'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Behind the Bush Bust (nytimes.com)
Other politicians besides George W. Bush share the blame for the economic mess we're in but most of them are Republicans.
TOM DANEHY: With his gun-case majority opinion, Antonin Scalia proved that he's a fraud (tucsonweekly.com)
Antonin Scalia is a fraud. This man who claims to have studied the Constitution his entire life and to have dedicated his professional career to upholding the document exactly as it was written has, through some of the clumsiest legal verbiage ever put down on paper, shown his true stripe, that of an opportunist laying in wait. In doing so, he joins the sad historical pantheon of people who, through happenstance and circumstance, wound up with too much power and not enough heart.
CONNIE TUTTLE : Is the United States ready to be truly and completely independent? (tucsonweekly.com)
It's too bad Independence Day, Fourth of July's other name, is all but forgotten. The holiday commemorates freeing ourselves from the yoke of colonial rule, but in the course of carving a country from scratch, we entered into those entangling alliances of convenience that over the years chipped away at even a semblance of independence.
SHEILA SARHANGI: Getting Trashed (honolulumagazine.com)
Capt. Charles Moore wasn't always obsessed with plastic. His fixation began in 1997, while sailing back to Los Angeles from Hawaii after a yacht race. He took an unusual easterly route, snubbed by most sailors for its lack of wind, and discovered what's now called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch-a soupy expanse of plastic bits and marine debris that extends from the Sea of Japan to within 500 miles west of California.
Kerry Trueman: A Dirty Picture For Patriots Of All Ages (huffingtonpost.com)
WALL-E's anti-consumer, anti-corporate message is undermined by the regrettable array of cheap, mass-produced WALL-E tchotchkes destined for the garbage heap.
Dr. Jonny Bowden: My Not-So-Excellent NY Times Adventure (huffingtonpost.com)
Perhaps the Times readers would have preferred me to say: "There's absolutely no provable scientific evidence for the health benefits of any foods or supplements, and I've got a doctor right here who says so. (See him? He's standing right next to that guy from the Swift Boaters.) So don't worry, be happy and keep eating your McDonald's. Enjoy and good luck.
Jamie Anderson: When Fanny Rocked (afterellen.com)
The all-woman rock band paved the way for female rockers to come.
Notes & Queeries: Returning to the Indigo Girls (afterellen.com)
Malinda Lo discovers that the hardest to learn is the least complicated.
Jessica Stites: She Still Bops (advocate.com)
With Cyndi Lauper and a who's who of queer and queer-friendly talent, the True Colors tour is entertainment for all orientations and all generations.
Teenage kicks - Gurinder Chadha interview (living.scotsman.com)
Gurinder Chadha is hoping the success of "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Bride And Prejudice" will be repeated with "Angus, Thongs And Full Frontal Snogging."
Danielle Riendeau: Interview With Tina Scorzafava (afterellen.com)
The out filmmaker talks about her lesbian vampire film "In Twilight's Shadow."
Giles Hattersley: Life still isn't easy for Uma Thurman) entertainment.timesonline.co.uk)
The Hollywood star has just got engaged to one of the world's most eligible bachelors. This time, she says, it's different.
Commentoon: Senator Craig and Vitter (womensenews.org)
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lots of sun, nice breeze.
Rock-Star Treatment At Brazil Festival
Authors
Paulo Cavalcante rode buses for 46 hours from the dusty Brazil northeast to this coastal town for the chance to rub literary shoulders with British dramatist Tom Stoppard and other famous writers.
"This is magnificent," said the 47-year-old professor, who was selling copies of his debut book, a romance novel, to passers-by in the coastal town of Paraty. "People where I'm from don't read much because of low income and poor education."
For a few days last week, Cavalcante could rub shoulders with Stoppard, bossa nova great Carlos Lyra and U.S. satirist David Sedaris on the colonial town's cobbled streets.
Founded by "Harry Potter" publisher Liz Calder six years ago, the annual Paraty Literary Festival helped transform the town about halfway between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo into a trendy destination and given Brazil a spot on the international literary circuit.
Authors
Helps Bring Down A House
Bon Jovi
Grammy winner Bon Jovi was in a neighborhood on Detroit's East Side Monday to announce the building of five new homes as part of a partnership among his Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation, Saturn and Habitat for Humanity Detroit.
People gathered and cheered "knock it down" as construction workers busted a hole in the roof of the last remaining house on the block to be razed. Detroit-area Saturn retailers then raised the first wall of a new home.
Bon Jovi, 46, is an owner of the Arena Football League's Philadelphia Soul. His charitable foundation focuses on providing affordable housing to needy communities.
Bon Jovi
Hosting Talk Show
Elvis Costello
Former president Bill Clinton will be featured in an episode of the new Elvis Costello-hosted talk/music series set to air on the Sundance Channel in the United States.
Clinton, Lou Reed, Tony Bennett and Elton John are the subjects of the first four episodes of "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With ...," which will debut on December 3.
The show will also air on CTV in Canada and Channel 4 in the U.K.
Elvis Costello
Variety TV Show Hosts
The Osbournes
British rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his raucous family -- former stars of MTV -- are headed back to U.S. television as hosts of a prime-time variety hour in the works for the Fox network.
No precise air date has been set. But a spokesman for the News Corp-owned broadcaster said on Monday the show, featuring musical performances and comedy sketches, is planned for sometime in the upcoming 2008-2009 season.
Fox alternative programming president, Mike Darnell, told Daily Variety he hopes to launch the series with a Christmas special.
Envisioned as a throwback to variety classics hosted in the 1970s by Sonny and Cher and by Donny and Marie Osmond, the show will reunite Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon, with daughter Kelly, 23, and son Jack, 22, last seen together on the MTV reality show "The Osbournes."
The Osbournes
Baby News
Sunday Rose Kidman Urban
Nicole Kidman gave birth Monday to a baby girl named Sunday.
In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, Paul Freundlich, a publicist for her husband, Keith Urban, said: "Nicole and Keith Urban are delighted to announce that Nicole Kidman gave birth to a baby girl on Monday morning, July 7, 2008, in the United States. Sunday Rose Kidman Urban weighed 6 pounds, 7 1/2 ounces. Husband Keith was by Nicole's side and mother and baby are very well."
In a recent radio interview in Nashville, Kidman revealed that Urban had been getting hands-on in preparation for the birth by attending Lamaze lessons, saying, "He doesn't know the name (of the classes), but he has been very good at it!"
Sunday Rose Kidman Urban
Founding Father's View
Jefferson Bible
Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.
In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."
He called the book "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.
Jefferson Bible
Hospital News
Joan Sutherland
Opera legend Joan Sutherland is recovering well after breaking both legs during a fall at her Swiss home, her agent said Monday.
"She had an accident while doing the gardening, and somehow managed to break both her legs," agent David Sigall said.
The accident occurred June 24 while the Australian singer was picking flowers in the garden and lost her balance, an assistant reached at Sutherland's home near Montreux, told the AP.
The assistant, who asked not to be named, said Sutherland underwent successful surgery at a nearby hospital and was in good spirits.
Joan Sutherland
Always A Class Act
G8
U.S. resident George W. Bush on Monday kept up his tradition of informal relations with fellow world leaders by summoning Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper with a brusque "Yo Harper!"
Television footage of a G8 lunch with African leaders showed Bush talking to Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua and saying "Yo Harper! The president of Nigeria."
Harper's ties with Bush are sensitive, since critics of Canada's right-wing Conservative government regularly accuse it of taking orders from Washington.
It was not the first time that Bush has surprised Harper in public. In July 2006, after the two men met at the White House for the first time, Bush publicly called the Canadian "Steve".
G8
Picks Ex-WSJ Boss For Editor
Washington Post
The Washington Post has named Marcus Brauchli, the former top editor of The Wall Street Journal, as its new executive editor, The Washington Post Co said on Monday.
Brauchli, 47, will oversee the operations of the Post and washingtonpost.com, a sign that the newspaper may be assuming more control over the website, which has been separately run. James Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, will report to Brauchli, the Post said in a statement.
The newspaper, one of the largest dailies in the United States, has traditionally favored insiders who came up through the editorial ranks for its top editorial positions.
"Marcus has the ability to think strategically about our newsroom, about how to realign our resources in a way that is consistent with what readers want and expect and maintain the Post's first-rate journalism," Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth, 42, said in the statement.
Washington Post
No ABBA Reunion
Benny & Bjorn
Despite the astonishing success of the stage musical "Mamma Mia!," ABBA has ruled out any reunion tour.
Songwriters Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of the Swedish pop quartet told Britain's Sunday Telegraph that ABBA will never perform together again.
Ulvaeus said "money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were. Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition."
Benny & Bjorn
Rothbury Festival Jam
Phish
Phish fans, long hoping for a reunion of the defunct jam band, got their wish -- or at least a portion of it -- at the inaugural Rothbury Festival in Michigan on Sunday.
Three of the band's four members performed live together in two separate incarnations.
All four Phish members, including keyboardist Page McConnell, have hinted at the possibility of a reunion in recent comments, but no firm details have been revealed.
The Phish follies were the unquestioned highlight on Rothbury's closing day. Headliners at the four-day event, which took place about 200 miles west of Detroit, included the Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, John Mayer (with girlfriend Jennifer Aniston in tow), and 311.
Phish
Home To Become Museum
Bruce Lee
The billionaire owner of Bruce Lee's final home hopes to build a museum to the martial arts legend, giving in to public calls to prevent the sale of the luxury house in a northern Hong Kong suburb for millions of dollars.
Philanthropist hotel and real estate tycoon Yu Panglin, 86, had put Lee's two-storey, 5,699 square-foot town house in an upscale, leafy Kowloon suburb up for sale but changed his mind, giving in to fans' desire for the site to be preserved.
Yu told reporters on Monday he would donate the property to Hong Kong's government for use as a museum, unveiling a plan to expand the site into a memorial to a global icon. He would also raise capital for the site and all future profits would go to charity.
Bruce Lee
Joins Faux News
Howard Wolfson
Howard Wolfson, one of Hillary Clinton's senior campaign advisers, will join Fox News Channel as a contributor.
The channel is expected to make the announcement Tuesday, and Wolfson is scheduled to make his first appearance on air Wednesday.
Wolfson is one of a number of high-profile political figures the channel has hired in recent months for its election programming, including Karl Rove (R-Traitor), former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Clinton adviser Lanny Davis.
Howard Wolfson
California Dreaming
George W. Bush Sewage Plant
A California group submitted a proposal Monday to rename a sewage treatment plant after resident Bush, calling the initiative a fitting tribute to the outgoing chief executive and the "mess" he'll leave behind.
The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco wants to switch the name of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.
Supporters hoping to put the issue on the November ballot turned in more than 10,000 signatures to San Francisco election officials, organizer Brian McConnell said. The measure needs just over 7,000 valid names to qualify and McConnell expects to find out later this month whether they made it.
Proponents of the renaming plan see it as fitting tribute to a president they contend has plumbed the depths of incompetence.
George W. Bush Sewage Plant
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