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| MOVIE REVIEW "American Dreamz" by Mike Smith | ||
| CITIZEN X For Immediate Release....Citizen X Hero Of The Week....Quote of the Week....Civil War in Iraq. Move On, People, Nothing To See Here! by Vinnie Blesi | ||
| MY MIDDLE TOE The Guzzos in Hollywood....Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team....Hot Female Teachers Having Sex With Male Students...."Clash of the Titans" and Ray Harryhausen by Mark Terry | ||
| MIKE'S RANT Reunited .... Stunned .... TomKitten .... My Favorite Films -- Part 16: "Field of Dreams" by Mike Smith | ||
| LETTERS | ||
Established A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our seventh calendar year!
Number 317 (Vol. 7, No. 16). This edition is for the week of April 17--23, 2006.
Professor al-Arian was a political activist who had been under FBI surveillance since at least the mid-'90s. Despite what the FBI called a mountain of surveillance evidence (mostly wiretaps), the Feds have never gotten a conviction on him and have had to release him from prison twice.
The handling of the Sami al-Arian case became a sticky issue during the 2004 U.S. Senate elections in Florida. Democratic candidate Betty Castor was the president of The University of South Florida (USF) when al-Arian was on faculty as a computer engineering professor. She defended him when he was first arrested, and this was remembered with great contempt by the voting public who elected Republican Mel Martinez instead.
Everyone's happy now, I suppose, as this ends the case for the Feds, al-Arian and his family, but nagging issues remain as to why the government was unable to prove its case (or for a while even keep him in jail) with a supposed mountain of evidence.
Time For a Cannibal to Appear Kevin Ray Underwood, a 26-year-old grocery stocker in Purcell, Oklahoma, related in his blog about cannibalism and various other pursuits he has sexual fantasies of. He also liked to sit and watch children at play. These two pastimes blurred recently when he decided to kill his 10-year-old neighbor, Jamie Rose Bolin....AND EAT HER.
Following his arrest, it was determined this was part of a sexual fanstasy, but as I write this it is inconclusive if he actually raped her before chowtime. He did say in his blog that he "just wanted to be normal". Note to Kevin: Wrong direction!
His parents are trying to be supportive(!) saying that Kevin's mental state has been fragile since a failed romance last December ("hey, baby, ever think about, ya know, eating people?") and that he was on medication for depression.
My sincerest condolences to the Bolin family, of course. Jamie was his first victim. If he had gotten away with that, he might've been encouraged to make a career out of it as others have before him.
Radio Host Art Bell Shakes up Fans with Announcement Recently, Art retuened from a vacation in the Philipines to announce to a stunned audience that he had met and married a Filipino girl (Ramona was also Filipino), named Ayrin. Not only that, but he was having a special garage sale of sorts because he is moving to the Philipines at the end of this month! Art reflected on his life, his tragedies and that he's not getting any younger (he's 60). Despite his love of the desert that has been his home for so many years, this shake-up is what he needs to move on.
Like the rest of the Coast-To-Coast audience who has adopted Art as family, I was shocked at the suddeness of these revelations, but I am all for this healing-and-moving-on process. Luckily for us, Art has decided to continue to host Coast-To-Coast AM from his new Philipines digs (weekends only...George Noory took over as full-time host some time ago).
I raise my glass to you, my friend, and wish you and your new bride many years of happiness together.
20 Years Since Chernobyl The permanent damage from the worst nuclear accident in human history is currently being debated with some arguing the fallout resulted in less human casualties than predicted, others saying it resulted in way more casualties than predicted. Apparently, it depends on how you check the data. In any event, the dramatic rise of thyroid cancer in children and some adults was agreed to be one obvious side-effect of exposure to radio-iodine. Instances of cancer in general have risen, as have birth deformities.
While this is incredibly unfortunate, the fact is the reactors were manned by Russians who neglected simple maintenance and monitoring procedures and the accident could've been prevented. We had a similar scare here in the US (but without the explosion) at Three-Mile Island.
I am usually ostracized for this by my fellow leftists, but I am a proponent of nuclear energy. When properly maintained and executed it is the most efficient and cleanest energy source we have on the planet...and one that does not keep us dependant on Middle-Eastern countries as oil does.
From Chris Woods, director of "Bleed": Just wanted to remind everyone about "Bleed" playing on The Horror
Channel. As most of you know the channel is an online-only project, so just log
on to http://www.horrorchannel.com/ and click on Revenge of Midnight
Movies (you can't miss it on the main page). It all happens Friday at
Midnight (Early Saturday morning). Also, Simon Lynx and myself will be in
the horror channel chatroom chatting with the fans. You have to sign
up to chat, but it's free and easy to sign up. Hope you can all tune
in to the show.
Memorial Sevices:
Also...
• Radio legend Art Bell re-marries; moves to Philipinnes
• 20 years since Chernobyl
Sami al-Arian Pleads Guilty
In a landmark case that began in Tampa, FL and tested the Patriot Act and the patience of many legal watchers, former USF professor Sami al-Arian, tried on charges he helped raise money for the Palestinian Isalmic Jihad (and terminated from the college for same), has pleaded guilty in a deal that will see him deported in exchange for 9 federal charges to be dropped. Last December a jury acquitted al-Arian of 8 charges and deadlocked on those 9. He has been held in prison without bail for three years.
In every decade of every generation (or thereabouts) there will surface a story of one of us who has crossed the line of perversion so severe as to make the evening news. The last cannibal of real legend was Jeffrey Dahmer. Well...the following story won't unseat the king, but it will send shivers as to what is out there.
Long-time readers know that I am a huge fan of radio talk show host Art Bell, and the show he hosted for many years, Coast-To-Coast AM, that he'd broadcast from his location in the high desert of Nevada, specifically, Pahrump. And you might recall early this year I wrote up the tragic loss of his wife of many years, Ramona, who died at 47 after a severe asthma attack (see PCR #303 for details on that).
On April 25, 1986, the poorly-maintained Number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear facility 80 miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine (formerly the USSR) exploded. 30 people were killed instantly, more than 135,000 were evacuated from a 20-mile radius afterward. The radiation poisoning would create a "dead-zone" surrounding the acreage, inaccessible to humans (except specialists) for decades.
The Tampa Film Review meeting which has been held on the second Friday of each month was cancelled for April due to scheduling conflicts with the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image. The TFR will return in May (second Friday), however, and has scheduled the following movies so far: Office Devils, Duck Feeder, Battered Sausage, Veverly, and Works. The first three involve our own Joe Davison in a producer or director capacity. A more detailed announcement of the May TFR will be made here when we get a little closer to the date.
Tuesday at 1:00pm@
Segal Funeral Home - Beth David Chapel
3909 Henderson Boulevard
Tampa, Florida 33629
Phone: 813-874-3330
Fax: 813-286-9647
http://www.segalfuneralhome.com/index.cfm
An online guestbook is available also.