'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Julie Fry, University of Chicago: How the Other Half Disappears (campusprogress.org)
Visiting the Center for American Progress last year, John Edwards told this story: "I met a woman in Kansas City with two kids who had a job that pays $9.50 an hour. She told me about winters where the choice was between lights and gas. She chooses the lights. She says to me, 'When my kids go to bed, I tell them to wear as many clothes as they can. And when they go to school, I tell them not to tell anyone you don't have gas because somebody might come and take you away. In America, nobody who works hard should live like that.'
MICHAEL BRONSKI: Libbing it up (thephoenix.com)
The future of gay politics can be found in its past - with a few tweaks
Gone Missing (memphisflyer.com)
As we watch the Washington, D.C., merry-go-round of lobbying scandals, CIA outings, anti-gay-marriage pandering, anti-flag-burning hysteria, and mounting evidence of incompetence in all spheres of government, we are disposed to ask a serious question: Where did the real Republicans go?
Terrence McNally: The Mommy Wage Gap (AlterNet.org)
Mothers are half as likely to be offered jobs as non-mothers -- and they get paid less for doing the same work. Joan Blades and Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner are out to change that.
Gary Younge: Ethics and the World Cup: Who to cheer for when the football doesn't matter (guardian.co.uk)
Today: Czech Republic v USA.
'Keep moving. Eat a hearty breakfast. And take a peek through every door' (guardian.co.uk)
How do you survive the biggest arts festival in the world? Comedian Stewart Lee should know - he's been performing there for 18 years.
Jamie Masada: The Laugh Factory impresario (lacitybeat.com)
Did it take long to get noticed by comics and compete with The Comedy Store and The Improv?
It was just a tiny space then, but I called Paul Mooney and asked him to emcee the club. He went onstage and said "Ladies and gentlemen," and Richard Pryor was with him. I vowed I'd always pay at least three or four bucks. But when I wanted to pay Richard Pryor, he gave me a $100 bill instead and said, "Good luck. You'll need this for your rent." And he signed it.
BRIAN C. ANDERSON: The Brain Workout (opinionjournal.com)
In praise of video games.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sun broke throught a bit earlier and there was a nice breeze.
Here are transcripts from back in 2002 when both Phil Donahue and
Katie Couric interviewed Republican Spokesslut Ann Coulter.
No new flags.
Teaching Comedy
John Cleese
He gave the world the Ministry of Silly Walks and foul-tempered hotelier Basil Fawlty of TV's "Fawlty Towers." Now John Cleese wants to pass his comic skills on to a new generation.
Cleese, one of the founders of the comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus, said he plans to write a history of stage, film and TV comedy, from silent screen classics to the workplace sitcom "The Office."
"I'm too old to write new comedy," Cleese, 66, was quoted as saying Monday by The Times newspaper. "I can never do better than `Fawlty Towers,' whatever I do. Now I very much want to teach young talent some rules of the game."
He said it was "very rare today to see someone with that grasp of old-fashioned comedy," though he singled out Eddie Izzard, Gervais and Bill Hicks for praise.
John Cleese
Visits Darfur
Mia Farrow
Performers from Darfur's various ethnic African and Arab tribes greeted actress Mia Farrow with dancing and singing as she arrived in Sudan's remote western region to appeal for international aid for the 2.5 million people made refugees by the conflict here.
Farrow, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund, was on her second visit to Darfur with her son Ronan, 17, who is a UNICEF youth spokesman.
The artists dancing side-by-side in Nyala - the capital of South Darfur - proved that ethnic groups could overcome the bitter enmity stemming from a four-year conflict that has killed more than 180,000 people, regional Culture Minister Abuker Eltom said upon greeting Farrow at the airport.
Mia Farrow
Recognised In Queen's Honors
Olivia Newton-John
Australia's Olivia Newton-John, the singer who found worldwide fame in the hit movie "Grease," was honored Monday by Queen Elizabeth II for her services to the entertainment industry and charity work.
Newton-John was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in the queen's birthday honors list.
She was among 817 Australians honored by the queen -- an annual custom that touches off bitter debate between monarchists and republicans in this former British colony.
Olivia Newton-John
Republicans Read Esquire
Dinner Survey
When Esquire asked men who they'd invite from a list of 14 notable women to a dinner party, they chose Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - over such stars as Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson.
Rice was followed by Oprah Winfrey and Angelina Jolie in a national survey published in the magazine's July issue. The 29-question survey, conducted by Beta Research Corp., polled 1,083 men aged 25 and older.
Asked which famous man they'd invite to dinner, 37 percent picked "Tonight" host Jay Leno. Bill Clinton placed second, trailed by George Clooney and resident Bush.
Dinner Survey
Talk Show Syndication Expands
Megan Mullally
The new syndicated TV talk show hosted by "Will & Grace" veteran Megan Mullally is ready to debut September 18 in 92 percent of the country, including all top 20 markets, distributor NBC Universal said.
The latest stations to clear the hourlong weekday show include KOIN-TV Portland, Ore., KSTU-TV Salt Lake City and WSTM-TV Syracuse.
Megan Mullally
Baby News
Isabella Damon
Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana Bozan, are the parents of a baby girl, Isabella, their first child, the actor's publicist said Monday.
"Mother and baby - everyone - is wonderful, fine," publicist Jennifer Allen said. The baby was born Sunday in a Miami hospital, Allen said. No other details were released.
Isabella Damon
New MSGOP General Manager
Dan Abrams
NBC News legal correspondent Dan Abrams was put in charge of MSNBC Monday - and his first move was to take himself off the air there.
It was not immediately clear whether the legal-oriented "The Abrams Report" will continue with a different host or whether it will be replaced by another show.
As general manager of the cable channel, Abrams will report directly to NBC News executive Phil Griffin, another MSNBC veteran. The management team replaces Rick Kaplan, who left MSNBC last week.
Dan Abrams
Ex-Detainees Interviewed
'No Hope'
Three British youths formerly detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay and now the subjects of a new film about their experiences say they were driven to desperation knowing others had tried to kill themselves at the camp.
"There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself," Rasul, 29, who waged a hunger strike at the camp to protest alleged beatings, said Saturday. "It is the despair - not the thought of martyrdom - that consumes you there."
In "Road to Guantanamo," which premieres in New York on June 23, filmmakers Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitescross retrace the footsteps of the three British men as their trip to Pakistan for Iqbal's wedding ends at the desolate military outpost in Cuba.
'No Hope'
Kin Get Rights To Works
John Steinbeck
A son and a granddaughter of author John Steinbeck hold the publishing rights to 10 of his early works, including "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men," a federal judge has ruled, turning away a publishing house and others who claimed the rights.
U.S. District Judge Richard Owen said in a 10-page order dated Thursday that the rights properly belong to the author's son, Thomas Steinbeck, and granddaughter Blake Smyle.
The ruling came after the two canceled rights previously held by various individuals and organizations, including publishing house Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and the heirs of John Steinbeck's widow, Elaine, who died in April 2003.
The rights to many of Steinbeck's other works will remain with Penguin and Elaine Steinbeck's heirs. Still others will be held jointly with Thomas Steinbeck of Monticello, Calif., and Smyle of Boonesboro, Md. Smyle is the only child of John Steinbeck IV, who died in 1991.
John Steinbeck
Reality TV Show
Cats
Ten cats in search of owners will spend the next 10 days in a New York store window, their every move caught on camera for a reality TV show on which they will compete for best sleeper and mouse-catcher.
The show is the creation of a petfood company and will be shown on cable channel Animal Planet, as well as on the Web site www.MeowMixHouse.com where viewers will be asked to vote off one feline contestant each day.
The cats, chosen from shelters around the country, will compete for loudest purr, most prolific sleeper and who can catch the most toy mice. Kitties who get the boot will be adopted into permanent homes.
Cats
Reality Series Set For LA
Miss America
The road to Miss America will go through Hollywood this year. Whether it leads to Las Vegas again remains to be seen.
The pageant will tape a seven-episode documentary series titled "Finding Miss America" in Los Angeles from Sept. 5 to Sept. 13, the Miss America Organization announced Monday.
The series, which is to air on Country Music Television for a week preceding the televised pageant finals in January (the exact date still to be determined), will show the 52 women in preliminary competition and give viewers a chance to choose which ones advance to the top 15 for a shot at becoming Miss America 2007.
But pageant officials still aren't saying where or when the next crowning will be held. Other cities have expressed an interest in hosting Miss America, said pageant CEO Art McMaster. He is awaiting, he added, a final proposal from Las Vegas, which hosted the last one. He wouldn't identify the other cities.
Miss America
In Memory
Ingo Preminger
Ingo Preminger, a literary agent, producer of the film "MASH" and brother of the late filmmaker Otto Preminger, has died. He was 95.
Preminger began his career as an attorney in Vienna but fled the Nazis with his family in 1938 and moved to New York, where he owned a paint supply business. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1947, and he began a new career in the entertainment business.
He opened his own talent agency in 1948 and later represented leading writers who were blacklisted during the McCarthy era, including Ring Lardner and Dalton Trumbo. He helped them skirt studio restrictions by getting other writers to agree to take credit for their work.
Lardner sent Preminger a copy of the book "MASH." Preminger took it to Richard Zanuck, head of production at 20th Century Fox, who agreed to turn it into a movie and brought on Preminger as producer.
The 1970 film, directed by Robert Altman, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a Golden Globe for best musical or comedy film and was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture.
Preminger also produced 1972's "The Salzburg Connection." He retired from the film business in the late 1970s.
Ingo Preminger
In Memory
Gyorgy Ligeti
Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who survived the Holocaust and fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution, then won acclaim for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and his work on the soundtrack for "2001: A Space Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.
Ligeti (pronounced lig'-ih-tee) was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis. He took Austrian citizenship in 1967 after fleeing his ex-communist homeland.
He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in 1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the rest of World War II.
Ligeti's early work was heavily censored by Hungary's repressive regime, but his arrival in Vienna in 1956 opened up new possibilities. In the Austrian capital, he met key players in Western Europe's avant-garde music movement such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gottfried Michael Koenig and Herbert Eimert, who invited him to join an electronic music studio at West Germany's state radio in Cologne in 1957.
Excerpts of his "Atmospheres," a requiem and 1966's "Lux Aeterna" were used on the bestselling soundtrack for Kubrick's "Space Odyssey." Although the music was not the film's well-known fanfare, which was composed by Richard Strauss, it won Ligeti a global audience.
Kubrick returned to Ligeti in 1999, using the composer's Musica Ricercata II (Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale), as the theme for what turned out to be his final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."
Ligeti, who for a time also lived in Germany and San Francisco and was a visiting professor at the Stockholm Academy of Music for many years, was known for striking a playful note with his music, epitomized by a piece he wrote for 100 metronomes.
Ligeti is survived by his wife, Vera, and a son, Lukas, a percussionist who lives in New York. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
Gyorgy Ligeti
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