BartCop Entertainment Archives - Tuesday, 8 March, 2005

Tuesday

8 March, 2005

big hammer - bigger hammer

(Updated Daily)

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Issue #142

Disinfotainment Today

 By Michael Dare



Issue #142
is brought to you by
The good old days

 
My First Crisis of Conscience
 
    It was 1968 and I was still in high school when I got my first job as an usher at the Warner Theater on Wilshire in Beverly Hills, a magnificent stage palace that had been converted to film, holding thousands of people, with an enormous lobby and balcony, ornate and baroque, the likes of which we'll never see again. We wore uniforms and snapped to attention with military precision. My duties consisted of tearing tickets before the film, ushering people to their seats, then standing inside with a flashlight during the film, prepared to pounce on anyone who dared light up a cigarette. I would walk down the aisle, aim my flashlight at them, disturbing all around, and say "please put that out." What power! Paid to be a jerk! Who'da thunk?
    I had to stand guard, a soldier on duty, inside the door of the auditorium, throughout the entire picture, ready to help, reserved seats all the way, examine each ticket, treating each patron like they had a box at the opera, an overture, the light from the crystal chandelier going down, special lights for the magnificent curtain going up and actually getting applause, the film beginning, one preview, no commercials, the film itself, escorting latecomers to their seats with my flashlight, long before those irritating strings of mini-lights that never go out at the fringes of rugs in multiplexes. The Warner Theater was more minimal than mini-mall, it was a guy with a flashlight, me, the terror of torches, illuminating the aisle for anyone on their way to the bathroom.
    This necessitated my standing at attention throughout the film, my legs aching, following instructions not to lean, only falling against the door frame when I knew for certain the theater manager wasn't spying on me from the dark, which he did at least twice during each screening from the backstage area behind the screen where he could see all six doors, upstairs and down, a loyal usher standing at each one, opening the doors for customers and quickly shutting them to let less light in. 
    Oh, sure, he could see my body, but there was nothing he could do about my eyes. My eyes were mine and they couldn't help but wander to the screen when they tired of scanning the crowd for glowing cherries from the ends of Chesterfields. I got to see dozens of movies literally hundreds of times, studying them, learning their flaws and their moments of genius, moments I never wanted to see again vs. moments I'd never miss at each and every screening. Even if I was out in the lobby sweeping, I'd run inside to see the winter scenes in Zhivago, over and over, meeting Lara at the dam, Tom Courtney on the train to revolution, over and over, the final scene in The Subject was Roses where Martin Sheen breaks down and says, "I love you, Dad," truly great acting, watching it again and again, mindlessly examining his character arch, making the whole film come together, a single moment of clarity, over and over, Richard Burton walking down the street, his scarf flying in the breeze, at a bookstore, his scarf flying in the breeze, in the back of a limo with a beautiful horny teenager, his scarf still flying in the breeze, one of the funniest moments in Candy which I only noticed maybe the 15th time I saw it, teaching me that there were marvelous hidden things in films if you only bothered to really pay attention.
    I was enjoying the heck out of this job. Even watching the same movie over and over was preferable to most of what was on television because everything, absolutely everything on television, was interspersed with commercials. This was the era of broadcast TV, free for the asking from anyone rich enough to buy a television with rabbit ears, all content brought to you by advertising - absolutely every fucking fifteen minutes - no matter what they were showing, average sitcom, above average western, or serious classic, all were brought to you by somebody who thought they'd get your attention by INTERRUPTING WHAT YOU WERE WATCHING. I hated commercials and considered advertisers the lowest form of life, especially during broadcast movies which it seemed their quest to ruin.
    An article in the paper exclaimed that soon there was going to be "pay" TV which you'd pay for but which would have no commercials. There would still be free airwaves, but TV would be like a utility, a physical cable to your living room, offering potentially hundreds of channels, which sounded a hell of a lot better than 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13, the only stations broadcasting at the time in Los Angeles. This sounded great. I couldn't wait for cable TV.
    Then I went to work. There was a poster outside the theater showing a crying child wearing a Dodgers cap, sitting in front of a television with a coin slot, a caption saying "Daddy says we can't watch baseball because he doesn't have a quarter for the TV." This was their warped version of what "pay" TV was going to look like. Underneath the graphic, the poster said something like Keep TV Free! Sign our petition to stop "Pay Television."
    I was flabbergasted. It was the worst ad I'd ever seen, total misinformation. There weren't going to be any coin slots in televisions. I knew that. Broadcast TV would still be free. Pay TV would only add to what we already had. How did I know? I read the goddam article. While getting into my usher's uniform in the men's locker, I told the other ushers how great pay TV was going to be, then headed towards my daily duties.
    After I swept the lobby, the manager assigned me to man the booth set up for people to sign the petition. It was suddenly my job to get patrons to sign something I was totally against. Everyone who stepped up to sign I wanted to smack and say "What the hell's the matter with you?" I didn't know what to do. The angel on my right shoulder told me to stick to my guns, to tell people the truth if they asked, to let them make up their own minds. The devil on my left shoulder told me to summon up my inner Sheen, become a great actor, just play a role, recite a script, be a commercial spokesman for a product I abhorred. "Do what you're told and keep your job," said the devil. "Don't be a paycheck whore," said the angel.
    It was that moment, seventeen years old, sitting behind that table, reading the petition, which was trying to pass a local ordinance banning cable television, that I realized for the first time in my life I had principles. I could not possibly try to convince people to sign such a thing. I could see the future. I wanted my MTV.
    After a few hours, the manager came up and saw that I hadn't gotten a single signature, despite the fact the film was sold out and thousands of people had passed the table. I was a failure at petitioning. He reassigned me to clean up a drink someone had spilt in the lobby, leaving a trail of brown stickiness all across the front of the theater. When I got back, I'd have to get at least 100 signatures or I'd be fired.
    I grabbed a bucket and mop. I cleaned the inside lobby, followed the trail to the outside lobby, cleaned it, then noticed the trail continued. I was in no hurry to get back. I cleaned the sidewalk in front of the theater, followed it around the corner, mopping all the way to the parking lot where I saw my car. Fuck it. I went home and watched television, cursing at the commercials. Without a job, I wouldn't even be able to afford pay TV if it actually ended up existing. 
    Though I didn't know it at the time, movie theaters had lost a large percentage of their business when television showed up in the first place in the fifties, and they rightly feared that cable TV in the seventies would be the death knoll to grand palaces like the Warners, and it turned out they were right. After brief forays back to legitimate theater, with occasional rock concerts, the Warners was torn down years ago. Who knows? Maybe if I'd gathered enough signatures the Warner Theater would still be standing. A conscience can be complicated.
 
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it BECAUSE it is right."
- Dr. Martin Luther King -
 
Mr. Conspiracy Says...
 
Delaware was the first state in the union. Go to the Delaware Department of State: Division of Corporations and look up "United States of America, Inc." You will discover that the United States is a non-profit religious corporation. Remember that.
 
Does it make any difference if the American flag in your child's school has a yellow fringe or not? You bet it does. According to military law...
A military flag is a flag that resembles the regular flag of the United States, except that it has a Yellow Fringe border on three sides 
- Title 4 United States Code Chapter 1, Sections 1, 2, and 3; Executive Order No. 10834, August 21, 1959, 24 C.F.R. 6865. 
 
The Flag is trimmed on three sides with Fringe of Gold, 2 inches wide. Such flags are flown indoors, only in military courtrooms. The Gold Fringed Flag is not to be carried by anyone except units of the United States Army, and the United States Army division associations 
- United States Army Regulations, AR 840-10, 1 October 1979. 
 
Pursuant to the "Law of the Flag," a military flag does result in jurisdictional implications when flown 
- Ruhstrat v. People, 57 N.E. 41, 45, 185 Ill. 133, 49 LRA 181, 76 Am. 
Which means when the rapture comes, they can shoot whatever school kids don't fly up into the sky.
 
Curiosity of the Week
 
    "At least 200 have been found, and extracted out of deep rock at the Wonderstone Silver Mine in South Africa, averaging 1-4 inches in diameter, and composed of a nickel-steel alloy that doesn't occur naturally. 
    "Some have a thin shell about a quarter inch thick, when broken open are filled with a strange spongy material that disintegrates into dust upon contact with air...
    "The manufactured metallic spheroids have been mined out of a layer of pyrophyllite rock and geologically and by the various radio-isotope dating techniques are shown as being 2.8 - 3 billion years old, long before man..."
- 3-Billion Year Old Manufactured Spheroids? -
 
Calling all Editors
 
I'm available to cover the Spiritual Cinema Festival-at-Sea.
 
Guide to Mistaken Shootings in Iraq

March 4, 2005: American forces fire on a car carrying a freed Italian hostage as it approaches a checkpoint in Baghdad, killing an Italian intelligence officer and wounding three others, including the just-released journalist.

April 19, 2004: A correspondent and driver for the U.S.-funded television station Al Iraqiya are shot and killed by U.S. troops.

Sept. 12, 2003: U.S. forces kill eight Iraqi police and a Jordanian security guard in Fallouja. Nine are wounded.

Aug. 17, 2003: A Reuters cameraman is shot and killed while working near U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

April 8, 2003: A cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco and a Ukrainian TV cameraman for Reuters are killed when a U.S. tank fires at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

April 6, 2003: A Kurdish translator for the BBC and 17 allied Kurdish fighters are killed in the U.S. bombing of a joint convoy of Kurds and U.S. Special Forces in northern Iraq.

March 31, 2003: American troops kill seven Iraqi women and children and wound two at a checkpoint near Najaf, in south-central Iraq, when their van carrying 13 people fails to stop as ordered.

Source: Associated Press through the LA times
 
Emboldened Shakespeare
 
Sonnet CXVIII
 
How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
 
And Hollywood Pokerfest is Urging a Crackdown on Illegal Gambling
 
The legal brothel industry in Australia is urging a crackdown on illegal sex.
 
Shockwave of the Week
 
The great Solomon Burke does None of Us Are Free.
 
Just to Confuse You
 
    "What we have discovered is that the model for Bush's accounts - the Federal Thrift Savings Plan for federal workers - actually paid securities firms a net total of only 16 cents for every $10,000 in workers accounts. The TSP had refused to make that information public - until now. It shows that fees actually being paid to Wall Street are hundreds of times smaller than some critics had assumed...
    "The 'windfall to Wall Street' argument rests on the idea that securities firms stand to reap hundreds of billions of dollars in fees from managing private Social Security accounts. What we present here is new evidence showing that's false.
 
Stupid Answers of the Week
 
If you could put yourself in the IMDB as a character in any movie, what would it be?
 
A freshly blown-up Soldier shouting Noooooo or Waaaarrgh in the closing scenes of South Park, The Movie.
- Nick Kent -
 
The guitar player in the house orchestra at Rick's in Casablanca, or one of the restaurant customers in the scene in the Godfather when Al Pacino shots the crooked police captain between the eyes.
- Kevin Wood -
 
    The stormtrooper in Star Wars Episode IV who hits his head on the door jam when entering the control room.
    Nope, wait, make that the Stormtrooper who makes fun of the one who hit his head.
    Nope, wait, make that the Stormtrooper who kicks Lucas's butt for creating Jar Jar.
- Locke Milholland -
 
I'd want to be Cary Grant, so Dare could see what "gay" REALLY means....
- Tim Omachi Gunma, Japan -
 
Third from center.
- james and katherine allard -
 
Hands down...Robert DeNiro's sidekick in Brazil. A fellow black market HVAC repairman who arrives and departs through second story acrobatics, just to repair your ducts and piss off central services. "Tired of ugly ducts?"
- Chris from Boca aka Palantir -
 
Rameses in The Ten Commandments
- Bill Moses -
 
Stupid Question of the Week
 
There are more than 130 e-mails in my "Answer These Immediately" folder. What excuse should I give the people I'm replying to months late?
 
a) my head was stuck in a mangle
b) my dick was stuck in my scanner
c) ?
 
Send your answers to stupidquestion@disinfotainmenttoday.com.
 
Quiz of the Week
 
To protect those most deserving of a second chance to get out of debt, Congress has added which one of the following provisions to the Bankruptcy Reform Bill?
 
A) Exemption for military personnel forced into bankruptcy by serving in Iraq.
B) Exemption for those forced into bankruptcy by job loss or medical crisis.
C) Exemption for those forced into bankruptcy after being taken aboard flying saucers for medical experiments.
D) Exemption for millionaires who have taken the precaution of hiding their assets in Asset Protection Trusts.
 
- Ironic Times -
 
Satan Doesn't Want You to Know
 
Here's the grand prize winner of the Greatest Grilled Cheese Sandwich in America and boy does it look good.
 
Don't Take My Word For It
 
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't."
- Anatole France -
 
"It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity."
- Benjamin Tucker -
 
    "The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law. Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption?...
    "The FEC did an advisory opinion in the late 1990s (in the Leo Smith case) that I don't think we'd hold to today, saying that if you owned a computer, you'd have to calculate what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.  
    "It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did. And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in."
 
    "The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate. 
    "'The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming,' Pier Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital where Sgrena is to undergo surgery following her return home. 'They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints.' 
    "The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret service agents, said Scolari. 'Then the US military silenced the cellphones,' he charged. 
    "'Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive,' he added."
 
    "Three weeks after the kidnapping of Giuliana Sgrena, the journalist with the Italian leftist daily Il Manifesto, the Italian Embassy in Baghdad advised all Italian journalists in Iraq to leave within 48 hours.
    "According to the Italian ANSA news agency, a tip-off from the Italian military secret service or Sismi, was behind the decision. Government officials here have denied a link between Sgrena's abduction and the call for the journalists' withdrawal. A few days earlier, in the only released video of Sgrena since her capture, she was shown pleading for her life and urging all journalists to leave Iraq...
    "The 'peace correspondent' as she is mostly referred to by her colleagues, Sgrena has been the quintessential anti-war activist, writer, and journalist throughout her long career. She was captured outside a mosque in Baghdad while waiting to interview Falluja refugees for a story on the impact of the raid on their lives. Like many female correspondents, Sgrena tended to focus on the effect of war on ordinary people rather than recount the battle stories."
 
"U.S. Forces Accidentally Fire on Pope! Popemobile approached checkpoint at high rate of speed."
 
    "The innocent Iraqi population is not using armored personal carriers nor do they use armored cars to help them protect themselves. More innocent Iraqi civilians are killed by your troops shooting at them than those killed by the criminal gangs. You probably know, Mr. President, that your trigger happy and nervous troops enjoy freedom from prosecution for these unlawful killings. From what I have witnessed those killers do not even stop to say sorry for their actions. 
    "Allow me respectfully to remind you, Mr. President, that now more than 60% of the Iraqi working forces, in your liberated Iraq, are unemployed as compared to 30% before your liberation. It looks that your action has doubled the number of Iraqis liberated from earning a decent pay or a decent work."
 
"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear."
- General Douglas MacArthur -
 
"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
- Abraham Lincoln: Nov. 21, 1864 - (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) -
 
"I have been an environmental advocate for twenty years, and I've been disciplined during that period about being nonpartisan in my approach to this issue. The worst thing that can happen to the environment is if it becomes the province of a single political party. Most of the environmental leaders in our country agree with me. Five years ago, if you asked the leaders of the major environmental groups in America, What's the gravest threat to the global environment?, they would have given you a range of answers: overpopulation, habitat destruction, global warming. Today, they will all tell you one thing: it's George W. Bush. This is the worst environmental president that we have ever had. You simply cannot speak honestly about the environment in any context today without speaking critically about this president. If you go to the Natural Resources Defense Council's web site you will see over 400 major environmental rollbacks that have been promoted by this administration over the last three and half years. It is a concerted, deliberate attempt to eviscerate thirty years of environmental law. It is a stealth attack, one that's been hidden from the public."
 
"It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back."
- Mick Jagger -
 
    "Pakistan: Hundreds of people were arbitrarily detained in the context of the US-led war on terror last year. Human rights abuses against women, children and religious minorities continued to be ignored by the government. There were severe restrictions on freedom of expression in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), particularly targeting musicians and artists.
    "Saudi Arabia: Hundreds of suspected religious activists, critics of the state and protesters were arrested or detained in 2004. Torture and ill-treatment remained rife, while at least 50 people were executed. Flogging and amputation continued to be imposed."
 
"The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth."
- Edith Sitwell -
 
"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."
- T. S. Eliot -
 
    "'The principles of the Islamic Front contradict the confessions of the groups shown on TV. We prohibit targeting civilians, slaying hostages and spilling the blood of Iraqis whether civilians or members of police and national guard forces, under any pretext,' reads the statement, a copy of which was obtained by IOL.
    "The Front asked all its fighters to avoided fighting the occupiers inside the cities, for fear of jeopardizing the lives of civilians.
 
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar."
- Donald Foster -
 
"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."
- Umberto Eco -
 
    "Total deprivation of sleep, food and water, exposure to extreme heat and cold, up to 20 minutes in stress positions, up to 2 hours listening to white noise... plus any other interrogation technique deemed acceptable by the interrogation team' By any standards the waiver I signed for 'Guantanamo Guidebook' was special, and two weeks later when I was lying naked, shaved, shackled in a ball on the floor, alone with a hood over my head, listening to white noise with a cold fan at my back, I realized just how superficial the term 'informed consent' can be.
    "Two weeks earlier I had received an e-mail looking for students who would be willing to participate in a Channel Four documentary investigating US interrogation practices for Terror detainees held in Cuba. I was to be one of seven male volunteers from various backgrounds three Muslims: a father of two, a youth worker, and a recent graduate; plus Britain's fittest Fireman, a triathlete, Britain's Thai Kickboxing Champion and me, a plucky Oxford undergraduate finalist in philosophy and politics. The test was to see how we fared in a simulation of up to 60 hours under a team of retired US army interrogators, led by a founding member of Delta Force, who used the techniques officially sanctioned for Guantanamo detainees to extract information about us and make us confess to the scenarios we had acted out with the production company the week before. We were to withhold information and endure.
    "Why on earth would I, being of sound body and mind, sign that waiver and participate? The simple answer is that people should understand what interrogation really can entail this show needed to be made, someone had to be in it and it might as well be me."
 
"Martha Stewart is getting out of prison so today the terror alert was raised from orange to pesto."
- David Letterman -
 
"During the second week of February, a completely unprecedented and unexplained heat wave struck Greenland. Already, melt off Greenland's glaciers has reached record proportions. Should this heat wave be a portent of a hot summer in the far north, the stage will be set for the unfolding of a serious climate catastrophe."
 
    "I cannot imagine not being able to walk right in on any given Christian Sunday to Good Vibrations here in the City (or Toys in Babeland in Seattle or the Hustler store in LA or any number of other such clean 'n' decent 'n' prurient storefronts around the land) and stock up on sex lotions and potions and gadgets and gizmos on a whim, on a second date, on a weekend, before Valentine's Day, on Easter, on Christmas, just for the hell of it or because the SO winkingly suggested it or the giddy carnal urges demanded it or because I needed to buy sexy birthday gifts or just because my supplies were running low and I have yet to install that in-bedroom three-gallon Astroglide wall pump.
    "I cannot, in other words, imagine living in Alabama. Or Texas. Or Louisiana. Or Georgia. Or Tennessee. Or in any of the handful of terrified and morally convulsive states where they prohibit such activities, where the selling of 'genital stimulating devices' is outright illegal and deeply dreaded."
 
"We are a group of concerned students, faculty, staff and alumni of Rutgers University, along with residents of New Jersey, raising our voices together to declare that the ongoing oppression and occupation of the Palestinian people and their land shall not take place in our name, with our money, or with our implied support. Across the country and internationally, thousands of groups and individuals are calling for an end to the economic support of the State of Israel that enables it to continue its apartheid practices and brutal military occupation, in violation of human rights and international law. We join those people of conscience to call upon Rutgers University to remove its financial investments from Israeli corporations and corporations who do business with Israel, with a special emphasis on armaments firms and others who directly support Israels oppressive regime."
 
    "'The great motorcade,' wrote Canadian correspondent Don Murray, 'swept through the streets of the city The crowds but there were no crowds. George W. Bush's imperial procession through Europe took place in a hermetically sealed environment. In Brussels it was, at times, eerie. The procession containing the great, armour-plated limousine (flown in from Washington) rolled through streets denuded of human beings except for riot police. Whole areas of the Belgian capital were sealed off before the American president passed.'
    "Murray doesn't mention the 19 American escort vehicles in that procession with the President's car (known to insiders as 'the beast'), or the 200 secret service agents, or the 15 sniffer dogs, or the Blackhawk helicopter, or the 5 cooks, or the 50 White House aides, all of which added up to only part of the President's vast traveling entourage. Nor does he mention the huge press contingent tailing along inside the president's security 'bubble,' many of them evidently with their passports not in their own possession but in the hands of White House officials, or the more than 10,000 policemen and the various frogmen the Germans mustered for the President's brief visit to the depopulated German town of Mainz to shake hands with Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder."
- Tom Engelhardt: Bush's Potemkin World -
 
"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
- Baruch Spinoza -
 
"It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them."
- Agatha Christie -
 
"The early bird gets the worm; the second mouse gets the cheese."
- Steven Wright -
 
    "One of the main jobs at the Justice Department is enforcing the nation's civil rights laws. So when a nonprofit group was accused of employment discrimination last year in New York, the department moved swiftly to intervene but not on the side one might expect.
    "The Salvation Army was accused in a lawsuit of imposing a new religious litmus test on employees hired with millions of dollars in public funds.
    "When employees complained that they were being required to embrace Jesus Christ to keep their jobs, the Justice Department's civil rights division took the side of the Salvation Army."
- Richard B. Schmitt: Justice Unit Puts Its Focus on Faith -
 
    "Many of you are aware of the bankruptcy 'reform' bill now barreling through the Senate. This credit industry wish-list does nothing to address the causes of spiraling bankruptcy rates in America, like predatory lending practices, stagnant wages and a lack of health care. Instead, it cynically caricatures bankrupt families as 'deadbeats' who must be punished by higher costs and less protection from creditors-never mind the fact that about 96% of all bankruptcies are caused by medical emergencies, job loss, divorce or a death in the family.
    "The bill itself is bad enough. (More on specific provisions here, here and here.) But for my money, the most depressing aspect of this whole affair is how clearly it illustrates Senators' slavish and cynical devotion to big donors. The credit and banking industries are among the nation's largest campaign contributors - and it's paying off."
 
"Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. This sitting silently is not avoiding life. Sitting silently is searching for life, the very source of life. And the moment you have found the source, everything grows by itself, just like when spring comes, the grass grows by itself."
- Osho -
 
    "What has galvanized this group made up of TV fans, civil liberties activists, and politically minded hackers is outrage at what the Broadcast Flag will do to the future of innovative, crazy-dream devices like MythTV. After the mandate goes into effect July 1, it will be illegal for anyone in the United States to manufacture a device that records high-definition television unless it's built to obey a special signal the flag emitted by stations broadcasting HD shows. The flag will tell PVRs and other equipment whether they're allowed to copy a show onto some other medium, like a DVD. In short, broadcasters and content owners will actually be able to control your recording habits. 
    "Let's say, for example, that it's a couple of years from now, and your TiVo (bought anytime after July 1 of this year) has recorded the excellent Marx brothers movie Animal Crackers, which was just broadcast on TNT in HD. Tomorrow you're getting on a plane to Australia, and you'd like to save a copy on DVD to watch on your computer during the 15-hour flight. 
    "You're entitled to make a personal copy under federal copyright law, so it should be no problem. And in fact, it was no problem back in the days of analog broadcasts and VCRs. But with the Broadcast Flag in place, TNT can send out a signal that tells your TiVo not to make HD copies of Animal Crackers. So when you burn that DVD and put it into your computer somewhere over the Pacific, you get a bunch of garbage. The FCC has just stolen your rights."
- Annalee Newitz: Build your TV! As the FCC and the entertainment biz get ready to end home recording as we know it, a bunch of radical geeks are working on a solution or two -
 
"Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, 'War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away.'"
- Immanuel Kant -
 
"If a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime."
- Charles Eliot Norton -
 
"A man is only as old as the woman he feels."
- Groucho Marx -
 
"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle."
- Erin Majors -
 
"As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something."
- Hagar the Horrible -
 
"You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance."
- Ray Bradbury's advice to writers -
 
"Johnson, a member of Congress with great power who is invited to semi-private functions with Bush in the White House, at least twice called for murdering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent people just because he THINKS that country MIGHT be hiding those weapons of mass destruction that our leaders LIED about to cajole us into a stupid invasion of Iraq."
- Jackson Thoreau: Texas Republican Congressman calls for 'nuking' Syria including my kids' relatives -
 
    "William Paterson University student Thomas Keenan was arrested and charged with defiant trespass after handing out fliers opposing military recruitment Monday afternoon. A small group of students had gathered in the campus's Atrium building around noon to protest student recruitment on campus by the Air Force and Navy, according to school officials and several students. 'I told them they couldn't make me move unless they arrested me, and they did so,' said Keenan, 19, in a phone interview after campus police released him Monday afternoon.
    "'We feel that college is not a place to recruit for the military,' declared 20-year-old Ryan McLaren, who had also been passing out the informational fliers titled Military Myths. 'Trying to take people away from getting an education to join the military is just not right.'"
- Heather Kays: Protest of military spurs arrest -
 
"The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life."
- Muhammad Ali -
 
"A man is what he is, not what he used to be."
- Yiddish proverb -
 
"Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together."
- Vesta M. Kelly -
 
"What is in your heart about your fellow man is most likely in his heart about you."
- Sifré Deuteronomy -
 
"The first four commandments: no other gods, no graven images, not take name in vain, and remember the Sabbath are wholly religious in nature unrelated to any civil or criminal law. That is 40 percent of the commandments. Two other commandments: the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother, and the tenth commandment not to covet are semi-religious social and psychological norms which would have to be enforced by thought police."
- Jim Senyszyn: Against Displaying Ten Commandments in Government Center -
 
"The man who gets angry at the right things and with the right people, and in the right way and at the right time and for the right length of time, is commended."
- Aristotle -
 
"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way."
- Doris Lessing -
 
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."
- Mark Twain -
 
"The Buddha compared people to four kinds of clay vessels. One type of vessel has holes in the bottom. We can pour in as much water as we like and it runs right out. When this type of person hears the Dharma, it goes in one ear and out the other. The second type of vessel has cracks. Though we pour in the Dharma, it seeps out slowly until the vessel is empty again. The third vessel is full to the brim with stale water - views and opinions. One can't pour anything new in, everything is already known. The only useful vessel is the fourth, without holes or cracks and totally empty."
- Ayya Khema: Be an Island -
 
    "The idea of a powerful ray gun has been a staple of science-fiction writing for decades. But a 'weapon' that shoots invisible beams of energy could be making its way into law-enforcement hands soon.
    "The technology isn't exactly something that would replace a police officer's handgun. In fact, the system being developed by Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena, Calif., couldn't even be crammed into a standard pistol holster. 
    "But the developers say their device, which uses technology more closely related to flash cooking than Flash Gordon, may help stop criminals and terrorists in their tracks. 
    "James Tatoian, chief executive of Eureka, says the High Power Electromagnetic System is designed to disable cars say, those fleeing from police officers using bursts of microwave energy. 
    "'Basically, since the 1970s, every car is built with some sort of microprocessor-controlled system like the ignition control and fuel pump control a lot of vital car systems,' says Tatoian. 'If you introduce a parasitic current into their wires, it leads to a power surge which in turn burns out those microprocessors.'"
- Paul Eng: Police Chases - Company develops technology to zap fleeing cars with invisible energy beams -
 
"Is this what downed Paul Wellstone's plane?"
- Jeff Crook -
 
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
- Confucius -
 
"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."
- Virginia Woolf -
 
"We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
- Aristotle -
 
"All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible."
- Dr. Frank Richards -
 
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
- Charles Kingsley -
 
"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
- William Arthur Ward -
 
"All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others."
- Bodhicaryavatara -
 
"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either."
- Dick Cavett -
 
"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."
- Linus Pauling -
 
"Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind."
- Marston Bates -
 
"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
- George Eliot -
 
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
- Ellen Parr -
"Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance."
- Robert Quillen -
 
"If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake."
- F. Wilezek -
 
"If persecution, liquidation and the other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of propaganda must be made as effective as the negative... To bring about the revolution, we require, among others... a greatly improved technique of suggestion through infant conditioning and... a fully developed science of human differences, enabling government managers to assign any given individual to his or her proper place in the social and economic hierarchy. Round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and to infect others with their discontents."
- Aldous Huxley: Brave New World -
 
"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our founding fathers, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being... It's up to you, teachers, to make all of these sick children well by creating the international children of the future."
- Dr. Chester M. Pierce in his 1972 keynote address to the Association for Childhood Education International -
 
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he believes the US government is planning to assassinate him. 'If they kill me, the name of the person responsible is [President] George Bush,' Mr. Chavez said. Rm. Chavez - who offered no evidence to back his claim - said any attempt on his life would backfire and threatened to cut off oil supplies to America. He was apparently reacting to growing criticism by top US officials of his left-wing government."
 
"The Federal Reserve is not an agency of Government. It is a private banking monopoly... The policies of the monarch are always those of his creditors."
 
"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance."
- James Madison -
 
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
- Henry Ford -
 
"Laws are silent in time of war."
- Cicero: 52 B.C. -
 
"Shut the fuck up."
- Socrates -
 
"War, when duly declared or recognized as such by the warmaking power, imports a prohibition to the subjects or citizens of all commercial intercourse and correspondence with citizens or persons domiciled in the enemy country. Upon this principle of public law it is the established rule in all commercial nations that trading with the enemy, except under a Government license, subjects the property to confiscation or to capture and condemnation."
- U.S. Supreme Court - Hanger v. Abbott (1867) -
 
"Mr. Speaker. We are now here in Chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government."
- Congressional Record, March 17, 1993, Vol. 33. -
 
    "No con man approaches his mark and says: 'I am perpetrating a trick to deceive you. I want to steal your money and gain power over your life in order to make you my slave so you can work for me while you think you are working for yourself. Now let me explain fully how I intend to do this.' On the contrary, every con man claims to offer a special way to better you, such as politicians who say: 'Vote for me and I'll give you...' Falling for the political con results in loss of control of one's life in exchange for obtaining largess 'legally' stolen from other people (including yourself). A government has no money of its own. In the realm of genuine business and honorable relationships one must give (serve) in order to receive (profit), i.e. engage in win/win interactions...
    "Governments invent power for themselves out of nothing. They have occurred throughout history under unlimited guises, including the 'Divine Right of Kings,' 'Democracy,' 'Law and Order,' the 'General Will,' 'society,' 'the greatest good for the greatest number,' etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam. None of those lofty collectivist concepts can be found. Where is a government official's agency agreement from God (or the 'General Will,' 'society,' etc.) authorizing him to exert power over you? Where are those concepts found other than in the minds of individuals who think them? Regardless of the basis of mystification (belief in unexamined premises), the state is an unredeemable fraud.
    "The only real rights are individual rights. There are likewise only individual responsibilities. Concepts and abstractions, like groups and legal fictions, have neither. Every man has free will and is obliged to utilize it for good or ill pursuant to ethical law, and for truth or falsehood pursuant to natural law. Each man is sovereign only over his own choices in life. Existence grants no one a priori right over any aspect of the life of another except for just self-defense."
 
"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet."
- Rodney Dangerfield -
 
"The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous."
- Shana Alexander -
 
"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
- James Baldwin -
 
    "[H]ow can the president continue to escalate the rhetoric against Iran given that his invasion of neighboring Iraq has handed control of the country to Shiites trained in Tehran, like Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, as well as Kurds who have enjoyed significant Iranian support over the years?
    "So, tangled history aside, what should the U.S. do now about a repressive and potentially threatening government in Iran? The one thing Bush strangely has refused to do throughout the world: practice the principles of capitalism.
    "The model for such a policy, which emphasizes normal trade relations even with regimes that have religious and political obsessions different from our own, was most successfully employed by Richard Nixon in his famous opening to 'Red' China, as well as in the détente period that should properly be credited with the ultimate fall of the Soviet empire."
 
    "As governor, Mr. Bush escalated sentences for some drug offenses, putting other people in prison for longer time periods for things that he himself had done or supported. As president, under his authority the federal government has targeted medical marijuana cooperatives, escalated the war on pain doctors, campaigned against drug policy reform initiatives or legislation, promoted drug testing and vastly overreaching drugged-driving laws, gone to court against any reform to drug policy that it could no matter how modest.
    "So if marijuana use in the distant past is not relevant to judging the president, hypocrisy on the drug issue is very relevant. And if not being open or candid about one's own youth is not exactly the same as lying to children, it verges on that. Not to suggest that his predecessor and failed opponents have stellar records on the issue by any means; they most certainly don't. But they're not president right now.
    "So if it is unimportant that George Bush used marijuana, it is kind of sad that he opposes honesty about it. And it is very sad that he continues to support cruel and repressive drug policies, policies which could have ruined his life if they had been in place back then, but realistically only in theory."
 
"I'll leave it up to me."
- Albert Brooks: Modern Romance -
 
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."
- Mark Twain -
 
"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
- Chinese Proverb -
 
 
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 Bechtel - 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
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Boo hoo
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Won't you buy me a CD burner?
 


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,
Bermuda Schwartz
 
 
 
 
 

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'Best of TBH Politoons'

Click Here!



Thanks, again, Tim!

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Recommended Reading

from Bruce

 Diane Rado: School orders mom to spank son--or else (Chicago Tribune)
6-year-old suspended after mother refuses to spank him for numerous disciplinary infractions; instead she yanks him from school


John Aravosis: Sex, Lies and Spies: This Isn't News? (LA Times)
Bloggers uncover that someone working as a reporter in the West Wing is also advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay escort ...


Bill Maher: New Rules


Mike Luckovich : Cartoon


Full Books

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Subscribe to BartCop!

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The Wall Street Poet

The Personal Privacy Poem

 The Tarriers' Song is about laborers who "work all day for the sugar in their tay." For some reason it came to mind when I read about the bankruptcy 'reform' proposals now slithering their way through Congress...

The Debtors' Song

You'll pay, debtor, pay,
If congress has its way;
You will work each day
Credit card debt to allay,
No, relief, from bankruptcy,
Just pay, debtor, pay.

High int'rest rates compound your nut,
And pretty soon you're stuck in a deep debt rut;
There's no escape anyone foresees,
'Cause the banks keep adding on new fines and fees.

You'll pay, debtor, pay,
If congress has its way;
You will work each day
Watch the good life slip away,
No, relief, from bankruptcy,
Just pay, debtor, pay

Forget car payments and household bills,
Forget the heart condition that requires costly pills,
Forget those plans for the kids' college,
Welcome to the land of indentured peonage.

You'll pay, debtor, pay,
If congress has its way;
You will work each day
Lending banks you will obey,
No, relief, from bankruptcy,
Just pay, debtor, pay.
Forecast?
Most dire.

©2005

**********
For more satirical verse: www.wallstreetpoet.com


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Weekly Link

Sick Of This Crap!

 March Madness is in the house! With gangs of chimps biting off human body parts, it's time to beware not just the ides of March, but the whole damn month. Why not take the whole 31 off. Just bring a laptop to bed with you to check in on what's going down, courtesy of sickofthiscrap.com...

    * Killing Social Security turns out to be harder than killing Iraqis
    * Ten Commandments - passing fad or governmental endorsement?
    * High Score! - 1500 American deaths and counting...

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

Sick Of This Crap!


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Selected Readings

from that Mad Cat, JD

GOD HATES RIGHT-WING CHRISTIAN ASSHOLES

WE ARE FASCIST FAMILY

CONSERVATIVES SUCK MONEY

IT'S NOT GETTING ANY BETTER

"EL ASESINO"

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT GOES JESUS FREAK

THE CONTRACT ON THE LEFTY BABE

PRAVDA ON THE POTOMAC

DON'T LET THE KIDS WATCH CHIMP BOY

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In The Chaos Household

Last Night

 Overcast morning, sunny afternoon.



Tonight, Tuesday:

CBS begins the night with a RERUN 'NCIS', followed by a FRESH 'Amazing Race 7', then a FRESH 'Judging Amy'.
On a RERUN Dave (from 2/23/05) are Michael J. Fox and Amanda Bynes.
On a RERUN Craig (from 2/9/05) are Laura Linney, Barry Watson, and sound mixer Kevin O'Connell.

NBC starts the night with a RERUN 'Will & Grace', followed by another RERUN 'Will & Grace', then still another RERUN 'Will & Grace', followed by a FRESH 'Committed', then a FRESH 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Leno are Penelope Cruz, Drew Carey, and Michael Buble.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Sylvester Stallone, Ben Foster, and Solomon Burke.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Ice-T and Ryan Cabrera.

ABC opens the night with a FRESH 'My Wife & Kids', followed by a FRESH 'George Lopez', then a FRESH 'Jim', followed by another FRESH 'Jim', then the SERIES PREMIERE of 'Blind Justice'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Randy Jackson, Brittany Snow, and the O'Jays.

The WB here fills the night with 'NBA Basketball', with the Clips visiting the Lakers.

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

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

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

AMC offers the movie 'Rocky II', followed by the movie 'Rocky III', then the movie 'Rocky III', again.

BBC  -   
 [2pm]    'As Time Goes By' - Episode 2;
 [2:40pm]    'Are You Being Served?' - Oh What a Tangled Web;
 [3:20pm]    'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 1;
 [4pm]    'The Saint' - Little Girl Lost;
 [5pm]    'The Weakest Link' - Episode 46;
 [6pm]    'BBC World News';
 [6:30pm]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 11;
 [7pm]    'Bargain Hunt' - France 13;
 [7:30pm]    'What Not To Wear' - Alice;
 [8pm]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 8;
 [9pm]    'Ramsay's Boiling Point' - Episode 3;
 [9:30pm]    'Ramsay's Boiling Point' - Episode 4;
 [10pm]    'What Not to Wear' - Episode 7;
 [10:30pm]    'What Not to Wear' - Episode 2;
 [11pm]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 8;
 [12am]    'Ramsay's Boiling Point' - Episode 3;
 [12:30am]    'Ramsay's Boiling Point' - Episode 4;
 [1am]    'What Not to Wear' - Episode 7;
 [1:30am]    'What Not to Wear' - Episode 2;
 [2am]    'Bargain Hunt' - France 13;
 [2:30am]    'What Not To Wear' - Alice;
 [3am]    'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 8;
 [4am]    'Ramsay's Boiling Point' - Episode 3;
 [4:30am]    'Ramsay's Boiling Point' - Episode 4;
 [5am]    'What Not to Wear' - Episode 7;
 [5:30am]    'What Not to Wear' - Episode 2;
 [6am]    'BBC World News'.    (ALL TIMES EST)

Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Queer Eye', another 'Queer Eye', and yet another 'Queer Eye'.

Comedy Central has 'MAD TV', 'Comedy Central Presents' (Rudy Rush), another 'Comedy Central Presents' (Jimmy Carr), 'South Park', 'Chappelle's Show', and a FRESH 'Distraction'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Tom Fenton.

History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Wild West Tech', followed by a FRESH 'Breaking Vegas', and more 'Modern Marvels'.

IFC  -   
 [6AM]    'Me You Them' (2000);
 [8AM]    'Delicatessen' (1991);
 [9:45AM]    Short: 'Weeping Shriner' (1999);
 [10AM]    'Zelig' (1983);
 [11:30AM]    'At The Angelika #94' (2005);
 [12PM]    'Me You Them' (2000);
 [2PM]    'Delicatessen' (1991);
 [3:45PM]    'IFC In Theaters' (2004);
 [4PM]    'Bootmen' (2000);
 [5:45PM]    'Running With The Bulls' (2003);
 [6:30PM]    'IFC Short Film Collection I' (2003);
 [8:30PM]    'Love & Sex' (2000);
 [10PM]    'Dinner For Five #20' (2004);
 [11PM]    'Storytelling' (2001);
 [12:30AM]    'Henry's Film Corner #104' (2005);
 [1AM]    'Love & Sex' (2000);
 [2:30AM]    'At The Angelika #94' (2005);
 [3AM]    'Storytelling' (2001);
 [4:30AM]    'In Bad Taste: The John Waters Story' (1998).    (ALL TIMES EST)

SciFi fills the night with the movie 'The Odyssey'.

Sundance  -   
 [6:45AM]    'Traveler' (Short);
 [7AM]    'Anatomy of a Scene: Die Mommie Die!' (Original Production);
 [7:25AM]    'Security, Colorado' (Feature);
 [9AM]    'McLuhan's Wake' (Documentary);
 [10:40AM]    'The subconscious art of graffiti removal' (Short);
 [11AM]    'Tokyo Girls' (Documentary);
 [12PM]    'Julie Walking Home' (Feature);
 [2PM]    'Security, Colorado' (Feature);
 [3:35PM]    'Anatomy of a Scene: Die Mommie Die!' (Original Production);
 [4PM]    'My Terrorist' (Documentary);
 [5PM]    'Wendigo' (Feature);
 [6:35PM]    'The Game of Their Lives' (Documentary);
 [8PM]    'Zus & Zo' (Feature);
 [9:45PM]    'Doppelganger' (Short);
 [10PM]    'Rick' (Feature);
 [11:35PM]    'The Last Kiss' (Feature);
 [1AM]    'La Femme Nikita' (Feature);
 [3:35AM]    'Wendigo' (Feature);
 [5:05AM]    'Tokyo Girls' (Documentary).    (ALL TIMES EST)

TCM:
 [6am]    'Tension' (1949);
 [7:45am]    'The Wild North' (1952);
 [9:30am]    'Brigadoon' (1954);
 [11:30am]    'It's Always Fair Weather' (1955);
 [1:30pm]    'Meet Me In Las Vegas' (1956);
 [3:30pm]    'Silk Stockings' (1957);
 [5:30pm]    'Two Weeks In Another Town' (1962);
 [7:30pm]    'Festival of Shorts #39' (2002);
 [8pm]    'Desk Set' (1957);
 [10pm]    '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968);
 [1am]    'WarGames' (1983);
 [3am]    'The Honeymoon Machine' (1961);
 [4:30am]    'Looking For Love' (1964).    (ALL TIMES EST)


Wednesday  -  03/09

TCM spends the morning and afternoon celebrating the work of director S. Sylvan Simon (who would have been 95 today).
 [6am]    'The Kid From Texas' (1939);
 [7:15am]    'These Glamour Girls' (1939);
 [8:45am]    'Keeping Company' (1940);
 [10:15am]    'Sporting Blood' (1940);
 [11:45am]    'Rio Rita' (1942);
 [1:30pm]    'Tish' (1942);
 [3pm]    'Salute To The Marines' (1943);
 [5pm]    'Whistling In Brooklyn' (1943);
 [6:30pm]    'The Cockeyed Miracle' (1946);
 [8pm]    'Designing Woman' (1957);
 [10:15pm]    'The Shootist' (1976);
 [12am]    'Dark Passage' (1947);
 [2am]    'To Have And Have Not' (1944);
 [4am]    'Confidential Agent' (1945).    (ALL TIMES EST)



Any opinions?

Or reviews?


(See below for addresses)

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In honor of today's Los Angeles mayoral election, some links to celebrate the City of Angles Angels:

Los Angeles Almanac - Demographics, History, Statistics

metro.net | Transit Services and Information for Los Angeles County

Southern California Real-Time Traffic

Los Angeles architectural photo galleries

Los Angeles in the 1900s: A Collection of Articles, Illustrations and Advertisements

LA Through Postcards

los angeles: past present future

Los Angeles Conservancy

Preserve LA

Beneath L. A.

Weird Los Angeles


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Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg speaks during the presentation of a children's book about her father, former U.S. President John F. Kennedy (shown in a campaign poster at left) at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts March 7, 2005. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg wrote the introduction to the book 'John F. Kennedy: His Life and Legacy' by Shelley Sommer, which is written for middle school aged children.
Photo by Brian Snyder
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Click Here!

Moose & Squirrel - The Blog

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Praises Rather's Replacement

Walter Cronkite

 Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather's predecessor at the "CBS Evening News," said Monday that Rather's replacement by Bob Schieffer was overdue.

Cronkite said it was a tribute to Rather that he held on so long.

"It surprised quite a few people at CBS and elsewhere that, without being able to pull up the ratings beyond third in a three-man field, that they tolerated his being there for so long," he told CNN.

Walter Cronkite

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Former child star Gary Coleman tapes a radio segment outside the Santa Barbara County Superior Courthouse as the second week of Michael Jackson's child molestation trial begins in Santa Maria March 7, 2005.
Photo by Nick Ut
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Celebrates 25th 'Today' Anniversary

Willard Scott

 The go-to guy for centenarians is celebrating a milestone himself. Willard Scott, who will be happy to wish you a "happy birthday" on the "Today" show as long as you've reached triple figures, has been associated with the NBC morning show for 25 years. His first day on the job was March 10, 1980.

Scott, the show's former weatherman, now appears twice a week to give birthday wishes - and occasionally subs for Al Roker.

Back in 1983, Scott got a card from someone asking for an on-air birthday wish and he complied. More cards and letter followed - first a trickle, then a flood.

"When I did my thematic piece in 1983, I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would be my career," he told The Associated Press Monday.

Willard Scott

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bartcook

In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends

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Adds Ottawa After Prime Minister's Call

U2

 Irish superstars U2 have added Ottawa to their worldwide Vertigo tour after a phone call from Prime Minister Paul Martin to lead singer Bono. The two have been on first-name basis since Martin cut debts owed to Canada by Third World countries when he was Liberal finance minister. Bono is a strong campaigner for debt relief.

Radio station BOB-FM lobbied Martin last month to get U2 to play Ottawa and promised to rename itself PAUL-FM for a day if he was successful.

The Prime Minister's Office said Bono just happened call Martin prior to the station's campaign.

Martin returned the call and told Bono about the drive to get the band to Ottawa, said Martin spokeswoman Melanie Gruer.

U2

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In this undated photo provided by David Lawrence Rare Coins, this pristine-condition rare dime made in 1894 at the San Francisco Mint sold Monday, March 7, 2005, for$1,322,500 at a rare coin auction in Baltimore. Only 24 dimes were made in 1894 at the San Francisco Mint, and this is the finest of the 10 known surviving specimens, according to John Feigenbaum, President of David Lawrence Rare Coins of Virginia Beach, Va., the auctioneer. The coin was consigned by collector, Bradley Hirst, of Richmond, Ind., who paid $825,000 for it six years ago, and sold to an anonymous bidder who participated in the auction by telephone.
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Hospitalized After Fall in Home

Ed McMahon

 Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson's former sidekick, was hospitalized after a fall in his Beverly Hills home left him with a mild concussion and a gash in his head that required stitches, his publicist said Monday.

"Mr. McMahon's prognosis is excellent and he is expected to be released from the hospital in the next few days," spokeswoman Susan DuBow said. The name of the Los Angeles area hospital wasn't disclosed.

McMahon, who turned 82 on Sunday, tripped and fell Friday afternoon, DuBow said.

Ed McMahon

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Faces Closure Over Unpaid Rent

CBGB

 New York's legendary rock club CBGB, which helped launch everybody from Blondie to the Ramones, faces closure if it does not resolve a dispute over unpaid rent with the homeless charity that owns the building.

Club owner Hilly Kristal said the dispute dated from 2001, when the landlord presented a $300,000 bill for unpaid rent.

Though most of that has now been repaid, the club was handed another bill earlier this year for $76,000 which CBGB has not paid. The club's lease comes to an end in August and talks on renewal are stalled.

CBGB

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I'm Pissed
(formerly 'The Vidiot')

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Three Works Recovered

Edvard Munch

 Three stolen works of art by Edvard Munch were recovered Monday, police said, less than 24 hours after thieves pried them loose from the walls of an upscale restaurant in the second theft of the Norwegian master's work in less than seven months.

Iver Stensrud, of the Oslo police, also said several arrests had been made. He declined to be more specific or say what condition the stolen watercolor and two lithographs were in.

A 1915 watercolor called "Blue Dress" and two lithographs were stolen from the walls of the restaurant of the stately Refnes Hotel near the city of Moss, about 30 miles south of Oslo, late Sunday, Jan Pedersen, of the local police, said by telephone.

The hotel is on the island of Jeloey, where Munch lived and worked from 1913 until 1916, when he moved to Oslo.

Edvard Munch

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A member of the Women's Feminist Organization participates in a march in Mexico City Monday March 7, 2005. The women are marching against the discrimination of women in Mexico.
Photo by Marco Ugarte
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Files Protection Order

Tanya Tucker

 Country singer Tanya Tucker has filed an order of protection against her former fiance, Jerry Laseter, whom Tucker claims has harassed and assaulted her.

Tucker and Laseter share a daughter, Layla Laseter, 5.

Police have been called to Tucker's home nine times in the last two years. Five of those calls involved domestic disputes, according to records at the Williamson County Sheriff's Office.

Tanya Tucker

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The sword bearer lamp, an artifact of the Wu Family Shrines, is shown on display at the Princeton University art museum in Princeton, N.J., Thursday, March 3, 2005. For centuries, the Wu Family Shrines have captivated researchers, containing some of the earliest surviving examples of Chinese art. Now a new exhibit at Princeton details the results of a five-year effort to re-examine the burial site and questions whether some of the inscriptions and pictorial carvings may have been added or redone in thecenturies since the Han dynasty.
Photo by Brian Branch-Price
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Named WHO Goodwill Ambassador

Liya Kebede

 Liya Kebede, best known for her ad campaign for Estee Lauder, was named a goodwill ambassador for maternal, newborn and child health by the World Health Organization.

She will take part in the global World Health Day celebrations in New Delhi on April 7.

The Ethiopian-born model said she hoped her efforts for WHO would raise awareness of the difficulties mothers and children face in the developing world, where millions die each year, often from easily preventable conditions.

Liya Kebede

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Florist Maria Karabanova stands in front of a fountain decorated with tulips in Moscow's GUM superstore, March 7, 2005. Some 14,500 tulips were used to decorate the fountain on the eve of the International Womens' Day.
Photo by Sergei Karpukhin
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In Memory

Debra Hill

 Debra Hill, who co-wrote the horror classic "Halloween" and rose through Hollywood's ranks to become a pioneering woman producer, died Monday, according to a family friend. She was 54.

Hill had battled cancer for 13 months, but had been working on several projects, including a film about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks until her last days, said friend Barbara Ligeti.

Hill's big break came in horror films when she and director John Carpenter co-wrote the genre's modern classic, "Halloween."

The 1979 film, also directed by Carpenter and produced by Hill, starred a 20-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis as the baby sitter terrorized by a murderous psychopath. Made on a modest $300,000 budget, it grossed $60 million worldwide, a record for an independent movie at the time, and launched a seemingly endless chain of sequels.

Hill, Carpenter and Curtis returned for "Halloween II," and Hill and Carpenter were involved in the writing of several later sequels, including "Halloween: Resurrection," "Halloween 5" and "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers." A "Halloween 9," also written by Hill and Carpenter, is reported by the Internet Movie Database to be in production.

After her "Halloween" run, Hill joined her friend Lynda Obst in forming an independent production company in 1986 that made "Adventures in Babysitting" and "Heartbreak Hotel," both directed by Chris Columbus, and Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King" with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges.

In 1988 she entered a contract with Walt Disney Pictures under which she produced the feature "Gross Anatomy," short films for the Walt Disney theme park and an NBC special for Disneyland's 35th anniversary.

Films she produced included "The Dead Zone," 1983; "Head Office," 1985; and "Clue," 1986.

Hill began as a production assistant on adventure documentaries, working up to films as a script supervisor, a job that required sitting beside the director and keeping a record of each scene.

From there she landed jobs as assistant director and second-unit director and became associated with Carpenter, who was then a rising young director.

The two also collaborated on 1980's "The Fog" and 1981's "Escape From New York."

When she was honored by Women in Film in 2003, Hill said, "I hope some day there won't be a need for Women in Film. That it will be People in Film. That it will be equal pay, equal rights and equal job opportunities for everybody."

Born in Haddonfield, N.J., Hill grew up in Philadelphia.

Debra Hill

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Siberian birds take flight from a lake in the northern Indian city of Allahabad March 6, 2005. These migratory birds travel thousands of kilometres to reach Sangam in north India, where they shelter from the chill of Siberia's winter.
Photo by Jitendra Prakash
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