and Brian McKnight,

NBC starts the night with a RERUN 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', followed by a FRESH 'Scrubs', then a FRESH 'Committed', followed by a FRESH 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Leno are Vin Diesel, Jamie O'Neal, and "The Great Regurgitator" Stevie Starr.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Tom Arnold and Rufus Wainwright.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Taye Diggs, Shia LaBeouf, and Unwritten Law.

ABC opens the night with a FRESH 'My Wife & Kids' (runs 40 minutes), followed by a FRESH 'George Lopez' (runs 40 minutes), then a FRESH 'Jim' (also runs 40 minutes), followed by a FRESH 'NYPD Blue'.
On a RERUN Jimmy Kimmel (from 2/14/05) are Clay Aiken and Los Lonely Boys.

The WB offers a FRESH 'Gilmore Girls', followed by a FRESH 'One Tree Hill'.

Faux has a FRESH 'American Idol', followed by a FRESH 'House'.

UPN has a FRESH 'All Of Us', followed by a FRESH 'Eve', then a FRESH 'Veronica Mars'.

Check local PBS listings for a FRESH (and probably censored) 'Frontline' - 'A Company Of Soldiers'.

A&E has 'American Justice', 'Cold Case Files', another 'Cold Case Files', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', and another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter'.

AMC offers the movie 'The Natural', followed by the movie 'An Officer & A Gentleman', then the movie 'Terms Of Endearment'.

BBC  -   
 [2pm]    'As Time Goes By '- Episode 2;
 [2:40pm]    'Are You Being Served?' - Cold Store;
 [3:20pm]    'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 7;
 [4pm]    'The Saint' - The House on Dragon's Rock;
 [5pm]    'The Weakest Link' - Episode 92;
 [6pm]    'BBC World News';
 [6:30pm]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 9;
 [7pm]    'Bargain Hunt' - Shepton Mallet;
 [7:30pm]    'What Not To Wear' - Judith;
 8pm]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
 [9pm]    'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' - Moore Place;
 [10pm]    'Holiday Showdown' - Lech/Benidorm;
 [11pm]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
 [12am]    'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' - Moore Place;
 [1am]    'Holiday Showdown' - Lech/Benidorm;
 [2am]    'Bargain Hunt' - Shepton Mallet;
 [2:30am]    'What Not To Wear' - Judith;
 [3am]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 6;
 [4am]    'Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares' - Moore Place;
 [5am]    'Holiday Showdown' - Lech/Benidorm;
 [6am]    'BBC World News'.    (ALL TIMES EST)

Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Celebrity Poker Showdown', 'Queer Eye', and another 'Queer Eye'.

Comedy Central has 'MAD TV', 'Comedy Central Presents' (Patrice O'Neal), 'Crank Yankers', 'South Park', 'Chappelle's Show', and a FRESH 'Distraction'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Rachel Weisz.

History has 'Modern Marvels', followed by a FRESH 'Wild West Tech', another 'Modern Marvels', and still another 'Modern Marvels'.

IFC  -   
 [6AM]    'Slasher (2004);
 [7:45AM]    'Ulee's Gold' (1997);
 [9:45AM]    Short: 'Beancake' (2000);
 [10AM]    'Johnny Stecchino' (1991);
 [11:45AM]    'At The Angelika #93' (2005);
 [12:15PM]    'Julian Po' (1997);
 [1:45PM]    'IFC In Theaters' (2004);
 [2PM]    'IFC Short Film Collection I' (2003);
 [4PM]    'When The Cats Away' (1996);
 [5:30PM]    'At The Angelika #93' (2005);
 [6PM]    'Julian Po' (1997);
 [7:30PM]    'Independent Spirit Awards Nomination Show' (2005);
 [8PM]    'The Anniversary Party' (2001);
 [10PM]    'Dinner For Five #26' (2004);
 [10:30PM]    'Ultimate Film Fanatic #204' (2004);
 [11PM]    'A Nightmare On Elm Street' (1984);
 [12:30AM]    'Independent Spirit Awards 20th Anniversary Special' (2004);
 [1AM]    'Dinner For Five #26' (2004);
 [1:30AM]    'Ultimate Film Fanatic #204' (2004);
 [2AM]    'A Nightmare On Elm Street' (1984);
 [3:30AM]    'Independent Spirit Awards Nomination Show' (2005);
 [4AM]    'The Anniversary Party' (2001).    (ALL TIMES EST)

SciFi has the movie 'The Arrival', followed by 'The 4400' (pilot).

Sundance  -   
 [6:30AM]    'Hofmann's Potion' (Documentary);
 [7:30AM]    'Koyaanisqatsi' (Feature);
 [9AM]    'Shorts Program 116' (Short);
 [10AM]    'It's My Life' (Documentary);
 [11AM]    'iThemba | Hope' (Documentary);
 [12PM]    'Document 2004: Documentaries of Dissent' (Feature);
 [12:30PM]    'The Housekeeper' (Feature);
 [2PM]    'Koyaanisqatsi' (Feature);
 [3:30PM]    'Shorts Program 116' (Short);
 [4:30PM]    'Wings Of Desire' (Feature);
 [6:45PM]    'Funny Bones' (World Cinema);
 [9PM]    'Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself' (Feature);
 [11PM]    'And Now... Ladies and Gentlemen' (Feature);
 [1:10AM]    'Clerks' (Feature);
 [2:45AM]    'Evenhand' (Feature);
 [4:20AM]    'Hoover Street Revival' (Documentary).    (ALL TIMES EST)

TCM:
 [6:15am]    'Hold Back the Dawn' (1941);
 [8:15am]    '49th Parallel' (1941);
 [10:15am]    'Kings Row' (1942)  [WARNING: stars Ronald Reagan] ;
 [12:30pm]    'The Magnificent Ambersons' (1942);
 [2pm]    'Double Indemnity' (1944);
 [4pm]    'Johnny Belinda' (1948);
 [6pm]    'The Heiress' (1949);
 [8pm]    'The Best Years Of Our Lives' (1946);
 [11pm]    'Going My Way' (1944);
 [1:15am]    'Rebecca' (1940);
 [3:30am]    'The Lost Weekend' (1945);
 [5:30am]    'Festival of Shorts #4' (1998).    (ALL TIMES EST)


Wednesday  -  02/23

TCM:
 [6am]    'King Solomon's Mines' (1950);
 [7:45am]    'Ivanhoe' (1952);
 [9:45am]    'Julius Caesar' (1953);
 [12pm]    'Seven Brides For Seven Brothers' (1954);
 [2pm]    'The Rose Tattoo' (1955);
 [4pm]    'Separate Tables' (1958);
 [6pm]    'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof' (1958);
 [8pm]    'Ben-Hur' (1959);
 [12am]    'On The Waterfront' (1954);
 [2am]    'An American in Paris' (1951).
 [4am]    'Gigi' (1958).    (ALL TIMES EST)



Any opinions?

Or reviews?


(See below for addresses)

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Actor and comedian Chris Rock points to the audience during a taping of 'The Tonight Show' at NBC studios in Burbank, Calif., Monday, Feb. 21, 2005. Rock will host the 77th Academy Awards on Sunday.
Photo by Danny Moloshok
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Click Here!

Moose & Squirrel - The Blog

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2004 Polk Award Winners

Seymour Hersh

 Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker won his fifth George Polk Award for his accounts of prisoner abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, making him the most-honored individual in the history of the awards. Reporters from The New York Times took three of the 2004 awards, and The Associated Press was a double winner.

The Career Award went to Bill Moyers, who retired last year after more than three decades in public television. He won a Polk Award in 1980 for political reporting.

The 13 awards were to be announced Tuesday by Long Island University, which was to present the prizes April 21. They were created in 1949 in honor of the CBS reporter killed while covering the Greek civil war.

Dexter Filkins of The New York Times won in the war reporting category for his firsthand accounts of attacks against Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah. Walt Bogdanich of the Times won the national reporting category, his fourth Polk award, for his series on how railroad companies were able to sidestep regulations. Diana Henriques won the paper's third award for 2004 for military reporting. Her work looked at how insurance and investment firms with ties to military commanders took advantage of young soldiers.

For the other winners, Seymour Hersh

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Actor Will Ferrell kisses his award during the TRL Awards in New York February 21, 2005.
Photo by Albert Ferreira
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Hampton's Vibraphone Nets $50G

Jazz Auction

 Lionel Hampton's vibraphone and Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet were among a treasure trove of 450 pieces of jazz memorabilia auctioned Sunday to raise money for jazz charities.

Hampton's engraved 1930s King George instrument sold for $50,000, said Kim Anello, a spokeswoman for the Guernsey's auction house, which conducted the sale. Gillespie's custom-made Martin trumpet fetched $26,000.

A handwritten letter from John Coltrane to his mother in 1964 sold for $16,000; another sold for $14,000.

Also up for auction were items such as Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong's trumpet, a saxophone engraved with Charlie "Bird" Parker's name, an unreleased tape of a 1951 Parker performance and a rhinestone gown from the late 1960s in which Peggy Lee sang smoldering songs such as "Fever."

Items were donated by the musicians' families. Proceeds from the sale were to go to jazz foundations, archives and young jazz artists.

Jazz Auction

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Latest Target of Intolerant Wingnuts

Shrek

 Shrek 2 is the latest animated film title to be "outed" by Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.

On its website the Traditional Values Coalition is warning parents about the cross-dressing and transgender themes contained in the hit DreamWorks feature, now on DVD.

The article then proceeds to describe one of the characters, an "evil" bartender (voiced by Larry King) who is a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.

In another identified scene, Shrek and Donkey need rescuing from a dungeon by Pinocchio and his nose, which is made to extend as an escape bridge by getting the wooden boy to lie about not wearing women's underwear.

Shrek

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bartcook

In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends

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Playing Denmark Fest

Brian Wilson

 Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson is scheduled to play at Denmark's annual Roskilde Festival this summer.

Other artists scheduled to play during the June 30-July 3 festival include Black Sabbath and Junior Senior.

First held in 1971, the festival in Roskilde, 25 miles west of the capital, Copenhagen, was inspired by the 1969 Woodstock Festival in upstate New York. The event, which in recent years has appeared on MTV, attracts visitors from throughout Europe and the United States.

Brian Wilson

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A chocolate store customer picks up a wasabi chocolate packet in Sydney February 21, 2005. The unusual mixture of wasabi and chocolate came about when the store owners mixed the hot ingredient into their chocolate mix after many requests by customers for chilli-chocolate. The owners hope in the near future to export to Japan, where wasabi is very commonly used on a variety of foods.
Photo by David Gray
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Episode Upsets Residents

'Simple Life'

 An episode of "The Simple Life" that showed hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton and sidekick Nicole Richie working at a funeral home upset some local residents.

The pair drove a hearse, filled in a grave and held a mock funeral during an episode of the Fox TV reality show that aired last Wednesday. They also spilled what appeared to be human ashes onto a carpet, then used a vacuum cleaner to clean them up.

The ashes were actually a mixture of cat litter and cement, according to John Podesta, the owner of Kohler Funeral Home. A disclaimer at the end of the show said no human bodies were used in any of the scenes, but that failed to appease some viewers.

'Simple Life'

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pissed
(formerly 'The Vidiot')

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Cell Phone Numbers Posted on Net

Paris Hilton

 Paris Hilton is finding more than her body exposed on the Internet after computer hackers posted phone numbers online that had been stored in her cell phone.

The New York Daily News reported Monday that it was unclear how the numbers got posted on the Internet, but the incident happened just days after a 22-year-old man pleaded guilty to breaking into a cell phone company's protected computer and gaining access to records for millions of customers.

Paris Hilton

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Three of the brand new Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, modeled after Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley and Oprah Winfrey (L-R), are pictured in a historical display with one of the original 1982 dolls, still in its original 1984 packaging, in the showroom for Play Along toys at the Toy Center Building, during the opening day of the American International Toy Fair, February 20, 2005. Play Along recently became a division of Jakks Pacific, Inc. Picture taken Feb. 20.
Photo by Ray Stubblebine
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Jumping Into Broadway Role

Christian Slater

 Christian Slater is jumping into the Broadway revival of "The Glass Menagerie," which begins preview performances Thursday at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Slater replaces Dallas Roberts as Tom, the discontented son and narrator of the Tennessee Williams drama. No reason was given for Roberts' departure.

The revival, directed by David Leveaux, stars Jessica Lange as the domineering mother, Amanda Wingfield.

Christian Slater

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A demonstrator holds a banner with a photo of U.S. resident Bush during a demonstration in Brussels Monday Feb. 21, 2005. Bush has two days of talks in the Belgian capital with more than two dozen European leaders to sort out differences over the Iraq war, Iran's nuclear ambitions, global warming and other trans-Atlantic frictions. The sign at top right reads 'Guantanamo equals death'.
Photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert
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Steals, Wrecks Philly Police Car

Nude Man

 Police chased a naked man through the city's slushy streets early Monday after he allegedly stripped off his bathrobe, bit an officer, then stole a police cruiser in an attempt to escape.

The man was captured after he smashed the cruiser into several parked cars, abandoned the vehicle and tried to get away in his bare feet.

The episode unfolded at around 1:30 a.m. when police were called to a block in North Philadelphia to investigate complaints about a person screaming in the street. Officers arriving on the scene said they found a man running about in his bathrobe in the freshly fallen snow.

The officers gave chase. The man shed his robe, then allegedly bit a female officer on the arm, climbed into her patrol car and hit the gas. He drove only a few blocks before crashing, police said.

Nude Man

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Victoria Walsh, left, Earl Bragg, center, and Bob Fold, discuss the furs for auction at the Alaska State Fish and Game horn and hide auction Sunday, Feb. 20, 2005, in Anchorage, Alaska. The antlers and hides being auctioned are from animals which were poached, killed in defense of life or property, by accident, or were shot because they had become a nuisance. The auction is the only place in the U.S where a person can legally buy a bear hide and draws buyers from around the world. The auction is held during the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous winter festival. The money raised from the sale will go back into the agency's operating budget.
Photo by Al Grillo
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Back on Duty

Stolen Cutout Patrol Car

 The case of the stolen cutout car has been solved - sort of. Last Sunday, someone swiped the cutout of a sheriff's patrol car that Albany (OR) resident Rick Pyburn had put up near his house in an effort to slow down traffic.

The Benton County Sheriff's Office had no immediate suspects in the theft.

But after the robbery was featured in media reports, tips started pouring in.

Then, late on Tuesday afternoon, the cutout was returned by someone who found it along a roadside.

Stolen Cutout Patrol Car

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A Butterfly pin is seen from the Aurora collection in Beverly Hills, California, February 20, 2005, as the Natural Colored Diamond Association holds an open house to showcase the over $10 million of natural color diamond jewelry for loan to celebrities on the red carpet, during the 77th Annual Academy Awards on February 27, 2005.
Photo by Michael Tweed
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