2005 Utne Independent Press Awards: The 17th annual list of the year's most inspiring, enlightening, and essential periodicals (utne.com)
In the cultural desert of today's corporate media landscape, the independent press is more vital than ever; it's an oasis of information that brims with creative thinking, courageous reporting, and bold artistic expression. We turn to these sources for the ideas and articles that fill the pages of Utne, and every year we celebrate our favorites by awarding the best of the best with an Independent Press Award.
David Podvin: My Sweet Lord (makethemaccountable.com)
In the movie "Slingblade" the protagonist is a mentally damaged, painfully inarticulate man with an unfortunate penchant for mayhem. On November 7, 2000, most voters decided this plotline was better suited for a film than for a presidency. However, the Falangist majority on the Supreme Court soon intervened to declare that the loser was the winner, and Justice Antonin Scalia exalted the ruling as being inspired by God Almighty. As a result of God's affinity for appallingly incompetent governance, the world's only superpower has since been run by a menace whose contact with reality is tangential at best.
PETER SCHJELDAHL: ANIMAL ATTRACTION: A Rousseau retrospective (newyorker.com)
Rousseau died in 1910, of gangrene, from an untreated leg wound, and was buried in a pauper's grave, an affront corrected by Picasso and Robert Delaunay, who financed a decent tomb with an epitaph by Apollinaire that reads, in part:
Let our luggage pass duty free through the gates of heaven
We will bring you brushes paints and canvas
That you may spend your sacred leisure in the light of truth.
RICHARD ROEPER: This year, resolve to solve many of my problems (suntimes.com)
To the fine folks working security at the airport: After you've told me to remove my shoes and my belt, after you've gone through my carry-on bag and left everything in a mess, after you've wanded my computer and patted me down -- at least thank me for putting up with a bunch of crap that has nothing to do with fighting terrorism.
David Bruce: Wise Up: Death (athensnews.com)
For a while, Wilson Mizner worked in Hollywood, adding gags to comedy scripts. While working on the screenplay of "The Merry Wives of Reno," Mr. Mizner learned that his brother Addison was dying, so he telegraphed him, "Stop dying. Am trying to write a comedy."
New rules from the Comptroller of the Currency mean many monthly bills from credit card-issuing banks will rise sharply this month. And this will mean a lot of pain for a lot of credit card users....
The Credit Card Poem
I get my fun with Capital One Discover buys my treasures And when I'm down there's Citicorp Providing needed pleasures.
For special sin, Providian And to you I'd be lying If I denied with Sov'reign's card I do some basics buying.
They lendeth with an open hand These banks with rates usurious With means, I fear, one day I'll face A payback that's delorious.
Purple Gene's review of the Life and Death of the first Stripper/Porn star….Candy Barr:
It was with great sadness that I heard today of the death of one of my favorite Icons……Juanita Dale Slusher, otherwise known as "Candy Barr". She passed away on Friday 12/30/05 in Abilene, Texas from pneumonia at the age of 70. She was 5'-3" tall and her measurements were 38"-22"-36" ! At 16 years old she was performing for Dallas fraternities with her 10 gallon hat, pasties, scant panties, six shooters and cowboy boots….They said "Trouble" was her middle name…..she was the original "Texas Tornado"!
Born on July 6th 1935 in Edna, Texas…..her father was a brick-layer and her mother was a harmonica player…..she ran away from home at 13 and married a safe-cracker in Dallas!
At 14 she fell into exotic dancing and prostitution. Claiming she had been drugged and forced to perform, Candy Barr made the first explicit Blue Movie…."Smart Alec" (1951). She got a job as a "Cigarette Girl" in Barney Weinstein's Theater Lounge in Downtown Dallas…Barney's brother , Abe, gave her the stage name Candy Barr (she was always licking chocolate bars backstage), bleached her hair and showcased her at 16 years old as a bump and grind burlesque queen in his Colony Club!
She had a lot of competition………………………..
Evelyn West………..had her boobs insured for $50K and once threw a tomato at Anita Ekberg for leaving in the middle of her routine.
Rene Andre…………Danced as the "Fountain of Youth".
Gay Dawn…………..Famous as a fraternity stripper.
Jody Lawrence……..Started B.A.R.E….Benevolent Association of Revealing Entertainers.
Blaze Starr…………Buxom Brunette famous for leaving a live lion in her hotel suite.
Tempest Storm……..danced naked in a huge fishbowl at Bimbo's.
Carol Doda…………more recently…first silicon breast implants and started a rock band called "Carol Doda and her Lucky Stiffs"…(she lives near me in Oakland by the Chabot Golf Course)
While driving her male audiences crazy, Candy was also driving other men nuts….She married a safe-cracker named Billy Joe Dabbs…divorced him and married a drug dealer named Troy Phillips who she ended up shooting….(he later got killed with a gun by someone else). She started messing around with a Night Club owner named Jack Ruby (he was later, on live national television, filmed shooting Lee Harvey Oswald !!!!). At just about the same time, she was arrested for possessing a little less than an ounce of Marijuana (they found it inside her left bra…..I always wondered who conducted the search!). After serving time in jail, she started dating Mobster Mickey Cohen. They went through a tempestuous relationship culminating in Ms. Barr turning State's evidence against Mr. Cohen for Tax Evasion….he served 11 years. Candy would have served another 4 years in jail for marijuana but hwas paroled and later pardoned by then Texas Governor John B. Connally (remember him in the back seat with JFK). Candy was even known to have dated Hugh Hefner of "Playboy" fame
Candy Barr was called into service on the set of the movie "Seven Thieves" (1960) where she is listed as a technical consultant. She actually choreographed Joan Collins Exotic Dancing. Collins said of Ms. Barr… "She taught me more about sensuality than I had learned in all my years under contract"! She was involved in a "stripper" documentary called "Changes" (1971) (Directed by Gerard Damiano - who directed "Deep Throat" (1972) and "The Devil in Miss Jones" (1973) and there was even talk of a Biopic of Candy's life starring Farrah Fawcett….it never came to be…..
With the money she received from putting Mickey Cohen away, Candy Barr retired to Abilene Texas to quietly live out the rest of her amazing life in her dream "brick House" with her dogs and granddaughter!
Purple Gene gives Candy Barr 10 titillating tasseled pasties out of 10 for turning her Poor White Trash existence into one of the most amazingly interesting seedy sexy tawdry tabloid stories ever lived……Someone has to make a movie of this woman's life !!!!
CBS starts the night with a RERUN'Still Standing', followed by a RERUN'King Of Queens', then a RERUN'Criminal Minds', followed by a RERUN'CSI: The 3rd One'..
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Pierce Brosnan and Marv Albert.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Rob Morrow and Bob Marley.
NBC opens the night with the SEASON PREMIERE'Biggest Loser: Special Edition', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Terrence Howard, Carrot Top, and Jace Everett.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Seth Green and Andy Serkis.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 12/20/05) are John Krasinski and North Mississippi Allstars.
ABC fills the night with LIVE'College Football - The Rose Bowl'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Carmen Electra and Autolux.
The WB offers a RERUN'One Tree Hill', followed by a RERUN'Beauty & The Geek'.
Faux a RERUN'That 70s Show', followed by a FRESH'Stacked', then a RERUN'Nanny 911'.
UPN has a RERUN'Eve', followed by a RERUN'Love, Inc.', then a RERUN'Veronica Mars'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', 'Inked', another 'Inked', 'Criss Angel', and another 'Criss Angel'.
AMC offers the movie 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back', followed by the movie 'Kindergarten Cop', then the movie 'For Love Or Money'.
BBC -
[2pm] 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' - Scott of the Antartic;
[2:40pm] 'Kumars at No. 42' - Robin Gibb;
[3:20pm] 'Kumars at No. 42' - Jennifer Saunders;
[4pm] 'At Home with the Braithwaites' - Episode 5;
[5pm] 'Monarch of the Glen' - Episode 5;
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'House Invaders' - Episode 9;
[7pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 35;
[8pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Stride;
[9pm] 'Little Angels' - Episode 1;
[9:40pm] 'A Week of Dressing Dangerously' - Episode 1;
[10:20pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Episode 1;
[11pm] 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' - Scott of the Antartic;
[11:40pm] 'Blackadder' - Beer;
[12:20am] 'Blackadder' - Chains;
[1am] 'Little Angels' - Episode 1;
[1:40am] 'A Week of Dressing Dangerously' - Episode 1;
[2:20am] 'Changing Rooms' - Episode 1;
[3am] 'Red Cap' - Ep. 4 Fighting Fit;
[4am] 'Red Cap' - Ep. 5 Friendly Fire;
[5am] 'Red Cap' - Ep. 6 Long Time Dead;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Project Runway', another 'Project Runway', and still another 'Project Runway'.
Comedy Central has 'Comedy Central Presents', 'Reno 911!', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Chappelle's Show', 'South Park', another 'South Park', and 'Drawn Together'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is George Packer.
On a RERUNColbert Report is Dermot Mulroney.
History has 'Machines 3', 'World's Biggest Machines', 'Machines 4', and 'Containers'.
IFC -
[6AM] Bodies, Rest and Motion (1993);
[7:45AM] Short: Pink;
[8AM] Spring Forward (1999);
[10AM] The King Is Alive (2000);
[12PM] IFC Short Film Collection I: December (2005);
[2PM] Joe The King (1999);
[3:45PM] IFC in Theaters (2005);
[4PM] Home Movie (2002);
[5:15PM] The King Is Alive (2000);
[7:15PM] Joe The King (1999);
[9PM] Buffalo Soldiers (2001);
[10:45PM] Solaris (2002);
[12:30AM] At the IFC Center #9 (1642);
[1AM] Buffalo Soldiers (2001);
[2:45AM] Solaris (2002);
[4:25AM] Liam (2000). (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Epicenter', followed by the movie 'Maximum Velocity'.
Sundance -
[6:40AM] Love in the Time of Money;
[8:10AM] A Slipping-Down Life;
[10AM] Bejart into the Light;
[11:35AM] Celestial Clockwork;
[1PM] Jane Birkin - Mother of All Babes;
[2PM] Love in the Time of Money;
[3:30PM] By Hook or By Crook;
[5:15PM] Push Comes To Shove;
[5:30PM] A Slipping-Down Life;
[7:30PM] Safe Men;
[9PM] Kath & Kim: Kicking Up a Stink;
[9:30PM] Havana;
[12AM] Celestial Clockwork;
[1:30AM] Mutant Aliens;
[3AM] Safe Men;
[4:30AM] Delusions in Modern Primitivism;
[5:30AM] Havana. (ALL TIMES EST)
Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, gives a news conference in Managua, Nicaragua, Tuesday Jan. 3, 2006. The Nicaraguan government will award Vargas Llosa with the Order of Ruben Dario, Nicaragua's highest cultural award.
Photo by Ariel Leon
Despite the massive financial commitment and marketing push accompanying Howard Stern's Sirius satellite radio debut January 9 in the United States, the shock jock won't be part of the package on its sister Canadian service.
"At this time, Howard Stern is not part of the Sirius Canada initial channel lineup," said Jeff Roman, a spokesman for Sirius Canada Inc., which last month launched a local version of the U.S.-based Sirius signal.
Roman would not comment on whether Sirius Canada decided against airing Stern in Canada to avoid a run-in with government censors.
Unlike the U.S. market, where the FCC fines radio and TV stations that breach industry decency standards, the CRTC has the power to punish domestic broadcasters that breach voluntary industry codes of conduct by denying radio and TV station license renewals.
CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone, right, talks with CBS CEO Les Moonves, on the bell podium before Redstone rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell, Tuesday Jan. 3, 2006. Viacom is separating into two publicly traded companies: CBS Corp., which will contain the CBS network, a group of affiliated TV stations and the Infinity radio broadcaster; and another company, which will keep the Viacom name and include MTV, VH1, several other cable networks and the Paramount movie studio.
Photo by Richard Drew
It's only fitting that "Arrested Development," the most self-referential show on TV, would go down chronicling its own demise.
The sitcom is essentially a lame duck after Fox announced in November that it wouldn't order a full third season - broadcasting 13 episodes instead of 22. Though an Emmy-winning critical hit, its ratings have been paltry, averaging fewer than 5 million viewers this season.
Monday night's episode blatantly parodied the show's situation.
The episode - the ninth of the season - at various points pretended to be 3-D, trotted out celebrities including Andy Richter, Ben Stiller and Zach Braff, and turned into a pseudo-live broadcast.
Hunter S. Thompson's widow will co-edit a new magazine called The Woody Creeker, which is expected to hit newsstands next month.
"We have some good writers already," Anita Thompson told the Aspen Times for its Tuesday editions. Satirist and political commentator P.J. O'Rourke plans a profile of her husband based on interviews in 1987 and 1997, she said.
The magazine is named after the community where the Thompson property is located. Anita Thompson said she came up with the idea for the magazine mainly as a way to celebrate the oddities and richness of her neighborhood.
It's hard to believe, looking at the three lovely women onstage, but Christmas Eve was the 50th anniversary of the Lennon Sisters' television debut.
When the quartet of sisters from Venice, California, first appeared on "The Lawrence Welk Show" in 1955, it was Diane, Kathy, Peggy and Janet. Because they started 50 years ago, everyone thinks they are in their 70s, but when they made their TV debut, Janet was 9 and Kathy was 12.
Diane retired some years ago, preferring private life to singing onstage. When Peggy later made the same decision, younger sister Mimi stepped up; for the past several years, the Lennon Sisters have been a family-harmony trio, performing in Branson, Missouri.
A man in Mexico looks up at the border fence separating the U.S. and Mexico where it extends into the Pacific Ocean, after a storm that hit San Diego caused damage to the fence, in San Diego January 3, 2006. The Mexican government has bitterly criticized a bill, approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last month, which would make illegal entry a felony, involve the military and local police in stopping illegal immigrants and result in the construction of more border fences.
Photo by Fred Greaves
Rhode Island on Tuesday became the 11th state to legalize medical marijuana and the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that patients who use the drug can still be prosecuted under federal law.
The House overrode a veto by Gov. Don Carcieri, 59-13, allowing people with illnesses such as cancer and AIDS to grow up to 12 marijuana plants or buy 2.5 ounces of marijuana to relieve their symptoms. Those who do are required to register with the state and get an identification card.
Federal law prohibits any use of marijuana, but Maine, Vermont, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington allow it to be grown and used for medicinal purposes.
Reuniting the original Van Halen lineup is just a matter of time, according to former vocalist David Lee Roth.
"I talked to the drummer (Alex Van Halen) about a week ago," the band's former lead singer told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. "And I think, eventually, the inevitable will happen."
"It definitely won't be rockers with walkers," he added, seemingly indicating that a reunion is in the near, as opposed to distant, future. "Getting onstage and singing 'Dance the Night Away' -- let me tell you how difficult that isn't going to be."
A century after Paul Cezanne's death, France will honor him in 2006 with exhibits and a new guided tour to help art lovers see the arid landscapes of Provence through the painter's eyes.
The focal point of commemorations is the southern region of Provence, where Cezanne spent much of his life documenting the ochre cliffs, clustered houses and sunbathed fields, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday as it launched the "Year of Cezanne."
In Paris, the Musee d'Orsay will devote an exhibit to Cezanne and his friend and fellow painter Camille Pissarro from Feb. 28-May 28. The exhibit has already showed in New York and Los Angeles.
Washington, D.C., will play host to a major exhibit of Cezanne's works before it moves to Aix-en-Provence. "Cezanne in Provence," which runs at the National Gallery of Art from Jan. 29 through May 7, features 118 oil paintings and watercolors by the painter, often seen as a father of modern art.
Cable network Starz Entertainment Group LLC said it plans to launch an Internet movie download service on Tuesday, backed by partnerships with Microsoft and Sony, amid a race to offer more videos over high-speed Internet connections.
The service, called Vongo, follows the debut of Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes video service, which ignited interest across the media sector to make more video programming available at any time and anywhere outside of the living room.
Vongo is not the first movie download service -- CinemaNow Inc. and the Hollywood studios-backed Movielink have been around for about five years.
But it is one of the first to offer a rotating slate of feature films, which currently play on its cable channel, on PCs and portable media devices for a monthly fee.
Flood waters cover this peewee golf course T-Rex up to his teeth, Sunday Jan.1, 2006, in Guerneville, Calif., as the Russian River continues to flow above flood stage from driving rain. According to the the National Weather Service, at least 2 more inches (5 more centimeters) of rain was forecast across Northern California on Sunday, on top of the 4 to 9 inches (10 to 23 centimeters) that had already swamped the region as the second major storm in two days wash across Northern California.
Photo by Dino Vournas
Have scientists found Mozart's skull? Researchers said Tuesday they'll reveal the results of DNA tests in a documentary airing Sunday on Austrian television as part of a year of celebratory events marking the composer's 250th birthday.
The tests were done last year by experts at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, and the results will be made public in "Mozart: The Search for Evidence," to be screened by state broadcaster ORF.
For more than a century, the skull has been in the possession of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, the elegant Austrian city where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756.
Bryan Harvey, singer-guitarist for the two-man '80s rock band House of Freaks, was found dead with his wife and two children in the family's Richmond, Va., home over the weekend.
Harvey, 49, his wife Kathryn, 39, and their children, Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4, were found Sunday in the basement of their burning home. A Richmond Police Department spokeswoman said the bodies were bound but added that no cause of death was being released. Local news reports said the victims' throats were cut.
Former House of Freaks drummer Johnny Hott arrived at the Harvey home to attend an afternoon New Year's Day party and discovered it ablaze; firefighters summoned to the scene discovered the bodies.
The police spokeswoman said there were no suspects in the case.
Former broadcast newsman Neil Strawser, who anchored CBS radio coverage of President John Kennedy's assassination, the Watergate hearings and NASA space launches, has died at age 78, the network said on Tuesday.
The veteran Washington correspondent, who left CBS News in 1986 before taking a job as a press officer on Capitol Hill, suffered a heart attack at his home in Washington and was pronounced dead at George Washington University Hospital December 31, according to CBS.
Born and raised in Ohio, Strawser was a familiar face on CBS television during the late 1950s and early '60s, appearing frequently on the nightly 15-minute broadcast of the "CBS News with Douglas Edwards."
Strawser was the lone TV network "pool" reporter admitted to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis and reported the departure of freighters carrying nuclear missiles back to the Soviet Union.
But Strawser was perhaps better known for his radio work, most memorably as anchor of CBS Radio's four straight days of coverage of the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath in November 1963.
He also moderated CBS Radio coverage of NASA missions ranging from the Gemini program through the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, as well as the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973 and the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearings in 1974.
Leonard Sonnenschein, president of the World Aquarium in St. Louis, holds We, a two-headed albino rat snake, Monday, Jan. 2, 2006. Sonnenschein has decided to sell the reptile, and bidding on e-Bay will start at $150,000. The 6-year-old snake came to the aquarium's attention when its previous owner distributed a circular offering it for sale days after its birth. The aquarium paid $15,000, knowing full well that most two-headed snakes don't live more than a few months.
Photo by James A. Finley
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