When I first heard I didn’t believe it. As politically savvy as Rendell’s stunt, I thought: In his column on Sports Illustrated’s website Monday, Peter King reports that Mr. Obama called Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie to thank the team for giving Vick a chance. Obama was “passionate about it,” Mr. Lurie told Mr. King, adding that the president said “it’s never a level playing...

Can Julian Assange compare to the Rolling Stones in terms of public fame and elite rejection? In this lighthearted holiday analysis of the WikiLeaks saga, columnist Quico Alsedo of Spain’s El Pais depicts Assange as a man who enrages the ruling classes and is loved by the common man – as was Jagger – but with a difference: Assange has also exposed the major media as apathetic, ineffectual,...

Christmas was a joy today to millions around the world — but it once disappointed a famous man in Europe:

Quite a few people have their Christmas dinner in the afternoon on Christmas Day (I have been invited to someone’s home and will go there). Here’s some music that fits in perfectly with that post-dinner feeling:

It’s always touching how many singers retain their pizzaz no matter how many years passed, their personal tragedies and time’s physical toll. Here’s Clarence “Frogman” Henry as a young man singing “Ain’t Got No Home” Now a short clip of him in later years dog the same song on 2/11/09:

Some music for Christmas morning: And also this (since we know people like different artists):

Peace: the best definition of Peace I know is Live and Let Live. For, as we say, in this time of year…the Child of Love is born on a silent night, a holy night… a Child of Love who is the Master of Peace, who ever teaches those who ‘are as lonely as an owl on the ridgepole’ with no one to speak to. We are learning too, via science, what the old women have always said is so: Peacefulness,...

With Christmas Eve upon us I thought I’d offer my annual post on the origins of the Christmas Star (per astronomy) and thus offering thoughts on when he was really born. Most of us know that Christ was not really born in December or the year zero. A number of people have tried to look first to the Bible for clues about what the star did and when, then they went outside the Bible to find events fitting...

For the second year we’re posting the famous — and way ahead of its time — Jack Benny Christmas program aired in 1960 on CBS. It contains two LEGENDS: Jack Benny, whose comedy timing, glances at the audience (which prolonged the laughs by the way) and cheapskate character helped create the situation comedy on radio and successfully dominated TV ratings for more than a decade. And the famous,...

Those who have criticized WikiLeaks and its founder for targeting U.S. misdeeds and not Russia’s or China’s are about to get their wish. And in terms of Russian politics, this is sure to be a Battle Royal. That’s because Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper partly owned by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, has just entered into a partnership with WikiLeaks. And according...

Earlier today, I watched the press conference with Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith and head football coach Jim Tressel. Five Ohio State players have been suspended from playing the first five games of next season by the NCAA. Smith indicated that Ohio State will appeal the penalties. (Another player has been suspended for one game of the 2011 season.) As an Ohio State alum and fan, I hope that Smith...

Gregg Gllis, better known to fans by his stage name, Girl Talk, released his fifth album, All Day, last month. The album is composed of 373 overlapping samples of other artists’ songs. Fair use? Or copyright infringement? In 2008 the NYTimes famously called Gillis, a 29-year-old Pittsburgh native and former Case Western Reserve University biomedical engineering student, a “lawsuit waiting to happen.”...

One of the most interesting and exciting assignments during my U.S. Air Force career was my tour of duty at the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) complex some 1,400 feet beneath granite Cheyenne Mountain, south of Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the height of the Cold War. I still remember walking or busing through the long tunnel, entering the “vault,” then waiting for the 25-ton steel blast door...

During the depression, the zippy vaudeville style acts and songs raised peoples’ spirits. So what could be more fitting in this lousy economy than to offer TMV readers a little bit of vaudeville (filmed before my time). Stick with the whole song:

Sing Christmas tunes about politics HERE.

Politics used to be fun to cover. But a lot of people now note it has gotten so angry, so rage filled and so painful to cover. In fact, you might argue that this is the perfect song for those who follow politics:

An at-his-peak Elvis Presley doing “Blue Christmas” in his famous 1968 Comeback Special: And one of the most familiar and wonderful pieces played around Xmas: And an older Brenda Lee singing her Xmas hit: And this famous one from Spike Jones (WARNING IT COMES ON LOUD) AND for the heck of it a non-Christmas bit..one of my favorites from the Jack Benny Show, taped before my time but still musical...

First – I want to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the entire Moderate Voice community from all the people of Worldmeets.US. As one of the Net’s great efforts to provide a platform for all viewpoints, the Moderate Voice makes a contribution to building a better world, and we are proud to play our part. As we have seen quite frequently over the past few years, sports and politics frequently...

What would it be like to remember everything that happened to you in detail over the years? This science-fiction premise comes to life on 60 Minutes with people who have been laboratory-tested and diagnosed with “superior autobiographical memory.” This is no parlor trick, watching men and women instantly reach back 20, 30 years or more for a randomly chosen date and bring it back it in verifiable...

But they aren’t telling them to take it literally..

DESPITE popular requests, here it is: And in case you want more:

One of the glories of aspiring filmmakers is that if they can just get some good equipment, a solid script, first-class actors, and use their creativity plus what they’ve learned studying other films, they can make an independent film providing they can can raise the money and are willing to stick with the project. In the end is there a payoff? Many often point to the Blair Witch Project which was produced...

Colombiano, and neighbor, Gabriel García Márquez—long version, Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez—is by far my most favorite author (Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a.k.a “Dr. E” comes in a close second). We have all read and enjoyed the works of this 1982 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature—works such as “Love in the Time of Cholera,” “One Hundred...

The geniuses at Jib Jab have done it again. Here’s their latest musical animated video: So Long To Ya, 2010 — a song and dance from Barack Obama and Joe Biden:

If anger is the source of all humor, in his last Daily Show of the year, Jon Stewart pulled back the curtain, skipped the jokes and showed us pure rage about Congress’ failure to enact medical care for 9/11 responders in the lame-duck session. Instead of the usual lineup of fake bloviators, Stewart hosted a panel of police and firemen suffering from toxic effects of working at Ground Zero, who offered...