'Best of TBH Politoons'
Update From Colby
Katherine's Fashion Sense
Hi,
Katherine had toned it down to get elected
to congress. After getting elected she stopped listening to her handlers about her image. Is she trying to rebuild her base starting with the horny guy vote?
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Deanna Zandt: Mr. Ice Cream Sticks It to the Pentagon (AlterNet.org)
Ben Cohen has built a grassroots organization of half a million to fight the obscene size of the U.S. military budget -- and he uses Oreo cookies to make the case.
Mary Yajko: Army of You, The pursuit of young, warm-blooded Americans (campusprogress.org)
If a student shows interest in enlistment, says McIlroy, they can come to him and take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a test that measures students' general intelligence and skills for various military jobs. This exam is supposed to be optional, but many students and parents are unaware of that.
Bernard Weiner: How to Keep Democrats From Blowing the November Election (democraticunderground.com)
I have been following the suggestion of Ernest Partridge and others: I return solicitation letters to Democratic Party headquarters with a strong note saying I will send no money until the Democrats decide to fight like an opposition party should for honest, transparent, verifiable elections. No action, no donation. Similarly, many progressives are telling MoveOn.org much the same thing: stop being so timid; electoral integrity and confronting electoral fraud needs to be front and center for progressives. We can have all the good candidates and popular policies in the world, but if the opposition is running the vote-counting mechanism, goodbye honest elections and the chance to defeat the GOP and begin to restore America's traditional values to our political system.
Rob Kall: Poll: 2004 Election Was Stolen; according to viewers of all news networks except Fox News (opednews.com)
Who are these Fox viewers. OpEdNews gives you the details.
Suzanne C. Ryan: At 87, Wallace still tells it like it is
Q. President George W. Bush has declined to be interviewed by you. What would you ask him if you had the chance?
A. What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?
Richard Roeper: Tragic tale of woman's fall reminds us of parallel world (suntimes.com)
The whole story, as told by Sun-Times and Tribune reporters, sounds like an episode of "Law and Order."
'I've never been in the firing line like this before' (guardian.co.uk)
Richard Linklater's film Fast Food Nation ends on the killing floor, as cattle march placidly up a ramp to be slaughtered. We see them shot and shackled, sliced and diced. Grey loops of intestine come sweeping down the conveyor belt like some demented version of The Generation Game. Inside the cinema at Cannes, the audience groaned and covered their eyes
ROGER EBERT: Army of Shadows (Armée des l'ombres) (1969; A Great Movie)
Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows" is about members of the French Resistance who persist in the face of despair. Rarely has a film shown so truly that place in the heart where hope lives with fatalism. It is not a film about daring raids and exploding trains, but about cold, hungry, desperate men and women who move invisibly through the Nazi occupation of France. Their army is indeed made of shadows: They use false names, they have no addresses, they can be betrayed in an instant by a traitor or an accident. They know they will probably die.
MARK JURKOWITZ: Glossed over (/thephoenix.com)
The magazine racks are filled with dying publications - but why is the glossy's forecast not nearly as gloomy as newsprint's?
Immortalia: Rude Songs (Adult)
This website is dedicated to traditional drinking songs (many bawdy), toasts and other recitations. The name Immortalia is chosen because it is the name of the earliest unexpurgated songbook published in the USA.
Separated At Birth?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
More rain in the morning, followed by a sunny afternoon.
Added another new flag - Eritrea 
'The Tao of Willie'
Willie Nelson
At 73, country music legend Willie Nelson is still doing headstands and smoking joints in the back of a tour bus at hundreds of concerts and, far from slowing down, he'd like to tour with the Rolling Stones.
Meanwhile, fresh from two weeks of gigs in Canada, he's spreading a bit of Texas wisdom in a book called "The Tao of Willie," co-authored with writer and actor Turk Pipkin, who describes the book as the result of 20 years of friendship.
Nelson is working on a polished version of an anti-war song called "Peace on Earth" he plans to release through the Internet soon. He first sang the song in late 2004 and has been handing out the lyrics at concerts, provoking strong reactions from some of his fans, who span the political divide between what co-author Pipkin calls "hippies and rednecks."
The lyrics include such lines as "How much oil is one human life worth?" and "Don't confuse caring for weakness / You can't put that label on me / The truth is my weapon of mass protection / and I believe truth sets you free."
Willie Nelson
World's Sexiest Vegetarian
Prince
Prince has been voted the "world's sexiest vegetarian" in PETA's annual online poll, the animal rights group announced Monday.
He shares the honor with Kristen Bell, the 25-year-old star of "Veronica Mars," which is being carried over from UPN to the new CW network this fall.
Runners-up in the poll, which PETA said Monday received over 40,000 votes, include Natalie Portman, Nicollette Sheridan and Joaquin Phoenix.
Prince
Letters To Be Auctioned In London
John Lennon
Two letters written by music legend John Lennon could fetch 30,000 pounds (43,500 euros, 56,000 dollars) when they are sold at auction in London on Thursday, Christie's auction house revealed.
The letters written by the former Beatle to his first wife Cynthia and his cousin Leila in 1975 and 1976 show how his relationship with Cynthia and his son Julian deteriorated after he met Yoko Ono, who became his second wife.
The typed letter to Cynthia is signed "your famous ex-husband" and features doodles of a face and trees.
John Lennon
Chipmunks & David Seville Are Back
Ross Bagdasarian
Forty-eight years ago, songwriter Ross Bagdasarian was taking a drive through California's Yosemite National Park when a chipmunk scampered out in front of his car and stared him down in the way a matador might challenge a charging bull.
"My dad just fell out of the car laughing," Ross Bagdasarian Jr. recalled recently from his home in Santa Barbara.
It was the birth of a pop culture phenomenon known as Alvin and the Chipmunks. Almost 50 years later, the Chipmunks - Alvin and his brothers Simon and Theodore - are still singing - voiced now by Bagdasarian's son and his son's wife, Janice Karman. They're also still driving the hapless Seville crazy, prompting him to scream out "ALVIN!" every few minutes.
Ross Bagdasarian
Town Names Square After Eurovision Winners
Lordi
Rovaniemi, capital of Finnish Lapland, is to name a square in honour of hard rock group Lordi, the shock winners of the 51st Eurovision song contest in Athens.
The STT news agency revealed that the small town -- which sits on the edge of the Arctic Circle and is the hometown of Lordi lead singer Tomi Putaansuu -- also plans to give the star a plot of land, an honour normally reserved for the country's sporting champions.
Rovaniemi, the "official" home of Father Christmas which aspires to be Europe's cultural capital in 2011, had hoped to be next years' Eurovision hosts, but as it lacks the infrastructure for the event it is likely to go to the Finnish capital Helsinki or Turku in the southwest.
Lordi
State Constitution Not Faith-Ba$ed
Wyoming
The Wyoming Department of Family Services has funneled tens of thousands of dollars to a grant program administered by a private religious corporation that has funded churches, ministries and religiously oriented anti-abortion centers, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Family Services Director Rodger McDaniel says the state payments to the company, Faith Initiatives of Wyoming, are entirely proper, despite arguments by some that the arrangement appears to violate the state constitution.
Although the Bush Administration has encouraged the use of federal funds to pay for "faith-based" social services, a section of the Wyoming State Constitution reads: "No money of the state shall ever be given or appropriated to any sectarian or religious society or institution."
Wyoming
NYC Auction
'Warholabilia'
Don't have $10 million for an Andy Warhol Campbell's soup can painting? A mere $1,000 could buy the late artist's paintbrush or paint-splattered shoes when an array of his possessions hit the auction block next month.
The items, included in a sale of celebrity memorabilia announced by Christie's on Monday, were culled from gifts that Warhol bestowed on Jeffrey Warhola and his other nephews when they visited their famous uncle from the late 1960s until his death in 1987.
The auction, set for June 22 in New York, features his clothing, roller skates, cowboy boots, sunglasses and neckties.
'Warholabilia'
Worldwide Events Set to Honor
Henrik Ibsen
The main character in Henrik Ibsen's 1892 play "The Master Builder" exclaims: "The younger generation will come knocking at my door."
One hundred years after his death, new generations are doing just that, in ways he could never have imagined.
To commemorate Tuesday's anniversary, the work of the Norwegian dramatist is being performed by rap artists, ballet dancers, Chinese opera singers and robots. His plays are being staged in front of the Sphinx in Egypt and at universities in Bangladesh. A conference on his work is being held in Mexico City. Romania is commemorating him on stamps.
There are 8,000 events worldwide marking what Norway has declared "The Year of Ibsen," in honor of one of the most influential playwrights of modern theater who died at age 78 on May 23, 1906.
Henrik Ibsen
Apologizes For Sickening Diet
Japanese TV
A major Japanese television network apologised after almost 160 people were struck with vomiting and diarrhea after following a weight-loss plan it broadcast.
A May 6 show on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) introduced a diet of rice mixed with white kidney beans that had been roasted for about three minutes and ground into powder.
The Ministry of Health and Labour said that of the 158 people who got food poisoning, 30 had been hospitalised but were recovering.
The food poisoning had been caused by lectin, a protein in the beans which rendered them toxic if not sufficiently heated.
Japanese TV
Wildwood, NJ
Doo Wop Motels
With garish neon signs, multicolored exteriors and sweeping deck overhangs, the "Doo Wop" motels of the Wildwoods are the architectural equivalents of a Vitalis-slicked pompadour.
One by one, the Mom-and-Pop motels are being razed, rendered economically obsolete by a real estate boom that has made the land underneath too valuable to support a couple of dozen $100-a-night motel rooms.
More than 50 of the motels have been demolished in the last three years, giving way to pricey condominiums with none of their charm - or history.
Doo Wop Motels
When I was a kid we'd spend a week or two each summer in
Wildwood. The highlight
of this trip usually involved a great dinner, lots of Tiffany lamps, and my parents getting 'zaberized'.
From Anthropologist's View
Heavy Metal
When Sam Dunn attended the University of Victoria in British Columbia, he wanted to study the culture of heavy metal music. Since "metal studies" wasn't part of the curriculum, he majored in anthropology.
But Dunn's documentary, "Metal: A Headbangers Journey," which has just been released on DVD, could serve as a visual textbook for that class if the university ever changes its mind. The film attempts to show the culture of heavy metal using a mix of musicians, sociologists, musicologists, journalists and hard-core fans.
To rise above comedy and parody, Dunn uses his training as an anthropologist to artfully deconstruct the music and its associations, and uncover what motivates the musicians, the fans and the critics.
Not only does the film put metal culture under a magnifying glass, it also attempts to scrape at stereotypes to see if they hold any truth.
Heavy Metal
In Memory
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham, a pioneering dancer and choreographer, author and civil rights activist who left Broadway to teach culture in one of America's poorest cities, has died. She was 96.
During her career, Dunham choreographed "Aida" for the Metropolitan Opera and musicals such as "Cabin in the Sky" for Broadway. She also appeared in several films, including "Stormy Weather" and "Carnival of Rhythm."
Her dance company toured internationally from the 1940s to the '60s, visiting 57 nations on six continents. Her success was won in the face of widespread discrimination, a struggle Dunham championed by refusing to perform at segregated theaters.
After 1967, Dunham lived most of each year in predominantly black East St. Louis, Ill., where she struggled to bring the arts to a Mississippi River city of burned-out buildings and high crime.
Plagued by arthritis and poverty in the latter part of her life, Dunham made headlines in 1992 when she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest U.S. policy that repatriated Haitian refugees.
In her later years, she depended on grants and the kindness of celebrities, artists and former students to pay for her day-to-day expenses. Will Smith and Harry Belafonte were among those who helped her catch up on bills.
Dunham was married to theater designer John Thomas Pratt for 49 years before his death in 1986.
Katherine Dunham
In Memory
Val Guest
Val Guest, the versatile British director and screenwriter best known for directing science-fiction classics "The Quatermass Xperiment" and "The Day the Earth Caught Fire," has died. He was 94.
Guest died of prostate cancer on May 10 in a Palm Desert hospice, said his wife, actress Yolande Donlan.
After becoming a director in the 1940s, Guest made comedies, thrillers and musicals, but he was best known for his science-fiction works.
Guest also was one of the five credited directors on the 1967 James Bond spoof "Casino Royale."
Val Guest
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