'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Weekly Review
HARPER'S WEEKLY REVIEW
March 25, 2003
Sitting behind the "Resolute" desk in the Oval Office,
George W. Bush addressed the nation on television in a
speech laden with theological language and declared that his
"work of peace" in Iraq had begun. He said that U.S. forces
had fired about three dozen cruise missiles at "targets of
opportunity" in Baghdad.
Resident Bush warned Americans
that his work of peace might be difficult and that it would
require the sacrifice of many lives. Just before his speech
began, Bush gave a little shake of his fist and said: "Feel
good."
A coalition of nations, including Bulgaria, Mongolia,
Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands, joined the United
States and Britain in what was christened Operation Iraqi
Freedom, though most members of the "coalition" were unable
to commit actual troops. Poland did manage to spare 200
soldiers.
Jacques Chirac, the president of France, denounced
the invasion. "This military action cannot be justified in
any way," said President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and
Gerhard Schroeder of Germany observed that the president's
decision meant "certain death to thousands of innocent men,
women, and children." Pope John Paul II said that the
invasion of Iraq "threatened the destiny of humanity." The
United States Congress quickly voted to endorse the
president's declaration of war.
Television viewers in
America were entranced by the spectacle of large explosions
and exciting footage of tanks racing across Iraq's southern
desert. Within a few days, however, coverage was
increasingly dominated by battle scenes as Iraqi forces
began to offer significant resistance to the American
advance toward Baghdad.
American networks offered few images
of dead civilians, refugees, or young Iraqi children with
burned faces.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that the U.S.
Constitution merely "sets minimums" for civil rights and
that "most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what
the Constitution requires." The next day Scalia received the
Citadel of Free Speech Award; as a condition for his
acceptance of the award he demanded that broadcast media be
banned from the ceremony.
Continued at www.harpers.org/weekly-review
-- Roger D. Hodge
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast morning, sunny afternoon.
The calico kitten isn't the brightest creature. She's the one that's fond of toilet water (ewwww). Tonight, she was feeling very brave & went into the bathroom while the kid was in the tub. She got up
on the edge, midjudged the distance to the water, and slid in as she tried to get a drink. The kid said it was like a cartoon - her feet were a blur as she seemed to almost levitate over the water, getting only her toes damp.
Talked to dear old Dad in PA tonight. The weather is improving, fishing season starts in a couple of weeks, and leeks should be up soon. These are wild leeks, found in the local woods - about half as wide as a pencil, and about 4" to 5" long - nothing
like the huge ones at the grocery store. They're very tasty, but the 'aroma' tends to linger longer than garlic. Days longer.
Tonight, Wednesday, CBS is supposed to open the evening with a FRESH 'Survivor', followed by '60 Minures II', and '48 Hours'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave, with guest host Luke Wilson, are Kelly Preston, Taye Diggs, and Seether.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Rachel Ward and Vince McMahon.
NOTE - Dave and Craiggers will be RERUNs Thursday & Friday thanks to 'March Madness'.
NBC is supposed to start with 'Dateline', followed by a FRESH 'West Wing', and then a
FRESH 'Law & Order'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, Willie Barcena, and Vince Gill.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are DJ Qualls and Jesse James.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Tom Sizemore and Sigur Ros.
ABC is supposed to offer a FRESH 'My Wife & Kids', followed by a FRESH 'George Lopez',
then the Season Premiere of 'The Bachelor', followed by 'All American Girl'.
Scheduled on a FRESH 'The View' is Wanda Sykes.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Pat O'Brien, Sen Dog & B-Real from Cypress Hill, with this week's guest co-host Slash.
The WB is supposed to have a FRESH 'Dawson's Creek', and a FRESH 'Angel'.
Faux is supposed to open with a FRESH 'That 70's Show', followed by a FRESH 'American Idol', and then the
Series Premiere of 'Wanda At Large', with Wanda Sykes.
UPN is supposed to offer a RERUN 'Enterprise', then a RERUN 'Twilight Zone'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Ringo Starr.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Workers clean a "No War" slogan painted on the Concert Hall sail of the Sydney Opera House
Photo by Greg Wood
Seen As Pro-War
Media Bias
A majority of Americans who favor the war with Iraq believe media coverage of the conflict has been excellent, while most critics of the war disagree, according to a poll issued on Tuesday.
A joint weekend survey conducted by CNN, USA Today and the Gallup organization found that 57 percent of Americans who support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq believe media coverage was "excellent," while 33 percent rated it "good."
Just 10 percent of pro-war respondents thought media coverage of the war was "only fair/poor."
Respondents opposed to the war were more divided, with only 38 percent agreeing that war coverage was excellent and just 23 percent rating it as good. The remaining 39 percent of antiwar Americans found coverage fair to poor.
The poll was conducted through telephone interviews with 502 adult Americans on Saturday and another 518 adult Americans on Sunday, with a sampling error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.
The same poll showed that overall American opinion of the media declined from Saturday to Sunday, with the percentage of respondents rating coverage as excellent dipping from 55 percent to 49 percent.
The second day of the poll coincided with a spate of bad news for the Pentagon, including reports of U.S. forces meeting stiff resistance and suffering combat casualties, the capture of several American soldiers and a hand-grenade attack on troops at a military base in Kuwait.
Media Bias
CNN Abruptly Cancelled
Connie Chung
CNN on Tuesday abruptly dropped one of its best-known anchors, Connie Chung, who had been hired only last spring as the centerpiece of a star-driven prime-time lineup.
Her show was temporarily replaced by an Aaron Brown-anchored news program after the war's start last week and she had asked management for a time when it would come back. Instead, she was informed Tuesday that the show had been canceled, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said.
A major figure in broadcasting over the past 30 years, Chung was hired away from ABC News last year, where she primarily worked in newsmagazines and landed a high-profile interview with Gary Condit. CNN built a new studio for her in midtown Manhattan and the program launched on June 24.
She envisioned her show opening each night with a detailed look at one of the day's top stories, featuring newsmaker interviews, and highlighting emerging issues.
It evolved into a program concentrating heavily on crime stories, and this master of the taped interview occasionally seemed awkward in a live format. It didn't help when CNN founder Ted Turner, in an interview this winter, described her show as "just awful."
Connie Chung
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Approached Sprewell During Game
Calvin Klein
Security guards had to escort fashion designer Calvin Klein back to his seat at a New York Knicks game after he walked up to Latrell Sprewell and talked to him in the middle of play.
Sprewell was about to inbound the basketball just before the end of Monday night's game against the Toronto Raptors when Klein got up from his courtside seat at Madison Square Garden and approached him. Then he grabbed Sprewell by the arm and struck up a conversation with him.
"I wasn't nervous," Sprewell said. "I was a little surprised, like, 'Is security going to come over here at some point or what?' I didn't know that was him."
Security did come over and ushered the 60-year-old designer back to his seat. After he sat back down, he yelled, "Sprewell!"
Sprewell declined to divulge what Klein said to him. The Knicks defeated the Raptors 100-90.
Calvin Klein
Indian tigers at play at Bannerghatta National Park in Bangalore. An environmental group is calling for an end to illegal mining in wildlife reserves that threaten tigers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Woman With An Opinion
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand says she supports our troops, but still thinks resident Bush is a bust. "I pray for America's military servicemen and women and their families," Streisand wrote in a missive on her Web site yesterday. "I pray that this war is over quickly, that our troops come home safely and that there are few civilian casualties." However, "I find it tragic that the Bush administration's attempts at diplomacy failed so miserably and have led us to the point of starting a war that might have been avoided."
Barbra Streisand
Ozzy Offers Advice
Kelly Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne is more than just a father to his daughter, Kelly — he's also an adviser of sorts.
"We have sit-down talks ... in the most random places. We went in the bathroom, and I sat on the floor for three hours while he was talking to me. By the end of it, I was falling asleep."
Osbourne says her dad means well, but he need not worry. For her, "being famous ... is just a small part of my life."
She says adjusting to fame is a weird experience. "To this day, I walk in restaurants and wonder why everyone is staring at me — then I go 'Oh,'" she said. "It's weird, but I'm used to it."
"My whole life, people have always said stuff like my Dad is this and that — he's evil, satanic and bites the heads off animals," Osbourne said. "When people get to see that he's a kind, loving person who deserves everything he has and has worked (hard) his entire life, he gets the gratification he deserves."
Kelly Osbourne
'We Want Peace'
Lenny Kravitz
Rocker Lenny Kravitz and Iraq's best known pop musician have produced a song together in the name of peace, available only on the Internet, supporters said.
The song "We Want Peace," was written and performed by Kravitz alongside Kadim Al Sahir, a legend in Arabic music, said Jehmu Green, executive director of "Rock the Vote", a group that defends freedom of expression.
"This song for me is about more than Iraq: It is about our role as people in the world and that we all should cherish freedom and peace," Kravitz said.
Mixing electric guitars and Arabic rhythms, the song says there will be no peace if we do no try, also features Palestinian guitarist Simon Shaheen and Lebanese percussionist Jamey Hadded.
Lenny Kravitz
Still Hospitalized
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash remains in a Nashville hospital for pneumonia, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday.
She said Cash should be released soon, but could not give a date.
Cash, who has scored dozens of hits like "I Walk the Line" and "A Boy Named Sue," suffers from autonomic neuropathy, a disease of the nervous system that makes him susceptible to pneumonia. He was diagnosed with the disease about 15 months ago.
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash web site
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Plans Huge Free Show In Rome
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney plans to play the largest concert of his career in May--a show in Rome for half a million people. No date has been set for the free show, but McCartney announced it will take place on the Via Appia, just outside the Colosseum. "It will be the most incredible venue for a gig," McCartney told the London Evening Standard.
McCartney also used the Evening Standard interview to express ambivalent feelings about the war in Iraq. "If Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, it's clear what you have to do--you have to be at war with Japan," he said. "But this is a very difficult situation. It's hard to know what anyone should do. I'm just like anyone else--I'm just watching it unfold." McCartney added, "What we're hoping to do is bring joy to the world at this moment--nothing else, I'm not a politician."
Paul McCartney
A young American woman dances before the students during a wet T-shirt contest Thursday, March 20, 2003, in Cancun, Mexico. Even as war raged in Iraq, spring break life took its alcohol-fueled course in Cancun, where the party trail sometimes stretches from all-night discos to jail cells.
Photo by Jose Luis Magana
That Memo Resurfaces
MTV Europe
MTV Europe has banned a bunch of videos it thinks it would be "insensitive" to air in a time of war. According to a communique obtained by InternalMemos.com, among the verboten vids are Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing," which contains footage from "Armageddon;" Bon Jovi's "This Ain't a Love Song," which contains war scenes; Iggy Pop's "Corruption," which displays captions like "we love guns;" Radiohead's "Lucky," with war footage; Billy Idol's "Hot in the City," which features an atomic explosion; Megadeth's "Holy Wars," which has an offensive title; and everything by the unfortunately named B-52s.
MTV Europe
'That' MTV-Europe Memo
Sending Free Magazines to Troops
U.S. Publishers
U.S. troops in Iraq will soon be able to adorn their quarters with the 21st Century's answer to World War II pin-ups, as the publisher of Maxim and Stuff ships free copies of the men's lifestyle magazines to their mailboxes.
Dennis Publishing said it hopes its scantily clad cover models will help U.S. soldiers endure war in the same way the curvy girls drawn by Peruvian-born artist Alberto Vargas became one of the biggest morale-boosters among servicemen in the 1940's.
Dennis Publishing said on Tuesday it is shipping 15,000 free copies of Maxim, Stuff and its musical magazine Blender to 40 different military tent sites across Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, Afghanistan and Oman.
Meanwhile Time Inc.'s Sports Illustrated is also making arrangements to send copies of its two latest issues on college basketball and baseball to soldiers in Iraq and surrounding areas.
Playboy Enterprises Inc. will not send copies of its legendary namesake magazine to the front. Instead, the company plans to set up an e-mail address where U.S. servicemen around the world can sign up to receive non-nude pictures and a message from the famed Playmates.
U.S. Publishers
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona
Josep Maria Subirachs
Sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs said that he will have finished the Passion facade of Antoni Gaudi's renowned Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona -- on which he has been working since 1986 -- in two years' time.
The 76-year-old artist made the announcement at the opening of a retrospective of his work in Barcelona.
Subirachs continues to work daily, surrounded by tourists, on the second of three facades of the Catalan city's best known landmark.
In 2002 the artist told the AFP that "I would like to finish it before I die", adding with a smile that he didn't think he would be there for the cathedral's formal inauguration in 50 years' time.
Josep Maria Subirachs
Red-Carpet Casualty
John Travolta
John Travolta's new movie, "Basic," is the latest red-carpet casualty. Tonight's much-anticipated New York premiere - which was supposed to draw celebs from both coasts - has been canceled. "People didn't want to fly in, and right now is not really a time to celebrate," says a rep for Guastavino, where the after-party was going to be held. But as for rumors that the picture will be delayed because of its violent content, Sony says no way. "We are releasing the movie [Friday] as scheduled," declares a studio rep.
John Travolta
Bars Al Jazeera Reporter
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange banned an al Jazeera reporter from its trading floor on Monday, saying it was restricting access to "responsible" networks, as the Arab satellite television channel faces criticism in the United States for its coverage of the war in Iraq.
"We've had to focus our efforts on networks that focus on responsible business coverage," said NYSE spokesman Ray Pellecchia, declining to comment further.
He described the al Jazeera ban as "indefinite."
Several other news organizations have also been denied entry to the exchange's downtown Manhattan trading floor in the past few weeks, Pellecchia said, though he declined to name them.
New York Stock Exchange
Making Room for 'News'
ABC Shortening Shows
The ABC network is shortening each hour of its prime-time shows by 2 1/2 minutes, starting Tuesday, to make room for war updates, lessening the need for costly program interruptions in the event of breaking news, the network said.
In addition, ABC has canceled its combat reality show "Profiles from the Front Line," the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced series documenting the exploits of American forces last year in Afghanistan, saying some viewers might confuse that show with current footage of the war in Iraq.
Those moves and other programming changes were revealed as ABC and other broadcasters scrambled to find the right mix of news and entertainment, adjusting to the unpredictable demands of war coverage.
Among the first shows to be trimmed by ABC for the sake of news are the John Ritter comedy "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," the sitcom "According to Jim," starring Jim Belushi, and the hourlong season finale of Bonnie Hunt)'s show "Life with Bonnie."
A spokeswoman for the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said producers of ABC's prime-time entertainment shows had been asked to shave a minute and a quarter from each half hour, or 2 1/2 minutes per hour, from all first-run episodes and reruns slated to air for at least the next two weeks.
In other schedule changes linked in part to the demands of war coverage, ABC said it has placed two new series on hiatus -- the George Hamilton-hosted reality show "The Family" and the father-and-son archeological adventure "Veritas: The Quest."
ABC Shortening Shows
'Boycott Brand America'
Old Europe Responds
No more Coca-Cola or Budweiser, no Marlboro, no American whiskey or even American Express cards -- a growing number of restaurants in Germany are taking everything American off their menus to protest the war in Iraq.
Although the protests are mainly symbolic, waiters in dozens of bars and restaurants in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Bonn and other German cities are telling patrons, "Sorry, Coca-Cola is not available any more due to the current political situation."
The boycotts appear to be part of a nascent worldwide movement. One Web site,
www.consumers-against-war.de, calls for boycotts of 27 top American firms from Microsoft to Kodak while another,
www.adbusters.org, urges the "millions of people against the war" to "Boycott Brand America".
Consumer fury seems to be on the rise. Demonstrators in Paris smashed the windows of a McDonald's restaurant last week, forcing police in riot gear to move in to protect staff and customers of the American fast-food outlet. The attackers sprayed obscenities and "boycott" on the windows.
In the Swiss city of Basel, 50 students recently staged a sit-down strike in front of a McDonald's to block customers' entry, waved peace signs and urged people to eat pretzels instead of hamburgers.
Anti-American sentiment has even reached provinces in Russia, where some rural eateries put up signs telling Americans they were unwelcome, according to an Izvestia newspaper report.
For a lot more, Old Europe Responds
Prime-Time Nielsen
Ratings
Prime-time ratings compiled by Nielsen Media Research for March 17-23. Top 20 listings include the week's ranking, with rating for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (X) "75th Annual Academy Awards," ABC, 33 million viewers.
2. (6) "American Idol-Tuesday," Fox, 21.1 million viewers.
3. (X) "Oscar Countdown 2003," ABC, 19.5 million viewers.
4. (10) "American Idol-Wednesday," Fox, 17.2 million viewers.
5. (X) "Survivor: Amazon," CBS, 16.4 million viewers.
6. (2) "Friends," NBC, 14.9 million viewers.
7. (35) "Fear Factor," NBC, 14.7 million viewers.
8. (16) "Scrubs," NBC, 14.2 million viewers.
9. (20) "Judging Amy," CBS, 14.2 million viewers.
10. (25) "JAG," CBS, 14 million viewers.
11. (8) "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 13.5 million viewers.
12. (13) "Will & Grace," NBC, 13.4 million viewers.
13. (28) "Yes, Dear," CBS, 13.2 million viewers.
14. (44) "Third Watch," NBC, 12.9 million viewers.
15. (26) "Good Morning Miami," NBC, 12.7 million viewers.
16. (X) "ABC News Special-Monday," ABC, 12.6 million viewers.
17. (28) "The King of Queens," CBS, 12.5 million viewers.
18. (45) "Crossing Jordan," NBC, 11.9 million viewers.
19. (21) "Still Standing," CBS, 11.9 million viewers.
20. (30) "The Guardian," CBS, 11.8 million viewers.
Ratings
A three-day-old white lion cub lies in the recovery room of the Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen, the Netherlands, March 25, 2003. The zoo estimates that only thirty white lions exist in the world.
Photo by Michael Kooren
'The Osbournes'
Freshly Updated - 'The Osbournes' ~ Page 4
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
