Jon Stewart apparently felt the sting of critics of his Monday night interview (here and here) of John Yoo, who authored many of the Bush administration’s torture memos while serving as deputy assistant attorney general in the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel. In the opening to last night’s show, Stewart essentially cops to the critique, “I was going to nail him…...

Matt Stover's Indianapolis Colts Jersey Happy New Year and welcome to 2010. The NFL playoffs are at full steam and I live in Charm City (Baltimore). Our Ravens shocked the sports world on Sunday by dismantling the New England Patriots at Foxboro. However, I think the Ravens bandwagon comes to a screeching halt when they play the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday night. It comes down to one sentence: Karma in...

it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

and people are just too much for me to face…

Preserving a departed comedian’s comedy heritage, past work and comedic style can be as problematical as perpetuating it beyond the comedian’s death because each passing generation increasing forgets the comedian and his/her work. And the work inevitably loses commercial value. But some comedy greats’ fans, heirs and admirers pull out all stops to make sure that it’s there for those...

Although, in my opinion, we are running out of places to visit that are truly laid-back, charming and unspoiled, we were fortunate to find just such a place very close to the more “upscale” Cancún, a resort we visit each year and where, five years ago, we met a lady called “Wilma.” An article in the travel section of the New York Times, just about one year ago, describing an idyllic place,...

With the question of Leno definitively settled, the big question left on the table is will Conan go to Fox? A NYPost “exclusive” [cough] has sources saying The peacock ruffled Conan O’Brien’s feathers — and now he’s ready to fly the coop: “This level of sh- – -iness was not expected,” one source said. “He’s done a great job for NBC. He moved...

In my December 27 post, I implicated our health care system in the Christmas day death by suicide of Athens, GA, folk singer and songwriter Vic Chesnutt. While I stand by that implication, Chesnutt’s friends are far more nuanced in their critique of the system. In a Fresh Air interview aired earlier this week, Terry Gross spoke with Michael Stipe of R.E.M., who discovered Chesnutt and produced his first...

Controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone has a new mission: in his upcoming Showtime series “Secret History” he wants to put 20th century German dictator and Nazi mass murderer Adolf Hitler “in context.” Director Oliver Stone’s upcoming Showtime documentary miniseries “Secret History of America” promises to put mass murderers such as Stalin and Hitler “in context.” “Stalin,...

The upcoming book Game Change reportedly contains three revelations that will further soil the reputation of former President Bill Clinton, whose reputation took a big hit during his wife Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful campaign against Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. Since Obama’s election, the unsinkable Bill Clinton has regained much of his former stature among Democrats...

This song is on Bonnie Raitt’s 2002 album, “Silver Lining.” No video, unfortunately, but you can listen to the entire track, here (radio box at top right). And do listen if you can, because the lyrics (below), as beautiful as they are, are incomplete without the exquisite melody and Bonnie’s voice.

Why is it that Charlie Sheen has not been suspended from his job on a CBS sitcom? And why hasn’t he been required both to get help and to face whatever unconscionably-delayed judicial charges may be pending from his December 25 altercation with his wife? Hanes, the undewear people, have already dropped Sheen for fear that his inveterate abuse of women is bad for their company’s image. I realize that...

James Cameron’s film Avatar is proving to be a kind of global Rorschach test. Here are two articles that show the way people see a reflection of their own circumstances in the film, which is being lauded as a revolution in cinema. From Belgium, De Standaard columnist Oscar van den Boogaard writes about his extraordinary experience seeing Avatar, and why the film is a landmark in modern history: The world...

I keep thinking about downloading Bob Dylan’s 1974 LP, Planet Waves from iTunes. With all the snow we’ve had lately, I’ve had the song, ‘On a Night Like This,’ from that collection, echoing in my brain. I remember buying and listening repeatedly to the vinyl release when it came out back then, about the same time I fell in love with my wife, snow and ice all around. Sigh. Our first...

An all-singing, all-dancing tribute to the world’s most powerful man: Wearing a knitted cardigan and crooning into his microphone, Barack Obama paces around the stage, wooing Michelle with a love song. In another number, now clad in a suit, Jimmie Wilson who plays Obama, struts up and down, clasping his mike and leading a euphoric gospel chorus of “Yes We Can.” It premieres in Frankfurt on...

All I had to say I said last night. But the blogosphere has only just begun… The Big Money notices Leno is not popular online: Despite having more total and 18-49 viewers than his 11:30 p.m. colleague, Conan O’Brien, he didn’t come close to O’Brien’s Hulu numbers. Of course, we don’t have the exact stream numbers. Hulu refuses to release those. But here’s what we do know: The Tonight Show...

VIDEO: Leno jokes about cancellation rumors… Me, I shouldn’t talk. I’ve never succumbed to Leno’s seductions. I used to like Conan, but haven’t paid him much attention in the decade since. Still, if NBC rewards Leno’s colossal failure weeknights at 10 by moving him back to 11:30 — thereby kicking Conan back to after midnight — the move deserves to be greeted with...

An embarrassed President Obama turns down the Academy Award for best male lead, insisting that he’s not an actor, Mar. 7. Here’s a bit of cross-cultural New Year’s fun from columnist Patrik Etschmayer of Switzerland’s Nachrichten newspaper. According to Etschmayer, 2010 will be an embarrassing one for President Obama, but even more so for Republicans, after their plot to have President...

About a week ago, while doing a family event, in talking with a teenager he mentioned Mambo Number 5, which was a big hit a few years ago. Curiously, the quite dated mambo seems to resurface periodically. Here are some examples: DURING THE 1950′s Perry Cuomo had a huge hit in “Pappa Loves Mambo,” a song this baby boomer couldn’t get out of his head when he was in pre-school. Here from...

A month ago on December 7, 2009, I wrote a post about the professional Golfer extraordinaire that upset some TMV readers. Good. I like plenty of controversy and getting people mad – something that I learned to abuse to the benefit of my clients during my former law practice. I ranted against the overall meaningless ethical and moral code of the wealthiest people on the planet. I also ridiculed the many...

In my “Texas Aggies, Dallas Cowboys and Fútbol Americano,” and in the spirit of a long-standing “tradition,” I took a few good-natured shots at our arch-rivals, the University of Texas Longhorns. I even had a few amicable words for the Longhorns mascot, Bevo: [Players] who invariably brought a dumb-looking steer named Bevo onto the football field—obviously to intimidate the Aggies and our little...

One of my favorite musicals of all time is Lionel Bart’s “Oliver.” To be sure, it’s based on the great Dickens novel. Then why do I tear up at several points in this musical? It happened when I watched the movie version as a teen, played the part of Fagin in the Amity Summer Theater Music Workshop while in high school in the late 60s, and listen to the album. Is it the tragedy of the...

Beyond the question of what it means to the sport of golf, coverage of the Tiger Woods affair reflects that never-ending battle between the American Puritans and the European sophisticates. Continuing our coverage of this European-American cultural fissure, sports columnist Jean-Louis Aragon writes for France’s Le Monde: A few casual sexual encounters are exposed and, presto, the most beautiful kind...

A Continental flight attendant booted comedian Joan Rivers off a flight from Costa Rica because the agent found her passport suspicious. The story is surprising for two reasons: (1)She’s Joan Rivers and so far there have not been many elderly female Jewish terrorists blowing up airplanes (but whatever). (2)Stopped due to her PASSPORT? It would have been understandable if the news story was that an agent...

The immortal hand and eye that frame his symmetry are those of Annie Liebovitz for a naked-to-the-waist Vanity Fair cover as Tiger Woods enters the new decade, not as the unflappable figure addressing a golf ball on Sunday afternoon TV but as a subject of sermonizing for the morning political pundits. On Fox News, Brit Hume suggests that Buddhism may be below par for Woods’ moral crisis: “I don’t...