Saturday, February 26, 2005

RHINO'S WEEKEND BLOG - February 26th & 27th THE CARTOON: Nuclear Fashion, by Mark Fiore Who says you have to be a superpower to be hot? THE QUOTE: "Bush lied to me, man. He said we got to move on Iraq because they're the most dangerous regime on Earth. If they're so dangerous, how come it only took two weeks to take over the whole fucking country? You couldn't take over the Bronx in two weeks. You'd need a month to get the Grand Concourse." - - Chris Rock THE HISTORY: February 26, 1966 --4,000 protestors outside New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as US President Lyndon Johnson receives the National Freedom Award. As Johnson begins his speech in defense of his Vietnam policies, James Peck of the War Resisters League jumps to his feet & shouts, "Mr. President, peace in Vietnam! On the streets, activist A.J. Muste presents the crowd's own "Freedom Award" to Julian Bond, who has been denied his seat in the Georgia legislature for refusing to disavow his war opposition & his support of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. February 27, 1961 -- Joseph Heller's now classic anti-war novel Catch-22 is published. RHINO HERE: 1st off, anyone who banters to you about NASCAR Dad's being right wing lug nuts, you tell them Rhino sez, "NASCAR always turns LEFT! Always has! Always will! Next up, Rhino's OSCAR Fav's: BEST MOVIE: Hotel Rowanda, (I know it's not nominated but it was the most important film of the year) DIRECTOR: Marty Scorsese for "The Aviator" (Never the Favorite of Hollywood but he deserves it for this amazing spectacle - I wouldn't mind if Taylor Hackford got it for "Ray" - D'ya ever see "Blood In Blood Out"?), ACTOR: Jamie Fox for "Ray" (This is Jamie's year - did you see Redemption? Go rent it!) ACTRESS: Annette Bening in "Julia" (A screen chewing performance!) ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (Charlie Kaufman is the most courageous, rule bending, mind bending screen scribe in the the biz) ADAPTED SCREENPLAY "Finding Neverland" (In the Rhino's opinion, a by the rules perfectly crafted piece - though some say it should have dealt more with the Peter Pan principle; for those who don't read women's mags, men's fear of commitment.) For the Weekend Blog, I offer a preview of Chris Rock's hosting of the Oscars, politically themed award take-offs by Will Durst and Arianna Huffington, & a tribute by Will Pitt to the Gonzo (ex night watchman of the San Francisco Mitchell Brothers' Theatre as well as the day watchman of the Eslan Institute's Hot Springs) journalist, Hunter S. Thompson. (o/)(o/)(o/) Oscars to 'Rock' the Red States At a time when Hollywood crybabies and their Big Media daddies are crumbling under pressure from conservatives, Chris Rock is, well, like a rock. That's why, at the Academy Awards this Sunday, you can count on the guy who may well be the funniest comedian working right now to break out of the mold of mediocrity that usually defines the broadcast's opening monologue and blow up the status quo. L.A. Weekly has learned that Rock has earmarked a segment of his standup to joke about George W. Bush... It isn't just worries about Bush bashing that have Oscar watchers on alert. No previous host has done as much lip flapping before the show as Rock. The result has been a manufactured brouhaha about his anti-Oscar banter. ("What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars?" Rock asked Entertainment Weekly. To which Artie Lang on The Howard Stern Show replied: "Denzel Washington's father.") But lost in the headlines was the comedian's history of razzing the White House and its policies... MORE: http://www.alternet.org/movies/21341 (o/)(o/)(o/) Time Once Again... By Will Durst, AlterNet, February 25, 2005 ... It seems like only last week we columnists were handing out our End of the Year Awards. And now its almost March and I got a crick in my neck from ducking all the gold-plated statuettes being flung around like lids at an airport Starbucks kiosk. Like hair spray at a West Virginia Junior Miss Pageant, like profanities at a Dick Cheney press conference, so in the spirit of the season, let us now settle in for the most serious and consequential of all the awards ceremonies: The Will Durst Thank God for These Liquid Squeezebags Because I'm a Comic Awards. Get yourself a cache of adult amber beverages, sit down and relax. Your gift bag is being diverted to Halliburton's Home Division as we speak. * HORSE'S HEAD AWARD: Doug Wead, the guy who secretly taped phone calls from Dubya. * THE HE KNOWS MORE THAN HE'S LETTING ON AND I'M NOT SURE ITS GOOD NEWS AWARD: Alan Greeenspan. * BEST CHOREOGRAPHER: Karl Rove. Exit polls, schmexit polls. Its not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes. * SHEEP'S CLOTHING AWARD: George W Bush for the provision in his education package which mandates high schools turn over names and addresses of students to Defense Department Recruiters. In an era of recruitment shortages, it gives a whole new meaning to the program's title: "No Child Left Behind." * THE OH MY GOD, NOT YOU AGAIN AWARD: Newt Gingrich who is threatening a run at the White House in 2008. President Newt. That's scarier than the Donald Rumsfeld Swimsuit Calendar. MORE: http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21357 (o/)(o/)(o/) POLITICAL OSCARS 2005 by Arianna Huffington, ariannaonline.com January 26, 2005 With this year's Oscar nominations just out and already sparking heated debate (Was Hollywood too chastened to nominate Michael Moore? Too Jewish to embrace Mel's "Passion"? And what happened to Paul Giamatti?), I thought it would be a good time for this column's traditional salute to outstanding achievements in the worlds of politics and entertainment ˜ which have, after all, become increasingly hard to tell apart. This year, I've decided to dub these awards "the Arnolds" ˜ I mean, it isn't every year that the chief executive of the most populous state in the union also lands a prominent role in a Jackie Chan flick (though the Governator playing a womanizing Turkish prince was a bit of a stretch). So, without further ado, the envelopes please . ˜ Best Sequel: "Shrek 2." Worst Sequel: Bush-Cheney 2004. ˜ Creative Writing: Best: Charlie Kaufman for his mind-bending screenplay, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Worst: Alberto Gonzales for his morality-bending memo calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint" (a.k.a., "Eternal Torment of the Enemy Mind")... ˜ Best Performance by a Rodent: Movies: Scabbers the rat in "Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban." Politics: Tom DeLay. ˜ Best Bang-for-Your-Buck Ratio: "The Passion of the Christ," which cost $30 million to make and has taken in over $610 million worldwide. Worst: "The Passion of the Democrats," who spent over a billion dollars on the 2004 campaign and got nothing to show for it but Barack Obama. ˜ Best Fight Scene: Movies: Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah's knockdown, drag-out duel in "Kill Bill Vol. 2." Politics: Zell Miller challenging Chris Matthews to a duel on "Hardball." MORE: http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=756 (o/)(o/)(o/) 8:48:21 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - The Proverbial 'Live Boy' The Proverbial 'Live Boy' By William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Perspective, 22 February 2005 "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." - Edwin W. Edwards In the same month the planet gets to know the 'journalist' James/Jeff Guckert/Gannon, Hunter S. Thompson decides to make The Big Bit-Spit and eject from the planet. This could be sacrilege, and I hope his family will forgive me, but there is something wretchedly fitting in the confluence. Hunter was a drunk and a drug-sucker. He would go to cover an event and slather himself with LSD. He went to the '72 GOP convention as a wild-eyed liberal and elbowed his way into the activist bullpen, grabbing a sign reading 'Garbage Men Demand Equal Pay' before charging the floor with the Nixon-shouters to howl 'Four More Years!' at John Chancellor. He wanted to write about motorcycle gangs, so he went out and joined the worst of them, and got his ass stomped in. And wrote about it. Hunter Thompson is the reason I write politics. Period. He was the most honest man in the business. Everyone else had and has an angle, a reputation, or a source to protect. Hunter stripped it down to the raw throbbing nerve and let it fly. How is this for prose: "How many more of these goddam elections are we going to have to write off as lame but 'regrettably necessary' holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me at the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 - and as far as I can tell, we've gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same."... READ IT ALL AT: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022105Z.shtml (o/)(o/)(o/) Rhino's Blog is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. Feedback & requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. (rhino@kifaru.com) See The Latest Greatest Political Cartoons While You Read Rhino's Blog AT : http://www.rhinosblog.info Rhino's Other Web Sites: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (Indigenous Assistance & Intercultural Dialog) http://www.kifaru.com (Native American Relations Video Documentaries) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 7:13:58 AM    comment

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