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The Chaser's executive producer Julian Morrow will be on ABC Classic FM tomorrow from 10-11am, hosted by Jennifer Byrne. The long-running program is similar to Enough Rope.

A clip of MSNBC reporter Mika Brzezinski [2] is flying around the Internet, after she refused to cover the network's lead story on Paris Hilton. Repeatedly tearing up her news sheet, Mika said "I'm about to snap" after her producers repeatedly tried to air the story. In the end her colleagues did the story instead despite her dissent. Mika said "I just don't believe in covering that story especially not as the lead story on a newscast when you have a day like today".

While it's never good for a journalist to become the story, the hype that this incident is garnering is an indication of how detested newstainment is viewed by the news-discerning demographic. The problem mix of entertainment posing as news was a particular topic in Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason".

You can find the full list of winners from the Cannes Film Festival here. The winner of the Golden Palm was "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days". I've heard quite a bit about this film in the media, and one I hope to check out in the future. From the wiki, "It tells the tragic story of two students, room mates in the university dormitory, who try to arrange an illegal abortion for one of them, during the communist regime of the late 1980s."

On Saturday the 24th of June the Schonell theatre will close its doors and cease cinema operations. Operating for 34 years the Schonell is a cultural icon of Brisbane cinema. As a gift to supporters, the Schonell is having a closing down party in which all films will be screened free of charge on Saturday.

The closing is the result of budget cuts forced by the recently introduced Voluntary Student Unionism legislation. While VSU was designed to weaken the politicization of university union groups, predominantly controlled by the Left of politics with the intentional flow-on effect to the Australian Labor Party, the legislation achieves this through funding cuts which effect all services and clubs. 

If you've more than a passing interesting in Eastern philosophies, then Margaret Throsby's interview with John Stevens may be of interest to you [win, real]. A professor of Buddhist Studies at Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan, and a practitioner of Aikido, John Stevens is renowned scholar of Eastern studies. The interview covers a broad range of topics including meditation, martial arts, music, art, culture and the philosophies thereof.

If you're into motion picture, you should check out the BBC's Motion Gallery. As the site boasts, "encompassing 500 million feet of film and 400,000 hours of video, the unrivalled BBC archive spans over 8 million subject categories." For the Australian viewer, the ABC has recently opened up its archive to the project. I found Japan's showreel of iconic imagery to be particularly stunning (especially in HD).

For the Mac user you can also download their handy dashboard widget. 

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere-
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

ABC's Foreign Correspondent have a 16 minute online segment which takes a look at Japan's youth subcultures. A very interesting little piece that looks at: Gothic lolita and the underground music scene, Otaku and the concept of having a virtual family, NEET's (known as "Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training") - the disenfranchised working youth, and the closely related Freeters. A good watch for anyone interested in learning a little bit about Japanse youth culture. They have both Real broadband, and Win broadband versions as well as dial-up versions.