ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY (yesterday) is observed today. In his prosecution of the Civil War, Pres. Lincoln seized the telegraph lines, suspended habeas corpus and issued an order prohibiting the printing of war news about military movements without approval. Officials arrested people for wearing Confederate buttons and for singing Confederate songs. Generals shut down and destroyed dissenting newspapers. Nevertheless, Lincoln is generally ranked as one of our top three Presidents by historians. And he signed the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act in 1862, which provided government grants for agricultural universities in each state — and without which there may never have been a Pate.
TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER: A record-breaking storm buried sections of the Northeast under more than 2 feet of snow on Sunday. I hope the Pratts are not trapped under the snowy blanket, unless it becomes a fun snow day for them.
SYLVIA HAUSER UPDATE: It seems that Captain Lex will be changing his name to Major Lex next month. As the US Army is probably one of the few institutions that does not fear crossing Sylvia, the promotion appears to be based on merit (and what little I know of his record would bear that out).
SLY STONE walked offstage during the Grammy tribute from stagefright. He then vomited and disappeared.
KANYE WEST thinks he lost the Best Album Grammy to U2 due to vote-splitting. With whom?
PAUL McCARTNEY stormed out of the Grammy Awards after losing Best Album to U2. So Sir Paul missed the knockout finale paying tribute to New Orleans and the late Wilson Pickett on “In the Midnight Hour,” with Bruce Springsteen, Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave), Elvis Costello, The Edge, Bonnie Raitt, Irma Thomas, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and more.
JOHNNY ROTTEN thinks Grammy-winning Green Day is phony punk.
ANTI-GRAMMYS: The New York Times blurbs alternative music awards, including the PLUG awards, the NME awards and the upcoming New Pantheon awards.
SLASH says the near-mythic Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, will finally hit the shops in March. Axl Rose apparently held a “listening party” to get an NYC nightclub to stay open until 8 a.m. for his birthday.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: The Boomtown Rats. Obvious, but universal.
THE KOOKS, hailing from southern England, may not have the same buzz as Arctic Monkeys, but their debut, Inside In / Inside Out, cracked the Top Ten in Britain and got a a nice write-up at PopMatters as a celebration of ridiculousness when the current trend is toward the exacting precision of their Gang of Four-inspired dance-punk. The band is picking up more press now that it's on tour, extolling the XTC-influenced first single, “Eddie's Gun” and the influences of The Clash, The Jam and The Police that Pate fans will surely recognize (though Pate covered Gang of Four, too). However, having the bass player succumb to the excesses of the road four days into the tour is probably not putting one's best foot forward. Though the album is not out in the US yet, you can stream three of their demos at MySpace.
FIERY FURNACES announce a new album (on Fat Possum!?) and tour dates; *Sixeyes hooks you up to legal MP3s.
OASIS frontman Noel Gallagher blasted Jack White for writing a Coca-Cola ad, then sold his “All Around The World” to AT&T.
BRYAN FERRY: The 60-year-old Roxy Music crooner and his lover, 24-year-old dancer Katie Turner, are back together after a two year split.
GOGOL BORDELLO: Carl Wilson profiles New York's “gypsy punk” ensemble, featuring highly quotable frontman Eugene Hutz: “You don't have to give in to these pre-fab ideas fed you by education, or the celebrity cult of values that is force-fed you by media… That is where you revolutionize yourself first.” You can stream a selection of tunes and the video for “Start Wearing Purple” at MySpace.
NEIL YOUNG and JONATHAN DEMME talk to the L.A. Daily News about Heart of Gold — which captures Young and friends at the Grand Old Opry — and the fact that Young has never won a Grammy. Demme also talks to the Philadelphia Inquirer about his favorite concert films and his “wish list.” Demme would like to work with Fats Domino and Sufjan Stevens — who he believes will be “acknowledged before too long as one of the great American composer-performers.”
MISSION OF BURMA: The Columbia Spectator reports that while Burma is called Myanmar these days, Mission of Burma is bigger than ever.
GARY GLITTER, awaiting trial on child molestation charges, discovers that Vietnamese prsons are icky.
VAN MORRISON hasn't spoken to former friend and artist Cecil McCartney (whose work in the late Sixties inspired Morrison's seminal album Astral Weeks) in 17 years, following a row over whether Myra Hindley, the Moors murderer, could be forgiven for her sins. McCartney is putting up one of his works as a peace offering to the singer.
ARCTIC MONKEYS and PETE DOHERTY are frequently blurbed here, but if you're new and want to catch up, New York magazine has a backgrounder pretending to be a record review. PLUS: The Arctic Monkeys prove its tough to be a prophet in your home town.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: London's Guardian has published extracts of the troubled singer's prison diaries, including a rewite of “What a Wonderul World” which refers to the supposedly sober supermodel as his “true love/On a Rimmel advert.” The paper's readers are merciless. Doherty claims that Moss contacted him in jail, and believes they never broke up.
MADONNA: Her latest video shows off the 47-year-old diva's “amazing flexibility and strength.” Hubby Guy Ritchie is ignoring Madge's demand that he attend the Brit Awards to quash rumors their marriage is on the rocks.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Sadly, Curious George came in third, beaten by both The Pink Panther and Final Destination 3. Neil Young: Heart of Gold came in 33rd, but with an impressive $14,325 per screen average.
CURIOUS GEORGE was generally true to the spirit of the books and thus a nice family film, without any post-modern reimagining (though Will Farrell as the Man in the Yellow Hat has hints of a G-rated Ron Burgandy). However, if you watch the end credits, you will see what I mean when I say that it would have been cool if the animation had kept even closer to the original. Inevitably, the media looks at whether the charming chimp is politically correct. BTW, H.A. and Margret Rey were German Jews in France who fled from Hitler's Nazis on bicycle hours before the invasion of the city — WBUR has an audo interview with Louise Borden, the author of The Journey That Saved Curious George.Curious George Goes to Wordsworth, which has been selling books and toys related to the original children’s literature character since 1996, caters to those who want the book version of George.
GWYNETH PALTROW suspects her daughter Apple will be an artist or scientist rather than follow in her family's acting footsteps: “I'll be curious to see — sometimes children of actors want absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever.” Apple may well have the brains to be a scientist if she's already figured out that actresses are dippy enough to name their children after fruit.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: More Cruise wackiness reported from the pre-Grammy party featuring Kanye West. Page Six quotes an amused spywitness: “First, he raised his hands in approval when Kanye sang about the need for a prenup — good thing Katie wasn't there.”
MENA SUVARI is dating a professional breakdancer. He could probably practice on her ginormous forehead.
BRADGELINA: Newly-surfaced pic shows Jolie had those lips at age 13. The Enquirer claims she and Pitt had their first major bust-up on the eve of their trip the World Economic Forum, with Pitt leaving Jolie and the kids in a hotel room to party with British screen siren Patsy Kensit until the early hours. But the latest pics and video at Just Jared suggest the two are canoodling again.
SHARON STONE is disgusted by the cleavage display on Hollywood's red carpets: “Frankly, I find the acres of shoved-up booby so much more horrifying than a calm bit of walking across the room nude. one is much more honest and other looks like you have your a** on backwards.”
COURTNEY LOVE may still be clean, but someone fresh from rehab probably shouldn't be hanging out at Teddy's, a notorious star swillery in L.A.'s Hotel Roosevelt, at 1 a.m.
BOBBY BROWN: I am shocked, shocked, to discover his kids have issues.
MR. WILLS is movin' on up to that deluxe apartment in the sky.
JESSICA and ASHLEE SIMPSON have been billed ten grand for pulling out of a Rolling Stone photo shoot with David LaChapelle.
JESSICA ALBA is Playboy's Sex Star Of The Year, beating out Jamie Pressly, Jenny McCarthy, Halle Berry and Pamela Anderson, among others. But she'll be clothed in the magazine.
CARTOON JIHAD: The Swedish government pressured an Internet provider into shutting down the website of a fringe party over a Prophet Mohammed drawing contest posted on its site. Nonie Darwish, whose father founded the Palestinian Fedayeen, writes that the culture of hate is the true root of the riots surrounding this cartoon controversy. Thousands of moderate Muslims gathered in London to call for unity and mutual tolerance. Elsewhere, the moderates were not so moderate. The intolerance spreads beyond cartoons, to burning Valentine's Day cards and pulling a Mideast version of Pop Idol off the air. Star Academy is one of the few places in the Arab world where personal advancement depends on talent rather than connections, where men and women can mix freely, where expressing individualism is something to be celebrated, and where people — including women — can vote. Such values have made the show both controversial and hugely popular.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio roundds up coverage of native insurgents and civilians of differing religions and ethnicities fighting al Qaeda as well as efforts to keep the western border secure from foreign infiltration. AFP similarly reports that Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province have agreed to take over combating foreign fighters there and securing the borders, within the Iraqi security forces and not as a separate militia (which is significant).
IRAN has restarted the sophisticated equipment at the Natanz uranium processing plant that could enable it to produce material for nuclear warheads, according to reports received by Western intelligence. Pres. Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and “other nations” will eventually remove Israel from the region. London's Telegraph reports that the Pentagon is drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a “last resort” to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
NSA SURVEILLANCE: The New York Times reports on the rapidly expanding federal probe into its leak of the highly classified NSA international eavesdropping program. The paper quotes Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who has represented publications like The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine: “There is a very strong argument that a federal common-law reporters' privilege exists and that privilege would protect confidential sources in this case.” It's a “strong” argument that will almost certainly lose, but lawyers use words differently from ordinary folk.
HOW DID AN OCTOPUS turn up in an English garden drain?
A HERD OF DUNG-SPRAYING WATER BUFFALO that disappeared from a breeding farm this week were back home on the range on Friday afternoon — with no indication where they had been.
DO GORILLAS GO THROUGH MENOPAUSE? Researchers at Brookfield, IL's Brookfield Zoo and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo answer “yes” in a study being published in the International Journal of Primatology. (Thanks, Debbie!)
MOST POPULAR DOGS: The American Kennel Club recently released the figures for the popularity of various breeds in the US, both nationally and for various cities. (Thanks again, Debbie!)
DOGS helped break ground on a new animal shelter in Little Rock.
SHARK FRENZY SHUTTERS AUSSIE BEACHES: Several tourist beaches along Australia's popular Gold Coast were closed again Sunday because of a massive feeding frenzy involving more than 100 sharks, a lifeguard official said.
WHALE LOVE: Some will say it's not all that different from humans.