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Top 10 Christmas Movies I Want to See
10: It's a Horrible Life: Clarence the angel gets his wings after convincing George W. Bailey to kill himself by showing him how absolutely fantastic the world would have been had he never been born.
9: The Polar Espresso: Elves from around the world are kidnapped and forced to work at the first Starbucks at the North Pole.
8: How the Magnanimous Billionaire Gave Away Christmas: A mad billionaire hires minions to sneak into people's houses and replace the gifts around the tree with much better ones.
7: Homo Alone: I really don't want to see this. What was I thinking? You can see it.
6: Elf Realization: Che Elf rouses the toy workers to overthrow their hefty master. Siddhartha Elf finds enlightenment. Troy Elf gets the girl.
5: The Nightmare After Christmas: A swamped clerk at a Wal-Mart's return desk kidnaps shoppers and opens an underground slave department where illegal aliens can buy white people.
4: The Little Shop Around the Coroner: Law and Order meets CSI meets Bones meets Love, Actually, with a bit of Die Hard and Eyes Wide Shut thrown in.
3: Rudolph the Normal-Nosed Reindeer: There's nothing special about Rudolph so he never guides Santa's sleigh or ever really amounts to anything. Nobody writes a song about him and he dies in obscurity.
2: Disaster on 34th Street: Santa is hijacked by elf terrorists who crash his sleigh into Macy's which mysteriously comes crumbling down in what many claim must have been a controlled demolition. The US declares war on the North Pole and blows up a Starbucks. Gimbles has its biggest week ever.
and the number one Christmas movie I want to see...
1. The Most Improbable Story Ever Told: A virgin who appears on tortillas gives birth to a man who can walk on water. Starring Jesus Saves (pronounced Hey-soos Sah-vess.)
Other than those, my Christmas gift to myself is I'm using a reprint story that's vaguely Christmassy.
Here's Darenet #1 from the year 2000, the very first newsletter I ever sent out...
Ben-Hur
Revisited
or
One Good Thing About Leprosy
by Michael Dare
When I first got involved in a custody battle for my son, Buster, the court ordered a DNA test to make sure he really was my son. The results came back 99.99% positive, laying aside the question of my paternity forever. Last night something happened that made the test moot. My son said something that would have proven he was my son no matter what the DNA said.
He's 12, which means that when he watches a movie it better have Arnold, Bruce, or Jackie Chan or his attention will wander. In a valiant attempt to broaden his horizons, I occasionally attempt to throw in stuff like Bridge on the River Kwai or The Great Escape just so he knows there a few films made before the '90s that are actually worth seeing. It's always a danger to show my son a film I liked when I was his age, because occasionally they don't hold up. Remember that intense, ground-breaking, Academy Award winning car chase in The French Connection? Car chases have gotten so much better since then that to a 12 year old who's already seen all the Lethal Weapons and BH Cops, The French Connection is totally lame. The old James Bonds particularly don't fare well. I remember loving From Russia, with Love when it first came out, but watching it again with my son was about as exciting as watching my hard disk defragment.
There are occasional surprises. Cary Grant in Charade and Gregory Peck in Arabesque totally held up because they were incredibly well written thrillers, full of humor and unpredictable plot twists. Trying to get him to watch Adam's Rib after he's already seen Ally McBeal and The Practice was an exercise in tedium. Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus was a great idea that made both of us cry at the end. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was a bad idea that put him to sleep.
So when I came across a copy of Ben Hur at my local library, I wasn't sure if it would work. Yeah, it won 11 Academy Awards, more than any other film before or since, and my memories of the galley slave ships and the chariot race were still vivid, but would a 12 year old be able to handle a 3 1/2 hour biblical epic that was almost 50 years old? Then I noticed that it was letterboxed and that was that. Ben Hur is one of the greatest wide screen movies ever made, and seen in pan-and-scan you literally miss half the picture. So I checked it out and took my chances.
I put it on and discovered to my immediate horror that it started with the birth of Jesus. Was this film going to proselytize and try to convert us from non-practicing Jews to non-practicing Christians? Memories of seeing the film as a kid came flooding back, and I remembered how, as a Jewish kid who went to Hebrew school three times a week, I felt alienated from the Christian parts of the film. I watched my son and he was fascinated. He was studying Roman times in school, and this graphic representation of life at the time of Christ was just what he needed to see. "Do we get to see him crucified?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"Cool," he said.
He kept watching as Judah Ben-Hur, played by the ultra-stoic Charlton Heston, stood on the rooftop of his house in Jerusalem with one of his servants to see a Roman parade pass by. The servant leaned on a wall and a couple of tiles accidentally came loose, falling to the street, narrowly missing a Roman officer, and getting the whole plot in motion. The Roman's come storming into the house and arrest Judah and his mother and sister. Judah's sent to become a galley slave rowing Roman ships, and the mother and sister are thrown into a dungeon and forgotten.
The scenes of hundreds of slaves rowing the Roman ships into battle are just as good as I remembered, and Buster was as into the film as I was.
Judah Ben-Hur pulled valiantly on his oar as the Roman captain told them they were all condemned men who were only being kept alive to serve the ship. Then the ship is rammed and everybody dies but Judah, who also saves the life of the captain, pulling him aboard a small raft. The captain says "Why did you save me?" and Ben-Hur hands him an oar saying "I kept you alive to serve the ship." They don't write 'em like this any more.
So Ben-Hur goes to Rome where he is celebrated, but he longs to return to Jerusalem to find his wrongly imprisoned mother and sister. Several hours later, after a chariot race that's still one of the high points of all cinema, Judah finds his mother and sister in the Valley of the Lepers, which is just as pleasant a place as it sounds. We're spared close-ups of their skin falling off, but it's pretty clear they're not well and beyond hope.
Then Judah hears that there's this Rabbi from Galilee nearby who's been known to cure the sick, so he picks up his dying sister and drags his sickly mother out of the Valley of the Lepers and into Jerusalem. Bad timing. They get there just as Jesus has been sentenced to death, and he is dragging his cross through the streets towards the hill where he is to be crucified. Though this scene takes place 2,000 years before the advent of cell phones, somehow word has gotten out around town that this is your last chance to get a glimpse of Jesus before they kill him. The streets are packed with thousands of onlookers. The entire population of Jerusalem has crowded the streets to watch Jesus drag his cross across town.
But as Judah shows up with his sister and mother, people scatter, crying "Lepers! Lepers!" Apparently leprosy is pretty contagious, and nobody wants to be near them. They find a place up close, right by the side of the road, just as Jesus walks by. Jesus stumbles, and Judah offers him a drink of water.
And my son says, with a totally straight face, "Gee, if you want a good seat at a parade, I guess it's a good idea to bring a couple lepers with you."
I couldn't have put it better myself. He's my son all right.
Sophistimicated Doowacky of the Week
you can click on any box and get an amazing story that will piss you off.
Also from the year 2000...
Jesus According to Buster
by Michael Dare
I worked on the original Los Angeles production of Jesus Christ, Superstar at the Universal Amphitheater in the early '70s, and say what you will about the film or of subsequent productions, this show was a knockout. It was before they put a roof over the amphitheater, so there was a magnificent view of the San Fernando Valley behind the stage. The director, Tom O'Horgan, made brilliant use of this during the finale, in which high intensity lights and strobes flashed through smoke around the crucifixion, blending with the clear lights of the valley below. It was almost enough to make you a believer.
There was a revival of the show at the Universal Amphitheater in the late '80s with the original Jesus and Judas, Ted Neely and Carl Anderson, so I had to go, this time with my eight-year-old son Buster. I'm Jewish and Buster had never been to a church in his life. All he knew about Jesus was that he had something to do with Christmas.
He enjoyed the show enormously. It was not only his first live Broadway musical, it was his first contact with the story of Jesus Christ. The next day one of his friends asked Buster about Jesus Christ. Here's what he told them...
"Jesus was this cool guy who lived 2,000 years ago. He had long hair and wore a robe and he preached peace and love and stuff till he got a lot of followers who thought he was the messiah. Then one of his followers named Judas betrayed him to the Romans who nailed him to a cross and he died. Then I went backstage and met him and told him how good he was. I told him I really liked the part where they crucified him. Then I met Judas and told him how good he was, even better than Jesus. It was really cool because dad was friends with Jesus, and this wasn't some new Jesus, it was the original Jesus. Then dad and Jesus and Judas had a glass of wine together while I ran around the dressing room playing with Jesus' kids."
Satan Doesn't Want You To Know
Don't Take My Word For It
"I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday - his day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend."
"People should climb down from their pedestal, stop ridiculing people with different beliefs, and start looking for evidence for their own beliefs. The universe is full of mysteries. There is nothing wrong with discussing the mysteries, but it is foolish to believe you have the answers. For example, it is acceptable to discuss the issue of life on other planets; the existence of a god or gods; and if there is a god, where god came from. However, only a fool, or a disinformation agent, will claim to have the answers to these mysteries... The ironic aspect of this issue is that some of the people who ridicule religion are firm believers in aliens, and their complaints about religion apply to their belief in aliens. In fact, we could describe their belief in aliens as a different type of religion! The similarities are striking...
"Some people have seen God: Some people claim that they have talked to God, and that God has talked to them. Other people claim they have not directly seen or talked with God, but they have seen evidence of His existence, such as miracles or mysterious lights.
"Some people have seen Aliens: Some people claim that they have been abducted by aliens. Other people claim they have not directly seen or talked with aliens, but they have seen evidence of their existence, such as crop circles or mysterious lights from unidentified flying objects.
"Will Jesus save us?: Many people hope that Jesus Christ, or some God, will soon appear, and all the suffering of the world will end.
"Will Aliens save us?: Many people who believe in aliens are hoping that the aliens will come out of hiding, and that they will end all the suffering of the world. Supposedly the aliens love us, and they will give us their advanced technology."
"The word 'Jew' refers to both a religion and a race. Using one word for two different concepts is as stupid as referring to a religion as 'Chinese'. In such a case, some people would describe themselves as Chinese when they were referring to their race, and other people would describe themselves as Chinese when they were referring to their religion.
"Idiotic arguments would occur because some Chinese would insist that you cannot be Chinese unless your parents were Chinese. Other people would argue that we can all become Chinese, even Sammy Davis Jr. Incidentally, was Sammy Davis Jr. Jewish?
"This arguing over words may seem trivial, but it is the reason we have wars in the Middle East. A group of people referring to themselves as 'Jews' are insisting that Palestine belongs to them because their ancestors lived there 2000 years ago. They created the Zionist movement to help restore their homeland.
"However, numerous historians have looked into this issue and discovered that most of these Zionists are not descendants of the original Jews. Rather, most Zionists are 'Ashkenazi Jews'; a race of people from Asia. The real, original Jews were physically and genetically similar to the Arabs, specifically, dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair.
"The real homeland for the white, Ashkenazi Jews is near the Caspian and Black Seas, not Palestine. Their ancestors picked up the Jewish religion many centuries ago. Due to the widespread ignorance of people in that era, after a few generations they assumed that they were the descendants of the Jews that lived in Palestine."
"As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers.
- Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion -
"The beauty of science as a way to understand the world is that it requires that experiments be provable and subject to the kind of scrutiny that religion forbids. In science it is the 'heretic' who overturns the existing scientific understanding of the world who is rewarded, men such as Einstein and Darwin. The scientist that developed a new theory that overturned either of these two's theories would be immensely rewarded. A religious heretic can look forward to the possibility of being killed. Terrible things have been done using scientific knowledge, but that is not the fault of science, it is how it is used by humans. The response to that line is religion has been manipulated by bad people too, however a wonderful saying that I like to use follows 'It goes without saying that bad people will do bad things, but for good people to do bad things takes religion.'
"I will close with one more thought that I tell religious people when talking with them. 'You are just as much of an atheist as I am, I just happen to believe in one less god than you do. When you realize why you reject all the other gods and religions, you will realize why I reject yours.'"
"I lift my voice aloud,
make Mantra of American language now,
I here declare the end of the War!
Let the States tremble,
let the Nation weep,
let the President execute his own desire --
this Act done by my own voice,
nameless Mystery --
published to my own senses,
blissfully received by my own form
approved with pleasure by my sensations
manifestation of my very thought
accomplished in my own imagination
all realms within my consciousness fulfilled"
- Ralph Ginzberg: Wichita Vortex Sutra (1966) -
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
"
- Sir Francis Bacon -
"My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. She drinks right out of the bottle."
- Henny Youngman -
"Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat."
- John Lehman -
"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it."
- Leo Rosten -
"A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience."
- John Updike -
"Pilots for 9/11 Truth is an organization of aviation professionals and pilots throughout the globe that have gathered together for one purpose. We are committed to seeking the truth surrounding the events of the 11th of September 2001. Our main focus concentrates on the four flights, maneuvers performed and the reported pilots. We do not offer theory or point blame. However, we are focused on determining the truth of that fateful day since the United States Government doesn't seem to be very forthcoming with answers. We stand with the Scholars and Veterans for Truth along side family members of the victims - family members of soldiers who have given the ultimate sacrifice - including the many Ground Zero workers who are now ill or have passed away, when we ask for a new independent investigation into the events of 9/11. We do not accept the 9/11 Commission report as a satisfactory explanation for the sacrifice every American has made and continues to make - some more than others. Thank you for taking the time to inform yourself."
"Two in three children in Iraq have simply stopped going to school, according to a government report.
"Iraq's Ministry of Education says attendance rates for the new school year, which started Sep. 20, are at an all-time low.
"Statistics released by the ministry in October showed that a mere 30 percent of Iraq's 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to roughly 75 percent of students who were attending classes the previous year, according to the Britain-based NGO Save the Children...
"Iraq was awarded The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) prize for eradicating illiteracy in 1982. At that time, literacy rates for women were among the highest of all Islamic nations...
"UNICEF representative Roger Wright said in the October 2004 report: 'Iraq used to have one of the finest school systems in the Middle East. Now we have clear evidence of how far the system has deteriorated. Today millions of children in Iraq are attending schools that lack even basic water or sanitation facilities, have crumbling walls, broken windows and leaking roofs. The system is overwhelmed.'
"Two years later, the situation has grown far worse. Now it is so bad that international agencies are not around to survey it any more...
"Just before the U.S.-led invasion in spring 2003, school attendance was nearly 100 percent."
"An accident that occurred as a decades-old nuclear warhead was being dismantled at the government's Pantex facility near Amarillo, Texas, could have caused the device to detonate, a nonprofit organization charged Thursday. The Project on Government Oversight said the 'near miss' event, which led the Energy Department to fine the plant's operator $110,000, was due partly to requirements that technicians at the plant work up to 72 hours per week. The Pantex plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is the country's only factory for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons...
"It said that during three separate unsuccessful attempts to dismantle the warhead in March and April of last year, workers applied too much pressure to the device and a safety mechanism failed to work. Oversight project investigator Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department official, said the device was a W56 warhead, with a yield of 1,200 kilotons, 100 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb."
"[T]his country's taxpayers fork out as much as $80 per day for federal prisoners awaiting the inevitable deportation back to their homeland. Chippewa County Jail's Sheriff Moran claims that Sault Ste. Marie jail receives $56 per day per federal inmate - under the national average. Still, at that rate Hernan's 65-day incarceration cost us $3,640 - almost seven times the cost of an actual flight back to Quito, Ecuador. A fellow Ecuadorian inmate waited in Chippewa County Jail for 10 months. Do the math: 300 days, at $56 per day, equals a whopping $16,800 - the price of our inefficient, and some would claim racist, deportation system."
"Two recent studies should be the final nails in the coffin of the lie that has propelled some of this nation's most misguided policies: the claim that smoking marijuana somehow causes people to use hard drugs, often called the 'gateway theory...'
"In one National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded study, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh tracked the drug use patterns of 224 boys, starting at age 10 to 12 and ending at age 22. Right from the beginning these kids confounded expectations. Some followed the traditional gateway paradigm, starting with tobacco or alcohol and moving on to marijuana, but some reversed the pattern, starting with marijuana first. And some never progressed from one substance to another at all...
"Lead researcher Dr. Ralph E. Tarter told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 'It runs counter to about six decades of current drug policy in the country, where we believe that if we can't stop kids from using marijuana, then they're going to go on and become addicts to hard drugs.'
"Researchers in Brisbane, Australia, and St. Louis reached much the same conclusion in a larger and more complex study published last month. The research involved more than 4,000 Australian twins whose use of marijuana and other drugs was followed in detail from adolescence into adulthood.
"Then - and here's the fascinating part - they matched the real-world data from the twins to mathematical models based on 13 different explanations of how use of marijuana and other illicit drugs might be related. These models ranged from pure chance - assuming that any overlap between use of marijuana and other drugs is random - to models in which underlying genetic or environmental factors lead to both marijuana and other drug use or models in which marijuana use causes use of other drugs or vice versa.
"When they crunched the numbers, only one conclusion made sense: "Cannabis and other illicit drug use and misuse co-occur in the population due to common risk factors (correlated vulnerabilities) or a liability that is in part shared." Translated to plain English: the data don't show that marijuana causes use of other drugs, but instead indicate that the same factors that make people likely to try marijuana also make them likely to try other substances.
"In the final blow to claims that marijuana must remain illegal to keep us from becoming a nation of hard-drug addicts, the researchers added that any gateway effect that does exist is "more likely to be social than pharmacological," occurring because marijuana "introduces users to a provider (peer or black marketeer) who eventually becomes the source for other illicit drugs." In other words, the gateway isn't marijuana; it's laws that put marijuana into the same criminal underground with speed and heroin."
"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?"
- Jean Kerr: The Snake Has All the Lines -
"The widening gulf between workers and executives is part of a stunning increase in inequality throughout the U.S. economy during the past thirty years. To get a sense of just how dramatic that shift has been, imagine a line of 1,000 people who represent the entire population of America. They are standing in ascending order of income, with the poorest person on the left and the richest person on the right. And their height is proportional to their income - the richer they are, the taller they are.
"Start with 1973. If you assume that a height of six feet represents the average income in that year, the person on the far left side of the line - representing those Americans living in extreme poverty - is only sixteen inches tall. By the time you get to the guy at the extreme right, he towers over the line at more than 113 feet.
"Now take 2005. The average height has grown from six feet to eight feet, reflecting the modest growth in average incomes over the past generation. And the poorest people on the left side of the line have grown at about the same rate as those near the middle - the gap between the middle class and the poor, in other words, hasn't changed. But people to the right must have been taking some kind of extreme steroids: The guy at the end of the line is now 560 feet tall, almost five times taller than his 1973 counterpart...
"Although corporate executives have always had the power to pay themselves lavishly, their self-enrichment was limited by what Lucian Bebchuk, Jesse Fried and David Walker - the leading experts on exploding executive paychecks - call the 'outrage constraint.' What they mean is that a conspicuously self-dealing CEO would be forced to moderate his greed by unions, the press and politicians: The social climate itself condemned executive salaries that seem immodest.
"Lately, however, we have experienced a death of outrage. Thanks to the right's well-funded and organized effort, corporate executives now feel no shame in lining their pockets with huge bonuses and gigantic stock options. Such self-dealing is justified, they say: Greed is what made America great, and greedy executives are exactly what corporate America needs...
"Under Bush, the economy has been growing at a reasonable pace for the past three years. But most Americans have failed to benefit from that growth. All indicators of the economic status of ordinary Americans - poverty rates, family incomes, the number of people without health insurance - show that most of us were worse off in 2005 than we were in 2000, and there's little reason to think that 2006 was much better.
"So where did all the economic growth go? It went to a relative handful of people at the top. The earnings of the typical full-time worker, adjusted for inflation, have actually fallen since Bush took office. Pay for CEOs, meanwhile, has soared - from 185 times that of average workers in 2003 to 279 times in 2005. And after-tax corporate profits have also skyrocketed, more than doubling since Bush took office. Those profits will eventually be reflected in dividends and capital gains, which accrue mainly to the very well-off: More than three-quarters of all stocks are owned by the richest ten percent of the population...
"A generation ago the distribution of income in the United States didn't look all that different from that of other advanced countries. We had more poverty, largely because of the unresolved legacy of slavery. But the gap between the economic elite and the middle class was no larger in America than it was in Europe.
"Today, we're completely out of line with other advanced countries. The share of income received by the top 0.1 percent of Americans is twice the share received by the corresponding group in Britain, and three times the share in France. These days, to find societies as unequal as the United States you have to look beyond the advanced world, to Latin America. And if that comparison doesn't frighten you, it should."
"Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
"There is a well-organized and growing movement to impeach President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney. On my bookshelf sit half a dozen books making the case for Bush's impeachment. I myself have no doubt that Bush has, in fact, committed impeachable offenses, and that for each Bush 'high crime and misdemeanor,' Cheney's culpability is ten or twenty times greater...
"Impeachment is a political process, and not only are the votes to remove either Bush or Cheney lacking, but it also would not be very good politics to do to them what was done to President Clinton. There is no chance either Bush or Cheney will be removed from office...
"Getting the necessary two-thirds supermajority in support of impeachment in today's Senate, which is virtually evenly-divided politically, is simply not possible. With forty-nine senators of the 110th Congress members in good standing with the Republican Party, and most of them rock-ribbed conservatives, even if the House produced evidence of Cheney personally water-boarding 'Gitmo' detainees in the basement of his home at the Naval Observatory, with Bush looking on approvingly, there are more than thirty-three GOP Senators who still would not vote to convict...
"The drive to impeach Bush and Cheney should, however, refocus its effort and energy into another undertaking - one that not only might succeed, but if it did, it would greatly benefit the nation and the well-being of all Americans. Allow me to explain:
"The Constitution's Impeachment Clause applies to all 'civil officers of the United States' - not to mention the president, vice president and federal judges. It is not clear who, precisely, is among those considered 'civil officers,' but the group certainly includes a president's cabinet and sub-cabinet, as well as the senior department officials and the White House staff (those who are issued commissions by the president and serve the President and Vice President).
"Quite obviously, Bush and Cheney have not acted alone in committing 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' Take a hypothetical (and there are many): Strong arguments have been made that many members of the Bush Administration - not merely Bush and Cheney -- have engaged in war crimes. If war crimes are not 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' it is difficult to imagine what might be. Jordan Paust, a well-know expert on the laws of war and a professor at University of Houston Law Center, has written a number of scholarly essays that mince few words about the war crimes of Bush's subordinates. For example, many of their names are on the 'torture memos...'
"Lowering the aim of an impeachment effort to focus on those who have aided and abetted, or directly engaged in, the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors, would have all the positives, and none of the negatives, of going after Bush and Cheney. It would not be an effort to overturn the 2004 election, but rather to rid the government of those who have participated, along with Bush and Cheney, in abuses and misuses of power; indeed, many among them have actually encouraged Bush and Cheney to undertake the offensive activities.
"Many of these men (and a few women) are young enough that it is very likely that they will return to other posts in future Republican Administrations, and based on their experience in the Bush/Cheney Administration, they can be expected to make the offensive conduct of this presidency the baseline for the next president they serve. Impeachment, however, would prevent that from happening."
"Michael Dare is a taxi driver who...no, no, no, wait just a damn minute here. What the fuck kind of a name is Michael Dare? Is Dare even a real surname? I mean, if it is, I apologize to those who bear it, but come on! Michael Dare, my ass. Michael Dare sounds like a shitty '80s cop show starring Don Johnson: Michael Dare is a cop who DOESN'T play by the rules... Yeah, whoever thought that Michael Dare was a cool name can just eat me raw. Why not: Michael Kickass? Or Michael PlowFist? How about Michael Savage? Oh wait, no...that won't work at all."
"Don't be afraid. It's that simple: don't let them scare you. There's nothing they can do to you... a writer always writes. That's what he's for. And if they won't let you write one kind of thing, if they chop you off at the pockets in the market place, then go to another market place. And if they close off all the bazaars, then by God go and work with your hands until you can write, because the talent is always there. But the first time you say, 'Oh, Christ, they'll kill me!' then you're done. Because the chief commodity a writer has to sell is courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore."
- Harlan Ellison -
"You can't fool me, there is no sanity clause."
- Fiorello (Chico Marx) in A Night At The Opera -
Don't let this happen to you.
The Management Disavows Any Acknowledgment
dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is free and may be reproduced in any form, preferably parchment. It consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and recycled randomly. It is sent all over the place, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice. If you see a joke, graphic, or news item that came from or through you, thanks, send more, and please accept the fact that much of dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is unacknowledgeable, and if I sought permission from everyone whose bastardized material showed up here, I'd never get anything else done. Please note that I don't even put my own name on it except those places I do. If you're still pissed off, hey, it's either satire or fair use.
Thanks,
NOT A. Diego's Buy
DON'T CALL Justin Annie Mergency
DON'T PAY Trudy Nose
WHO IS Morty Pressed?
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'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
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26 - 28 December
Erin Hart
Join
Erin Hart on
Progressive Talk AM 760
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (26 - 28 December) when she fills in for Jay Marvin from 6am - 10am MST (8am - noon EST / 7am - 11am CST / 5am - 9am PST).
Tune in if you're in the area, or listen online.
We'll talk snow, travel, Iraq, Bush's heinous surging plan, and have a look
back at the best AND worst of last year.
Let's aim for a peaceful 2007 despite the craziness of W. Onward Dems to
change and hope!
Happiest of Holidays to all.
Please keepin touch via erinhartshow.com.
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
'Bloody George' ...in search of peace with Cindy Sheehan
... Bloody George has been seeking what has been called "advice" on sending upwards of 30,000 more troops to Iraq, but what should more truly be called, "covering his hiney." Bloody George is spending the birth of the Prince of Peace trying to discover, against all credible and moral opinion, how he can escalate the violence and killing in Iraq.
E.J. Dionne, Jr.: The real 'real America'
Suddenly, it's conservatives who seem out of touch.
Ellen Goodman: Ending anonymity
Children's right to know trumps parents' desire to be anonymous
The art of conversation: Chattering classes (economist.com)
The rules for verbal exchanges are surprisingly enduring.
Peter Carlson: Very Fine Lines (washingtonpost.com)
What Makes a Cartoon New Yorker-Worthy? Draw Your Own Conclusion.
Astrid Storm: Good Riddance: The Episcopal split promises a stronger church (slate.com)
As a theological liberal, I take a rather dim view of the doctrine of providence. Still, I have to say that there was something vaguely providential about the way events unfolded in the Episcopal Church this past week.
Elbert Ventura: The Forgotten Jimmy Stewart Christmas Classic (slate.com)
Forget "It's a Wonderful Life." Watch "The Shop Around the Corner" this year.
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Reader Contribution
Bumper Stickers
Bumper Stickers for Bush supporters:
Let's Fix Democracy in This Country First.
If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran.
Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.
If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President.
Of Course It Hurts: You're Getting Screwed by an Elephant.
Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?
George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight
Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore
America: One Nation, Under Surveillance
They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It
Jail to the Chief (Left over from the Nixon Campaign)
No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade Iraq?
Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap
We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language.
We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them
Impeach Cheney First
When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46
The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century
What Part of "Bush Lied" Don't You Understand?
One Nation Under Clod
2004: Embarrassed
2005: Horrified
2006: Terrified
Bush Never Exhaled
At Least Nixon Resigned
~ Den
Thanks, Den!
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
Tonight, Tuesday:
CBS begins the night with a RERUN 'NCIS', followed by the FRESH (but pre-taped & edited) '29th Annual Kennedy Center Honors'.
On a RERUN Dave (from 11/22/06) are Stupid Pet Tricks, Matthew Broderick, and Lupe Fiasco & Jill Scott.
On a RERUN Craig (from 11/27/06) are William Shatner, Mike Luckovich, and Driveblind.
NBC starts the night with the FRESH 'Tom Brokaw Reports', followed by a RERUN 'Law & Order: Criminal Intenet', then a RERUN 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
On a RERUN Leno (from 11/9/06) are Sacha Baron Cohen as "Borat", Martha Stewart, and Damien Rice.
On a RERUN Conan (from 5/9/06) are Sean Hayes and Cheap Trick.
On a RERUN Carson Daly (from 9/21/06) are Tom Green and Fiona Apple.
ABC opens the night with the chestnut 'Rudolph's Shiny New Year', followed by a RERUN 'Big Day', then a FRESH 'Big Day', followed by a RERUN 'Boston Legal'.
On a RERUN Jimmy Kimmel (from 11/21/06) are Teri Hatcher, Rock Star Supernova.
The CW offers a RERUN 'Gilmore Girls', followed by a RERUN 'Veronica Mars'.
Faux has a RERUN 'House', followed by another RERUN 'House'.
MY has a FRESH 'Wicked Wicked Games', followed by a FRESH 'Watch Over Me'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', still another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', and yet another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter'.
AMC offers the movie 'Colors', followed by the movie 'Hoosiers', then the movie 'Instinct'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] As Time Goes By - Episode 5;
[2:40 pm] Are You Being Served - Wedding Bells;
[3:20 pm] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 5;
[4:00 pm] The Avengers - Whoever Shot Poor George;
[5:00 pm] Footballers Wives - Episode 5;
[6:00 pm] BBC World News;
[6:30 pm] Cash in the Attic - Ollier;
[7:00 pm] The Benny Hill Show- Episode 10;
[8:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 13;
[8:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 19;
[9:00 pm] The Avengers - Murdersville;
[10:00 pm] Doctor Who - Ep 6 Dalek;
[11:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 15;
[11:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 10;
[12:00 am] The Benny Hill Show- Episode 11;
[1:00 am] Doctor Who - Ep 6 Dalek;
[2:00 am] The Avengers - Murdersville;
[3:00 am] Sea of Souls - Episode 1;
[4:00 am] Sea of Souls - Episode 2;
[5:00 am] Sea of Souls - Episode 3;
[6:00 am] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has the movie 'The Cider House Rules', followed by 'Real Housewives'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', still another 'Scrubs', yet another 'Scrubs', then 'Mind Of Mencia', another 'Mind Of Mencia', still another 'Mind Of Mencia', and one more 'Mind Of Mencia'.
Jon Stewart is pre-empted.
Colbert Report is pre-empted.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Last Days On Earth', and 'Siberian Apocalypse'.
IFC -
[06:30 AM] The Importance of Being Earnest;
[08:05 AM] The Widow of Saint-Pierre;
[09:55 AM] Beyond Rangoon;
[11:35 AM] The Importance of Being Earnest;
[01:10 PM] The Widow of Saint-Pierre;
[03:00 PM] Beyond Rangoon;
[04:40 PM] The Importance of Being Earnest;
[06:15 PM] The eMusic Dozens: Indie Local;
[06:25 PM] Breaking the Waves;
[09:00 PM] Rashomon;
[10:30 PM] The Rules of the Game;
[12:25 AM] Wild Strawberries;
[02:00 AM] Rashomon;
[03:30 AM] The Rules of the Game;
[05:25 AM] Ripley's Game. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has 'Storm Of The Century', more 'Storm Of The Century', and 'ECW'.
Sundance -
[07:00 AM] Dark Water;
[08:45 AM] Seven Times Lucky;
[10:10 AM] Broken Column;
[11:00 AM] Rosetta;
[12:35 PM] 5 Days;
[02:15 PM] Dame La Mano;
[04:15 PM] Dark Water;
[06:00 PM] One Punk Under God: Episode 2;
[06:30 PM] Kath & Kim - Season 3: High and Dry;
[07:00 PM] Music Rising;
[07:50 PM] Salaryman 6;
[08:00 PM] Office Tigers: (Episode 1);
[08:30 PM] Harvie Krumpet;
[09:00 PM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 2: Didn't Mean To;
[09:30 PM] Milo 55160;
[10:00 PM] C.R.A.Z.Y.;
[12:15 AM] Jude;
[02:30 AM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 2: Didn't Mean To;
[03:00 AM] Office Tigers: (Episode 1);
[03:30 AM] Guy;
[05:05 AM] Dirty Work. (ALL TIMES EST)
TCM pays tribute to director
Michael Curtiz, who was born on this day in
1886.
[6:00 AM] White Christmas (1954) [View Trailer];
[8:15 AM] My Dream Is Yours (1949);
[10:00 AM] Mildred Pierce (1945) [View Trailer];
[12:00 PM] Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) [View Trailer];
[2:15 PM] Casablanca (1942) [View Trailer];
[4:00 PM] Dodge City (1939);
[6:00 PM] The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) [View Trailer];
[8:00 PM] Rocky (1976) [View Trailer];
[10:15 PM] Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) [View Trailer];
[12:00 AM] The Kid From Brooklyn (1946);
[2:00 AM] Golden Boy (1939);
[4:00 AM] The Prizefighter And The Lady (1933) [View Trailer]. (ALL TIMES EST)
Wednesday - 12/27
TCM salutes Stanley Donen most of the
night.
[6:00 AM] Morning Glory (1933);
[7:15 AM] Tea And Sympathy (1956);
[9:30 AM] The Barefoot Contessa (1954) [View Trailer];
[11:45 AM] The Dirty Dozen (1967) [View Trailer];
[2:15 PM] Ice Station Zebra (1968) [View Trailer];
[5:00 PM] Paint Your Wagon (1970) [View Trailer];
[8:00 PM] Once More With Feeling (1960);
[10:00 PM] Private Screenings: Stanley Donen (2006);
[11:00 PM] Arabesque (1966) [View Trailer];
[1:00 AM] Love Is Better Than Ever (1952);
[2:30 AM] Fearless Fagan (1952);
[4:00 AM] Killer McCoy (1947). (ALL TIMES EST)
Any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
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Jake Shimabukuro smiles after performing at the Waikiki Shell for the Honolulu Marathon concert and lu'au, Friday, Dec. 8, 2006, in Honolulu.
Photo by Ronen Zilberman
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Spends Holiday With Refugees
Angelina Jolie
Actress Angelina Jolie spent Christmas Day with refugees in Costa Rica as part of her work as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency said.
Jolie arrived Monday to visit a group of mostly Colombian refugee children and families and to meet Costa Rican officials, the UNHCR said in a statement.
There are about 11,500 refugees in this Central American country. Most of them fled Colombia because of a conflict between leftist guerrillas, soldiers and paramilitary forces.
Angelina Jolie
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The Powers family, with help from neighbors, works on construction of a giant snowman in their yard in Anchorage, Alaska on Sunday, Dec. 24, 2006. Billy Powers, climbing the scaffolding at left, created a giant 'Snowzilla' last year in the same spot.
Photo by Marc Lester
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Year's Biggest
Box Office Bombs
Oscar winners Russell Crowe, Nicolas Cage and Sean Penn starred in some of the year's biggest box office bombs, according to an analysis published on Sunday by Variety, proving A-list stars are not invincible.
Crowe struck out with the romantic comedy "A Good Year," Cage with the horror remake "Wicker Man," and Penn with another remake, the political saga "All the King's Men."
High-profile directors such as M. Night Shyamalan ("Lady in the Water") and Wolfgang Petersen ("Poseidon") also made the hall of shame with their waterlogged movies.
The other films among its 10-biggest box office bombs were the erotic thriller sequel "Basic Instinct 2," the World War One aviation saga "Flyboys," the cartoon "Flushed Away," the transcendental love story "The Fountain," and the urban kidnapping thriller "Freedomland."
Box Office Bombs
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Wedding News
Henner - Brown
Actress Marilu Henner, best known for her role in the hit TV series "Taxi," has married a former college classmate who proposed from his hospital bed after surgery for cancer.
Henner, 54, married Michael Brown, also 54, before 100 people in Henner's home in Los Angeles on Thursday, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Henner, who made her Broadway debut in the musical "Over Here!" in 1974, wore a pale peach Escada gown and was given away by her sons Nicky, 12, and Joey, 11.
Brown's twin brother, a Universal Life minister, officiated.
Henner - Brown
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Michael Doyle, right, from Ireland runs with compatriot Liam Kelly in a Santa Claus costume for a swim in the surf at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Christmas Day Monday, December 25, 2006.
Photo by Mark Baker
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Nepal's Mystery "Buddha Boy" Reappears
Ram Bahadur Bamjon
A mysterious teenaged boy believed by some to be a reincarnation of Lord Buddha has reappeared in eastern Nepal after vanishing for nine months, a witness and a television channel said on Monday.
Sixteen-year-old Ram Bahadur Bamjon was spotted on Sunday by villagers in the remote and dense forests near Piluwa village in Bara district, 150 km (95 miles) east of Kathmandu, local journalist Raju Shrestha, who visited the boy, told Reuters.
Bamjon disappeared in March from the forests in nearby Ratanpuri village where he had reportedly been meditating without food or water for almost 10 months.
"I have been wandering in the forests since then," Shrestha quoted Bamjon as telling him.
Ram Bahadur Bamjon
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Sues Former Accountants
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson is suing his former accountants, claiming they withdrew $2.5 million a year from his bank accounts but did not properly pay his bills.
The lawsuit by Jackson and MJJ Productions Inc. was filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Bernstein, Fox, Whitman, Goldman & Sloan, alleging negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
The lawsuit asks for unspecified damages and for an accounting of money the defendants received for services.
Michael Jackson
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Bells made from discarded oxygen bottles that hikers used while climbing Mount Everest are pictured in Brunswick, Maine, on Wed. Dec. 20, 2006. Jeff Clapp has created a business of transforming those banged-up aluminum containers into gleaming bells, bowls and ornaments.
Photo by Pat Wellenbach
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Sued For Breach Of Contract
Gallagher
Comedian Gallagher, known for smashing watermelons during his performances, was accused of shoving an audience member here last summer and now faces a lawsuit.
Leo Gallagher, 59, was to perform at the Moe Bandy Theater in Branson from June 16 through Sept. 4.
The promoters that brought the comedian to the southwest Missouri resort town, Miami-based Banson Partners LLC, sued Gallagher for breach of contract after his shows were canceled because of the allegations from a theater employee.
Gallagher has faced similar allegations, including in June, when a patron said the comedian slapped him during a Las Vegas performance.
Gallagher
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Greg Pike's dog Booger, his cat Kitty and his white mice, all named Mousie, wait outside a restaurant in Bisbee, Arizona, December 24, 2006. Picture taken December 24, 2006.
Photo by Jeff Topping
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Writer's Museum Sacked
Mikhail Bulgakov
A museum dedicated to a Russian writer condemned by the Orthodox church for his authorship of a "Satanic gospel" has been largely destroyed, an official told AFP.
The museum celebrated the life and work of Mikhail Bulgakov, author of "The Master and Margarita" a work of fantasy and satire in which the devil comes to Communist-era Moscow to see if he can do some good.
The Orthodox church said that the book, not published until 26 years after Bulgakov's death in 1940, was "the fifth gospel, that of Satan."
According to Svetlana Kostina, deputy director of the museum, Alexander Morozov, a bitter critic of Bulgakov's work, which he condemned as Satanic, last Thursday locked himself in the museum, situated on the ground floor of a building and demanded that it be evicted.
Mikhail Bulgakov
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A Christmas tree rises on the Moscow Red Square late Monday, Dec. 25, 2006, Kremlin's Spasskaya (Saviour) tower in the background and a fragment of a skating rink in the foreground. The yellow lights in the foreground are the blurred images of many small lamps from a garland hanging on a tree. New Year's is the biggest holiday of the year in Russia, and is followed by the Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7.
Photo by Alexei Sazonov
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Repeating Greeting
Christmas Card
A Christmas card that bore a three-cent stamp on its first trip through the mail is still going strong, thanks to a little tape and a lasting friendship.
The card has been exchanged by Dick Rewalt and his friend from the Navy, Roy Stern, since 1953.
"We figure it's traveled about 75,000 miles," said Rewalt, who lives in Traverse City with his wife, Hedy.
Christmas Card
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In Memory
James Brown
James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose revolutionary rhythms, rough voice and flashing footwork influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap, died early Christmas morning. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died of heart failure around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music.
Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. From Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson, David Bowie to Public Enemy, Brown's rapid-footed dancing, hard-charging beats and heartfelt yet often unintelligible vocals changed the musical landscape. He was to rhythm and dance music what Bob Dylan was to lyrics.
Brown's classic singles include "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.
He won a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.
Brown routinely lost two or three pounds each time he performed and kept his furious concert schedule in his later years even as he fought prostate cancer.
With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince. And the early rap generation overwhelmingly sampled his music and voice as they laid the foundation of hip-hop culture.
Born in poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, Brown was abandoned as a 4 year old to the care of relatives and friends. He grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it, where he learned how to hustle to survive.
By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Ga., for breaking into cars. While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.
In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten.
Three days before his death, he joined volunteers at his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, and he planned to perform on New Year's Eve at B.B. King Blues Club in New York.
Brown is survived by at least four children - two daughters and sons Daryl and James Brown III, Copsidas said. Friends were making flight arrangements Monday to come to Atlanta to determine how to memorialize Brown, Copsidas said.
James Brown
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A dog dressed with a Santa hat takes shelter in the warmth of its owner's jacket in Shanghai, China, Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006. Christmas is gaining popularity in the mainland China as retailers go all out to promote the gift giving festival to boost sales.
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