TXB MIA

So I tried to call Tim last night, and I get a message saying that the number was temporarily disconnected. I figure that the government has erased his existence. That last post was the last straw.

Waitress

I saw that movie "Waitress" today with Keri Russell and the late Adrienne Shelly, who also wrote and directed it. It was delightful. And I don't care what Joe W. says, I like Andy Griffith and I really liked him in this flick. It is very sad to me that a great talent like Adrienne Shelly is only now getting the widespread recognition she deserves in light of her untimely death.

I go to the Notable Names Database (nndb.com) every day to get the scoop on people and what they're doing and who they're sleeping with and what their sexual orientation is, among other things. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed to see that Ms. Shelly was not included on NNDB for even months after her death, even. She has a profile now, I'm happy to say, but it came much later than it should have, later than the one they created for the Virginia Tech killer almost immediately after that incident occured.

I guess my question is, how do most people define the word "notable?" Wikipedia says it also seeks to publish information about "notable persons" in our society, and differentiates notable from words like "famous" and "infamous." I recently went on Wikipedia to search for the name of my former guru Joe W. and, I shit you not, the article had been tagged because someone had questioned its notablity. It wasn't me.

Here is something else--NNDB classifies people by gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, occupation, and nationality. They also used to include a heading "level of fame." The levels of fame were, from least to greatest, "niche," "somewhat," "famous," and "icon." For icon, you could even click on the word and get a list of everyone they classified as an icon, such as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, the Pope (John Paul II), and Mary Tyler Moore. No shit. But now they've done away with that, and I wonder why. In my own sick, twisted way I rather like searching for celebrities by level of fame, taking great pleasure in people I like being classified above people I don't like as much. For instance, Donna Reed was classified as "famous" while Barbara Bel Geddes was classified as "somewhat." That means more to me than it does to you.

To view Adrienne Shelly's NNDB profile click here.

To view Seung-Hui Cho's NNDB profile click here.

To view the Wikipedia entry on Joe W. (notability no longer questioned) click here.

By the way, I've altered the spelling of my name because it occurred to me that posting as Carroll Gardens is a bit like posting as "Columbia Grad" or "Writer." That is, it describes a lot of people. And I suppose there are a lot of people who watch the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network and love to watch Ina Garten cook. Anyway, that's how I chose my new name.

You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Weather Vane Blows

As I believe I've made clear before, the last remnants of the soul of the Republican party will be chopped up and fed to the hounds of hell if they put up McCain or Giuliani in '08 (or any candidate that appeared at the last GOP prez debate whose name wuz not Ron Paul). The same can be said for the Dems if they put up Hillary. Here's the proof. If you think Senator Clinton has any convictions at all when it comes to Iraq...THEN WAKE THE FUCK UP!

Yabba Dabba Science: LA Times Slams Creation Museum

I'm hooked on this particular debate. The LA Times goes medieval on the Creation Museum. Love the Flintstones comparison.

I MUST stop reading Crooks & Liars...

Ok, here is another one - I have no clue if this is real or not. Brownback was one of the "I don't believe in evolution" neo-cons. Scary as hell. Oh, yeah - and he is from Kansas where Intelligent Design has been the curriculum for SCIENCE classrooms for years.
Read on here.

Oh, and if you want to know more about Intelligent Design in Kansas, check this out.

KS passed a law mandating alternate theories about the origin of the universe, and this guy developed this great tongue-in-cheek theory and demanded it be taught. Of course, the damn conservatives in KS found it ridiculous - go to the "about" page and check out his letter to the KS school board and the comments from board members. The one from the chick in Dist 6 is so obnoxious.

I do love the bloggin' - thanks Rickster!

Yeah, what she said!

Thanks, Huntress. And getta load of dis (as Bugs Bunny would say): a brand new, Creation Museum in Kentucky. And, get this: the NYTimes, bastion of libs, actually gave it a partial thumbs up.

From the TXB Files: WTF?

This story just scares the hell out of me. Go here and check out this "science" fair winner. I'm starting to think I should home school my kids! Good reason NOT to send my kids to a parochial school! Maybe it is because my dad was a science teacher....this makes me absolutely ill. Scarier stuff is in the comments section of the post.

This Wouldn't Happen With Win Featherston

See this entry for J.C. Corchoran (STL radio disk jockey). More or less, it says that he as a Wikipedia subject may not be notable enough. Ouch.
Now, as for how I ended up looking up J.C. Corchoran on Wikipedia...

More Proof That Bill Maher is TXB's Half-Brother

The Man...from a Huffpo blog entry:

"Everyone complains about school shootings, but only the South Carolina state house is doing anything about it. Their plan, approved by a subcommittee last Wednesday, allows concealed weapons on public school campuses, starting in elementary school. Okay, I know that sounds a little--what's the word I'm looking for...? INSANE--but Republican state rep. Jeff Duncan explains, 'We're not talking about kids. We're talking about responsible adults.' Phew. Well, then go ahead. If it's just teachers, parents, janitors and lunch ladies, lock and load. You stupid fuck. I hope you die."

The Gospel of Mathews

And I too wanna post a vid from MSNBC. I wuz watching this last night, and when Chris M. went off, I kinda thought, "Hmmm....must be just a normal Mathews occurrence." But, our friends at crooksandliars.com thought it worthy of highlighting. I like how Chris at one point kind of scratches his head, messing up his hair a bit, and getting a "harumph" look on his face.
The other interesting thing about his rant is that it's kind of nonpartisan. He's not saying Rudy has this or that bad policy. More about how folks just say stuff, and we as viewers scream at the tv, to the journalist, "Hey, mo-fo, ask the followup! Ask the followup!"
Anyway, it's good. And funny how Biden looks better than he did 15 years ago. I guess it's a Rogain deal or something. Or new, whiter teeth. God love him.

Rick

Why I love Keith Olberman

Check out this link - one more reason to love KO!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/23/special-comment-the-only-things-truly-compromised-are-the-trust-of-the-votersfriends-and-family-in-iraq/

Shut the Fuck Up, Newscasters

So John McCain said "fuck" to some fellow fuck (politician) recently. It's bad enough that all the newscasters must talk in baby talk and say stuff like "F-word," "N-word," etc. But now we have the highly annoying and universal practice of saying "dropped the F-bomb" instead of saying, "fuck." So McCain didn't say "Go fuck yourself" to his fellow fuck...he "dropped the F-bomb." We get no context with that shit. Maybe McCain said that he wanted to fuck the guy later in his fuck-pad while eating sushi off his ass. We'll never know because the fucking newscasters refuse to do their jobs and report exact quotes. And I'll bet they think they're cool, using a phrase like "dropped the F-bomb." Meanwhile...actual bombs are still going off in Iraq, and fuckhole McCain still supports that bullshit because he has no fucking integrity.

Shut the Fuck Up, Huckabee

So Republi-can't (as in "can't be President") Mike Huckabee made a joke at John Edwards' expense at the recent GOP debate on FOX News. The former Arkansas governor and current douche bag said that Congress has been spending money like John Edwards at a beauty shop. Ha fucking hahah heeh haha heee...so fucking funny! Because Edwards spent 400 bucks on a haircut! And the Republican-led Congress raped the American taxpayer for six years! It's--heh heh--funny because it's true! And all those dumbfuck conservatives in the audience clapped their dumbfuck asses off for fuckhole Huckabee because they love taking it in the ass when it comes to government spending! They especially love it when Republicans claim to be fiscal conservatives, slam the tax-and-spend Dems, and then blow billions of bucks on Bigass Pork and useless wars, on hookers and blow and boats, on abortions for all their mistresses, on massages from their underage pages, and on illegal immigrants to walk after them and clean up all the shit that they try to sell to the tourists. And the Huckster's joke about Edwards is even funnier when you consider how the Republicans blew all this taxpayer dough and flushed billions down a toilet called "Iraq" while never removing their lips from Brush's ass! Oh yes, good one, Huckabee. You got that John Edwards good! Course, he'd like to save us billions of dollars by getting out of Iraq A.S.A.P. and you apparently want to keep burning money and soldiers and civilians in the desert without establishing a timetable for withdrawal. In other words, Huckfuck, you want to spend money and blood in Iraq like John Edwards in a beauty shop...if John Edwards never left the beauty shop and never hinted that he would even consider leaving the beauty shop...and spent so much money in the beauty shop that he bankrupted his family (for "family" read "The United States of America," ye witty hillbilly).

Go back to Hicktown, Arkansas, and blow your sister already, asshole.

Rev. Dr. Jerry Fallwell, Dead at 73

While I have no great respect for Fallwell's political interests, I do have great respect for his willingness to defend his beliefs (and the lack of personal scandal surrounding his life). Liberty Baptist (founded by Fallwell) hosts a debate tournament every year and just prior to the final awards ceremony, Fallwell hosted a question/answer session for the participants. If you haven't already guessed, debaters are incredibly argumentative, scary-smart people who tend to lean left....way left. Fallwell allowed the debaters to ask him questions on any topic - no holds barred. He was gracious, respectful and seemed to be a genuinely nice guy. I also noticed that, as of late, Fallwell avoided many of the media trappings enjoyed by the likes of Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson. Probably the best thing that could have happened to his reputation. RIP Jerry.

Tha Rev and Tha Hitch

Here's a debate, an hour long, between Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens. Re: religion, God, gods, lack thereof, lacks thereof...

http://www.slate.com/id/2166143/

Baby boom

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/10/19/notes101905.DTL

...and Michelle and Jim Bob have since had a 17th.

Some Dan Ho for TXB this weekend

The Legendary “King of Hawaiian Entertainment”, Dan Ho, will perform for TXB this coming Sat. evening. The “Ho Family” Show showcases Dan Ho’s family of island entertainers who know best how to celebrate his laid back island lifestyle through the sharing of cherished memories, song and dance.

Post Imus in the Morning

Have you ever tried to listen to news personalities forcing banter on T.V.? It's pretty rough. Just the bullshit between the weatherman and the news anchors is brutal. Imagine, then, a three hour morning gabfest with a bunch of yahoos trying to be funny. That, unfortunately, is what we have in the post-Imus era on MSNBC from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. central time. They've tried conservative wads like Larry Elder, Tucker Carlson, and Micahel Smerconish. They've tried the ho hum liberal humor of Stephanie Miller. Lately, they're giving former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough a shot. The common denominator with all these dorks is that they each have two or three lesser dorks on standby to banter with. I can imagine what all the two or three day contracts must say. Something like, "Host should have lively, irreverant conversations with his/her sidekicks without ever saying anything that could remotely be construed as 'edgy' or 'offensive.'" Translation: chat with your peeps like Imus did, but make sure that the chat is never interesting. Seriously, folks: the fucking chat on "The View" must be more entertaining. Or are you dying to hear Larry Elder's hi-llarious anecdote about Bernie Goldberg? (Yeah, I know: "Bernie Who?"). Or maybe all you clllaazzzy liberals are in stitches when Stephanie Miller and Co. go on and on and FUCKING ON about her armpit sweat. Hell, Scarborough is prolly the best of the candidates so far since he's at least proved himself on the oft entertaining "Scarborough Country," but watching him banter with John Ridley (who made his MSNBC bones appearing on S.C. repeatedly during the Imus controversy) is just a step or two away from the running gag on "The Colbert Report" where Stephen has an overzealous chat with his one black friend. It's all just too lame, and none of it is funny. Look, even Imus wasn't funny enough for my taste, but when he was funny...it was great T.V. and radio. You certainly could never accuse the man of trying too hard to be funny. He also didn't need fake guffaws from his crew to carry the three hours. Most importantly, Imus wuz grumpy in the morning, like most of us are. We don't need these over-caffeinated goofball pundits giving us their chipper brand of can-do bullshit as the world slides further into hell. Maybe, just maybe, with more people going into the ground every day in Iraq for nothing, with the environment going to shit, and with a psycho still running the country...maybe all three of those hours don't need to be a total yuk-fest.

Note to Tom Brokaw: Blow Me

Perhaps I'll eventually get around to instructing all current, former, and future nightly news anchors to blow me. Brokeback Brokaw can blow me because he defended the mainstream media's initial cheerleading of the war in Iraq. TODAY, he did this. How many more dead kids is it gonna take for you to feel bad, asshole? Anyway, the weakass line from Broke took place on the three-hour morning travesty some call a "show" which hath replaced Don Imus on MSNBC. Tommy Boy mostly gave host-o'-the-week Joe Scarborough the "How could we have known?" defense. And, of course, like all good self-deluders in the media on this matter, T.B. had to follow that with the "Colostomy Bag" Powell defense. If Colon Powell said it were true, after all, who wouldn't believe that? This...THIS...after he admitted that C.P.'s prezentation at the U.N. was "thin." So, a guy talks shit and you know he's talking shit, but because he's seemed like a man of integrity in the past, you go along with his bullshit? This is your fucking journalistic practice, Brokaw? You just go with your gut and don't even make phone calls to run down any of the facts? No, of course you don't. You have served and will continue to serve your corporate masters--the types that don't exactly cotton to independent jouranlists when the country has a hard-on to kick some A-rab ass. Fuck you, Brokaw, and your "Greatest Generation" bullshit. And learn how to fucking talk right. How long have you had microphones in front of you?

The only former nightly news anchor that I prolly won't be instructing to blow me is Dan Rather. He wuz just as big a cheerleader during the run-up to the war as anyone else, but at least these days he comes clean and sez, "We fucked up." He must have criticized the MSM three times during his appearance on Bill Maher's show several weeks back, and each time he said that shit, he added, "...and I don't exempt myself from this criticism." Yep, that tears it...Dan Rather is a stud again.

Tool of the Week

Former C.I.A. director George Tenet...AKA "The Other Dumbass Named George." He let 9/11 happen and he let a bogus war happen. They gave him a medal. Then he got paid four million dollars to tell us how he fucked up! It brings to mind Ed the Sock's ruminations on how we are constantly rewarding dumbasses in our society and coddling them with those For Dummies books. After noting the idiocy of an actual book called Scrapbooking for Dummies, Ed the Sock added, "What's next? Autonomous Responses for Dummies?"

This week's WTF

OK, Tim's illiterate student gave us all a good chuckle (and panic attack for the future of mankind), but at least he's a young 'un. I was just reviewing the changes that one of my editors made to a story I wrote.

I wrote "... as the need arose."

He changed it to "as the need arouse."

WFT? Not only is he all grown up, but he gets paid to EDIT the work of professional journalists. Having worked with him for a few years, I can sadly say this is not a fluke. In fact, I can't tell you how many times I've seen editors change words or sentences to be incorrect. And we're talking big, national magazines.

Sad world we live in, huh?

Oh Spidey, My Spidey

So "Spider-Man" three spanked ass this past weekend with the highest opening ever, and TXB wuz one of the faithful forking over his duckets on Friday. Perhaps the film is not as good as "Spider-Man 2," as some have said, but it's close enough for government work. Of course, the chats 'o wisdom between Peter Parker and old bag Aunt May have gotten tiresome, but those scenes are there so you can go take a whiz or make a Bigass Tub of Popcorn refill run. As for the smackdowns with Spidey and his new foes...well, what else is there to say but "totally friggin' awesome"? The only mistep in the film is Peter Parker going to the dark side and becoming a hipster dufus. Yes, that's right: a hipster dufus. A fucking dancing hipster dufus! There's actually a scene that looks like something out of "All That Jazz" or "West Side Story"! I guess this is setting up "Spider-Man 4," in which we learn that Peter is actually gay. Also, does the "dark side" mean that you wear eyeliner and don't comb your hair and generally look like the lead singer of "Blink 182"?

All in all, tho' a kickass conclusion to perhaps the best action trilogy of all time (what's up, "Lord of the Rings"?).

Rich Girl, Poor Girl

Hooray to the Los Angeles courts for putting Paris Hilton in jail for 45 days for violating

probation relating to a DUI. It should have been 45 months like it would have been for the common person.