'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Suggestion
'The 4400'
Marty,
I've heard good things about a new series called "
The 4400" on
USA network. It premiered on Sunday but there are repeats scheduled all week.
It's about 4400 misssing people who suddenly reappeared. If there's interest, you might want to include it in your ever-expanding list.
BTW: There's another very good cable channel called 'Trio'. They have weekly themes like 'Brilliant but Cancelled". Check it out.
Cheers,
Charles W
Thanks, Charles!
I'll try to remember to include 'The 4400' in the Sunday listings.
I've heard of Trio, and their
schedule looks promising, but they aren't on our
Dish.
OTOH, Dish does offer
Freespeech, and it's a nice addition.
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
Today
Bastille Day
Reader Link
'George Says'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another toasty day, with a bit too much humidity.
This afternoon, starting a bit after 2, a bunch of LA TV stations went off the air. I've lived places where that isn't out of the norm, but by LA standards, it should be a big deal.
Was watching the 2pm news on KCAL9 (the 'sister' station of KCBS), when they went to snow. Finally realized it wasn't going to be short outage & took a spin around the dial - KCET (PBS), KTBN (Jan & Paul Crouch/Jezuz),
KDOC (Orange County independent) & KLCS (PBS) were all off the air.
KCAL returned about an hour later, and I got busy with other stuff.
Then, later, during 'Jeopardy,' KABC went off the air - lost the entire 2nd segment (where they finish regular 'Jeopardy').
WTF - the 2nd largest TV market in the nation can't even stay on the air?
And weirder still that they all had outages on the same day, mostly at the same time.
Software developer Ken Jennings from Salt Lake City, Utah, right, poses for a photo with Jeopardy host Alex Trebek on the set of the show Tuesday, July 13, 2004, in Culver City, Calif. Jennings soared beyond the one million dollar cash-winning milestone Tuesday, marking his 30th consecutive appearance on the show, winning a total so far of $1,004,960. A rule change introduced in the Fall of 2003 lifted Jeopardy's five-day win limit, allowing contestants the opportunity to continue earning winnings as long as they remain victorious.
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The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Ending Column Next Month
Walter Cronkite
When King Features Syndicate signed Walter Cronkite in 2003, it knew he might write his weekly opinion column for only a year.
That turned out to be the case. As New York Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove reported today, Cronkite's last piece will be sent Aug. 11 to his 180-plus newspapers. Cronkite told Grove it was hard to fit a column into a schedule already packed with giving speeches, working on documentaries, and traveling. Cronkite also wanted more time to spend with his family, go boating, and play tennis.
Walter Cronkite
Renaming Radio Show
Al Franken
Al Franken's radio show, "The O'Franken Factor," is changing its name to "The Al Franken Show."
The new, more typical, show name was chosen over candidates such as "The O'Limbaugh Factor" and "The O'President Bush Factor," Franken said in a statement Monday.
The 53-year-old comedian said he's changing the name because "no matter how hard we tried, conservative entertainer Bill O'Reilly wouldn't sue us."
Al Franken
Unhappy with Bush
Donald Trump
Billionaire Donald Trump, famous for telling contestants "You're Fired" on his hit show "The Apprentice,"' is not happy with the Bush Administration's handling of the Iraq war.
In an interview for the August edition of Esquire Magazine to be published on Friday, the magazine says he makes it clear the administration would never keep a job with him.
"Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?," Trump said.
"C'mon. Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he'll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn't have," Trump said in excerpts of the interview released in advance to Reuters.
"What was the purpose of the whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and no legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!," Trump said.
Donald Trump
U.S. guitarist Carlos Santana speaks during a press conference, prior to his second concert, at the 38th Montreux Jazz Festival, in Montreux, Switzerland, Tuesday, July 13, 2004.
Photo by Laurent Gillieron
Bias on Faux News?
Outfoxed
A new documentary backed by liberal political groups aims to document that the Fox News Channel is anything but "fair and balanced," despite the cable-news network's motto.
The film, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," draws on clips compiled during weeks of round-the-clock taping of the network to demonstrate what the filmmakers believe is a pattern of right-wing bias and support for the Republican agenda.
For the rest, Outfoxed
'Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism'
Lost 'Mal Evans Archives'?
Beatles
A vacationer who purchased a suitcase at an Australian flea market found a trove of Beatles memorabilia inside, including photos, concert programs and unreleased recordings, The Times newspaper reported Tuesday.
While the materials have yet to be authenticated, some experts believe the collection is the lost "Mal Evans archive," originally belonging to the Beatles' roadie and sound recordist.
Evans was killed by police in Los Angeles in 1976 after he had brandished a fake gun. The contents of the suitcase were lost during the police investigation, The Times said.
Fraser Claughton, 41, from Tinkerton, England, found the suitcase in a small town outside of Melbourne, The Times said. Realizing the suitcase was not empty, he bought it for about $36.
Beatles
Fighting AIDS More Important Than Tibet
Richard Gere
Hollywood movie star Richard Gere said the AIDS fight was more important to him than the Tibet issue, adding he had wept for the plight of infected youths since arriving here for a global summit.
Gere made the comments during a discussion on AIDS awareness and the media, taking a swipe at tough media censorship on condom awareness under the Bush administration.
"We may well have hopefully another administration in about four months in the US and along with that some sanity on this subject," Gere said.
Richard Gere
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Networks to Cover on Web
Conventions
ABC and CBS said Monday they would offer gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions this year over the Internet as well as periods of prime-time coverage over their broadcast networks.
Both ABC News and CBS News will offer one hour of prime-time coverage on three nights of each convention.
CNN said it will broadcast live from the Democratic National Convention in Boston until 1 a.m. each day, interspersing coverage with other news reports, said spokeswoman Edie Emery.
The cable channel also will offer live updates during the day and will be shifting its news shows, including "Inside Politics" and "Larry King Live," to the convention city. The coverage in New York, where the Republican National Convention will be held, will be similar.
Brit Hume will be the convention anchor for Fox News Channel, which will air live from Boston from 3-5 p.m. and 6-11 p.m. EDT with updates during the day, said spokesman Paul Schur. He said Fox is increasing its convention coverage by about a third compared to 2000.
PBS has said it will broadcast from 8 to 11 p.m. EDT every night of both conventions.
Conventions
Billboard Dispute
Clear Channel
Clear Channel was sued on Monday by public interest group Project Billboard, which has a $368,000 contract for the sign on the Marriott Marquis Hotel. However, a lawyer for Clear Channel told a hearing on Tuesday it had to reject the display because Marriott prohibits political advertising on its billboard.
The sign was to read "Democracy is best taught by example, not by war," accompanied by a picture of a bomb with lighted fuse decorated in Stars and Stripes. The contract called for it to be posted from Aug. 2 until Election Day in November, a period including the Republican National Convention this summer.
The suit charged that Clear Channel Outdoor, a division of Clear Channel that leases billboard space, rejected the group's plan, saying the display was of a "political nature and includes an image that is distasteful to the community."
Project Billboard said it had offered to substitute the image of a dove for the bomb.
Clear Channel
This picture released in London by auctioneers Bonham's Tuesday, July 13, 2004, shows the prop of the extraterrestrial which burst out of John Hurt's Stomach in the 1979 chiller Alien. It was sold at Bonham's for 29,875 pounds (57,000 US dollars) to singer Chris de Burgh in London Tuesday.
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Pardon Sought
Jack Johnson
Researching a documentary on Jack Johnson, filmmaker Ken Burns decided that racism, not justice, sent the first black heavyweight boxing champion to jail nearly a century ago.
Burns decided to seek a presidential pardon. On Tuesday, civil rights leaders and Sens. John McCain and Orrin Hatch joined him to announce the filing of legal papers with the Justice Department.
Burns' documentary on Johnson, titled "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," will air on PBS in January.
Jack Johnson
Wary Of Flag-Waving Themes
Olympic Sponsors
With the Summer Olympics in Athens barely a month away, advertisers, athletes, NBC and the U.S. Olympic Committee are still trying to resolve concerns over drugs, security and global politics. And with relations between the U.S. and much of the world strained, sponsors of the Games are changing their tune this time around, tempering their patriotic tones.
Marketing efforts this year favor a more unifying and less controversial theme: rallying behind American athletes.
Many of the clients who will dominate Olympics broadcasts in the U.S. have major investments worldwide, including Anheuser-Busch, Visa, McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Xerox. (Worldwide rights cost as much as $50 million.) So, even during an Olympic year, analysts say, a jingoistic approach would be counterproductive.
Olympic Sponsors
Signs Record Deal
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan, the 18-year-old star of "Mean Girls," "Freaky Friday" and "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen," has signed a record deal with Tommy Mottola's Casablanca Records.
No other details were released, but if her singing voice - heard on the "Freaky Friday" and "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" soundtracks - is an indication, Lohan's tunes will probably be pure pop.
Lindsay Lohan
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
NBC Sues
Pat O'Brien
NBC Universal filed suit on Tuesday to keep veteran TV personality Pat O'Brien from promoting a new entertainment news program for a rival company while still under his old contract.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied the company's request for an immediate restraining order but set a hearing for July 23 on the dispute, NBC Universal Television Distribution said in a statement.
Despite the dispute over his "Access Hollywood" contract, O'Brien is scheduled to host the first week of NBC's late-night Olympics coverage in mid-August, and a network source said that arrangement would not be affected by the suit.
Pat O'Brien
Thai model Pathumthip Phathanathiensakul wears a collection of colorful condoms simulating an orchid in her hair as she works in the commercial area Tuesday, July 13, 2004, at the 15th AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Condoms have been promoted as a frontline defense against AIDS by countries such as Thailand where a campaign to get sex workers to insist on condoms yielded a more-than-sevenfold reduction in HIV rates in 13 years.
Photo by David Longstreath
Israeli Singer Protests Shrek
David D'Or
The Hebrew version of the animated hit movie Shrek 2 narrowly avoided being banned from the big screen after it used the name of singer David D'Or as a synonym for castration. D'Or petitioned a Tel Aviv court Tuesday to ban the Hebrew-dubbed version of the film that used the phrase "Let's David D'Or him" when one character suggests neutering another.
D'Or, who represented Israel in the Eurovision song contest, has a high falsetto voice.
The judge refrained from barring the film after the Israeli distributor said that a new translation was already being used in cinemas and promised not to use the D'Or version.
"This film is going to immortalize me as a eunuch ... and make me an object of ridicule," D'Or told the Yediot Ahronot daily before the decision.
David D'Or
Starting Reality Channel Next Year
Faux
Fox is planning to start the Fox Reality Channel early next year, perhaps moving to the front of the suddenly crowded sweepstakes of networks looking to capitalize on the format.
The new network will air a mix of original series and reruns of series like "Joe Millionaire" and "Temptation Island."
Fox joins Reality Central, which is set to begin later this year, and Reality TV, which airs only on the Dish Network, in the competition to be the go-to place for fans of the popular genre.
Faux
Actors & Producers Reach Deal
Broadway
The lights are on, the curtains are up and Broadway's actors and producers have a new labor agreement.
Actors' Equity Association and the League of American Theatres and Producers reached a tentative settlement Monday on a new four-year production contract, an agreement hammered out after lengthy and often acrimonious negotiations.
Broadway
File photo dated June 21 2004 of a male and female Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE; blue), a male and female Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE; silver) and a male and female Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE; gold) photographed together at St James's Palace. A parliamentary committee recommended Tuesday July 13th 2004 that Britain modernize its honors system by doing away with knights and dames, calling them 'redolent of past preoccupations with rank and class,' and dropping references to the British Empire.
Photo by Johnny Green)
Break Silence
Bush Twins
Shielded for years from public view, resident Bush's twin daughters have broken their silence in an interview describing a karaoke party at Camp David and how they surprised their father by deciding to join his campaign.
"Strangely, politics and family life never crossed," said Jenna in the interview, which will appear in Vogue's August issue and includes a glossy photo spread featuring the twins posing in formal dresses as well as more casual clothes.
Jenna said her mother would tell them to clean their bedrooms. "I call her OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) to her face, but I'm glad now because some of it's rubbed off on me," she said.
Jenna also described how the resident interacted with the girls' boyfriends. "He's not the shotgun-dad type, he's the joking-around-to-the-point-where-he-scares-the-heck-out-of-them type."
For the rest, Bush Twins
Tabby Gets Military Rank After Iraq Tour
Pvt. Hammer
Fort Carson Staff Sgt. Rick Bousfield of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team had a mission: Saving Pvt. Hammer.
Pfc. Hammer is an Iraqi tabby cat the unit adopted after he was born last fall at a base in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
When Bousfield learned his unit was going, he sent an e-mail to Alley Cat Allies, a national clearinghouse of information on stray cats, asking for help bringing Hammer along.
Bousfield met the kitten at the airport.
Pvt. Hammer
In Memory
Dorothy Hart
Actress Dorothy Hart, who appeared in more than a dozen feature films including the 1948 Oscar-winner "The Naked City," died Sunday at age 82.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Hart's break came in 1944 when she won Columbia Pictures' "National Cinderella Cover Girl" contest. That led to modeling assignments and film acting, starting with the 1947 western "The Gunfighters," starring Randolph Scott.
Hart went on to appear in a string of features for Columbia, including "I Was A Communist for the FBI," "Countess of Monte Cristo" and "Larceny."
In 1952, she was honored as one of America's top ten actresses. But she wasn't happy with the movie industry's direction.
"I felt that some of the movies were mediocre, and I was contributing to that mediocrity," she said in a 1988 interview with the Asheville Times.
Her final features were in 1952: "Tarzan's Savage Fury" and the film noir drama "Loan Shark" starring opposite George Raft.
Hart continued to perform on television in network dramatic series such as "Medallion Theatre" (in 1953, in which she co-starred with Ronald Reagan), "Four Star Playhouse" and "Goodyear Television Playhouse." She was also a regular guest on such long-running game shows as "I've Got A Secret," "Stump The Stars" and "Mike Stokey's Pantomine Quiz."
She helped promote the United Nations starting in the early 1950s as a frequent guest speaker.
She divorced and retired from acting in 1966 when she moved to Asheville, where her parents lived.
Survivors include her son Douglas Pittera of Fairfield Conn., three grandchildren and her sister, Elizabeth Akers of Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Dorothy Hart
A Tibetan competes in a horse racing during the traditional Onggo Festival in Maizhokunggar County, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Tuesday, July 13, 2004. The annual festival is celebrated to greet the forthcoming harvest.
Photo by Gesan Dawa
'The Osbournes'
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