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Jane M. Hightower
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chicagotribune.com
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The good news for embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in this report is that a Chicago artist is using the governor’s likeness as inspiration for his latest painting.
Posted on Dec 20, 2008
4 COMMENTS 
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One of JFK’s “best and brightest” died wondering how the Vietnam War could have gone so wrong. Now, in an important new book, we have some answers.
Posted on Dec 19, 2008
28 COMMENTS
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renaissance-art-gallery.com
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Someone call Dan Brown: French painting experts have discovered faint drawings on the back of Da Vinci’s painting “The Virgin and Child With St. Anne” at Paris’ Louvre Museum, including a sketch of a skull. Intrigue abounds!
Posted on Dec 18, 2008
1 COMMENT
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AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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Here’s a news bite that could have written itself a few weeks, if not months, ago: Barack Obama is Time’s 2008 Person of the Year. Even the magazine’s editorial staff members knew that the choice would hardly shock anyone, but they allowed themselves to be swept along by the tides of history—or perhaps inevitability.
Posted on Dec 17, 2008
5 COMMENTS
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gonyc.about.com
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Whereas during boom times not so long ago, the über-loaded were all about having it and flaunting it, some among their ranks are now feeling the need to tone down their spending habits, if only for the sake of appearances.
Posted on Dec 15, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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The New York Times
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The death and destruction from last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai are still fresh in the minds of many, but filmmakers in India nevertheless are rushing to retell the events cinematically, with over 20 Mumbai-themed movies already awaiting approval.
Posted on Dec 12, 2008
4 COMMENTS
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Frank Langella as Nixon in the new Ron Howard movie does his best, but no one did Nixon like Nixon.
Posted on Dec 12, 2008
12 COMMENTS
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myspace.com
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Long before Madonna, Dita Von Teese or any number of aspiring sirens squeezed into their first corsets, there was proto-vixen Bettie Page, who brought her own racy sensibility to the art of pinup photography in the 1950s.
Posted on Dec 11, 2008
1 COMMENT
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filminfocus.com
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Despite widespread acclaim and gushing praise from some tough critics, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association largely overlooked Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” in choosing this year’s Golden Globe nominees, although Sean Penn is among the HFPA’s picks for best actor.
Posted on Dec 11, 2008
3 COMMENTS
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foxnews.com
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After making a movie about President Bush, what’s “W.” director Oliver Stone to do next? Why, he’ll make a documentary about that repeat Bush taunter from Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, of course!
Posted on Dec 10, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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shop.npr.org
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The financial crisis has hit the tote bag set: National Public Radio is cutting two shows and 7 percent of its work force, thanks to $23 million in red ink. Non-pledging fans of “Day to Day” and “News & Notes” have only themselves—and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act—to blame.
Posted on Dec 10, 2008
8 COMMENTS
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Having been one of President George W. Bush’s most vocal celebrity critics in recent years, it must have been strange for Barbra Streisand to find herself smiling and embracing the lame duck last Sunday at the White House.
Posted on Dec 9, 2008
6 COMMENTS
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youtube.com
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Looks like Bill O’Reilly is preparing for the Obama era—he says he’s been working too many hours. Whatever the reason, the Fox News heavy is giving up his syndicated radio show to focus his energies on “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Posted on Dec 6, 2008
8 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Isaac Brekken, pool
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O.J. Simpson’s fame in the football and film arenas was eclipsed by his nationally polarizing murder trial in 1995. On Friday, he was back in court in Las Vegas facing kidnapping and burglary charges, but the outcome was not in his favor this time.
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There’s a revolution underway in Chinese culture as young women flock from villages to factory employment in the cities, leaving traditional values behind.
Posted on Dec 5, 2008
3 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Akira Suemori
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Of all the items we might have expected would rank high on outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s wish list of things she’d like to do before leaving office, playing Brahms in a private concert for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II wouldn’t have been one of them.
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timesonline.co.uk
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It seems the British have found a way to cope with the global economic crisis. A survey by the Terrence Higgins Trust, a UK AIDS charity, found that sex is the most popular free activity in the empire, beating out window shopping and going to a museum.
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AP photo / Altaf Qadri
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The Indian metropolis of Mumbai is well-known for its prolific entertainment industry, a.k.a. “Bollywood.” Following the recent terror seige, India’s entertainment community responded to the attacks, which claimed the life of at least one of its (international) members.
Posted on Nov 29, 2008
3 COMMENTS
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Thinking of whipping up another tuna casserole? You may change your mind after reading this convincing expose by Jane M. Hightower, a San Francisco doctor.
Posted on Nov 28, 2008
16 COMMENTS
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filminfocus.com
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By Sheerly Avni — Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is a movie to be thankful for. Go see it, tonight if you can, and in a crowded theater. Then open up some merlot and watch the documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk,” by Robert Epstein—because these two films belong together.
Posted on Nov 26, 2008
5 COMMENTS
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AP photo / Phil Bray
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By Larry Gross — Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is the first major Hollywood “gay themed” film since “Brokeback Mountain,” and moreover (unlike “Brokeback”), this one is about openly gay activists, not tortured closet cases. Yet, once again, the lead gay roles couldn’t be filled by openly gay actors. What’s going on here?
Posted on Nov 26, 2008
25 COMMENTS
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filmindependent.org
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On Tuesday, Los Angeles Film Festival Director Richard Raddon officially resigned after being embroiled in a controversy over his support for the “Yes on 8” campaign to ban gay marriage in California.
Posted on Nov 25, 2008
4 COMMENTS
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Flickr/dcJohn
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Just after Barack Obama was elected president, The Washington Post published the affecting story of former White House butler Eugene Allen—and Hollywood was definitely paying attention.
Posted on Nov 23, 2008
1 COMMENT
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independent.co.uk
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By Robert Fisk — Incredibly, as Afghanistan sinks back into the anarchy which became its natural state these past 29 years, Afghan film-makers are producing movies of international quality, turning out pictures which prove—even amid war—that a country’s tragedy can be imaginatively recreated for its people.
Posted on Nov 23, 2008
2 COMMENTS
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guardian.co.uk
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Now, this is just getting weird: Nearly five years after the shocking (!) “wardrobe malfunction” that shamed exposed nipple owner Janet Jackson and seared the tender eyeballs of select members of the federal government, the FCC is soldiering on in its quest to slap offending network CBS with a $550,000 fine.
Posted on Nov 21, 2008
27 COMMENTS
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