[Note: If the site has seemed a little slow lately, you should know that our administrator Lance is upgrading our server over the next couple of weeks to handle increased demand. Thanks for your patience and patronage! I know that sounds like, "Your call is very important to us, please hold...," but we do mean it. - KB] LUCINDA WILLIAMS news is briefly rounded up at Thrasher's Blog. ALEXANDRO ESCOVEDO is writing and performing again, after switching to holistic treatment for his Hepatitis C. WILCO: Jeff Tweedy talks to... wait for it... the Financial Times about filesharing: "I'm embarrassed personally for really big artists who whine about it. After all, you have to be pretty damn successful for people to consider pirating your music." Former Wilco-ite Jay Bennett has two discs reviewed on the Pitchfork. NEIL YOUNG has left the hospital, is expected to make a full recovery and to return to Nashville next week to continue work on an album. Young's brain aneurysm was treated by state-of-the-art, minimally invasive surgery. SCOTT McCAUGHEY of the Young Fresh Fellows and the Minus 5 has a "List of Music You Should Hear" posted at Amazon. METHANE STUDIOS has a gallery of cool posters produced for cool bands. GEORGE LUCAS, JAMES CAMERON AND PETER JACKSON are among the directors touting a new form of 3D to pave the way for digital cinema. IRAQ: As a Kurd in Iraq's disputed north, Jalal Talabani spent a lifetime resisting Arab domination. Now he is interim president of Iraq, one of the largest and potentially wealthiest Arab nations. ''Today Jalal Talabani made it to the seat of power, while Saddam Hussein is sitting in jail,'' said Mohammed Saleh, a 42-year-old Kurd in Kirkuk. ''Who would have thought?'' IT'S CARNIVAL SEASON year-round in the blogosphere. A new Carnival Of Education and Tangled Bank (Carnival of Science blogging) are online. DENVER VICE: A man out on bail after being charged with 33 counts of sexual assault while impersonating a massage therapist was arrested Monday for allegedly posing as a vice cop. JOE STRUMMER: Unreleased tracks from his pre-Clash band, the 101ers, will be released next month. AUDIOSLAVE guitarist Tom Morello is urging young Britons to vote in the upcoming general election. While slamming Tony Blair's involvement in the Iraq war, Morello admitted that he did not know which way he would vote as a British citizen: "I don't know what the slate of candidates is, I'd have to call my friend Billy Bragg. I defer to his opinion on that one!" QUEEN went ahead with a gig in Rome on Monday despite a plea from the Vatican to cancel out of respect for the Pope. Although a fan of the group, Guido Bertolaso, who is overseeing Rome's arrangements for Pope John Paul II's funeral, said: "I think that in this moment of pain and prayer, a concert should not be held in our capital - with all due respect to what others believe." If he's a fan, Mr. Bertolaso should have known what Queen would do. POPE JOHN PAUL II is being reborn as a comic book superhero, battling evil with an anti-Devil cape and special chastity pants. SHANNON ELIZABETH is already moving on from her husband, but Defamer notices her "party fingers." CULT OF THE iPod: Office workers who share music via iTunes track their coworkers' comings and goings and form opinions about them based on their playlists. A new study, funded in part by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, finds the opinions are not always what the sharer intended. VIKINGS: A Norwegian historical center is recruiting friendly, playful Vikings; axe-wielding vandals need not apply. Will the center have a telescope? SOLDIERS OF LOVE? Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has called on the IRA to lay down their arms. WAR on TERROR: A senior military officer serving in the Middle East e-mails Austin Bay about the definition of victory, noting in part: "Military action is a necessary, but insufficient component of the formula for victory." A University of Central Florida biology professor has given up his passport after spending nearly two weeks in jail for allegedly stealing eight vials of cloned DNA pieces from a tuberculosis organism. TINY SPY PLANE: The Wasp robotic plane, designed for troops who need a peek at the enemy before going in, has a 13 inch wingspan and is launched by hand. MS. WHEELCHAIR PAGEANT REDUX: A new Ms. Wheelchair Wisconsin has been crowned after pageant leaders stripped the original winner of the title when she appeared in a newspaper photograph standing up. The runner-up refused to accept the crown out of protest. Lee's sister, who was named Ms. Wheelchair Minnesota, dropped out of the competition in that state. And the coordinator for the organization's Minnesota program stepped down from her job to "stand up for Janeal Lee," a high school teacher and muscular dystrophy sufferer who uses a scooter as her main way to get around but says she can walk up to 50 feet on a good day and stand while teaching. KIRSTEN DUNST and Jake Gyllenhaal staged their break-up and plan to marry. MORE WEIRD BURGER KING ADS: Visible through Screenhead. THE UNITED NATIONS: In a meeting closed to the media, secretary-general Kofi Annan tells staff the scandals engulfing the U.N. would act as a catalyst for reform, while at the same time blaming the media for reporting them unfairly. Mr. Annan took eight questions and left to a standing ovation. One former senior U.N. official told FOX News those questions had all been planted by Annan's staff; Annan's spokesman denied that claim. But Annan's problems run deeper than the generally meager reporting on U.N. scandals. Last November, the U.N. Staff Union passed a resolution expressing no confidence in the senior U.N. staff. The London Observer, generally not aligned with FOX News politically, carries a column from a former U.N. human rights observer in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Liberia which asks, "How many more must die before Kofi quits?" Kenneth Cain also claims that when he visited the U.N. human resources office in New York to complain personally about child sex abuse case by peacekeepers in Liberia, "they laughed at my naive outrage: 'It happens all the time in the field,' they said. 'There's nothing we can do.'" BRITNEY SPEARS and hubby K-Fed just spent time at a Santa Monica hotel, but Britney stayed in the main building and Kevin stayed in the bungalows. The New York Post's Page Six quotes a spywitness: "Kevin played a lot of golf at a nearby golf course and Britney was just roaming the hotel everyday in either a muu-muu or an oversized sweatshirt, sobbing. Her mother was with her, but not Kevin. Britney left the hotel [Monday], but Kevin is still here." FASTER CABLE INTERNET: The industry's standard-settings unit plans to endorse technology that will let operators boost speeds 400% to 1,600%, over their existing lines. SMUCKERS wants a patent on its sealed, crustless peanut butter and jelly pockets. BIG P*SSY: Vincent Pastore, best known as The Sopranos' late mobster Big P*ssy, has been slapped with assault charges following a violent argument with his fiance Saturday in New York.
|
Comments