Elton John swears on afternoon TV
(from The Advocate)

Sir Elton John ignited a flurry of complaints from TV viewers after swearing on an afternoon talk show that was broadcast live. During a visit to Channel 4's The New Paul O'Grady Show to publicize the one-year anniversary of the stage musical Billy Elliot, one of the hit show's young stars asked the pop star what his middle name is. John said it is Hercules, adding that his real name, Reginald Kenneth Dwight, made him sound like "a banker, or a wanker, one of the two."

O'Grady ended the show by saying, "Sorry if it has been a bit raucous, ladies and gentlemen," but the network still received about 20 complaints. Nonetheless, a Channel 4 spokesman said, "It is a live show, and Elton is a guest, but Paul dealt with it there and then and apologized. I don't think it is the strongest language, and we feel that Paul dealt with it appropriately."

I wish the Pope would spend less time discriminating against people of the same sex who love each other and more time helping people in Africa who got AIDS because the Roman Catholic church pressured them to not use condoms.

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/05/051106pope.htm

"It's the birthday of actress Katharine Hepburn, born in Hartford, Connecticut (1907). She became a Hollywood star by not doing anything that Hollywood stars were supposed to do. Her looks were unconventional: she had red hair and freckles and sharp cheekbones. She didn't wear make-up or dresses, she didn't cooperate with the media, and she had a habit of insulting other people in the business. She played smart, sexy, independent women who were always able to get the guy in the end.

She won her first Oscar for her role in Morning Glory (1933). After that she hand-picked each of her movies, and she often had a say in who the other actors in the movie would be. Sometimes she rewrote her own lines, something almost no other actress would have dared to do at the time.

In 1991, Hepburn published her autobiography, titled Me, and it was a best-seller. She wrote about her twenty-seven-year affair with Spencer Tracy, her career, and life in her brownstone in the middle of Manhattan, where she lived for more than sixty years.
Katharine Hepburn said, ' If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.' "

- from Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac" on National Public Radio in the U.S.

Here's yet another reason to regret having Maurice Vellacott as my MP.


Saskatoon MP's comments draw swift reply from Supreme Court judge

Last Updated May 8 2006 08:56 AM CDT
CBC News

Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott took a swipe at the Supreme Court on the weekend, prompting a swift response from the country's top judge.

Maurice Vellacott attributed comments to the country's top judge, but a spokesperson says she never said them.Vellacott stepped on judicial toes in an interview Saturday with Christina Lawand of CBC News in Ottawa.

"I don't think it is the role of the judge, whether left or right or conservative or whatever stripe [he] happens to be, to actually figure to play the position of God," the Tory MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin told Lawand.

Vellacott, a former pastor who claims a doctoral degree from Trinity International University in Chicago, then singled out Beverley McLachlin, the chief justice of Canada.

He claimed McLachlin "herself said actually when they step into this role that suddenly there's some kind of mystical power that comes over them, which everything that they've ever decreed is not to be questioned.

"They actually have the discernment and almost prophetic ability to plumb and know the mind of the public."

Supreme court judges usually ignore the barbs that periodically come their way. But Vellacott's comments were apparently too much for McLachlin. A spokesman for the chief justice "categorically denied" that she had ever said what Vellacott claimed.

"She has always said it is a judge's role to interpret and apply the law … but those choices are always made in accordance with legal precedents and with the laws laid down by parliament and the legislatures," the judicial spokesman said.

After that rebuff, it didn't take Vellacott long to issue a statement of his own.

"As I'm not a member of the cabinet, I obviously do not speak for the government of Canada on these matters," he said in a statement Sunday.

"For my part, I appreciate the important role judges play in our justice system in ruling on the written laws and constitution of Canada. I respect the independence of our judges as a fundamental aspect of a free and democratic society."

Vellacott has been in the news lately over a controversial appointment to a parliamentary committee.

FROM MAY 2, 2006: Aboriginal groups upset about Vellacott appointment

Aboriginal groups have expressed disappointment after Vellacott was made chair of the aboriginal affairs and northern development committee. He upset some aboriginal people by supporting two Saskatoon police officers who were convicted of mistreating an aboriginal man by taking him to the edge of the city in cold weather.

FROM JULY 5, 2004: MP wants Munson and Hatchen case reopened

"It's the birthday of Gary Snyder, born in San Francisco (1930). He started out as one of the Beat writers of the 1950s. In 1956 he left the San Francisco Beat scene and went to Japan. He spent most of the next twelve years in a monastery, studying Buddhism.

Gary Snyder said, 'As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the Neolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.' "

from Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac" on NPR