Not much love for President Bush at UN climate change talks in Poland…Asked to sum up Bush’s record on the issue, France’s climate ambassador Brice Lalonde chose instead to pass on a story he had heard.A man comes to the White House asking to see Bush. “He doesn’t live here anymore,” he is told. The next two days he comes again asking the same question, and receiving the same answer.
That’s the wonderful title of a poem by Amiri Baraka, just profiled by Beat Poet Desk editor Paul Hehn.Baraka is a Marxist, an academic, the former poet laureate of New Jersey, and “has been railing against The Man his entire career, in university classrooms and in essays, poems and plays.”
Editor Paul Hehn, at the Hollywood Brunette Desk, points out our profile of Gretchen Mol, who played the late Bettie Page in the 2005 movie The Notorious Bettie Page.Here’s a shot of Mol as Paige:
“At three o’clock the following morning, on April 22, 1923, Edna gave birth to a baby girl. They named the child Betty Mae Page according to her birth certificate, but when she became old enough to write, the spelling changed to Bettie.”Notes on the birth name of pinup model Bettie Page, from Richard Foster’s 2005 book The Real Bettie Page.
Jolly old elf Santa has been ahead of steady reader favorite Shakespeare all month on our popularity list.No big surprise in late December, but Santa is showing early strength this year; normally he moves into the top five in the last week before Christmas.
Raven-haired pinup queen Bettie Page has died age age 85. Pneumonia, alas.Here’s a memorial video from the way-back machine. Good luck to you Ms. Page, wherever you are.
He has turned 65.That 1943 list has some surprising names: Arthur Ashe? Bobby Fischer?Janis Joplin died 38 years ago, and she’d still be only 65 this year?
Later on November 7, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH discussed the open Senate seat in a three-way call with JOHN HARRIS and Advisor B, a Washington D.C.-based consultant. ROD BLAGOJEVICH indicated in the call that if he was appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services by the President-elect, then ROD BLAGOJEVICH would appoint Senate Candidate 1 to the open Senate seat. HARRIS stated “we wanted our ask to be reasonable and rather than… make it look like some sort of selfish grab for a quid pro quo.”
Are you kidding? Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested at his house by the FBI this morning, possibly in his pajamas, at 6:15 am.The charge: Plotting to sell the state’s U.S. senate seat to the highest bidder. (That’s the seat being vacated by Barack Obama. Blagojevich has total power to appoint Obama’s successor.)
There’s just something funny about this photo series of Emma Watson, Dustin Hoffman, and a giant felt mouse.
Oscar De La Hoya, age 35, got clobbered over the weekend.
Rock god Jim Morrison wouldabeen hitting retirement age today at 65, and comedian Sam Kinison wouldabeen 55 today, if both hadn’t died young.
In her long, silent years at the Milstein Building at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital, and then at a nursing home on the Upper East Side, doctors said Mrs. von Bülow never showed any signs of brain activity; she was fed through a tube in her stomach. Yet there were always fresh flowers in her room, and photographs of her children and grandchildren sat on a bedside table.Good heavens: Sunny von Bülow has died in Manhattan at age 76.
Meg Guroff of Washington, D.C. has alerted us to her excellent site, Power Moby-Dick, which we’ve now linked from our own Moby-Dick profile.Power Moby-Dick adds helpful definitions and notes right alongside the full text of the book. So next to the famous opening, “Call me Ishmael,” we have the comment “Ishmael: A wanderer, the older son of the biblical Abraham.” And so on. It’s a big boost.
O.J. Simpson got it.
Barack Obama raised it.
The New York Times, 2008: “I just feel like I’ve come through a whole bunch of stuff,” she explained in the living room of her Upper East Side apartment… “But I have never felt better in my life. I feel free. I feel happy. I feel completely solid.”The Larry King Show, 2006:KING: First, let’s check on a couple of things.MINNELLI: OK.KING: How is your health?
“I cannot speak, eat or drink, and have lost a lot more pounds, and, believe me, it would have been a more fun doing it the Pritikin way… Compared to other people, I’m lucky. For example, see how much I’m enjoying myself right now.”That’s thumbs-up movie reviewer Roger Ebert, bravely making the best of a bad situation in a recent blog post.
“If two men declare the seat at the same time and neither agrees to abide in the back, they shall each kill one bullock and offer its head at the altar.”Who knew?
Times are tough all over.On the plus side: Fewer local jobs means more time to make toys, right?