It is going to be hot today. The forest fire smoke from Canada is making itself known in the nose and eyes.

Sitemeter Sez: Louth, Ireland (Love ya' -- who are you?); Ballwin, Missouri; Whitney Point, New York; Portsmouth, UK; Atlanta, Georgia; Toronto, Ontario, and La Mesa, California (Justin?).

MORE New Mime Troupe History at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: Mark Ogle's remarkable retrospective is still up at the Hockaday Museum of Art, plus Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon's show is on the first level -- about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, it is a true labor of love by scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.
The Hockaday Museum of Art's Face Book Site (There's a link to the conventional website there.)

I was running the tech for guest speaker Joseph Lisle Williams when he presented a lecture at my college about surviving a bear attack in Glacier National Park 50 years ago. Don Dayton, the ranger who shot the bear and saved the young man's life was at the event too. If you want to read more about it, his sister wrote a blog about her brother and the lecture HERE.

The other month, I ran sound for Carol Buchanan's public discussion of her historical novel God's Thunderbolt -- The Vigilantes of Montana at the community college. Here's the link to a live-blog of the event.

A statewide "town meeting" style videoconference about the USA's health care crisis. There were many advocates from different political views, and a few ignoramuses, but the consensus was clear: No more bankruptcies or losing homes because of injury or illness!

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: The satirical, but not really funny, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930) by sardonic German communists Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill is on the radio right now from the L.A. Opera. It is mostly known for the decadent Alabama Song, made famous in my youth by The Doors. New York actor Patti LuPone is in the cast of this production from 2007. I'll listen to it in the car while I'm shooting video around the Swan River today.

Big clouds, cool wind, no rain, but FLOCKS of Magpies!

Sitemeter Sez: Little Rock, Arkansas (Hey there, Tari DeWille!); Vxj, near Kronobergs, Sweden; Wroclaw, Poland; Chelmsford, UK; Jamaica, New York (Bindlesiffs!); Granger, Indiana; Hamilton, Ontario, and Yerevan, Armenia.

MORE New Mime Troupe History at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: Mark Ogle's remarkable retrospective is still up at the Hockaday Museum of Art, plus Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon's show is on the first level -- about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, it is a true labor of love by scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.
The Hockaday Museum of Art's Face Book Site (There's a link to the conventional website there.)

I was running the tech for guest speaker Joseph Lisle Williams when he presented a lecture at my college about surviving a bear attack in Glacier National Park 50 years ago. Don Dayton, the ranger who shot the bear and saved the young man's life was at the event too. If you want to read more about it, his sister wrote a blog about her brother and the lecture HERE.

The other month, I ran sound for Carol Buchanan's public discussion of her historical novel God's Thunderbolt -- The Vigilantes of Montana at the community college. Here's the link to a live-blog of the event.

A statewide "town meeting" style videoconference about the USA's health care crisis. There were many advocates from different political views, and a few ignoramuses, but the consensus was clear: No more bankruptcies or losing homes because of injury or illness!
Speaking of health care:

Dear Mr. President by Hunter Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 02:20:04 PM PDT from Daily Kos

Dear Mr. President: I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself and my doctor.
Well, that is not strictly true. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself, my doctor, and my insurance company, which provides me a list of which doctors I can see, which specialists I can see, and has a strict policy outlining when I can and can't see those specialists, for what symptoms, and what tests my doctors can or cannot perform for a given set of symptoms. That seems fair, because the insurance company needs to make a profit; they're not in the business of just keeping people alive for free.
Oh, and also my employer. My employer decides what health insurance company and plans will be available to me in the first place. If I quit that job and find another, my heath insurance will be different, and I may or may not be able to see the same doctor as I had been seeing before, or receive the same treatments, or obtain the same medicines. So I believe my healthcare decisions should be between myself, the company I work for, my insurance company, and my doctor. Assuming I'm employed, which is a tough go in the current economy...Hmm, but that's still a little simplistic. I suppose we should clarify.

More Tears and Laughter HERE

Real Books: Toni Bentley's Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal from 1982 was a true delight. The introduction was especially interesting, being written 20 years after the original manuscript.
I have this silly habit of "hearing" an author's "voice" as I read -- I'm well aware that it is a subjective game at best and projection at worst. I was surprised to "hear" a deferential voice from the normally fearless Toni Bentley as she approached George Balanchine, but it made complete sense once I read the journal itself. I "heard" that steady, familiar note of bravery, however, in the descriptions of Balanchine's partner Leon Kirstein, and lead dancer Suzanne Farrell, even though Bentley wrote about other emotions she felt at the time. Winter Season is a beautiful love letter to Mr. Balanchine, and the art of Ballet, even though there is so much more to the book.

Media Watch: F****! Sometimes I just hate television. I think I'll shoot some video for Katie Duck and make my OWN mistakes.

Ida Rubinstein's biographer, author Toni Bentley, also an emBEDded reporter from the World of Ballet, and valued cyber-pal of mine. Her shoes are off in this engaging, elegant picture. Among the many interesting things she wrote in Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal was (paraphrased) "Ballet dancers spend a lot of time apologizing to their feet."

The rain went south of us last night, but there was a cool wind blowing from the west this morning.

Sitemeter Sez: Herndon, Virginia; Columbia Falls, Montana; Wichita, Kansas, and Lyse, Norway.

MORE New Mime Troupe History at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: Mark Ogle's remarkable retrospective is still up at the Hockaday Museum of Art, plus Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon's show is on the first level -- about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, it is a true labor of love by scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.
The Hockaday Museum of Art's Face Book Site (There's a link to the conventional website there.)

I was running the tech for guest speaker Joseph Lisle Williams when he presented a lecture at my college about surviving a bear attack in Glacier National Park 50 years ago. Don Dayton, the ranger who shot the bear and saved the young man's life was at the event too. If you want to read more about it, his sister wrote a blog about her brother and the lecture HERE.

The other month, I ran sound for Carol Buchanan's public discussion of her historical novel God's Thunderbolt -- The Vigilantes of Montana at the community college. Here's the link to a live-blog of the event.

A statewide "town meeting" style videoconference about the USA's health care crisis. There were many advocates from different political views, and a few ignoramuses, but the consensus was clear: No more bankruptcies or losing homes because of injury or illness!
Speaking of health care:

Dear Mr. President by Hunter Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 02:20:04 PM PDT from Daily Kos

Dear Mr. President: I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself and my doctor.
Well, that is not strictly true. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself, my doctor, and my insurance company, which provides me a list of which doctors I can see, which specialists I can see, and has a strict policy outlining when I can and can't see those specialists, for what symptoms, and what tests my doctors can or cannot perform for a given set of symptoms. That seems fair, because the insurance company needs to make a profit; they're not in the business of just keeping people alive for free.
Oh, and also my employer. My employer decides what health insurance company and plans will be available to me in the first place. If I quit that job and find another, my heath insurance will be different, and I may or may not be able to see the same doctor as I had been seeing before, or receive the same treatments, or obtain the same medicines. So I believe my healthcare decisions should be between myself, the company I work for, my insurance company, and my doctor. Assuming I'm employed, which is a tough go in the current economy...Hmm, but that's still a little simplistic. I suppose we should clarify.

More Tears and Laughter HERE

Real Books: I'm reading Toni Bentley's Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal from 1982. Her new introduction, written for the 2003 edition describes how she told George Balanchine himself about her project, and some key responses to her book by the top of New York City Ballet's hierarchy.
It was sad that Reaganomics progressively undermined the major leagues of the USA's finest arts during the same era that Toni writes about in her memoir, but the NTCB still continues today.

Media Watch: GAWD! That America's Got Talent show last night was a disgrace -- SYCO TV (SImon COwell, get it?) should be totally ashamed of themselves for putting on an hour of the judges accepting and rejecting people in various ways. The audience knows this stuff goes on, and the necessity of it all, but they don't turn on the TV to f***in' WATCH it! Show us some of the acts, please -- they were all good enough to win at least one round.


That calls for a dose of the REAL STUFF!

Bindlestiff Family Cirkus Update - July 29, 2009

Bindlestiff Family Cirkus at the Spiegel Palais at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY August 1 at 3:30 pm and 8:30 pm August 2 at 3:30 pm. The 3:30 pm performances on August 1 and 2 are Fun for the Whole Family.
The 8:30 pm performance on August 1 is for Adults Only!
For tickets, directions and more information: http://fishercenter.bard.edu/spiegeltent

Experience the Cirkus in the most luxurious of venues!
The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus returns to the SpiegelPalais for the Summerscape Festival at Bard College. The Bindlestiffs promise another round of vaudevillain fun. Cirkus co-founders Stephanie Monseu and Keith Nelson head up a crew of world-class artists whose performances feature aerial artistry, juggling, bawdy physical comedy, surprising moments of audience participation, and live original music.
The troupe includes Jonathan Nosan (acrobat), Joel Jeske (physical comedian), Amanda Topaz (aerialist), Sean Blue (juggler) and the Mystic Band (Francisco Monroy, Gino Pinto and Zacarias Vacanti).

Bindlestiff Family Variety Arts, Inc. in Partnership with Galapagos Art Space presents: Open Stage Variety Show -- The Best Entertainment Bargain in New York City.
Open Variety Stage Show at Galapagos Arts Space, 16 Main Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY
First Monday of Every Month at 8PM Next Show is this Monday, August 3. Door $5

Come to Dumbo Brooklyn where a five spot still offers you a spectacular night of tap dancing bears, Kung Fu juggling, clown bands, aerialists suspended above your beverage while you are carefully suspended over a body of water, sword swallowers, physical comedy, contortionists and cowboys.
Galapagos Art Space has dedicating the first Monday of every month to New York City's variety, vaudeville, aerial, and circus artists. Celebrating works in progress, emerging artists, and professionals trying something new, this night promises many surprises.
If you would like to be on the stage, email keith@bindlestiff.org. Write 'Open Variety' in the subject line!
For more information and to buy tickets go to http://www.galapagosartspace.com

Variety Arts School & Theater in New York (stay tuned)

So an acrobat, a ventriloquist, and a Burlesque queen walked into a building.... We're spearheading an effort to create a performance, practice, and research space devoted to the Variety Arts. The space will focus on the specific needs of the local Variety Arts community and will attract artists from around the world. This exciting project is still in the early stages, but it is moving rapidly. If you're interested in getting involved, would like to pledge your financial (or physical, intellectual, or emotional) support, or you happen to know of a large, conveniently located empty space, please let us know!

Bindlestiff Family Cirkus Webisodes On-line, Episode 10 is coming soon! Travel with the Cirkus. Episode 9 is now online. http://www.thebindlestiffs.com

Stephanie (Philomena) Monseau warming up before a show, digitized from a scene in one of their Webisodes -- They're GOOD! Send 'em some money -- Bindlestiff Family Variety Arts, Inc. is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and evolution of the variety arts. Bindlestiff Family Cirkus PO Box 1917 New York, NY 10009 1-877-BINDLES www.bindlestiff.org

The rain has caused some damage here and there -- Summer can bring severe thunderstorms. Killdeer sightings at the college.

Sitemeter Sez: Surgoinsville, Tennessee; Pozzuoli, Italy, and Stafford, Virginia.

MORE New Mime Troupe History at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: Arts In The Park is over for this year, and the waether was perfect! Mark Ogle's remarkable retrospective is still up at the Hockaday Museum of Art, plus Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon's show is on the first level -- about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, it is a true labor of love by scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.
The Hockaday Museum of Art's Face Book Site (There's a link to the conventional website there.)

I was running the tech for guest speaker Joseph Lisle Williams when he presented a lecture at my college about surviving a bear attack in Glacier National Park 50 years ago. Don Dayton, the ranger who shot the bear and saved the young man's life was at the event too. If you want to read more about it, his sister wrote a blog about her brother and the lecture HERE.

The other month, I ran sound for Carol Buchanan's public discussion of her historical novel God's Thunderbolt -- The Vigilantes of Montana at the community college. Here's the link to a live-blog of the event.

A statewide "town meeting" style videoconference about the USA's health care crisis. There were many advocates from different political views, and a few ignoramuses, but the consensus was clear: No more bankruptcies or losing homes because of injury or illness!

Speaking of health care:

Dear Mr. President by Hunter Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 02:20:04 PM PDT from Daily Kos

Dear Mr. President: I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself and my doctor.
Well, that is not strictly true. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself, my doctor, and my insurance company, which provides me a list of which doctors I can see, which specialists I can see, and has a strict policy outlining when I can and can't see those specialists, for what symptoms, and what tests my doctors can or cannot perform for a given set of symptoms. That seems fair, because the insurance company needs to make a profit; they're not in the business of just keeping people alive for free.
Oh, and also my employer. My employer decides what health insurance company and plans will be available to me in the first place. If I quit that job and find another, my heath insurance will be different, and I may or may not be able to see the same doctor as I had been seeing before, or receive the same treatments, or obtain the same medicines. So I believe my healthcare decisions should be between myself, the company I work for, my insurance company, and my doctor. Assuming I'm employed, which is a tough go in the current economy.

Hmm, but that's still a little simplistic. I suppose we should clarify.

More Tears and Laughter HERE

George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars in Concert:

Posted by RichK (He was there, and I wasn't, but watch out for onstage monitor sound.): 25 Jul Sat, 2009 2:15 pm Dewey Beach 7/23 -- A lot went right in their 3 hour 45-minute show, but an equal part of same-ole same-ole took place as well. I pretty much stood directly under Jerome's keyboard to the right of the stage (looking out) and listened to the show primarily through through Lige, Jerome & the drummers monitors. Before I go any further - Foley is a true funkadelic and one bad mother, I can't emphasize this enough, the man is an absolute beast on the drums.
The band eased nicely into their set with a breeezy Funkentelechy. Boogie picked up a guitar to play on the opener but didn't do much with it, wandered around a little then disappeared. With Steve Boyd & Bop Gun things began to heat up. There's very little in the history of music entertainment that equals P-Funk's performance of Cosmic Slop, especially when accompanied by GC's entrance to the stage. Wedding attired Andre Foxxe appeared during Slop. Other than Maggot Brain, the show peaked early, though George's energy was pretty doggone good and he sang a lot. Much different from a year ago at the same venue when Garry pretty much lead the show as George waved to the audience for an-hour then headed for the door.
Michael Hampton wasn't on stage too much, but when he was he was gettin after it. His accompaniment for Maggot Brain was real sparse - all Kidd Funkadelic, decked out in a full-length cloak & hockey mask. Jerome's keyboard playing and an early Red Hot Mama were other highlights. Other than that it was road dogs goin thru the motions. Low points as well: "Bounce to This is" in particular drug on way too long then peetered out (how we miss Byrd). There was a young female singer who oversang an out of place blues standard that appealed to the American Idol crowd. But Kim's screeching on Knee Deep is an automatic low of lows.
By night's end I was quite happy to have been where I was. Unlike Bennie, I didn't sleep a wink during the show. I enjoyed my vanatge point as I care less and less what's going on over on the vocalists side of the stage.


Enroute to Europe, P-Funk performs in Dewey Beach, N.J. (L to R) Ricky Rouse, Shauna Hall, Foley, Garry (Diaperman) Shider, Kim (Red Hot Mama) Manning, and Ronkat Spearman. Live photo from the gig by Snabby.

Rain has taken the edge off the heat of Summer -- good thing. The Osprey were hunting over the slough, and catching fish. Cherry season here in the Flathead Valley (see below).

Sitemeter Sez: Dubrovnic, Croatia; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Barcelona, Spain; Choteau, Montana; Hamburg, Germany; Erie, Colorado; Bippus, Indiana, and Saint Petersburg, Russia.

MORE New Mime Troupe History at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's FIRST illustrator of the 21st, for including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: Arts In The Park is over for this year, and the waether was perfect! Mark Ogle's remarkable retrospective is still up at the Hockaday Museum of Art, plus Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon's show is on the first level -- about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, it is a true labor of love by scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.
The Hockaday Museum of Art's Face Book Site (There's a link to the conventional website there.)

I was running the tech for guest speaker Joseph Lisle Williams when he presented a lecture at my college about surviving a bear attack in Glacier National Park 50 years ago. Don Dayton, the ranger who shot the bear and saved the young man's life was at the event too. If you want to read more about it, his sister wrote a blog about her brother and the lecture HERE.

The other month, I ran sound for Carol Buchanan's public discussion of her historical novel God's Thunderbolt -- The Vigilantes of Montana at the community college. Here's the link to a live-blog of the event.

A statewide "town meeting" style videoconference about the USA's health care crisis. There were many advocates from different political views, and a few ignoramuses, but the consensus was clear: No more bankruptcies or losing homes because of injury or illness!

Speaking of health care:

Dear Mr. President by Hunter Sat Jul 25, 2009 at 02:20:04 PM PDT from Daily Kos

Dear Mr. President: I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself and my doctor.
Well, that is not strictly true. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself, my doctor, and my insurance company, which provides me a list of which doctors I can see, which specialists I can see, and has a strict policy outlining when I can and can't see those specialists, for what symptoms, and what tests my doctors can or cannot perform for a given set of symptoms. That seems fair, because the insurance company needs to make a profit; they're not in the business of just keeping people alive for free.
Oh, and also my employer. My employer decides what health insurance company and plans will be available to me in the first place. If I quit that job and find another, my heath insurance will be different, and I may or may not be able to see the same doctor as I had been seeing before, or receive the same treatments, or obtain the same medicines. So I believe my healthcare decisions should be between myself, the company I work for, my insurance company, and my doctor. Assuming I'm employed, which is a tough go in the current economy.

Hmm, but that's still a little simplistic. I suppose we should clarify.

More Tears and Laughter HERE

Many thanks to Toni Bentley -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida Rubinstein, High Patroness of Our Blog. Toni is not just a Class Act, she is Class in and of itself, and that's no act!

Media Watch: Bollywood movies are excellent for pitting and freezing cherries. The goofy plots and magnificent music spectacles are easy to catch up with, and the high standards of acting make for some surprises when the stars make more of their sometimes stupid roles than the writers intended. I've written about Bobolli and Bunti before -- good entertainment with Rani Mukerji and the Bachchan Clan. Shah Rukh Khan led a very good cast in a hyper-colorful soap-opera flick set in New York City called Kal Ho Naa Ho [Tomorrow May Never Come] (2003) Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta did wonderful work turning their ridiculous roles into warm characters. I actually enjoyed the Bollywood-ized version of Pretty Woman near the beginning of the film. Another movie set in exotic London was I See You (2006), starring the very talented Arjun Rampal. The plot was f***ing stupid, but I enjoyed the locales and musical numbers a lot. Comic actor Chunky Pandey actually had some good moments too. Beautiful Urmila Matondkar was excellent in the not-particularly-great movie Banaras (2006) with handsome Ashmit Patel as the Urmila's doomed lover. The film shot high -- that religion itself does not protect us from human folly is a worthy theme, and the scenes of nearby Sarnath, where Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha found enlightenment, were beautiful, not to mention Benares or Varanasi, the great city of a thousand temples itself as a background. The veteran cast did as well as anybody could, but I did not think the script really redeemed any of its good ideas, though.

A digital sketch of classic beauty Urmila Matondkar from one of her myriad swimsuit poses. She's most of all an excellent dancer and actor -- one of India's gifts to the entire world.