The Watson and Crick paper described the double helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which contains instructions - coded as a series of chemical "letters" - needed to build and operate every organism.

The human genome project is considered one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings, likened to splitting the atom or going to the Moon. But when it was launched in 1990, many were skeptical - not least because it was then thought it would cost about £2 billion and take until 2005.

In fact, the project has cost around £1.7 billion and published its first draft in June 2000, which covered 90 per cent of the gene-containing part - at an error rate of one in 1,000 "letters" - with more than 150,000 gaps.

Yesterday's "finished" sequence contains fewer than 400 gaps and 99 per cent of it has an accuracy rate of less than one error every 10,000 letters.

"Never would I have dreamed in 1953 that my scientific life would encompass the path from DNA's double helix to the three billion steps of the human genome," said Dr James Watson, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and first leader of the Human Genome Project.

"When the opportunity arose to sequence the human genome, I knew it was something that could be done - and that must be done. The completion of the Human Genome Project is a truly momentous occasion for every human."

When the project began, scientists had discovered fewer than 100 human disease genes. Today, more than 1,400 disease genes have been identified. Prof Allan Bradley, a director of Sanger Institute, said: "The health benefits could be phenomenal."

The US National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, has set out a series of "Grand Challenges" to energize the field, such as to understand the relationship between genomics, race and ethnicity. Another aim is to find new technologies that can read the entire genome of any person for less than £650, a challenge already being taken up by the company Solexa, which has come out of Cambridge University.

"We will begin to gain valuable new insights into human evolution, as well as human health and disease," said Dr Richard Gibbs, director of Baylor College of Medicine's Human Genome Sequencing Centre.

DNA Pub Honored
By Patricia Reaney 

CAMBRIDGE, England April 14, 2003 (Reuters) - If walls could talk, what a story the Eagle pub's would tell. 

From a 16th century coaching inn to a hang-out for British and American airman during World War II, Cambridge's most famous watering hole has played host to travelers, tradesmen, tourists and a fair share of academics and students. 

But its finest hour, and the one which has gone down in the history books, was on a winter day 50 years ago when two scientists working at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory burst through its door and announced that they had discovered the secret of life.

James Watson, a rangy 24-year-old American, and Briton Francis Crick, 36, had unraveled the three-dimensional structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, better known as DNA, the molecule that contained the human genetic code. 

It turned out to be the biggest scientific discovery of the 20th century, an achievement that set the stage for future advances in biology, medicine, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and forensics. 

So where better to reveal it than their favorite pub? 

"They came rushing in through this door," said Sian Crowther, the Eagle's current manager, pointing to a side entrance from the courtyard to one of the oldest parts of the 500-year-old building. "This was the first place that they actually announced it." 

FROM CARDBOARD CUT-OUTS TO HUMAN GENETICS 

Earlier that Saturday morning in late February in his laboratory, a stone's throw from the Eagle where he regularly lunched with Crick, Watson had shifted around cardboard cut-outs of the components of DNA, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, to work out how they fit together. When Crick arrived he knew the double helix model of DNA, resembling a twisted spiral staircase, was the answer and could eloquently explain how hereditary information is stored, replicated and passed on to the next generation. 

Watson has admitted that he thought Crick's announcement that day in the Eagle seemed a bit immodest, particularly in a country like England, known for its understatement. 

"I felt slightly queasy when at lunch Francis winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life," Watson wrote about that famous day. 

Half a century later it is evident that Crick was right. But it was not until their research was published in the science journal Nature on April 25, 1953, that the larger scientific community and the world became aware of the discovery. 

"A lot of people didn't realize the significance of what they had discovered," said Crowther. 

Nine years later they were awarded the Nobel Prize. 

To mark the golden anniversary of the discovery, Watson, now president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, will revisit his old stamping grounds for a series of celebrations in the quaint university city where it all happened. The Eagle pub will play a prominent role in the festivities when Watson is expected to unveil a plaque at the pub on April 25 to mark its role in the discovery.

BEST IS YET TO COME 

Tourists aware of its significance already make pilgrimages to down a beer, or something stronger, while sitting in its low-ceilinged, timbered rooms gazing through stained glass windows across Benet Street or out onto the side courtyard. 

"We get people coming specifically to the pub for the DNA connection," said Crowther, who is preparing for the dignitaries, academics and media who are expected to descend on the pub for Watson's anniversary visit. 

Academics and scientists still frequent the Eagle, just as Watson and Crick did, to drink, eat or to ponder their research and discuss its significance. 

"You just never know who is actually in here, the significance of it (their work) or what is going to come of it," Crowther said. 

With no blaring music or flashing, noisy game machines that are common in many British pubs, there is nothing to disturb people at the Eagle. 

"This pub is the social aspect of the Cavendish Laboratory, as it was then," said Dr David Applin, a scientist, author and Eagle regular. 

Back in 1953 few customers would have imagined that Watson and Crick had set the stage for the genetic revolution that could uncover the causes and potential cures of inherited diseases. 

Nor would they have known that the discovery would spark the creation of the biotechnology industry which today treats millions of people with drugs and vaccines derived from genetically engineered organisms. 

"It transformed biology, but much more than that it has the potential of transforming medicine and agriculture. There is a long, long way to go yet," Applin said. "A lot of this is long on hype at the moment in terms of what it will do. It's really only the early days yet." 

After peering down microscopes, constructing models or conducting experiments, Applin believes a pub such as the Eagle provides the ideal venue for discussion and debate, oiled by the appropriate lubricants, from which great ideas spring. 

"The data has to be discussed, has to integrated, has to be analyzed and has to be interpreted. All you need basically to do that is 1. a brain, 2. a pad and 3. a pencil, or a laptop, and where better to do it than in these sort of surroundings?" he said spreading his hands and gazing around the pub.

It was also associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME), a multi-billion ton eruption of electrified gas (plasma) into space. 

The tadpoles are mysterious in part because of their behavior. "In the vicinity of a solar flare associated with a CME, most matter is moving away from the solar surface, but the tadpoles move downward at initial speeds between 30 and 600 kilometers per second (about 19 to 373 miles/sec.), something you don't expect," said Dr. David McKenzie of Montana State University - Bozeman, who has observed these features many times before at lower resolution with the Soft X-ray Telescope on board the Japanese Yohkoh spacecraft. 

TRACE observes ultraviolet light from iron atoms in solar plasma at two temperatures: 1.5 million degrees Celsius (2.7 million Fahrenheit) and 10 million degrees Celsius (18 million Fahrenheit). Theories explaining the tadpoles included the possibilities that they were dense blobs of plasma, with a different temperature than what TRACE could detect, that absorbed ultraviolet light from plasma behind them or that they were voids with hardly any ultraviolet-emitting plasma in them. 

While both circumstances would create dark regions in TRACE images, the new data, coordinated with observations from other spacecraft, have now convinced scientists that the tadpoles are superheated magnetic voids in the plasma. The voids are formed when magnetic fields that lace the solar atmosphere reconnect and snap back to the surface following a flare and CME. According to the analysis presented today, the tadpoles appear dark simply because there is very little material in them. 

"Imagine a hot-air balloon lifting off the ground and stretching elastic tethers placed over its top," said McKenzie. "The tethers are like the solar magnetic field, and the balloon represents the CME. As the balloon rises, the elastic tethers stretch, get pulled together, and start to tangle underneath the balloon. If the tethers were to behave like solar magnetic fields, instead of simply breaking, broken tethers would reconnect to other broken tethers, forming new connections (magnetic reconnection)." 

"If this tangling and reconnection goes on long enough, pieces of elastic tethers that are connected to the ground (the solar surface) connect to other 'grounded' segments, and subsequently snap back down to the ground. Their snapping downwards gives the tadpoles a downward motion, as the stretched magnetic fields relax to form long rows of arches called arcades. Pieces connected to the balloon get tied to other 'balloon-connected' segments and are carried off as magnetic fields embedded in the CME." 

Apparently, the tadpoles are reconnected magnetic tubes, seen in cross section. The tube's magnetic pressure temporarily keeps the surrounding hot plasma out, forming a void. With very little or no plasma inside the tubes, there is no ultraviolet emission there, and they appear as dark blobs (tadpoles) when seen in cross section. After the reconnection, the magnetic tubes shrink away from the departing CME. As the tubes move downward, the voids gradually fill with hot plasma from underneath and disappear. 

TRACE is able to take more detailed pictures faster, allowing scientists to better characterize the behavior of the tadpoles. "No one knows exactly how magnetic reconnection works. The TRACE observations give us constraints, which allow us to select from among many competing theories," said Deluca. 

"Improved understanding of magnetic reconnection will help us better understand when a highly-magnetized region of the Sun will suddenly erupt as a flare or CME," added Deluca. 

Other members of the TRACE team include lead author Mr. Fenwick Cooper, a Ph.D. student at the University of Warwick, The United Kingdom, Prof. Valery Nakariakov, also of the University of Warwick, and Dr. Dan Seaton of SAO.

TRACE homepage - http://vestige.lmsal.com/TRACE

"The right talent from Marine Corps' Warfighting Lab, Naval Research Lab, Naval Post Graduate School, the Office of Naval Research, various defense contractors, and university researchers converged at ACR to rapidly make happen what absolutely had to happen," said Anthony Mulligan, CEO of Advanced Ceramics Research. 

Built as a small tactical UAV, Silver Fox's 6-foot long fuselage, detachable 8-foot wide wings, and tail fins fit into a super-sized golf bag. Weighing only 20 pounds and powered by a model plane engine, Silver Fox can soar upwards of 1,000 feet.

Equipped with state-of-the-art "eyes in the sky" camera technology, it flies autonomously using Global Position Satellite (GPS) as one of its navigational systems--making this a true hands-off aircraft. 

Launched using a small compressed air powered launcher, Silver Fox employs high tech "eyes" and relays information instantaneously to a remote laptop computer providing intelligence for advancing Marines. It has a flight endurance of several hours that enables it to cover large areas of territory, uses combat aircraft avoidance protocols, and also has the payload capacity for other small, state-of-the-art detection systems.

"Its size, portability, and aerial capabilities make it a tactical level leaders' clear cut option to gather battlefield intelligence," said Chief of Naval Research Rear Admiral Jay Cohen. 

The Office of Naval Research and the ACR's response within a month resulted in the ability to provide operational systems to the Marine Corps to supplement needed reconnaissance capabilities in combat.

"We sent an ONR team into the theater to deploy the Silver Fox following its transition from the original design," said Captain John Hobday, a naval reservist and director of Tech Solutions.

Regarding its current mission, Rear Admiral Cohen said, "Silver Fox was designed to spot whales in operating areas to keep them out of harms way before conducting naval exercises. It's now being tasked to help our Marines on the ground."

The findings are to be presented at the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting in Dublin. Details will also be revealed of how Bronze Age stone circles in Ulster relate to both the Sun and the Moon. Archaeologists believe there could have been separate lunar and solar traditions, possibly at different times in history. 

But Professor Clive Ruggles, of the University of Leicester, said great care was needed in interpreting them. 

"Just because a monument is aligned in a direction that we would be tempted to interpret as astronomically significant, such as the direction of sunrise or sunset on one of the solstices, this might not have been intentional," he said. 

He believes the study of astronomical alignments gives an insight into how people comprehended the world in the past. 

"The builders were not 'astronomers' in the sense that we would mean it today, but celestial objects and cycles were important to them in keeping their own lives in harmony with their world," he explained.

Because the buoyant vapor bubbles are lighter than the liquid, they rise to the top of the tube, where they are cooled by a fan and condensed back into a liquid. The cool liquid then flows into the parallel tube and descends, creating a self-sustaining flow that eventually re-enters the microchannel plate and starts all over again.

"We were surprised to see that the dielectric liquid forms really miniature bubbles, so they slip through really fast," Mudawar said. "The bubbles don't block the flow, as you would expect."

The researchers found that the system was 5.7 times better at removing heat than existing miniature pumpless liquid-cooling systems. 

"This is only a starting point, and much better performance might be possible," Mudawar said.

Future research will focus on testing various designs to see which configurations work best.

"Now that we have a system that we know will work, we are going to test different geometries that will be beneficial to industry," said Mudawar, director of the Purdue University International Electronic Cooling Alliance. The alliance brings together researchers from industry, government agencies and Purdue to design cooling systems for applications ranging from personal computers to spacecraft.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

It has produced no evidence to substantiate these claims. 

Meanwhile, controversial reproductive scientist Panayiotis Zavos has published a picture of what he claims is "the first human cloned embryo for reproductive purposes". 

The majority of scientists agree that attempts to clone a human baby are dangerous and misguided. Many cloned animals have been born ill or deformed and successful births are few and far between.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine used the method pioneered on Dolly the sheep to try to clone rhesus macaque monkeys. They were unable to establish a single pregnancy after hundreds of attempts. Other groups have also tried and failed to clone monkeys. 

The obstacle appears to be something to do with the way genetic material is parceled up as a cell splits into two during embryonic development. Cells end up with too much, or too little DNA, and cannot survive. It suggests that attempts to clone other primates, even humans, may be doomed to failure. 

"This reinforces the fact that the charlatans who claim to have cloned humans have never understood enough cell or developmental biology (to succeed)," team leader Dr Gerald Schatten told the journal Science.

According to Ruiz, “the Staff God, also known as Dios de los Baculos, is an iconic motif with a long and broad history throughout several Andean cultures. This deity figure is commonly shown in a frontal view, with a fanged mouth and splayed and clawed feet. Snakes are often part of the figure’s headdress or integrated into its garments. Most commonly, the deity is depicted holding a staff in one or both hands, hence the name.”

The incised and painted image on the newly found gourd fragment, while simple and archaic in style, clearly has fangs and splayed feet. Its left arm appears to end in a snake’s head, and its right hand holds a staff.

A similar incised and painted drawing on a second gourd fragment from a nearby cemetery represents the same or a similar figure.

The figures were found in the Patavilca River Valley, one of four coastal valleys that make up the Norte Chico region of the Peruvian coast.

This region was densely populated between 2600 B.C. and 2000 B.C. and appears to have been the ancestral home of Andean civilization that culminated 3500 years later in the Inca.

“To date, 26 major centers have been recorded in the Norte Chico region, all with monumental architecture, large-scale ceremonial structures, and complex residential and administrative architecture,” Creamer says. “It is a truly unique concentration of settlements anywhere in the Americas.”

All the sites lack pottery, which was introduced on the Peruvian coast about 1900 B.C. 

As part of a long-term project focused on the Norte Chico preceramic, the 2002 fieldwork was designed to extract radiocarbon dates, gain information on the construction of the various platform mounds, and make preliminary collections at two cemeteries east of the modern town of Barranca.

Both gourd fragments were found at these cemeteries, which today stand as large stone outcrops covered with windblown sand.

[They worshipped Felix the Cat?? Ed.]

Faith (Eliza Dushku) rejoins the Scoobies as they fight the final Big Bad. The series finale will be a two-hour episode, so you tapers out there should be able to fit all five on one VHS reel.

According to Dark Horizons, David Boreanaz (Angel) added to the Superman and Batman rumors at a "talk to college students in LA last week".

According to DH, Boreanaz has not yet heard back about his Superman audition, which contradicts what he said in an E! Online interview when he quelled the rumors a month ago.

DH also confirms that discussions were held about Boreanaz becoming Batman, but no script yet. Boreanaz also said that there would be major changes in the cast of Angel next year if the show is picked up for a fifth season.

DH said that Angel will appear in the last two episodes of Buffy.

Hollywood Reporter says that Buffy's Nick Brendon has signed for a Fox pilot called "The Pool at Maddy Breakers". It's a comedy, which sounds like a good direction for Nick.

Buffy - http://www.buffy.com

Angel is here: http://www.thewb.com/Shows/Show/0,7353,||139,00.html

And rabid fans who want to join a campaign to renew Angel can go to http://www.renewangel.com

Dark Horizons - http://www.darkhorizons.com

Platinum Spins!
By FLAtRich

Hollywood April 15, 2003 (eXoNews) - What does my boney White ass know about rap and hip-hop? Absolutely nuthin'. That's the truth, but I can say that Platinum, UPN's last best hope, is good TV.

Platinum dazed me. I didn't think the concept looked good on paper and I didn't expect to be impressed, but I was completely won over by the second half-hour of "Flow", Platinum's premiere episode.

Platinum uses a tried and true TV formula. It's a Western in disguise - the big cattle baron, Nick Tashjian (Tony Nardi) of Gray Star Media is trying to buy out Jackson and Grady Rhames (Jason George and Sticky Fingaz), the fiercely independent ranchers of Sweetback Entertainment. Sweetback is also fighting for water rights with a neighboring ranch, Conflict Entertainment, and its owner Max (N'Bushe Wright). There are gunfighters and other bads along the trail, with everyone competing for the mighty dollar in the wild, wild East of New York's record business.

Fortunately, any clichés haunting Platinum are overridden by an incredibly likeable cast of talented and relatively new faces. The close camerawork and sparse sets in "Flow" betray a low budget for the opening, but the video-style quick-cut editing worked 100% of the time. The music sounded good to me - like I said, I'm no expert - and it was a grand relief from the post-new wave power pop that has infected everything else on TV for the last decade.

When I say relatively new faces, I should say new to TV. Sticky Fingaz, originally part of the group Onyx, showed up on the big screen in Spike Lee's Clockers and has been making movies ever since. Jason George, A.K.A Jason Winston George, has done his share of TV guesting (including UPN shows like Moesha and Roswell) and movies like Barbershop and Clockstoppers.

I humbly predict that the big winner from Platinum will be Lalanya Masters, who was a real standout in "Flow" as Jackson's wife Monica. Miss Masters stole the screen every time she appeared. Watch this lady! She's a star!

Vishiss (A.K.A. Seth Holland) was also effectively evil as the White rapper VersIs. I gotta say that I didn't know a White boy could be so ugleee! Wow! And he's after sexy little sister Jade Rhames (Davetta Sherwood) too!

Speaking of White guys, the only folks who got shot and beat up in Platinum's premiere were White. Well, maybe that's some sort of frontier justice, ain't it?

Platinum airs Tuesdays at 9PM/8c on UPN.

Official Platinum web site - http://www.upn.com/shows/platinum

Katherine Heigl and Roswell
By FLAtRich

Hollywood April 14, 2003 (eXoNews) - Katherine Heigl (Isabel in Roswell), who stars in "Love Comes Softly" with Skye McCole Bartusiak and Dale Midkiff on the Hallmark Channel this month, has been cast in "Vegas Dick", a UPN fall series. Katherine will play a casino owner's daughter in the show, produced by 20th Century Fox.

A serious campaign for a Roswell movie is underway at http://roswellmovie.net.

You can sign the Roswell movie petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/mlmovie/petition.html. Roswell co-star John Doe (Liz's father in the show) was quoted recently on Dark Horizons, saying that the movie was a reality, so Roswell fans should sign up now! The petition currently has 19,346 signatures. 

Sci Fi Channel aired all three seasons of Roswell in the last few months and started again with Season One at 6 PM weeknights. [Man, that finale was cool! I really want to know what happened to those kids! Ed.]

The Hallmark Channel - http://www.hallmarkchannel.com

Roswell - http://www.crashdown.com

Sci Fi Channel Roswell site - http://www.scifi.com/roswell

P. Diddy Does Robert Johnson
By Zorianna Kit

Hollywood April 11, 2003 (Hollywood Reporter) - Sean "P. Diddy" Combs will star as blues musician Robert Johnson in the HBO Films feature "Love in Vain," which Tim Blake Nelson will helm. Production begins in September in Mississippi.

Written by Alan Greenberg, the project is about Johnson, considered one of most influential Delta bluesman even though he died at age 27 and only recorded 29 songs, including "Crossroads," "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Terraplane Blues" and "Love in Vain." Jeff Abelson is executive producing. Sources said Greenberg and Nelson also are producing.

Nelson, repped by UTA, the Firm and attorney Marc Glick and Steve Breimer, has directed such films as "The Grey Zone" and "O." Combs has had supporting roles in the films "Monster's Ball" and "Made."

Yoko Remix Hits Top 10 

NEW YORK April 14, 2003 (AP) - Yoko Ono may not fit the stereotype of a typical dance music artist, but she likes the fact that anything goes when it comes to dance music. 

Seventy-year-old Ono's song, "Walking On Thin Ice," from the "Double Fantasy" album, has been remixed and the single is in the top ten of the dance music charts. Ono says when she heard the remixes, she was so touched she cried. It was the song she and former husband John Lennon had been working on the night that he was shot in New York City in 1980. 

The song is in the top 40 in national singles sales. 

Yoko Ono goes by just Ono on the track, and she says it's her way of confronting all those people who see her and joke, "Oh no!" 

She says that she also confronted being called "Dragon Lady" by referring to herself as that. Now she says, no one calls her that anymore. 

Ono has been involved in painting, drawing, sculpting, photography and film for more than 40 years. "Yes Yoko Ono," a retrospective of her paintings, sculpture, music and memorabilia of her peace efforts with Lennon, exhibited in seven cities two years ago.

Capitol Records' Ono site  - http://capitolrecords.com/yokoono

Get Full Ice-T Album for $4.99! 
By Chris Marlowe 

Hollywood April 10, 2003 (Hollywood Reporter) - Ice-T will begin making his latest album available on the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing network today. He has signed a deal with Altnet that covers the album "Repossession" by his group Sex Money & Gunz as well as an additional 16 unnamed Ice-T audio or video files.

Fans have anticipated the album since the band recorded a live-performance DVD more than a year ago. Altnet will use its TopSearch technology to make the album available for purchased download by anyone using the Kazaa Media Desktop software.

The offer, all 19 tracks for $4.99, is featured on the start page. Once in distribution between peers, however, Altnet files appear in the search results as gold icons that launch the purchase application.

Kazaa - http://www.kazaa.com

Lucky Draws High on FX

LOS ANGELES April 9, 2003 (Zap2it.com) - The premiere of FX's new dark comedy "Lucky" drew decent ratings Tuesday, providing a good start to the cable network's quest to build on the success of "The Shield."

"Lucky," which stars John Corbett ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding" ) as a gambling addict trying to get his life together in Las Vegas, drew 2.5 million viewers to its 10 p.m. ET premiere Tuesday (April 8). About 70 percent of those viewers were in FX's target demographic of adults 18-49.

FX says it's "extremely pleased" with the show's performance, both in terms of overall performance and demographics. Critics gave it mostly positive reviews.

A repeat of the premiere at 10:30 p.m. drew an additional 1.3 million viewers. The cumulative total of 3.8 million viewers for the hour is about equal to the audience for the season finale of "The Shield" the week before.

FX is looking to build its slate of original series and movies. "Nip/Tuck," a show about plastic surgeons, is scheduled for a summer premiere, and the original movie "44 Minutes" is also set for summer.

Official Lucky site - http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/lucky/main.html

Stan Winston Wants Apocalypse 
By John Gaudiosi 

Hollywood April 14, 2003 (Hollywood Reporter) - Stan Winston wants to bring "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" to a theater and a toy store near you in the near future. Winston, the Oscar-winning visual effects artist and seminal creature creator, continues to delve deeper into the video game realm by optioning feature film and action-figure rights to 3DO's entirely new Mature-rated video game franchise "Apocalypse."

"I've been developing creatures and characters for 30 years," Winston said. "And today I'm no longer limiting it to movies because the line has been blurred -- comics, toys, video games and movies are all enjoyed by the same audience."

He picked up the feature film option for the video game franchise through his Stan Winston Prods. In addition, he will bring a line of "Apocalypse" action figures to retail this Halloween through his Stan Winston Creatures. 

Actor John Carradine Honored 

OKLAHOMA CITY April 13, 2003 (AP) - The sons of actor John Carradine serenaded the audience and reminisced about their late father as he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers. 

Actors David, Keith and Robert Carradine strummed guitars and sang "Amazing Grace" at the celebrity-laced 42nd annual Western Heritage Awards at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum on Saturday. 

John Carradine acted on stage, film and television for more than 60 years, appearing in more than 500 films.

He performed Shakespeare and horror movies, but films such as "Stagecoach" and "Jesse James" secured his induction into the Western performers hall.

Carradine died in 1988 at the age of 82. 

"We all wish he was here to see this, because it would bring tears to his eyes," David Carradine said.

Learn more about Hollywood's golden years at http://darkhollywood.com

The Smothers Brothers Are Back!
By Ray Richmond

LOS ANGELES April 14, 2003 (Hollywood Reporter) - Those Democratic Party Brahmins who are out trying to round up liberal voices to take up the fight against conservatives in the talk radio and TV spin wars might want to check out the Smothers Brothers show next month when the duo heads to Sin City for a month long stand at the Las Vegas Hilton. 

The Smothers Brothers, those paragons of Vietnam-era mischief, are back in the national consciousness and ready to volunteer for the task of evening up the political scales a bit. 

Not that Tom Smothers, 66, and his brother Dick, 64, have never really gone away. They have consistently made a living at their gently whimsical brand of music and comedy for 44 years running and continue to play upwards of 100 dates a year. But there have been unmistakable signs that -- with the nation embroiled in a military conflict in a faraway land -- the boys are becoming especially relevant again. 

It started in December with the acclaimed Bravo documentary "Smothered," which recounted their tumultuous journey on network television back in the late 1960s. (It was released on DVD in January.) They've been doing the TV talk show circuit, and they launch a four-week headlining gig at the Las Vegas Hilton on May 6. And there's talk of a deal to package uncensored episodes of their landmark CBS variety series "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" on video. 

It was, of course, on that groundbreaking 1967-69 CBS series that they rocketed to prominence. Their benign appearance and mild manner belied an edgy, topical sensibility that perfectly dovetailed with the tumult of the late 1960s.

The hour grew into a somewhat unwitting mouthpiece for the Vietnam antiwar movement, with establishment CBS caught in the middle. 

And now, as war and free speech issues again rage, here come Tom and Dick -- once more, with feeling. 

"The war kind of fell into our laps in the '60s, and now it is again," Tom Smothers says. "It's feeling like 1968 all over again. People are questioning the patriotism and Americanism of those who speak out. We all suddenly have to watch what we say." 

In other words, it's the perfect time for a Smothers rebirth. 

"This past year has been very exciting for us," Tom Smothers admits. "There's suddenly a lot of interest in what we do. People have this nostalgic feeling for us. We're historical. But I hope that audiences are also starting to figure out that we remain very contemporary, too. We're better than we've ever been. What we're finding now is that if you stick around long enough, people will eventually rediscover you. That wouldn't happen, though, if we were a tired old act." 

Certainly, the brothers' opposition to the war remains in peak form. 

"How ludicrous it is for us to be bombing Iraq," says Dick Smothers, the self-styled more conservative of the brothers. "Those are beautiful people in that country who happen to have a (expletive) government. So we're going to accidentally kill a lot of them as punishment." 

While the latest incarnation of the Smothers Brothers act has little to do with antiwar crusading, they feel like their style is more timely than ever on a TV dial packed with right-wing pundits and zealots. 

"Maybe it's an antiquated notion, but Dickie and I still feel it's our job to question power and authority," Tom Smothers says. "We're proud of the way celebrities like Michael Moore, Bill Maher, George Carlin, Martin Sheen and others have gotten up to speak their mind and jeopardize their careers with their beliefs. It takes great courage to do what these men are doing. And every one of them is as informed as any of the (expletive) talking heads they have on these cable shows who bash celebrity while ignoring their own." 

Some guys clearly just don't realize that with age is supposed to come a certain mellowing.

The Smothers Brothers Official Site - http://www.smothersbrothers.com