'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Henry Porter: Time to put an end to this age of cynicism and scorn (guardian.co.uk)
The West is living through an age of plenty but voices of optimism and joy struggle to be heard
Susan Estrich: It Takes a Village (creators.com)
Hillary Clinton has been much mocked over the years for arguing that it takes a village to raise a child. On the other hand, she was right, at least some of the time.
The marvel of comics (books.guardian.co.uk)
On reading Mark Evanier's "Kirby: King of Comics," Michel Faber pays tribute to the man who drew the Fantastic Four.
Lynn Barber: Secrets and Liza (music.guardian.co.uk)
Oscar-winner, alcoholic, drug addict, four failed marriages, messy affairs... sometimes it seems as if Liza Minnelli's whole life has been lived in the public gaze. And yet, do we really know her?
'I was born with a happy heart' (music.guardian.co.uk)
Simon Hattenstone goes on the road with the formidable queen of country, Dolly Parton.
Rock star rebel with a cause (guardian.co.uk)
Graeme Thomson talks to Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin. The earnest lead singer of Coldplay is as well-known - and mocked - for his clean living and social conscience as for his enormously popular music. But the band's new single is sure to be a hit. Especially as they're giving it away.
Ally Carnwath: Queen of the jokers (arts.guardian.co.uk)
Currently America's hottest writer and comic actor, Tina Fey, 37, "found time in 2004 to write and act in high-school comedy Mean Girls, and in 2005 to have a daughter, but she returned to SNL soon after, saying: 'NBC has me under contract; the baby and I only have a verbal agreement.'"
Interview With Lauren Collins (afterellen.com)
The actor who plays Paige on "Degrassi" talks about Palex and more.
Kyle Buchanan: Mister Korine (advocate.com)
Advocate film critic Kyle Buchanan sits down with director Harmony Korine to discuss his new movie Mister Lonely about a Michael Jackson impersonator, dropping mushrooms, and why he loves Southern gays so much.
Philip French: Screen legends, No 15 Deborah Kerr 1921-2007 (film.guardian.co.uk)
Born in Scotland, raised in England, becoming a major international star in postwar Hollywood, this gracious and graceful auburn-haired beauty had a name that was often mispronounced.
Commentoon: War Hillary (womensenews.org)
Nicole Hollander: Sylvia
Reader Comment
Old Hotel Link
Very interesting Marty on the
old hotel link.
I worked at Mineral Wells
Texas for about 5 years, and helped give tours of the Grand Old Baker. It
has an amazing history and is so impressive. Bonnie and Clyde stayed
there, and the room they always got was near both the stairs and the
elevator in case of a needed quick getaway. One of the rooms had bullet
proof walls where gangsters and gamblers partied, and management did not
want any innocent guest shot if a fight broke out. At least two
hauntings, one of the fifth floor, and a roamer. The above ground pool
was olympic size, and there are tunnels under it. It opened I think in
1929, and the money people partied and people living in dugouts could hear
them. I have been from the basement in the bottom all the way to the bell
tower.
Hope things all well with you.
William of Texas
Thanks, William!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast and cool.
Jo, the (lucky) lizard molted.
NYC Jury Gets Case
Uma Thurman
A celebrity-obsessed loner "terrified" Uma Thurman by flooding her with phone calls and e-mails, ringing her doorbell at all hours and threatening to kill himself if he couldn't meet her, a prosecutor said Monday in closing arguments.
Jack Jordan, 37, is on trial in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on charges of stalking and aggravated harassment; he faces up to a year in jail if convicted. Jurors began deliberations Monday afternoon before leaving for the day. They were expected to resume Tuesday morning.
Prosecutors say Jordan began stalking Thurman in 2005 and, following the incident with the confirmation card, was involuntarily committed to a mental institution. When he got out, prosecutors say he started showing up at the front doorstep of her Greenwich Village town house.
Jordan, who lives with his parents in Gaithersburg, Md., is an out-of-work lifeguard who was living in his car at the time of his arrest last year.
Uma Thurman
Seals Megadeal
Seth MacFarlane
From wunderkind to TV mogul: After 2 1/2 years of negotiations, "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane has inked a new overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV that would make him the highest-paid writer-producer working in television.
The pact, which could be worth more than $100 million, will keep MacFarlane at 20th TV through 2012. It covers his services on "Guy" and his other two animated series for 20th TV and Fox -- "American Dad!" and the upcoming "Guy" spinoff "The Cleveland Show" -- as well as his series development, which includes a multicamera comedy with "Guy" writer Gary Janetti. It also encompasses new-media projects related to MacFarlane's TV series as well as DVD and merchandising revenue from them. ("Guy" alone has grown into a $1 billion franchise with red-hot DVD and merchandise sales.)
MacFarlane's deal is expected to eclipse the $60 million five-year feature/TV pact J.J. Abrams ("Lost") inked with Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. TV in 2006.
The deal is retroactive, as MacFarlane's previous pact with 20th TV expired more than a year ago.
Seth MacFarlane
New Chicago Symphony Director
Riccardo Muti
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra named Italian conductor Riccardo Muti on Monday as the 10th music director in its 117-year history.
Muti is "one of the most extraordinary and respected conductors of all time," symphony President Deborah Card said in announcing he had accepted a five-year contract beginning in September 2010.
He will conduct a minimum of 10 weeks of subscription concerts each season and lead domestic and international tours, the announcement said.
Muti, 66, succeeds Daniel Barenboim who left the orchestra two years ago.
Riccardo Muti
NBC Keeps Producers
`Project Runway'
"Project Runway" may switch from Bravo to the Lifetime cable network this fall, but NBC Universal ensured Monday that the show's producers won't go with it.
NBC Universal, whose properties include Bravo, USA and Oxygen, announced a deal that ties it to producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, giving the company first look at their projects. In effect, it forced the duo to choose between staying with "Project Runway" or the promise of more work at NBC.
The deal gives their company security instead of going on a work-for-hire basis, Lipsitz said. She said a similar arrangement was broached even before the battle over "Project Runway."
`Project Runway'
Corporate Spying Trial
News Corp
A federal judge presiding over a corporate spying suit against News Corp said the company could lose the case worth hundreds of millions of dollars if Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch does not testify about what he knew, ABC News reported on Monday.
The network reported that it obtained a transcript of an in-chambers hearing during which U.S. District Judge David Carter said, "There is a real risk" of losing the jury trial if Murdoch does not take the stand and "briefly say, 'I didn't do it,' and 'I didn't know about it."'
News Corp unit NDS Group PLC is being sued in Los Angeles federal court, accused of hiring hackers to steal and post data that allowed free access to DISH Network Corp's satellite television service. News Corp owns rival satellite provider DirecTV.
The lawsuit was brought by EchoStar Communications, which later split into EchoStar Corp and DISH, against NDS and NDS America, which provide security technology to a global satellite network that includes satellite TV service DirecTV.
News Corp
Failed Republican Now TV Judge
Jeanine Pirro
The CW network announced Monday that Jeanine Pirro will be the presiding jurist on "Judge Jeanine Pirro," weekday afternoons beginning Sept. 22.
Pirro, 56, was once a rising star in New York's Republican Party. She was a popular Westchester County judge, a big winner in three consecutive runs for district attorney and once was chosen for People magazine's "most beautiful" issue.
Analysts said she would have been a natural for higher office, except that her wealthy husband, Albert Pirro, seemed to have a knack for holding her back with his own problems, including a paternity suit and a federal tax-fraud conviction. (Last November, the Pirros announced they were separating.)
In 2005 Pirro decided to challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton and run for the U.S. Senate. But her campaign opened disastrously when a page of her announcement was misplaced and she was speechless for 32 seconds. Pirro eventually switched to the race for state attorney general, but was easily defeated by Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
Jeanine Pirro
1,581 Day Fashion Statement
David Witthoft
David Witthoft finally shunned his Brett Favre jersey for a red shirt for the first time in 1,581 days. The 12-year-old Ridgefield, Conn. boy wore the No. 4 jersey every day since receiving it as a gift for Christmas in 2003.
David's father, Chuck Witthoft, said Monday that his son's last day wearing the jersey was April 23 on his 12th birthday. Witthoft conceded his son was starting to become more concerned about his appearance after the jersey barely came down to his belt line.
Witthoft first gained national attention three years ago, and attended his first Packers game in December. He's also planning to attend the Sept. 8 game when the Packers retire Favre's No. 4.
His mother, Carolyn, had washed the jersey every other day and mended it when needed.
David Witthoft
Volcanic Smog Over Hawaii
Vog
For eight years, Tony and Sam Bayaoa have grown thousands of bright red, yellow and pink protea flowers on their farm. Then in March, Kilauea volcano opened a new vent and began spewing double the usual amount of toxic gas.
Now about 70 percent of their crop is dried, brown and brittle.
Big Island crops are shriveling as sulfur dioxide from Kilauea wafts over them and envelops them in "vog," or volcanic smog. People are wheezing, and schoolchildren are being kept indoors during recess. High gas levels led Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to close several days last month, forcing the evacuation of thousands of visitors.
Residents of this volcanic island are used to toxic gas. But this haze is so bad that farmers are thinking about growing different crops, and many people are worrying about their health.
Vog
1968 Eurovision Song Contest Rigged
Cliff Richard
British singer Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest after Spanish dictator Francisco Franco fixed the vote, according to a documentary.
Richard was the bookmakers' favorite to win with his song 'Congratulations' however Spanish contestant Massiel pipped him to the title by just one point with 'La La La' -- Spain's first of two victories in the competition's 52-year history.
"It was a fix," the documentary's producer Montse Fernandez Vila quoted Spanish television presenter Jose Maria Inigo as saying. "Massiel won Eurovision with bought votes."
Spanish TV executives traveled Europe promising to buy second-rate programs and concerts billing strange acts in return for Eurovision votes, Inigo told the documentary.
Cliff Richard
In Memory
Mildred Loving
Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially mixed marriages in at least 17 states.
Her husband died in 1975. Shy and soft-spoken, Loving shunned publicity and in a rare interview with The Associated Press last June, insisted she never wanted to be a hero - just a bride.
Mildred Jeter was 11 when she and 17-year-old Richard began courting, according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the 2004 book, "Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers."
She became pregnant a few years later, she and Loving got married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn't realize it was illegal.
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded guilty to charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth," according to their indictments.
They avoided jail time by agreeing to leave Virginia - the only home they'd known - for 25 years. They moved to Washington for several years, then launched a legal challenge by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union.
After the Supreme Court ruled, the couple returned to Virginia, where they lived with their children, Donald, Peggy and Sidney. Each June 12, the anniversary of the ruling, Loving Day events around the country mark the advances of mixed-race couples.
Mildred Loving
In Memory
Ted Key
Cartoonist Ted Key, whose comic strip "Hazel" about a bossy maid went from magazine page to TV screen, has died. He was 95.
"Hazel" was a popular feature in The Saturday Evening Post from the time it debuted in 1943. It evolved into a prime-time series in 1961 that starred Shirley Booth and ran for four years on NBC and one year on CBS.
Key also created the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman for producer Jay Ward. The time-traveling dog/scientist and his boy made their TV debuts in 1959 in segments on the animated show, "Rocky and His Friends."
He created cartoon panels called "Diz and Liz" and "Jack and Jill" for children's magazines and produced a number of other animated animal characters. He also wrote a play for radio, authored and illustrated books, and had freelance cartoons appear in Cosmopolitan, Better Homes and Gardens and Sports Illustrated.
Later, Key and a neighbor published biweekly motivational posters called "Positive Attitude Posters," and he created a series of motivational pamphlets for sales people.
Theodore Keyser was born in Fresno, Calif., on Aug. 25, 1912. His father, a Latvian immigrant who had changed his last name from Katseff to Keyser, changed his name to Key during World War I.
He is survived by his second wife, Bonnie, three sons and three grandchildren. His first wife, Anne, died in 1984.
Ted Key
In Memory
Alvin Colt
Alvin Colt, a Tony-winning costume designer whose work spanned more than 60 years of theater from "On the Town" to the "Forbidden Broadway" revues, has died at 92.
Colt's first show was "On the Town," the 1944 musical about sailors on a 24-hour shore leave in New York. It was also the Broadway debut of its authors, composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
Among the more than 50 shows Colt worked on during his lengthy career were "Guys and Dolls" (1950), "Top Banana" (1951), Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Pipe Dream" (1955) - for which he won a Tony - "The Lark" (1955), "Li'l Abner" (1956), "Destry Rides Again" (1959) and "Here's Love" (1963).
In his later years, Colt was known for his outlandish costumes for "Forbidden Broadway," a long-running series of revues which spoof Broadway shows.
In "Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit," for example, Colt outfitted one of the knights from "Spamalot" in a suit covered with containers of Spam and perched a Mickey Mouse doll atop the head of an actor portraying Rafiki from the Disney production of "The Lion King."
A native of Kentucky, Colt graduated from Yale. In between theater assignments, he worked extensively in television and on several films.
Alvin Colt
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