'Best of TBH Politoons'
M Is FOR MASHUP - June 18th, 2008
June Mashup Challenge
By DJ Useo
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Fight the Smears (my.barackobama.com)
SMEAR: Michelle Obama Says "Whitey" On a Tape.
TRUTH: No Such Tape Exists.
Barbara Kingsolver: "Your Money or Your Life" (humanity.org)
Honestly, it is harrowing for me to try to teach 20-year-old students, who earnestly want to improve their writing. The best I can think to tell them is: Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.
Mike Ludwig: Big campus moveout creates windfall for local 'dumpster divers' (athensnews.com)
For some, the last week of spring quarter is a hectic race to finish schoolwork and then move out of one living arrangement and into another. For others, "student move-out" is a scavenger's holiday when people from all over converge on Ohio University for a weeklong celebration of trash.
Keegan Hamilton: "OldestProfession2.0: A new generation of local "providers" and "hobbyists" create a virtual red-light district"
Here the "providers" are prostitutes - or, if you like your euphemisms, escorts - and their customers are "hobbyists." STLASP is the virtual forum in which they discuss everything from gardening to philosophy to how they prefer one another's pubic hair to be groomed.
The book wot I wrote (books.guardian.co.uk)
Whether it's adult fiction or children's stories, celebrity novelists are big business - even if they may not have actually written the words. So, wonders Stephanie Merritt, what drives 'real' authors to ghostwrite these bestsellers?
20 QUESTIONS: Rhett Miller of the Old 97's (popmatters.com)
Rhett Miller, lead vocalist in the popular alt. country / rock band, The Old 97's, chats with PopMatters' 20 Questions about Fantasy Football, his affinity for the protagonist in Wallace's Infinite Jest, and this neat little trick he does with spoons.
Michael Hamersly: The B-52s are rocking along with Cyndi Lauper (McClatchy Newspapers)
The rejuvenated B-52s - Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson - are still dancing this mess around 30 years after their deliriously wacko hit "Rock Lobster" shook up common notions of what rock 'n' roll should, and could, be.
Ben Wener: Billy Zoom puts X in perspective (The Orange County Register)
It was a little more than a decade ago that the original lineup of legendary L.A. punk band X first reunited for a torrential blowout at the Hollywood Palladium. At that point it had been 13 years since poet-songwriters-former-spouses John Doe and Exene Cervenka and drummer D.J. Bonebrake had appeared on a stage with ever-grinning guitarist Billy Zoom, whose revved-up Chuck Berry intros and stoic, spread-leg stance had been as much a signature of the group's as Cervenka's deliberately off-key caterwauling.
Colin Shoenberger: Interview with Miguel Zarate from "Step It Up & Dance" (afterelton.com)
The Bravo reality show's longest-lasting gay contestant talks about creative editing, "butching it up", and why he didn't see Cody as a threat.
Chris Vognar: Steve Carell is as surprised as anyone by his success (The Dallas Morning News)
Steve Carell pops out of his hotel suite to greet a reporter. Wearing well-tread sneakers, jeans and a modest sports coat, he could be anyone: your accountant, your neighbor, your college roommate.
Ian Caddell: For versatile Alan Arkin, a fine time to Get Smart (straight.com)
It's been 42 years since Alan Arkin first took a lead role in a film, but he admits, in an L.A. hotel room, that he is still not completely sure if he will work again. "I don't think any actor really believes he will get another job. I remember hearing a story from a best friend of George C. Scott and she was visiting him a month after he won the Oscar for Patton. She said she heard screaming and went to see what was going on. He was yelling, 'I got a job; I got a job.' So most people never get over that sense of never working again. It's a precarious life."
David Bruce: Wise Up! Gays and Lesbians (athensnews.com)
* Buffy Summers, the lead character of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," made headlines, including in "The New York Times," when she slept with a lesbian in a comic-book story in 2008, although "Buffy" creator and writer Josh Whedon says that Buffy is not gay, but only experimenting. Of course, the "Buffy" character Willow is gay, and Mr. Whedon has long been a friend of the gay and lesbian community. When Willow came out as gay in the TV series, a homophobic former fan posted a message on the Internet saying that he would never watch the show again. Mr. Whedon responded, "We'll miss you."
Talulah Bankhead was born in Huntsville, Alabama to speaker of the United States House of Representatives William Brockman Bankhead and Adelaide Eugenia Sledge. She was the niece of Senator John H. Bankhead II, and granddaughter of Senator John H. Bankhead all Democrats, Tallulah was also a staunch life-long Democrat. Once in a political "debate" with a Republican she punctuated the point she was making by delivering a swift boot to the rear of her opponent.
Reader Request
AFI's Top 10
Marty, they drag things out so much that it's painful to watch those AFI listings of Top whatever. And I never agree with them. But I AM curious. So can you please publish the movies in the Top 10 from tonight's AFI program?
Linda >^..^<
Okey-dokey.
ANIMATION
1. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937.
2. "Pinocchio," 1940.
3. "Bambi," 1942.
4. "The Lion King," 1994.
5. "Fantasia," 1940.
6. "Toy Story," 1995.
7. "Beauty and the Beast," 1991.
8. "Shrek," 2001.
9. "Cinderella," 1950.
10. "Finding Nemo," 2003.
FANTASY
1. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.
2. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2001.
3. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946.
4. "King Kong," 1933.
5. "Miracle on 34th Street, 1947.
6. "Field of Dreams," 1989.
7. "Harvey," 1950.
8. "Groundhog Day," 1993.
9. "The Thief of Bagdad," 1924.
10. "Big," 1988.
GANGSTER
1. "The Godfather," 1972.
2. "Goodfellas," 1990.
3. "The Godfather Part II," 1974.
4. "White Heat," 1949.
5. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967.
6. "Scarface: The Shame of a Nation," 1932.
7. "Pulp Fiction," 1994.
8. "The Public Enemy," 1931.
9. "Little Caesar," 1930.
10. "Scarface," 1983.
SCIENCE FICTION
1. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968.
2. "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope," 1977.
3. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," 1982.
4. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971.
5. "The Day The Earth Stood Still," 1951.
6. "Blade Runner," 1982.
7. "Alien," 1979.
8. "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," 1991.
9. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," 1956.
10. "Back to the Future," 1985.
WESTERN
1. "The Searchers," 1956.
2. "High Noon," 1952.
3. "Shane," 1953.
4. "Unforgiven," 1992.
5. "Red River," 1948.
6. "The Wild Bunch," 1969.
7. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.
8. "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," 1971.
9. "Stagecoach," 1939.
10. "Cat Ballou," 1965.
SPORTS
1. "Raging Bull," 1980.
2. "Rocky," 1976.
3. "The Pride of the Yankees," 1942.
4. "Hoosiers," 1986.
5. "Bull Durham," 1988.
6. "The Hustler," 1961.
7. "Caddyshack," 1980.
8. "Breaking Away," 1979.
9. "National Velvet," 1944.
10. "Jerry Maguire," 1996.
MYSTERY
1. "Vertigo," 1958.
2. "Chinatown," 1974.
3. "Rear Window," 1954.
4. "Laura," 1944.
5. "The Third Man," 1949.
6. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941.
7. "North By Northwest," 1959.
8. "Blue Velvet," 1986.
9. "Dial M for Murder," 1954.
10. "The Usual Suspects," 1995.
ROMANTIC COMEDY
1. "City Lights," 1931.
2. "Annie Hall," 1977.
3. "It Happened One Night," 1934.
4. "Roman Holiday," 1953.
5. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940.
6. "When Harry Met Sally ...," 1989.
7. "Adam's Rib," 1949.
8. "Moonstruck," 1987.
9. "Harold and Maude," 1971.
10. "Sleepless in Seattle," 1993.
COURTROOM DRAMA
1. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962.
2. "12 Angry Men," 1957.
3. "Kramer Vs. Kramer," 1979.
4. "The Verdict," 1982.
5. "A Few Good Men," 1992.
6. "Witness for the Prosecution," 1957.
7. "Anatomy of a Murder," 1959.
8. "In Cold Blood," 1967.
9. "A Cry in the Dark," 1988.
10. "Judgment at Nuremberg," 1961.
EPIC
1. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.
2. "Ben-Hur," 1959.
3. "Schindler's List," 1993.
4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
5. "Spartacus," 1960.
6. "Titanic," 1997.
7. "All Quiet on the Western Front," 1930.
8. "Saving Private Ryan," 1998.
9. "Reds," 1981.
10. "The Ten Commandments," 1956.
AFI: Top 10 Top 10
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Warmer and a lot more humid. Ack.
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
George Carlin
George Carlin will be awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Tuesday that Carlin will be honored for his 50-year career as a Grammy-winning standup comedian, writer and actor. The center will salute Carlin at a tribute performance by former colleagues November 10th, which will be broadcast later on PBS.
Carlin, 71, has released 22 solo albums and three best-selling books. He starred a variety of TV and movie roles and is famous for his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine.
George Carlin
Gets Marriage License
George Takei
"Star Trek" star George Takei is ready to "live long and prosper" with his partner of 21 years.
Takei will marry 54-year-old Brad Altman on September 14th in Los Angeles.
The 71-year-old actor, known for his role as Sulu on the "Star Trek" sci-fi TV series, was the first to pay $70 for a marriage license in West Hollywood early Tuesday. The marriage license is good for 90 days.
George Takei
Visits Old City of Jerusalem
Kristin Davis
In "Sex and the City," her character converts out of love for her Jewish husband, but in her first visit to the Jewish State, Kristin Davis refused to say if that was a case of art imitating life.
At a news conference, she praised Israeli women for their natural quality, love of fashion and for "being comfortable in their own skins." Davis said she was not nearly as naive or conservative as her fictional character. Still, there was no "Sex and the Old City" talk - despite some creative questions from reporters.
She also declined to discuss Israeli politics or the Mideast conflict, but when asked whom she endorsed for U.S. president she flashed a big smile and emphatically said "Obama!"
She said she and her fellow "Sex and the City" actors Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon "love Hillary", but now that Clinton was out of the picture would put their star power behind Obama.
"We are Democrats," she said.
Kristin Davis
Donates $1M To Harlem Youth Arts Center
LeRoy Neiman
Artist LeRoy Neiman has donated $1 million to create a permanent home for a Harlem community arts center.
Neiman, who is best known for his colorful and energetic paintings of sporting events and portraits of such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, The Beatles, Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra, plans to attend the ribbon cutting for the Arts Horizons LeRoy Neiman Art Center Tuesday evening.
Arts Horizons has been providing after-school arts programming for 30 years. The center will become its first permanent home. It will offer classes in painting, computer animation, photography, pottery, and video and film-making on weekday afternoons and weekends.
The center is scheduled to officially open next month.
LeRoy Neiman
Foaux Gets Animated
'Bob & Doug McKenzie'
The Fox network will help to develop "The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie," a Canadian primetime cartoon that reunites Second City TV alumni Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.
Thomas said Monday that Fox became involved in the pilot episode of a cartoon based on the SCTV characters Bob & Doug McKenzie, to be voiced by himself and Moranis.
The animated sitcom is based on the beer-addled Bob & Doug characters, who began as a two-minute SCTV skit in 1980 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
'Bob & Doug McKenzie'
Potty Mouth
Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers has said she was removed from the Loose Women show after using bad language live on air.
Rivers was talking about red carpet events and used the words "f****** s***" when talking about actor Russell Crowe.
She claimed she expected there to be a time delay so that the expletives could be bleeped out. However, she was taken off during an advert break.
She said: "I'm certainly not mellowing with age. Viewers, people have heard the word f***. People have heard it in Sex And The City, it's such a common word."
Joan Rivers
Didn't Prove Case
Jared Paul Stern
A judge has dismissed New York Post gossip columnist Jared Paul Stern's defamation lawsuit against the Daily News, supermarket mogul Ron Burkle, and Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Stern denied Burkle's claim that he'd demanded money to squelch negative news. The Clintons are friends of Burkle, and the former president complained about Stern's Page Six column. The Daily News reported on the fracas involving its rival.
Stern's lawsuit, filed in March 2007, accused Burkle and the Clintons of trying to defame and discredit him. He claimed the Daily News - along with a publicist and a former Secret Service investigator - conspired with them.
State Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub said Tuesday that Stern didn't prove his case.
Jared Paul Stern
Pleads No Contest
Taylor Dayne
Taylor Dayne has pleaded no contest to a reckless driving charge in connection with her March 6 arrest.
Beverly Hills Superior Court Judge Richard Stone ordered the entertainer to serve two years' probation and complete a Mothers Against Drunk Driving program, district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.
The singer had been charged with driving under the influence, but prosecutors decided the reckless driving charge was more appropriate, Gibbons said.
Taylor Dayne
Sadistic Bastards
Pentagon
Military officials tasked with training U.S. troops to evade enemy interrogations provided Pentagon lawyers a list of abusive tactics that could be used in prisons like Guantanamo Bay, a top Senate Democrat disclosed Tuesday.
Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the harsh techniques were then pursued despite strong objections in November 2002 by the military's uniformed lawyers.
"If we use those same techniques offensively against detainees, it says to the world that they have America's stamp of approval," said Levin, D-Mich., at the onset of a committee hearing.
The hearing is the committee's first look at the origins of the harsher methods used in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq and how policy decisions on interrogations were vetted across the Defense Department. Its review fits into a broader picture of the government's handling of detainees, which includes FBI and CIA interrogations in secret prisons.
Pentagon
Air Force Leave Extended
White Castle
Even the Air Force knows a good burger is hard to find. Aaron Kay's superior officer agreed to extend the serviceman's leave by one week so he could be on hand for the opening of a new White Castle restaurant in Livingston County.
The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell reports Kay was scheduled to return Monday to his base in Okinawa, Japan, and learned about Tuesday's planned opening in Genoa Township.
Kay says there isn't anything that comes close to a White Castle burger where he's stationed.
White Castle
War Profiteers
KBR
The senior civilian official who managed the military's largest contract in Iraq says he was reassigned in 2004 when he refused to approve more than $1 billion in charges to KBR until the Houston company provided credible spending records, The New York Times reported.
"They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify," retired Army official Charles M. Smith told the Times in a story posted on its Web site Monday night. "Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn't going to do that."
Smith said he was reassigned and that most of the payments he had questioned were later approved.
The KBR contract with the Pentagon has cost more than $20 billion so far, the Times reported. Smith, a civilian employee of the Army for 31 years, told the newspaper that he waited until after he had retired, in February, to speak out.
KBR
Ashland, Oregon
Jen Moss
A woman seen frequently in Ashland riding topless on her bicycle says she plans to be in Ashland's Fourth of July parade free and independent of all clothing but a hemp G-string. The Chamber of Commerce says that's contrary to the rules for the family celebration. She says she'll sue if she can't parade as she wishes.
Jen Moss has been known as "The Naked Lady" since she moved to Ashland in May from Ojai, Calif., drawn by the town's nudity laws. They specify only that people must cover their genitalia in a city park or the downtown commercial district, which means Moss need not cover her breasts.
The Ashland Chamber of Commerce learned of her coverage plans from an online posting. She promised to lead in-line skaters "wearing only a hemp G-string and blowing a conch shell."
Jen Moss
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for June 9-15. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (X) NBA Finals, Game 5: Boston vs. L.A. Lakers, ABC, 17.39 million viewers.
2. (X) NBA Finals, Game 3: Boston vs. L.A. Lakers, ABC, 14.51 million viewers.
3. (X) NBA Finals, Game 4: Boston vs. L.A. Lakers, ABC, 13.76 million viewers.
4. (16) "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 10.72 million viewers.
5. (13) "NCIS," CBS, 10.16 million viewers.
6. (10) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 9.42 million viewers.
7. (X) "Million Dollar Password," CBS, 9.36 million viewers.
8. (89) "48 Hours Mystery" (Tuesday)," CBS, 9.21 million viewers.
9. (27) "CSI: NY," CBS, 9.18 million viewers.
10. (52) "So You Think You Can Dance" (Wednesday), Fox, 8.91 million viewers.
11. (27) "Hell's Kitchen," Fox, 8.81 million viewers.
12. (42) "Deal or No Deal" (Wednesday), NBC, 8.62 million viewers.
13. (14) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 8.53 million viewers.
14. (39) "Rules of Engagement," CBS, 8.51 million viewers.
15. (20) "Criminal Minds," CBS, 8.32 million viewers.
16. (20) "Without a Trace," CBS, 8.2 million viewers.
17. (52) "So You Think You Can Dance" (Thursday), Fox, 8.02 million viewers.
18. (16) "House," Fox, 7.97 million viewers.
19. (20) "60 Minutes," CBS, 7.56 million viewers.
20. (52) "Bones," Fox, 7.49 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse, the long-legged Texas beauty who danced with the Ballet Russe as a teenager and starred in MGM musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, died Tuesday. She was 86.
Classically trained, she could dance anything, from a pas de deux in 1946's "Ziegfeld Follies" to the lowdown Mickey Spillane satire of 1956's "The Band Wagon" (with Astaire).
She also forged a popular song-and-dance partnership on television and in nightclub appearances with her husband, singer Tony Martin.
At 14 she auditioned for the head of the famed Ballet Russe, and became part of the corps de ballet and toured the U.S. and Europe. To appear with the nearly all-Russian company, she was first billed as Celia Siderova, than as Maria Istromena.
At one point during the European tour, she met up with Nico Charisse, a handsome young dancer she had studied with for a time in Los Angeles. They married in Paris in 1939.
The Ballet Russe disbanded after the war broke out, and the newlyweds returned to Hollywood. In 1942, a son, Nicky, was born.
In 1948, the year after she and Nico divorced, Charisse married Martin. Her second son, Tony Jr., was born in 1950.
Cyd Charisse
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