Classic TV Shows Get Stamp of Approval - TVWeek - News

Classic TV Shows Get Stamp of Approval - TVWeek - News: "The U.S. Postal Service today unveiled its 2009 lineup of commemorative stamps, and one set to be unveiled Aug. 11 is dedicated to early TV memories.

Among programs to be commemorated in the 20-stamp series: the Groucho Marx-hosted game show 'You Bet Your Life,' where saying the secret word got the player $100. Also on the list are 'The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' 'The Dinah Shore Show,' 'Dragnet,' 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' 'The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show,' 'Hopalong Cassidy,' 'The Honeymooners,' 'Howdy Doody,' 'I Love Lucy,' 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie,' 'Lassie,' 'The Lone Ranger,' 'Perry Mason,' 'The Phil Silvers Show,' 'Red Skelton,' 'Texaco Star Theater,' 'The Tonight Show' and 'The Twilight Zone.'"

John Tierney - For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It - NYTimes.com

Findings - For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It - NYTimes.com: "If I’m serious about keeping my New Year’s resolutions in 2009, should I add another one? Should the to-do list include, “Start going to church”?"

Amateur crimefighters are surging in the US - Times Online

Amateur crimefighters are surging in the US - Times Online: "There are, according to the recently launched World Superhero Registry, more than 200 men and a few women who are willing to dress up as comic book heroes and patrol the urban streets in search of, if not super-villains, then pickpockets and bullies.

They may look wacky, but the superhero community was born in the embers of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when ordinary people wanted to do something short of enlisting. They were boosted by a glut of Hollywood superhero movies."

Op-Ed Columnist - Heaven for the Godless? - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Heaven for the Godless? - NYTimes.com: "In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life."

Satellite Radio Still Reaches for the Payday - NYTimes.com

Satellite Radio Still Reaches for the Payday - NYTimes.com: "Today, five months after regulators approved a merger of Sirius and XM, satellite radio’s pioneers and former rivals, in a deal that was supposed to deliver their industry to the promised land of profits and permanence, the company faces an uncertain future."

Will Elder - His Mad World - NYTimes.com

Will Elder - b. 1921 - His Mad World - The Lives They Lived - Obituaries - NYTimes.com: "’Twas a week before Christmas in 1953 when the artwork of Will Elder stirred the attorney general of Massachusetts to ban a comic-book adaptation of Clement Clarke Moore’s treasured piece of holiday piffle, “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” The outlawed comic, titled Panic, was a spinoff of Mad, the wild and wildly successful year-old magazine for 14-year-old minds. Panic’s crime was having published Moore’s much-reprinted public-domain text, verbatim, to the accompaniment of outrageous, incongruous, stream-of-consciousness illustrations by Elder. None of the four-legged creatures that Elder drew in the opening panels were stirring, because all of them were dead — half-butchered carcasses of hogs, a goat, a baby elephant, a lion and the requisite mouse, all dangling from meat hooks, gushing blood. One of the animals, a small lamb, was still alive but stewed — that is, drunk from guzzling moonshine out of a jug nestled between its hooves. The sugarplums dancing in the children’s heads were Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, and when the narrator of the tale settled down for his nap, he did so with a tall iced nightcap and six bottles of hooch scattered around his bed, alongside a sexy mama kerchiefed like a belly dancer."

False Memoir of Holocaust Is Canceled - NYTimes.com

False Memoir of Holocaust Is Canceled - NYTimes.com: "A man whose memoir about his experience during the Holocaust was to have been published in February has admitted that his story was embellished, and on Saturday evening his publisher canceled the release of the book."

NYT Reviews the Spirit--ouch

Movie Review - The Spirit - Returned From the Dead, Ducking Villains and Vixens - NYTimes.com: "Nothing in the logic of the film explains it, but then, to use the phrase “the logic of the film” when talking about “The Spirit” may be to take the “oxy” out of “oxymoronic.”

To ask why anything happens in Frank Miller’s sludgy, hyper-stylized adaptation of a fabled comic book series by Will Eisner may be an exercise in futility. The only halfway interesting question is why the thing exists at all."

More Readers Are Picking Up Electronic Books - NYTimes.com

More Readers Are Picking Up Electronic Books - NYTimes.com: "Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from paper to pixels?"

Ten of Our Favorite Top Tens - ReligionDispatches

Ten of Our Favorite Top Tens | Media/Culture | ReligionDispatches: "Thou shalt not ignore the Top Ten list. We, the editors, rank the top of the tops, including The Onion's list, comparisons between Religion and Dentistry, Reality TV's Most Memorable Christians, Top Intellectuals, and many more. Six more to be precise."

PCS: The Spirit reviews... mostly bad

Pop Culture Safari pulls together some recent major reviews on Frank Miller's desecration of "The Spirit."

The ecofriendly font that saves on ink |

The ecofriendly font that saves on ink | guardian.co.uk: "The Ecofont saves on printing ink by … well, using less of it. Letters in the freely downloadable typeface contain multiple small circular holes, meaning that each letter requires less ink to be printed. As the designers put it: 'After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well.' Quite.

Though rather striking, the typeface is wholly readable (no pun intended) and is, apparently, most effective at nine or 10 point. It's also sans serif, because, of course, the little flourishes on serif fonts will use up more ink when being printed.

Spranq claims that the Ecofont will reduce ink use by up to 20% - not bad for something that was developed over 'lots of late hours (and coffee)'."

Book publishing, literature, and the economy | Salon Books

Book publishing, literature, and the economy | Salon Books: "The economic news couldn't be worse for the book industry. Now insiders are asking how literature will survive."

Prophet Sharing: The Good Book Is the Best Seller - WSJ.com

Prophet Sharing: The Good Book Is the Best Seller - WSJ.com: "It's an astonishing fact that year after year, the Bible is the best-selling book in America -- even though 90% of households already have at least one copy. The text doesn't vary, except in translation. The tremendous sales volume, an estimated 25 million copies sold each year, is largely driven by innovations in design, color, style and the ultimate niche marketing."

Roy Blount Jr. - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is - NYTimes.com: "let’s say “bah, humbug” to b-words like bailout and bankrupt. Let’s digress from anything ending in -ession. Let’s entertain some new, upbeat holiday words."

Price-Is-Right Fixing?

news from me: "You may have heard what happened on The Price is Right the other day. If you didn't, give this a watch and then we'll discuss it on the other side. Pay particular attention to how subdued Drew Carey's reactions are to a seeming miracle..."

Watch it, and find out what happened...

Frank Miller eyes big-screen 'Buck Rogers'

Frank Miller eyes big-screen 'Buck Rogers': "Frank Miller and Odd Lot Entertainment, the creator and production company behind the upcoming comic-book adventure 'The Spirit,' are close to teaming again on the classic sci-fi property 'Buck Rogers.'"

Robert Mulligan, Director Of "To Kill A Mockingbird," Dies

Robert Mulligan, Director Of "To Kill A Mockingbird," Dies: "Robert Mulligan, the Academy Award-nominated director of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' who later helped launch the career of Reese Witherspoon, has died at 83.

Mulligan died early Saturday at his home in Lyme, Conn., after a battle with heart disease, his wife, Sandy, said Monday.

Mulligan was nominated for an Oscar for 'Mockingbird,' the adaptation of Harper Lee's best-selling novel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning look at a child's world shaken by the racism of a Southern town."

Sky News Australia - Books: 101 Best Books Ever Published

Sky News Australia - Books: 101 Best Books Ever Published: "Australian bookseller Dymocks has come up with a list of the 101 best books ever published, according to Australian readers.

More than 15,000 people took part in the online survey and some of the results were pretty surprising.

Proving you can't beat the classics, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice topped the list, with classics accounting for a third of the 101 titles.

The survey also found that Bryce Courtenay is Australia's most popular author.

Here is the list in full:

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings Series - J.R.R. Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
Magician - Raymond E. Feist
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte"

Interesting list from down under--with two classic Southern novels in the top 10... the BIble no. 23... Check it out.

Episcopal leader wants media to report hope, not scandal

Episcopal leader wants media to report hope, not scandal: "The world is hungry for hope and the head of The Episcopal Church has challenged the media to take the less travelled road of feeding the public with more stories of encouragement than of scandal and controversy.

'On two occasions in the last few days, leaders in my own Church have said to me that the Church only makes the front page if it’s about schism or sex – and in the current era, preferably both,' said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who leads The Episcopal Church – the US arm of Anglicanism."

A Method to Obama’s Madness? Candace Chellew-Hodge - ReligionDispatches

A Method to Obama’s Madness? | RD Blog: The Devil's Advocate | ReligionDispatches: "There's not only strategic value to Obama's selection of Warren, there's a desire to reach out to all people and not to become what liberals and progressives hate."

Laura Miller - It’s a Narnia Christmas - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - It’s a Narnia Christmas - NYTimes.com: "EVERY Christmas, I re-read C .S. Lewis’s novel “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” The holiday seems like the ideal time for an excursion into my imaginative past, and so I return to the paperback boxed set of “The Chronicles of Narnia” that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was 10. For me, Narnia is intimately linked with the season."

Why History Can't Wait - Person of the Year 2008 - TIME

Why History Can't Wait - Person of the Year 2008 - TIME Guess who?

Apple’s Chief to Skip Macworld, Fueling Speculation - NYTimes.com

Apple’s Chief to Skip Macworld, Fueling Speculation - NYTimes.com: "For the last 10 years, attending Steven P. Jobs’s annual keynote address at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco has been a sacred pilgrimage for Apple enthusiasts. That ritual has now ended.

Apple announced on Tuesday that Mr. Jobs would not appear at the Macworld conference in January and that the company’s presentation would instead be delivered by Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide product marketing. Apple also said it would withdraw from the conference after this year’s event."

CNN news Ticker is replaced by the Flipper -- chicagotribune.com

CNN news Ticker is replaced by the Flipper -- chicagotribune.com: "CNN's headline Ticker, a bottom-of-the-screen fixture since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, passed away before dawn Monday at the age of 7.

The cause of death was progress.

Once seen as a cutting-edge way of conveying headlines by some and as an annoyance by others, tickers have become ubiquitous throughout television in the last decade. CNN's was buried alive in the clutter it helped create and was a casualty of the network's first major overhaul of its on-screen graphics since 2004.

The CNN Ticker is survived by a cousin, identified as the Flipper by CNN Senior Vice President of Current Programming Bart Feder. Cleaner, clearer and more stylish, the Flipper took over after the Ticker was taken off life support Monday at 5 a.m., Chicago time."

"The Phantom" Getting A Sequel

"The Phantom" Getting A Sequel: "Fans of the skintight purple suit rejoice: the Phantom is back.

An Australian production company on Monday announced it had secured the rights to 'The Phantom Legacy,' a follow-up to the 1996 film 'The Phantom,' which starred Billy Zane as the masked hero who fights evil from his jungle headquarters."

Jay Leno’s Plans for His New 10 p.m. Show - NYTimes.com

Jay Leno’s Plans for His New 10 p.m. Show - NYTimes.com: "Jay Leno, who has lived a life of comedy, knows the rules as well as anybody who has ever stood on a stage and told jokes. “The first rule of comedy is: Don’t create anything bigger than yourself,” Mr. Leno said in an interview in the green room of “The Tonight Show.” “The trick is to keep the water just below a rolling boil so it stays in the pot a little bit longer.”"

One More Round of Voting, as Electors Do Their Duty - NYTimes.com

One More Round of Voting, as Electors Do Their Duty - NYTimes.com: "In state capitals across the country, a select group of Americans who make up the Electoral College met on Monday to cement President-elect Barack Obama’s victory, in a year when new figures showed that voter turnout reached its highest level since 1968."

Newsarama.com : Kenneth Branagh Talks Thor: Directing and Casting

Newsarama.com : Kenneth Branagh Talks Thor: Directing and Casting: "The film has been the subject of speculation for some time, but Kenneth Branagh has broken his silence about directing a film version of Marvel’s Thor for Marvel Studios.

In speaking with MTV during the junket for Valkyrie, the acclaimed actor/director said:

“I am directing ‘Thor’ or “The Mighty Thor’ as you might like to call it.”

“I think it will be ‘Thor,’” Branagh then added, clarifying what he feels the title will be."

From Porn to Born-Again: A Remembrance of Bettie Page - ReligionDispatches

From Porn to Born-Again: A Remembrance of Bettie Page | Media/Culture | ReligionDispatches: "The original bad girl, the Che Guevara of sex, Billy Graham's right-hand woman: Bettie Page was many things to many people, and the story of her life spans American culture from burlesque to Christian Missionary."

Cizik Commits the Sin of Grace - ReligionDispatches

Cizik Commits the Sin of Grace | RD Blog: The Devil's Advocate | ReligionDispatches: "Richard Cizik, the top political operative for the National Evangelical Association, has resigned his post after committing the biggest sin an evangelical can make—changing his mind after deeply considering the facts of a situation.

Christianity Today reports that Cizik, in an interview with NPR's Fresh Air that aired on December 2, told host Terri Gross that his opinion on marriage equality is 'shifting.'"

Golden Globes - List Of All Nominees

Golden Globes - List Of All Nominees: "Nominees for the Golden Globe Awards announced Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif."

NPR, Citing a Shortfall, Cuts 64 Workers - NYTimes.com

NPR, Citing a Shortfall, Cuts 64 Workers - NYTimes.com: "National Public Radio, citing an unexpected revenue shortfall, said Wednesday that it would cut 64 jobs, or about 7 percent of its work force of 889, and would cancel two weekday programs, “Day to Day” and “News & Notes.”

The cutbacks, which come even as NPR is reaching what it said is a near-record audience of 26.4 million listeners a week, include 22 employees at the canceled programs, which will end March 20; six reporters and correspondents elsewhere; and one digital media position."

Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism - ReligionDispatches

RD10Q: Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism | RDBook | ReligionDispatches: "Religious horror, like Chick comics, Hell Houses, and the Left Behind books, moved from the margins in the 1960s to the center by the early 2000s with an assist from a strong anti-pluralism, anti-liberalism, and antipathy to governmental reform."

Top 10 Fiction Books of 2008 - TIME

1. 2666 by Roberto Bolano - The Top 10 Everything of 2008 - TIME: "Top 10 Fiction Books"

Top 10 Magazine Covers of 2008 - TIme

1. The New Yorker, Nov. 17, 2008 - The Top 10 Everything of 2008 - TIME

Documentary to lay bare 'Narnia Code' - Guardian.uk

Documentary to lay bare 'Narnia Code'- guardian.co.uk: "CS Lewis included a secret code in the Chronicles of Narnia linking each story to a planet, according to a BBC documentary to be aired next Easter.

It has long been accepted that the classic children's series features Christian symbolism, but scholars have laboured for years to discover a third level of meaning, trying unsuccessfully to fit the themes of the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene to the novels.

Now a documentary from award-winning director Norman Stone, based on a new academic's study of Lewis's writing, says it has uncovered the true hidden layer in the novels. This, it is claimed, is medieval cosmology, with each of the Christian and medieval scholar's books linked to one of the seven planets of the era's cosmology."

Where Is Leno Going? To Prime Time, on NBC - NYTimes.com

Where Is Leno Going? To Prime Time, on NBC - NYTimes.com: "NBC will keep Jay Leno five nights a week, but in prime time, competing not with David Letterman, but with shows like “CSI: Miami.”

The network will announce Tuesday that Mr. Leno’s new show will appear at 10 o’clock each weeknight in a format similar to “The Tonight Show,” which he has hosted since 1993."

Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy -Newsweek.com

Gay Marriage: Our Mutual Joy | Newsweek Culture | Newsweek.com: "Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side."

Timothy Egan - Typing Without a Clue - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Guest Columnist - Typing Without a Clue - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal."

Editorial - The Deluder in Chief - NYTimes.com

Editorial - The Deluder in Chief - NYTimes.com: "We long ago gave up hope that President Bush would acknowledge his many mistakes, or show he had learned anything from them. Even then we were unprepared for the epic denial that Mr. Bush displayed in his interview with ABC News’s Charles Gibson the other day, which he presumably considered an important valedictory chat with the American public as well."

Eric Idle Leads Monty Python to the Web - NYTimes.com

Eric Idle Leads Monty Python to the Web - NYTimes.com: "It has been 25 years since Monty Python was a living comedy troupe — the film “The Meaning of Life,” released in 1983, was its swan song — but that has not stopped one alumnus from trying to convince the world that Python, like the parrot in its ancient skit, is just resting. For decades, Eric Idle has made sure the Monty Python name continues to grace books, DVDs, concert tours, a Broadway show, ring tones and video games.

Now he is helping take Monty Python to the Internet."

Op-Ed Contributor - The Real Bill Ayers - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - The Real Bill Ayers - NYTimes.com: "Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue."

The 10 Best Books of 2008 - NYTimes.com

The 10 Best Books of 2008 - NYTimes.com: "The editors of the Book Review have selected these titles from the list of 100 Notable Books of 2008."

Episcopal Split as Conservatives Form New Group - NYTimes.com

Episcopal Split as Conservatives Form New Group - NYTimes.com: "Conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church announced on Wednesday that they were founding their own rival denomination, the biggest challenge yet to the authority of the Episcopal Church since it ordained an openly gay bishop five years ago."

Good riddance.

Layoffs at Random House, Simon & Schuster - Yahoo! News

Layoffs at Random House, Simon & Schuster - Yahoo! News: "The economy has crashed down on an industry once believed immune from the worst — book publishing — with consolidation at Random House Inc., and layoffs at Simon & Schuster and Thomas Nelson Publishers.
'Yes, Virginia, book publishing is NOT recession proof,' said Patricia Schroeder, president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Publishers. 'It's sad day.'"

Luckovich's Lament: Cartooning Obama Is Gonna Be Tough

Diane Tucker: Luckovich's Lament: Cartooning Obama Is Gonna Be Tough: "The more editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich sees of Barack Obama, the more he likes the President-elect. Oddly enough, this turn of events has the Pulitzer Prize winning artist very, very worried."

RDBook: A City Too Busy To Hate - ReligionDispatches

RDBook: A City Too Busy To Hate | RDBook | ReligionDispatches: "A new guidebook to the city of Atlanta, Sacred Sites, focuses on civil rights sites, from churches to restaurants, and shows how the history of the struggle for freedom still permeates the urban landscape."

Is Religion a Game? - ReligionDispatches

Is Religion a Game? | Media/Culture | ReligionDispatches: "'Playing Gods,' a new board game making headlines, is more than just a playful riff on religion. If we want to understand religions, we have to understand their game-like qualities, and that religion might, at the heart of it all, be a game. Which does not make it trivial..."

Morning Joe Team In Talks To Start Radio Show "By The Beginning of the Year" - mediabistro.com: TVNewser

<em>Morning Joe</em> Team In Talks To Start Radio Show "By The Beginning of the Year" - mediabistro.com: TVNewser: "The Morning Joe team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are looking for a radio gig — and it sounds like a deal is close.

Although Scarborough tells TVNewser 'we haven't signed any deals yet,' he says, 'If we're going to get into radio, we want it to be by the beginning of the year.'

The New York Daily News' David Hinckley writes, 'Some reports on the New York Radio Message Board yesterday say WABC is eying Joe Scarborough.'"

James Gleick - How to Publish Without Perishing - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - How to Publish Without Perishing - NYTimes.com: "And now comes the news, as book sales plummet amid the onslaught of digital media, that authors, publishers and Google have reached a historic agreement to allow the scanning and digitizing of something very much like All the World’s Books. So here is the long dreamed-of universal library, its contents available (more or less) to every computer screen anywhere. Are you happy now? Maybe not, if your business has been the marketing, distributing or archiving of books.

One could imagine the book, venerable as it is, just vanishing into the ether. It melts into all the other information species searchable through Google’s most democratic of engines: the Web pages, the blogs, the organs of printed and broadcast news, the general chatter. (Thanks for everything, Gutenberg, and now goodbye.)"

Awash in New Light, Angels Are Revealed at St. John the Divine - NYTimes.com

Awash in New Light, Angels Are Revealed at St. John the Divine - NYTimes.com: "The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and one of the city’s premier architectural monuments, was rededicated on Sunday, seven years after a smoky fire blackened its vast interior and decommissioned its 8,500-pipe organ."