'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Zachary Lewis: Wal-Mart draws huge crowd - of applicants (cleveland.com)
Those 6,000 people were competing for some 300 positions. That means for every one person hired, 19 people walked away empty-handed. It could have been worse. In Illinois recently, Masten said, 25,000 and 15,000 people applied at two Wal-Mart stores in the Chicago area, and neither of those is a large Supercenter.
Chris Johnson: Why the market still doesn't get it (blownmortgage.com)
After a year of contraction, the market still doesn't understand risk. Now, in late November of 2007 (a year after the meltdown started) we are still closing and funding loans that we have no business closing and funding. And the industry still has a misunderstanding of what a "good risk" is. The below numbers are used with permission of my client.
Bruce E. Levine: Is Our Worship of Consumerism and Technology Making Us Depressed? (Chelsea Green Publishing; Posted on AlterNet.org)
It would be a lot easier to address the increasing rate of depression among Americans if we weren't so afraid to admit that our consumer society makes us unhappy.
Jim Hightower: THE PUBLIC RALLIES FOR MEDIA DEMOCRACY (jimhightower.com)
Halloween was especially scary this year, thanks to a truly spooky move by Kevin Martin.
Sex on wheels (guardian.co.uk)
Julie Fernandez, best known for her role in "The Office," always dreamed of love and marriage. But she feared her brittle bones would prevent her from ever having a physical relationship ...
Aimee Levitt: "Pen & Inc.: Comic-book Artists are Drawn to St. Louis" (news.riverfronttimes.com)
An expanding comic art network has over the past decade has gravitated to the city, thanks in part to Xplane Graphics and the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University, where many of the city's cartoonists met and worked together.
Jonathan Zwickel: "Billy Joel: Best Before Puberty Hits" (portlandmercury.com)
The un-ironic indie embrace of '70s and '80s pop icons extends to Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, but shirks Billy Joel.
Jon Bream: "John Fogerty is having a revival with that CCR sound" (Star Tribune [Minneapolis]; Posted on popmatters.com)
John Fogerty could not escape his past. Whenever he'd grab a guitar to write a song with a Creedence Clearwater Revival-like vibe, he'd imagine a gremlin from some Southern swamp jumping on his shoulder, shaking a lawyerly finger and threatening: "You can't do that. I'm going to sue you."
BRYCE MERRILL: The Unscene (popmatters.com)
Is it possible to make pop music without concern that it's popular? A look at paradoxes of home recording.
'We don't care if we suck' (music.guardian.co.uk)
They sing songs about love, murder and drinking - and they're putting the outlaw spirit back into country music. Amy Fleming meets the hard-living Felice Brothers.
Created on a canvas of needless pain: a poet who inspired the underbelly (books.guardian.co.uk)
It was through the late Vernon Scannell - boxer, army deserter and largely unrecognised poet - that I learned to love verse, writes Simon Jenkins.
Roger Ebert: My problem with "Blue Velvet" (From the Archives: 1986)
If you want to understand David Lynch, maybe the place to start is with his paintings. He paints in a style he describes as "bad primitive art," and says that one of his paintings works if you feel the desire to sink your teeth into it.
An Egg a Day May Keep Macular Degeneration Away (seniorjournal.com)
An egg a day may help keep age-related macular degeneration away, according to a new study that says people are better able to absorb eye-healthy lutein from eggs than any other dietary source.
New Videos!
Dick Eats Bush
Reader Comment
mr grinch observation
marty....'tis the season....
in the past six years, when I've seen the original mr. grinch on tv and I heard these words, the first person I've thought of is "you don't know dick" cheney...
"Your soul is an appalling dump heap overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable
rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots."
and bush....
"You're a three decker saurkraut and toadstool
sandwich
With arsenic sauce."
amazing how Dr. Seuss could see into the future and accurately describe our current "selected" president.and vice president.
the images I get now have put a little tinge of sadness around the edges of mr grinch and the program will never quite be the same to me again. ;-(
ducks
Thanks, ducks!
Reader Suggestion
Link from Vic
OHMYGOD...Hope they get to the ROOT of his problem!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
Honor Pickets
Democrats
The writers strike is threatening to put on ice the December 10 Democratic presidential debate hosted by CBS News as the party's front-runners say that they won't cross a picket line.
The strike also is cooling the ardor of the candidates and their spouses to appear on ABC's "The View," as the candidates and their spouses are refusing to cross the picket line to make appearances on the talker.
In separate statements or interviews before the Thanksgiving holiday, the three front-runners said that they will honor picket lines set up by the CBS newswriters if they go on strike. The candidates also appeared willing to honor picket lines set up by the Writers Guild of America.
The newswriters' union has authorized a strike but has not yet called for a work stoppage. Striking WGA West members have set up picket lines in Los Angeles and could set up pickets at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, where soap operas, "The Price Is Right" and primetime shows are produced.
Democrats
Defying Strike
Carson Daly
NBC's "Last Call with Carson Daly" is about to become the first late-night talk show to defy the writers strike and resume production.
Daly, who is not a member of the Writers Guild, will begin taping new episodes of his Burbank-based show this week for airing next week, an NBC spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
The half-hour "Last Call" airs at 1:35 a.m. EST weeknights, but whether Daly's first new episode would air next Monday or Tuesday was initially unclear. No guests were disclosed.
Carson Daly
Carson Daly Seeking Scabs
Endorses Hillary Clinton
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand, who hedged her bets months ago with donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, has settled on one presidential candidate.
It's Hillary.
"Madame President of the United States ... it's an extraordinary thought. We truly are in a momentous time, where a woman's potential has no limitations," Streisand said in a statement released Tuesday by the Clinton campaign. "Hillary Clinton has already proven to a generation of women that there are no limits for success."
Barbra Streisand
Awarded Bad Sex Prize
Norman Mailer
Writer Norman Mailer, a giant of the American literary scene and twice a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, was posthumously given the Bad Sex in Fiction Award on Tuesday.
"We are sure that he would have taken the prize in good humor," the judges said of the award to Mailer, who died on Nov 10 of kidney failure at the age of 84.
The award most dreaded by authors was established in 1993 by the late Auberon Waugh when he was editor-in-chief of The Literary Review. Previous winners have included U.S. writer Tom Wolfe and British author Sebastian Faulks.
The winning passage, which leaves little to the imagination, begins: "So Klara turned head to foot and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth and took his old battering ram into her lips."
Norman Mailer
Heading Berlin Film Jury
Constantin Costa-Gavras
Constantin Costa-Gavras, the Greek-born director of "Z" and "Missing," will head the jury at the annual Berlin film festival in February.
Italian director Francesco Rosi will get the festival's top Golden Bear award for lifetime achievement at the Feb. 7-17 event, organizers also said Tuesday.
Costa-Gavras, who lives in France and is president of the French Cinematheque, made his international breakthrough with the political thriller "Z" in 1969, which won Oscars for best foreign language film and best film editing.
In 1982, his film "Missing," starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, won a best screenplay Oscar. He also directed 1988's "Betrayed," starring Debra Winger and Tom Berenger, which focused on the militaristic right in the U.S.
Constantin Costa-Gavras
2 Stuntmen Burned On Set
Adam Sandler
An accident on the set of Adam Sandler's latest comedy burned two stuntmen.
One person was burned on his hands and legs and another on his back during filming on the Universal Studios back lot, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Sam Padilla said Monday. Both victims, whose identities were not released, were taken to a hospital, he said.
The injuries occurred during the filming of a scene for "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," said Steve Elzer, a spokesman for Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is distributing the movie.
Adam Sandler
Vote Affecting Cable TV In Jeopardy
FCC
The country's top communications regulator scrambled to save face Tuesday as fellow members of the Federal Communications Commission scuttled his effort to expand government control over cable programming.
A recent FCC report promoted by Kevin Martin (R-Rupert's Fluffer), the agency's chairman, found that cable TV reaches a wide enough U.S. audience to trigger a rule within a 1984 law that would give the government significant new powers to ensure program diversity.
But the cable industry disputes the data underlying the report and a majority of the agency's five-member commission have expressed similar doubts.
That left Martin attempting to broker a compromise with the other four commissioners on the same day the FCC was scheduled to vote on the report - a process that caused the FCC to delay the start of its meeting by more than eight hours.
FCC
Feds Cancel Customer ID Request
Amazon
Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc., newly unsealed court records show.
The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.
"The (subpoena's) chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America," U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker wrote in a June ruling.
"Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases," the judge wrote in a ruling he unsealed last week.
Amazon
Endymion Parade
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner will ride in the Endymion parade, one of the largest parades in New Orleans' Carnival season.
Endymion, one of the most popular events of the Carnival season because of its elaborate floats and celebrities, will return to its mid-city route after two years of rolling uptown in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The parade will be held Feb. 2.
Kevin Costner
Back In Muncie
Erik Estrada
Erik Estrada is back in Muncie this week for training to keep up the reserve police officer status he earned as part of the canceled CBS reality show "Armed & Famous."
"When I make a commitment to be somewhere, it's done, like gold," Estrada, 58, told The Star Press in an interview Monday. "And I'll be here next year too, and the year after that."
"And I hope, 30 or 40 years from now, God willing, that when it's time to put me in my grave, I'll go in my Muncie uniform and badge," he said.
Erik Estrada
No Charges
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan won't be charged for getting into a scuffle with a photographer last month in Malibu, authorities said Tuesday.
"There is insufficient evidence to prove this case to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt," prosecutor James Garrison said in declining to file a battery charge.
Pierce Brosnan
50-State Series Wraps In '08
Quarters
A grizzly bear clutching a salmon, the Grand Canyon at sunrise and a scissortail flycatcher in flight. Those striking images will be on the final batch of state quarters as the most successful coin program in history draws to a close.
The final five coins will start with Oklahoma, which entered the union in 1907. It will feature the state bird, the scissortail flycatcher, and the state wildflower, the Indian blanket.
That will be followed by a Zia sun symbol for New Mexico, which entered the union on Jan. 6, 1912. Arizona, admitted on Feb. 14, 1912, will be represented by the Grand Canyon and a saguaro cactus.
Alaska's coin will feature a grizzly bear wading in a stream with a salmon in its mouth while the Hawaii coin depicts King Kamehameha. Alaska and Hawaii were the last states to join the union in 1959.
Quarters
Italian Expert Skeptical
Adriano La Regina
A leading Italian archaeologist said Friday that the grotto whose discovery was announced this week in Rome is not the sacred cave linked to the myth of the city's foundation by Romulus and Remus.
The Culture Ministry and experts who presented the find said they were "reasonably certain" the cavern is the Lupercale -- a sanctuary worshipped for centuries by Romans because, according to legend, a wolf nursed the twin brothers there.
But Adriano La Regina, Rome's superintendent of archaeology from 1976 to 2004, said ancient descriptions of the place suggest the Lupercale is elsewhere -- 50 to 70 meters northwest of the cave discovered near Emperor Augustus' palace. "I am positive this is not the Lupercale," La Regina told Reuters in an interview.
Instead, he believes the cave -- which ministry pictures show is decorated with well-preserved seashells and colored mosaics -- was a room in Nero's first palace on the Palatine Hill, which burnt down in 64 AD in the great fire of Rome.
Adriano La Regina
Web Site Ranks
Stupid Gifts
From Mother Teresa breath spray to a screaming rubber chicken, manufacturers come up with stockings full of stupid gifts in time for the holidays with one Web site dedicated to finding the most idiotic.
Web site Stupid.com, which claims finding a truly stupid gift is an art form, on Monday unveiled its list of the top 10 "stupidest" holiday gifts for 2007.
"These gifts are so ridiculously stupid that everyone will want them," said Stupid.com's founder Gary Apple in a statement.
For the list: Stupid Gifts
In Memory
Mel Tolkin
Mel Tolkin, the head writer for Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows," which defined the art of sketch comedy during television's Golden Age, has died. He was 94.
Tolkin spent nearly a half-century in show business, beginning in the 1930s when he wrote revues and played piano in Montreal jazz clubs. He wrote comedy for Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye and Danny Thomas and in the 1970s was a writer and story editor for "All in the Family."
For Caesar, he contributed to the 1949 TV variety show "The Admiral Broadway Revue," and wrote for "Your Show of Shows" from 1950-54 - including its theme song - and for "Caesar's Hour," which ran from 1954-57.
As head writer on "Your Show of Shows," Tolkin worked with the likes of Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart, whose later credits include "M-A-S-H" and "Tootsie.'"
Tolkin received several Emmy nominations and shared an Emmy with several colleagues in 1967 for "The Sid Caesar,Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris Special."
He was born Samuel Tolchinsky in the Ukraine in 1913; the family moved to Montreal when he was in his teens. He studied accounting after high school but also wrote musical revues, using the name Mel Tolkin so his parents wouldn't know.
In addition to his sons Michael and Stephen, Tolkin is survived by his wife, Edith; a brother, Sol Tolchinsky; and four grandchildren.
Mel Tolkin
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