I was going to blog on the passing of Anna Nicole Smith and the weighty subject of celebrity in America yesterday, but Will Bunch knocked me off my game with his powerful, tear-provoking piece about Jennifer Parcel, a 20-year-old Marine who bought the ranch in Iraq and most assuredly did not make the evening news. Celebrities arrive, depart and overdose with numbing regularity and I usually could care less,...

NOTE: The Moderate Voice publishes posts by guest writers from time to time. This is the FINAL part of a three part review written by Dan Schneider of the movie Downfall. PART ONE IS HERE. PART TWO IS HERE. As in the case with our Guest Posts, views expressed reflect the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice. By Dan Schneider Much of this lack of the substantive...

NOTE: The Moderate Voice publishes posts by guest writers from time to time. This is the second part of a THREE PART review written by Dan Schneider of the movie Downfall. PART ONE IS HERE. As in the case with our Guest Posts, views expressed reflect the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice. By Dan Schneider Some of the weakest parts of the film come from the...

So this year the organizers of the White House Correspondent’s dinner decided to invite veteran impressionist/comedian Rich Little to entertain the bigwig journalists and politicos such as President George Bush and first lady Laura Bush. The general consensus is that Little was invited as a noncontroversial choice. Darrell Hammond gives us a Saturday Night Live take on what Little’s speech will...

Even NBC’s David Gregory:

Keith Olbermann had a lot to say about Bill O’Reilly’s latest publicity-sparking controversy (do you notice he is involved in a lot of these?) that has outraged people in both parties — not to mention some psychiatrists and other experts.

THIS JUST IN from investigative reporter Andy Borowitz: Rosie-Trump Feud Moves Doomsday Clock Closer to Midnight Battling Duo Could Hasten Armageddon, Scientists Fear The ongoing feud between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump could have deadly consequences for the world if either obtained nuclear weapons, a group of leading nuclear scientists announced today. The Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic...

One of the things that has made the American press great has been the lack of prior restraint censorship on what’s written. The White House Correspondents Association dinner has in recent years reflected this freewheeling nature, by hiring entertainers who pushed the envelope: Radio host Don Imus got just a wee bit too personal for President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton a few years ago. And...

Michael Reynolds sent me an e-mail asking me whether I wanted to be involved in a project he’s a part of. The project: This April I’ll be in London, Paris, Madrid and either Amsterdam or Copenhagen with a documentary film crew. I’m looking for interview subjects to talk about attitudes toward the US, the Iraq war, and the question of whether or not we are in a clash of civilizations with Islam. Of...

Oh, one thing. This You Tube of Fiddler On The Roof’s opening scene with the song “Tradition” is in Japanese. My cousin is half Jewish and half Japanese. He opened a Japanese-Jewish restaurant: “Sosueme.”

King of the high joke-to-laugh ratio:

Hooked on 24? Over at The Reaction, Heraclitus has posted his initial reactions to — really a thorough analysis of — the first episode of the current season. I don’t watch the show — nothing against it, I just haven’t found the time to commit myself to it — but there’s a lot here to think about whether you’re hooked or not: terrorism, torture, executive authority,...

No, it isn’t The Moderate Voice, although he may not be happy with the picture at left. We got it off the Internet. (It IS NOT of Tucker Carlson and we are not saying it is. It’s not dancing.). Once upon a time there was a clerk in a video store. He rented some movies to a famous cable talk show host and then he posted a few things about his encounter on his blog. Then, his life changed, he lost...

From the wonderful 2005 movie version of The Producers, which you can buy here.:

One of the barometers of public opinion and, more specifically, the mass culture conventional wisdom is the late night comedian joke. How are they reacting to President Bush’s latest policy pronoucements on Iraq? Here’s a cross section of jokes we’ve edited down from a list: –”Earlier tonight, there was a big policy address from President Bush about the war in Iraq. And President...

We ran this on our Powerblogs site, but many of those links will no longer work, so we’re going to re-post some of our favorites. This GREAT short film by Will Drinker, Color Me Blind, won lots of awards: Best Editing Latent Image Film Festival 2005 2nd Place Campus Movie Fest 2005 Haydenfilms.com Finalist Official Selection Woods Hole Film Festival Official Selection Orinda Film Festival Official Selection...

Rap style:

…”Liar, liar face-lift on fire…”?

Once upon a time there was a company named Enron. Or was it Memron? And the company headed so far south it hit the equator as it was battered by a series of scandals involving fraud, high-living executives who betrayed the dreams of stockholders and employees, and bankruptcy. But whatever happened to some of those employees. Could they and did they try to rise again? What if some of them got together —...

…a song that describes the attitude of all of us here at The Moderate Voice:

The great guitar masters — Segovia, Clapton, Montgomery, Garcia, Hendrix — have a style and sound so distinctive that you’re able to recognize them after only a few notes. So it is with Richard Thompson, the British guitarist who burst into semi-prominence with Fairport Convention, the seminal folk-rock band, and has blazed an amazing career — both as a group leader and soloist —...

Is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger onto something? When he was first elected Governor in the recall election, displacing the (rightly) much-maligned Gray Davis in a historic recall election, there were high hopes that “Ahnold” was going to be a different KIND of California governor: one who would chart a truly independent path and not be or act like the kind of partisan politicians who...

The Three Stooges’ Jerome “Curly” Howard (the baby brother of fellow stooges Moe and Shemp) was a comedy genius who had a sad and short life. Here’s a classic courtroom scene: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7859026391171205872