Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Or We Could Just Go with a Picture of the Comic Book Guy

June 30th, 2007 · Blogs, Comedy, Comics, Culture, Film, Internet, Journal, TV

Okay, since I always like to follow the lead of the RubberNun, I took my best shot at recreating myself as a Simpsons character (courtesy of the avatar builder at the Simpsons Movie site).

Of course, being the multi-faceted Gemini Rising type that I am, I had to do four different versions.

Simpsons avatars

Figure A: The current version, except it’s missing a beard. (Seems to me this particular avatar machine is really lacking in the department of allowing people to give themselves things like facial hair and/or glasses, unless those things were there somewhere and I just missed them. And don’t even get me started on the shameful lack of skinny ties or sparkly pins.)

Figure B: The bleached-blond look, which I’ve sported for most of the last few years. A little more New Wave.

Figure C: The Pansy Kings look from the mid 90s. Following the lead of Dominic Hamilton Little, I used throw on a little eyeliner and mascara for the early editions of The Pansy Kings’ Cotillion (and later in the 90s, sometimes to go out dancing at Planet Earth). I didn’t really qualify for the “thin” body type back then either, but I was a lot further away from the Homer build I’m stuck with now.

Figure D: Finally, because my father takes great glee in pointing out every chance he gets that apparently, these days I am 100% freaking bald and just don’t know it, here’s one for Dad where I strip away all my balding denial. Me, as my father sees me. (And if it’s not me now, it’s really just a few years away, so I might as well learn to like it … )

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Roundup: Still Life with Salmon Edition

June 28th, 2007 · Apple, Comics, Culture, Education, Energy, Film, iTunes, LGBT, Macintosh, Music, Nature, New Wave, News, Peace, Pets, Politics, Roundup, Science, Tech

Still Life with Salmon

  • POLITICS: The Washington Post brings us the fascinating story of how Cheney’s quest to undermine environmental science for political purposes led to a humongous pile of rotting dead fish. “… Because of Cheney’s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.” Via Atrios.
  • “Humpty-Dumpty world”: the same WaPo report goes on to reveal that Christine Todd Whitman actually resigned as administrator of the EPA because Cheney was trying to force her to sabotage the Clean Air Act, and she couldn’t do it.
  • Tom Tomorrow captures the jarring contrast between the grief that Iraqi children are experiencing, and Ann Coulter’s sociopathic one-liners about how little civilian casualties matter to her.
  • I’ve been a fan of James Carroll for ages now, and am really looking forward to seeing this documentary when I get the chance.
  • Obama puts the religious right on notice. If he keeps going like this he might actually start winning me back.
  • Shake hands with the clown, candidate boy: CP has the goods on Fred Thompson over at the Merguez Frites blog.
  • Mitt Romney thinks the way to take your dog along on vacation is to put him in a box strapped to the roof of the car. If he treates the country the same way he treats his dog, his presidency should be a memorable ride. As Ana Marie Cox puts it: “Who else thought this little story would end with the dog not crapping itself but, you know, dead? Also, if this really is some kind of trademark approach, I can’t wait to hear what he thinks the ‘roadmap to peace’ means. Israel calls shotgun!”
  • THE PINK SECTION: A new report documents how teachers in the UK fail to come to the rescue of gay students who are being bullied and persecuted. “Even in class, people would say: ‘Shut up, gay boy’, but the teachers wouldn’t do anything. When I lost my temper and flared up at them, I would be the one who got in trouble.”
  • John Edwards says he doesn’t feel any awkwardness about the fact that his wife Elizabeth has come out in favor of legalizing gay marriage, and he’s still in that civil unions kind of place. I suspect that there’s no awkwardness because there’s no real disagreement — just a sense that first ladies are allowed to be a little more progressive on gay issues (a tradition that goes back at least as far as Betty Ford).
  • In case you were wondering, Paolo Nutini won’t be making eye contact with you.
  • THE GREEN SECTION: The word’s first “floating wind farm” is slated to be built out in the middle of the North Sea, thanks to a partnership between a German engineering firm and a Norwegian energy group. “If successful, it could prove the perfect solution for environmental campaigners, confronted with a public that like the idea of wind power but think wind turbines are an eyesore.”
  • Mother hippo gives birth to “pygmy hippo” baby at the Paris zoo. “Aldo looks, eats and lazes like a hippopotamus — but he’s only about as big as a human baby, at 21 inches.”
  • The bald eagle is being taken off the endangered species list. That should be good news, but as Plutonium Page explains, the down side is that the bald eagle’s habitat will lose protection, and that could end up reversing all the progress that’s been made rebuilding the species over the last 40 years.
  • FILM/MUSIC: Elijah Wood has Iggy Pop’s backing to play him in an upcoming film. Quoth Mr. Osterberg: “I think Elijah [Wood]’s a very good actor though. If he can play a hobbit then he should be able to play me.” I’m trying to picture it, I really am—but somehow I keep seeing Andy Serkis in the role instead.
  • Nasty throat infection forces Morrissey to cut short and cancel gigs.
  • THE TECH SECTION: Are you ready for the “brain-machine interface”? Or maybe we could call it “machine-assisted telekinesis.”
  • The Mac’s market share continues to rise. And iTunes is now the third largest music retailer, behind only Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
  • THE COMICS SECTION: This Modern World presents the adventures of Conservative Jones, Boy Detective!
  • Tom Toles: Bush embraces alternative medicine, and how Uncle Sam gets milked.
  • Slow Poke: Robert Bork gets his day in court.
  • Does the werewolf have a castle? Louis ponders a series of important questions, courtesy of Tom the Dancing Bug.
  • Bob Geiger’s Saturday cartoon roundup is still fresh the following Thursday.

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The Cheney Presidency

June 28th, 2007 · Blogs, Energy, News, Politics

marionetteVia Tom Tomorrow, Digby once again displays her talent for perfectly articulating what the rest of us are thinking:

I know that I sound like a character in an Oliver Stone movie, (”one pristine bullet? That dog don’t hunt!” ) but I have never been sanguine about the fact that all the big money boyz and all the power brokers in the GOP traipsed down to Austin to meet that grinning moron and came away thinking he was the right choice to run the most powerful nation on earth. It makes far more sense to me that they wanted to install Cheney from the beginning (remember the energy task force?) and they needed an empty suit with a winning personality to actually run for the office. Maybe it really was a quiet coup, who knows?

It always seemed like Cheney’s “search” for the right VP candidate, before settling on himself (“I pick … ME!”), was a fairly quick and perfunctory affair. These days it’s easy to believe it was just the first of many Bush administration charades, like pretending to seek approval from the UN to invade Iraq, or that Bush is reading Camus or Tolstoy this summer. And it’s small consolation to know that one by one these charades will all be exposed to history, once their irreversible damage has been done.

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Weekend in Peoria, and a Sign of the Times

June 27th, 2007 · Books, Culture, Food, Illinois, Journal, Labor, LGBT, Meta, New Wave, Peoria, Photos, Restaurants, The Economy, Stupid, Vegetarian & Vegan

Murray Baker BridgeYou may have noticed things have been a little slow around the OcPot this week, because I spent the past weekend visiting my parents in scenic Peoria, Illinois. I’m now paying the usual price for taking a couple of days off, with everything I have to do piled up to twice its normal height. It’ll be a few more days before I’m caught up enough for Ocelopotamus to resume its usual lumbering but steady pace, I suspect.

On Sunday the P’s and I had brunch at Peoria’s River Station restaurant, which was closed for a while and has recently reopened. The River Station, as you might guess, is famous for its view of the Illinois River, which is conveniently parked right outside. The Sunday brunch buffet is fairly lavish and they sure do crank out a lot of fresh delicious waffles for you to put cherries and strawberries on.

Afterwards we took a stroll in the little park along the river, whence I took this shot of the Murray Baker bridge that connects East Peoria to Peoria as you travel along I-74. It was our traditional route into town during the years I was growing up, though it’s had a makeover or two since those days.

The Wikipedia article tells me that the Murray Baker bridge “is not up to modern Interstate standards” because “it has no shoulders.” Hey, no need to get personal. I always hated doing shoulder presses myself, so I can only imagine how hard it is for a bridge.

I hadn’t actually intended to spend Pride weekend in Peoria, away from all the festivities (they don’t exactly do a parade in Peoria, to put it mildly), but I planned my trip before I realized how early in the month Chicago’s Pride Sunday was going to fall this year. Ironically, though, on Sunday evening I looked out the window of the car and saw a giant rainbow arching above the East Peoria sky. So I guess sometimes if you don’t find Pride weekend, Pride weekend will find you.

On Monday we had brunch at One World (formerly known as One World Coffee and Cargo) before putting me on the bus back to Chicago that leaves from the nearby Bradley campus. One World wasn’t around yet during my Bradley days, but since then it’s become a major campus-area landmark. (As a matter of fact, One World is on the site of the former record store I worked at one summer, and got fired from for bringing friends in after hours to dance to the new B-52’s record. Apparently a manager was driving by and saw people jumping around in the aisles when the store was supposed to be closed. I was quietly spoken to the next day.)

One World makes a mean hummus and you can get herb-roasted tofu in salads and other dishes, which is still pretty radical for Peoria, and for that matter, Chicago.

On our way into town, as we rounded a corner in downtown East Peoria, there was a man on the side of the road holding a handmade sign up above his head. No idea if it was his first day there holding the sign, or his hundred and first. Solid-looking guy, thirties or forties maybe, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, cap and shades, smiling gamely at the oncoming traffic. Looked like he could have been an ex-Caterpillar employee, though that’s just a guess.

The sign said simply: GOT WORK?

Related: As I’m catching up on Daily Kos, I see that the Republicans in the Senate have managed to block the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for employees to unionize without company interference.

Someone explain to me again how the Republicans manage to convince large chunks of the country that they represent the interests of ordinary working people? (That’s a rhetorical question, of course, since I think Thomas Frank has already explained it pretty well.)

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Save Internet Radio Campaign Update — Day of Silence Tuesday, June 26

June 25th, 2007 · Activism, Business, Culture, Internet, iTunes, Media, News, Politics, Tech

Save Internet RadioJuly 15 is “the day the music dies” — the date that Internet radio will be essentially destroyed by new draconic royalty fees approved by the Copyright Royalties Board if Congress doesn’t take action to fix the situation.

The exorbitant new rates force stations to pay a fixed fee for every song they play, regardless of whether they’re making any profit. And even worse:

Because the current rates are retroactive to January 2006, an estimated 90 percent of Internet stations will go bankrupt as soon as the rates go into effect.

… Small Webcasters aren’t alone. Large streaming sites like Pandora, AOL Radio, Yahoo and Live365 are also facing a grim future.

Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, explains it like this. “This fee is so outrageously high that most Webcasters will have to shut down immediately,” he said. “We feel this is a power play by the big (record) labels who are trying to control an industry that is undergoing a fundamental shift; a shift from what was an industry controlled by a few powerful companies with a lot of money, to one controlled by fans and musicians. The labels are just trying to delay their own obsolescence.

For more background, Miles Raymer had a great column about this in the Reader back in May.

By the way, just in case you think this is all about being fair to musicians and making sure they get their cut, here’s the most outrageous part of it all: the industry will be collecting money supposedly on behalf of musicians and bands they don’t actually represent, who will likely never see the money.

From Miles Raymer’s Reader column:

Though the RIAA only represents the Big Four, SoundExchange collects royalties on behalf of all copyright holders whether they claim them or not — which means it can take action even against webcasters who traffic exclusively in content from indie labels that would prefer to let things slide. To prevent such action a webcaster would have to negotiate exceptions with each label individually.

That’s right. To put this in simple English: If your friend’s band records a demo and your friend hands it to you with express permission to play it on your Internet radio station, SoundExchange will still demand a huge royalty payment on behalf of your friend’s band, even though your friend has never signed any kind of agreement with SoundExchange and will never see a cent of that money.

Tell me how that’s not corporate gangsterism? In fact, there’s a historical phrase for this: “Taxation Without Representation.” And if you ask me, some serious tea needs to start hitting the harbor.

Fortunately, there’s an action step (again from the Raymer column):

What might stop it is the Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060, introduced April 26 by Washington Democrat Jay Inslee and Illinois Republican Donald Manzullo. The law would nullify the CRB’s ruling and put webcasting on the same footing as satellite radio — that is, with a royalty rate of .33 cents per listener-hour or 7.5 percent of total revenue, chosen by the provider. (According to estimates by tech site BetaNews, AOL would owe $916,000 for 2006 under H.R. 2060, as opposed to $23.7 million under the CRB’s scheme.) July 15 may seem a ways off — until this Tuesday the deadline was May 15 — but Maloney and McSwain urge everyone to call their representatives in Congress now.

So if you haven’t already done so, call your elected officials and ask them to support H.R. 2060 and sane royalty rates for Internet radio.

An article from earlier this month says that:

RealNetworks Chairman/CEO Rob Glaser, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, Live365 Chairman/CEO Mark Lam and Pandora President/CEO Joe Kennedy have sent a letter to every member of Congress asking them to take another look at the increased webcast royalty rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board in March.

Meanwhile, the SaveNetRadio Coalition has declared a National Day of Silence for Tuesday, June 26, in order to help raise awareness about the campaign:

To protest these rates and encourage the millions of net radio listeners to take action and contact their Congressional representatives, a national Day of Silence will be held June 26. Webcasters across the country will observe this day of silence in a number of ways, including dedicating entire programs to the campaign to save Internet Radio and broadcasting complete silence. For an updated list of the participants in this national day of silence, visit http://www.kurthanson.com/dos/. Webcasters who would like to participate in the day of silence, place contact the SaveNetRadio coalition at dayofsilence@savenetradio.org. Net radio listeners, please excuse the interruption of your normal programming and take action to ensure this silence is not permanent. Call your Congressional Representatives today.

Action links:

******
UPDATE: As Malcolm notes in the comments, there’s been a breakthrough.

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Music: Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime”

June 24th, 2007 · Chicago, Culture, Journal, Music, Neo-Futurists, New Wave, Performance, Theater, Video

Time to haul out a real classic.

It’s hard to explain to someone who wasn’t around, and tuned in to the new music scene, just how electrifying this video was in the first few years of the 1980s, when you’d catch it on the scattershot music video shows that existed before MTV. I still think of it as one of the three best videos of the New Wave era.

 
Of course Toni Basil’s choreography deserves a lot of the credit for the impact of this video. It exemplifies the kind of spastic movements that were so much fun to disrupt a dance floor with back in the day, and it’s filled with the kind of memorably strange gestures and motions that get stuck in your mind’s eye.

I remember one of the first times I ever saw Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, just a few months after it opened in 1988, there was a piece in the show where someone (maybe Lisa Buscani?) mimicked David Byrne’s arm-chopping motion from this video, and it was such an iconic movement that the entire audience laughed in recognition. A very end-of-the-80s moment.

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Quote of the Week

June 24th, 2007 · Culture, Essays, Foreign Policy, History, News, Peace, Politics, Terrorism

harper’s july 2007From an essay entitled “The Middle of Nowhere,” by Edward N. Luttwak, which appears in the July 2007 issue of Harper’s, reprinted there from the May issue of Prospect:

Hardliners keep suggesting that with a bit of well-aimed violence (“the Arabs only understand force”) compliance will be obtained. Yet what happens every time is an increase in hostility; defeat is followed not by collaboration but by sullen noncooperation and active resistance too. It is not hard to defeat Arab countries, but it is mostly useless. Violence can work to destroy dangerous weapons but not to induce desired changes in behavior.

(The online version of the essay is only available to Harper’s subscribers, but if you want to read the whole thing you can always pick up a copy at your newsstand. If there are any newsstands left where you live.)

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A Cat Like Fine Wine

June 24th, 2007 · Books, Cats, Culture, Media, Nature, News, Pets, Science

baby the 37-year-old catOh, my heavens. How old do you think the world’s oldest cat might be?

Try thirty-seven years. That’s right, a black cat named (ironically) Baby was born in 1970, according to his owners, and he will be recognized by Cat Fancy magazine in its August issue.

You heard me.

For those feeling as skeptical as I was when I read this, here’s a page on cat longevity that claims the Guinness Book of World Records has previously recognized a 37-year-old cat. Other cats in their 30s have apparently been documented as well.

Via Itchmo.

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Vintage TV: Serena Sings on Bewitched

June 23rd, 2007 · Comedy, Culture, Fantasy, Music, TV, Video

I don’t know why I get such a kick out of these little faux mod-psychedelic numbers from Bewitched, but I loved them as a kid and have enjoyed seeing them again on YouTube. Probably it’s because Liz is clearly having such a scenery-chewing great time performing them. And because they send the camp factor of an already campy show through the roof.

First, my favorite: Serena sings Boyce & Hart’s “I’ll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind,” from the Season 6 epsiode “Serena Stops the Show.” Video’s a little glitchy for some reason, but it’s still a good time.

 
… and here are Boyce and Hart doing the song themselves, from later in the same episode — after Serena has kidnapped, and of course, bewitched them.

 
Next up, Serena (pretending to be Samantha) does “The Iffin’ Song.” To the obvious delight of the Tates.

 
Bonus: You can listen to low-fi MP3s of both songs (and several others from the show) at the Harpies Bizarre site.

Bonus bonus: Bewitched pie fight!

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Roundup: Irish Sea Eagle Edition

June 22nd, 2007 · Blogs, Climate Change, Culture, Feminism, Film, Internet, Law, LGBT, Media, Music, Nature, New Wave, News, Politics, Roundup, Science, TV

white-tailed eagle

  • POLITICS: The Senate Judiciary committee has voted 13-3 to authorize subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program. That includes three Republicans on the committee voting in favor of the subpeonas: Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
  • Poland “stuns” other members of the European Union by demanding that the EU voting formula compensate for population losses inflicted on Poland by Germany in World War II. Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski asserted that the population-based voting system represents his country unfairly: “If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million.” Poland’s current population is 38 million. The linked article says, “Mr Kaczynski’s outburst seems certain to damage relations with his biggest EU neighbour.”
  • Ouch! That cookie jar has teeth: Florida’s Republican Lt. Governor Googles himself, finds information on a progressive wiki that makes him look bad, deletes the information, then lies about doing it, then gets caught red-handed.
  • Digby revealed: One of the left blogosphere’s best-loved writers, Digby of Hullabaloo, unmasked herself this week at the Take Back American 2007 conference in Washington. Watch her speech (or read the transcript).
  • THE GREEN SECTION: Sea eagles return to Ireland after being hunted to extinction a century ago. Fifteen young white-tailed sea eagles have been brought to Ireland by experts who will condition them for several weeks before releasing them into the wild. Naturalists are thrilled, but sheep farmers are complaining that young lambs may be in danger from the eagles. (Of course, the lambs may be in danger from the farmers as well.)
  • Meanwhile, the last forest habitats where orangutans live may be wiped out within 10 years due to illegal logging, according to a new UN report.
  • The Independent on the sudden greening of Rupert Murdoch: “In one of the most unexpected conversions since Saul of Tarsus hit the road to Damascus, Rupert Murdoch is turning into a green campaigner. He is making the whole of his worldwide operations carbon neutral and setting out to ‘educate and engage’ his readers and viewers about global warming.” Apparently he’s even bought himself a little hybrid car.
  • THE PINK SECTION: Does your hair whorl spin clockwise or counterclockwise? This “Science of Gaydar” article from New York magazine is a fascinating rundown on the various markers that may be genetic indicators of homosexuality.
  • Baby steps: Some so-called “ex-gays” and other conservative Christians may be starting to accept that homosexuality is genetic.
  • Jessica at Feministing ponders the politics of engagement rings.
  • Colombia’s civil union bill for same-sex couples has been stabbed in the back.
  • The Condom Pig Kerfuffle: CBS and Fox reject a condom ad not because it contains dumb gender stereotypes, but because it focuses on pregnancy prevention rather than disease prevention.
  • FILM: Movie projectionist fired for writing an early negative review of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer for Ain’t It Cool News.
  • MUSIC: “Former radio personality” Paul F. has been posting some terrific rarities at The New Wave Time Machine, including a Japanese Icicle Works compilation, Dave Wakeling’s wonderful solo album No Warning, a Lightning Seeds promo, Fred Schneider’s Shake Society album, and the exquisite, clarinet-embellished extended version of “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” by Soft Cell.
  • An interview with Marc Almond. Via Joe My God.
  • THE SOCK DRAWER: Scammers attempt to steal Herman Munster’s identity. I’d suggest siccing Spot, or maybe Grandpa, on them.

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The Bush Malaise

June 22nd, 2007 · Healthcare Crisis, Peace, Politics, Terrorism

Jimmy CarterGeorge W. Bush’s approval rating (26%) is now officially lower than Jimmy Carter’s was at his nadir of popularity (28%), according to Newsweek.

What do you think are the odds that in a couple of decades GWB will be highly regarded as a diplomat, author, nobel peace prize winner, and humanitarian?

Other fun facts:

The war in Iraq continues to drag Bush down. A record 73 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush has done handling Iraq … but the White House cannot pin his rating on the war alone. Bush scores record or near record lows on every major issue: from the economy (34 percent approve, 60 percent disapprove) to health care (28 percent approve, 61 percent disapprove) to immigration (23 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove). And—in the worst news, perhaps, for the crowded field of Republicans hoping to succeed Bush in 2008—50 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of terrorism and homeland security. Only 43 percent approve, on an issue that has been the GOP’s trump card in national elections since 9/11.

The article says that Nixon’s low point was 23 percent, in January of 1974, seven months before he resigned. Of course, GWB has a good year and a half left left to chip away at those last three points.

It’s a little like watching a man dance the limbo by himself.

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Doctor Who: Season Three on Sci-Fi Channel, Captain Jack, Derek Jacobi, and Whovian Pride

June 20th, 2007 · Culture, Doctor Who, Fantasy, LGBT, News, Science Fiction, TV

Tardis trioAccording to Outpost Gallifrey, The Sci-Fi channel has announced that Season Three of Doctor Who will begin its US premiere run on July 6th.

The Runaway Bride debuts at 8pm and is immediately followed by Smith and Jones at 9.30pm. Both programmes are repeated starting at 11.30pm.

The premieres come after a day of Doctor Who on the channel, with Season Two episodes being shown from 6am until 4pm.

Over in the UK, Season Three headed into its three-part finale this past weekend on the BBC with an episode called “Utopia.” Captain Jack is back on board the TARDIS for this final trio of episodes, along with the Doctor and Martha, and the legendary Derek Jacobi appeared in “Utopia” as a professor with a very old secret. The Face of Boe is all mixed up in it, too. (Say, someone really ought to make a YouTube video with various clips of The Face of Boe set to “I’ve Just Seen a Face” by The Fabs. Then again, maybe somebody already has. Oh, now I’m scared to Google it.)

Also in the UK, gay Whovians were spared having to make a horrible decision by some quick thinking on the part of the London Pride Festival’s organizers.

As reported by PinkNews, the final episode of Series Three of Doctor Who, The Last of the Time Lords, is being broadcast on the same day as the London Pride Festival, held in Trafalgar Square.

Organizers of the event, in an effort to not make gay Who fans choose between the annual celebration and the season finale of their favourite show, have come up with an interesting compromise: they plan to carry the live BBC broadcast of the episode at 7:10 p.m. on a big screen at the event’s main stage in Trafalgar Square. And if that’s not enough to get gay fans out to the event, they’ve also arranged to have John Barrowman co-host the event with Graham Norton. Barrowman will be speaking earlier in the afternoon about his role as Captain Jack on Doctor Who and Torchwood.

The event kicks off at 3:00 following the Pride parade through town and concludes with the broadcast of The Last of the Time Lords.

Wow, London Pride with Captain Jack. The only thing better would be a big pink TARDIS materializing in Trafalgar Square.

Never say never.

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“Do Not Go To Work on an Egg”

June 20th, 2007 · Advertising, Business, Comedy, Culture, Food, Health, Language, News, TV, Vegetarian & Vegan, Video

happiness is egg-shapedA British advertising watchdog has slapped down the British Egg Information Service’s attempt to bring back the famous “Go To Work on an Egg” ads from the 50s, on the grounds that they don’t promote a properly balanced breakfast.

Something like the dawning American realization that the egg is indeed edible, but maybe not so incredible. Reminds me of the breakfast scene from the movie Pleasantville. (Which in turn makes me think of Tobey Maguire … oh, focus).

Speaking as a wannabe-vegan who is constantly working to delete the remaining bits of lacto and ovo from my vegetarianism, I have to say that while the ads may not contain good nutritional advice (quelle surprise), they are nonetheless hilarious, with a very advanced sense of built-in irony considering the time period. (Or maybe it’s just that they’re British, and that amounts to the same thing, at least some of the time.)

You can watch them here.

Confession: When I first read the phrase “Go To Work on an Egg,” I first thought it meant, like, get busy eating one. And then, mere nanoseconds later, I pictured a man sitting at a tiny little desk perched on top of an egg, in the style of a Michael Sowa painting. Ah, language.
 

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Michael Moore’s Sicko: Willing To Be Patient

June 20th, 2007 · Activism, Culture, Film, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Internet, Media, News, Politics

sicko posterSo there’s lots of news buzz this week about how Michael Moore’s health care industry documentary Sicko has already been pirated to YouTube and other places, two weeks before the film’s original June 29 release date. And as a result the movie will be opening early, with sneak previews in 27 selected markets.

I think this statement about the situation from a Lionsgate spokesperson is fairly perceptive:

“The spokesperson issued a statement also given to other media outlets, saying that ‘while virtually every movie released these days faces a similar situation, ‘Sicko’ is more than just a movie, it is a call to action. We are responding aggressively to protect our film, but from our research it is clear that people interested in the movement are excited to go to the theater so they can be part of the experience and fight to reform health care.’

Personally, I’m not planning to watch it early on YouTube myself, but I can say that even if a gang of movie pirates did tie me up (in high heels) and force me to be watchin’ it ahead of time, yarrr, I’d still go to the theater and pay my admission just so I could support the film.

I think buying a ticket for this movie is a statement a lot of people are going to want to make, regardless.

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