'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Weekly Review
HARPER'S WEEKLY REVIEW
September 2, 2003
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain testified before the
Hutton inquiry and denied the BBC's claim that his aides had
"sexed up" his dossier on Iraq's purported weapons of mass
destruction; Blair said he would have resigned if the story
had been true. Alastair Campbell, Blair's powerful director
of communications, announced his resignation but claimed it
had nothing to do with the dossier scandal.
American soldiers continued to die
in Iraq, and the number of Americans killed since resident
George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier to declare that
"major combat operations" in Iraq were over exceeded the
number killed during the war.
Condoleezza Rice, the
president's national security adviser, compared the Iraqi
guerrillas to the Nazi Werewolves who resisted the Allies
after World War II; Rice pleaded for patience and suggested
that building democracy in Iraq might take a very, very long
time. "Our own history should remind us that the union of
democratic principle and practice is always a work in
progress. When the Founding Fathers said, 'We the People,'
they did not mean me. My ancestors were considered
three-fifths of a person."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revealed that Brown and
Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick
Cheney's old company, has received more than $1.7 billion in
military contracts in Iraq, far more than was previously
known. It was noted that the practice of outsourcing
logistical operations to private contractors was pioneered
by Cheney during the first Gulf War when he was secretary of
defense. Brown and Root won the first such contract, and
Cheney was hired as CEO of Halliburton soon afterward.
Continued at www.harpers.org/weekly-review
--Roger D. Hodge
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The terrific weather is still holding.
The e-mail problems are slowly calming down.
Letterman was just introduced as 'the man who has never dropped a dog in his life'.
Today is the kid's first day of 5th grade. He's about as excited as I remember being.
Tonight, Wednesday, CBS begins the evening with a FRESH 'Big Brother 4', followed by 'The 4th Annual Latin Grammy Awards'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Gen. Tommy Franks and Rodney Crowell.
On a RERUN Craiggers are Dakota Fanning, "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker, and Dido. (RERUNs all week)
NBC starts the night with a RERUN 'Law & Order', followed by a RERUN 'West Wing', then another RERUN
'Law & Order'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Terry Bradshaw, John Vincent and his 600-lb. performing pigs, and Queens of the Stone Age.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Jon Lovitz, Wilmer Valderrama, and Jet.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Max Kellerman, Fat Joe, and Ween.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN 'My Wife & Kids', followed by a RERUN 'George Lopez', then another RERUN
'George Lopez', followed by a FRESH 'Drew Carey', then a FRESH 'The Family'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Junior Senior, with this week's guest co-host Mr. T.
The WB offers a RERUN 'Smallville', followed by a RERUN 'Angel'.
Faux has a RERUN 'That 70's Show', followed by a RERUN 'Simpsons', then a FRESH 'Parasite Hotel'.
UPN has a RERUN 'Enterprise', followed by another RERUN 'Enterprise'.
Check local PBS listings for 'American Masters: Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the Blacklist'.
A&E has 'Biography' (Muhammad Ali), 'American Justice', and 'Take This Job...'.
AMC offers the movie 'Donovan's Rdef', followed by the movie 'The Hunter', then the movie 'To Hell and Back'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Behind the Screen' - Manchild;
[7pm] 'Ground Force' - Kirby Hill;
[7:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Hull;
[8pm] 'Homefront in the Garden' - Derby;
[8:30pm] 'Homefront in the Garden' - Stoke Newington;
[9pm] 'My Hero' - Episode 2;
[9:40pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 5;
[10:20pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 6;
[11pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Phil Collins;
[11:30pm] 'So Graham Norton' - Alice Cooper;
[12am] 'My Hero' - Episode 2;
[12:40am] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 5;
[1:20am] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 6;
[2am] 'Homefront in the Garden' - Derby;
[2:30am] 'Homefront in the Garden' - Stoke Newington;
[3am] 'So Graham Norton' - Phil Collins;
[3:30am] 'So Graham Norton' - Alice Cooper;
[4am] 'My Hero' - Episode 2;
[4:40am] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 5;
[5:20am] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 6; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Cher's Farewell Tour', then another 'West Wing', followed by another 'West Wing'.
On a RERUN Jon Stewart, it's TBA. (RERUNs all week)
History has 'Modern Marvels' all night.
SciFi has 'Tracker', followed by the movie 'Deep Shock'.
TCM -
[6am] 'MGM Parade Show #18' (1955);
[6:30am] 'The Lusty Men' (1952);
[8:30am] 'They Won't Believe Me' (1947);
[10am] 'Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman' (1947);
[12pm] 'Tokyo Joe' (1949);
[1:30pm] 'Chain Lightning' (1950);
[3:15pm] 'The Glass Key' (1942);
[4:45pm] 'Joan Of Paris' (1942);
[6:30pm] 'The Badlanders' (1958);
[8pm] 'North By Northwest' (1959);
[10:30pm] 'The Deadly Affair' (1966)
[12:30am] 'East Side, West Side' (1949)
[2:30am] 'Gun Law' (1938);
[3:30am] 'Parnell' (1937); and
[5:30am] 'Festival of Shorts #24' (2000). (ALL TIMES EDT)
Two week-old cheetah cubs are presented to the media during a briefing at the Nairobi Animal Orphanage at the Kenya Wildlife Service headquarters, September 1, 2003. The cubs that were found wandering around without their parents at Kenya's Tsavo East national park are being cared for at the center.
Photo by Patrick Olum
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Rated Top TV News Moment
Armstrong's Moonwalk
American astronaut Neil Armstrong's moonwalk is the most popular piece of film footage, a poll published by Britain's ITN archive showed on Tuesday.
The lunar footage topped a list of the 20 most requested clips in the television news archive, the world's biggest, beating U.S. President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination into second place and the attacks of September 11, 2001 into third.
Fourth, fifth, and sixth places went to British events -- Princess Diana's funeral in 1997, England captain Bobby Moore lifting the soccer world cup in 1966 and the siege of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980.
Seventh was Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, followed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's resignation in 1990.
Armstrong's Moonwalk
Man With An Opinion
Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins, in Venice to present the world premiere of his latest film "Code 42," said his vehement opposition to the war earlier this year had not damaged his Hollywood career.
"I think the recent controversy was a gift. It provided an opportunity to speak out about free speech," said Robbins, who added that others in Hollywood and across the United States had wanted to publicly oppose the war -- but chose not to.
"Freedom of speech starts with you opening your mouth and people often abdicate that freedom in their mind.
"They choose not to speak. Once you choose not to speak, you might as well not have it," he said.
Tim Robbins
Takes on Race, Terror & Bush
'Whoopi'
Whoopi Goldberg's new NBC sitcom features an Iranian immigrant unhinged by terror alerts, a conservative black lawyer with a hip-hop-talking white girlfriend and jokes about President Bush mispronouncing "nuclear" (as NEW-kyoo-ler).
So far, NBC hasn't blinked.
In fact, says the Oscar-winning actress, executives at the General Electric Co.-owned network think she could even be "a little riskier."
"They're fearless about what it is we're trying to do. We haven't heard from anyone saying, 'No, you can't do this,"' she said.
That also goes for some of the more unsavory aspects of the character she plays on "Whoopi" -- Mavis Raye, a tart-tongued, menopausal former singer turned hotelier in New York City who smokes like a chimney and drinks on the job.
For more, 'Whoopi'
Tomoko Iino drinks Coca Cola out of an aluminium can with a screw cap in Tokyo August 27, 2003. Since Daiwa Can Company, Japan's largest can maker, launched the new can in late 1999, Japanese sales have jumped to 1.7 billion in 2002 from 240 million bottle cans in 2000 and are set to grow to two billion in 2003. Picture taken August 27.
Photo by Yuriko Nakao
Shows Paint It Green
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are turning the British dates of their European tour into a hit for the environment with the planting of thousands of trees to offset the carbon dioxide emissions.
The scheme, run by British-based firm Future Forests, calculates the emissions according to venue size, distance between concerts and travel to the events.
It said it would take one tree to offset the emissions from 57 fans. Over the nine British dates, the Stones will perform to around 160,000 fans, meaning more than 2,800 trees will be planted in Scotland.
Tour sponsor T-Mobile is footing the bill. Company spokesman Patrick Barrow said the scheme had the band's backing: "They are very much in favor of this."
Rolling Stones
Vivendi & GE Discuss Merger
NBC Universal
General Electric Co.'s NBC emerged the winner Tuesday of a tortuous, months-long contest for the entertainment assets of Vivendi Universal, which include a major movie studio, three cable channels, a television studio and several theme parks.
NBC and Vivendi said they intend to combine the assets into a new company, which would most likely be called NBC Universal, though a final deal has yet to be worked out. The companies expect to complete the last phase of talks by the end of the month.
A merger, should it come to pass, would create a major media player with $13 billion in annual revenues that would include NBC's television network, an array of cable networks like MSNBC, CNBC, USA and Sci-Fi, and Universal Pictures, whose recent films include "Seabiscuit" and "The Hulk."
For NBC, the deal would give the network more heft in an industry dominated by titanic companies like AOL Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc., which owns MTV and CBS. NBC has been the only major network not owned by a larger media conglomerate. Walt Disney Co. owns ABC and News Corp. owns Fox.
For the details, NBC Universal
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Hawaii Concert
Rock Pioneers
A concert featuring rock 'n' roll legends Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard is coming to Hawaii next month.
The trio of American music pioneers will perform at the Blaisdell Arena on Oct. 25. Ticket information will be announced this week, according to a report in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
All three men are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Rock Pioneers
Square yeast doughnuts are displayed on a tray at the Square Donut shop in Terre Haute, Ind. The logic behind the doughnuts is that square doughnuts maximize the number of pastries on a preparation tray.
Photo by Darron Cummings
A Minority Taste?
Woody Allen
Veteran film-maker and serial neurotic Woody Allen conceded that the intellectual nature of his oeuvre has made him a minority taste in the United States and that few new directors there want to emulate him.
"By most people in the US, I am very reluctantly acknowledged as someone who has been around for a long time. And they frankly cannot understand what the fuss is about. They're kind, but very very unimpressed," he said.
Allen said he recently remarked to fellow New York director Martin Scorsese that all the up-and-coming US film-makers he knew claimed to be influenced by Scorsese and not by him.
"I don't mind this. It is just a fact. Every young film-maker I know is inspired by him and wants to make films like him. You can see them all over the place. But I do not see it of myself," he said.
Woody Allen
Darkens Venice Film Festival
Censorship
Censorship of defiant new movies cast a cloud over the Venice Film Festival after one Iranian director was blocked from leaving his country and another had his film seized.
"They didn't even see my film before they confiscated it," Babak Payami, who managed to smuggle a digital video copy of his movie out of the Islamic republic, said on Tuesday.
Payami presented his new film "Silence Between Two Thoughts," about a Taliban soldier who is ordered to rape a female prisoner, at Venice's 60th annual festival.
His countryman Abolfazl Jalili never even made it to the lagoon city because he was blocked from leaving Iran after officials saw a copy of his film "Abjad" ("The First Letter") about a Muslim teenager in love with a Jewish girl.
"We haven't heard from him for two days now, but we don't think he's been arrested, we think he is just worried about his family and has decided it's best not to talk to us," Jalili's press agent said.
For more, Censorship
McDonald's Newest Shill
Justin Timberlake
McDonald's Corp. said it signed pop star Justin Timberlake for a global advertising campaign it launched on Tuesday, as it seeks to connect with younger customers and head off stiff competition.
Timberlake, formerly of the U.S. band 'N Sync, will sing vocals for some of the English-language spots in the campaign, the world's largest fast-food company said.
Executives for McDonald's, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, declined to provide the cost of the campaign or Timberlake's contract, which includes sponsorship of a 35-country tour by the singer.
In 2002, McDonald's spent about $548.2 million on advertising, according to trade publication Advertising Age.
Justin Timberlake
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
First U.S. Newsreel - 1914
Pancho Villa
Long before MTV's "The Real World" set off the modern reality television craze, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa fought battles with an American camera crew in tow, in 1914.
He hoped his $25,000 deal with the Mutual Film Company of New York would get him good publicity in the United States and money to buy arms and supplies for his Northern Army to continue his fight against nationalist Huerta forces.
The exclusive battlefield footage created the first U.S. newsreel, but like most reality shows, all was not as it seemed. Certain battles and executions were staged for the cameras. Villa's skin was lightened for scenes. His hair was styled to make him more appealing to American audiences.
For a good read, Pancho Villa
A Tibetan pilgrim (C) spins her prayer wheel as others prostrate themselves during a prayer session in front of Tushilumpo Monastery at the headquarters of Shikatse Prefecture in Tibet on August 24, 2003. Tushilumpo Monastery, built in 1477, is the home of the Panchen lama. China says Tibetan Buddhists are allowed to workship with total freedom but Tibetan activitists overseas say religious activity is strictly controlled.
Photo by Guang Niu
Sued by Limo Service
50 Cent
The owner of a Mobile limousine service has sued rapper 50 Cent, claiming some of the star's security guards roughed him up and commandeered his vehicle after a March concert.
According to the lawsuit, filed in Mobile County Circuit Court, Johnny Bonner drove at least three members of 50 Cent's security staff from their hotel to the University of South Alabama Mitchell Center for a March 13 show.
Bonner's attorney, Eaton G. Barnard, said that after the show, a crowd of fans around the rapper's motorcade made it difficult for Bonner to follow the vehicle carrying 50 Cent. When Bonner tried to take a different route back to the hotel, Barnard said, the security men attacked him, threw him in the rear seat of the GMC Yukon and drove "recklessly" back to the hotel.
The lawsuit alleges Bonner suffered bruised ribs, fear and emotional distress. It seeks unspecified damages from Curtis Jackson, better known as 50 Cent; from three unidentified security men; and from unidentified parties responsible for hiring and supervising the men.
50 Cent
Red Faces All Round
Miss Italy
Rash-reddened cheeks, puffy eyes and tears of despair -- not quite the look contestants at the Miss Italy semi-finals might have hoped for on their big night, but exactly what many of them got.
Decorative metallic patterns stuck onto the girls' skin combined with heat and sweat may have triggered the nasty skin reaction in 40 of the 100 contestants at the weekend event, Italian media reported Monday.
"It will last 72 hours at the most. Of course it depends on the individual reaction of each person but with treatment it should be gone fairly soon," Rome-based daily Il Messaggero quoted dermatologist Benedetto Marinangeli as saying.
Organizers of the event were quick to say that the make-up misfortune had no effect on the end results as finalists had already been chosen before the rashes flared.
Miss Italy
Flown to Africa to Learn to Hunt
Tiger Cubs
A pair of South China tigers named Cathay and Hope will travel from a cramped enclosure at Shanghai Zoo to a 1,235-acre reserve in South Africa.
"There's room for them to move there. But the goal is to bring them back to China, where they have lived for millions of years," Li Quan, founder of the Save China's Tigers Foundation, told reporters while the animals transited through Hong Kong airport.
Quan said there were experts in South Africa with experience in teaching big cats born in captivity how to survive in the wild.
Tigers, which are found only in Asia, are disappearing because of the destruction of their natural habitat and because of demand for products such as tiger penis, believed in parts of Asia to enhance sexual potency.
Tiger Cubs
In Memory
Rand Brooks
Actor Rand Brooks, who played Scarlett O'Hara's shy first husband, Charles, in "Gone With the Wind," died Monday of cancer. He was 84.
Brooks died at his home with his wife, Hermaine, at his bedside, family friend Dawn Moore said Tuesday.
Brooks endeared himself to Western fans of the 1940s and 50s as sidekick Lucky Jenkins in the Hopalong Cassidy movies and Cpl. Randy Boone in the TV series "Rin Tin Tin."
But it was as Charles Hamilton, Melanie Wilkes' doomed brother in "Gone With the Wind," that he achieved immortality.
One of his most memorable moments on the big screen came in 1948 when he was opposite a fledgling actress named Marilyn Monroe. Brooks boasted that he gave the sultry star her first on-screen kiss.
After he left show business, he ran an ambulance service that became the largest private ambulance provider in Los Angeles County. He sold the company in 1994 and retired to the Santa Ynez Valley.
Rand Brooks
Flowers decorate the Walk of Fame star of actor Charles Bronson, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Bronson was 81 when he died Saturday of pneumonia in Los Angeles.
Photo by Ric Francis
'Ark of Darkness'
"The Ark of Darkness", a Political/Science-Fiction online novel.
'The Osbournes'
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