The Christian Science Monitor puts together a great list of the favorite classical recordings of six professional musicians, including an idol from my trombone-playing earlier days and one of the finest bass trombonists in the world, Douglas Yeo.  Where specific recordings have been specified, I link to them.

• Douglas Yeo - Bass trombonist, Boston Symphony Orchestra
  • Claudio Monteverdi - Vespers of 1610
  • Hector Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique
  • Johann Sebastian Bach - Six Suites for Violoncello
  • Gustav Mahler - Symphony 5
  • Anton Bruckner - Motets
  • Benjamin Britten - War Requiem
  • Giovanni Gabrieli - Sacrae Symphoniae
• Lucas Richman - Resident conductor, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
  • Johann Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel [ed: This should be Richard Strauss!  An editor made a booboo somewhere.  Thanks to Mr Richman for correcting this]
  • Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4
  • George Gershwin - An American in Paris
  • Ludwig Van Beethoven - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
  • Giuseppe Verdi - Requiem
• Fred Bronstein - President of the Dallas Symphony
  • Johann Sebastian Bach - Goldberg Variations
  • Antonio Vivaldi - Four Seasons
  • Ludwig Van Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
  • Franz Schubert - Quintet in A Major (Trout Quintet)
  • Igor Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring
• Jennifer Higdon - Composer and conductor - The Curtis Institute
  • John Adams - Naive and Sentimental Music
  • Barber and Meyer Violin Concertos
  • Songs of Ned Rorem
  • White Moon-Songs to Morpheus
  • Igor Stravinsky - Firebird & Petrushka
  • Dance Mix
  • Rainbow Body
• Chen Zhao - Violinist, San Francisco Symphony
  • Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 1
  • Franz Schubert - String Quartet in D Minor (Death and the Maiden)
  • Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy - Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor
  • Selections from the Heifetz Collection
  • Szigeti Recital
  • Denise Djokic plays Barber Martinu and Britten Sonatas
• Laura Carlo and Rodney Flora - WCRB-FM
  • Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Everything
  • Ludwig Van Beethoven - Hammerklavier Sonata
  • Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Piano Trio
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams - Sea Symphony
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams - London Symphony

"In the aftermath of September 11, freedom of speech has been under attack. Political cartoonists are not immune. In some cities cartoonists have been fired or lost freelance jobs because of cartoons critical of U.S. policy or for using "wrong" metaphors. Even nationally-known artists, such as Boondocks cartoonist Arron McGruder and Ted Rall have been censored or repudiated.

In response, cartoonists Gary Huck, Mike Konopacki, Matt Wuerker and writer Alec Dubro put together a show of cartoons from 41 editorial cartoonists from the U.S. and Mexico. This unique show premiered at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. June 21, 2002.

"

[via Randomness]

"Michael Moore has a problem: Nobody wants to put him on television. "I’ve been on a total of two network shows in nine months," the lefty filmmaker and author recently told The New York Times. "What’s going on with that?"

It’s a fair question. After all, Moore’s book, Stupid White Men, has spent months on bestseller lists. His film "Bowling for Columbine," is the most explicitly political film in recent memory. Its concluding interview with Charlton Heston reduced one of America’s leading gun fanatics to a state of embarrassing, self-incriminating incoherence -- and not, as his apologists insist, because Heston has Alzheimer’s. "

It's hard for the right wing to claim a liberal media bias when Ann Coulter is all over the airwaves, and Michael Moore is not.  If you're going to have the wing-nuts on the right, why not the wing-nuts on the left?  The answer, as pointed out by TomPaine.com is that Michael Moore and his fellow left-wing-nuts have nothing nice to say about corporations.

"Driving in America has long been leaned on as a metaphor for various aspects of the national psyche. Now, thanks to SUVs and light pickups, driving is a metaphor for anxiety-inducing unpleasantness, petty aggression against neighbors, and profanity-shouting and finger-flipping during routine daily events. The SUV represents a pitiable equation of a listless activity--sitting in a chair and pressing a pedal--with virility. Why don't the automakers in Detroit realize that they are cooking their own goose with SUVs? Detroit has spent the years of SUV mania promoting vehicles that cause roads to become clogged and driving to become insufferable. Surely this cannot be in the long-term interest of car manufacturers. "

TNR's Gregg Easterbrook (a Colorado College alumni incidently) reviews "High and Mighty" and finds that

"It belongs on the same shelf as Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed and Ida Tarbell's The History of Standard Oil, chronicles of the dangerous interaction of corporate perfidy and regulatory breakdown. High and Mighty tells us more than we may care to know about how government malfunctions, and about the more disturbing aspects of the American cult of driving. "

This is the best review I've seen yet of this book.  It covers all the major points and hits the important details, including one that counter's the pro-SUV's crowds assertion that the statistics aren't bearing out the higher death rates of SUV drivers:  In a few years, all these enourmous SUV's which are by and large currently being operated by "responsible middle-aged people" are going to start hitting the used vehicle market and picked up by the more dangerous-driving young folks.  As each year passes, more and more people will be driving them, and in more dangerous ways.  Its a gigantic mess waiting to happen.

(btw, I'm evaluating a new news aggregator, which is going to print a little message saying its unregistered when I post this.  So far I like it, but I'm going to give it a few days before I shell out the cash)