'TBH Politoons'
PURPLE GENE'S WEIRD WORD OF THE WEEK
PECKERWOOD
"PECKERWOOD"
ON LINE DEFINITION: A pejorative slang term coined in the 19th century by Southern Black Americans to describe Poor Whites. It was later replaced with terms like "Okie", "Cracker", "Redneck" and "White Trash" .
ON THE STREET: White Supremacists and methamphetamine dealers in California prisons refer to themselves as "Peckerwoods".
IN A SENTENCE: That dumb ass "Peckerwood" Luther sold me some shitty speed when I was in P.V. (Pleasant Valley State Prison)...made my teeth fall out.
(Read BartCop Entertainment and learn a useless new word each Tuesday)
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
David Podvin: PROGENY OF GEPETTO (makethemaccountable.com)
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs Of Staff unanimously recommended that President Kennedy bomb New York City to frame Fidel Castro and provide a pretext for conquering Cuba. It is one of history's most amazing coincidences that four decades later New York City was bombed and Saddam Hussein was framed and Iraq was conqueredŠ imagine the odds against the original military plan recurring with such precision. In any event, John Kennedy was a liberal Democratic president rather than a conservative professional soldier so he opted against bombing the American people.
George Lakoff: Whose Betrayal?
MoveOn's "General Betray Us?" ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people.
Free Download: George Lakoff's "Thinking Points: A Manual for Progressives"
You, the progressive community, have expressed a need for a short, easy-to-read systematic account of the progressive vision, for the morals and principles that apply across issue areas, and for all the essentials of framing. That, along with extensive argument analysis and an important new explanation of the so-called political center, is what we've written. We are confident that this book will empower progressives to express themselves in an authentic, values-driven fashion.
Teresa Morrison: A revolution properly punctuated (advocate.com)
An Advocate copy editor delineates her place in the gay rights movement
Five Lesbian Comics You Might Not Know but Should (afterellen.com)
AE: The last time I was in P-town, it looked like it was taken over by straight people. Have you noticed this?
Sabrina Matthews: It's fun to scare the s--- out of the straight people. One year, this guy was wandering around and he was pointing at the gay people in a derisive way. He was with his wife and his two kids; one of them happened to be a daughter. While he was waiting to cross the street, I came up behind him, leaned up to his ear and said, [ominously] "How much for the girl?"
scribegrrrl: Review of "The Brave One" (afterellen.com)
Jodie Foster's latest film is a high-quality revenge thriller with no easy answers.
Paul E. Pratt: Peter Fonda on how gays influenced Easy Rider (advocate.com)
The star of 3:10 To Yuma discusses his new film and his famous feud with Dennis Hopper over black leather.
Video: Bill Maher on Conservative Think Tanks
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Cool and fall-like.
The Complete List Of Primetime Emmy Winners page is finally done.
Dem With An Opinion
Barry Manilow
TMZ has learned that legendary singer Barry Manilow has pulled out of his scheduled appearance on "The View" tomorrow -- because he strongly disagrees with host Elisabeth Hasselbeck's conservative view! Paging Rosie O'Donnell!
In an exclusive statement to TMZ, Barry says, "I strongly disagree with her views. I think she's dangeroud and offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her." Barry, taking a stand!
Barry Manilow
Fox Censors Emmy Awards
Sally Field
Fox Broadcasting officials Monday defended the decision to censor comments made by three celebrities during the Emmy Awards broadcast, saying the language used could be considered offensive.
An expletive uttered by Sally Field as she made an antiwar statement during her acceptance speech for outstanding actress in a drama was cut from the telecast, as was part of her statement.
"But at the heart of Nora Walker, she is a mother, so surely this belongs to all the mothers of the world," said the 60-year-old Field. "May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised, and to especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait, wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm's way, and from war."
As the orchestra began playing music, Field continued, "I'm not finished. I have to finish talking. To war -- oh God, I forgot what I was going to say. And to war, I'm proud, I'm proud of to be one of those women -- and let's face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamn wars in the first place."
The telecast went silent from the word "goddamn" through the end of her sentence.
For more censorship - Sally Field
Settles Lawsuit
Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi and the estate for the late film director Luis de la Reguera have settled a lawsuit over a film they co-produced against the film's distributor, a lawyer for Buscemi and de la Reguera's estate said Sunday.
Michael Broder, of Fort Lauderdale distributor Small Planet Pictures, must turn over the rights to the film "Rockets Redglare!," to the plaintiffs and pay $35,000 of their legal fees, said Hunter Chamberlain, a lawyer for the producers.
The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003, is a documentary on the life of actor Michael Morra, said Chamberlain.
Buscemi, known for films such as "Fargo" and "Con Air," co-produced the movie with the de la Reguera. They sued Broder for failing to promote the film about Morra, who died in 2001 from complications brought on by drug abuse. The rights to the film will be turned over to de la Reguera's estate.
Steve Buscemi
Women Want To Drive
Saudi Arabia
For the first time ever, a group of women in the only country that bans female drivers have formed a committee to lobby for the right to get behind the wheel, and they plan to petition King Abdullah in the next few days for the privilege.
The government is unlikely to respond because the issue remains so highly sensitive and divisive. But committee members say their petition will at least highlight what many Saudis - both men and women - consider a "stolen" right.
"We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue," said Fowziyyah al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars. "And since it's a social issue, we have the right to lobby for it."
The driving ban applies to all women, Saudi and foreign, and forces families to hire live-in drivers. Women whose families cannot afford $300-$400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor's.
Saudi Arabia
Cartoon Network Project
David Duchovny
David Duchovny is making the leap from the adult themes of sex addiction in his new Showtime comedy series "Californication" to a live-action kids project for Cartoon Network.
The untitled project centers on a youngster from a long line of newsmen who turns his high school's audiovisual club into a hard-hitting citywide broadcast.
Duchovny will executive produce with "Even Stevens" creator Matt Dearborn, who wrote the pilot, and Robert Mora, a former producer on Disney Channel's "Phil of the Future" and Nickelodeon's "The Secret Life of Alex Mack."
David Duchovny
Art Fetches More Than $40M
Mstislav Rostropovich
An art collection belonging to the late cellist Mstislav Rostropovich has been sold to a Russian billionaire for substantially more than $40 million, Sotheby's auction house said Monday.
Alisher Usmanov, one of Russia's richest men, said he bought the trove of Russian artworks in order to return them to their homeland.
Rostropovich fled the Soviet Union in the early 1970s after sheltering the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, settling in Paris with his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya.
The couple amassed one of the world's finest private collections of Russian art, including glassware, porcelain and works by leading painters such as Ilya Repin and Boris Grigoriev.
Mstislav Rostropovich
TV Education
Michael W. Hobbs
A man who says he learned how to rob homes by watching a TV show was sentenced to 12 years in prison for a string of burglaries in central Kentucky.
Michael W. Hobbs, 36, of Waco, Ky., pleaded guilty to five counts of burglary. He was sentenced Thursday.
Police said Hobbs learned how to break into homes by watching the Discovery Channel TV show "It Takes a Thief." The show features two ex-convicts who show property owners how vulnerable they are to theft.
Michael W. Hobbs
Obsession With Naked Women
'Mr. Skin'
Jim McBride has made it his life's work to know how much naked female flesh appears in movies -- an obsession apparently shared by millions of people.
So far McBride, a.k.a. Mr. Skin, and a staff that includes his mother, who works as a "skintern," have chronicled nude women in more than 25,000 movies and television shows.
It is all recorded on his Web site, www.mrskin.com, which has been running for eight years, and on Saturday McBride launched into print, publishing "Mr. Skin's Skintastic Video Guide" to "the 501 greatest movies for sex and nudity on DVD."
"There's plenty of porn sites on the Internet. I never wanted to compete with them. We're celebrating nudity in mainstream film," McBride said.
'Mr. Skin'
Travelers Ask To See Bathroom
Larry Craig
When tourists ask for the bathroom in the Minneapolis airport lately, it's usually not because they have to go.
It's because they want to see the stall made famous by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's arrest in a sex sting.
"It's become a tourist attraction," said Karen Evans, information specialist at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "People are taking pictures."
Just 15 minutes into her shift on Friday, Evans said she had been asked directions to the new tourist attraction four times. Other airport workers field the same question.
"It's by the Lottery shop, right next to the shoeshine shop," said newsstand worker Abdalla Said, adding he gets the question daily.
Larry Craig
In Memory
Brett Somers
Actress and comedian Brett Somers, who amused game show fans with her quips on the "Match Game" in the 1970s, has died, her son said. She was 83.
Somers died Saturday at her home in Westport of stomach and colon cancer, Adam Klugman said Monday.
Hosted by Gene Rayburn, "Match Game" was the top game show during much of the 1970s. Contestants would try to match answers to nonsense questions with a panel of celebrities; much of the humor came from the racy quips and putdowns.
Somers married actor Jack Klugman, the future star of the television shows "Quincy" and "The Odd Couple," in 1953. The two separated in 1974, but never divorced.
They made many television appearances as a couple. Somers appeared on several episodes of "The Odd Couple," playing the ex-wife of Klugman's character.
She was born Audrey Johnston in New Brunswick, Canada, and grew up in Portland, Maine. She ran away from home at age 17 and headed for New York City, where she settled in Greenwich Village. She changed her first name to Brett after the lead female character in the Ernest Hemingway novel "The Sun Also Rises." Somers was her mother's maiden name.
Her son said she was caustic, irreverent and a self-declared bohemian.
In addition to Adam Klugman, Somers is survived by another son, David, and a daughter, Leslie.
Brett Somers
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