At the MacDowell Colony, where isolation spurs inspiration, artists emerge from their cottages at midday to find picnic baskets left quietly on their doorsteps. But when it comes to property taxes, the town insists there's no such thing as a free lunch.
For nearly a century, the famed artists' retreat has welcomed thousands of writers, composers and others who enjoy up to two months of rent-free solitude and support. Within its rustic stone and clapboard cottages, Thornton Wilder wrote "Our Town," Aaron Copland composed "Appalachian Spring" and Dobuse and Dorothy Heyward wrote "Porgy and Bess." More recently, Jonathan Franzen finished writing "The Corrections" and Alice Sebold worked on "The Lovely Bones."
You know, I really do not have a problem with a colony of artists sharing a house and writing and painting. I know it is romantic to think of quitting your job and heading off into the woods to create. But most people usually keep their day job and create on second shift.
Maybe they should call themselves a religion. Then it is tax-free.

The highest ranking leader still at-large from Saddam Hussein's regime has died, a Baathist Web site reported Saturday.

A woman who claims to be a former girlfriend of KISS rocker Gene Simmons can proceed with a defamation lawsuit in which she says he made her sound like a "sex-addicted nymphomaniac" during a VH1 television show, a judge has ruled.

Lets see. She was dating Gene Simmons from Kiss who was traveling around the country banging every chick in site. Yea, I believe she was a pure and honest young girl.

Now we can sue rock stars because of how they made us look??? I will sue John Travolta and The BeeGee because they made me get out on the dance floor in the 70's and act like a fool. I am suing for 60 million dollars. Because I am not a dancing fool, I was drunk.

50 Cent said he was saddened by the fatal shooting at a theater where his movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" was playing."I feel for the victim's family in this situation," 50 Cent said on ABC's "The View" on Friday. "But you know, these weren't kids. This was a 30-year-old man (who) had a dispute with three other guys."

Wow. People are bringing their guns to a movie called: "Get rich or die trying."I am really surprised. I figured this was one of those family type movies that rappers make.The only thing I have is my shotgun. I wonder if they will let me take that into the multi-plex.

Renee Thomas, 20, of Pittsboro, N.C., and Angela Keathley, 26, of Belmont, N.C., were taken to Hillsborough County Jail early Sunday. Witnesses said the women were having sex in a stall with each other, angering patrons waiting in line to get into the restroom at the club in the Channelside district.

I can't really add anything to this. Cheerleaders having sex in a public restroom. Then stepping out and starting a bar fight. "You go girl." Just doesn't seem to fit.

This one comes right from the crapper.

A man who sued Home Depot last month claiming a prank left him glued to a toilet seat made a similar allegation about another restroom more than a year ago, an official told a newspaper.Bob Dougherty's lawsuit alleges employees at the store ignored his pleas for help on the day before Halloween 2003 because they thought he was kidding.

But Ron Trzepacz, former director of operations for the town of Nederland, where Dougherty lives, told the Rocky Mountain News in Tuesday's editions that Dougherty told him in the summer of 2004 he was glued to a toilet seat in the town's visitor center but pulled himself free.

So it seems this guy gets glued to other toilet seats. People think of all kinds of ways to get some quick cash.

Dougherty's lawyer, Mark Cohen, denied his client made such a claim and said Dougherty, 57, is willing to take a polygraph test.

The lawsuit claims he suffered pain, humiliation and financial loss. It seeks $3 million.

"It's not about the money. I want my health back. I want to be back to normal," Dougherty said. "I want to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody ever, ever again."

Gluing your butt to a toilet seat I guess would be worth 3 million. But, it looks like his butt got caught. No money for you. He will be forever known as crapper man.

Actors Warren Beatty and wife Annette Bening tried to crash a campaign appearance Saturday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor sought to drum up last-minute support for a group of statewide ballot measures.

"There's the main event, then there is the sideshow," Schwarzenegger said. "I don't care about the sideshow."

You have to love that line from Schwarzenegger. It's right out of one of his movies.. " There's the main event, then there is the sideshow. I don't care about the sideshow."

If Beatty wants to run for office, that's fine, that's America. But following Arnold around like a little kid. That's petty.

At least 918 vehicles -- including those in Paris -- were burned during the 10th night of violence, said the Interior Ministry's operational center tracking the violence. There was no word yet on damage in Paris to shops, gymnasiums, nursery schools and other targets which have been attacked around the country.

France needs to grow a pair. A silent protest is not going to work. They need yelling and screaming. They need Michael Jackson to go live there and do a concert. Tanks and bombs.
Or maybe they could make the bad people sit in the corner and take a time out.

Pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade and machine guns Saturday in an attack on a luxury cruise liner off the east African coast, the vessel's owners said.

Pirates in the year 2005. I am sure we can count on the government of Somalia to handle this. Ha Ha--Gek Gek..(LOL) ;-) :-(

WASHINGTON — Usama bin Laden has been publicly silent for the longest period since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The question for U.S. intelligence: What, if anything, does it mean?

Maybe it means he is dead??

Purveyors of porn and entrepreneurs who spied a niche when Apple Computer Inc. unveiled its video-playing iPod are proving that sex even sells in tiny packages — especially when it is portable.

One online social network of amateur pinup girls said it logged 500,000 downloads of the sexy "featurettes" — three- to five-minute video clips — in the first 24 hours targeting the new iPod-toting crowd.

If the porno chicks look like her.. You can count me out.

NEW YORK (AP) — Oliver Stone has begun shooting one of the first Hollywood films about Sept. 11 in New York — without recreating the large-scale devastation that's all too familiar to residents who lived through the 2001 attacks.
After months of meetings with community and family groups, producers of the untitled movie have promised to tread carefully on sensitive ground. Most of the major action portraying the World Trade Center collapse will be shot on a Los Angeles sound stage. And although news footage of the towers themselves will be shown during the film, it will play on television screens in the background.

Oliver Stone better be real careful with this one. His last movie: "Alexander", in which Stone focused on homosexuality, BOMBED like a big turd. When I go to the video store, they are using Oliver Stoneds movie as a door-stop.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actors Alec Baldwin and ex-wife Kim Basinger traded personal jabs through their attorneys Monday, with each claiming amid a custody dispute that the other has serious emotional problems.In court papers, Baldwin claimed Basinger "has a pathological need" to turn their daughter against him, and he is asking for a psychological evaluation of the actress.

There is the possibility that both Alec and Kim are screwed in the head. Just a possibility!