Phyllis Diller to receive Lifetime Award from her hometown

Posted: May 15, 2012 7:07 PM EDT
Updated: May 15, 2012 7:07 PM EDT

(WOIO) -

After 57 years of making the world laugh, trailblazing comedienne, actress and artist Phyllis Diller finally gets her due. The Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival, based out of Diller's birthplace of Lima, Ohio will present its first ever Lifetime Achievement Award at the comedienne's Los Angeles home in June, two weeks before its Opening Night Gala.

The 2012 Festival will take place July 6-8, 2012 primarily at the Veteran's Memorial Civic and Convention Center.

Diller attended Lima's Central High School, before attending Sherwood Music Conservatory in Chicago and Bluffton College in Bluffton, Ohio, where she met fellow "Lima-ite" and classmate Hugh Downs.

The 94-year-old Diller, best known for her quick one-liners, cigarette holder, and unmistakable laugh started out during the Eisenhower years, when mainstream female comics were few and far between. After an infamous stint as a contestant on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, the then 37-year-old housewife worked her first set at San Francisco's Purple Onion on March 7, 1955 - and remained there for 87 straight weeks.

[Northeast Ohio (Cleveland)] Superstar Bob Hope caught her act and became Hope's unofficial protégée, adopting his rapid-fire delivery for her own comedy. Coupled with Diller's common theme of the [humorously] angry and frustrated housewife in her act, her fame rose to unprecedented heights and broke down many barriers for female comedians.

She travelled with Bob Hope during the height of the Vietnam War to the region to perform with him in 1966 with his USO troupe. Her barrage of one-liners about the frustrations of being female in a domestically demanding culture was identified through her "husband," Fang - the catchall name for the men who had disappointed Diller, and for underachieving husbands everywhere.

Comic icons like Joan Rivers explained how radical Diller actually was: "She was the first one that there was such rage and such anger in her comedy. She had the anger that is now in all of us. And that's what made it so funny, because she spoke for all these women that were sitting home with five children and a husband that didn't work."

Diller appeared regularly in the 1960s as a special guest on many television programs including What's My Line? and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Diller has several film credits to her name, including a cameo appearance as Texas Guinan, the wisecracking nightclub hostess in the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass and provided the vocals for the Queen in Disney/Pixar's animated movie A Bug's Life. [Plus several pix with Bob Hope.]

Diller also starred in two short-lived TV series: the half-hour sitcom The Pruitts of Southampton (later retitled The Phyllis Diller Show) on ABC from 1966–1967, and the variety show The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show on NBC in 1968.

She also guest starred [more recently] alongside William Shatner in an episode of Boston Legal and provided the voice work as Peter Griffin's mother, Thelma on Fox's hit show, Family Guy. Her most recent television appearance was a January, 2011 episode of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 as part of a panel of comedians.

"Phyllis Diller is from Lima, and it would be a major oversight and insult to her efforts if we did not do our best to recognize her achievements," says Festival Executive Director, Len Archibald. "Not only as a comedian, but as an [extraordinary and legendary] artist who defied expectations regarding the perception of what women were capable of."

Archibald will make the trip to Diller's home to shoot a video presentation of Diller's acceptance of the Lifetime Achievement Award to be screened in its entirety during the Festival's Awards Gala at City Club on July 8.

He promises Diller's involvement in the Festival's second year will be the first of several celebrities who will help attract international attention to the event, which debuted in Van Wert during the summer of 2011.

"We are tremendously honored and excited that Ms. Diller has accepted our award. I hope this will open the eyes of the community so everyone understands just how many artists hail from Northwest Ohio. This will also serve as an example for future artists that you can be from anywhere in the world and still make your mark."

What: The Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival
Where: Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center / 7 Town Square/ Lima, Ohio / 45801
When: Friday, July 6 to Sunday, July 8, 2012.

Tickets and passes are on sale now through the Civic Center Box Office and the Festival's website, www.nwoff.org. Single-event tickets start at $5 with specified events free to high school students. For more information, please visit www.nwoff.org or contact Executive Director Len Archibald by calling 419-979-9692.

Copyright 2012 WOIO. All rights reserved.

[edit additions/clarifications_Neale Sourna]

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The New Way to Hide Your Grays By YouBeauty.com | Vitality

Ever gone demi-permanent?When you're looking to cover up grays, there are a few ways to do it.

You can use a semi-permanent hair color if you want the color to last for just a few shampoos (great, for example, if you want quick coverage for a party). If you're looking to make a long-term commitment, you'll want to seek out permanent color. Rather than washing out, this type of dye needs to grow out of your hair-leaving dreaded gray roots in its wake.

But somewhere in the middle lies the hair color sweet spot that many women crave. It's called demi-permanent hair color.

"This type of product will stay in the hair for 28 shampoos," explains Teca Lewellyn, a Procter & Gamble Beauty Scientist. "So, depending on how frequently you wash your hair, it will take about a month to a month and half to gently fade away."

Here's how it works: Demi-permanent hair color molecules get under the outer cuticle of the hair shaft but, unlike permanent dyes, they don't penetrate the deeper cortex. "They basically get temporarily stuck just beneath the cuticle until they are washed out," says Lewellyn. "The difference with permanent color is that the dye has to swell the cuticle to make it lift and allow the molecules to make their way into the cortex deep inside the hair shaft."

Demi-permanent may not be the answer for everyone and every hair situation, but it does have several key advantages.

It can cover up to 70 percent of your grays.

"It's a great solution for someone who's just starting to go gray and wants to experiment with color," says Lisa Evan, a colorist at Mario Russo Salon in Boston. "It gives a very natural result because the grays will take the color differently from the other strands, which means hair ends up with an almost highlighted look."

You'll never have obvious roots.

Permanent color invades the hair shaft and lodges itself there, well, permanently. So instead of fading away gradually, like demi-permanent color does, your hair stays whatever color you've dyed it, and as your hair grows, the new stuff at the roots will be the old color (or gray). With demi-permanent there's no obvious line of demarcation so you don't need to worry about touching up your roots every few weeks.

Your hair will look healthy and shiny.

"Demi-permanent is much gentler on the hair than permanent color," say Evans. That's because it doesn't open up the cuticle as much or penetrate inside the cortex of the hair shaft. "The integrity of the hair is better when the cuticle stays intact."

It can enhance and add dimension to your natural color.

Demi-permanent hair color contains no peroxide, which means it's much gentler on your strands, but also means that it won't dramatically alter the color (especially if you're hoping to go lighter than your natural shade). What it can do is warm up your color, give it more life and luster, blend away your grays and deepen your shade slightly. "It's like what happens when you polish a wood table and the brilliance of all the different shades in the wood suddenly come out," says Lewellyn. "You're enhancing what's already there."

It's hard to screw it up.

The downside of demi-permanent is that you can't make a dramatic change (it's not for you if you're goal is to take your brown strands platinum blonde). But the upside of that limitation is that very little can go wrong. Plan to stick with a color that's within one to two shades of what you've got and the result will be a beautifully enhanced version of your natural color.

You don't have to make a big commitment.

"Demi-permanent color is a great introduction to hair color," says Lewellyn. "If you're nervous about the process, this is perfect because it'll fade away within a month or so." And because you won't get obvious roots, you're not obligated to keep coloring your hair on a regular schedule.

A few demi-permanent colors to try at home:

Clairol Natural Instincts: Fortified with antioxidants, this formula helps hair defend itself against free radical damage during the coloring process. In 22 shades; $9.

L'Oréal Paris Healthy Look Crème Gloss Color: This ammonia-free formula leaves hair glossy while blending away grays. In 21 shades; $10.

Garnier HerbaShine Color Creme: Nourishing bamboo extract conditions hair while it colors. In 18 shades; $8.

By Sally Wadyka

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Queen Announces Plans to Expand Snooping on UK Citizens

Posted May 10th, 2012 12:00 PM by Tom Hymes

UNITED KINGDOM—Granted, it sounds so inoffensive coming from the Queen's lips. How, indeed, could such a pleasant royal ever overstep the boundaries of propriety, even if what she's asking for—nay, demanding!—are the keys to the box in which many of your most private thoughts are stored?

Wednesday, in opening the new session of Parliament, the Queen (Elizabeth II), as anticipated, did nevertheless announce long-simmering plans by the government to codify in law its authority to monitor the online activity of citizens who live in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

"My government," she stated, "intends to bring forward measures to maintain the ability of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access vital communications data under strict safeguards to protect the public, subject to scrutiny of draft clauses."

According to The Register, "It's unclear if those 'strict safeguards' mean that a warrant, for example, would be needed before spooks could access such data. The rough proposal appeared to only fuzzily indicate that such protection for British citizens would be provided, however."

One is not completely in the dark as to the government's intentions, however. The plans have been an open secret since before the formation of the Coalition, and a document since issued by the Home Office provides an outline of what to expect, including the bill's main "benefits," which include:

* The ability of the police and intelligence agencies to continue to access communications data which is vital in supporting their work in protecting the public.

* An updated framework for the collection, retention and acquisition of communications data which enables a flexible response to technological change."

As The Register has noted, however, despite assurances from the government that the expansion of powers is necessary and will not include looking at actual communications but only data about the communications, "many have complained that the cabinet minister's reassurances are unfounded given that the net-snooping plan would involve [British intelligence] operatives monitoring everything an individual does online, if not snoop on the content of messages."

The article added, "The time and duration of communications would be probed, as would telephone numbers or email addresses that have been contacted, and 'sometimes the location of the originator of the communication.'"

Despite the lack of technical details provided by either the Queen or the Home Office, the requested expansion of powers was originally expected to be inserted into other related bills but is now being offered as a standalone bill, which will bring with it greater scrutiny by members of Parliament.

As AVN has recently reported, similar efforts are underway in the States.

Six tips to survive driving emergencies from professional women racers

Six tips to survive driving emergencies from professional women racers

By TrueCar Staff | TrueCar – Fri, Apr 13, 2012 4:25 PM EDT

Regardless of whether you just got your driver's license within the last few years, or whether you've been driving since cassette players were standard equipment, automotive accidents and driving emergencies are difficult to prepare for. 

Being a good driver means knowing how to respond to the unexpected, so we asked the female athletes on TrueCar's "Women Empowered" racing team to share some tips to help drivers stay safe on the road when a driving emergency strikes -- after all, who knows better how to handle driving emergencies than professional racecar drivers who must be prepared to face them at high-speeds and under intense pressure?

 

#1 What To Do If Your Car Is Hydroplaning, Or Skidding Out Of Control
 

Verena Mei, Rally America, says:
 

Hydroplaning happens on wet surfaces when water accumulates in front of a car's tires, creating a layer of water between the rubber of the tires and the road's surface that reduces traction and makes it difficult to control the car. 

Your first priority is to carefully slow the vehicle down so you can regain control of the car. 

As with any driving emergency, keep a firm grip on the steering wheel and stay calm. Ease your foot off the gas and carefully steer your car in the direction of the road. Do this until the car slows and you can feel your tires on the ground again. Avoid sudden acceleration, braking, or steering inputs, which may only cause the car to slip (hydroplane) more.

If the back wheels hydroplane, the car's rear may fishtail or veer sideways into a skid, possibly causing you to spin. Steer in the direction of the skid until the rear tires stop hydroplaning and come in contact with the ground again, and then gently steer in the opposite direction to straighten out your vehicle.

To reduce the chance of hydroplaning, try to drive in the tire tracks left by the cars in front of you. These techniques can also help maintain traction when driving on snowy roads.

What does Verena drive?
On the race course: #335 TrueCar 2011 Ford Fiesta
On the road: Subaru Impreza


 

#2 What To Do If Your Car Stalls While You’re Driving
 

Shea Holbrook, Pirelli World Challenge, says:
 

It can be frightening if your car stalls while you're driving, as you may lose power steering and braking. Keep in mind these systems DO still function, but you will have to work harder to use them. Stay calm and focused, turn on your flashers, and try to restart the vehicle while the vehicle is still moving.

If it won't restart, use your car's forward momentum to help you roll to the side of the road and park off the shoulder or out of the way of traffic. If you can't make it to the side of the road, stay in your car (you definitely don't want to be out of your car in moving traffic!) and call 911 to get an emergency crew to help block traffic and move you off the road.

 What does Shea drive?
On the race course: #67 TrueCar 2012 Honda Civic Si
On the road: Audi A4


 

#3 What To Do If The Tread Separates From The Tire
 

Ashley Freiberg, Star Mazda, says:
 

Tire tread separation can be even scarier than a blowout, because the outer belt can become separated from the rubber of the tire and sometimes detach completely from the rest of the tire. You may notice loud thumping and feel the vehicle pulling to the side as the tread pulls off the tire; at high speeds, this flopping tread can damage your wheel well or even drive your car completely out of control. Get a grip -- literally! 

Do your best to steer the car straight and gently lift your foot off the gas. Cautiously guide yourself to the side of the road, braking carefully, and then call a tow truck to change the tire. Phew, you made it!

What does Ashley drive?
On the race course: #91 TrueCar Star Mazda
On the road: Toyota Tundra


 

#4 How To Stop In An Emergency Situation
 

Shannon McIntosh, USF2000, says:
 

The other day, a dog ran out in front of my car. I just gripped the wheel and stood on my brakes. I could feel the ABS pulse as the car came to a stop, and thankfully the dog escaped injury. If you have a chance to try this in an empty parking lot you'll discover that your ABS also allows you to safely steer around obstacles while in full-brake mode. Just keep your foot stomped down; don’t lift off the brake until your car comes to a complete stop. 

Most of today's modern vehicles are equipped with anti-lock braking systems that help drivers maintain control of the car by preventing the wheels from locking up, and as of 2012, NHTSA requires all passenger vehicles to be equipped with electronic stability control systems (which are operated by the ABS). This could prevent from 5,000 to 9,000 fatalities a year!

If you don't have ABS, panic braking takes a little more skill. You have to be able to push the brake pedal down hard, but not so hard that you lock up and skid the tires. It takes a lot of finesse to do this well, so this is another skill you could practice in an empty parking lot, to help you learn how to do it in an emergency.

If your brakes don't work at all, try to steer yourself away from traffic and people. Turn on your emergency blinkers. Use your gear selector to downshift into lower gears and, if you have room on either side of you, steer the car sharply from side-to-side to slow you down. If that doesn't work, sideswipe your car against the guardrail until you are going slow enough to use the hand or foot brake to bring you to a standstill.

What does Shannon drive?
On the race course: #18 TrueCar Van Diemen DP08 Mazda
On the road: Acura RSX


 

#5 What To Do If Your Gas Pedal Sticks Or If Your Car Won't Stop Accelerating
 

Emilee Tominovich, Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup SCAA Pro Series, says:
 

It’s going to sound counter-intuitive, but the first thing you should do if your car won't stop accelerating is to lift your foot off the brake -- you might have accidentally put your foot down on the accelerator by mistake! 

If the pedal sticks, reach down to see if something (like floor mats, or in my case, water bottles) might be wedged under there. 

Be sure to stay calm! 

The next step is to put the car into neutral (or press down the clutch). Don't worry about damaging the transmission; putting the car into neutral just takes the power from the engine away from the wheels, and lets you use the brakes to stop the car from rolling. In the worst-case scenario, you can even shut off the engine completely; just turn the key to OFF. 

Your steering and brakes will be harder to use, but they will still WORK! 

Coast to the side of the road, and use your emergency brake if you need extra help stopping. You can always practice doing this in parking lots, so you'll feel more confident if such an emergency ever arises.

What does Emilee drive?
On the race course: #19 TrueCar Mazda MX-5
On the road: Acura MDX


 

#6 What To Do If Your Tire Blows Out
 

Katherine Legge, IZOD IndyCar Series, says:
 

A tire blowout can pretty much happen to anyone anytime, but it's more likely to occur if your tires are low on tread, improperly inflated, or if you hit sharp debris on the roadway. It has happened to me on the track at speeds as fast as 200 mph, and trust me, the most important thing is not to panic! 

You might have heard a loud boom from under the car, but don't worry. Keep a firm hold on the steering wheel and avoid hard braking. Gently lift your foot off the gas, and coast until you have control; THEN you may brake carefully. 

Be sure to use your emergency flashers to warn the cars behind you, but stay focused on steering the car as straight as you can while you slow down the vehicle, and guide yourself to the side of the road. Your ability to steer may be harder if you blow a front tire, and depends on how much of the rubber is left on the wheel. 

Call a tow truck after you get to the side of the road; if you had to roll very far before you stopped, you will probably need to replace the metal wheel in addition to the tire.

What does Katherine drive?
On the race course: #6 TrueCar Lotus Dallara DW12
On the road: Lotus Evora from her engine provider, Lotus.

You can follow the TrueCar racing team at: www.truecar.com/racing

AP apologizes for firing reporter over WWII scoop By DAVID B. CARUSO | Associated Press

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NEW YORK (AP) — In World War II's final moments in Europe, Associated Press correspondent Edward Kennedy gave his news agency perhaps the biggest scoop in its history. He reported, a full day ahead of the competition, that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally at a former schoolhouse in Reims, France.

For this, he was publicly rebuked by the AP, and then quietly fired.

The problem: Kennedy had defied military censors to get the story out. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry Truman had agreed to suppress news of the capitulation for a day, in order to allow Russian dictator Josef Stalin to stage a second surrender ceremony in Berlin. Kennedy was also accused of breaking a pledge that he and 16 other journalists had made to keep the surrender a secret for a time, as a condition of being allowed to witness it firsthand.

Sixty-seven years later, the AP's top executive is apologizing for the way the company treated Kennedy.

"It was a terrible day for the AP. It was handled in the worst possible way," said president and CEO Tom Curley.

Kennedy, he said, "did everything just right." Curley rejected the notion that the AP had a duty to obey the order to hold the story once it was clear the embargo was for political reasons, rather than to protect the troops.

"Once the war is over, you can't hold back information like that. The world needed to know," he said in an interview.

Curley, who is retiring this year, has also co-written an introduction to Kennedy's newly published memoir, "Ed Kennedy's War: V-E Day, Censorship & The Associated Press."

Kennedy, who died in a traffic accident in 1963, had long sought such public vindication from his old employer. His daughter, Julia Kennedy Cochran, of Bend, Ore., said she was "overjoyed" by the apology.

"I think it would have meant a lot to him," she said.

The German surrender happened at 2:41 a.m. French time on May 7, 1945.

Kennedy was one of 17 reporters taken to witness the ceremony. He and the others were hastily assembled by military commanders, then pledged to secrecy by a U.S. general while the group flew over France. As a condition of being allowed to see the surrender in person, the correspondents were barred from reporting what they had witnessed until authorized by Allied headquarters.

Initially, the journalists were told the news would be held up for only a few hours. But after the surrender was complete, the embargo was extended for 36 hours — until 3 p.m. the following day.

Kennedy was astounded.

"The absurdity of attempting to bottle up news of such magnitude was too apparent," he would later write.

Nevertheless, he initially stayed quiet. Then, at 2:03 p.m., the surrender was announced by German officials via a radio broadcast from Flensburg, a city already in Allied hands. That meant, Kennedy knew, that the transmission had been authorized by the same military censors gagging the press.

Furious, Kennedy went to see the chief American censor and told him there was no way he could continue to hold the story. Word was out. The military had broken its side of the pact by allowing the Germans to announce the surrender. And there were no military secrets at stake.

The censor waved him off. Kennedy thought about it for 15 minutes, and then acted.

He used a military phone, not subject to monitoring by censors, to dispatch his account to the AP's London bureau. The line cut out before he had finished dictating. Notably, he didn't brief his own editors about the embargo or his decision to dodge the censors. The AP put a bulletin on the wire within minutes of his call.

The story carrying Kennedy's byline moved at 3:37 p.m. French time, or 9:37 a.m. in New York.

"Well, now let's see what happens," Kennedy told his staff in Paris, according to his memoir. "I may not be around here much longer."

To some of Kennedy's competitors, the scoop was a betrayal on the scale of Pearl Harbor. Compounding their anger, military censors continued to refuse to allow any other news organization to send their own stories, meaning the AP would continue to have an exclusive for a day.

"I am browned off, fed up, burnt up and put out," wrote Drew Middleton, a New York Times correspondent. He called the suppression of the story "the most colossal 'snafu' in the history of the war." His newspaper followed with an editorial chastising the AP for initially boasting of a historic "news beat."

"If it was a 'beat,'" the paper wrote, "it was one only because Mr. Kennedy's sixteen colleagues chose to stand by their commitments."

Retribution was swift. The military briefly suspended the AP's ability to dispatch any news from the European theater. When that ban was lifted, more than 50 of Kennedy's fellow war correspondents signed a protest letter asking that it be reinstated. The military expelled Kennedy from France.

Condemnation also came from the AP's president at the time, Robert McLean.

"The Associated Press profoundly regrets the distribution on Monday of the report of the total surrender in Europe which investigation now clearly discloses was distributed in advance of authorization by Supreme Allied Headquarters," he said in a public statement on May 10.

The AP's general manager, Kent Cooper, said Kennedy should have conferred with his editors about the decision to publish. Later, he addressed a letter to the reporter saying that he had violated a "cardinal principle" of journalism by breaking a pledge to keep the surrender confidential.

"No employee of the Associated Press has the right to disregard what is defined by the source as a pledge of confidence, when he knows that those who meant to impose it still hold it to be in force," he said in the letter, now part of the AP's corporate archives.

Other journalists defended Kennedy. In an essay in The New Yorker, published May 19, 1945, under the subhead "The AP Surrender," A.J. Liebling absolved Kennedy of breaking the "pledge" he had supposedly made aboard the aircraft flying to Reims.

"Whether a promise extorted as this one was, in an airplane several thousand feet up, has any moral force is a question for the theologians," Liebling wrote. "I suppose that Kennedy should have refused to promise anything and thus made sure of missing an event that no newspaperman in the world would want to miss, but I can't imagine any correspondent's doing it."

Wes Gallagher, the AP reporter who succeeded Kennedy in Europe and became the general manager in 1962, strongly supported his colleague and believed he had done the right thing.

Upon replacing Kennedy in Paris, Gallagher told the supreme commander of Allied forces, future president Dwight D. Eisenhower, that "If I'd been Kennedy, I'd have done the same thing — except that I'd have telephoned you first," according to an account by the late AP correspondent John Hightower.

After being fired by the AP, Kennedy took a job as managing editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press in California, and then went on to become publisher of the Monterey Peninsula Herald. He died at age 58 after being struck by an automobile.

Kennedy's family had held on to the manuscript for decades before his daughter, Cochran, began looking for a publisher.

She said that even though she was only 16 when her father died, she got the impression he still took great joy in his career, despite the episode.

"Some people said after the war, 'Oh, Ed Kennedy is a broken man. He's out there editing some little newspaper in California.' I think people had this idea that he was feeling sorry for himself. But he wasn't. He wasn't the kind of person who sat around and felt sorry."

Curley said he had become interested in Kennedy's story shortly after becoming AP's president, while helping with work on the company history "Breaking News: How The Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else," which described the firing. Kennedy's daughter approached him around the same time, asking for access to AP records. The publication of Kennedy's memoir prompted the AP's apology, Curley said.

He called Kennedy's dismissal "a great, great tragedy" and hailed him and the desk editors who put the surrender story on the wire for upholding the highest principles of journalism.

"They did the right thing," Curley said. "They stood up to power."