Will the Persecution Never End? (Anna NIcole Smith Edition)

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for the link.

iWon News - Paternity Test Ordered for Smith's Baby

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Anna Nicole Smith was ordered Thursday to bring her infant daughter to California for paternity tests sought by a former boyfriend who claims he is the father of the child, the man's publicist said in a statement. "Los Angeles Superior Court has ruled today that Anna Nicole Smith and 3-month-old baby daughter Dannielynn are ordered to submit to paternity testing," read the statement from Luck Media & Marketing Inc. Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, welcomed the ruling. "Christmas has come early, and I thank God that I will soon have the opportunity to prove that I am the father ... and eventually hold her in my arms," Birkhead said in the statement. Smith's attorney, Ron Rale, would not deny or confirm the ruling.

Rash -- Pete Hautman

A lot of the best writing around these days is in YA novels. If you don't believe me, read one. Try Nancy Werlin, for example, or Pete Hautman.

Bruce Taylor might not have a high opinion of Steve Stilwell's movie IQ, but surely he'd never argue with him about writers. It was Steve who told me several years ago about Hautman's first YA novel, Mr. Was, a wonderful book. And last year Hautman won the National Book Award for Godless.

Hautman's also the author of a number of fine, funny adult crime novels. I don't know how that career's been going, but I get the impression that the books haven't sold as well as they should have. Doesn't matter, I guess, in one way, since the YA career's going so well.

Rash is Hautman's latest. It's set a toward the end of this century, in the USSA (the United Safer States of America), where no one takes a risk, where anything that might endanger you or someone else has been outlawed, where you can go to prison for dropping an apricot on the ground if someone slips on it. Bo Marsten is from a family of criminals. Both his father and his brother are in the pen, and Bo seems highly likely to join them.

Sure enough, he does, and the book becomes something different from what you might have been expecting. It's sort of a cross between The Longest Yard and Holes, but it's really nothing like that. It also doesn't offer a lot of easy answers. Plus it has laughs. No wonder Hautman keeps on winning awards and piling up the readers. Check it out.

Watch 101 Christmas Classics for Free

The Christmas Spot - Watch 101 Classic Christmas Videos Online - Fanpop

Ah Christmas. The tree, the stockings, the mistletoe and - of course - the holiday television programming.

Some of my fondest Christmas memories were spent in front a of television watching such classics as the animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or one of the myriad versions of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'.

So without further ado, I am presenting you with my big, big list of holiday specials. I've tried to categorize the list into subsections to make it a little more bearable and consumable. The list is in no particular order, though the first section, 'essentials', are (in my humble opinion) the cream of the crop. I should also note that I've only included programs for which I was able to find online videos so you'll notice some glaring omissions (like 'A Christmas Story' and 'Miracle on 34th Street).

In any event, here's wishing you a great Christmas. Now sit back and dig into some of the best Christmas content on the web...

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I've Changed My Mind about the Sky Yacht . . .

. . . this is what I want for Christmas.

Ripper Update

Man charged in killings of Ipswich prostitutes

British police charged a 48-year-old man with murder Thursday in the killings of five prostitutes in eastern England.

Police identified the man as Steve Wright, who was arrested Tuesday in Ipswich, a town northeast of London where all of the victims worked.

Investigators released another 37-year-old man, who was arrested Monday, police said.

The victims — Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls — had been working as prostitutes. Their naked bodies were found in rural areas around Ipswich over a period of about 10 days beginning Dec. 2.

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Monica Lewinsky Update

KTLA The CW | Where Los Angeles Lives | Monica Lewinsky Graduates with Master's Degree

Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky has graduated from the London School of Economics with a Masters of Science degree in Social Psychology.

Lewinsky was 21 when she became involved in a sexual relationship with then President Bill Clinton that eventually led to his impeachment.

According to her publicist, Lewinsky, now 32, spent the past year studying and "staying away from the London social scene."

She completed a thesis entitled "In Search of the Impartial Juror: An exploration of the third person effect and pre-trial publicity."

Lewinsky is reportedly interviewing for jobs in Britain.

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Harry Leach Interview at the Hard Man Blog

Harry who? The character from a classic American novel by a great American writer, that's who. Check it out.

I Love the Old Holiday Traditions

Thanks, as often, to Jeff Meyerson.

iWon News - Pooping Peasant Popular in Spain

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - The Virgin Mary. The three kings. A few wayward sheep. These are the figures one expects to find in a traditional Christmas nativity scene. Not a smartly dressed peasant squatting behind a rock with his rear-end exposed.

Yet statuettes of "El Caganer," or the great defecator in the Catalan language, can be found in nativity scenes, and increasingly on the mantelpieces of collectors, throughout Spain's northeastern Catalonia region, where for centuries symbols of defecation have played an important role in Christmas festivities.

During the holiday season, pastry shops around Catalonia sell sweets shaped like feces, and on Christmas Eve Catalan children beat a hollow log, called the tio, packed with holiday gifts, singing a song that urges it to defecate presents out the other end.

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Update on the Philip Marlowe Update

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - film: A renaissance for Chandler's knight of the mean streets

Exec producing will be Daniel H Blatt, Bailey and Chorion crime properties honcho Phil Clymer, who has in the past been instrumental in keeping the Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple Christie brands up with the times. According to Clymer, an ongoing dialogue has been taking place with Elliott Gould, who starred in Robert Altman's 1973 version of The Long Goodbye, with a view to the actor possibly reprising the part as an older and possibly none-the-wiser Marlowe walking the backlit streets of modern California. Gould still refers to his character in Altman's film as "my guy".

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A Link for Art Scott

Physics Reveals the Key to a Great Golf Swing

What happens when a golf-loving researcher injures a shoulder and can't play for three months? Rod White, a metrologist (measurement scientist), used the spare time off the course to undertake an analysis that revealed the foundation of an effective golf swing. As it turns out, it's all in the wrists.

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The A. V. Club's Top Films of 2006

The Year In Film 2006 | The A.V. Club

When The A.V. Club film writers sat down to discuss what 2006 had to offer, we quickly discovered a remarkable amount of overlap between our lists. We could immodestly claim that great minds think alike, but the more likely explanation is that the most important and accomplished films of the year were just too bold to deny. In light of that fact, we've tallied our individual lists into a super-list that reflects our consensus over the films that meant the most to us this year. But that doesn't mean we've committed entirely to group-think: Individual Top 10 lists and commentary follow the master list.

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Top 20 Overrated Movies

Premiere: It happens to everyone who loves movies: You're in a conversation at a bar, or at a wedding, or online, and someone begins rhapsodizing about one of their favorite movies and you can't help but say, "Uh, that movie sucks. It's totally overrated." How two perfectly well-balanced individuals can have such drastically different views of the same film is one of the great wonders of being a film fanatic. It happens to us at Premiere all the time, enough so that sometimes we find ourselves questioning who we work with (boy, did it get ugly here when Love, Actually came out, and some of us are still snickering over our boss's love for Bowfinger, not to mention his affection for The Last Samurai). Well, we decided to let our staff go at each other regarding some of the more beloved movies of all time, and, sure enough, sobbing can still be heard coming from the bathroom stalls. Relationships have been strained. Egos bruised. Consider this a film lovers' quarrel, an admittedly rabid one.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

latimes.com: Be afraid, conservatives. If you survived the victory speeches of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and allowed yourself to think, "Things can't get any worse," get over it. They can.

Two years from now, terrorists under the banner of the "Progressive

Restoration" will take over Manhattan in a larger attempt to overthrow the government. Thirteen years later, President Chelsea Clinton and Vice President Michael Moore will haul out the good White House china for Osama bin Laden's state visit. By fiddling with your radio, you may be able to catch an underground broadcast by Sean Hannity. If you own a radio, that is; folks living in states that are under Sharia law won't even be that lucky.

These aren't my fantasies or nightmares. All of these vignettes are ripped from science fiction thrillers that have hit shelves in just the last 18 months. Sharia comes to the United States in Robert Ferrigno's potboiler, "Prayers for the Assassin." In Joel C. Rosenberg's "Last Jihad" trilogy, a steel-spined U.S. president nukes Baghdad, then combats a Russo-Iranian axis, all in fulfillment of Scripture (or so we're told in the nail-biting third book, "The Ezekiel Option"). Hannity and his stone-jawed sidekick, G. Gordon Liddy, battle the Clinton restoration in Mike Mackey and Donny Lin's comic book, "Liberality for All." The Second American Civil War is breaking out in Orson Scott Card's "Empire" (book out now, video game on the way).

A Crimespot Christmas Carol

Check it out here.

The Best of Xero

Xero was an SF fanzine published by Dick and Pat Lupoff that ran for 10 issues from 1960-63. I wish I'd been astute enough to subscribe to fanzines in those days. I'd have made the acquaintance of some wonderful folks like those who wrote for Xero, including Roger Ebert (known as Rog in those days), Ed Gorman, Harlan Ellison, Avram Davidson, James Blish, Lin Carter, Roy Thomas, Donald E. Westlake, and many others. But I didn't get into fandom until much, much later, so I missed out on considerable fun.

The Best of Xero is so good that it makes me wish the Lupoffs had just reprinted the entire run. There's a very funny Sax Rohmer parody by Lin Carter (and his book reviews are fun, too), a great article on comic books by Thomas, a review of Psycho (the movie, not the book) by Ellison, a parody of "My Last Duchess" by Ebert, and other wonderful stuff, far too much to mention.

Some of it I'd read before, including Westlake's notorious farewell to science fiction writing, but I hadn't read the responses to it, nor had I read Westlake's follow-up. All of it's just as interesting now as it must have been 45 years ago.

Roger Ebert's new introduction is great, but I've spoken often about my fondness for introductions.

All I can say is that if you have any interest in fandom and its history you should own this book. Unless, of course, you're lucky enough to own a complete run of Xero.

Another Virgin Birth for Christmas

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for this reptilian link:

news.yahoo.com: CHESTER, England - In an evolutionary twist, Flora the Komodo dragon has managed to become pregnant all on her own without any male help. She is carrying seven baby Komodo dragons.

"We were blown away when we realized what she'd done," said Kevin Buley, a reptile expert at Flora's home at the Chester Zoo in this town in northern England. "But we certainly won't be naming any of the hatchlings Jesus."

Other reptile species reproduce asexually in a process known as parthenogenesis. But Flora's virginal conception, and that of another Komodo dragon earlier this year at the London Zoo, are the first time it has been documented in a Komodo dragon.

I'm Betting that Dan Brown's Already Writing the Novel

Slate: In 1983, as the residents of Calcata, a small town 30 miles north of Rome, prepared for their annual procession honoring a holy relic, a shocking announcement from the parish priest put a damper on festivities. "This year, the holy relic will not be exposed to the devotion of the faithful. It has vanished. Sacrilegious thieves have taken it from my home." Not since the Middle Ages, when lopped-off body parts of divine do-gooders were bought, sold, and traded, has relic theft been big news. But the mysterious disappearance of Calcata's beloved curio is different.

This wasn't just the residuum of any holy human—nor was it just any body part. It was the foreskin of Jesus Christ, the snipped-off tip of the savior's penis, the only piece of his body he supposedly left on earth.

Time for me to Revisit the Bard

timesonline.co.uk: Reading Shakespeare excites the brain in a way that keeps it “fit”, researchers say.

A team from the University of Liverpool is investigating whether wrestling with the innovative use of language could help to prevent dementia. Monitoring participants with brain-imaging equipment, they found that certain lines from Shakespeare and other great writers such as Chaucer and Wordsworth caused the brain to spark with electrical activity because of the unusual words or sentence structure.

What I'm Listening To

While Vince Keenan confesses that he's a Rat Pack kinda guy when it comes to holiday sounds, I have to confess that I lean toward the Kingston Trio. My favorite holiday album is The Last Month of the Year, and you can tell from the title that it's not just a collection of Christmas music. Sure, it leans heavily in that direction, but it also contains killer versions of "The White Snows of Winter," "Good Night, My Baby, Good Night," and the title song. My favorite is "Mary Mild." Beautiful song, beautiful harmony, touching story. I'm listening to it right now, as I have for the past 45 years or so at this time, and it's as great as ever.

Street Raised -- Pearce Hansen

Street Raised is the real deal: the raw, bad-ass, in-your- face story of a lot of people that you might enjoy reading about but that you really don't want to meet. Chief among them is Speedy, who's just been released from Pelican Bay State Prison and who has no intention of being a nice guy now that he's out of the joint. He's looking to get back into the Life as fast as he can return to Oakland. When he gets there, he hooks up with his brother, Little Willy, and his old running buddy, Fat Bob, to get a little revenge on some guys who killed a couple of their homeboys. Along the way, Speedy finds love and gets tangled up with a serial killer. Not to mention a kitten (check the cover photo on the left). The violence level is high and the pace is fast. You're not likely to run across anything like this for a while, at least not until Hansen publishes another novel. Fasten your seatbelt and check it out.