'Best of TBH Politoons'
M Is FOR MASHUP - August 27 2007
Take Me To Your Mashers!
By DJ Useo
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: On the Right, Public Healthcare for Children is a Socialist Plot (The New York Times. Posted on AlterNet.org)
Conservative opposition to giving every child in this country access to health care is, in a fundamental sense, un-American.
Bill Gallagher: TIME RUNNING OUT FOR BUSH LEGACY WITH IRAQ DEBACLE DETERIORATING (niagarafallsreporter.com)
At best, Bush is a history dunce; at worst, he's a transparent manipulator who uses the bully pulpit of the presidency to twist historic truths and defend his present-day lies.
Robert Fisk: Spare Me The 'Ravers', But Even I Question The 'Truth' About 9/11 (news.independent.co.uk)
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience - just one - whom I call the "raver". ... the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
Jim Hightower: THE WORKPLACE BODY SNATCHERS (jimhightower.com)
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is learning the hard way that workers don't like bosses snooping on them.
Jurriaan Kamp: Can Diet Help Stop Depression and Violence? (Ode; Posted on AlterNet.org)
New research suggests that certain supplements and foods can help curb prison violence and increase academic performance in troubled students. Yet the effect of nutrition on psychological health and behavior is still controversial.
Ian Daffern: Second Life's Fab Fashionista (nowtoronto.com)
Aimee Weber virtual label gives a new look to the web world's avatars.
Calvin Godfrey: For Whom the Hell Tolls (miaminewtimes.com)
One man's madcap crusade to get a rise out of Miami's tollbooth attendants.
CONNIE TUTTLE: Don't resort to cans; eat well this summer! (tucsonweekly.com)
James Reel inspired this column. I recently ran into the Weekly arts editor at Trader Joe's. We exchanged the usual social chatter and then went on our separate shopping ways until I spotted him reach for a can (gasp!) of marinara sauce and place it in his cart.
CONNIE TUTTLE: Supermarket Club Cards (tucsonweekly.com)
As the last holdout supermarket adopts "club cards," it's time to ask: What do they want with your personal information, anyway?
Interview by Laura Barnett: Judith Jamison, choreographer (guardian.co.uk)
Q: Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?
A: I haven't had a family, but I don't think of that as a sacrifice: my dancers are my family. And I'm fortunate enough to have spent my entire career doing what I love. Not many people can say that.
Reader Suggestion
'Massive' Gem
Hey Marty!!!
Too bad they didn't find a matching one, woulda made one helluva set of ear-rings eh?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunnier and hotter.
Public Service Announcement
Jim Carrey
45-year-old actor-comedian Jim Carrey - in a rare serious mode - appears in a new public service announcement on behalf of the Human Rights Action Center and the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The goal: To free Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined by the Burmese government for 11 of the last 17 years.
"Even though she's compared to a modern-day Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, most people in America still don't know about Aung San," Carrey says in the filmed message, posted Tuesday on YouTube.
Suu Kyi, who is under long-term house arrest in the city of Yangon, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her nonviolent efforts to bring down the oppressive military regime that rules over the Southeast Asian country.
Jim Carrey
Visits Refugees In Iraq
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie visited Iraq on Tuesday to meet with refugees and U.S. troops in the country.
Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, made the visit during a two-day trip to the region, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.
The statement said the 32-year-old actress met with displaced Iraqis in neighboring Syria on Monday before crossing into Iraq for a few hours Tuesday "to see firsthand the plight of hundreds of thousands of families uprooted by the ongoing conflict."
Jolie traveled to the Al-Waleed refugee camp on the Iraqi side of the border and spoke to some of the 1,200 Iraqis living there before visiting a contingent of U.S. troops in the area, the agency said.
Angelina Jolie
Tops `Challenged' List
'And Tango Makes Three'
"And Tango Makes Three," an award-winning children's book based on a true story about two male penguins who raised a baby penguin, topped the American Library Association's annual list of works attracting the most complaints from parents, library patrons and others.
Overall, the number of "challenged" books in 2006 jumped to 546, more than 30 percent higher than the previous year's total, 405, although still low compared to the mid-1990s, when challenges topped 750.
"And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was published in 2005 and named by the ALA as one of the year's best children's books. But parents and educators have complained that "Tango Makes Three" advocates homosexuality, with challenges reported in Southwick, Mass., Shiloh, Ill., and elsewhere.
The ALA defines a "challenge" as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." For every challenge listed, about four to five go unreported, according to the library association. Krug said 30 books were actually banned last year.
'And Tango Makes Three'
Donates 'Abu Ghraib' Paintings
Fernando Botero
Paintings inspired by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison have been donated by Colombian artist Fernando Botero to the University of California, Berkeley, officials said Tuesday.
The series of 25 paintings and 22 drawings, inspired by the photographs and testimonies of Iraqi detainees, is a sharp departure from artist's images of corpulent human figures.
Botero is considered Latin America's most celebrated and commercially successful living artist and his paintings regularly auction for between one and two million dollars.
Botero turned down an offer by the Kunsthalle Wurth Museum near Stuttgart, Germany to build an additional wing to house the work, and has said that the collection should have a home either in the United States or Baghdad.
Fernando Botero
Joins Toronto Rally
Danny Glover
American actor and activist Danny Glover chanted slogans and spoke at a rally outside Rogers Communications headquarters Tuesday to demand that the company support food service workers as they try to form at union at the Rogers Centre.
"I want the owners of the (Toronto) Blue Jays to say unequivocally that they support the right of workers ... to choose whether they want a union or not," said Glover, wearing a T-shirt and hat bearing the logo of the union Unite Here, which represents workers in hotel, food service, airport concession and restaurant industries in North America.
Glover, who comes from a family of union workers, has been working with Unite Here since 1994 and has been involved in various other union efforts for much of his life.
"Around my family, around my household, whether it was meetings or whether the role that I may have played as a young kid typing out the letters that went on the newsletters or just being privy to the conversation, the union and the ideals of the union and the importance of the union became something that was ingrained in me as a child."
Danny Glover
Acquires Mencken Collection
Johns Hopkins
Nearly 6,000 books, photographs and letters by and about H.L. Mencken have been acquired by Johns Hopkins University from the estate of an accountant with a penchant for the curmudgeonly journalist known as the Sage of Baltimore.
George H. Thompson began collecting Mencken-related material in 1962 and continued until his death last year, said Cynthia Requardt, the William Kurrelmeyer Curator of Special Collections at the Sheridan Libraries.
The Ohio accountant then "branched out and collected books that reprinted Mencken works, mentioned Mencken or were inspired by Mencken."
Johns Hopkins
'I Am Back'
Sen. Tim Johnson
Sen. Tim Johnson, speaking slowly and slurring some words more than eight months after experiencing a life-threatening brain hemorrhage, announced Tuesday to state residents: "I am back."
In his first public appearance since falling ill, the 60-year-old Democrat spoke for about 15 minutes to a cheering crowd at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. As the state's senior senator was brought out in a wheelchair, he waved his left arm to the crowd, then rose to his feet.
Johnson's face and his speech clearly showed the effects of the trauma, but he used his sense of humor to assure supporters he will return to the Senate as early as next week.
Sen. Tim Johnson
Suffers Heart Attack
Bo Diddley
Ailing rock 'n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley suffered a heart attack while undergoing a medical check-up, and is in stable condition in a Florida hospital, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
The 78-year-old musician, whose distinctive rhythms and guitar style influenced rockers from Buddy Holly to the Rolling Stones and U2, felt unwell during a check-up last Friday at North Florida Regional Medical Center in Gainesville, Fla. He was transferred to the emergency room where he suffered the heart attack, spokeswoman Susan Clary said in a statement.
He underwent surgery so that a stent could be fitted to help blood flow to his heart. He was moved from intensive care to cardiac care on Tuesday morning, Clary said.
Bo Diddley
Government Bans Leading Arab Paper
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has indefinitely banned the distribution of a leading Arab newspaper, days after the paper disclosed that a Saudi extremist had played a key role in a violent Iraqi al-Qaida front group.
It was unclear if the Iraqi article was the main impetus for the ban, or merely the culmination of several weeks of disputes, mostly on other issues, between the Al Hayat newspaper and the kingdom's information minister.
Saudi officials are sensitive to criticism that extremists from the kingdom are making their way to Iraq to fight against the Shiite-led government there, although in recent months, top Saudi officials have acknowledged the problem.
Saudi officials also bristle at Western criticism that they tolerate clerics in Saudi's strict Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam who promote extremism. The Al Hayat article laid out ties between the extremist in Iraq and some Saudi clerics.
Saudi Arabia
Sues Advocacy Group
Geena Davis
Geena Davis has sued the owners of a Minnesota-based advocacy group for allegedly taking her idea for a charitable foundation and promoting it as their own.
The actress filed her lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Joseph Kelly and Nancy Gruver of the Dads & Daughters nonprofit organization, seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. Kelly is president and Gruver is executive director of the organization.
Davis, 51, said in court papers that she came up with the idea for the See Jane foundation, which encourages balanced gender representation in entertainment for children, in 2004.
She alleges that Kelly and Gruver agreed to be the project's fiscal sponsors after meeting with her and that she raised nearly $750,000 in donations. But the pair later informed her "that they were the owners of the See Jane project and whatever legal rights existed in the See Jane name and goodwill," according to the lawsuit.
Geena Davis
VH1 Renews
Scott Baio
Scott Baio will be back on VH1 with another season of "Scott Baio Is 45 . . . and Single" and a new set of issues -- this time, over impending fatherhood.
The first season of the reality show found the former "Charles in Charge" and "Happy Days" star struggling with commitment issues. The finale, which aired at 10:30 p.m. Sunday, showed Baio wrapping his two-month boot camp with his life coach, Doc Ali. At his "graduation party," Baio committed to his relationship with girlfriend Renee by asking her to get married. Renee, in turn, surprised Scott by revealing that she's pregnant.
The new season goes production in the fall and is slated to run with nine episodes (six half-hours and three hourlong installments).
Scott Baio
Makes Her Debut
Lucy
Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis, was unveiled during a media preview at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where she will be the centerpiece of an exhibit opening Friday.
"Lucy's Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia" features more than 150 religious and cultural artifacts from Ethiopia - a part of the exhibit that museum officials and the Ethiopian government worry may be overshadowed by the furor surrounding Lucy.
The decision to bring Lucy to Houston for public display spurred outrage among the world's most noted paleoanthropologists - including famed fossil hunter Richard Leakey - who say the fragile fossil could be irreparably damaged by the travel to Houston and a subsequent six-year tour.
Noted museums such as The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History in New York refused offers to exhibit Lucy. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where Lucy was studied for six years after her discovery in 1974, also refused to show her. But The Field Museum in Chicago said it was working out the final details for exhibition possibly as late as 2010.
Lucy
Lucrative Deal
'South Park'
The eye-popping $75 million pact announced Monday by Comedy Central and the creators of "South Park" may be the most prominent example of the Internet as a bona fide backend window alongside syndication and DVD. The duo of Matt Stone and Trey Parker will get a 50-50 ad split on digital platforms but not on television.
The new extension will bring three more 14-episode seasons -- the same volume Stone and Parker re-signed for in 2005. "Park" is in place now through 2011, bringing its stint at Comedy Central to 15 seasons going back to 1997.
Also part of the deal is the formation of a digital animation studio launched jointly with the Viacom-owned channel, which would participate in any new programming spawned under the venture. South Park Digital Studios would come under the Web site it launched earlier this year, Southparkstudios.com.
'South Park'
Leader Of Recall Petition Resigns
Sheriff Lee Baca
A former county employee leading an effort to recall Sheriff Lee Baca based on his handling of Paris Hilton's jail sentence has resigned.
A statement Monday from The Committee to Recall Lee Baca said Andrew Ahlering's decision to step down was based on "threats to his safety."
Ahlering had gathered just 40 of the nearly 400,000 signatures needed by December to get a recall measure on the ballot, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Sheriff Lee Baca
Killed By Doctor?
Beethoven
Did someone kill Beethoven? A Viennese pathologist claims the composer's physician did - inadvertently overdosing him with lead in a case of a cure that went wrong.
Previous research determined that Beethoven had suffered from lead poisoning, first detecting toxic levels of the metal in his hair and then, two years ago, in bone fragments. Those findings strengthened the belief that lead poisoning may have contributed - and ultimately led - to his death at age 57.
But Viennese forensic expert Christian Reiter claims to know more after months of painstaking work applying CSI-like methods to strands of Beethoven's hair.
He says his analysis, published last week in the Beethoven Journal, shows that in the final months of the composer's life, lead concentrations in his body spiked every time he was treated by his doctor, Andreas Wawruch, for fluid inside the abdomen. Those lethal doses permeated Beethoven's ailing liver, ultimately killing him, Reiter told The Associated Press.
Beethoven
Prime Time Nielsen
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for Aug. 20-26. 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. (31) "America's Got Talent," NBC, 13.94 million viewers.
2. (7) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 10.37 million viewers.
3. (22) "Without a Trace," CBS, 9.3 million viewers.
4. (20) "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 9.25 million viewers.
5. (X) NFL Exhibition: Philadelphia at Pittsburgh (Sunday), NBC, 9.2 million viewers.
6. (28) "60 Minutes," CBS, 9.05 million viewers.
7. (44) "Singing Bee," NBC, 8.88 million viewers.
8. (77) "Power of Ten," CBS, 8.7 million viewers.
9. (26) "Cold Case," CBS, 8.45 million viewers.
10. (24) "Criminal Minds," CBS, 8.3 million viewers.
11. (22) "CSI: NY," CBS, 7.85 million viewers.
12. (89) "Big Brother 8" (Thursday), CBS, 7.78 million viewers.
13. (81) "Just for Laughs," ABC, 7.68 million viewers.
14. (13) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 7.65 million viewers.
15. (98) "Big Brother 8" (Sunday), CBS, 7.41 million viewers.
16. (89) "Big Brother 8" (Tuesday), CBS, 7.3 million viewers.
17. (110) "Last Comic Standing 5," NBC, 7.25 million viewers.
18. (X) "TV's Funniest Moments" (Monday), Fox, 7.24 million viewers.
19. (110) "Just for Laughs" (Tuesday), ABC, 6.83 million viewers.
20. (X) "NFL Pre-Season Pre-kickoff" (Sunday), NBC, 6.77 million viewers.
Ratings
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