October 28, 2004

AT LAST!

Pigs can fly, hell is frozen, the slipper finally fits,
and Impossible Dreams really can come true.

The Red Sox have won the World Series
Pedro Martinez (left) and Curt Schilling
Aces Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, whose pitching prowess helped win the Series, hugged after the Sox swept the Cards. (Globe Staff / Barry Chin)

Joe Louis - 1918-1941
Posted by HelloThe Fight, companion to a PBS film that premieres October 18, looks at the 1938 fight between American Joe Louis and German Max Schmeling in the context of African-American history and the coming war with Germany. 70,000 fans crammed into Yankee Stadium, and millions turned on their radios to witness, on the eve of World War II, what has been called "the most important sporting event in history." Listen to the broadcast of this fight and their earlier bout in 1936. (National Endowment for the Humanities)

Interesting fact from today's resource: On Kristallnacht, Schmeling took an enormous risk and hid the two teenage sons of a Jewish friend in his Berlin hotel room. When the opportunity presented itself, Schmeling smuggled the two boys out of the country. Characteristically, the modest Schmeling made no mention of this episode in his own autobiography. Read more about Max Schmeling.

October 12, 2004

More about magnets than you could possibly want to know.

Superball

I could tell you what this is, but you might as well just click here


October 07, 2004

Bookman balks at 'Bootylicious'
James J. Kilpatrick is disturbed

"A new definition of the word `bootylicious' has just been added to the Oxford English Dictionary Online."
esp. of a woman, often with reference to the buttocks; sexually attractive, sexy; shapely.


Disabled Are Pleased With E-Voting

Associated Press
STEPHEN MANNING
Oct 3, 2004

This November, Eileen Rivera Ley, 41, will vote by herself for the first time. Blind voters in Maryland and several other states will use electronic voting machines equipped with technology that allows the disabled to vote independently.


It used to get crowded whenever Rivera Ley voted. Blind, Rivera Ley had to rely on someone else to read the ballot aloud, then vote for her. That meant as many as four people ? Rivera Ley, the person who pulled the levers and election judges from both major parties as witnesses ? huddled in the voting booth.
"It's like a party in there," Rivera Ley said. "You lose any kind of privacy when you have to speak how you want to vote."

While many voter rights' advocates are fighting to decertify electronic voting machines, arguing that they're not reliable, one bloc remains steadfast behind the new equipment ? disabled voters who say the machines give them long-denied privacy.

Read the rest

Tip of the hat to Freaking News

October 06, 2004

Rodney Dangerfield will finally get some respect

"Well respected" actor/comedian Rodney Dangerfield
{1921 -2004}
(ABCNEWS.com)


From the Chicago Tribune
David Germain
October 6, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating one-liners brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies and made his lament "I don't get no respect" a catchphrase, died Tuesday. He was 82.
Mr. Dangerfield, who fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery, died at 1:20 p.m., said publicist Kevin Sasaki. Mr. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced Aug. 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
Sasaki said in a statement that Mr. Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and developed infectious and abdominal complications. But in the past week he had emerged from the coma, the publicist said.
"When Rodney emerged, he kissed me, squeezed my hand and smiled for his doctors," Mr. Dangerfield's wife, Joan, said in the statement. The comic is also survived by two children from a previous marriage.
As a comic, Mr. Dangerfield -- clad in a black suit, red tie and white shirt with collar that seemed too tight -- convulsed audiences with lines such as: "When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother"; "When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out my act was reviewed in Field and Stream"; and "Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: 'Basement?'"
In a 1986 interview, he explained the origin of his "respect" trademark: "I had this joke: 'I played hide and seek; they wouldn't even look for me.' To make it work better, you look for something to put in front of it: I was so poor, I was so dumb, so this, so that. I thought, 'Now what fits that joke?' Well, 'No one liked me' was all right. But then I thought, a more profound thing would be, 'I get no respect.'"
He tried it at a New York club, and the joke drew a bigger response than ever. He kept the phrase in the act. After hearing him perform years later, Jack Benny remarked: "Me, I get laughs because I'm cheap and 39. Your image goes into the soul of everyone."
Mr. Dangerfield had a strange career in show business. At 19 he started as a standup comedian, making only a fair living. Married at 27, he decided he couldn't support a family on his meager earnings. He returned to comedy at 42 and began to attract notice. He appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson more than 70 times.
After his first major film role in "Caddyshack," he began starring in his own movies.

Here are some of Rodney's best

See video here

More here and here