A lengthy review in Scientific America looks at the documentary, Transcendent Man, on the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil. Cleverly edited and entertaining, Transcendent Man is unfortunately also too starstruck and reverent toward Kurzweil for its own good. It wants in part to be a movie about ideas, but frustratingly, it refuses to truly challenge any of those it raises—whether supportive or critical...

Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman explains: While viewers in most of the U.S. were wrapping up the live broadcast of The Grammy Awards, viewers on the West Coast were just getting started with the tape-delayed version, airing at 8 p.m. PT. As is customary for many viewers now, many on the left coast opened their Twitter and Facebook accounts to chat along with the action — just in time to catch the East Coast...

This is foreign correspondence, reporting from an alien time and space, on the Grammy Awards. The music industry seems to have been infiltrated by the Tea Party as the multiple winner is Lady Antebellum, a white-bread trio looking like well-behaved children of old Nashville who could make Sarah Palin’s “A” list. Even CBS, which telecast the event, is caught off guard with a 60 Minutes feature...

How many of us remember our first young love? Probably quite a few. However, if that first romance occurred some 70 years ago, how many would still remember it well enough and still cherish it deeply enough to write a screenplay for a movie celebrating such love? That is exactly what 90-year-old, World War II veteran John Tschirhart has been dedicating virtually every waking hour of his life to for the last...

Top Ten Cloves: Ideas For Mayor Dave Bing To Save Detroit by J. Thomas Duffy News Item: Mayor of Detroit welcomes any ideas to save troubled city 10. Tell those 400 Super Bowl Fans who got mushed, that you won’t let them down, that you have 400 seats for them in Detroit 9. Get on the phone with Dolly Parton and see if the two of can brainstorm “Detroitwood.” 8. Help out the Egyptian protesters...

From time to time I like to toss in a non political post and offer some entertainment ideas for the readers of TMV. For most US television viewers, Hugh Laurie is best known as Dr. House on the television series of the same name. But as many of you may know Laurie is actually English and his House character is done with an American accent. Prior to House he had a successful career in both British and US film...

How many people plant an expression in the English language that half a century later becomes shorthand for the state of the world? As Obama’s dilemmas on the economy and the Middle East are labeled “Catch-22s,” I recall my friend Joseph Heller whose novel of that name has become shorthand for no-win situations of insane proportions. Back then, Joe seemed an unlikely candidate for immortality–a...

At over 30 pages in print (26 on the web) and 23,000+ words, Lawrence Wright’s massive investigation of The Church of Scientology, The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology, is a long read. And a devastating expose. Haggis, an academy award-winning screenwriter and director who was a member of the Church he now calls a “cult” for 34 years, rose through Scientology’s levels...

Nitsuh Abebe got up at five-thirty yesterday morning for the release of the new Lady Gaga anthem, Born This Way. Gaga’s first new song in over a year, it shot straight to Number 1 in 21 countries. Bound to have Pride crowds dancing from coast to coast and around the globe come summer, the single does not disappoint: [W]e’d already seen the lyrics to “Born This Way,” and I can’t even tell you how...

Overheard at last night’s Big Party at CPAC, co-sponsored by Andrew Breitbart and GOProud, Sophie B. Hawkins to Michael Steele: “I’m not a conservative,” said Hawkins, “but I’d like to [expletive] Sarah Palin.” Steele reacted quickly. “Well, she’s very attractive,” he said. For your Friday night listening pleasure, one of Sophie B.’s biggest hits,...

Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

HuffPo – AOL Dealbreaker Averted: “No Mushrooms” by J. Thomas Duffy Logging on yesterday, I expected to be hit, like a tsunami, with Super Bowl news. Instead, the conflagration was all about this; AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million I have always thought of AOL as the Horse–and-Buggy of the World Wide Web. I mean, the bulk of their revenue comes from people still using dial-up...

One of my favorite Keb’ Mo’ songs: Stand Up (and Be Strong):

Keith Olbermann, recently departed from his MSNBC “Countdown” perch, will announce his next TV gig tomorrow. Rumor has it to be Current TV: Neither Mr. Olbermann, his representatives, or executives from Current TV would comment on the move, but they did not deny that the channel, which counts former Vice President Al Gore as one of its founders, will become at least one partner in Mr. Olbermann’s...

“Oh, there was an old man sitting in his mansion on the hill. He thought of his good fortune, and the time he’d yet to kill. He called to his wife one day, ‘Come sit with me a while.’ And turning toward the sunset, he smiled a wicked smile. ‘Well, I’d like to say I’m sorry for the sinful deeds I’ve done. But let me first remind you, I’m a patriotic son.’...

Half of America was watching. Bill Carter: And it wasn’t a squeaker. The game surpassed last year’s Super Bowl by 4.5 million viewers. That game, on CBS, reached the pinnacle of American television viewing by hitting 106.5 million total viewers, just half a million more than what had been television’s perennial audience champ, the finale of the series “M*A*S*H,” in 1983, which attracted 106 million...

GO HERE for some great Randy Bish cartoons dealing with The Steelers.

The Gipper would have enjoyed celebrating his centennial on that most American of days when two football teams beat each other’s brains out while the nation watches with barbecue and beer. Ronald Wilson Reagan lived all his life in an imagined country, starting as a sportscaster in a small room with a teletype that told him “GO 3B,” from which, with recorded crowd noises, he would spin a breathless...

Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

A Conflicted Life Ends … Tango Actress Maria Schneider Dead at 58 by J. Thomas Duffy It was quite a surprise to see the name of actress Maria Schneider in the Obit column today. As much for remembering the long-ago crush, as for how long she has been out of the news, the limelight dimmed for quite some time. Maria Schneider, Brando’s ‘Last Tango’ costar Ms. Schneider died yesterday in Paris “following...

Rumsfeld Goes With The Lies He Wish He Had by J. Thomas Duffy Who knew! Lenny Bruce used to do a bit where he offered this advice: “Whatever happens, deny it. Flat-out deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they walk in on you, deny it. Even if they got pictures, deny it. Even if she catches you with a chicken, deny it.” I just can’t picture old snowflakes being into Bruce, so...

WARNING: P.D.S. ALERT I had read that Sarah Palin and her daughter, Bristol, have applied for trademarks for their names. If approved, we could soon see Sarah Palin® and Bristol Palin®. But why? Adam Clark Estes has a pretty good explanation, not only of this latest Palin phenomenon, but also about U.S. intellectual—Oh, the possibilities here—property law and the whole trademark history and process. You...

In this age when Internet has extensively intruded our public and private space, a literary event last evening held at the Alliance Française, New Delhi, marked a wonderful start to a new forum “Written Word, Etc.” A packed auditorium comprising young students as well as elderly folks, were in for a memorable treat. They listened with rapt attention the celebrated Indian author Vikram Seth in...

The First Lady, who has been promoting healthy diets for Americans, has misspoken herself into, of all things, a grease pit of controversy and even worse just before Super Bowl Sunday in Texas, where barbecue is sacred. In her memo to supporters announcing next year’s Democratic convention in Charlotte, Mrs. Obama praises the city’s many virtues, adding “And of course great barbecue.”...

The first episode of the new law TV series “Harry’s Law” I saw on NBC Saturday night was flooded with so many liberal causes I drowned. And, I’m a liberal. For an hour, one favorite progressive ideologue after another was piled on top of the other with so much corn fructose that my blood sugars elevated 100 points in that span, a record in that time slot. It was so much overkill that...