'Best of TBH Politoons'
M Is For MASHUP - Feb 21 2007
The Moule, The Merrier
By DJ Useo
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
BOB GEARY: Tough stands on issues are keeping John Edwards in the race (indyweek.com)
About this time in the last presidential campaign cycle, a year before the '04 Iowa cau-cuses and New Hampshire primary, I remember hearing then-U.S. Sen. John Edwards speak in Raleigh-and concluding that his candidacy was issue-free. What a difference four years makes.
Australia to ban incandescent bulbs (Reuters)
Australia will be the world's first country to ban incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to curb Greenhouse gas emissions, with the government saying on Tuesday they would be phased out within three years.
Plain Talk by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY founder (blogs.usatoday.com)
... I rated these five presidents, in this order, as the worst: Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Hoover and Richard Nixon. "It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list," I added. I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top.
Hipster-izing democracy (montrealmirror.com)
Apathy Is Boring celebrates three years of trying to reach the youth vote.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Wrong Is Right (The New York Times)
Many people are perplexed by the uproar over Senator Hillary Clinton's refusal to say, as former Senator John Edwards has, that she was wrong to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Why is it so important to admit past error? And yes, it was an error - she may not have intended to cast a vote for war, but the fact is the resolution did lead to war; she may not have believed that President Bush would abuse the power he was granted, but the fact is he did.
When your face doesn't fit (guardian.co.uk)
Last week an Australian gallery took down a portrait of Germaine Greer -- and replaced it with one of Steve Irwin. She explains why she is far from surprised.
Music to get fit by (guardian.co.uk)
Certain songs can increase workout productivity by 20%, but, according to experts, the cheesiest are often the most motivational. Lucy Siegle reports.
What would Kurt Cobain be doing now? (guardian.co.uk)
Charles R Cross: The man who wrote "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would have been 40 today [Feb. 20]. The suicidal rock star died at 27 in 1994, since when his legend has bloomed.
Greg Burke: A new appreciation for Ornette Coleman (calendarlive.com)
The father of harmolodics and sax-violin-trumpet virtuoso has polarized and influenced the jazz world.
ANDY KLEIN: Sunshine Man (lacitybeat.com)
He is too virile for his own good. But after 40 years as an actor, director, and singer, Alan Arkin is still hungry
David Bruce: Wise Up! Good Deeds (athensnews.com)
After making the movie "Scream 2," Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," spent so much time promoting the movie that she felt stressed and did not eat properly. What should a caring boyfriend do? Freddie Prinze, Jr., and a bunch of his friends invaded Sarah's kitchen, cooked a feast, fed it to Sarah and themselves, then wrapped up the plentiful leftovers and left her refrigerator very full.
Apathy is Boring
Youth Friendly Guide
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, but cool.
Wins Polk Award
Spike Lee
Director Spike Lee was named Tuesday as a winner of the annual George Polk Awards for his documentary on life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Lee, the director of "Malcolm X" and "Do the Right Thing," was honored for "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," along with its producer, Sam Pollard. They won the award for documentary television for illustrating evidence of the government's poor performance in the aftermath of the August 2005 storm.
Other 2006 winners included New York Times correspondent Lydia Polgreen, honored in foreign reporting for her reports on the carnage in Sudan's Darfur region, and the staff of the free-circulation weekly Lakefront Outlook in Chicago, cited for its expose on cronyism at the Harold Washington Cultural Center.
The 12 awards, considered among the top prizes in U.S. journalism, were announced Tuesday by Long Island University. The Polk Awards, created in 1949 in honor of CBS reporter George W. Polk, who was killed while covering the Greek civil war, will be presented April 12 in New York.
For the rest - Spike Lee
Remembered At Memorial
Robert Altman
As a swirling mix of family, actors, directors and producers remembered Robert Altman in a Manhattan service Tuesday, the overlapping, communal atmosphere reminded more than a few of the kind of scene the filmmaker reveled in documenting.
The service was held at the Majestic Theater (usually home to "The Phantom of the Opera"), on what would have been Altman's 82nd birthday. It was filled with luminaries: Lauren Bacall, Paul Newman, Kevin Kline, Harvey Keitel, Julianne Moore, Lily Tomlin, Harry Belafonte, Glenn Close and Steve Buscemi among them.
Several generations of filmmakers were also in attendance, from Sidney Lumet to Paul Thomas Anderson and Jim Jarmusch. His wife, Kathryn Reed Altman, looked on from the audience, and four of his six children were among the many speakers.
Tuesday's memorial was also filled with music - that of the Kansas City Orchestra, jazz singer Annie Ross, composer and pianist William Bolcom and soprano Lauren Flanigan. A West Coast service for the Kansas City, Mo. native is scheduled for March 4 in Los Angeles.
Robert Altman
Rory Kennedy Documentary On HBO
`Ghosts of Abu Ghraib'
It's a signal moment in "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" when Sabrina Harman explains how she came to be photographed, grinning wide, beside the body of an Iraqi detainee who had been tortured to death.
Just another photo op at Abu Ghraib. And, thanks to the many photos snapped there, the hideous behavior they display was exposed in spring 2004 by The New Yorker magazine and "60 Minutes II," shocking the world.
But for all their stomach-churning explicitness - showing prisoners stripped naked, put in humiliating poses and subjected to other cruel treatment - these photos can't chart how such a thing could have happened.
Now "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" (premiering Thursday at 9:30 p.m. EST on HBO) gives you the big picture.
"The film is not just about Abu Ghraib and what happened there, it's also about America, and who we are as a country," said Rory Kennedy, whose documentary builds a strong case for Abu Ghraib as the inevitable product of America's post-9/11 foreign policy.
`Ghosts of Abu Ghraib'
Cleared Of Libel Claim
Michael Moore
Filmmaker Michael Moore did not libel the brother of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, a U.S. court said Tuesday.
The appeals court sided with a federal judge who in 2005 threw out James Nichols' suit accusing Moore of labelling and defaming him in the Oscar-winning documentary, "Bowling for Columbine."
Nichols said statements in the 2002 film could lead viewers to believe he was involved in the 1995 bombing, which killed 168 people. He also said the film invaded his privacy and inflicted emotional distress.
But Nichols "has not presented any evidence indicating that Michael Moore intended to falsely implicate James Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing," the appeals panel said.
Michael Moore
Shifting Targets
Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson decided not to poke fun at Britney Spears for at least one night.
The host of CBS' "The Late Late Show" told viewers Monday that after seeing photos of the 25-year-old pop star's shaved head, he reconsidered making jokes at the expense of the "vulnerable."
"For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it," Ferguson said. "It should be about attacking the powerful - the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards - going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."
Craig Ferguson
Movie Draws Attention
Florence Ballard
Like Effie, the "Dreamgirls" character which drew from her life, Florence Ballard had a triumphant return to the stage after her fall from grace from The Supremes.
Singing at Ford Auditorium in Detroit on June 25, 1975, Ballard shook off years of drinking and other troubles and put on a dynamic performance that drew wide acclaim and revived interest in her career.
But unlike Effie, Florence Ballard's road to a comeback didn't go much further than that night. In 1976, Ballard, one of the original Supremes, died of a heart attack at age 32, almost 10 years after she was kicked out of the legendary girl group.
While Diana Ross remains an international icon and Mary Wilson continues to perform nationwide, Ballard is known, if at all, as a tragic figure. But with the release of the movie "Dreamgirls," and Jennifer Hudson's Oscar-nominated performance in the role based on Ballard, Ballard's family is hoping it will provide a new opportunity to let the world know about the real Florence.
Florence Ballard
Not Guilty Plea
Nicole Richie
Nicole Richie's lawyer appeared in court Tuesday without her client and entered a not guilty plea on Richie's behalf to a driving under the influence charge.
The complaint alleges Richie was under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and an unspecified drug when she was arrested Dec. 11. A pretrial conference was scheduled for April 2.
The 25-year-old Richie was arrested after 911 callers reported seeing her car headed the wrong way on a freeway in Burbank about 12:30 a.m. She was found alone in her SUV, which was stopped in a car-pool lane but facing the right way when California Highway Patrol officers arrived.
Nicole Richie
Pleads Innocent
Daniel Baldwin
A California judge on Tuesday canceled an arrest warrant for actor Daniel Baldwin on car theft charges after he made a scheduled court appearance and pleaded innocent.
Baldwin, a member of the acting family that includes brothers Alec, Stephen and William, faced arrest after failing to turn up in court on February 6.
Baldwin came to court on Tuesday with a friend, Ken Smith, who owned the white GMC Yukon Baldwin was accused of taking and who said he was prepared to vouch for the actor that it was a misunderstanding.
Daniel Baldwin
Burial Agreement
James Brown
The six adult children of singer James Brown have agreed with his partner, Tomi Rae Hynie, on where the entertainer will be buried, an attorney for the woman said Tuesday.
Hynie's attorney, Robert Rosen, said the resting place is being kept confidential at the request of Brown's children. Rosen said the burial may take place in the "next few days." An attorney for Brown's children would not discuss specifics of any burial plans, but he said an agreement was being worked out.
Meanwhile, a South Carolina judge in a ruling made public Tuesday said the trustees accused of mismanaging Brown's estate will keep handling his property and trust, but a special administrator will oversee their work.
James Brown
War Losses Mount
Small Towns
Raised in the projects in an old steel town, Edward "Willie" Carman saw the Army as a chance to build a new life.
"I'm not doing it to you, I'm doing it for me," the then-18-year-old told his mother, Joanna Hawthorne, after coming home from high school one day and surprising her with the news.
When Carman died in Iraq three years ago at age 27, he had money saved for college, a fiancee and two kids - including a baby son he'd never met. Neighbors in Hawthorne's mobile home park collected $400 and left it in an envelope in her door.
McKeesport is not alone in its mourning. Nearly half of the more than 3,100 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq have come from towns like McKeesport, where fewer than 25,000 people live, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. One in five hailed from hometowns of less than 5,000.
Small Towns
Clear Channel Hates Local Content
KFTY-TV
Steve Spendlove realizes that after last month's layoffs of most of the news-gathering staff at tiny KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa there will be less local coverage. The Clear Channel executive overseeing the station knows there won't be reporters to investigate local scandals, let alone do those fluffy woman-turns-100 features that make TV anchors cock their heads and smile at the end of a newscast.
But Spendlove said that the station's "business model" hadn't been working for years, and that "covering one-eighth of the Bay Area" is neither a moneymaker nor even an operation large enough to be measured by Nielsen ratings.
So the next step in Channel 50's evolution will be a nationally watched experiment in local television coverage. Over the next few months, the station's management plans to ask people in the community -- its independent filmmakers, its college students and professors, its civic leaders and others -- to provide programming for the station.
"There will be a loss in local coverage, I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "But there are a lot of other places to get most of that information."
KFTY-TV
Run Across Sahara
3 Ultra-Athletes
Three ultra-endurance athletes have just done something most would consider insane: They ran the equivalent of two marathons a day for 111 days to become the first modern runners to cross the Sahara Desert's grueling 4,000 miles.
American runner Charlie Engle, 44, said he, Canadian Ray Zahab, 38, and Kevin Lin, 30, of Taiwan, ran the final stretch of their journey that took them through the Giza pyramids and Cairo to the mouth of Suez Canal on four hours of sleep. Once they hit the Red Sea, they put their hands in the water to signify crossing the finish line.
In less than four months, they have run across the world's largest desert, through six countries - Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and finally Egypt.
A film crew followed them, chronicling the desert journey for actor Matt Damon's production company, LivePlanet. Damon plans to narrate the "Running the Sahara" documentary.
3 Ultra-Athletes
In Memory
Janet Blair
Janet Blair, the vivacious actress who appeared in several 1940s musicals and comedies, then turned to television and stars like Sid Caesar and Henry Fonda, has died. She was 85.
Blair died Monday from complications of pneumonia at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, her children Amanda and Andrew Mayo said.
Blair was singing with Hal Kemp's band at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles in 1941 when she was spotted by a talent scout from Columbia Pictures shortly before Kemp was killed in a traffic accident. She had landed an audition with the bandleader at age 18 through a family friend.
She appeared opposite George Raft in the gangster movie "Broadway" and co-starred with Cary Grant and a dancing caterpillar in the 1944 comedy-fantasy "Once Upon a Time." She was the love interest in "The Fabulous Dorseys," starring bandleaders Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey and appeared opposite Red Skelton in the 1946 sleeper hit "The Fuller Brush Man."
From the late `40s through the mid-`50s she appeared in such Golden Age of Television shows as the "Ford Theatre," "Philco TV Playhouse," "Lux Video Theatre" and "U.S. Steel Hour."
She joined television's "Caesar's Hour" in 1956 when Sid Caesar was seeking a replacement for co-star Nanette Fabray. She left after just one season, complaining she was "not given the opportunity I had been led to believe I'd get."
Born Martha Janet Lafferty in 1921 in Altoona, Pa., Blair attended public schools and sang in the church choir. She would later take the name of a Pennsylvania county in christening herself Janet Blair.
Janet Blair
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