Is this a shameless attempt to shake off the anti-Semite image?

What Is Happening? Mel Gibson To Make Jewish Historical Epic With Joe Eszterhas

We’ve heard about actors or filmmakers trying to do some course correction to rejuvenate or repair their ailing career, but this is ridiculous. Deadline is reporting that Mel Gibson has teamed up with Joe Eszterhas to produce and potentially direct a script about revolutionary Jewish historical figure Judah Maccabee, to be produced under his Icon shingle and released by Warner Bros. Huh?

The story of Maccabee does fit within the Gibson wheelhouse, with its wide historical scope, morally outraged warrior protagonist and bloody battle sequences. Maccabee led a Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies that conquered Judea in the second century B.C. The sticking point for most, though, will be the hero’s religion, especially after Gibson the filmmaker was lambasted for the palpable anti-Semitism in “The Passion of the Christ,” not to mention his drunk rants which included such memorable gems as “Fucking Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” The question remains: is Gibson trying to get back in the game or just recover some of the luster from his tarnished image?

Count me as an unbeliever. Gibson has proved over and over again to be an ranting anti-Semite. I shudder to think what he'll do with the Maccabeean story.

Drunken Bullwinkle goes up tree looking for Rocky?

Here in the United States, there is the proverbial calling of the fire department to rescue a poor kittie trapped in a tree. Of course, cats can (usually) climb back down. Not so with moose. Apparently it is not terribly uncommon in Sweden for moose to eat fermented apples, get terribly barmy, and climb up the apple trees (looking for more delectable apples, no doubt.) So this man was coming home and lo!, a moose was twisted in a small apple tree. They had to cut most of the tree away to rescue the moose, then allowed it to 'sleep it off' there.

Drunk Moose Gets Stuck in Swedish Apple Tree [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

A drunk moose, intoxicated from eating too many fermented apples, was stuck in an apple tree in Sweden before being spotted by a Swedish passerby and rescued.

The moose was found by Per Johansson in Saro just south of Gothenberg in Sweden while on his commute home from work, stuck in a tree, drunk from eating apples.

Drunken moose ends up stuck in Swedish apple tree

It was a dark, windy and rainy night when Per Johansson returned from work to his home in Saro just south of Gothenburg, Sweden.

"It was raining really bad. In the wind I heard something screaming with a very dark voice," Johansson told CNN. "At first I wondered if it was the crazy neighbors, but then I heard it again and went and checked. I saw something really big up in a tree in my neighbors' yard and it was a moose. It must have been drunk after eating fermented apples and as it was reaching out for more fruit it must have slipped and fallen into the tree."

Silly moose. Squirrels often live in OAK trees, not tiny apple ones.

Thanks to YKWIA, who called me tonight with this truly blog-worthy story. :)

Waiting for a ride

to the bank and then to work today. It's still gloomy, cool, and rainy outside, as it has been for days. We needed the rain, and it's a relief considering we had heat indices in the triple digits this weekend, but my, I'm sick of the rain.

I'm listening to 'Distant Early Warning' by Rush, off my favourite of their albums, Grace Under Pressure.

Tonight I'll need to work on the house a little and then maybe get an early start on the game notes.

Yesterday I did something uncharacteristic, something I've done only a few times before. I bought a lottery ticket. I had an overwhelming desire to help a couple of families I know going through very hard times, and I wanted to be able to help them as much as possible. Guess my intentions were good, but the ticket was a bust. Still, it's chasing a dream, and as long as you don't do it overly often, I guess it's not a bad thing. But it was fun while the dream lasted.

Women rising, but still there are some frontiers

10 glass ceilings yet to be shattered

Jill Abramson takes over as the executive editor of the New York Times on Tuesday, the first woman to do so in the paper's 160-year history. So what other top jobs have yet to be taken by women?

Some of them may surprise you.

One of many such tributes

9/11 10th anniversary: Stories from the embers

These are seven people, seven stories, of how lives changed, what was lost, and what was gained.

Okay, I know I'm fat

but this is so sad, and sick, and pathetic (not to mention unhealthy in the extreme).

No one should have to be 'fed' by those who admire them sexually (and certainly not by their own teenage children). I realise there is a fetish community out there (just as there is one for people who want to become amputees because they are attracted to that--I find that more than odd, too), but these women are killing themselves in the name of a stupid record and title that essentially are meaningless things that get you into a book, maybe have your 15 minutes of fame on the weird news, and leave you weighing half a ton. And then you die.

I guess anyone has the right to do this. But, gee....

Competition Brews To Become 'World's Heaviest Woman' In Guinness World Records

I also found this picture

Spock was already 12 by this time. His Star Trek-shaped grey spot on his forehead, from which he got his name (hey, pointed ears?) had faded by then. His right eye was blue, hence the reflection from the flash. He was the sweetest cat I've ever met, and also the dumbest. Sweet and dumb seem to go hand in hand. He was the one animal I did not have to have put down; he died in my arms at the age of 17. I think he was a little cross at wearing a bow, or at least as cross as he ever got.

There was one more cat, but he never came out when I had company, for the most part. It wasn't until maybe the last four years or so he'd come out to be with me; he was a very shy, retiring cat. That was Darius. He came to me in the backyard as a kitten while I was giving my monthly libation, meowing to be let in. She (Hekate) is known for a connexion with dogs, but hey, I decided to take it as a sign and took the little fellow in. Oddly enough, he bonded like glue with Cerys, and to her dismay took to sitting on her often.

In my adult life, I've only had one other pet, Basil, a beagle-basset cross that I found wandering in the Chevy Chase area. I had to eventually find a home for him, because he was absolutely incapable of being housebroken. Cerys was much happier, too. It broke my rule that pets are for life, but there you go. I gave him to a family that could be with him longer hours of the day and walk him more frequently, and did disclose his issues. I hope it worked out. I have to admit, there was a lot of relief on my end. I hope they did not curse my name too much afterwards.

For the first time since I was about 13, I am petless, unless you count a few goldfish. Sometimes I think of getting a kitten, but I'm not ready yet. And I don't know if any dog could be such a good match for me as Cerys was. Plus, Cerys came to me at 8 months, already housebroken and past (most) of the destructive stage. I'm not sure I have the energy for a puppy. :) But maybe a kitten. Someday.

Half of Americans will suffer from mental illness over a lifetime

It's 4 in the morning, so I'll likely write about this in full later, but here are a few links. The report points out that stigma and high costs impede treatment.

The actual report from the CDC:
Mental Illness Surveillance Among Adults in the United States

What others are saying about it:
CDC: Half of Americans will suffer from mental health woes

CDC: Mental Illness costing Americans $300 annually

Half of Americans Will Suffer From Mental Illness, Southeast the Worst Off

Why is this one fashion rule so hard and fast?

If You Must Know: Why We Can't Wear White After Labor Day

The post–Labor Day moratorium on white clothing and accessories has long ranked among etiquette hard-liners' most sacred rules. As punishment for breaking it in the 1994 movie Serial Mom, for instance, Patty Hearst's character was murdered by a punctilious psychopath. But ask your average etiquette expert how that rule came to be, and chances are that even she couldn't explain it. So why aren't we supposed to wear white after Labor Day?

Thanks to Brandon for the link.

PS 09/06/11 It's cold and rainy here today and so I didn't wear my Birkenstocks in to work, since I didn't want them getting wet, but rather my athletic shoes. I always buy black athletic shoes, but someone was giving away a pair of new shoes their grandmother had in her closet and they fit me, so that's what I have. And they're white.

So this morning I'm on the bus, and I look down, and I suddenly freeze, hoping that Kathleen Turner wasn't about to jump out and kill me.

We'll see it tomorrow, but here's a preview

for those in the US, or just a fun replay for the rest of the world:



Today is the 65th anniversary of Freddie Mercury's birth. Mercury, whose orginal name was Farrokh Bulsara, was a British citizen born in Zanzibar of Parsi descent, primarily growing up in India. He died of AIDS twenty years ago, but made a remarkable impression on popular music. He had a four-octave vocal range and flamboyant performing style. Google honoured him across the world today with a doodle, but left the US web page unadorned due to the Labour Day holiday, with plans to put up the Mercury doodle tomorrow instead.

Google will rock you: 'Doodle' celebrates Queen's late frontman