Saturday/Sunday December 30/31 00

Manchester Guardian Books Unlimited  Poem of the Week
(Indolence by Douglas Dunn. For a short bio of Dunn, check out brittanica.com.)
Washington Post  Poet's Choice by Rita Dove
(Poet Dove, American Poet Laureate from 1993-95, chooses a poem by Linda Pastan to end the year. To hear Dove read her own work, Lady Freedom Among Us, click  here.  For a short bio of Dove, check out britannica.com.)
LA Weekly  Must Reads
(Fourteen writers on their favorite book of the year.)
New Republic  Why Books Survive by Larry McMurtry
(McMurtry defends with lines such as "The book is the perfect thing of its kind--affordable, portable, lendable, reusable, able to magically move literature from writer to reader and from reader to reader.")
The Atlantic Monthly  James Fallows: Reading by Ear
(On the other hand, Fallows has just discovered the joy of audio books.)
NY Review of Books  Seven Years in the Life
(For you Beatles lovers, here's a seven page review of The Beatles Anthology.)
New Statesman  Book Reviews - Fall into reason. Edward Skidelsky on Freud
(Freud is seen as a theologian, a spinner of secular myths)
Boston Review  Book Review - John Palattella on 'Karmic Traces' by Eliot Weinberger
(Weinberger is a translator, archaelogist, essayist and poet and you can hear that in the way he describes translating: "Translation is not a means of allowing the foreign to speak. The foreign has already spoken, they don’t need us. But we need them if we are not to end up repeating the same things to ourselves. Translation is one of the ways that lets us listen." You can read another review of Karmic Traces, essays on the meeting of the East and West, at Amazon.com.)
The Spectator  A long-burning issue
(A review of "The Faber Book of Smoking" which shows that most great authors were violently pro-smoking. For more on smoking, tab down to Friday, December the 22nd and check out an article from The Seattle Stranger, 'The Smokers.')
Manchester Guardian Books Unlimited  Whasssuuup with this?
(Buzzwords of the year.)
World Wide Words  How many words are there in the English language?
(Whatever the answer is, I hope it doesn't include "Whasssuuup.")
The Atlantic Monthly  "The Worst Thing About My Church"
(Atlantic calls it "A compelling new history of Catholic anti-Semitism," and it focuses, of course, on Pius XII's troubling relationship with the Nazis.)
Washington Post  Lives on the Line
(Faith is a mystery and the fact that Church is mysterious in it's mission can be seen when the above link is compared to this one, a review of 'Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History' by Robert Royal.)
London Telegraph booksonline  The Alpha and Omega of God
(Review of The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought  which, as a sign of the times, is being advertised in Britain with the blurb: "IS HOMOSEXUALITY A Gift From God?"
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Boston Globe  Enlightening 'Oxford Companion to Jazz' covers it all
(It suddenly occured to me that the Oxford Companion series is a far-distant kin to the "Fill-in-the-Blank- for Dummies" series.)
Book Magazine  Art in His Heart
(Art dealer Richard Feigan, in, Tales from the Art Crypt, calls 'em as he sees 'em and it's sure to ruffle some feathers. Take his reaction to the N.Y. Metropolitan Museum of Art running an exhibit on Gianni Versace: "This random mixture of box-office frivolity with serious art reminds an 'elitist' (which Feigen avowedly is) of a nice girl of good family who just once in a while goes out and turns tricks for some pocket change.")
LA Times  The Pen of Teller
(Interview with that little guy who doesn't talk in the comedic duo of Penn and Teller, , and it turns out that he is very talkative.
NY Times  Featured Author: Tennessee Williams
(News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
London Times Books Online  Five Books On
(Five books on...spies.)
London Times Books Online   First Chapter
(Books Online offers its readers the chance to read the first chapters of the latest and most important books released.)
Manchester Guardian Books Unlimited  The year's digested reads, digested
(Been too busy to read in 2000? The hot books of the year, each reduced to less than 100 words. I love the digested version of Bill Bryson's Down Under.)
History Channel  This Day In History
(On this day in 1816 Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly wed.)

Friday December 29 00

Philadephia City Paper  The Top 21
(Year-end listing of the best Rock, hip-hop and pop includes this classic quip, "It’s a weird year when the best rapper’s white and the best golfer’s black.")
Washington City Paper  Joel Siegal: The Year in Films
(Siegal is one of the film reviewers that producers turn to for advertising after Roger Ebert has turned his thumb down on their product. You can see his name on the sides of busses all over America, praising some awful Sandra Bullock film, or the like. I've included this year-end review because he actually likes Magnolia, one of our favorite films of the year. Magnolia, btw, was the late Jason Robards' last role as he played the part of Earl Partridge, Tom Cruise's father, and uttered the saddest line of the movie: "I'll tell you the greatest regret of my life: I let my love go.")
Salon.com  Top Ten Films of the Year
(I picked this year-end because they tab Sophia Coppola's Virgin Suicides, a movie I hated, at number 6.)
Toronto Now  Top 10 Movies of 2000
(Gotta have a Canadian list!)
Denver Westword  Strange But True
(7 pages of strange but true facts from the year 2000 such as "In July, the Boulder City Council approved an ordinance substituting the term "pet guardian" for "pet owner" in the city's books.")
Broward NewTimes  Dewey's Death Pool 2001
(Better hurry...there's only a few days left to enter Dewey's Death Pool, and there's quarterly $50 prizes as well as a year end prize...and it's free! One hint, though...don't take Bob Hope; he's on everyone's list.)
SF Gate  Blow Up the Box
(Funny year end TV review starts out with this great line about the election coverage: "Thank God for old Jews with shaky hands and the inability to tell this word (G-O-R-E) from this one (B-U-C-H-A-N-A-N)...without them it would have been damned near impossible to turn on the TV during much of 2000.")
The Texas Observer  A Personal Note from Molly Ivins To All Her Beloved Women Readers.
(I am not an Ivins fan, but who would not be touched by this note to her readers?)
St. Louis Riverfront Times  The Best of "Street Talk" for 2000
(Funny answers to quirky questions make good reading.)
Montreal After Hour  Arousing Thought
(Profile of Toronto poet, Kathyrn Payne, who teaches an erotic-writing workshop. Here's a sample of her work, Tip Number 2 from her poem 'I'd Rather be Bitter than Sad': Tips for the (Bi)sexual Urban Wilderness Hiker: "No matter whether you've got a boy or a girl in your bed there are still the same number of assholes.")
Phoenix New Times  Savage Love by Don Savage
(Seattle-based sex advice columnist tackles oral sex. Adult content.)
San Francisco Bay Guardian  Dear Mistress Marisha
(Advice columnist tackles that age old issue that we have all faced at one time-or-another: "My husband's vibrator was working fine 2 weeks ago, but the batteries were dead yesterday. Should I worry?")
History Channel  This Day in History
(On this day in 1916 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs It's Too Damn Cold In New York. My fave is #9: "Area hospitals treating thousands of cases of middle-finger hypothermia")

Thursday December 28 00

London Times  Scientists find the secret of itching
(I wonder if humans make cats itch?)
Salon.com  Oz vs. Narnia
(In this corner...born in Chittenango, N.Y...from Hollywood, California.......That Wizard of Oz....L. Frank Baum!!!......and in this corner....born in Belfast, now Northern Ireland....from Oxfordshire, England.....That Lion, Witch and Christian Apologist himself......C....S....Lewwwisssssss!!!)
London Telegraph  Ronnie wouldn't know me now, says Lady Thatcher
(Don't feel bad, Margaret, most of America wouldn't know you either.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  For All Russia, Biological Clock Is Running Out
(Interesting article about Russia's plummeting birthrate.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
CBC News  More than 40,000 U.S. Internet jobs disappeared in past year
(But, not2worry, 40,000 jobs at WalMart opened up.)
NY Press  The Egyptian Bible
(Profile of Gary Greenberg, author, who believes the bible is mainly an Egyptian work.)
National Post  'The death of kneeling'
(Kneeling is fading at both Anglican and Roman Catholic churches and some people are fighting to keep kneeling. But a spokesman for the Catholic Church in England states that "To tell people to kneel is carping." That's right, Monsignor, we wouldn't want to "carp" by telling people what to do. That's not how Oprah would do it, is it?)
ABC News  Church Using Internet As New Pulpit
(And you don't have to hear people carping about kneeling!)
Yahoo News  John the Baptist's cave believed found on east bank of Jordan River
(John was a MAJOR carper, Monsignor.)
ABC News  Musician on FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ List
(Former Mellencamp pianist.)
Salon.com  Dennis Miller fails to boost MNF ratings
(No surprise here...they didn't know how to market him.)
Britannica.com  The Annotated Dennis Miller: Cowboys at Titans
(Speaking of the devil...my fave 'Millerism' of the week occured when player Alonzo Spellman moved too slowly getting off the field and Miller immediately quipped: "Cardinal Spellman moved quicker than that.")
Slate  The Best and Worst Movies Of The Year
(All the critics love Traffic, sweetiepie. We will have to see it.)
History Channel  This Day In History
(On this day the Vice President of the US resigned, becoming the 1st president or vice-president to quit. And, no, it was not Spiro Agnew.)
The Onion  Darling, will you spend the next six to ten years with me?
(Marriage proposal includes the very touching and romantic "I really think you'd make an incredible mother, Julie. And I think you'll eventually make a great single mother, too. You've got that inner strength.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten George W. Bush Vacation Fun Tips. My fave is #10: "When grilling, discarded Gore ballots make handy charcoal-starters.")

Wednesday December 27 00

BBC  Queen's speech 'less posh'
(An analysis of her 48 Christmas messages shows movement away from the 'upper crust.' I say blame it on TV!)
CNN  Jason Robards dies at 78
(One of the great American actors has made his final curtain call. For a list of his work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase.)
UK Independent  This obsession with trivial gossip is addictive, cruel and demeaning
(Which is why i will not repeat the cheap, lascivious gossip I heard, when in law school, about the late Jason Robards....unless you email  me!)
Newsweek  Nostalgia Is Hot
(Did they reminisce about the good ole days in the 'good ole days'?)
Newsweek  George F. Will: Y2K—You Must Remember This
(Will reminisces about the year 2000 and has many gems, such as: "Americans are still at daggers drawn over the Confederate flag, but 310 years after the Battle of the Boyne, America’s president had a bright idea, captured in this Los Angeles Times headline: Clinton tells Northern Ireland to resolve issues. Why didn’t anyone think of that before?")
VillageVoice  The Year In Queer
(The year in review.)
National Post  Bad grammar drives me to drink
(Correcting student writings such as "felt himself sag inwardly" drives this college professor to raise the glass!)
ESPN  Gambling Fever By Hunter S. Thompson
(Thompson's weekly odd blend of life, politics and sports and this is what he has to say about Santa Claus: "There are a lot of Criminal Psychos between here & the North Pole, and they would show no mercy on a goofy old man who gets loaded one night a year and drives around through strange neighborhoods with a truckload of jewelry & furs & gold Rolexes.")
Online Journalism Review  Hunter Thompson, Online Columnist
(The story of how the man who never made a deadline made his way to ESPN, and, miraculously enough, is making their deadlines!)
Village Voice  College Football's Real-Life Top 25: Unsportsmanlike Conduct
(Speaking of sports, here's an excellent article about the top 25 college football teams, with their flaws exposed, including their graduation rates for the school overall, their graduation rates for football players and their graduation rates for their black players.)
Salon.com  Exotic mating rituals of a tribe called Hollywood
(An interesting look at the tinsel-towners through a sociological lens.)
Straight Dope  What's the relationship between TV's Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo?
(I'd rather know what type of adult would ever ask a question like this.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Madonna Tips For A Happy Marriage. My fave is #5: "Communication is important -- make sure your people and his people talk frequently.")

Tuesday December 26 00

BBC  Be honest, have you read them?
(Over 1 million books given as presents yesterday will not be read.)
Montreal Gazette  Stores prepare for Boxing Day crowds
(Few in Ohio would know what "Boxing Day" means.)
London Sun  Anne A Very Merry Christmas To You Too
(A 75 yr old woman stood in freezing temps for 5 hrs in an effort to hand the ailing Queen Mum a homemade basket of flowers, only to have Princess Anne grab the gift, and snidely spit out: “What a ridiculous thing to do.”)
London Times  Castaways wanted for 20 years
(Owners have island and want to have people live on island. The only problem is that the island is unapproachable by water. They should film this and make it into a movie, a real-life Ed TV or The Truman Show)
London Telegraph  Drug sends sex signals for women
(Super Orgasms straight ahead?
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Boston Globe  Suddenly Haiku
(Any article that starts out liks this one does is worth reading: "It seems a safe bet that the Japanese Zen Buddhist monks who developed the art of haiku were not anticipating poems about Kathie Lee Gifford.")
NY Post  Lennon statue's specs swiped
(Castro praised the fallen Beatle 2 weeks ago calling himself a "Lennonist," see the BBC link of December 10, "Castro the 'Lennonist'." 2 weeks later the statue that Fidel unveiled has been vandalized.)
National Post  Iraq armed, with PlayStation 2
(Saddam has 4000 Playstation 2's and they're not for his troops to play with.)
History Channel  This Day In History
(On this day in 1996 JonBenet Ramsey was found murdered.)
NY Post  New DA: JonBenet Case May Go Unsolved
(We will never know.)

Monday December 25 00

BBC  Pope's plea for Mid-East peace
(Rain during Midnight Mass kept the crowd size down to about 40,000.)
MSNBC  Text of Pope John Paul II’s homily
(Christmas Eve message, as translated by the Vatican.)
London Telegraph  Refugees and homeless need help, says Carey
(The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas sermon at Canterbury Cathedral pleads for the downtrodden.
(Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
MSNBC  Andrew Greeley: Domesticating Jesus
(Father Greeley attempts to show us how to reconcile the child in the manger with the challenging teachings of a difficult man.)
BBC  Queen's Christmas Message
(The Queen's annual Christmas Message will be posted by the BBC about 9 a.m. EST)
Associated Press  Clinton Celebrates Christmas
(Shopping, parties and church for Bill and crew. Sounds familiar...well, except for the parties. And, by the way, a Merry Christmas to all from net.Headlines!)
ABC News  Weather Brings Unwanted White Christmas
(Be careful of what you wish... .)
CNN  Russia's answer to Father Christmas
(Ded Moroz??)
Toronto Globe and Mail  It's a disco Christmas in Beijing
(Just don't say anything about God)
NY Times  Where Mao's Thoughts Once Ruled, Santa Is Now in Vogue
(The Westward sweep of civilization is inevitible.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  Bethlehem, Dark and Quiet, Falls Victim to the Violence
(The tribal spiral towards war seems inevitible, as well.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Melbourne Age  Japanese really enjoy the Kissmas season
(More evidence of that Westward Sweep, but this has a strange Japanese twist to it.)
ABC News  Christmas of Future Past
(Interesting look at an article from the December the 23rd, 1900 edition of The Chicago Sunday Tribune, "Christmas Day: A Hundred Years Hence".)
CBS News  A Hymn To A Hymn
(On Dec. 24, 1818, 182 years ago, Silent Night was first performed in a little village in Austria.)
MSNBC  A holiday treat from the heavens
(No, the Detroit Lions didn't make the playoffs. We Lion's fans certainly are not surprised by that. This holiday treat is a partial solar eclipse, best seen in the northeastern US and adjoining parts of Canada. Kudos to MSNBC for their graphics on this!)

Sunday December 24 00

National Post  So, are you ready for Christmas?
(Yes!)
National Post  Return of the prodigal believers
(The churches will be packed tomorrow and some of the "regulars" will be miffed at being crowded, but not me. Because back in 1974, when I was not a regular, I wandered into a Midnight Mass...sat next to this alluring babe...and ended up marrying her and we are now the parents of seven wonderful kids.)
Sunday London Times  Don't slaughter Herod, he was a king for our times
(This middle level aristocrat who ruled Judea from 40-4BC would be incredulous to find that his name is still being mentioned weekly, by millions, almost 2000 years after he died.)
Boston Globe  Following the star
(Making sense of the Nativity happens, scholars say, happens by going to the heart of the story and not focusing on the facts.)
NY Times  Santa's Helper
(An interview with The dean of the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, Mich. who says "We're very careful about where we place our hands on children."
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Vancouver Sun  Peace on Earth
(Those whacky Canadians: British Columbians want peace on earth for Christmas more than money and sex, according to a poll commissioned by The Vancouver Sun.)
BBC  Comedian Victor Borge dies
(The king of the slapstick piano is dead at 91. We saw him about 6-7 yrs ago, and my wife has absolutely no recollection of it, but I enjoyed him greatly. For a list of Borge's work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase.)
CNN  Billy Barty, little actor with big career, dies at age 76
(Uh oh, Hollywood...stay close to home today. You know what they way about "going in threes." For a list of Barty's work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase.)
Montreal Gazette  Catholic church in conflict over how to renew itself: theologian
(Nice profile of Montreal-based theology professor Charles Kannengiesser, who is suprised by the current pope whom he thinks might be around for many more years, despite his apparent frailty.)
Vancouver Sun  Why a B.C. academic believes in the Virgin birth
(Doubting Thomas sees the Shroud of Turin and makes a leap of faith.)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(Safire looks at the politically hot "seize the day" metaphor.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column tackles that age-old issue which we have faced at one time or another: "I attend an ivy league university that grades on a curve and I noticed that a fellow student was copying answers off of my paper. Since a higher grade for her would mean a lower grade for me, I intentionally entered wrong answers, she copied them and turned them in, then I erased my wrong answers and entered the correct ones. Was I wrong?"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  The Making of an 8-Year-Old Woman
(North Carolina Study finds that for white girls, the average age of onset of puberty, as measured by the appearance of breast buds, was 9.96 years, and for African-American girls, the age was 8.87 years. For other views of this phenomenon, visit our archive page and seek out the Time Magazine article from Tuesday, October the 24th: "Teens Before Their Time."
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
BBC  Asteroid misses Earth 'by whisker
(480,000 miles)
The History Channel  This Day In History
(On this day in 1919, John D. Rockefeller gave away 100 million dollars. Top that, Bill Gates!)
Boston Globe  Bill Gates, caregiver
(Oops, maybe I spoke too soon: Gates' foundation gave $1.44 billion last year, compared with about $5 billion from industrialized nations.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs Santa Hates You. My favorite is #4: "You get no presents -- when you bump into him later, he gives you lame, 'I thought you were Jewish' excuse.")

Saturday December 23 00

Salon.com  "A Child's Christmas in Wales" Read by Dylan Thomas
(Hear the late author reading his own work.)
Common-Place  Who Really Wrote "The Night before Christmas" And Why Does It Matter?
(Tonight is the night before The Night Before Christmas.)
Book  Santa's Literary Helpers
(What books best selling Wally Lamb and a few other insiders are giving as gifts.)
Manchester Guardian Books Unlimited  Poem of the Week
(A Christmas Childhood by Patrick Kavanagh.)
Washington Post  Poet's Choice
(Three poems by the winner of this year's National Book Award in poetry, Lucille Clifton.)
Manchester Guardian Books Unlimited  The dream is over: Lennon in search of himself
(In depth examination of "Lennon Remembers: The Complete Rolling Stone Interviews by Jann Wenner.")
London Telegraph Booksonline  Why does it all end in tears?
(Why are so many tears still being shed for Lennon? Maybe the answer can be found in the book reviewed here "Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears.")
London Telegraph Booksonline  The latest news from the book world
(The week in review.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  The best biographies of the year
(The one I want is "Rimbaud  by Graham Robb," though I didn't much like the movie about Rimbaud and fellow poet Paul Verlaine, "Total Eclipse," which starred Leonardo diCaprio as Rimbaud and the always-wonderful David Thewlis as Verlaine.)
NY Times  A World Triply Lost
(Review of "More stories from my father's court" by Isaac Bashevis Singer. No, these are not posthumous stories, they were released in Yiddish in the 1950's. Click here for a NY Times restrospective of Singer.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
The Village Voice  Blood on the Racks
(Solo performer, writer and actor Eric Bogosian has written his first novel, Mall, and, based on his former work, I'm sure it's fierce, funny and frantic. Bogosian wrote a series for Salon.com earlier in the year entitled 31 Ejaculations.)
Commentary  Scoop
(Cute book review in the form of Frequently Asked Questions about Matt Drudge and his best selling "manifesto.")
The History Channel  This Day In History
("On this day in 1912, the Parisian literary review, Nouvelle Revue Francaise, rejects an excerpt from Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust.")

Friday December 22 00

The Straight Dope  Dear Cecil
(Cecil Adams on 24-Jan-1992 tackled that question which bugs us all from time to time: "We get nostalgic for Victorian Christmases. What did Victorians get nostalgic for?")
Metro Times  Zoom, Zoom, Zoom
(Remember, sweetiepie, my theory that I was banking all of the yellow lights I ran, so that, when that grim reaper comes a-knocking, I would get an extra 3 months to live? Well, it turns out that kind of thinking is called "hurry sickness.")
Colorado Springs Indy  'Tis Chic to be Simple
(Author and his wife decide to downscale their lives. Would this mean giving up my satellite dish?)
Seattle Stranger  The Smokers
(Memories flooded back as I read this fine story of a writer tracing her family's history through the haze of cigarette smoke.)
St. Louis River Front Times  Trash Talk
(At 7 o'clock yesterday morning I hauled 4 garbage cans down our frozen driveway and wondered what kind of men would work outdoors on a day like this. And then later in the day I ran across this article about garbage men.)
LA New Times  brained
(Man has money, gets into car accident, suffers brain damage, meets Scientology lawyer and...well...fill in the blanks.)
The Eugene Weekly  The Synthesizer
(Interesting profile of Tom Pringle, who runs the official Mad Cow disease homepage which lists every article about the disease authored in the past five years.)
Yahoo News  George Harrison Says 'The World Is Going Mental'
(After living through Lennon's death, being stabbed himself and then having a throat cancer scare, Harrison can be forgiven for being a little paranoid.)
London Times  Paul McCartney competition
(The winners of The Times' Paul McCartney anagram contest. My favorite is #6: "Mr Cute can play.")
Melbourne Age  Bodies willing, spirit weak
(Movie critic picks his 10 best and worst films of the year and, sweetiepie, we have not seen any on either list.)
Fort Worth Weekly  Roll the End Credits
(Best moments in film from the past year, plus another 10 best list of which we have seen three.)
Time Magazine  Person of the Year: George W. Bush
(Time states their case for Dubya.)
Sydney Morning Herald  Mandela, the Pope ... George Dubya? Now that's stupid
(The Sydney Morning Herald derides Time's choice.)
London Telegraph  The Nativity is not a myth
(With books popping up like 'The Jesus Mysteries', an attempt to debunk our concept of Jesus {see CNN's 9/21 article Raising a holy ruckus, it's good to hear a voice from the other side speaking out.)
National Post  Frosty the sexist snowman
(Great quote from a British academician: "The snowman is, of course, white and invariably male." Of course the snowman is white, lady....it's made out of snow!)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)
Chicago SunTimes  Roger Ebert Review
(Ebert reviews the holiday movies, including Tom Hanks' new one Cast Away.)
History Channel  This Day In History
(Click on "What Else Happened Today" to read that on this day in 1977 Thomas Helms jumped off the 86th floor Obervation Tower of the Empire State Building, only to land, unconscious, on a ledge of the 85th floor.)

Thursday December 21 00

National Post  Microsoft challenges AOL-Time merger
(There's something disengenuous happening when the company that put WINDOWS 98 on every computer in the world opposes a merger because it fears AOL's dominance in instant messaging.)
CNN  Vatican expects huge crowds for Christmas Eve midnight Mass
(Is it because it is the supposed 2000th anniversary of Christ's birth or is it because this pope may not be around too much longer?)
Yahoo News  Deja vu as Millennium rears its head again
(We went over this a year ago. You have to have a year pass before you get to the first birthday.)
Yahoo News  Cloning vote is step into unknown say Catholic church, pro-life groups
(No leap in faith here.)
CBC News  Bush family accepts gift of Scottish terrier puppy, could be new 'first dog'
(The honeymoon phase is in full swing.)
NY Times  O.K., You're Gay. So? Where's My Grandchild?
(Gays are starting to feel The Nudge.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
DigitalMass.com  Online content site Salon.com cuts staff
(Salon announces a 20% cut in staff. Will that mean a 20% cut in our links as well?)
London Times  One world, one language?
(English is conquering the globe which worries this writer.)
Salon.com  Music 2000
(The best 25 records of the year.)
London Telegraph  Beacons of hope in a wasteland of banality
(The best records of the year.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Slate  Hoppy New Year
(The best holiday beers.)
Boston Globe  Here are some notable events from this day in history
(On this day in 1937 - ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,'' the first full length feature cartoon in color, by Walt Disney, had its premiere in Los Angeles.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Questions george W. Bush asked President Clinton. My favorite is #9: "Where do you want me to forward your subpoenas?")

Wednesday December 20 00

Commonweal  Christmas in India
(Christmas makes more sense, to this writer, when viewed through a non-Western culture.)
Chicago SunTimes  Saving a spot on the street is the Chicago way
(Remember, sweetiepie, when we lived in Detroit and I would shovel in front of our house and then drag that ratty old rocking chair into the street and "save" our precious parking spot? Well, they do it in Chicago as well.)
London Telegraph  Make way for the terrible tweenies
(Article describing the coming of age of nine to fifteen yr old children. We have one and have gone through this before, and I have told my friends that "I wish science could make an "attitude" pill that would jump kids straight from 12 to 19."
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Mother Jones  Major Bummer's Totally Depressing Guide to the Holidays
(So, you bought a book from Amazon.com instead of going to the mall, and you feel good about it? You might change your opinion after reading this. I didn't change mine, though.)
CNN  Anne McDermott: Singing bass is reeling them in
(My mother in law brought one of those singing bass over as a gift for the kids. I told her, "No way, take that thing outta here before any of them even see it, pls.")
Toronto Globe and Mail  The holiday burden of having to buy for a guy.
(This opening paragraph reveals men's secret gift-giving agreement: "There is an unspoken understanding among most men that, come Christmas, there will be no exchanging of gifts.Even among the best of friends, in fact, especially amongst the best of friends, the tacit agreement is as follows: ''Friend, once again I give to you the gift of nothing, thereby relieving you of the burden of having to get me a gift. I expect the same in return. Agreed? Agreed.''")
Boston Globe  Top o' the tree
(How do you crown you Christmas tree? Vote in the Globe's poll: star or angel? I bought an angel 3 yrs ago but was immediately told that "it's too Caucasian!" So now we have a star.)
Britannica.com The Annotated Dennis Miller: Rams at Buccaneers
(My favorite Miller-ism of the week occured when he was referring to 2 defensive backs, "Hey, those two corners have stoned more people than Haight-Ashbury this year, Al." I like Dennis but 'Miller Time' might be coming to an end.)
National Post  Yoko has the floor
(A retrospective of the artist Yoko Ono.)
Chicago SunTimes  `Pops' Staples dies at age 85
(Patriarch of the Chicago-based Staple Singers, his biggest hit was the mid-70's "I'll take you there.")
The Atlantic Monthly  Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good.
(Especially salted and dipped in ketchup.)
SF Bay Guardian  Coke is it!
(Reporter attends a Coca Cola Exhibit at the Library of Congress, only to get booted out.)
NY Times  Maureen Dowd: He's Gone! He's Back!
(Bill will be like that cousin who visits and then never leaves.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Detroit Free Press  When should aging opera stars quit?
(Luciano will be like that cousin who visits and then never leaves.)
Boston Globe  Here are some notable events from this day in history
(On this day in 1987 4,386 passengers and crew died in a Philippine's ferry accident.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Holiday Traditions In The Military. My favorite is #1: "Freeze-dried, shelf-stable, vacuum-sealed eggnog.")

Tuesday December 19 00

Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles an issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My married lesbian lover wants me to move with her to Europe, but she won't even consider a divorce. Should I go?")
BBC  Beatles album tops 2000's charts
(Number one 31 yrs after they break up. What does this say about the boomers?)
BBC  Beer 'keeps cataracts away'
(A beer a day keeps cataracts away? Hey, that's better than apples!)
London Times  Low turnout for Queen of Pop
(The Times breathlessly reports that "Only four fans turned up at the airport to see Madonna and her fiancé Guy Ritchie fly in on their way to Scotland’s highest-profile wedding of the year."  What they should be asking, however, is: "why, on earth, would even four people take time out of their daily lives to watch people exit an airplane?")
Boston Globe  Bruce Lee, the legend
(Why does this late, dimunitive stunt man have an Elvis-like following?)
ABC News  EToys Announces Pending Layoffs
(I sure hope they ship out that "Barney's Big House" I ordered yesterday.)
NY Times  'Survivor II' to Take On NBC's Best on Thursday
(NBC has owned Thursday nights for ten years. That may change.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Detroit News  Amid turmoil of '60s Alabama, Condoleezza Rice persevered
(We've seen this squared-jawed Black female all over our TVs this week, but who is she?)
Salon.com  No way to treat a lady
(Writer is miffed that the NY Times' article about Condi Rice gave us her dress size, 6, and what she eats for breakfast, bagels, long before they listed her National Security experience.)
Boston Globe  Here are some notable events from this day in history
(On this day one hundred and thrity seven years ago Linoleum was patented!)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Chapter Titles In Hillary Clinton's New Book. My favorite is #7: "Priceless White House Antiques I've Thrown At Bill's Head.")

Monday December 18 00

Melbourne Age  Marriage makes life worth living
(New study claims married people live longer. Maybe because they stay home Saturday nights?)
London Telegraph  The empty-headed myths that America's voters laid to rest
(Nice article with excellent opening paragraph: "One of the lowest moments for me in the Great US Election of 2000 was quite early on when an Al Gore offspring told a hushed Democratic Convention and millions of television viewers, how "my dad" surprised her with hot chocolate late at night when she and her friends camped out in the back garden. (Applause, applause.) Aghast, one's first reaction was: she's telling the truth. He would do that. And he'd do it for the nation as well and we'd all have to drink the stuff up on penalty of mandatory health education courses.")
UK Independent  Bush names diverse team for the White House
(The British press has noted the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. In a companion piece, a writer lectures that British conservatives should "learn from Mr Bush.")
National Post  All together now, 'Jesse, your time is over'
(Excellent Canadian anti-Jesse Jackson rant.)
News.com  AOL may be forced to share instant messaging
(If the AOL-Time Warner merger is to go through, they may have to open up their instant messaging system. Look for one huge instant messaging system, as the result.)
London Telegraph  You must be Joaquin
(Profile of today's hottest young male actor, the brother of the late River Phoenix.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Salon.com  Salon Book Awards
(The editors pick the five best fiction and nonfiction books of the year.)
CBC Radio  The Quirks & Quarks Holiday Book List 2000
(The science lovers radio show's Christmas book list.)
National Post  There's still life in Carl Sagan's Cosmos - 20 years on
(Speaking of science, Sagan's 13-part series is now available for Christmas -- remastered and digitally restored -- on video, with a DVD version that offers subtitles in seven languages and Dolby sound.)
Slate  Dear Prudence
(Advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "It's been a year. Is it too late to send 'Thank You' notes for our wedding presents?")
The Onion  Man Feels Brief Sense Of Triumph After Completing Free-Frozen-Yogurt Punchcard
(We will be running one article from the very zany The Onion on Mondays, per a reader's request.)

Sunday December 17 00

BBC  Scientists are 'boring eccentrics'
(Early this week our 7 yr old asked me, "Dad, what kind of scientist should I be when I grow up?" This article, however, states that our Mike is the exception since, "Children as young as eight may be put off the idea of becoming scientists because they see them as 'middle-aged white males who never have fun'.")
London Times  Siamese twin Jodie is bright and flourishing
(An update on the surviving British Siamese Twin whose story we followed so closely this past autumn.)
Boston Globe  Bless Me, father
(For Roman Catholics, confession now resembles therapy...and it's free.)
BBC  Colin Powell: Bush's trump card
(Wrong. His trump card was the Supreme Court.)
NY Times  Many Seem Skeptical of Gore's Future
(Who leads the Dems now? Al or Bill?
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
People Magazine  Laura Welch Bush
(Nice long profile of the First Lady-elect.)
London Sunday Times  Dick Cheney, vice-president
(Nice short profile of the Vice President-elect.)
London Sunday Times  Is he up to it?
(Nice medium-sized profile of the President-elect by American Andrew Sullivan of The New Republic.)
Chicago Tribune  Closure or rancor?
(Trib site lets you vent your election feelings through an interactive vote.)
London Telegraph  Top 10 web sites
(This week's picks: Christmas parties
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Chicago SunTimes  Ebert's best 10 movies of 2000
(We've only seen one of these, sweetiepie.)
NY Times  On Language by William Safire
(Safire's Christmas picks.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column tackles an issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "I take my 79 yr old friend with one lung to the store and buy her cigarettes. Am I wrong?"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  Deconstructing Harold
(Everything is being deconstructed. See yesterday's headlines for 2 other examples. Here we look at Bud Cort of Harold and Maude fame, and it's a good read because he is full of venom.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Items On George W. Bush's To-Do List.  My fave is #2: "Call Saddam Hussein, listen to the panic when he hears we got another 'President Bush'.")

Saturday December 16 00

New York Review of Books  The Oddness of Oz
(Interesting examination of Oz as a matriarchy)
BookWire  Bible's King David Exposed As Despot Who Did Not Kill Goliath
(Researcher sees The Bible as the ultimate Spin Doctor.)
The Yale Review of Books  Decontructing Woody
(Everyone gets deconstructed. Here it's Woody Allen's turn.)
SF Gate  The Major League Pitch Deconstructed
(And everything gets deconstructed, as well. Here it's the baseball pitch. )
L.A. Weekly Literary Supplement  Dung Ho
(And here it's...er...shit.)
Manchester Guardian's Books Unlimited  Why I hate Hunter S. Thompson
(Scathing review of Thompson's latest work.)
Village Voice Literary Supplement  The lit parade
(The VLS' top 25 books of the year.)
NY Times  Editors' Choice: The 10 best books of 2000
(The five best fiction and the five best nonfiction books of the year.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
QBR: The Black Book Review Online  QBR Recommends
(The editors pick 10 books.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  The Globe 100
(The editors pick 100 books.)
The Ruminator Review  100 Best 20th-Century American Books
(The editors pick 100 books.)
Lingua Franca  Survivors: Best Books Of The 90's
(The readers pick 10 books.)
Manchester Guardian's Books Unlimited  Christmas special
(The Books of the Year.)
Salon.com Books  New in paperback
(The year in paperback.)

Friday December 15 00

Moscow Times  Pope Gets Pardon, Flies to Germany
(Pardoned Pope to permanently vacate Vatican?)
Reuters  Vatican hints Pope will raise rights with Haider
(Busy Pope.)
Salon.com  Pope: Western lifestyle leads to "spiritual and moral impoverishment"
(Bet he doesn't turn down western money.)
NY Times  Two Become One, and Then What?
(No, not a Madonna and her guy story. This is about the Time Warner--AOL marriage.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Moscow Times  Solzhenitsyn Awarded French Humanities Prize
(The 82 yr old Nobel Prize winner surfaced and took a shot at Putin's move to make the Soviet National Anthem the new anthem for Russia.)
London Telegraph  The obituary of actor George Montgomery
(For a complete listing of Montgomery's work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Manchester Guardian  Return of the spoilt adult child
(Humorous and worth a read if you are returning to your parents' house for the holidays or if you have children returning home.)
London Sun  It's Macca mania
("Macca" is what the British tabloids call Paul McCartney.)
Nerve.com  This Week In Sex
(The week in review.)
Chicago SunTimes  Roger Ebert's Reviews
(Ebert's current picks.)
CBS  David Letterman's also-rans
(Some of the jokes that didn't make yesterday's Top Ten List.)

Thursday December 14 00

BBC  It's President-Elect Bush - finally
(Two excellent speeches, Gore's and Bush's; one common goal--to get past this election.)
CNN  Tucker Carlson: End of Clinton era is nigh
(Great quote: "I think that’s the key news: The Clinton era is over. I think that there would even have been a certain amount of rejoicing among some Republicans if Gore had won or if Ralph Nader had won or if Satan had won.")
NY Post  It may be Gore vs. Clinton (Hillary) in '04
(It may not matter that she doesn't want to run.)
National Post  Gore facing oblivion as party seeks to lay blame
(As if to undescore the above.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  I'll take print over e-info any day
(This writer has it all wrong. It need not be "online" vs. "real life." Instead you integrate the former into the latter.)
Manchester Guardian  Centenarian dies after opening Queen's birthday message
(He opened message, gasped "Yes, I made it!" and died.)
National Post  The Beatles - an English band of the '60s - enjoy revival
(Great tongue-in-cheek headline by the Canadian National Post.)
Reuters  Ex-Beatle Paul Finds All You Need Is Art
(And all you need to sell mediocre paintings is to be a former-Beatle.)
Business 2.0  Amazon's Conundrum
(They have a great company, but they are painted by the broad-brush of cyber.failures.)
Pollution Online  Online shopping may be hurting the environment
(Amazon.com's One Click Ordering may be super easy, but those UPS trucks making the delivery 3 days later might be hurting the environment.)
BBC  Pooh suffers 'psychological problems'
("Pooh, a bear of very little brain, is said to suffer from the condition known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD.")
National Post  Letterman worried about on-set germs
(Next he'll refuse to cut his hair and fingernails. Maybe we'll get to see him turn into Howard Hughes right before our very eyes.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Headlines We're Likely To See In The Next Four Years. My favorite is number 10: "49 States Vote Florida Out Of Union.")

Wednesday December 13 00

ABC News  High Court Rules
(The US Supremes state: 1) The manual recount was invalid;  2) The Florida Supreme Ct can try to set new standards;  3) Those standards will be reviewable by the US Supreme Ct;  4) oh, by the way, time will be up, anyway!  5) Bottom Line: Bush will win the US election by 537 votes.)
Boston Globe  An ordeal that sullied all in its path
(Hey, it was politics; what did you expect? We said way back on Wednesday, November the 8th, when voting irregularities were first alleged in Florida, that "Uh oh, this thing could get real ugly, real quick," and they didn't let us down...it did get ugly.)
NY Times  Once Again, the TV Mystery Prevails as Late-Night Fare
(It was great sport watching the talking heads scramble to understand the Supreme's decision last night. The reporters on CNN initially read it as being very favorable to Gore, but over on MSNBC it was being hailed as a Bush victory.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Manchester Guardian  A Nation Divided
(Columnist echoes Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN article cited yesterday when he writes, "The Clinton farewell tour, now on the road in Ireland, is proof of what all the craziness of the past few months has been about - and why it was worth it. The moment Air Force One touched down on the Dublin tarmac, the waves of Clinton charisma rippling outward, you could see why the White House is still the biggest prize on the planet, why it's been worth haggling over, even for 36 legalistic and rancorous days.")
Detroit Free Press  GM will phase out Oldsmobile brand
(Say goodbye to the oldest brand in the U.S. auto industry.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Adopting a different lexicon
(Here's an interesting view: this writer objects to the word "adopting" when it is used in fundraising campaigns, highway cleanups, etc, because it "trivializes" the adoptive process. Why not use the word "marry," she asks ?)
BBC  Japan votes noodle the tops
(The Japanese vote that their 2nd most important invention, of all time, is karaoke and that their most important invention is....ramen noodles?)

Tuesday December 12 00

Squall  Unthinkable thoughts
(Interview with controversial playwright Harold Pinter)
London Times  How to cope with toddler tantrums
(Well, my darling wife, maybe this article can help us with Sam's tantrums.)
London Times  Keeping calm in the middle of the storm
(And here's some hints for when Sam starts tossing things around in anger.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My husband works late , then comes in and wakes me up wanting sex. I need my sleep; what can I do?")
Toronto Globe and Mail  Snow, snow and more snow
(Writer declares: "I never understand when people complain about the snow. To me, the winter is the season of my country." To which I reply, "Apparently she has never spun down a snowy hill backwards.")
NY Times Book Review  'You Thieving Pile of Albino Warts'
(Christopher Buckley reviews Hunter S. Thompson's 1968-1976 letters and nails down the Gonzo'ed one pretty well: Some great reading, some not-so-great.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
ESPN  Hunter S. Thompson: Dear Rube
(Speaking of the devil, here's his weekly column and its weird mix of politics and sports with quotes such as "(Florida) has no Income Tax & essentially no Law. Its cities are ruled by Depraved sots & its Universities are snake-pits of cheating & random sex in Public. The libraries are filled with Beer-Drunkards looking for Skull sessions & beautiful girls who are proud & Eager to oblige them.")
NY Times Book Review  Featured Author: Hunter S. Thompson
(News and Reviews of Thompson's works from the Times' Archives.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
London Megastar  Britney is a Saint
(Love this quote: A spokesman for the Church of England's magazine Celebrate said: "Britney is very sexy but she has very strong principles and religious views. She is a great ambassador for virginity." But, cleric, she's not THAT innocent!)
NY Post  Mick sick over kid becoming model
(The 'Sympathy for the Devil' singer wanted his 17 yr old daughter to go to college. Now, isn't that ironic; doncha think?)
CBC News  America holds breath for Gore vs. Bush verdict
(should read: "holds its nose.")
NY Post  Experts set to 'count' Gore out
(Probably a good sign for Gore since they've been wrong every step of the way.)
Suck.com  The Ballot or the Box Office
(Writer outlines screenplay for the post election madness and even assigns roles with Jeff bridges or Charlie Sheen as George W. and Beau Bridges or Emilio Esteves and Jeb Bush; Alec Baldwin as Al Gore and Richard Dreyfuss as Joe Lieberman.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Lessons We've Learned From The 2000 Election. I love #2: "If you want Gore for President, don't check the box for Buchanan.")

Monday December 11 00

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review  Dateline DC
(Some interesting thoughts from an anonymous British journalist include: 1) The reason Gore pressed on and on was that he would pardon the Clintons, should the need arise, and 2) Hillary will run and defeat Gore in 2004.)
BBC  Doctors 'unaware' of miscarriage grief
(We know from experience that this is certainly true.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Two hours, ten bucks, One Big Question
(Does God exist? Put a priest, an imam, a rabbi and an atheist in a room and let them work it out.)
London Times  Jane Gordan: What women really want - a rich husband
(er, don't read this one, sweetiepie.)
London Telegraph  
(Another view blames feminism for today's 'Dragon Woman,' who has it all but has become, in this writer's opinion {but, certainly not mine, sweetiepie!} 'Dragon Drone' and 'Dragon Bully.')
Salon.com  T. Coraghessan Boyle
(Interview with the mad madcap author reveals a world where everyone lives in condos, the environment is failing but "we'll be on the Internet. In some ways, the Internet is a great boon, because we need virtual reality -- since there will be no more nature for us animals to live in.")
NY Post  Al's chances look like slim and none
(Lawyers from both sides will only have 45 minutes to state their case.)
Slate  How Gore Could Survive
(He only needs one vote.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  The dreaded Christmas letter
(The xeroxed letter inside the Christmas card has been an item of debate in our household for years. I vote no, but my darling wife "likes reading about other people!" Well, sweetiepie, here's some ammo for my side!))
London Megastar  Wee love football
(Pardon me for this one, but I just could not resist: "The world's biggest soccer stadium is in danger of collapsing - because hundreds of thousands of boozy fans pee during the action.")
London Sun  See Wills clean the throne
(Keeping the thread alive, here is a pic of Prince William cleaning a toilet.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things That Will Get You Kicked Out Of The Country Music Awards. And, in keeping with this unfortunate thread, check out #2.)

Sunday December 10 00

Melbourne Age  Land of the dead
(In the West it costs about 15 grand a year to control a patient's AIDS; In the rest of the world they die.)
New Jersey Online  Cartoon theme song composer Hoyt Curtin dies at 78
(The man who wrote the theme songs for Flintstones, the Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Johnny Quest is dead.)
London Telegraph  Chaos as US Supreme Court halts recount
(A British view.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
UK Independent  Gore's brief hopes are dashed
(Another British view.)
London Express  'Caretaker' Clinton may have to stay on
(An uneducated British view. It's not in the constitution; it won't happen, but there is a redeeming quote from Oklahoma Republican rep J. C. Watts near the end of the column.)
Sunday London Times  Books
(Weekly book review chooses the best reference, art, biographies, and science books of the year 2000. )
Manchester Guardian  Julie Burchill: John Lennon? What a phoney!
(The always entertaining Burchill has plenty to say about the glut of Beatle-related stories lately, and especially the recent Lennon-lauding librettos as she starts her rant with: "Working-class hero? My arse! He was about as working class as a Wilmslow dentist. Sexy? He was hideous." It only gets better.)
BBC  Castro the 'Lennonist'
(A great article when read in conjuction with Burchill's slam.)
London Express  Imagine... John and Yoko on white Zimmer frames
(A middle path approach.)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: Mourning Lennon, and our own youth
(TV commentator, radio personality, newspaper columnist and author of the best-selling "Tuesdays with Morrie" Mitch Albom, as always, sums it up rather well: "They aren't coming back.")
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column examines the problem we have all faced at one time-or-another: "I found a wad of cash! Do i turn it in to the restaurant where I found it? Do I keep it or do I just leave it in place?"  I found about $200 in a hotel once, turned it in to the front desk and have fretted about it since. How do I know the clerk didn't keep it?
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(Weekly language column examines the word of the year: chad.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)

Saturday December 09 00

London Times  Pepperoni pizzas all round at the White House
(As the {Bill} Clinton years wind down we will hear more revelations such as the one in this article: "The White House pizza-delivery man claims that you can tell the President’s mood from the toppings: vegetarian when Hillary’s at home; triple pepperoni with extra cheese when she’s not.")
Melbourne Age  Imagine nothing to kill or die for
(Gotta have a Beatles link and here's one where the writer derides the "the outpouring of sickly sentimentality, the hypocrisy, the crummy punning, the hysteria and exploitation, even the silly municipal argy-bargy and points-scoring surrounding the anniversary of his sudden demise")
London Express  Why Redford won't say 'Cut!'
(Robert Redford vows never to have plastic surgery. For a list of Redford's work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase.)
Page Six.com  Col. Klink dies
(Werner Klemperer was 80. For a list of Klemperer's work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase. )
News.com  Ask Jeeves CEO steps down as loss widens
(I know some people love it, but it pales in comparison to Google.)
NY Post  Theyve created a constitutional conundrum
(The crisis view.)
Salon.com  Erwin Chemerinsky: "The idea that this is a constitutional crisis is nonsense"
(A calmer view.)

Friday December 08 00

Detroit News  Remembering the Poet
(The first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks, died Sunday in Chicago at the age of 83 and columnist Betty DeRamus mourns our loss. A sample of Brooks' brilliance can be found in the profound , We Real Cool.  Click here to read five short critiques of "We Real Cool.")
Salon.com  Remembering Dec. 8, 1980
("Robert Altman, Lucianne Goldberg, Roger Ebert, Larry Flynt, T.C. Boyle, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas and others recall how they felt when they heard the news of John Lennon's death.")
Sydney Morning Herald  Lennon, God and me
(The front page lead in to this link was, of course, "It was 20 years ago today.")
BBC  Lennon fans gather... and imagine
(Imagine there's no Beatle's headlines.)
Reuters  Lennon Fans, New York City Officials Wage Dispute
(Fans want Central Park 1 a.m. curfew lifted for memorial day.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  'It was just total madness'
(Director Richard Lester talks about making 'A Hard Day's Night.')
Toronto Globe and Mail  You can say I'm a dreamer
(Canada's federal Minister of Health. reminisces about meeting Lennon.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Imagine: even more Lennon
(Globe and Mail columnist critiques the above article and then sums it all up for us: "Spare me from any sentimentality about the Beatles and the death of John Lennon.")
London Times  Slim? Yes Shady? Yup Real? Dunno
(The Times examines crazed rapper Eminem and comes away impressed...sort of: "It is astonishing that such an apparently dysfunctional individual should possess such lyrical eloquence.")
London Sun  Madonna's Buddhist Wedding
(Like a virgin...getting married for the very first time.)
London Telegraph  Heaven open to everyone, says Pope
(So, if you don't have to be Catholic to gain entry, the question begs to be asked, why be one?
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Telegraph  Boom town
(I had never heard of this fact: over 2000 people were killed in Halifax, Novia Scotia on the 6th of December, 1917, when 2000 tons of high explosives leveled the town.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
ESPN  Hunter S. Thompson: The NFL, election & Generation Z
(The Gonzo journalist is writing a weekly column for ESPN, of all places.)
Britannica.com  The Annotated Dennis Miller: Chiefs at Patriots
(Speaking of sports, here is this week's annotated Miller. My favorite quote this week occurred when Miller was referring to the weather: "Dan and I are [dressed] like we've been in a soccer team wreck in the Andes and you're sitting there like Matt Helm.")
London Times  Philip Howard: Only if we met in a complete guddle do people remember what we say
(England's wordsmith looks forward to a Bush regime and hopes that Bush lives up to the standard set so many years ago by Richard Nixon, when Nixon declared at Charles de Gaulle’s funeral: “This is a great day for France.” ")
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)
Chicago SunTimes  Roger Ebert Rerviews
(Ebert's weekly movie reviews.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Ways NBC Is Planning On Cutting Back)

Thursday December 07 00

Time Magazine  The Male Minority
(The American Freshman Class this year is 61% female. But, not to worry, because the American Arcade Goof-Offs this year are 90% male.)
Time Magazine  The New Case for Latin
(Virginia school system wants to increase its English scores, so it is mandating Latin...in the 3rd grade.)
London Sun   Yoko uses Lennon blood in ad
(Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Lennon's death.)
London Star  Julian blasts Yoko
(The other day we ran a link in which Yoko guessed that if Lennon were alive today he'd be an internet rapper. Julian now takes his turn at musing and his view is a little different: "I guess it would have depended on whether he was John Lennon, Dad, or John Ono Lennon, manipulated lost soul.")
NY Post  Fab 4 #1 30 years after split
(Bare with me, please. This glut of Beatles' links should be over by Monday of next week.)
NY Times  Looking for the Real John Lennon
(But even if you can't stand the Fab Four it can still be seen as an interesting look at the boomers and their clutching.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
London Star  Moo's sorry now?
(British scientists believe that a comet rained down on Britain and cows ate it, creating Mad Cow's Disease.)
London Express  Touch of Joy
(Followup on the Siamese Twin story that we followed so closely this past autumn. More info now is being released, such as pictures and names of the parents, and a poignant picture  of baby Jodie's finger clasping her father's finger.)
Yahoo Daily News  Clinton: 'Probably' Would Have Run Again
(and again...and again...and so on and so forth. To hear the cited RollingStone interview, click here. And since we can't have Bill as our next president, though I bet he'd win again if he could run, let's take a look at some of today's political columns and their thoughts about the election.)
Washington Post  Marjorie Williams: Death Of a Dream
("The final rounds of Al Gore's fight to recount the votes in Florida have an eerie resemblance to the eleventh-hour pleas of a death row inmate, with courts working overtime and lawyers scrambling to throw any handy argument into the inexorable machine that is clanking toward the deadline.")
Boston Globe  George F. Will: Memo to Gore: It's over, now concede
("With Monday's two swift strokes of judicial swords, Americans learned that they are at the end of, not the midpoint of, the Clinton-Gore era.")
Washington Post  Michael Kelly: Gore's Next Task: Face Reality
(The outcry for this to stop is snowballing: "Since Gore ultimately cannot win, it is reckless and selfish of him to continue a fight that can only promise further wreckage. Rather than force this back into the U.S. Supreme Court or, far worse, into Congress, he should withdraw his pointless appeal and concede now.")
NY Times  Maureen Dowd: Sisyphus at Starbucks
(Finally, columnist sees a lonely Al and his wife walking towards a Starbucks and writes: "the man has gone from being Powerful Second-in-Command of Prosperous, Happy Country to Obsessive Loon Whose Monomaniacal Quest Has Led Him to the Edge of Madness."
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)

Wednesday December 06 00

Sydney Morning Herald  Dudley Moore outraged over deathbed reports
(Oops!)
Chicago SunTimes  Hello, my name's Cheney, that rhymes with genie
(Oops, yet another thing mistake.)
BBC  Stark Aids warning for Europe
(Eastern Europe and Russia face as great an epidemic as Africa's.)
7am.com News  Salvation Army May Have to Leave Russia
(Let me get this straight...Russia is on the verge of an AIDS epidemic, but it's about to ban the Salvation Army for being a "militarized organization" ? That must be one screwed up country.)
NY Times  Putin Pushes Soviet Hymn, Creating Disharmony
(Ah, it's starting to make sense. You can't just dump 70 yrs of Soviet life out the window. Much of it is still in their hearts.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
BBC  Yoko's anniversary peace call
(Expect a spate of new Beatles' links {and the playing over and over again on the radio of the beginning of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band's  "It was 20 yrs ago today"} as the 20th anniversary of Lennon's death is Friday.)
BBC  'Last photo' of Lennon and McCartney for sale
(In my shameless quest to list every Beatles' link possible, which will drive 1/4 of all readers mad, I stoop to the lowest level so far....a sale of a mop-top photo.)
BBC  Night sky gets 'new star'
(St. Nick?)
Melbourne Age  Exploding Bolly douses flames
(Ok, I am having a hard time believing this story!)
CNN  Duke decides to allow same-sex union ceremonies in chapel
(One large step for society. One small step...up the aisle)
NY Times  Heavy-Lifting Belts Are Called Inefficient
(You know those heavy black belts they wear down at the Home Depot to help with their lifting? They probably don't work.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
London Times  Was Blake mad or just bizarre?
(He had visual and auditory hallucinations, it would seem case closed. For a wonderful Blake site, visit The University of Virginia's William Blake Archive.)
Yahoo Asia News  Los Angeles police dogs get bullet-proof vests
(Interesting that I should find this on an Asian news site, no?)
London Telegraph  It is virtually impossible to spot the thimble-sized technology
(The techincally savvy Japanese are also leading the way in digital-voyeurism.
Telegraph login: e-portals  passweord: e-portals)
Salon.com  Camille Paglia: The peevish porcupine beats the shrill rooster
(The Queen of Rant's year end column is subdued, by her standards, but she still has a few bullets left in her quill. For example, she despises Gores post-election manoeuvres but, "On the other hand, the embarrassing, monthlong spectacle of George W. Bush dodging public view and choking on the simplest English sentences exposes yet again the astonishingly poor judgment of the Republican Party... .")
Toronto Globe and Mail  'You've ruined my life'
(The papers have been full of sympathetic articles about Robert Downey Jr's latest bust, usually including a quote from Mel Gibson, calling him the "greatest actor of our time," with much wishing that he will find leniency in the courts. Well, here is a most unsympathetic view.)
Detroit News  AltaVista cuts free service on Web
(Three million users to lose their service Sunday. Look for Kmart's Bluelight.com to follow suit.)
London Telegraph  At last, I've found my soulmate
(Three months ago 73 yr old film director Ken Russel advertised online for a mate under the age of 50 and he's found her, but maybe we'd better check back in a year or so.
Telegraph login: e-portals  passweord: e-portals)
London Times  Magnus Linklater: Let's not make a meal out of these statistics
(Writer is not impressed with the maxim that the family that eats together, stays together.)
Salon.com  Let me suck your toes
(Poor sap is so toe-tally embarrassed of his fetish that he uses a pen name.)

Tuesday December 05 00

BBC  New Dalai Lama-China contacts
(Dalai hoping Thomas Wolfe was wrong.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr. Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My boyfrind says he loves me dearly, but is not attracted to me. Does that make sense?")
NY Times  The Sort of Affair to Make a Girl Feel Shabby
(Writer defends one-night stands.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
London Telegraph  Why celebrities just can't let go of drugs
(Acting breeds a false confidence, so this theory goes, and it's that false confidence that sets up failure when real life throws up roadblocks.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Telegraph  Cut the sob story, Richard
(Irish actor Richard Harris {and singer...remember the now-awful 'MacArthur Park'?} recently blasted the British film industry for ignoring him and the Telegeaph responds, rather unkindly. For a list of Harris' work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Melbourne Age  Dudley Moore battling killer disease
(Comic legend Dudley Moore is close to death. For a list of Moore's work, check out the incredible Internet Movie DataBase.)
NY Post  Spending leak had Elton livid: ex-flame
(We learned in the November the 19th article from the London Times, "Carried Away," that Sir Elton spent over 60 million dollars in 20 months. We learn today that he didn't want people to know about it. Good buy, Yellow Brick Road.)
Salon.com  "In My Life: The Brian Epstein Story" by Debbie Geller
(Just in time for Christmas, yet another book about the Beatles. What is going on with the boomers and their refusal to let go of the Fab Four?)
CBS  The Beatles Are Back
(As if to underline the above, here's the transcript of John Leonard's puff piece from CBS News Sunday Morning.)
CNN  Police: O.J. Simpson involved in altercation with motorist
(Wonder if he was out looking for that killer?)
National Post  Elusive animal captured on videotape
(Ron and Nicole's killer?)
CBS News  One Step Closer To Missing Link?
(They found the knife?)
The Nation  Death Row Roll Call
(Speaking of murderers, The Nation has a monthly execution calendar. Print it out and hang it on the bathroom wall, so you won't miss any appointments!)
Beliefnet  I like being Catholic
(Yogi Berra, Mary Higgins Clark, William Bennett, Cokie Roberts, Nicole Kidman, William F. Buckey and others share their thoughts. The Catholic Church, btw, teaches that capital punishment is wrong.)
The Spectator  'Mummy, why are all those people kneeling?'
(British writer is miffed that her school kids learn more about Hinduism than Christianity in class. Move to the States, they won't learn about either.)
Britannica.com  Dennis Miller Annotated: Packers at Panthers
(The Bud Light crowd hates him, and he probably won't be back next year, so we should enjoy him while we have him. My favorite from this game came when Jimmy Hitchcock picked off an interception: "That's the first time we called Hitchcock's name—that was his cameo appearance.")

Monday December 04 00

BBC  Ozone hole 'set to shrink'
(Let's start out the week with some good news.)
BBC  Clouds speed ozone loss
(However, it's a complicated subject, as evidenced by this article, also via the BBC, from last week, which still was sounding the warning alarm.)
Salon.com  Yoko Ono imagines John Lennon, age 60
(And we have to start the week with a Beatles' link. This one has Yoko seeing John as an internet-rapper.)
Nerve.com  StarFirsts
(And we also could use a good sex link to start the week. This one has David Bowie, Oleg Cassini, the late Melvyn Douglas and Helen Gurley Brown describing their "first time." Now, I have to find a Napster link.)
Betanews  EMusic Turns Up Heat On Napster Users
(Ah, a perfect start to the week! For readers who don't know what I am referring to: About a month ago, I received an email which stated "enough with the Sex, Beatles and Napster links, already!" So, that has become my mission. Find as many links to the three as possible to drive that reader insane.)
Chicago SunTimes  Poet Brooks dead at 83
(The first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.)
National Post  Parents ignore SIDS danger, place infants on stomach: study
(It is important to put those little sweeties on their backs when they sleep, especially when they are newborns since the average age of death, in this study, was 13.7 weeks.)
Feed Magazine  Krystal Chang on The Food Network
(If the names Emeril, Mario, Bobby Flay and the Iron Chef mean anything to you, then you will want to read this. If not....skip it.)
Salon.com  Hallmark has no card for this
(Maybe they should, though: How to tell a sex partner -- with minimum pain and suffering -- that you've been diagnosed with an STD.)
NY Times  Outback Confidential
(Long-time net.Headlines readers {all four of you} will recall us covering just about every Survivor  angle possible. Well, this is the 1st serious article about the new series, Survivor II: Outback.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Ananova  Under-18s banned from buying eggs
(Oh, those crazy Brits: "Everywhere you step there's broken eggs and people's windows dripping.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things Overheard Last Night at the Florida Election Commission)

Friday December 01 00

World AIDS Day  Over 34 Million People Have HIV/AIDS Worldwide
(Today is World AIDS Day)
Yahoo News  Ted Turner suggests runoff to decide US presidency
(The man may be a financial genius, but he's a political idiot.)
London Telegraph  40% rise in Aids feared over next three years
(But, who really can care about Ted Turner when AIDS is on the rise in industrial countries such as England by 40%?
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Star  Cilla in Lennon snub
(In my shameless effort to list every possible Beatles' news link, I've sunk to this: Singer Cilla Black is forbidden by John Lennon's sister to unveil a plaque in honor of the slain mop-top)
London Express  In Cambodia, Aids carries on where Pol Pot left off
(But, who cares about plaques to dead rock stars when 1000 Cambodians are becoming infected with HIV every day?)
London Express  Jane'll fix it
(But, who can worry about anonymous Cambodians dying thousands of miles away when Christmas is fast approaching? And who better to ask about Christmas hints than Jane Asher, the former girlfriend of Paul McCartney?)
London Times  Mothers caught in HIV trap
(But, who can worry about speedy Christmas puddings when speedy, dangerous rumors flash through the world and help spread the spread of AIDS?)
The Nation  Christopher Hitchens: Yes, We're the Great Pretenders
(But, who can worry about mother's milk when we have an election to settle and the King of Rant, Chris Hitchens, chimes in with his take with such gems as "one Pretender hasn't even quit as governor of Texas and one Vice Pretender hasn't resigned as senator from Connecticut.")
NY Times  Global Events Mark World AIDS Day
(But, AIDS will last long into the future. killing millions, and haven't we read enough about the election?
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Salon.com  A Hard Day's Night
(But, why worry about the future when a newly edited version of 'A Hard Day's Night' is being released just in time for Christmas?)
Detroit Free Press  AIDS activist to talk of epidemic
(But why read about rich people like The Beatles who are living in luxury when you could read about Mary Fisher, who has money and AIDS?)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(But why worry about people you don't know when you can read about sex?)
BBC  Events mark Aids 'catastrophe'
(But sex can't last forever, nor can reading about it. And now AIDS is spreading in China.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(But why worry about AIDS when you can chuckle at how stupid the 'Top Ten' list is?)
Toronto Globe and Mail   AIDS epidemic far worse than thought
(But you know what? This is not gonna go away.)

Editor's Note: AIDS is not going away, but I am. We are headed up to the Big City for sushi, movies and shopping. net.Headlines will resume on Monday, December the 4th. For those of you starved for links, check out our archive page.

Thursday November 30 00

First Things  For Useless Learning
(This should be required reading for all parents of liberal arts students.)
NY Post  Cindy: Revlon dumped me for age-old reason
(I smell an age discrimination suit in the works.)
Slate  How to buy a Christmas Tree
(And here I thought all one had to do was walk into a lot and plop down 35 bucks.)
NY Times  Study Shows That a Simple Test Can Help Prevent Colon Cancer
(No, it doesn't include calling the roto-rooter fella.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Detroit Free Press  Kmart settles dispute over photo copyrights
(So, I am walking through Kmart and the thought hit me, "What is to stop me from bringing in our copyrighted family photo and reprinting it on Kmart's unsupervised photo enlargement machine?"
London Times  Hillary plans to tell her side of Lewinsky affair
(This ought to be good.)
ESPN  Hunter S. Thompson: The fix is in
(The gonzo journalist's take on the election: "There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying -- and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida.")
Roadkill Bill  The Magic Kingdom Part II
(The weekly comic that looks at cars, technology, ecology and philosophy from the viewpoint of a frequently squashed rodent....and is funny, to boot.)

Wednesday November 29 00

CNN  Rocker Grace Slick trades microphone for paintbrush
(Two quotes of interest: #1: "They're terrible," says David Littlejohn, art critic for the Wall Street Journal" of Slick's paintings and #2: "She spends an average of about a week on each painting and cranks out about 100 a year." Talk about fuzzy math.)
National Post  Let crying babes lie?
(The researcher who would let babies cry for over 30 minutes at night defends his theory.)
BBC  Why men don't listen?
(A new study claims that men listen with only half their brain. Our other half is reserved for sports and sex.)
NY Post  Ex-pro wrestler has to grapple with conscience
(They killed his brother, so Bret 'The Hit Man" Hart is about to blow the whistle.)
Ms Magazine  Hooked
(Activist Jean Kilbourne thumbs through an issue of Vogue and dissects the ads.)
Salon.com  Robert Downey Jr. deserves our love and protection
(Hollywood's saddest story. Bet they won't be making a movie about this for a long, long time.)
NY Times  Downey's Brightening Prospects Turn Cloudy Again
(A closer look at the facts.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Post  Castmate may have dropped dime on Downey
(A closer look at the speculation.)
CBS News  Gore Gets Gonged
(Gore's five minute Monday night speech is taken apart, lie-by-lie...er, i mean line-by-line.)
National Post  CBC apologizes for breast remark
(British Columbia heard the following about a candidate's wife: "This is Logan Day's wife. I've never met her, but apparently she's got tits that'd stop a ..." All of Canada must be filling in that blank this morning. )

Tuesday November 28 00

Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles the age-old problem that we have all faced at one time or another: "I love my family dearly, but do I have to spend holidays with them when they're all alcoholics, coke addicts, adulterers and screamers?")
ABC News  Flowers Bloom on 121-Year-Old Seeds
(And immediately a 121 year old bee buzzed over.)
Capitalism Magazine  Thomas Sowell: Ploys 'R Us: The Legal Store for Democrats Seeking To Steal Elections
(Sowell deftly outlines the Republican defense.)
Time Magazine  Michael Kinsley: Why Gore Has the Right to Fight
(Kinsley deftly outlines the Democratic defense.)
National Post  Chrétien gamble makes history
(Meanwhile, our neighbors Up North show us how to do it right....er, left!)
Jargon Scout  Tasty Bits from the Technology Front
(Neat site gives us "advance warning of net lingo before it finds its way into Wired.")
Time Magazine  Take A Picture That Can Fly
(Ricoh unveils a new digital camera whose "top flips up to display a bright, 3.5-in. touch-sensitive screen--a window on the World Wide Web that surfs the Internet, records voice memos, accepts scribbled notes and drawings in 16 different colors and receives and sends e-mail." But can it sort laundry??)
Lingua Franca  Do Cats Cause Schizophrenia?
(Psychiatry Professor believes that cats may cause schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. You see, my darling wife, we should keep our doggie!)
Yahoo News  Elton John, Paul McCartney Fight 'Free' Net Music
(A Beatles and Napster link all rolled up in one!.)
Salon.com  The Dalai Lama
(Nice examination which claims: "The Dalai Lama is Gandhi meets P.T. Barnum, minus the elephants.")

Monday November 27 00

Salon.com  Sex speech by Nobel laureate shocks audience
(The cofounder of DNA quips "You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient." He has never heard of Hugh Grant, I see.)
Salon.com  Is Napster hurting record sales?
(Ah, a Napster link and a sex link to start the week. Now, if I can only stumble across a Beatles' story. Then my day will be perfect.)
ABC News  Beatles Top Charts, Again
(My trifecta has been completed. Life is good!)
NY Times  Canadians Voting on Monday in a Close Race
(I bet we don't see another 537 vote fiasco.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
London Telegraph  'Life with Elton isn't always fun'
(Rock star's lover whines.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
National Post  Makeup shakeup as Revlon drops Cindy Crawford
(Out at 34. The old gray mare just ain't what she used to be.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear From A Guy At The Gym)

Editor's Note: I am headed up north today to visit a beloved uncle and to also take in a Red Wing's game. net.Headlines will resume on Monday, November the 27th. For those of you starved for links, check out our archive page.

Thursday November 23 00

Salon.com  Don't blame me, I voted for Nader
(My sentiments exactly.)
NY Post  'Cat in Hat' author now 'Dr Sued'
(I like puns more than most, but the Post astounds me with their awful stabs at humor, not to mention their nearly-fascist political line.)
NY Post  'Fame Junkie' stars have psych woes, shrink says
(But every now and then the Post comes up a great piece like this one in which a shrink claims that movie stars who crave media attention "actually have a mental disorder.")
Detroit Free Press  Madonna, Ritchie getting hitched soon
(The above theory is starting to make sense.)
NY Times  Publishing Declares Open Season on Famous Figures
(This prefectly ties in with the above theory.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
National Post  Film festival focuses on ethnicity
(Article about Tonya Lee Williams, who plays Dr. Olivia Winters in the daytime soap The Young and The Restless, who was in Toronto pushing a new film festival. I include this because about 9 years ago I used to watch The Y&R and when this actress joined the cast it bothered me for weeks and weeks. I knew I had seen her before. So, and I am not sure how this ties in with the above theory---but I am sure it does, I finally wrote her, praising her work on the soap and then hitting her with: "I am sure I used to see you on a TV Ontario show my kids watched, 'The Polka Dot Door.' Was that you?" She replied within 2 weeks and thanked me, over several paragraphs, for my interest in her soap and then at the end very grudgingly admitted that, "Yes, I was in the Polka Dot Door.")
Slate  How to Buy a Mattress
(We need a new mattress...something that can withstand hours of little kids jumping on it.)
Atlantic  Mistaken Identity? The Case of New Mexico's 'Hidden Jews'
(Intriguing article about peasant Latinos claiming Jewish ancestry.)
FP   How Sushi Went Global
(As I was jamming a 2nd piece of ikura into my mouth the other night, I wondered that since sushi is being eaten in Ohio, in Italy, in Argentina, etc. "Is there enough to go around?")
Toronto Globe and Mail  From e.e. cummings to eatons
(The department store changing from Eaton's to Eatons to eatons causes this writer to ponder today's state of grammar.)
Beliefnet  Gratitude Daily
(Finally, It is Thanksgiving here in the States, and Beliefnet started a "Gratitude Chain" several months ago in anticipation of today. You can read others pouring out their thanks and even add your own. If you'd like some articles examining the spiritual side of the holiday from many perspectives, Beliefnet has that as well. Happy Thanksgiving!)

Wednesday November 22 00

Salon.com  Nuns without habits
(25 yr old Melissa is brite, pretty, socially aware and a Duke graduate. Oh, she's also a nun, and this astounds her family, friends and Salon.com.)
Salon.com  On sale at Old Navy: Cool clothes for identical zombies!
(Nice piece which addresses an issue that has been bothering me: Why is Old Navy cool?)
Britannica.com  The Annotated Dennis Miller: Redskins vs Rams
(You don't have to wait long for Dennis to start rolling. In the pregame analysis this week he quipped, "This team goes through kickers like Spinal Tap goes through drummers." He is not, needless to say, going over with the Burger King crowd.)
Nerve.com  Views and Reviews: Girls on Film
(Review of Sappho Goes to Hollywood, focuses on the legendary Marlene Dietrich whose sexual appetite was all encompassing. For more on Dietrich, The Blue Angel, check out this British site. And for even more about her, visit our archive site and page down to an August the 3rd article from The Melbourne Sun, "JFK 'seduced Marlene Dietrich." A headline which shows the paper's cultural bias because when two sexual predators meet like this, one does not seduce the other.)
NY Times  News Analysis: An Outcome That Keeps the Ballot Battle Raging
(An analysis of last night's Florida Supreme Court decision. It's been easy so far predicting each event. The Florida Secretary of State is Republican? She will declare the election over. The state supreme court is Democratic? They will order the recount to continue.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Melbourne Age  Sony unveils walking, dancing, speaking robot
(So this explains Britney Spears!)
London Times  How to enjoy life - the chaos way
(Witty piece which defends chaos and should be obligatory reading for anyone about to enter our house.)

Tuesday November 21 00

Food Network  Let's Talk Turkey
(Need some last minute inspiration?)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "I am happily married to a wonderful man whom I would never hurt. Why then am I looking at the collar of my co-worker's shirt and wondering what lies beneath?")
Toronto Globe and Mail  Chronic pain is my middle name
(Writer tries to describe a life in chronic pain.)
NY Post  Reno expresses Waco doubts
(You can bet Waco will haunt her till the day she dies.)
Salon.com "Anything Goes!" by Larry King
(A review of the talk show giant's new book shows him to be, and this will come as no surprise to my wife, clueless.)
Nerve.com  The Science of Sex
(Scientists have tracked down the seat of romantic love to the insula, the "anterior cingulate gyrus" and a few other little-known corners of the brain. Now they have to figure out how bad sitation comedy scripts come into being.)
NY Post  Actress puts her addiction battle online
(You can follow Melanie Griffith's woes at melaniegriffith.com )
Melbourne Age  Beatles get back to number one
(Number One in Australia and the three remaining members are "dead chuffed" by its success.)
NY Post  'Soup Nazi' set to resume Bisque Business
(Now if they can only convince 'Seinfeld' to resume.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Tope Ten Signs Al Gore Is Depressed)

Monday November 20 00

BBC  Beatles album tops the chart
(Let's get the Beatles' links out of the way first today.)
London Times  The Beatles
(The Times has put together an excellent site commemorating the Fab Four's newst CD, 1. That's it for Beatles' links today...I promise.)
NY Post  Beatle's son recalls night of terror
(Okay, I was wrong.)
Manchester Guardian  Coke's Russian invasion fizzles out
(Oddly enough, the end of communism has not been good for The Real Thing. For more on Coke's assault on the rest of the world, visit our archive site and page down to Thursday, August the 31st for a London Times piece, commemorating Coke's 100 yrs in Britain, "Enslaved by America." And another article can be found by tabbing down that same archive page to a Thursday, June the 22nd BBC article, "Coke moves into North Korea.")
NY Times  Coca-Cola Reported in Talks to Acquire Quaker Oats
(They can't take over Russia, so they'll take over breakfast.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Salon.com  When the saints go marching in
(Nice piece on Mormon missionaries in the pagan Czech Republic.)
London Times  Tough love for parents of praise junkies
(Constant praise makes weird kids, says the writer. For a companion piece, visit our archive site and page down to a Wednesday, October the 18th piece from the NY Times, "New Advice for Parents: Saying `That's Great!' May Not Be."
NY Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
UK Independent  The secret of a happy marriage: split up quickly
(Writer notes the increase in divorce among couples married 25 yrs or longer and asks, "why wait?")
NY Post  Dems see red and color the heartland evil
(We have to include at least one election take)
LA Times  Hard to Swallow
(No, not another election take. This is about water and the, apparent, myth that we should be drinking 8 glasses of it per day.)

Sunday November 19 00

NY Times Book Review  Special Section: Children's Books
(40 children's books reviewed.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  On Language by William Safire
(Weekly word column examines "riff" and "raffish."
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Sunday London Times  Ringo's stand-in misses out on CD millions
(The Beatles just won't go away. Here, we learn that Andy White, not Ringo, was the drummer on Love Me Do.)
Sunday London Times  Fame? It's enough to make his guitar weep
(Short profile of George Harrison. I know, I know, "Enough of The Beatles!" But, how can I stop now?)
Seattle Times  Paul McCartney finds he's drawn to painting
(They are just here, there and everywhere.)
Sunday London Times  The 25-year itch
(No, it has nothing to do with The Beatles; this piece examines the seemingly new phenomenom of long-term marriages breaking up.)
Redbook Magazine  How to make love to a married man {your husband}
(Maybe if some of those long termers-about-to-split did some homework, they'd make it to the finish line.)
Sunday London Times  Carried away
(Two reflections on the news that Elton John is spending about 20 million pounds a year. This article is more of an overview of over-spending.)
Manchester Guardian   18 diamante encrusted sunglasses and 72 silk shirts, please
(And this article delves into the anomaly of a man being the huge spender, and not a woman.)
San Francisco Examiner  Rob Morse: Dealing with limbo eruptions
(We have to list at least one election take and Morse is always good for some zingers and he does not disappoint: "Bush and Gore are so close in Florida that no matter who wins, the other can say he really won. Then we enter another kind of limbo, a very dark one that lasts four years.")

Saturday November 18 00

CNN  In case of a tie vote in Florida, the winner will be decided by drawing lots
(Wouldn't that be a great way to end this?)
NY Post  Something's lost in the translation of Bill's Viet talk
(We could have used this translator during Bill's 8 yrs.)
Manchester Guardian  Julie Burchill: Having a pop
(Columnist scolds baby boomers, telling them it is time to put away their toys...er...old music.)
NY Times  More by the Beatles
(Can be read as a reply to Burchill's column, and, also, as a reply to the email I get stating: "Enough Beatles and election news, already!"
Times login: edportals   password: edportals)
UK Independent  I'm suing the hospital – I didn't want another son
(Writer reacts to British woman who sues infertility clinic because she gave birth to triplets, when she only wanted twins.)
NY Times  Professor Scarry Has a Theory
(Fascinating story of how a Harvard English Professor used her literary skills to come up with a very reasonable airplane crash theory.
Times login: edportals   password: edportals)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top 10 Least Popular Dr Seuss Books)

Friday November 17 00

CNN  Up to 60 percent of job-sick calls may be phony
(The adult version of "the dog ate my homework.")
London Telegraph  My name is Sir Maurice, says Caine
(Michael Caine becomes Sir Maurice Micklewhite. Sir Maurice, Sir Paul, Sir Elton...note the trend of modern British Knighthood.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  My name is Sir Michael Caine
(Latest knight appears to be a little schizoid.)
San Francisco Examiner  MTV, Rolling Stone list of top 100 pop songs since 1963
(Wait a second...Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" beats out "In My Life" by The Beatles? Outrageous.)
London Times  Stop us if you've heard this One
(Writer sees no need for the new Beatles compilation. The need is simple; it's called "profits.")
BBC  .name joins .com
(The seven new domain names sanctioned to relieve the .com madness are: .biz - businesses, .name - individuals, .museum - museums, .pro - professionals, .aero - aviation, .coop - cooperatives and .info - general information. I see a .gas_station in the near future.)
Washington Monthly  What happens when an entire generation forgets what it means to be poor?
("Poverty Class" finds the students poor in knowledge and empathy.)
Chicago SunTimes  Roger Ebert's Movie Reviews
(Ebert's ups and downs.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things The Founding Fathers Would Say If They Were Alive Today)

Thursday November 16 00

London Express  How the Sahara is finally giving up its secrets of the lost army
(Chilling tale of how 50,000 Persians disappeared into the Sahara sands.)
Yahoo News  CBS Radio's Robert Trout Dies at 91
(Long-time radio voice is silenced.)
Britannica.com  The Annotated Dennis Miller: Raiders at Broncos
(Britannica.com's weekly guide to the weirdly compelling Dennis Miller-isms of Monday Night Football. My favorite this week was when a play was challenged and the referee went over to look at the film: "Now we'll take a five-minute break while some guy goes over the Zapruder film." It's no wonder he's not going over with the WalMart crowd.)
Chicago Tribune  A TV first Dannotation
(Speaking of compelling TV, here's a guide to the election night Rather-isms. I point you also to Tuesday's link, RatherBiased.com)
Hartford Courant  What Dan Said, Or Didn't Say
(A 15 question quiz.)
San Francisco Examiner  Rob Morse: An election looted, not just stolen
(Morse scolds both sides: "Little did we know that the election would come down to "pregnant chad" and "hanging chad," and they'd have nothing to do with the issues of capital punishment and abortion.")
Boston Globe  Bishops say theologians may teach without OK
(The in-fighting continues between the American theologians and the Vatican, while the people in the pews snooze.)
NY Times  U.S. Catholic Bishops Seek Changes in Criminal Justice System
(U.S. Judges want Homilies shortened.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
National Post  Bed rest is a bad way to treat back pain, vast study concludes
(Kicking tires is actually a good way to choose a used car, new study shows.)
Moscow Times  Sinister Ideas Lurk Behind Teletubbies
(The Moscow Times parodies their old "Western Music is a threat to The Soviet Union" headlines. They were right, by the way.)
Britannica.com   Mister Rogers to Hang Up His Cardigan, Not His Work with Children
(Goodbye, Television Neighbor.)
BBC  Sir Elton's £30m spending spree
(Good buy, yellow brick road.)
London Telegraph  Judge says doctors failed knifeman who saw Beatles on broomsticks
(Do You Want To Know A Secret?  Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Melbourne Age  Harrison attacker apologises after verdict
(Boy, you gotta carry that weight...Carry that weight a long time)

Wednesday November 15 00

BBC  Harrison: I thought I was dying
(If I scoured long enough I bet I could find one new Beatle's headline per day. Kind of sad.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  America wants two Presidents. Why not?
(But I don't have to scour for election stories. Here a Canadian offers his solution: 2 presidents, no vice-president.)
NY Post  Overseas votes will have final word...really
(Somehow I think not really.)
If you can read this  Vote for Al
(Cute parody of the Palm Beach ballot. At least I think it's just a parody.)
Amazon.com  Bush-Gore Literary Showdown
(Amazon compares sales of books on Al Gore to books on George W. Bush.)
Salon.com  Camille Paglia: Becoming president under a noxious cloud
(The Queen of Rant finally checks in with her take and she is not happy: "The negligibly talented Bush is in over his head, while the schizoid Gore is a conceited mannequin choked with his own sawdust.")
Front Page Magazine  A Dispatch from Occupied New York
(Paglia links this in her article and it's worth visiting. The author, pondering his new senator-elect, asks: "many of us are now casting nervous glances at the pant-suited woman on television and asking ourselves: Just how crazy is she?")
NY Post  Bill and Hillary divided over vote system
(She votes he moves back to Arkansas?)

Tuesday November 14 00

Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "I'm just not happy even though I'm married to a wonderful man, have great kids, a good career, a fine house, etc.. What do I do?")
NY Times  Mother Lode of TV Comedy Is Found in Forgotten Closet
(47 boxloads of ancient TV scripts and other memorabilia are found in a painted-shut closet in Manhattan, prompting Carl Reiner to quip, "Did they find any dead writers in there?"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals))
RatherBiased.com  Over 500 statements from America’s most politicized journalist.
(An excellent look at the man who stood up to Nixon and continues to stand out till this very day.)
Cnews  A McBurrito with your fries?
(Attention, McDonald's! Remember the "Arch Deluxe" and the "McLean Burger"?)
BBC  Coffee 'protects against Parkinson's'
(Well, sweetiepie, I guess we don't have to worry about Parkinson's.)
UK Independent  Adopting a child is a slow, painful business. It should stay that way
(Roughly 20% of adoptions fail, and the author fears that speeding up the process might increase the failure rate. Looking at it from this side, we know that the wait can be well worth it. And now on to the inevitible..the election.)
UK Independent  Don't let the lawyers make a crisis out of America's political drama
(This is what happens after years of Sally Jesse, Maury and Oprah; everyone now feels like a victim.)
Salon.com  Let's make a deal
(Salon calls for a manual recount of all of Florida, ignoring the possibility that such a count might not be finished before the Electoral College meets. Welcome to the machine.)
Slate  Has Bush Blown It in Florida?
(A nice jab at George W.'s team: "If the past week has given us a preview of the tactical brilliance Bush's team would bring to the White House, it's no great loss.")
NY Times  Judge, Saying He Doesn't Expect to Be Final Arbiter, Won't Stop Hand Recount
(Now, here's a smart fellow. He takes one look at this case and thinks, "I wouldn't touch this one with a ten foot pole." However, both the Federal Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court are likely to have Republican slants on this issue. Get ready for quick appeals where the Republicans take the perverse stand, for them, that this is a federal, not a states-rights issue.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Dumb Guy Ways to Solve Presidential Election Confusion)

Monday November 13 00

NY Times  Siamese Twin 'Sadly Dies' to Save Sister
(I refuse to start off the week with an election link. So, we'll start with this curiously dated link from today's NY Times about last week's Siamese Twin separation in Britain. An update on the survivor, by the way, from a "pay" internet news site, and therefore not listed here, states that she is making a "rapid recovery."
NY Times login: edportals  password:edportals)
NY Post  Paul: I believe in "Yeah, Today."
(And we should have at least one Beatle's link before we get back to the election mess.)
National Post  Art's holy apostle
(And I'll even throw in a profile of Sister Wendy, the 70 year old cloistered art critic, before returning to the inevitible)
The Atlantic  From your lips to the printer
(Well, to stall listing new election takes, I even scoured for  Napster news, but couldn't find any. However, I did find this by the always-interesting James Fallows.)
CNET  Beatles play with music, effects for Web site
(In my stalling I've even run across a 2nd Beatles link. Today marks the opening of The Beatles.com, supposedly. It was not up when I tested it.)
London Times  Gore camp demands FBI inquiry
(Meanwhile, back to the ugliness.)
London Telegram  The law will prevail - and Mr Bush will go to Washington
(A reasoned and calm view, if you can tolerate Bush.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: Who's president? There's no debate
(Sports columnist, radio and tv personality and best-selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie discovers a missing presidential debate.
San Francisco Examiner  Rob Morse: Rush to Limbo
(Morse blasts both sides: "one thing we always suspected proved to be true. Gore and Bush are both jerks." Note to my sweet wife: This is the one election take you should read.)

Monday November 12 00

London Telegraph  Simpson on Sunday: It's not just the Democrats at fault, it's America
(A critique far more reasonable than the headline describing it.
Telegraph login:e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Sunday Times  Scientists to recreate flu virus that killed 40 million people
(Hmmm...this might not be such a good idea.)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(Safire examines "rollout"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My neighbor has hauled his junk to the curb, but I recognize it as an antique. Can i take it without telling him of its worth?"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs Your Anchorman Is Exhausted)

Saturday November 11 00

UK Independent  World Leaders relish chance to lecture America
(I had to include this link after reading the following: "Sure, democracy works better in Russia than in America," said a security guard watching Mr Putin. "Over here we can tell you who will win the presidency long before the election and over there they can't even tell you afterwards.")
London Telegraph  Democrats tell Gore to forget court battle
(So the gingerbread man asked the fox, as the fox was about to eat it, "you promised not to eat me. Why are you doing this?" And the fox replied, "because I am a fox."
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Time Magazine  Two Cheers for Good Old, Sloppy Democracy
(My thoughts exactly and one echoed in yesterday's UK Independent, "There's no such thing as a perfect democracy.")
London Times  The man who would be President — at 98
(The man who entered the Senate in 1952 and vowed that "Segregation will last forever," is ready to assume the top spot if the boys can't settle this. Thank God, now we can all relax.)
San Francisco Examiner  Tim Goodman: It's easy: Don't believe what you see on TV
(The Examiner's resident wag starts out with a gem, "This just in from CNN — after a long delay, Dewey has, in fact, defeated Truman.")
CBC  Canadiens struck by Lightning
(There is other news.)
Forbes Magazine  100 things worth every penny
(I would move number 22 into the top three.)
The Melbourne Age  Leave sharks alone, pleads author
(No, it's not a defense of the troops Bush and Gore have sent down to Florida to steal...er...seal the election; this is, instead, Peter Benchley writing an impassioned defense of the "magnificent ocean predator," which recently killed an Aussie swimmer.)
Jewish World Review  The Cloning of Noah
(I love to look for common threads in religions, so when I read Rabbi Nosson Slifkin's line "However, if one believes that the universe was created for a purpose, then everything in it is precious," I smiled, because here we have Judaism and Buddhism sidling up next to each other on this one issue.)
Beliefnet  What's your Spiritual Type?
(If you have a spare 10 minutes, take this 25 question test to determine whether you are a cynic, skeptic or believer. I scored 47, which I thought was kind of high. I gotta work on my skepticism!)
San Francisco Examiner  David Letterman's List
(Top 10 things overheard at the Florida election commission)

Friday November 10 00

National Post   Maureen Dowd: Slick Willie's revenge
(One of the best election pieces I've read so far, Dowd's takes are screamingly funny.)
London Sun  Gore Fights Dirty
(This is how the Sun sees it: "Desperate Al Gore began fighting dirty yesterday in his bid to snatch the U.S. presidency.")
International Herald Tribune  Proceed With Care
(Advice for Gore and Bush from Paris.)
BBC  US split down the middle
("There is freedom within, there is freedom without...Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup.")
London Telegraph  The world mocks as America squirms
(The world should note the lack of riots, the lack of martial law and the lack of a military take over.
Telegraph logon: e-portals  password: e-portals)
UK Independent  There's no such thing as a perfect democracy
(A nice calming take on the American dilemma.)
NY Times   Electoral College Vote Need Not Include Florida
(On the other hand, here's a theory that would ignite a riot: Forget Florida; count the electoral votes. You think that's bad? Read the next link!
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Beliefnet  Prayer Warfare?
(Evangelical "Prayer Warriors" have mobilized to tip the recount through prayer. I told you this thing would get ugly.)
Detroit Free Press  Bear traps voting officials in polling place
(Bare Irregularity.)
NY Times  Original Sin
(Columnist Thomas L. Friedman's interesting take: Whoever wins will be tainted now and they should, as atonement, name the other side as their cabinet. I can just see Dan Rather raising an eyebrow and shooting back some sort of "When that happens, snow will cover the Alamo" bullet.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
AlterNet  Fireworks Fly as Clinton Speaks to Pacifica Radio
(Clinton called WBAI in New York City on election day and got into a great give and take in which he showed why he is the real thing. There's also an audio link and a printed transcript.)
BBC  Abbey Road meets the superhighway
(There is other news and it's been at least a week since I've put up a Beatle's link.)
Beliefnet  Should Catholics eat hamburgers?
(An Italian theologian angers Ronald McDonald when he declares that fast food has meant a loss of community and blames it on the Protestants: Eating burgers and fries reflect an 'individualistic relationship between man and God which goes back to (Martin) Luther'.")
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)
Chicago SunTimes  Roger Ebert's Movie Reviews
(Ebert's ups and downs. If you want to read what America's foremost movie critic thinks of the election, check out this salon.com piece where he calls out for Bush to concede Florida.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Ways The United States Would Be Different Without A President.)

Thursday November 09 00

Salon.com  "If a frog had side pockets ..."
(As I mentioned Tuesday, Dan Rather was in some sort of weird, brilliant zone on election night, tossing out down-home witticisms left and right. I'm glad I wasn't alone in recognizing this as here is a list of some of his best. My favorite was when someone mentioned the slight possibility of Ralph Nader sitting on a George Bush cabinet. Rather shuddered and immediately shot back with "I think you would likelier see a hippopotamus run through this room than see George Bush appoint Ralph Nader to the Cabinet." And, of course, he was right.)
San Francisco Examiner  Tim Goodman: Election call turned on Florida fumble
(The always witty TV critic's take on election night: "Well that was better than any episode of 'The West Wing.'" And, he, of course loved Rather, "That's why there's nobody in the TV business better than Dan Rather on any election night.")
Britannica.com  The Annotated Dennis Miller: Vikings at Packers
(And speaking of compelling, bizarre television, we can't forget Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football and here's our weekly study guide. My favorite Miller-ism this week was when they started playing that god-awful "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and Miller responded "This is the new Gary Glitter song. These guys are down in the islands cashing heavy residuals, like Robert Vesco down in the Caymans." It's no wonder he's not going over with the Bud-Lite crowd.)
Salon.com  Sunshine psychosis
(A long time resident tries to explain his Florida: "I'm not surprised at all that an entire national presidential election could hang on whether a couple of thousand befuddled seniors in Florida accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore. Sounds crazy, right? So what else is new? Florida is a state with multiple personality disorder -- it's the catch basin into which our national insanity drains." I'll have to remember this the next time one of our kids starts whining about me never taking them to Disneyworld!)
Slate  Why Gore (Probably) Lost
(A nice look at Gore's psyche. It's kind of fun to watch George W. think. You can see his eyes dart around as he futiley searches for the right word and then inserts the wrong one, but Gore is a different kind of cat. Tightly bound and ill at ease, it's almost as if he's trying to smash through his own plastic persona, and who wants to see that day after day?)
London Sun  US Election Becomes Farce
(Wrong. The media circus was farcical, not the election.)
Manchester Guardian  Jonathan Freedland: It's Not Fair to Gore
(Another British view: "the US remains the story to beat all stories.")
Melbourne Age  Missing Him Already
(The "Goodbye Bill" articles have begun this week, see this past Monday's interview with Larry King and yesterday's CNN piece "Clinton: 'I've got another 10 weeks to quack'")
London Telegraph  Siamese twin Jodie is 'making progress'
(There is other news.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Jerusalem Post  Experts find genetic Jewish-Arab link
(This is surprising?)
London Times  Heroin death of Paula Yates was not suicide
(We've started following the finger pointing story of the late rock star Michael Hutchence and his also departed spouse Paula Yates. See the Melbourne Age article below from Tuesday of this week, "Hutchence's 'drink and drugs' led to Paula's downfall," and Nerve.com's "Science of Sex" article from Tuesday, October the 31st where the writer hints that autoerotic asphyxia lies at the bottom of this whole mess. )
Detroit Free Press  Lore of the lakes: The Edmund Fitzgerald sank 25 years ago, but its legend isn't the only one to survive
(They'll ring the bell 29 times at The Mariners Church in Detroit on Sunday and "The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down ...Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee'...The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead...When the skies of November turn gloomy.")
London Express  Being butler to Danielle Steel was a pig of a job - in fact, the pig was the nicest thing about it
(I've never read any Danielle Steele and I'd never actually read this article, but the headline was just too good to pass up.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Thoughts Of New York City Marathoners)

Wednesday November 08 00

Salon.com  Florida Holds the Key
(It's 1:09 a.m. EST and it's 246-242 Bush with four states still out and, by far, the most electrifying political moment in many years occured tonite about 9:30 or so when Dan Rather announced "Bulletin! We are now retracting Florida from the Gore count." When that happened, the hairs on my neck stood up....we truly had a horse race. CNN and ABC quickly followed suit, but it took NBC an hour to join ranks. You can go to sleep, however, and not wait up for the winner because I believe the loser will seek a recount in at least one state.)
CBS News  President Bush!
(Has a familiar ring to it, doesn't it? It was a great election night and CBS easily had the fastest results, although they were sometimes wrong, but Dan Rather was brilliant. George Bush won't be, but that's ok.)
CBS News  Still Up For Grabs!
(It is 6:14 a.m. EST and the above link, declaring Bush president, no longer exists. Can you say "Dewey beats Truman"?)
Salon.com  New life for Gore
(Meanwhile, I think I echo millions of Americans when I say, "I need a nap.")
ABC News  Voting Irregularities Alleged in Florida
(Uh oh, this thing could get real ugly, real quick.)
CNN  Ballot box found in Florida church did not contain votes
(Irregularities? Nah, impossible!)
CNN  Clinton: 'I've got another 10 weeks to quack'
(Oh, I think we'll be hearing from this "quacker" for a long time.)

Tuesday November 07 00

Portrait of America  Presidential Tracking Poll
(Today's numbers are: Bush 49%, Gore 40%, Nader 4%. In the electoral college, Bush leads 224 to 168, with 146 electoral votes in the toss-up category. All of this is of minor interest, however, because I hold the key to who will win tonight, and the candidates have been wasting their time and money directing their efforts elsewhere. You see, I have voted in nine straight presidential elections and have voted for nine straight losers. This is why our oldest son emailed me, "Dad, you have to vote for Bush! It is Gore's only hope!!!")
San Francisco Examiner  Nader: Vote your conscience
(Ralph's Green Party needs 5% of the national vote tonight in order to qualify for federal funding in the 2004 campaign.)
Ny Post  How to watch the election
(Kentucky and Indiana will close their polls at 6 tonight while Forida, Georgia, New Hampshire, Vermont, Georgia and South Carolina close at 7. Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia close at 7:30, so by that time, we will already have some major clues.)
London Telegraph  Twin Mary dies to save her sister
(They are still called "Siamese Twins" in the UK, not "conjoined twins" as Oprah would have us call them and yesterday was the day that twins Mary and Jodie were separated by a court order, and against their parents' wishes.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Telegraph  Yesterday a child was killed by order of the courts
(A dissenter's voice.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  25 Years Later, Vietnamese Still Flock to the U.S.
(Has there been any other war in history where the people of the winning country flocked to the loser's side after the shooting stopped?
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  Vatican Denies Pope Will Retire; Announces June Visit to Ukraine
(Note to the press: Popes leave office in a box.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Melbourne Age  Hutchence's 'drink and drugs led to Paula's downfall'
(In a Nerve.com article we linked last Tuesday, October the 31st, "The Science of Sex," the writer wrote that British rock star Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of INXS, may have died of autoerotic asphyxia, which is self-strangulation in order to heighten orgasm by constricting the flow of blood to the brain during masturbation. Hutchence's family flatly denies that, pointing their fingers, instead, at his late wife, Paula Yates and her drug use. Now, friends of Yates strike back, claiming that it was Hutchence who caused her death, and not vice-versa. Meanwhile, four year old Tiger Lily Hutchence, daughter of the two, is calling someone else mommy and daddy now. )
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles an issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My Mister Right's apartment is a total pig sty: dirty clothes, old papers and empty Chinese food containers cover every available surface. Should I be worried?")

Monday November 06 00

Portrait of America  Presidential Tracking Poll
(Today's numbers are: Bush 48%, Gore 41%, Nader 4%.)
San Francisco Examiner  Rob Morse: What about the old DUH charge?
(An Amusing piece in which Morse savages Bush {"Who cares how much alcohol was in Bush's system one night when he was 30 years old? How much brains are in his head right now?"} and he's not thrilled with Gore either: "Gore's handlers, on the other hand, probably wish they could find something as colorful as a DUI in their guy's background.")
Toronto Globe and Mail   Oprah: the new religion
(Excellent piece about Oprah's new magazine, "O," which, according to the writer: " admonishes us to be thankful for what we have while simultaneously inviting us to salivate over those $525 (U.S.) Ralph Lauren red leather boots." Oddly enough my wife came home from the beauty shop Friday, quoting the magazine and I drew the line: "You can change your name and join the moonies, you can turn into a sports fan and love the wrong teams, you can even vote for George W...but PLEASE do not bring that magazine into our house!)
BBC  'Living god's' funeral divides Rastas
(Haile Salassie is to be reburied, which is a slight problem to the Rastafarians since they believe he is still alive.)
London Times  Surgeons will separate Siamese twins today
(We followed this story in great detail earlier this autumn and today is the day.)
London Telegraph  Why the world talks to Larry
(A Larry King profile in which he picks Tuesday's winner and moans that he already misses Clinton.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
National Post  Ask Roger Ebert
(Ebert answers four queries, all dealing with the editing of videos which change the original movie without the home viewer ever noticing. Hmmm, come to think of it, I did wonder why that last one was entitled "The Nine Commandments.")
Detroit Free Press  5 questions with . . . Joe Cocker
(Joe gives five answers, including his opinion of Britney Spears-type music: "You know, when I think back to '67 and those years, I thought we'd killed that stuff off.")

Sunday November 05 00

Portrait of America  Presidential Tracking Poll
(Today's numbers are: Bush 48%, Gore 41%, Nader 4%.)
NY Times  'The Simpsons': Creating the 'Real,' in Bright Yellow and Blue
(Robert Pinsky, the United States poet laureate from 1997 to 2000, looks at The Simpsons and finds poetry. For a companion article from the Toronto Globe and Mail, page down to Tuesday , October the 31st for "The sad, cruel world of the Simpsons," where a university professor also praises the show.
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  Don't Spill It on Me
(Cute piece in which the writer complains of "oversharing."
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(Weekly language column asks "Or is it a boldfaced or barefaced lie?"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column answers that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time-or-another: "My 10 yr old son's friend broke an antique lamp and his parents have not even mentined paying for it. May I now secretly break something in their house to even the score?"
Times login: edportals  password: edportals)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: How times change; just check daisies
(Sports columnist, radio and tv personality and best-selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie looks back at the '64 presidential campaign.)

Saturday November 04 00

Portrait of America  Presidential Tracking Poll
(Today's numbers are: Bush 46%, Gore 43%, Nader 3%.)
London Times  Aides admit Gore is hooked on Coke
(a-cola.)
London Telegraph  The dynastic duo
(Writer looks at Gore/Bush and finds the same preppy roots.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  The patron saint of politicians who has never gone off message
(The Pope declares St. Thomas More as the patron saint of politicians.)
Manchester Guardian  Julie Burchill: The new domesticity
(Columnist is not swayed by Marth Stewart-like visions of happiness.)
ABC News  Is Napster Selling Out or Is BMG Buying In?
(both.)

Friday November 03 00

Portrait of America  Presidential Tracking Poll
(Today's numbers are: Bush 46%, Gore 43%, Nader 3%.)
Village Voice  A Green Light for Nader
(The Voice endorses Ralph.)
Sydney Morning Herald  Houdini Hillary and Bill four years from a White House return
(Please, say it isn't so!)
NY Post  Latest poll has Hillary back in lead.
( uh-oh!)
Yahoo News  Cher to Voters: 'Has Everyone Lost Their Minds?'
(Note to Cher: Wasn't Sonny a Republican?)
Chicago SunTimes  Cher shows no mercy toward nuns
(Proof that America is a great country: Two Cher headlines in one day!)
London Telegraph  'The Devil is gaining ground'
(No, not another Anti-Nader rant, this is merely an interview with The Vatican's chief exorcist.)
London Sun  Sexy Sarge died in mini skirt
(Sarge may have died in a mini skirt, but the real news here is the way he died. See this past Tuesday's link to a Nerve.com article "The Science of Sex" for an explanation of autoerotic asphyxia.  Also, keep in mind that The Sun typically will not leave their stories online for more than 24 hrs.)
BrittneySpears.ac  Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics
(A non-news link included because it's such a novel idea. )
London Sun  Hit me barman, one more time
(The "I'm not that innocent" teen singer celebrated Halloween puffing cigarettes while knocking back vodka-laced White Russians, rum-based Pina Coladas, and a Soul's Kiss with whisky. Keep in mind that The Sun typically will not leave their stories online for more than 24 hrs.)
London Times  Hope they die before I get old
(The Times' music pop music critic looks at the sales of the "new" Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Freddie Mercury cd's and says "Enough Already!")
Rolling Stone  Lennon Remembered
(Lennon's 1970 Rolling Stone interview. I get email saying "Enough Already about the Beatles!", so don't bother, I already know.)
Rolling Stone  I Read the News Today
(Thirty four artists {Keith Richards, Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, etc} remember where they were when they heard the news about Lennon's death.)
Big Black  Jay Leno's Steve Allen tribute
(This is an audio clip. To hear this touching tribute you will need Realaudio, and be patient...the site is often slow to load.)
Slate  Bringing Up the Rear
(This week in the Tabloids.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(This weekly link was not up at entry time. They often get it working later in the day.)

Thursday November 02 00

Portrait of America  Presidential Tracking Poll
(Today's numbers are: Bush 47%, Gore 42%, Nader 4%.)
Slate  Ralph the Leninist
(Anti-Ralph articles are springing up, a sure sign that the Dems are frazzled.)
Yahoo News  Nader: Ignore Negative Ads About Me
(He's always been a gadfly; now it's the Dems' turn to suffer.)
Washington Times  Who are the Rich?
(Gore's constant battering of the "richest 1 percent" is not working because Americans want to be in that one percent.)
American Spectator  Steve Allen, RIP
(Nice, short eulogy.)
ABC News  Crash Probe Begins
(Why did a Singapore Airliner crash in Taipei upon takeoff, killing 79, including 23 Americans, of the 179 on board? It may have taken off from the wrong runway.)
The Economist  The music business’s digital challenge
(A nice analysis of the Napster-BMG music deal.)
Mother Jones  Top 10 Activist Campuses
(Shouldn't that read "Top 10 Activist Campi"?)
ABC News  Nation's Top 10 'All-America' Communities
(Relax, none of the 'Top Ten Activist' campuses are near any of the 'Top 10 All-America Communities.')
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Gallup Poll Taker Pet Peeves.)

Wednesday November 01 00

CNN  Entertainer Steve Allen dead at 78
(TV's great Renaissance Man, who among other things launched The Tonight Show,  passes in his sleep.)
Beliefnet  Pick the Person You'd Canonize
(To honor November the 1st, All Saints Day,  Beliefnet offers up five modern day figures (Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Thomas Merton and Cesar Chavez) and let's us vote for the one we'd like to see canonized. Another way of celebrating today would be to dig out Van Morrison's lovely 1991 "Hymns to the Silence" cd and play the catchy "All Saints Day."  You can sample the tune at Amazon.com.)
Salon.com  Napster finally cuts a deal
(BMG -- one of the five major record labels suing Napster -- has signed an agreement with the file-sharing company to form a membership-based music service. If the other record giants follow, look for a two-tiered Napster, a membership service exisiting alongside the current free service.)
NY Times  Napster, Bertlesmann Deal Questioned
(A more in-depth look at Napster's latest move.
Times login:e-portals  password: e-portals)
Feed Magazine  Among the niceties
(Interesting look at the way the media uniformedly phrases things. When does "violence" become "blood-soaked violence" and when does that become "barbarism"?)
London Telegraph  Why do we refuse to give up?
(Examines the question I ask whenever I see shivering, huddled figures furtively puffing away outside some public building: "Why do people still smoke?"
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  Is coffee good for you?
(On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with running to a supermarket for some beans at 3 in the morning.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs Your House Is Being Haunted By A Lame Ghost.)

Tuesday October 31 00

Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My girl friend started eating raw brussel sprouts at the supermarket check out line and saw nothing wrong with it. I told her that she should have waited till we reached the car. She called me anal. Who is right?")
Toronto Globe and Mail  The sad, cruel world of the Simpsons
(Many people dismiss it as "a stupid cartoon," but the head of the philosophy department at the University of Manitoba has written a paper declaring that "The Simpsons is the deepest show on television.")
Nerve.com The Science of Sex
(Interesting explanatory piece on autoerotic asphyxia, which is self-strangulation in order to heighten orgasm by constricting the flow of blood to the brain during masturbation. The writer claims that "One of the most famous cases of suspected autoerotic asphyxiation was pop star Michael Hutchence of INXS, who died of strangulation back in 1997, a death that was eventually ruled to be a suicide.")
Salon.com  Family of INXS's Hutchence blames girlfriend for his suicide
(Very strange that this should hit the wires the same day as the above article. Hutchence's mother, not wanting her dead son to be remembered as a pervert, blames the death on his girlfriend, the late Paula Yates, who was found dead in the bedroom of her London home after an apparent drug overdose this past summer.)
Detroit Free Press  Angels army guards for arsonists
(Last night was Devil's Night in Detroit. So, you think this is a uniquely Detroit or an American problem? Check out the next link.)
London Telegraph  Expect trouble after dark
(Those in the north of England fear the night of the 4th of November, "Miggy Night." I think there's a doctoral dissertation just waiting here.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Salon.com  Italian cardinal denounces Halloween
(For a different point of view, where the writer claims Halloween as a Catholic holiday, page down net.Headlines to a Saturday, October the 28th article, "Surprise: Halloween's Not a Pagan Festival After All.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs George W. Bush Is Getting Cocky.)

Monday October 30 00

London Times  Loneliness in space
("Hello? Dr. Laura? This is Major Tom.")
London Sun  Bras 'may give you cancer'
(Women are urged not to panic.)
BBC  Fatty diets 'not linked to breast cancer'
(Ok, honey...take off your bra and meet me at Burger King.)
CBS News  High-Fat Diet May Promote Prostate Cancer
(But, I'll have the garden salad.)
Detroit News  George Cantor: If Toronto is ‘sorry burg,’ what about Detroit?
(Writer compares Detroit to Toronto. Next, page down to an October the 23rd article from the National Post, "Home, with Paris still on my mind," which finds Toronto lacking when compared to Paris. I fully expect an article next week which moans that Detroit is the height of sophistication when compared to...hmmm...let's say "Zanesville, Ohio.")
BBC  Adopted children 'get less food'
(Here's something that is definitely not true at our house: Mothers of adopted children spend less on food than natural mothers, according to research in an economic journal.)
NY Times  Gore Team Renews Criticism of Bush as Inexperienced
(That's odd. The Dems didn't make this claim eight years ago when a certain Southern governor defeated an incumbent president.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Toronto Globe and Mail  A toast for the Cook
(Writer derides the new movie "Bedazzled" as a poor imitation of the 1967 orignal which starred the late, great Peter Cook and his young partner, Dudley Moore. Remember, honey, when we saw Cook and Moore in Detroit?)
CBS News  Great Scott! Rocky Horror Is 25
(Janet, Frank N. Furter, Riff Raff and crew have aged well. For a great Rocky Horror site check out VH1's tribute site.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear At The Bottom Of A World Series Pile On.)

Sunday October 29 00

London Telegraph  Breakthrough as scientists discover cure for arthritis
(Now here's some good news, even if it is only preliminary.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
BBC  Hope of Parkinson's 'cure'
(They can cure, cure, cure....we still have to die, however.)
NY Times  The ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column tackles the age-old problem that we have all faced at one time or another: "My friends are having a "Pimps and Ho's" Halloween party and I feel uneasy about supporting such a creepily racist party. Should I tell them or buy a fedora?"
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  Heavy Mileage
(Six major airlines will start offering discounts at Amazon.com and Sharper Image through Milepoint.com.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  On Language by William Safire
(Weekly language column looks at "livid."
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Melbourne Age  When worlds collide
(When the locals of Broome came out to see who had crashed in the middle of nowhere they were shocked to find Robert Hughes, esteemed international art critic at Time Magazine since 1970, author, professional expatriate, fisherman, self-confessed smart-arse and intellectual snob at the wheel. By the times Hughes left town, everyone hated him.)
Manchester Guardian  Dumb? Are you?
(The Guardian offers a 38 question interactive culture test which has an obvious British slant. At least that's my argument for scoring only 21 out of a possible 38.)

Saturday October 28 00

Manchester Guardian   Julie Burchill: Unhealthy disinterest
(Columnist chides parents for obsessing about their children's health and writes: "Alternatively, you could eat, drink and be chubby, because we're all going to die anyway.")
London Times  June Osborne: Recipe for disaster in a world consumed by greed
(New Times spirituality columnist argues that consumerism and Christianity are not compatible.)
Newsweek  Monster Mania
(This has perplexed me for years. Why is Halloween growing as a holiday? People are even stringing orange lights on trees and houses now.)
MSNBC  Halloween movies worth sharing
(Fifteen spooky delights you can rent this weekend.)
Beliefnet   Surprise: Halloween's Not a Pagan Festival After All
(It's so important to some Christians that all ties to paganism (read "paganism" as non-Christian roots) be cut that they'll even claim such customs as Halloween.)
National Review  Term Limits for the Papacy?
(A bad American idea is circling the Vatican)
London Telegraph  Divine downfall
(The guru Sai Baba's devotees across the world are estimated at up to 50 million. He is said to be born from a virgin and is embroiled in a sex scandal.)
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Beliefnet  Thomas Lynch: Religion and Its Troubles
(Lynch, a Michigan undertaker who sees death's great equalizing power on a daily basis, is also one of America's best essayists. For another article by Lynch visit our archive site and page down to a Salon.com article from July the 21st, "Rescued by the Word," where Lynch picks out five poetry books to feed our souls. And to read a review of Lynch's book of essays page down the archive site to a Salon.com, June the 15th review, "Bodies in Motion and at Rest.")
The Atlantic  Rainbow by John Updike
(And, to feed our souls today, a short poem by one of America's best authors)

Friday October 27 00

Salon.com  Garth Brooks says he'll retire
(Ed's Rule of Thumb #21112(a): "When country stars in their late 30's announce their retirement, start an office pool.)
CNET  Multiple Web personalities skew registration numbers
(Ever register on a web site, forget your password and then re-register, using a new name? Well, web advertising rates are based on the number of registered users.)
London Times  Dominant male, long marriage?
(Note to all wives: researchers from Wayne State University in Detroit claim that households where the man is dominant overall are most likely to last the distance.)
UK Independent  And my celebrity guest is wotsisname off, er...
(Amusing piece premised on Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes of fame statement.)
Salon.com  Don't buy that PlayStation
(Writer cuts through the hype.)
Salon.com  Pop before rock
(Long-time Village Voice rock critic and excellent writer, Robert Christgau, picks out six books.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(This weekly link was not up at entry time. Maybe they'll have it working later in the day.)
Chicago SunTimes  Roger Ebert Reviews
(Ebert's take on the new Blair Witch film.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things Going Through George W. Bush's Mind At The Moment)

Thursday October 26 00

Britannica.com  The Annotated Dennis Miller
(Weekly guide to the Monday Night Football pundit's cultural and historical references.)
International Herald Tribune  George Will: Gore's Hauteur Annoys
(And George Will's hauteur doesn't annoy?)
Salon.com  It's the stupidity, stupid
(Gore may be snooty, but this writer claims, "George W. Bush's constant gaffes and mental lapses reflect the luxurious laziness of a scion who's never had to work hard at anything.")
Sydney Morning Herald   Bye, bye, old Beijing
(Modernizing China is a wrenching experience. For a companion piece, visit our Archive page and tab down to an article from Monday September the 25th from the Melbourne Age, "New Beijing loses its past in the rush to the future.")
ABC News  Farmer Finds Space Junk
(Coming soon to a backyard near you!)
Detroit Free Press  Castro's life is a mystery to most
(Here's how different life is in Cuba: "Most Cubans, in fact, know almost nothing about the personal life of one of the world's most private rulers -- not the names of his wife and children, not even the address of his home in Havana.")
ABC News  Letter from a Watery Grave
(At least 23 sailors survived the Kursk's explosions and waited for death.)
San Francisco Examiner  Virus Transmitted on Football Field
(Florida State beat Duke that year 62-13, but the Blue Devils had a secret weapon.)
CBS News  A Runner With Heart
(Here's something inspiring: 14 months after having an aortic aneuryism, Floyd Ruben ran the Chicago Marathon.)
Feedmag  Daniel Drew Taylor: Will the PS2 be Sony's biggest flop?
(Nice look at the new PlayStation 2.)
CBS News  Dick Van Dyke: I'm Retiring
(But Andy, Aunt Bee, Opie, Barney and Floyd the Barber will live forever in Mayberry as b&w cable filler.)

Wednesday October 25 00

Mother Jones  The Top 50 Political Donors of 2000
(Ever wonder who the big spenders are?)
Salon.com  Camille Paglia: Rage in the Middle East
(The Queen of Rant returns with a 4 pager in which she frets about Clinton starting a skirmish overseas in order to defeat George W.)
The Nation  Christopher Hitchens: Democratic Centralism
(The King of Rant's latest election take starts off with: "When the ax came into the woods, the trees all said, 'Well, at least the handle is one of us.'")
Intellectual Capital  Campus Pop Pushers
(Soda machines in schools? Schools are relaxing their standards in order to get funds.)
Washington Post  Tom Shales: 'Michael Richards': Kramer Minus Kramer
(Shales reviews the "The Michael Richards Show," in case you missed it last night.)
San Francisco Examiner  Tim Goodman: NBC hits bottom with Richards' show
(Whew, an even more brutal review.)
ABC News  Keeping London Hopping
(Talk about stress: "A hunt is on in a London suburb for a kangaroo said to be on the loose and partial to jumping out of bushes to scare golfers.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs An Olympic Athlete is Using Steroids)

Tuesday October 24 00

Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr. Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles, among other things, that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "My family is college educated and debates theology over dinner. My fiancee's family watches NASCAR during supper. Is there a future for us?")
Time Magazine  Teens Before Their Time
(Science struggles to understand why girls as young as 8 and 9 are entering puberty. For a companion link, visit our archive for the Sunday June the 18th article from The London Observer, "One girl in six hits puberty by age of eight.")
San Francisco Examiner  British woman dies of flight 'syndrome'
(Good thing I didn't read this last week or I would have never flown up to Chicago.)
London Times  Long-haul health risk
(As one would expect, The Times covers the issue of deep vein thrombosis much more thoroughly than The Examiner, in the link above, which gasps but offers no depth.)
London Telegraph  'Payne was always the fun one'
(Golf whiz Payne Stewart died one year ago tomorrow in a bizarre plane crash and his widow is still struggling to come to terms with her loss.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Boston.com  A survival guide to Bawstin for all of you who weren't bon heah
(Cute Boston survival guide.)
Melbourne Age  Farewell Elvis and the aliens
(The major American tabloids (The Star, The Enquirer and The Globe) issue a mission statement: "What tabloids stand for is to expose the hypocrisy of the rich and famous.")
LA Times  In TV Ads, the Laugh's on Men . . . Isn't It?
(Ever wonder why beer commercials are so dumb?)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Angry young rich men
(Yet another article that tries to explain Limp Bizkit to the masses. You can page down to Friday October the 20th for a London Times article, "What a life of human waste," which is not quite as sympathetic.)
London Times  The master of Russian soul music
(Shostakovich as the Russian Barry Gordy?)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Detour from road to retirement
(Ed's Rule of Thumb #21112: "When rock stars in their 50's announce their retirement, expect them to retract within a week.")

Monday October 23 00

London Times  Uganda in terror as ebola spreads
(Here's a nice headline to start our week.)
CBC News  AIDS vaccine stops symptoms in monkeys
(Nature has a way of balancing things.)
Salon.com  Strung out on pinstripes
(Ebola is breaking out in Uganda, but actor-director Eric Bogosian cares only about his beloved Yankees.)
NY Post  Al resists pressure to play Clinton card
(As the neck and neck race rounds the final turn, one of the more interesting sidebars to follow will be whether or not Gore turns to Bill for help.)
NY Times  Alice Walker: After 20 Years, Meditation Still Conquers Inner Space
(Author Walker explains her tool for beating depression and suicidal inclinations.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Out of adversity, Harry was born
(Author J.K. Rowling explains how she beat depression.)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(Safire's weekly word column examines the imperative heard so often in restaurants: "Enjoy!"
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
National Post  Anne Kingston: Home, with Paris still on my mind
(Columnist compares Paris, "the city of lights," to Toronto, "the city of condos.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Baseball Movies Playing In Times Square.)

Editor's Note: I am heading up to Chicago to watch our oldest, Mary, run in her first marathon.  net.Headlines will return Monday, October the 23rd. If anyone is starved for links, he or she can head over to our archive page, where we have tons of timely links. Keep in mind that some links, such as The NY TIMES, have their back-pages available for a very short time, while others leave their articles up indefinitely.

Friday October 20 00

Slate  It's all about the but
(A look at the art of tabloid writing.)
National Post  Ivory tower of Babel
(A look at the art of academic jargon.)
Feed Magazine  Elvis Jefferson Clinton  
(A review of Robert McNeely's coffee-table history, The Clinton Years. We will never see another president like Clinton. The man has more layers than an onion.)
NY Times  Once Close to Clinton, Gore Keeps a Distance
(Maybe the man is allergic to onions.
Times login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
ABC News  President Likens Impeachment to Persecution of Gays, Blacks
(Like an onion, he can make us cry, but only if he's been cut.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(This weekly link was not up at entry time. Maybe they'll have it working later in the day.)
London Times  What a life of human waste
(Never heard of Limp Bizkit? If you have teens, they have.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Changes I'll Make in the White House.)

Thursday October 19 00

APB News  Missouri Police Hunt Toe-Sucker
("Put up your hands! Take off your shoes!")
Toronto Star  Broadway's premier female dancer dies
(Four time Tony winner, Gwen Verdon was 75.)
Salon.com  Singer, actress Julie London dies at 74
(She was the epitome of the smoky-voiced, sultry singers.)
Melbourna Age  The rise and fall of Peter Bogdanovich
(Hollywood's most acclaimed director makes a comeback, sort-of.)
San Francisco Examiner  Lee lets 'Bamboozled' do the talking
(Fine interview with the controversial director ends with his harrowing account of taking his kids to see 'Thomas the Tank Engine.')
San Francisco Examiner  Tim Goodman: There really are worse things on fall TV than Geena Davis' show
(Excellent rant about TV includes this gem: "if Al Gore gets elected there will have to be a binding condition: Absolutely no State of the Union address. Look Al, don't take up our valuable prime-time programming with your monotonous droning. You're TV death.")
UK Independent  Hypnotised by the lies of our leaders
(British columnist watches the US Debates and sees us all becoming Stepford Children.)
Nerve.com  Star Firsts
(Continuing series of stars' first times focuses today on Maya Angelou, Martin Amis and Simone de Beauvoir.)
Slate  Are soy burgers any good?
(If you've tasted one, you know the answer.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Cool Things About Having The World Series in New York.)

Wednesday October 18 00

BBC  Queen and Pope discuss peace
(I didn't know they were at war.)
Newsweek  The Loneliest Hero
(Joe DiMaggio had it all, but he had no one.)
Nerve.com  Arch Deluze by Emily Nussbaum
(Reporter, in search of stilettos, stumbles into a pho-toe shoot. )
London Telegraph  At last: a bra with real va-va-voom
(net.Headlines always keeps you abreast of the latest titillating devolpments.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Sydney Morning Herald  And now for my new life
(Sally Crossing was so shocked by her experience with breast cancer that she abandoned a successful career to help other sufferers.)
NY Post  Hair Study: Beethoven had lead poisoning
(And, remarkably, not a trace of painkillers was discovered. Which means he made a conscious decision to keep his mind clear while dying a slow and very painful death.)
NY Times  New Advice for Parents: Saying `That's Great!' May Not Be
(News Flash: Constant praise does not work. Look to Al Gore as living proof.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Salon.com   A comeback for Gore?
(Roger Ebert, Stanley Crouch, Phyllis Schlafly, Joe Eszterhas Andrew Sullivan and Chris Buckley cover the spectrum.)
San Francisco Examiner  Harley Sorenson: Let it be Ralph!
(Columnist ponders, "If Mussolini and Hitler were the major party candidates, and God were the Green Party guy, would folks still urge you to vote for Mussolini/Gore... because God is down in the polls?")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Election Isuues Important To Dumb Guys)

Tuesday October 17 00

Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr. Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "I have been married two years and love my husband very much, but I cannot forget my former flame. What should I do?")
London Express  Reunited on the Internet
(Sites such Lookup.com , in the UK, or reuniteall.com. in the States, are reuniting families and friends, and probably former flames.)
NY Post  Jackio O's bio new twist: She loved Bobby
(Brotherly love takes on new meaning.)
The New Republic  Undialectical Materialism
(America consumed by consumption: writer reviews 5 books with a common theme.)
World New York  A few ideas on packing in the event the world ends.
(What's not clear is just where one would go once packed.)
Time Magazine  What If It's an Electoral-Vote Tie?
(269-269 and heading into overtime.)

Monday October 16 00

Detroit Free Press  Computers enable freedom to those who can afford them
(Many of the disabled have found freedom online.)
London Telegraph  A triumph of the will
(Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, the 98-year-old who filmed the Nuremberg rally for Adolf Hitler. For a companion piece, page down to Tuesday, October the 10th for an article from The National Post "The Camera Never Lies."
Telegraph login:e-portals  password:e-portals)
London Telegraph  'I am hurt for my family'
(Interview with Placido Domingo about coping with a wayward granddaughter, fidelity in marriage and facing up to the end of his singing career.
Telegraph login:e-portals  password:e-portals)
National Post  Can you look your cleaning lady in the eye?
(Fine piece about the booming housecleaning business has this excellent gem: "Then there's Sharon Stone's recent assertion in an interview that she likes to clean her own toilets because she finds it humbling. Which is patently ridiculous: Only someone who doesn't regularly clean her own toilets would have the luxury of philosophizing about it.")
LA Times  Howard Rosenberg: Journalists' Blather Hits New Lows in Debates
(Columnist is aghast at the focus on imagery and not substance.)
San Francisco Examiner  Court Overturns Alabama Sex Toy Ruling
(A federal appellate panel rules that a state has a legitimate government interest in public morality and that banning sex toys is rationally related to that interest.)
London Express  Bill Bryson
(Interesting interview with the fine American author is presented in an odd manner: there are no questions.)
NY Times  Obituary of Vincent Canby
(Times film critic from '69-'93 dies.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs New York Has Baseball Fever.)

Editor's Note: Due to the passing of a beloved family member, net.Headlines will not return until Monday, October the 16th. If anyone is starved for links, he or she can head over to our archive page.

Friday October 13 00

BBC  Sex 'remains a mystery'
(To most of us, including scientists.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(What I am really looking for is a "This Week in Sex, Napster and the Beatles" link.)
London Telegraph  I may be a mummy (but I'm still a babe)
(Mom of two wonders where the sensuality and sexuality are after motherhood. C'mon, dad, wake up, bud.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
UK Independent  Gay men aren't here as harmless pets for women
(Writer doesn't mind the trend of single women hanging out with gay guys, but insists that it be based on mutual respect, not convenience.)
Redbook  Jane Greer, Ph.D.: Let's talk about sex
(Therapist tackles that age-old issue which we have all faced at one time or another: "I am 40 yrs old and just cannot bring myself to spank my boyfriend. What should I do?" Greer has a nice Redbook-like website, Gridlock.)
Slate.com  Was Jesus a Vegetarian?
(Christianity's ability to morph has always been one of its greatest strengths and here is just another example.)
Feed Magazine  Mark Crispin Miller's look at the last debate
(Media professor, critic and author Miller's excellent take on this week's debate.)
San Francisco Examiner  Rob Morse: Bush, Barak and a brewski at the summit
(Columnist envisions a Bush-lead summit meeting: "imagine what Bush could possibly have to say to Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak but "I am a uniter, not a divider, now let's have a brewski and unite.")
Melbourne Age  Godfather of grump
(Rocker Lou Reed proves to be a most difficult interview.)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: Detroit renews its love affair with Red Wings
(Albom, a radio-host, TV commentator, newpaper columnist and best selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie, explains why hockey has such a hold over Detroiters.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs Your Debate Moderator Is Nuts.)

Thursday October 12 00

Slate.com  Don't Hate Bush Because He's Dumb
(A defense of those who blunder through. A gentler, companion piece can be found in Tuesdays article from The National Post, "So What if my baby's not smart?")
BBC  Blind people 'have faster brains'
(The brain apparently compensates. I wonder if deaf people also have some sort of like compensation?)
BBC  Women 'obsessed by their bodies'
(And why are women so obsessed? Because men are obsessed with women's bodies, of course.)
London Times  Men are the fairer sex
(A new survey shows that men are perceived to be the fairer bosses. Why? Because they are not obsessing about their bodies!)
London Express  The Adonis Complex - and why no man should stand for it
(However, males' obsessiveness with their bodies is growing and this writer hates it.)
BBC  What is Britishness?
(The Brits struggle with a national image. Sounds familiar.)
Sydney Morning Herald  Wannabe an Aussie? Love Mum, get a beer fridge and don't dob
(In an odd coincidence, this Aussie paper runs a similar headline to the BBC's, but, as one can see, the Aussies have a better clue as to who they are.)
NY Post  Lennon killer had hit list of celebs
(Jackie Onassis, Johnny Carson and George C. Scott ?)
CNN  Ohio McDonald's manager accused of strip searching employees
(A Zanesville, Ohio McDonald's manager gets a prank call from a "detective" ordering him to strip search two teen aged female employees, and he believes it. What is in the water out there?? )
National Post  Phish cuts bait: Rock band is having a great year, but decides it's time for a break
(This headline is specifically for our son, Tommy, who is Zen'ing in California but still manages to check in here from time to time. Hi Tommy!)

Wednesday October 11 00

BBC  Male orgasm 'fights' breast cancer
("The study reveals that the fewer orgasms a man has the greater his risk of being diagnosed with the disease." Probably male researchers!)
BBC  Sex 'key' to staying young
("Energetic love-making can reduce fatty tissue and release endomorphins from the brain." Probably frustrated researchers!)
London Sun  Geri has the pairfect boobs
(Former Spice Girl tops titillating poll.)
Slate  Beatlemania: A Collective Sex Fantasy?
(A somewhat-interesting dialogue about the Beatles Anthology which I include only because of a mild complaint received 2 weeks ago from my lovely wife who remarked, "Perhaps net.Headlines is overloading on sex, Beatles and Napster?" Too bad this headline wasn't "Beatlemania: A Collective Sex Fantasy available on Napster." It would have been perfect.)
National Post  Hey, if it works for wild pigs ...
(Example #4011 of "Why Men are Such Idiots": In order to get women to swoon some guys are paying $3000 for a vial of boar sweat.)
Melbourne Age  Escaping home alone
(Macaulay Culkin talks about childhood fame, his new movie (of course!) and his evil father.)
National Post  When bad kids think they're great
(Attention Oprah! Here's an interview with a psychologist who thinks thie self-esteem thing has gone too far.)
NY Times  Maureen Dowd: His Lyin', Sighin' Heart
(Dowd's interesting take on the debates includes such gems as this: "It is easy to picture W. as the Sun Belt hick, visiting the Big Apple, who wanders into a fancy restaurant after a performance of "Annie Get Your Gun," which he had to see because "Cats" closed. He gets Waiter Al, who torments him with his superior knowledge when the poor rube doesn't know what a mango compote is, much less a quenelle de volaille with a side of braised cardoon."
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NY Post  Dr Laura atones for her anti-gay remarks
(Was this apology made in the spirit of The Day of Atonement or was it made to right a sinking, and stinking, TV show?)
CBS  David Letterman's Top Ten
(Top Ten Ways Ralph Nader Can Still Win.)

Tuesday October 10 00

Slate  Diary from the Belgrade celebration: "Everyone was happy and drunk."
(My mother-in-law insisted that the Belgrade revolution was fueled by booze, "unlike the Polish one," but I pretended to not listen.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr. Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column answers the age-old question that we all have faced at one time or another: "My Fiance's brother is mentally ill and, perhaps, dangerous and he lets himself into my fiance's apartment Should I be concerned?")
London Telegraph  Answering a mother's cries for help
(Volunteers are helping young mothers cope with the stress of being with babies. I found one quote most interesting: "The days seemed to be full of screaming from beginning to end, with all three children clamouring for my attention. Weeks and months went by without a proper night's sleep and I felt I was becoming depressed. And yet I was responsible for the kids all day. It was scary" Sounds exactly like our house, but I get to hire babysitters. Thank you, darling, for that!
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
National Post  So what if my baby's not smart
(Writer is insulted when informed, after testing, that her baby's intelligence is just "average." But on the way out of the doctor's office she catches, out of the corner of her eye, a glimpse of Georrge W. on the tube telling reporters that his favorite sandwich is peanut butter and jelly, and she suddenly feels much better.)
London Times  How babies can use sign language
(Babies as young as 9 mos old are using a modified sign language to communicate. When they become teenagers they fully modify it down to one finger.)
Washington Monthly  Why Homer's My Hero
(Homer Simpson, according to this writer, has the key to happiness.)
London Telegraph  'I wonder if Ruth, my sister, is with you and could . . . speak to me'
(Writer loses her sister to breast cancer and hires a psychic to contact her.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
NY Times Cynthia Ozick: Quarrel & Quandary
(Author, essayist and playwrite Ozick writes that a "genuine essay has no educational, polemical, or sociopolitical use," which makes it sound like professional wrestling.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
National Post  The camera never lies
(Jodi Foster's new movie will be the story of the brilliant and beautiful Nazi filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, and that has many people nervous.)

Monday October 09 00

London Telegraph  The man who thinks he's a ghost
(Rare interview with Dan Aykroyd.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
Mother Jones  Things Can Only Get Worse
(Writer tours Russia and finds a "thugocracy" firmly in place.)
NY Times  Young Blacks Turn to School Vouchers as Civil Rights Issue
(An interesting approach to the school-voucher issue: Blacks cannot afford to send their kids to private schools; are they, therefore, being discriminated against?
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  Michal Levin
(The Times' newest columnist introduces herself. She'll be doing a once-a-week about the spiritual side of life.)
Utne Reader  Can't Buy Me Contentment
(Speaking of spirituality, A Yale political scientist explains why people are less happy in materialistic societies.)
ABC News  The Drive for New Radio
(Satellite radio is coming soon to a car near you and I bet there's a "spirituality" station ready to easy our traffic jam stresses with a cool calming voice telling us over and over that "You do not really want to kill that other driver. He is your friend." )
National Post  'A dangerous machine'
(The Clintons celebrate their 25th.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Cool Things About Winning A Gold Medal.)

Sunday October 08 00

NY Times  Working It
(Writer always ends up surrendering to the make-up counter diva.
Times login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics columnist tackes the age-old question that we have all faced at one time or another: "The local movie house offers senior prices to those over 62. AARP, howeve, defines senior as anyone over 50. I am 55. Should I continue to claim senior status when spending my money there?"
Times login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(America's wordsmith examines the difference between press interview and press availabities, also known as "avails."
Times login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
London Times  Lottery ousts Carey speech
(A sign of the times: "The BBC is to replace the Archbishop of Canterbury's annual spiritual address to the nation with a special live lottery draw.")
Toronto Star  Sale of serial-killer relics on Web booming
(A sign of the times, part II)
London Telegraph  Scientists force shake-up of outdated Nobel prizes
(A sign of the times, part III: "And the winner of the Microsoft Nobel Prize in Physics  goes to... .
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
BBC  Senior Tories 'smoked dope'
(A sign of the times, part IV)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: Elvis has left ... and what do I do?
(Albom, a radio-host, TV commentator, newpaper columnist and best selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie, says goodbye to his dog.)
NY Times  Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
(The NY Times Book Review of "The Beatles Autobiography."
Times login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
London Times  The lonely hearts' club band
(The Sunday Times Book Review of "The Beatles Autobiography.")

Saturday October 07 00

Time Magazine  Magical Mystery Tour
(Time reviews the new Beatles Autobiography.)
London Telegraph  Why we still want a piece of Lennon
(Author analyzes John Lennon's never ending appeal as what would have been his 60th birthday approaches. Hardly a week goes by without net.Headlines running at least one Beatles link. For a differing view of the Beatles, you can page down to Wednesday September the 6th to an article from the UK Independent: "Take my advice, Sir Paul. Put your feet up," in which the columnist claims he is sick of the recent spate of Beatles news.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
The Melbourne Age  Lennon's 'Imagine' piano for Net auction
(As if to prove the above.)
CNN  Exhibit of Linda McCartney's photos captures magical era of rock
(Exhibit hits Louisville.)
MSNBC  John Lennon museum set to open in Japan
(If I looked hard enough, I bet I could find one Beatles-related news link per day.)
BBC  Beatles book draws fans
(See what I mean?)

Friday October 06 00

BBC  Lovers Risk Dehydration
(The French drink 5 times more water than the Brits.)
Serbia Info  Yugoslav, Croatian, UNHCR delegations hold talks in Geneva
(Milosevic is in hiding. The government is sacked. The revolution is on and this is the headline from the national Serbian newservice?)
NY Post  Gores the winner, any way TV Ted slices it
(Proving that nothing can be hidden these days, someone has discovered that CNN gave 6% more of its screen to Gore than to Bush during the debate, prompting a "wounded" Bush supporter to moan that "They were all upset about a tenth of a second of a subliminal ‘rats,' but they have no problem with 90 minutes of George W. Bush being diminished.")
Feed Magazine  Peter Rubin reviews "Bamboozled."
(Two reviews of Spike Lee's "Bamboozled". This reviewer liked it.)
Chicago Sun Times  Roger Ebert reviews "Bamboozled."
(And here's America's most famous movie reviewer's take.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)
San Francisco Examiner  David Letterman's List
(Top 10 rejected James Bond gadgets.)

Thursday October 05 00

San Francisco Examiner  Tim Goodman: It adds up to boredom
(TV Critic savages Gore-Bush with such pearls as "At one point, when they were dissecting health care and who pays what, it was like sitting in an endless discussion with your insurance agent while he was channeling Charlie Brown's teacher.")
Salon.com  Why not Ralph?
(After watching the debate many must be asking the same question.)
BBC  Giant wave could threaten US
(Living in Ohio has some advantages.)
Ms Magazine  Making the Cut
("It's a Girl! Or is it? When there's doubt, why are surgeons calling the shots?")
Nerve.com  The Devil Inside
(Writer looks in the mirror after finding out her father is a sex addict)
San Francisco Examiner  Elizabeth Hurley Encourages Lusting
(Future Headline: "Hugh Grant: My ex-wife was a sex addict, that's why I needed hookers.")
NY Post  Snoring makes you loud and stupid
(German researchers say that snoring kills brain cells by depriving the body of oxygen.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things that will get you kicked out of the Country Music Awards.)

Wednesday October 04 00

Toronto Globe and Mail  'Je t'aime, papa'
(His family and country lay Pierre Trudeau to rest.)
Salon.com  Who won the debate?
(Roger Ebert, Andrew Sullivan, Ben Stein, Lucianne Goldberg and David Horowitz weigh in.)
Salon.com  Camille Paglia: Of dubious debates, kisses and divas
(The Queen of rant returns with many gems such as "Gore's Clintonesque use of his wife as a showy sex doll.")
BBC  Epstein 'wanted Beatles fortune'
(The new Beatles' Autobiography shows a very greedy manager.)
BBC  Yoko Ono's letter to NY parole board
(Mark David Chapman's parole request was, of course, turned down and here is the letter Yoko wrote to the Parole Board.)
BBC  Breathing space for Napster
(The Appelate 9th Circuit Court in California seems to be somewhat favorable to Napster.)
BBC  Garlic 'protects against cancer'
(Eating garlic may cut the risk of stomach cancer. If you page down to September the 14th, you'll find a link to an article from ABC NEWS, Tuesday September the 19th: "Study Finds Little Evidence That Garlic Lowers Cholesterol Levels.")
Korea Herald  Loo and behold! Seoul's public restrooms looking flush
(South Korea proudly steps away from the hole in the ground.)
Nerve.com  Carnal Knowledge
(Nice profile piece on Marianne Faithfull, the dark poetess of pop.)
NY Times  Mailer Tells a Lot. Not All, but a Lot.
(Norman Mailer has always liked to talk, but will people still listen?
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)

Tuesday October 03 00

CBC News  Hundreds line route of Trudeau's last journey home
(A nation mourns.)
Slate  Winning the Spin
(Why Al Gore will be decalred the winner tonight.)
London Times  Bloodstains in OJ prosecution put in doubt
(Listen up, White America: a new BBC documentary discredits the case against OJ and, instead, focuses on his son, Jason.)
CBS News  Whatever Happened To......?
(What The O.J. Simpson Cast Of Characters are doing today.)
ABC News  PETA: Jesus Was a Vegetarian
(The group said it chose Jesus as its “poster boy” because he is widely believed to have been a member of Essenes, a Jewish religious sect that rejected animal sacrifices and followed a vegetarian diet.)
Sydney Morning Herald  Why the Vatican is sticking to its canons
(Writer claims that The row over the Catholic Church's Dominus Jesus statement has been blown out of proportion.)
London Times  Pull up a pew
(Parishioners are not taking plans to throw out their ancient pews sitting down.)
London Telegraph  The sick side of cancer treatment
(Writer is told she has a grade 3 tumour and then has to fend off the quacks.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Sun  Help me stop Lennon killer going free
(The phone numbers to the Attica Parole Board were published in the Sun today in an effort to stop Chapman's parole. Keep in mind that The Sun only keeps their stories online for one day.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr. Blue
(Garrison's weekly advice column tackles an age-old problem that we have all faced at one time or another: "My sister is dropping out of her Ph.D. program to write fiction and our parents are going nuts. How can we make them see that this is her life and not theirs?".)

Monday October 02 00

National Post  60,000 Canadians pay their respects
(Ottawa says goodbye to Trudeau.)
CNN  Appeals court to hear Napster case Monday
(Better hurry up and d/load while you still can.)
Newsweek  Newsweek Poll: A Dead Heat Heading into the Debate
(This will be the most important debate since Kennedy-Nixon.)
Salon.com  Pain in the brain
(Interview with Pittsburgh neurosurgeon Frank T. Vertosick Jr. who has penned a new book, "Why We Hurt: The Natural History of Pain." And if you've seen the ads for wearing magnets you'll be tickled by this quote: "Telling someone that magnets don't work is like telling them they don't look good in a toupee.")
National Post  Could you run that by me again, doctor?
(Chuck Page takes pride in his toughness, so when his doctor broke the bad news about his painful skin lesions, he didn't flinch. "It's trichophyton," the brisk young physician told him. "It's a bad case. You've probably got six weeks, seven at the most." So Chuck went home, gathered his family and announced, "Sons, I am dying and I only have 7 weeks to live.")
NY Times  Strutting Her Stuff on Newsstands Coast to Coast
(Oprah's O magazine is now considered by many magazine executives and advertisers to be the most successful new magazine in decades. . It's 2000's version of Redbook.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)

Sunday October 01 00

NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(America's wordsmith examines "Left Coast" and he wonders, as I have, why the Eastern Seaboard is rarely called the "Right Coast."
Times login:e-portals  password: e-portals.)
London Sunday Times  The smell of success
("Scientists believe our sense of smell played a crucial role in evolution, helping our Stone Age ancestors to hunt, avoid poisonous food and even select a mate." This might explain why I have never liked Burger King.)
London Sunday Times  Doctors may not operate on twins
(Despite the Court of Appeal order to separate the twins, doctors may refuse to operate.)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: The Good, Bad and Ugly at the Olympics
(Albom, a radio-host, TV commentator, columnist and best selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie, rates the Olympics.)
Beliefnet  Ringing in 5761
(The 12 Days of Rosh Hashanah are upon us.)

Saturday September 30 00

Toronto Globe and Mail  Pierre Trudeau: The dream, the vision, the style, the man
(Canada says goodbye to a hero.)
BBC  Life of Brian tops comedy poll
(Monty Python's Life of Brian has been voted the funniest film of all time in a poll conducted by Total Film magazine.)
Beliefnet  Dan Wakefield: Needed: One Spiritual Emergency
(Protestant writer muses about not being able to receive Cathoic Communion.)
CNN  Eddie wins CBS 'Big Brother' marathon
(I think teen-aged girls have been the influential block of voters.)
London Times  In America, you're never more than a gag away from the White House
(A British view of the upcoming Presidential debates: "The presidential debates, which kick off next week in Boston, are unfair, unreflective of ability to govern, contrived, treacherous - and utterly essential elements in the process of American democracy.")
Beliefnet  Hey Metallica, Leave Napster Alone!
(Writer points out that Metallica used "tape-trading" to jump-start their career.)
Washington Post  Wal-Mart To Sell Own Brand of Wine
(Let's hope it's better than Wal-Mart soda pop.)
National Post  The anatomy of a hatchet job
(A Canadian retort to a current Vanity Fair piece which ravages comic actor Mike Meyers)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Australian Pickup Lines)

Friday September 29 00

CBC  Trudeau shaped soul of Canada, says PM
(Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is dead at 80. For more on Trudeau, page down to Friday , September the 8th for an article from the Toronto Globe and Mail. Trudeau had a style, a twinkle in his eye that set him apart from all other politicians.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  'He enthralled us all'
(A nice glimpse of Trudeau.)
BBC  Siamese twins op to go ahead
("The parents of Siamese twins Jodie and Mary have decided against appealing against a court decision to have them separated.")
London Times  Philip Howard: Let's give a fair crack of the whip to the Brighton whippersnappers
(England's premier wordsmith is dismayed at the grammar in newspapers.)
UK Independent  Don't be fooled: she may be rich but she's a victim
(Anna Nicole Smith wanted to be Marilyn Monroe, but the press laughed at her. She married billionaire J Howard Marshall and the press laughed because he was in his 90's and wheelchair bound. Marshall died and left her nothing in his will, and the press continued to sneer. Yesterday, Anna Nicole Smith was awarded $449 million, or $1m per day of marriage, by a Los Angeles bankruptcy judge in a ruling concerning the estate of Marshall. It is time for the laughing to stop.)
London Times  Exposed: great Olympic myths
("The first Olympians were avaricious brutes, the five rings are a modern invention and the torch was dreamt up by the Nazis.")
London Times  Decline of a rock genius
(Article about the latest John Lennon biography which shows, like Albert Goldman's bio of 20 yrs ago, a sad and strange man. One aside: The Times adds near the end of the piece that the author of the book, Geoffrey Giuliano, is a "convert to Hinduism who also styles himself His Holiness Jagannatha Dasa Puripada and arrived for our meeting in a massive multicoloured robe." Very curious.)
London Telegraph  The party's always over when motherhood begins.
(Being a mother, the author argues, goes against the "personal choice" mantra that society so loves.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Salon.com  Dating the birth mother
(Prospective adoptive parents are often at the mercy of the birth mother. It's not an easy process, but, speaking from experience, it's not as nutso as this author portrays. But maybe we just were lucky.)
Manchester Guardian  Polly Toynbee: Time for a sex change
(England's resident grinch calls out for more women in politics.)
UK Independent  Miles Kington: If you can't beat 'em, have a sex-change
(In a bizarre coincidence, two of Britain's newpaper columnists use the idea of a sex change operation as a metaphor, for entirely different subjects, on the same day.)
Salon.com  Reality flops
(Big Brother was a huge hit in Europe, but the American version flopped. Here's why.)
NY Times  The Fall Lineup
(Columnist sees Gore on MTV and Bush on Letterman and traces this pandering back to Richard Nixon.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  Piercing led to woman's death
(British woman collapses and dies after her 118th piercing. She had had 28 ear studs, 13 ear rings, 11 belly bars through her navel, 18 other bars, six lip rings, 36 body rings all over her body and six nose studs. The thing that amazed me was this quote: "A professional bodypiercer, Ronald Hewitt, told the inquest that Miss Hovvells had become a regular customer 'but she began to cause me concern.'" This woman was in need of a shrink and so is the bodypiercer.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)

Thursday September 28 00

BBC  When slime is not so thick
("Scientists have discovered that a single-celled organism can negotiate the shortest way through a maze." This might explain George W's winning the nomination?)
Salon.com  What's wrong with foreign adoption?
(Nice article in which the author blurts out the truth: "Like everybody else, I just want a child who looks like me and talks like me and fits into my family -- just as if he or she was born into it. Is that a crime?" As an adoptive parent of minority children I would reply, "No, you have committed no crime. Love is love.")
London Telegraph  Eat fat, get thin
(Food author Nigella Wilson tries the Adkin's Low Carb diet and is amazed at the results.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Horizon Magazine  The eyes of Jane Elliot
(Educator teaches the effects of racism to kids by dividing the class into brown and non-brown eyed sections and then treating the non-brown eyeds as being inferior. Perhaps you've seen this woman on Oprah.)
Detroit Free Press   Detroit cop charged in death
(For more on the case of the cops killing a deaf man coming at them with a rake, page down to Wednesday September the 6th for the Detroit Free Press article "Niece: Cop heard pleas, then fired.")
Manchester Guardian  A radio cure for insomnia
(Columnist can't sleep; turns on radio and ends up listening to it. Note to columnist: turn off radio!)
The Atlantic Monthly  James Fallows: Saving Salmon, or Seattle?
(Fallows chronicles the plight of the endagered wild salmon.)
London Times  Saviour of the child slaves
("The rug on your floor may have been made by one of India's child slaves." Doesn't this remind you of yesterday's headline from The London Express: "The evil slave traders who deal in misery so you can eat chocolate." The Brits are more aware right now than we are. )
Nerve.com  Paddleboro
(Cops shut down BDSM party and make arrests. Defendants fight back, arguing "If we can punch each other legally in a ring, why can't we spank each other legally in a bedroom?")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten signs an Olympic Athlete is using steroids.)

Wednesday September 27 00

London Express  The evil slave traders who deal in misery so you can eat chocolate
(Just by reading the headline you know that this article will not make you feel good about yourself.)
Yahoo News  Dalai Lama Warns of Tibet Genocide
(We should all remember this when we see those Chinese athletes collecting their Olympic medals.)
BBC  Height linked to breast cancer risk
(Women in countries such as Japan and China, who tend to be shorter, are much less likely to develop breast cancer than those in the Netherlands, where this study was made.)
BBC  Decision on Siamese twins delayed
(The world waits as the parents decide whether to appeal to the House of Lords.)
NY Post  Lennon killer's wild dreams about Yoko
(Mark Chapman is due for his 1st parole hearing, twenty years into his sentence, and he wants out. He also claims that "I've had this dream several times...Yoko Ono is friendly to me and I am, you know, accepted in the home and feel loved.")
London Sun  Gays shot by Mr Gay
(The Sun keeps their stuff online for a very short time, so if the link is not good, know that they have killed it.)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: Americans cling to belief only we are above cheating
(Albom, a radio-host, TV commentator, columnist and best selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie, figures American athletes cheat just like the others.)
San Francisco Examiner  Rob Morse: A bad case of terminal illness
(Columnist does not want to hear announcements like "We'll be leaving Chicago 15 minutes later than anticipated because of some minor repairs in the cockpit." )
London Telegraph  Must I marry a girl I hardly know?
(Indian wonders if he should break tradition.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals.)

Tuesday September 26 00

Mother Jones  An Interview with Janeane Garofalo
(Listen to Garofalo's take on Richard Gere: "Mr. Enlightened. He's totally enlightened except that his girlfriends are still 20 years younger and in the modeling industry.")
The New Republic  Games Over
(Effective editorial blasting the Olympics, calling for its end.)
San Francisco Examiner  Sex an unofficial medal sport in Sydney
(We never hear about this on NBC: Every Olympian was issued 51 condoms.)
London Express  My father never told me he loved me. Perhaps I killed John Lennon to get back at him.
(Conclusion of interview with Mark David Chapman who is lobbying for parole.)
Nerve.com  Jean Jordan: Recovering from  Big Brother
(Jordan went on BB before telling her friends and family that she was a stripper and now she feels more naked than ever.)
Toronto Sun  Interest in Survivor participants waning
(They had to eat rats to get their fifteen minutes of fame.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's almost-weekly advice column tackles the question that we have all faced at one time or another: "I moved to California because Minnesota was just too bland. The skies were too gray, the people too friendly. But now I find myself dreaming of the Land of 10,000 Lakes; should I go back?")
Toronto Globe and Mail  Why I read all the news that's unfit to print
(Writer is not embarrassed to read the tabloids. Speaking of tabloids, notice how they always hide the juicy stories somewhere near the back, making us wade through the whole issue?)

Monday September 25 00

Sydney Morning Herald  Blokes under pressure to diet, pluck and preen
(A great headline, "diet, pluck and preen" sounding like a law firm. The concluding sentence "At the end of the day, most chicks would rather dine out with the Michelin man than with Narcissus" gives the ordinary Joe hope.)
Melbourne Age  New Beijing loses its past in the rush to the future
("Brutalist, bathroom-tile-clad architecture" is replacing the old and Westerners, who want a "traditional" China, don't like it.)
London Telegraph  Nappies 'linked to rise in male infertility'
(Perhaps we should pitch the Pampers: "The average sperm count of a European male has dropped by 25 per cent during the past 25 years."
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Telegraph  My life after death
(Britain's most famous jockey talks of beating death and denies that he has since lost his desire to win.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Express  'I'm lucky to be alive - I deserved to die'
(Interview with Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer, who is up for parole next week.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Return of a ladies' man
(Update on Leonrad Cohen, whom my wife says once described as "just a dirty old man," while I maintained "that's poetry!")
Salon.com  Beauty is truth
(31 yr old author muses about her feelings for a teenaged boy.)
Toronto Globe and Mail   Babes in musicland
("Sexy, young female soloists are everywhere on the symphony circuit these days." Coincidence?)
Nerve.com  Jack's Naughty Bits
(The editor of Nerve.com is asked to comment about pornography, the internet and libraries and responds with an excerpt from Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, available in every library.)

Sunday September 24 00

Manchester Guardian  Julie Burchill: Baby Boomers
(Columnist looks at the births of babies born to Michael Douglas, David Bowie and their young wives and is not charmed, nor swayed by the media propaganda.)
Yahoo News  Crusading Columnist Carl Rowan Dies
(Many of us grew up reading Rowan's column. I was always touched by his clarity of thought. He will be missed.)
NY Times  Maureen Dowd: Tin Cup Couple
(Columnist is enraged by the Clintons' use of the White House in their fundraisers, writing that "The Clintons may as well have listed the Lincoln Bedroom on eBay."
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  The Stiff Guy vs. the Dumb Guy
(Fine, in-depth look at how the late nite comics are approaching the election.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(Weekly language column examines "put up or shut up" and the sudden use of "to squander" by all of the candidates.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Detroit Free Press  Mitch Albom: Hop right to it: Try some 'roo
(Albom, a radio-host, TV commentator, columnist and best selling author of Tuesday's with Morrie, is at the Olympics and tries the local food, kangaroo. Feeling terrible afterwards, he pleads "Mea Gulpa.")

Saturday September 23 00

Melbourne Age  British court rules Siamese twins should be separated
(To no one's surprise, the Court of Appeal mandates separation in the Siamese Twin case.)
BBC  Siamese twins: The reaction
(Read both sides of the argument.)
BBC  Ethics expert: twin decision wrong
(Ethics professor counters decision: "these parents do not have really weird views. They have very standard views, the most important of which is you don't kill one person in order to save another.")
London Telegraph  How doctors plan to give sister a new chance at life
(The game plan.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  American Jewry Is (a) Fading or (b) Reviving. It's All in How You Read the Signs.
(The answer is A and B.  When I first read this headline, I thought it said "American jewelry is fading fast."
Times login: e-portals  passwird: e-portals)
Salon.com  Olympic colors
(Writer watches Olympics and wonders why Blacks run so well while Whites can lift weights so well? For a companion piece on this subject, 'page down' to Friday, September the 8th for an article from th London Express: "Why black athletes are the fastest runners.")
LA Times  Sandy Banks: When Racial Bias Emerges, Despite Our Best Efforts
(Columnist points out that we can teach tolerance in many ways.)
Detroit Free Press  Obituary of Saul Wineman: Detroit radio and TV personality
(About 22 years ago, or so, my wife and I were in an ice cream shop when this fellow, instantly recognizable in Detroit, blasted in and almost knocked me over, never apologizing except for the twinkle in his eye. He then ordered, in a very booming voice, "a chocolate cone with sprinkles to boot." You remember this, sweetie? We laughed about it afterwards whenever we would hear his voice on the radio.)
Slate  Racing on Crooked Wheels
(Writer theorizes that NASCAR is the anti-Olympics, a place where cheating is expected and admired.)
London Telegraph's "Books Online'  Review of "Rimbaud by Graham Robb"
(Interesting review of new bio of one of poetry's major and most eccentric voices.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs You're At A Bad Beach.)

Friday September 22 00

BBC  Verdict due for Jodie and Mary
(The Court of Appeal is set to rule on the Siamese Twin case. Look for them to order a separation.)
San Francisco Examiner  Monkeys pelt motorists on interstate
(I think I've been on that freeway.)
NY Times  A Question on Music Piracy
(Writer examines Napster's main legal argument and finds it lacking.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
CNN  Raising a holy ruckus
(Profile of The Jesus Mysteries which is a smash in Britain and makes the claim that Jesus is a myth.)
CNN  Excerpt: 'The Jesus Mysteries'
(Excerpt from what is probably the introduction and links Christmas to paganism.)
CNN  Review: Jesus -- man or myth?
(Reviewer is impressed but remains unconvinced.)
Salon.com  Twilight of the idol
(Turin is both The Shroud and the town of Nietszche and writer tries to reconcile the two. For more on Nietszche, visit our archive  site and head over to a Thursday, August the 24th article from the Toronto Globe and Mail: "Throwing a Nietzsche birthday party .")
Sydney Morning Herald  Where dropping dead is illegal
(French mayor issues the following useless decree: "It is forbidden for any person not in possession of a family vault to die on the village's territory.")
London Times  Don't think twice, it's only rock'n'roll
(Columnist points out that rock'n roll marriages break up faster than rock'n roll bands.)
National Post  With roofer George gone, Big Brother houseguests down to four twentysomethings
(Will this show EVER end?.)
London Express  Sex in your 60s just keeps getting better
(Interview with 63 yr old author Jeanne Ray.)
Redbook Magazine  Lets Talk About Sex with Jane Greer Ph.D.
(Advice columnist tackles that age-old question that we have all faced at one time or another: "My husband loves oral sex but I don't. What can I do?")
Salon.com  Skin trade
(Writer examines the New York dating scene and finds a strange amalgamation of the 50's and the 90's.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)

Thursday September 21 00

Manchester Guardian  Madeleine Bunting: In the Name of God
(Two suspected cases of nuns abusing children have hit the front pages in Britain this week, including one involving the successor to Mother Theresa and, of course, this allows the bitter to surface for air.)
London Times  I think of nuns as dark sadists
(A perfect example of the above. Anytime a member of the clergy screws up, the media will run articles like this.)
London Times  Sorry, I've been beaten by the A1
(Writer thows up her hands and admits defeat; she cannot learn how to drive.)
National Post  We won't have Baldwin to kick around any more
(Actor Alec Baldwin says that if 'Dubya' is elected, he will leave the country. Hmmmm, that might be enough to drive me to Bush.)
Village Voice  Nat Hentoff: Who's for the Bill of Rights?
(Legendary columnist's take on the election is predictibly not optimistic. I do like his opening sentence, however: "There is no way I can vote for the chief executioner of the United States." Hmmm...that might be enough to drive me to Gore.)
National Post  Pornographers support Gore
(Hmmmm, that might be enough to drive me to Nader. And, no, nothing can drive me to Pat Buchanan.)
London Times  The secret life of a domestic fetishist
(Harvard Law Grad has a baby, stays home and writes glowingly about it. Feminists are not charmed.)
Village Voice Literary Supplement  Buying unhappiness
(Review of Do Americans Shop Too Much? , which turn out to be a companion piece to the article above.)
Utne Reader  America the Blue
(And yet another article about sad Americans caught in economic boomtimes. Maybe what we need is a major economic depression to snap us out of it and make us count our many blessings.)
Feed Magazine  Matthew DeBord: Back off, you New Economy Punks!
(A cute critique of those Mass Mutual ads starring Frasier's John Mahoney. In the ads, Mahoney, portrayed as an oh-so-cool senior citizen, mocks e-traders.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Shocking Facts About Dick Cheney.)

Wednesday September 20 00

Salon.com  The other Gore
(Nice interview with Gore Vidal whose take on the Presidential Race is: "They are both candidates of corporate America. They're paid for.")
LinguaFranca  Bio Hazard: The Perils Of Writing A Life Of Gore Vidal
(Author naively agrees to do Vidal's biography and then finds himself, of course, caught in a literary black hole.)
CBS News  Dubya Aces Oprah
(But how will he do on Springer ?)
London Times  Beware of the man-eating tigress
(Male pines for the 'good ole-days' when women tittered and blushed and never made the first move.)
London Times  Tempted by the temp
(Male temp is treated as a sex object by female temps and feels "strangely violated." He, too, seems to miss the good ole-days when only men ogled and harassed.)
BBC  US student in music piracy probe
(Big Brother is watching: a 19 yr old Oklahoma State University student was arrested for copyrite infringement after he was fingered by the the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for having over 1000 mp3's culled from Napster.)
RollingStone.com  Napster, RIAA Trade Court Briefs
(Napster tries to save itself.)
RollingStone.com  Sen. Orrin Hatch Takes Napster's Side
(Note to Senator Hatch: Phone Oklahoma.)
San Francisco Examiner  Italy's "Big Brother" Has Sex
(While the American counterpart chases a dog.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  He put a spell on them
(For two other articles about the crazed showman who is thought to have fathered over 60 children, tab down to a Thursday, September the 7th piece from Salon.com, also called "He put a spell on them." And if you want to read even more visit our archive site and 'page down' to a BBC article from last April the 29th: "Hunt for Screamin's offspring.")
National Post  Out of the roaring fire
(Short but fine retrospective of Jimi Hendrix, who died 30 years ago today.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Agreements Reached at Camp David.)

Tuesday September 19 00

BBC  Gardening 'bad for backs'
(This is why we have weeds, honey...honest!)
BBC  Jodie and Mary: The medical facts
(The Siamese Twin case explained. net.Headlines has been following this for weeks with many links found below.)
USC Online Journalism Report  'Ego-Surfing' derides valid, prudent activity
('Ego-Surfing,' the act of entering your own name into a search engine, is something we've all done it and it's not a waste of time.)
London Telegraph  How women can rid themselves of the curse
(Women have about 450 periods in a lifetime and this writer claims that "there is, in fact, nothing to be gained from bleeding every month." If men had periods, this would be scripture.)
ABC News  Study Finds Little Evidence That Garlic Lowers Cholesterol Levels
(Have you heard Larry King's radio ad touting garlic? Disregard it.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's almost-weekly advice column tackles that question that we have all asked ourselves at one time or another: "My boyfriend is a philosophy professor and needs to lighten up. How can i conince this Homo academicus to smell the roses?")
Salon.com  Brilliant Careers: Van Morrison
(Great look at Van the Man.)
NY Post  Charlie's a self-proclaimed sex ma-Sheen
(Charlie Sheen claims to have had sex with 5000 women, leaving him only 15,000 behind Wilt the Stilt.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear From Your New College Roommate.)

Editor's Note:  We are off to Detroit for my wife's 8th grade reunion, where, no doubt we'll be hearing 'Gerry and the Pacemakers' crooning, "...so Ferrrryy, across the Mersey, cuz this land's the place i love....and here'll I'll stayyyyyy."  net.Headlines will return Tuesday, September the 19th.

Friday September 15 00

BBC  Argentina's website of deceit
(Amorios.com, a website in Argentina, offers, for $120 a year, the solution to the age-old problem faced by love-cheats all over the world - how to avoid being caught by suspicious spouses.)
BBC  Siamese twins 'could live for years'
(The Court of Appeal hears evidence in the Siamese Twins case.)
London Times  Why Jehovah's Witnesses spurn transfusions
(Rather weak explanation when compared with an article found in our archive from the Manchester Guardian, Sunday, July the 16th: "Blood is thicker than dogma.")
London Times  Confessions of a voyeur
(A Big Brother cameraman talks.)
London Times  Vatican voices
(Find out who's fighting whom in the battle for the Pope's ear.)
UK Independent  'Kursk' sunk by cruiser's missile in training accident, inquiry reveals
(The Russians now admit it. They probably sank their own sub.)
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)
Chicago Sun Times  Roger Ebert's Reviews
(Ebert's current reviews.)
ABC News  Tyson: Drugs ‘Keep Me From Killing Y’All’
(Thank God for Walgreen's 24 hr pharmacies!!)
CBS  David Letterma's List
(Top Ten Rejected Gore/Lieberman Campaign Slogans)

Thursday September 14 00

BBC  Indian tea takes on Coke
(India's young are breaking tradition and switching to tea, and this 'Americanization' is happening everywhere. For more on Coke's part, visit out archive site and 'page down' to a Thursday, June the 22nd article from the BBC: "Coke moves into North Korea" and then you can check out an April the 27th article from the London Times which warns "the American tsunami of Disney and Coca-Cola will wash over all.")
BBC  Women 'afraid of giving birth'
(Survey says.....8 out of 10 pregnant women are afraid of giving birth. Really? What's next? A Survey that says most people don't want to die? For a more realistic headline, and story, you can check out our archive site and page down to an article from The London Telegraph, Friday March the 10th: " The trauma of birth 'is like going into battle'"  The Telegraph, like the NY Times, still requires a login.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Post  $leepover guests are nameless for now
(The whoring of the White House: "The Clinton administration admitted yesterday that some fat-cat contributors to the first lady's Senate campaign have gotten overnight stays at the White House.")
BBC  Weaker Siamese twin 'draining sister'
(The Court of Appeal hears evidence in the Siamese Twins case.)
Melbourne Age  When students hit the Berlin Wall and other mysteries
(Today's 18 yr olds don't know the Berlin Wall, Yugoslavia or vinyl LPs, so a humanities professor has drafted "The Mindset List," fifty reference points to help professors relate to today's students.. An example? "A 45 is a gun, not a record." )
London Telegraph  'Youngsters - you're nice but boring'
(Great interview with 68 yr old author Fay Weldon whose latest heroine is an 83 yr old rebel with a very full (sexual!) life. Weldon has more opinions than hairs on my head and one is about her returning to church: "It's a weekly exercise in thinking about others."
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Telegraph  A lifelong love affair with the guitar
(Nice interview with guitar legend Mark Knopfler, who reveals that his proudest accomplishment is.....giving up cigarettes!
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  Was Graham Greene a masochist?
(Apparently he was very submissive. Did that get in the way of his writing or help it? Can you separate a branch from the tree and still have it live?)
London Times  Genesis of the Story
(Joseph Campbell taught us that The Flood was a common cross-cultural myth. New evidence unmasking part of the myth has just been published.)
Toronto Globe and Mail  The unbearable lightness of Anne Carson
(Interview with the hot Canadian poet plus a touch of her poetry)
Nerve.com  First Love by Stanely Kunitz
(And finishing up today's links, a love poem from the American Pulitzer Prize winner.)

Wednesday September 13 00

BBC  Dutch legalise gay marriage
(Slowly the blocks come tumbling down.)
Girlfriends  Paglia 101: this provocative Ph.D. reveals her seventies radical roots as Big Dyke on Campus.
(Nice interview with Paglia, who is not in favor of legalized gay marriage by the way.)
Salon.com  The true voice of the Amazon returns!
(Paglia, the American Queen of Rant, returns from her Salon.com summer haitus with a somewhat-toned down column, though there are many priceless pearls, as always, such as her "Alas, the principal distinction between the political parties these days seems to be that Democrats are media-savvy -- and indeed incestuously intertwined with the Hollywood glitterati -- while Republicans are still living in the dinosaur age of communications, where good intentions are s-p-e-l-l-e-d out as tediously as in a one-room schoolhouse. ")
Feed  Ana Marie Cox's take on Dr Laura's TV act
(Writer finds Laura bland, which is interesting when coupled with Professor Paglia, above, who guesses that Dr Laura will not translate well to TV.)
NY Daily News  Dr. Laura's New Series Winds Up at Rock Bottom
(Apparently America agrees.)
National Post  Steinem did not wed to save husband from deportation, family says
(Wanna bet?)
Salon.com  Welcome to the curriculum from hell
(Mother is appalled that 'Hotel California' is studied as poetry in her son's high school. I am surprised it wasn't Pink Floyd.)
Melbourne Age  Professor uses history as a weapon against the US gun lobby
(More than 16,000 Americans are shot dead each year. This is not what our Founding Fathers envisioned.)
Sydney Morning Herald  Government attacks Napster
(In separate announcements yesterday, the US Justice Department and The National Basketball Association spoke out against Napster.)
London Daily Express  Slobs eating away at the fabric of society
(Nice rant, as is witnessed by this quote: "these days many youths wouldn't give up their bus seat to a pregnant double amputee carrying a month's shopping.")

Tuesday September 12 00

Melbourne Age  McCartney still amazed by it all
(Nice interview with rock star, poet and now painter Sir Paul.)
London Times  McCartney: Please don't call me a 'celebrity painter'
(The one-man band writes of painting, Lennon and landmines.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's often-weekly advice column tackles the question that we have all faced at one time or another: "I am a high priced call girl but have met a wonderful man. Should I come clean?")
ABC News  Pilgrims, Residents in Southern Egypt Report Seeing Virgin Mary
(Don't mock; Thousands flock.)
London Times  The night I played God
(The Siamese Twin controversy from a different angle: a father who chose not to separate.)
Slate  Ad Report Card: Coke, the Real, Jaded Thing
(Writer decides that Coke's current ad campaign slogan actually is "It's All Bullshit Anyway.")
ABC News Use of Music-Sharing Service Napster Quadruples
(Time is running out and everyone knows it.)
CBC News  Mystery solved: Why can't we tickle ourselves?
(God, it appears, wisely blocked that move.)
Forbes Magazine  John Tierney: 10 Things To Do Before You Die
(My favorite of the ten: "Take someone you love to the Camera degli Sposi.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Questions on the Indiana University Basketball Coach Application)

Monday September 11 00

London Times  The question is not how judges should rule on Jodie and Mary, but why
(As the Siamese Twin case heads to the Court of Appeal this week interest will surely increase, as witnessed by this op-ed piece which argues that maybe the court should just butt out.)
London Times  In praise of stiff shirts
('Dress Down Fridays' are seen as socially erosive by this insecure anonymous editorialist.)
Salon.com  Sexy penises
(To snip or not to snip, that is the question.)
Detroit Free Press  Today's Salem
(They're still killing 'witches' in India. For a companion piece visit our archive site and page down to an article from The Hindustani Times, Wednesday July the 19th, "India is still a place where 4 yr old girls are "married" off to 6 month old dogs.")
Washingtom Post  Below the Beltway
(Columnist tries to make sense of the following press release: "The FDA's Radiofrequency Micronucleus Working Group holds a meeting to discuss the types of studies needed to further investigate and refine prior reports of micronucleus formation caused by radiofrequency exposure."  The following quote alone would make the article great: "So I telephoned Frederick Mish, the editor in chief of the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. He listened. 'Well, somebody wants to have a meeting about something,' he said.")

Sunday September 10 00

BBC  Mothers 'feeding babies too early'
(Sorry moms {note the Beeb's built in prejudice by not mentioning dads}, no solids before 4 months old.)
Melbourne Age  Daddy, we hardly know you
(Interview with daughter of J.D. Salinger, who has written a book that is sure to peeve old J.D.)
London Sunday Times  The love child
(The truth behind the tragic triangle of Maria Callas, Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy.)
London Telegraph  What is this meditation lark?
(Second exclusive excerpt from the new Beatles autobiography.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Telegraph   The Beatles: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
(Opinion piece answers charges that we focus entirely too much on the Fab Four.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Sunday Times  Shere Hite: So long Ms Steinem, hello Mrs Realist
(Hite cites rites as the death knell of 60's feminism.)
London Sunday Times  Kelp is on the way
(Eating seaweed can protect against heart disease and even help you lose weight and it tastes great.)

Saturday September 09 00

Salon.com  Rock is dead and well at the MTV Video Awards
(The best and, I promise, the last of the MTV Video Award recaps.)
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
("Let others argue the case for the old guard," Al Gore said in his Los Angeles acceptance speech. "We're the new guard." Safire examines the phrase "old guard," and starts off with a quote from CNN analyst William Schneider, "My goodness, they've been in for eight years -- how can they be the new guard?"
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals )
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column tackles that age-old dilemma which we have all faced at one time or another: "My friend thought he was buying an expensive, stolen watch but I can tell it is a cheap imitation. Should I tell him?"
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals )
NY Times  Scientist Claims Catastrophic Event Heralded the Beginning of the Dark Ages
(Scientist claims trees the world over show that a catastrophic environmental downturn occurred around 540 AD.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals )
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)

Friday September 08 00

Toronto Globe and Mail  Sons comfort ailing Trudeau
(It wasn't fair, I kept telling people. We have Nixon. Canada has Trudeau! He was the symbol of Canadian youth and vigor while our Nixon was the symbol of the 50's. Besides, we had Pat and they had Margaret. Pat liked Henry Mancini while Margaret hung with the Stones. Today the Nixons are dead; the Trudeaus have long since divorced and Pierre is now 81 and in declining health.)
Melbourne Age  The midlife crisis? It's a bloke thing
(New research shows that women entering into their 40's blossom sexually while their male counterparts start becoming anxious. What goes around, comes around, huh?)
London Sun  Vibrator gave me the willies
(Woman hears thumping sound, worries and calls the cops. Woman is mortified.)
BBC  Smaller classes give mixed results
(Study skill may improve, but social skills may decline. So, think it over, parents, before you hoof it down to the next school board meeting to demand smaller classes.)
BBC  US Big Brother bribe fails
(While the European versions of Big Brother sizzle, the American version is lame and is getting lamer.)
Manchester Guardian Polly Toynbee: Two into one
(Britain's resident grouch takes a rather predictable stance in the Siamese Twins controversy, but, as always, she's a good read. The Court of Appeal will rule next week, by the way, on whether the twins should be separated.)
NY Post  Uncouth co-hosts beat up on mortified Britney
(MTV Video Awards recap. I watched. I yawned.)
Britannica.com  Navel Gazing
(Excellent article points to the belly button as the key to Britney Spears' success. This answers the question I asked on Monday, August the 14th, which you can find on our archive page: "She can't sing; she is not a great dancer; there are prettier girls down at any mall....so, why is she so popular?")
NY Times  Hingis Forms an Alliance
(The world's number one tennis player is obsessed by the Williams Sisters, and looks to Lindsay Davenport to help. Attention Martina: You are coming un-hinged. This is tennis, not Survivor.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Express  Why black athletes are the fastest runners
(Here's a stunning fact: "of the top 200 official times at 100 metres, not one has been run by a white athlete.")
CNN  Testosterone patch improves sexual function in women, study shows
(Now look for a surge of female-led burglaries in study area.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Signs The U.N. Doesn't Take Your Country Seriously)

Thursday September 07 00

Melbourne Age  Zooming through life
(Writer found he was missing many of life's best moments because he was trying to film them. This is why I stopped taking my camera with me while birding. He amusedly asks: "And then once you've got a video of the birth, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to watch it? Are you going to snuggle up on the couch with your beloved and reminisce about that enchanting moment when her labia tore in the shape of an L?")
London Times  The key to a happy family
(A couples' psychotherapist offers up his theories on having a solid family life and it doesn't include the "child and baby-centred paranoia" of the past decade. Compare this article with the one yesterday from Salon.com: "Cramming for kindergarten." for a completely different view.)
Salon.com  Hopping to Harvard
(Writer debunks "kindergarten readiness" tests. How did we ever make it through back when the only cramming that was done was to fit 45 kids in a class??)
Salon.com  Tiny T-shirt karma
(Manhattan psychotherapist mom's tale: "I wanted my son to ace his pre-preschool interview so I went on a hellish shopping mission in the snow.")
UK Independent  How to live: The pleasures and principles of stating the bleedin' obvious
(Columnist John Walsh has the answers for everything. For example, in "how to look thin," he advises: "Wear black shirt and long black trousers. Add long black jacket and thin black tie. Accessorise with black shoes, black socks and long black walking cane. Acquire tall black dog.")
NY Times  Arms Across the Atlantic
(If you're a British male, the key to happiness may be snaring an American wife.
Times login: e-portals   password: e-portals)
BBC  Experts back twins' separation
(net.Headlines  will continue to follow this case as events occur.)
Sydney Morning Herald  Catholicism 'the only way'
(The Vatican declares that "their church is the sole path to spiritual salvation for all humanity." For more on this subject, tab down to Monday, September the 4th, for a London Times article: "Churches stunned by Pope's attack on 'defects'.")
London Times  Magnus Linklater: Why Rome won't forgive the sins of Canterbury
(Simply put: You exist 2000 years by staying the course.)
Salon.com  He put a spell on them
(Screamin' Jay Hawkins' dying wish was that his 57, or was it 75, kids meet. For more on the "I Put a Spell on You" R&B Crazyman, check out our archive site and 'page down' to a BBC article from last April the 29th: "Hunt for Screamin's offspring.")
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Good Things About Dating The President's Daughter)

Wednesday September 06 00

London Times  Alan Coren: I've no time for boredom with so many things to think about doing
( A doctor writes the British Medical Journal that half his middle-aged patients are suffering from boredom, so this columnist jots down ways to beat crushing ennui, such as measuring the drawer of your desk for posterity and using gin to clean a hat: "a little gin can work wonders on a dirty old hat! Go out in the dirty old hat, drink the gin, and you will find when you get home that you cannot remember where you left the dirty old hat.")
UK Independent  Take my advice, Sir Paul. Put your feet up
(Columnist is sick of the recent spate of Beatles-related news items.)
Detroit Free Press  Niece: Cop heard pleas, then fired
(For more on this case of the deaf man who was killed when he attacked police with a rake, page down to Free Press articles on August the 30th and 31st.)
BBC  Dennis hops on his bike again
(Dennis Hopper makes headlines for the 2nd time within a week and neither has to do with his immense acting ability. Last Saturday, in the comment concerning Hopper's marijuana case in Canada {see below for "Dennis Hopper gets 'the easiest ride' in Calgary court for marijuana charge"} we noted that he was a long time, avid art collector. And, indeed, today he makes the news for riding his bike to promote an important art exchange between American and Russian art museums)
International Herald Tribune  A Plan for Real Life 101 Is Not a Roman Holiday
(Newly graduated college student adapts to having no "Plan.")
Salon.com   Cramming for kindergarten
(Writer tutors 3-to-5-year-olds whose parents want them prepared to test into prestigious private schools. Compare with previous article. College grad has no "Plan," but pre-schoolers do? Something is amiss.)
USA Today  Who will play God's music?
(Church organists are a dying breed. This is not news to those of us who travel around and hear what is being offered up out there.)
Wall Street Journal  Bush vs. the Press
(Writer argues that Bush's salty aside hints at a greater truth: The Press is decidedly pro-Democrat.)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Things Going Through George W. Bush's Mind At This Moment.)

Tuesday September 05 00

Salon.com  Why Jews hate Lieberman's God talk
(They know full-well that the demons of hate are lurking.)
ABC News  Too Good To Be True
("Americans Losing Millions on Nigerian-based Scams; Secret Service Steps Up Efforts."  Honey, do you remember that very odd letter we got from Africa two years ago, or so, that wanted to use us to transfer funds? This is that scam!!!)
BBC  The ultimate test of faith
(The Beeb frames the Siamese Twin case, claiming that the parents' decision not to separate their daughters is an "intuitive interpretation of their Roman Catholic faith." "Intuitive", as it is used here, is a loaded word that shows the BBC's bias.)
UK Independent  Loving parents have a right to choose
(Columnist frames it differently.)
American Spectator  The Weekly Crisis: August 28-September 1, 2000
(Weekly column gives us an obituary of pop songwriter Jack Nitzsche that differs vastly from the one in last Friday's London Telegraph. It also serves up some J.D. Salinger dirt.)
Washington Post  O Canada! A National Swan Song?
(A lagging economy coupled with a continuous brain-drain spells big trouble for our friendly neighbor Up North.)
Salon.com  Garrison Keillor: Dear Mr Blue
(Garrison's advice column humourously answers that age-old question that we have all faced at one time or another: "I fell in love with a married man who will not leave his wife and children. Is there more than one perfect person out there for me?")
Wired.com  Hello AOL, I'm Listening
("A vintage piece of artificial intelligence software is roaming AOL's instant messaging system. The antiquated software isn't too bright, but neither are AOL users, it seems. Only a couple of them figured out they were talking to a brainless program." Our son Tommy had a similar set-up on his BBS about 6-7 yrs ago. He disguised a program, which answered people's questions with innocuous built-in answers, and made it appear that the users were talking to him, the sysop, instead. Most users, then uniformly male, would end up swearing at the program, thinking that they were insulting a real person.)
National Post  Big Brother stirs things up
(CBS is well aware that BB is ailing, and it's because the people that are left are BORING. So, in an effort to stir things up, one contestant will be given a chance to bail from the show, tomorrow night, in exchange for $10,000. A replacement character would then be introduced.)

Monday September 04 00

BBC  Medical opinion sought over twins
(net.Headlines  will continue to follow this case as events occur.)
Melbourne Age  Watching television can make you fatter
(But what about heavy Internet usage?)
NY Post  Bio bares beatles as Fab 4-nicators
(The Post, too, has access to the serialized Beatle autobiography, currently being offered up in the London Telegraph (See yesterday's listings) and they, of course, zero in on the sensational.)
London Times  Sir Paul hops from pop to poetry - but please don't maul the Mull
(Columnist hears that Sir Paul is to become a poet , see yesterday's link to the London Telegraph: "McCartney to publish collection of his poetry," and is decidely unimpressed.)
Manchester Guardian  Are you a Fab Four fanatic?
(Test your Beatles knowledge with this pop quiz. I scored 9 out of a possible 15 and am characterized as a "Day Tripper. You fancy yourself as a Fab four afficionado but you are about as clued up as say, Liam Gallagher."  Liam Gallagher??? see the article below.)
London Times  Bye bye American pie
(America may be lapping up anything to do with the Beatles, but it is ignoring current British music and Boy George has a theory: "What we're sending over there is rubbish, and if they've got their own rubbish, why do they need ours?" Ah, that explains Liam Gallagher!)
London Times  Technophile girlies
("The laptop and the phone are just other accessories, now, like handbags and shoes."  Remember when 8 out of 10 online users were male?)
National Post  Sowing the seeds for Catholic liberty
(Sometimes the best way to defend a person is to divert attention and here is an example. An apologist for the beatification of Pius IX does not mention the word "Jew" once in this article.)
London Times  Churches stunned by Pope's attack on 'defects'
("The Church of England and all other Protestant churches are not "proper" churches because they suffer from "defects", according to the Roman Catholic Church." Pope takes one step forward, two steps back.)
CBS News  China's Leader Talks To 60 Minutes
(Transcript of last night's interview where Jiang mused that the "U.S. Tends To Overestimate Itself." )

Sunday September 03 00

NY Times  Jewish Groups Protest Pius IX Beatification
(For more on the beatification of Pius IX page down to Tuesday, August the 29th, for an article from Time Magazine, "Not So Saintly?"
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Times  Queen and Pope to admit religious mistakes
(The Pope could avoid a further apology if he puts the skids to Piux IX's proposed canonization.)
NY Times  When Innocence Died at the Olympics
(A look back at the '72 Munich Olympics.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
Toronto Globe and Mail  Leapin' koalas!
(Bill Bryson, one of the best writers out there, is in Sydney, eagerly awaiting the start of the Olympics.)
Manchester Guardian  Anything so dangerous must be safe
(Writer looks at rollercoasters and wonders if we have all gone insane.)
NY Post  Price push sparks tequila sunset
(Horrors!! There's a world-wide tequila shortage!)
NY Post  Birdies on CBS are Tweeter Cheaters
(Two weeks ago, or so, on the Ohio-Birders email listserve group that I belong to, Hans from Akron wondered why he was hearing a certain wren at the US Open, when it should not have been anywhere near that site. Congratulations, Hans, you were on to something. CBS now admits to dubbing in bird sounds to create "an ambient effect.")
NY Times  William Safire: On Language
(America's wordsmith examines "wired."
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Times  The Ethicist by Randy Cohen
(Weekly ethics column examines that age-old question that we have all faced at one time or another: "I bought a $70 sweater on sale for $30 and lent it to my friend who ruined it. How much should the friend pay me back?"
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
London Sunday Times  McCartney to publish collection of his poetry
(Sir Paul even hints at remarrying.)
London Telegraph  Beatles are a hit again as 1.5m order autobiography
(The Autobiography of The Beatles is expected to earn £1 billion.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
London Telegraph  The time of their lives
(The Telegraph will serialize The Fab Four's Autiobigraphy with nine chapters online now until Monday 0.00 GMT.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password: e-portals)
NY Post  Million Youth March draws just 300
(Maybe it's in really small increments?)
NY Daily News  Giant Tot Has Docs Stumped
(New Mexican child welfare workers remove 120 pound 3 yr old.)

Saturday September 02 00

International Herald Tribune  Why Won't Europe Stop Smoking?
(Quick Quiz: Which European leader was an anti-smoker and was also a vegetarian and a nondrinker? The answer may surprise.)
Manchester Guardian   Do you really trust him?
(Columnist Julie Burchill wants nothing to do with a Male Pill.)
London Telegraph  Stand by your man
(Jennifer Lopez talks about Puff. Bet she'd trust him to take the Pill.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
London Express  'I think I can struggle out of bed to make $150,000 a day'
(Samuel L. Jackson talks about keeping an even keel.)
Slate  Why Spike Lee should lighten up   
(Writer feels Spike is becoming increasingly didactic.)
National PostDennis Hopper gets 'the easiest ride' in Calgary court for marijuana charge  
(I heard a fascinating piece on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross  this past summer about Hopper, who has been an art collector for 40 years and is quite rich because of it.)
CNN  English majors remain low-paid, but many defect into the business world
(Note to oldest daughter: I have but two words: "law school.")
NY Post  Biotech firm would buy patients' cancer tissue
(Cancer patients might be paid for leftover tissue)
Salon.com  3 yards and a cloud of baloney
(Author offers up ten myths about winning football games.)
NY Times  NY Times Navigator
(The Times' link to web resources. Invaluable for web surfers.
Times login: e-portals  password: e-portals)

Friday September 01 00

BBC  Agassi crashes out
(As the NY Post reported Wednesday, "Agassi's mom, sis battling breast cancer," Andre has more serious things on his mind than the US Open.)
London Times  Roseanne Barr: I wish I hadn't accused my parents of abuse
(Roseanne advises fellow sufferers "Grow up, go to therapy and deal with it.")
London Times  Philip Howard: Forget castles in the air - a proper sandcastle takes military precision
(Britain's premier wordsmith examines sandcastles on this, the last weekend of summer.)
Melbourne Age  Hollywood and the 'bad Arab' complex
(Author, founder of the Australian Arabic Council, points out that when Hollwood needs a villain, they tab an Arab.)
London Telegraph  Obituary of Jack Nitzsche
(Nitzche, dead at 63, had a most impressives rock pedigree. He co-wrote the number one hit "Needles and Pins" with Sonny Bono. He played harpsichord, percussion and piano on many Stones hits and was on the biggest smashes of The Righteous Brothers, Neil Young, The Ronettes and Ike and Tina Turner.
Telegraph login: e-portals  password:e-portals)
Redbook  Let's talk about sex
('Sex Expert' Jane Greer answers that age-old question: "I always enjoy sex especially with strangers. I like to be watched and to watch. I stay wet all the time, and it takes very little for me to get aroused. I want more, more, more! Is this unusual, or am I normal?")
Nerve.com  This Week in Sex
(The week in review.)
London Express  Size 16 and proud of it
(British designer rightfully points out: "Just look at everyone around you - most women these days are size fourteen and over. Are we saying that men don't fancy their wives and girlfriends or find them sexy? ".)
Christian Science Monitor Life among the lilacs at Hampton Court
(60 formal acres, 650 total acres...a place where deer still roam. Sounds like home!)
Slate.com  The Best Light Bulb
(Confused about whether to buy Halogen, Tungsten Incandescent or Fluorescent?)
CBS  David Letterman's List
(Top Ten Worst Jobs)