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Mills & Boon team up with Rugby Football Union to publish series of books

"Oh my God." Her hand covered her mouth. She glanced at him in desperate panic. "They filmed me kissing you. And it's up on the giant screens." Her voice rose, her cheeks were scarlet, and her reluctant glance towards the stadium ended in a moan of disbelief. "Oh God, I can't believe this ... and my hair is all over the place and my bottom looks huge, and - everyone is looking." His eyes on the pitch, Prince Casper watched with cool detachment as his friend, the England captain, hit a post with a drop-goal attempt. "More importantly, you just cost England three points."Rugby and romance are perhaps not the most obvious of combinations, but one that the world's biggest romance publisher, Mills & Boon, and the Rugby Football Union believe will bear fruit. The pair have teamed up to publish a series of books featuring tall, dark and handsome rugby heroes - minus cauliflower ears - and their glamorous love interests."Our mission statement is to do for rugby what Jilly Cooper did for polo - to give it an air of sexiness and glitz and glamour," said series editor Jenny Hutton. "You don't have to like rugby to like the books," added Clare Somerville, Mills & Boon's sales and marketing director. "They've got all the elements of a quintessential Mills & Boon romance: jet-set locations, hunky alpha male heroes and hot sex, but in a rugby context."Information on the rules of rugby for the non "rugby savvy", along with tips on what to wear at matches, will also be included, she said.The RFU International Billionaires series launches with The Prince's Waitress Wife - in which one sex scene takes place in the president's suite at Twickenham - on 1 February, just before the start of the RBS Six Nations Championships. In a later title, The Ruthless Billionaire's Virgin, the heroine stands in to sing the national anthem, only to suffer a "wardrobe malfunction" from which she is saved by the chivalrous hero.But readers should not expect guest appearances from real-life players such as Lawrence Dallaglio. "We made a decision early doors that that wasn't going to happen," said Jane Barron, licensing and marketing manager at the RFU. "There are no real people - it's all imaginary."? Can you do better? Write your own at guardian.co.uk/books/booksblogFictionRugby unionNewspapers & magazinesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The great Haydn road trip

Joseph Haydn's problem is that he didn't die young or go deaf. He survived until he was 77 and seems to have led a largely blameless life, give or take the odd mistress. Film-makers are unlikely to make a Haydn biopic. There is the additional complication that he didn't write Don Giovanni or the Choral Symphony, but he did write the Creation, the Seasons, 15 operas, 106 mould-breaking symphonies, 70 pioneering string quartets, 45 piano trios, and 51 piano sonatas that are more than a match for Mozart and pointed the way to Beethoven, as well as the tune for the German national anthem.It is a formidable oeuvre, but still Haydn lives in the shadow of Mozart and Beethoven. His critics would say he was the faceless producer of immensely polished music, a relic of an aristocratic age. Other great composers have what might be called a signature: there is Bach's serenity, Mozart's ethereal perfection, Beethoven's grandeur, Schubert's lyricism, Wagner's transcendent musical climaxes. Haydn is more elusive. With the possible exception of the Creation, his late choral masterpiece, there is no defining work. Everything is extraordinary. Or, the sceptics might say, none of it is extraordinary.His admirers hope that the celebrations planned for this year, the bicentenary of his death, will put those sceptics to flight. For a start, Radio 3 will be playing all 104 of Haydn's numbered symphonies (there are two others, wrongly catalogued as string quartets), two a week starting tomorrow morning. I have never really engaged with the symphonies, finding the few I have heard formulaic compared with, say, Beethoven's epic constructions. So I set myself a challenge: to listen to the symphonies in their entirety, over a fortnight rather than a year. I plan to start at Haydn's birthplace in Rohrau, close to the point at which Austria, Hungary and Slovakia meet, and I will be lugging around a small suitcase filled with Haydn CDs. I am not one of the iPod generation and stick to a portable CD player. In the taxi to Rohrau from the little Austrian town of Hainburg, where Haydn studied music as a child, the radio is playing Supertramp's Breakfast in America. The thatched farmhouse in which Haydn was born is well kept, and the two-page guide describes it as "one of Austria's most significant memorials". But no one else arrives during my two-hour stay, and the last entry in the visitors' book was made four days previously. I listen to Haydn's Symphony No 5 on a small bench beside the room in which he was born - very moving.The following day, I travel to Eisenstadt in southern Austria - "Haydnstadt", as it is nicknamed. This was the principal seat of Haydn's patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, and there are traces of the composer everywhere. I would have stayed in the Haydn hotel, but it is closed for Christmas. Large letters on a wall and a huge arrow point to the Haydn café, but the establishment is long gone. However, I do manage a vast Wiener Schnitzel in the Haydnbräu restaurant.Haydn was originally buried in Vienna, but the Esterházy family felt they owned him in death, as in life, and, in 1820, had him dug up and brought to Eisenstadt. It was discovered that the skull was missing, Haydn's head having been stolen by a servant when he died. The skull was eventually passed to the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna, and the parts were not reunited until 1954.A funeral is just ending when I reach the Bergkirche, but an attendant opens the mausoleum for me to gaze at Haydn's marble tomb. She also introduces me to Josef Bauer, a music teacher who has been organist at the Bergkirche for 32 years. He takes me up to the organ loft, shows me the organ Haydn himself played, and plays the benedictus from Haydn's Little Organ Mass and the hymn from the "Emperor" string quartet which evolved into Deutschland Uber Alles. Is it a responsibility, playing Haydn's own organ, with the composer entombed below? "Of course," he says. "Sometimes I think he must be spinning."All my Haydn-spotting means I have barely started on the symphonies. Nos 6, 7 and 8, his first symphonies for the Esterházy family, are delightful concerto-like works with the deftness and transparency of chamber music. Once he had access to Esterházy's excellent orchestra, he quickly got to know his players and wrote sinuous solos for the principals. Haydn's romantic critics saw patronage as enslavement, but it offered him financial security and artistic freedom. The Esterházys supplied a splendid concert hall in Eisenstadt, and two small opera houses in the palace of Eszterháza, the family's summer home in present-day Hungary. While Mozart starved, Haydn drew his salary, and made music in extraordinarily user-friendly conditions. Of course, listening to the symphonies back to back is not very sensible. The finales all sound the same, though the slow movements rarely disappoint; among the early symphonies, the adagio of No 13 is especially gorgeous. Adam Fischer, whose recordings I am principally relying on, tells me when I meet him a few days later that while occasional movements can be routine, every symphony has some spark of genius. But he warns me not to set too much store by his recordings of the later (and best known) symphonies, which he recorded first and feels are the weakest of the set. "By the time I got halfway through I wanted to start again."Fischer, the only living conductor to have recorded all the Haydn symphonies, can chart his life by them. "My daughter went to school with No 35; my son did his final school exams with 82; my niece got married with 32, had a baby with 41 and got divorced with 53." Another Hungarian, the late Antal Doráti, was the first to complete the marathon, but three other conductors - Roy Goodman, Christopher Hogwood and Bruno Weil - abandoned the project, thwarted by disappointing sales. At the record shop in Eisenstadt, the owner says Haydn holds his own here; elsewhere in Austria, he is outsold 10 to 1 by Mozart and Beethoven. I am beginning to feel sorry for this marginalised genius - and for myself, as I plough on into the 40s (though No 49, "La Passione", is magnificent). Can the Haydn problem ever be solved? Will Haydn-Jahr, which is being loudly proclaimed in Eisenstadt, do the job? "It's a terrific opportunity," says musicologist Denis McCaldin, who has been director of the Haydn Society of Great Britain for 30 years. "In a recent Classic FM poll of favourite composers, Haydn wasn't even in the first 10 - that's telling. He doesn't come at you with complete charm, even though he was a wonderfully charming man. His work is extremely rich, but you have to know it a bit."McCaldin suggests listening to one symphony from each phase: the early works; the Sturm und Drang period (from No 39 to those in the upper 60s); the later, more expansive symphonies composed for larger orchestras. "Choose the ones with nicknames," he advises, "because nearly always the nickname is about something interesting, like the Philosopher [No 22] or the Horn Signal [no 31], with four horns blasting away - it's great fun." I travel on to Vienna, where the degree to which Mozart eclipses the man he called "Papa Haydn" is palpable. Everywhere there is Mozartiana - shopping bags, T-shirts, postcards, mugs, plates, ashtrays. Haydn is lucky to get the odd tiny faux-marble bust. It all seems grossly unfair, given that Haydn helped mould the modern symphony, taking the Italian overture and investing it with new power and structural ingenuity, constantly widening its scope and thus preparing the way for Beethoven and the romantics. The latter, especially Berlioz, repaid Haydn by instantly consigning him to history. A key part of the Haydn problem is his musical style. "Sometimes Haydn writes pretty things," says the conductor Roger Norrington, "but on the whole, like Beethoven, he doesn't write the greatest tunes. Mozart's the tunesmith. Haydn's world is embattled, and that's where Beethoven got his music from. Beethoven got his music from Haydn, not from Mozart." In the wrong hands, Norrington says, Haydn can sound lifeless. "He is enormously challenging - another reason why he gets a raw deal. Mozart is very sexy, very warm; Haydn less so. People call him intellectual, which he isn't really, but he's very hard to perform. The andantes are often played too slowly; you have to be able to feel you can move to them, perhaps dance to them. The audience in the 18th century listened to music with their feet. Get all that right and then you have to add your interpretation. The cornflakes are there and they're delicious, but you have to provide the cream and sugar. It's funny and it's tragic and it's terrific. If you're bored with Haydn, shoot the conductor."Haydn has been accused of lacking emotion, but Fischer rejects that charge. "It's stupid to call Haydn emotionless. This is very lively music, and you have to laugh and weep and show all your emotions. Much more than in Tchaikovsky, yet we think that Tchaikovsky is emotional and Haydn is elegant." Fischer stresses Haydn's humanity. "It's not holy music, it's like you and me; it's very human and shows very normal feelings. More so than Beethoven. I feel better as a person and better in my life when I play Haydn. All art is about searching for answers about what happens after death. Haydn is the one who says, 'I don't have the answer, but it's good, so who cares?'"As I write, Haydn's Symphony No 93, the first of his 12 London symphonies - composed during two lengthy visits to England in the 1790s - is playing. The "Surprise", "Miracle", "Clock" and "Drumroll" still await me; Haydn saved the best till last, writing these in his 60s. Listening to 106 symphonies in a fortnight is probably an insult to him. As McCaldin says, far better to get to know half a dozen than skim the lot. But something seems to have registered, because today I went out and spent my Christmas vouchers on Paul McCreesh's recording of the Creation and René Jacobs' disc of the Seasons. I've also bought the late Richard Hickox's acclaimed eight-disc set of the complete masses. It seems my symphonic odyssey was just a beginning. Happy Haydn-Jahr! The essential symphoniesNos 6, 7 and 8 Hanover Band/GoodmanHyperion HeliosGood examples of Roy Goodman's intensely dramatic style.Nos 30, 53 and 69; 31, 59 and 63 Vienna Concentus Musicus/HarnoncourtWarner ApexThere's real lightness and humour in this selection.Nos 43, 44, 49, 52, 59 Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orch/Fischer NimbusDeeply expressive slow movements and bracingly athletic faster ones.Nos 82-87Philharmonia Hungarica/DorátiDecca (two CDs)Years ahead of its time even in the early 1970s. Brisk playing and crisp textures.Nos 88-92Berlin Phil/RattleEMIRattle's energising approach pays dividends.The London Symphonies(Nos 93-104)Orchestra of the 18th Century/BrüggenPhilipsThese performances of Haydn's last and grandest symphonies are fabulously satisfying.Andrew Clements? Radio 3's broadcast of all Haydn's symphonies begins tomorrow morning with Symphony No 1, and will continue on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. The final movement of Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony will be performed in today's New Year's Day concert from Vienna on Radio 3 and BBC2.Classical music and operaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Conservative radio hosts continue to promote discredited claim that Obama has yet to prove he was born in the U.S.

In recent days, several radio hosts, including Brian Sussman, Mark Davis (filling in for Rush Limbaugh), Lars Larson, Bob Grant, Jim Quinn, and Rose Tennent have promoted the discredited claim that President-elect Barack Obama has not produced a valid birth certificate and is not eligible for the presidency because he is not a natural-born citizen. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, the Obama campaign has posted a copy of Obama's birth certificate on its Fight the Smears website and reportedly provided the original to FactCheck.org, whose staff concluded in an August 21 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." A Hawaii Health Department official also reportedly confirmed to PolitiFact.com that the birth certificiate Obama's campaign posted on the Fight the Smears website is valid, proving he was born in the state of Hawaii. Further, as Media Matters has also noted, the Hawaii Department of Health released a statement on October 31 by Health Department director Chiyome Fukino, in which Fukino confirmed that "the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." Examples of radio hosts continuing to push the debunked claim about Obama's birth certificate and citizenship include the following: Mark Davis: While filling in for Rush Limbaugh on the December 1 edition of Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio program, Davis spoke with a caller who discussed several lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility for the presidency on the grounds of what Davis called "the pesky birth certificate issue." Davis said: "One would think that a presentation of the actual birth certificate, which is in a vault in Honolulu somewhere. ... If it could settle this, why not present it? That is a very, very good question." Lars Larson: During the December 1 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Larson said: "[A]s to the president-elect's birth certificate, I'm not satisfied yet, either. But I'm not sure we're ever gonna see the proof that he's constitutionally qualified to have run, so we may have to accept the outcome and just figure that we'll fix it on the next election." Bob Grant: While filling in for Mark Levin on the November 28 broadcast of Levin's nationally syndicated radio program, Grant discussed a lawsuit filed by Alan Keyes, which alleges that Obama has not proven that he is a natural-born citizen and attempts to bar the California electors from meeting to cast their Electoral College votes. Grant said: "I'm not saying it's true that he's not really a native-born American citizen. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that people like Alan Keyes do believe that because he hasn't been able to produce the valid birth certificate, he is -- he is hiding something. ... Will anything come of this? I don't think so. But it is disturbing that when you say, well, you could end the conjecture by just producing the proof. And the proof is not produced. And then, of course, there are many of us who say, well, it's too late. No, the Constitution's very clear." Additionally, during the December 1 edition of San Francisco radio station KSFO's The Lee Rodgers Show, guest host Brian Sussman introduced audio of an interview of the Kenyan ambassador to the United States, Peter N.R.O. Ogego, by Mike Clark, Trudi Daniels, and Marc Fellhauer of Detroit radio station WRIF by saying: "So, again, here are these morning show guys, talking to this official from Kenya. And, hmm, this Kenyan official lets something slip out of the bag. Sounds to me like Barack was born in Kenya. Sounds to me like everybody there knows it. Here. You listen to the conversation for yourself." Sussman then aired the following audio: CLARK: We want to congratulate you on -- on Barack Obama, our new president, and you must be very proud. OGEGO: We are. CLARK: Yes. OGEGO: We are. We are also proud of the U.S. for having made history as well. FELLHAUER: Hey, one more quick question. Obama -- President-elect Obama's birthplace over in Kenya, is that gonna be a national spot to go visit, where he was born? OGEGO: It's already an attraction. FELLHAUER: Yeah? OK. OGEGO: His -- his paternal grandmother is still alive, and --. FELLHAUER: But his birthplace, they'll be -- they'll put up a marker there? OGEGO: It would depend on the government. It's already well known. Moments after playing the audio of the Ogego interview, Sussman commented: "Everybody knows it. His -- his maternal grandmother's still alive. It'll be up to the government to decide if a marker needs to be placed there. Now, this government official later -- no, no, no, I was misquoted, I was misquoted. No, we just heard you, sir. He said he was referring to Barack Obama's birth father, and where he was born -- where the dad was born." Indeed, according to a November 26 article on the right-wing website WorldNetDaily.com, Ogego said that Clark and Fellhauer were "circulating misinformation." According to the WorldNetDaily.com article, Ogego said of WRIF: "They asked me about Obama's father, not Obama ... This is common-sense knowledge. Nobody is fooling anybody." The WorldNetDaily.com article also reported that "WRIF's Mike Clark told WND the show never manipulated the audio recording in any way." Later in the broadcast, Sussman said of Obama's announcement of Sen. Hillary Clinton as Obama's secretary of state: "[M]aybe [Clinton] knows the truth about his citizenship." Sussman later stated: "You just wonder if she knows all of the information that Philip Berg has on Barack, and there was a deal struck in the background. OK, Barack, listen. We're not gonna blow the whistle on your citizenship. In fact, we'll help you keep a lid on all this. You get the nation, I get the world. You take the United States, I get secretary of state, and we're bringing in all my peeps. I mean, one has to wonder, right?" Berg had filed a lawsuit, which alleged that Sen. Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. His lawsuit was later dismissed and Berg has appealed that decision. During the November 24 edition of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose, hosts Jim Quinn and Rose Tennent aired audio from the WRIF interview. After airing the audio, Tennent said: "It's already an attraction. It's well known, he says. ... It's well known, except for here." Subsequently, Quinn said of Ogego's comments: "I mean, here's the -- here's the ambassador in Kenya saying that Barack Obama's birthplace in Kenya is already a -- it's already well known, and it's already an attraction. I think you and I should -- maybe we should go do our show from -- from Barack Obama's birthplace." From the December 1 broadcast of KSFO's The Lee Rodgers Show: SUSSMAN: OK. There was a radio show back east last week that was able to -- was able to interview a gentleman who is a government official in Kenya. And they were talking to this government official about Barack Obama, and it was -- it was a very pleasant interview. But there's a whippersnapper on this morning show team. OFFICER VIC (co-host Tom Benner): Uh-oh. SUSSMAN: He's kind of -- kind of their Officer Vic. OFFICER VIC: Uh-oh. SUSSMAN: Who said, I -- I -- basically, saying under his breath, I can't allow this moment to pass. I need to ask this Kenyan official about Barack Obama's place of birth. And he just sort of slips it in during the course of the conversation, and this Kenyan official answers in such a way that -- well, sounds to me like Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Now -- now, keep in mind, before we get to this audio, because it's -- it's really amazing. OFFICER VIC: Wow. SUSSMAN: If you were an investigator trying to determine where Barack Obama was born -- OK, let's talk to family members. Well, can't talk to his mom. She's gone. Can't talk to grandma. She's gone. Grandpa, he's gone. This is all on the mother's side of the family. You can talk to Barack's sister -- his younger sister. She has named two different hospitals in Hawaii where he may have been born. She doesn't even know. You go to Kenya to talk to the other side of the family -- his birth father's side of the family -- and lo and behold, there are two relatives who swear they were at the birth - OFFICER VIC: Well -- SUSSMAN: -- in Kenya. OK, so now you're an investigator. It looks to me like we've got an interesting situation here -- more evidence to say that he was born in Kenya than elsewhere. OK? Now, the Kenyans are not students of our Constitution. They're probably unaware of the fact that we have this little rule that says, no, our presidents have to be born in this country. So, again, here are these morning show guys, talking to this official from Kenya. And, hmm, this Kenyan official lets something slip out of the bag. Sounds to me like Barack was born in Kenya. Sounds to me like everybody there knows it. Here. You listen to the conversation for yourself. [begin audio clip] CLARK: We want to congratulate you on -- on Barack Obama, our new president, and you must be very proud. OGEGO: We are. CLARK: Yes. OGEGO: We are. We are also proud of the U.S. for having made history as well. FELLHAUER: Hey, one more quick question. Obama -- President-elect Obama's birthplace over in Kenya, is that gonna be a national spot to go visit, where he was born? OGEGO: It's already an attraction. FELLHAUER: Yeah? OK. OGEGO: His -- his paternal grandmother is still alive, and --. FELLHAUER: But his birthplace, they'll be -- they'll put up a marker there? OGEGO: It would depend on the government. It's already well known. [end audio clip] OFFICER VIC: That's pretty slick. SUSSMAN: OK, it's already -- OFFICER VIC: The way he posed the question. SUSSMAN: Yeah. Just kind of threw that out there. OFFICER VIC: Yeah. SUSSMAN: And the guy bit. And, of course -- OFFICER VIC: It's already -- everybody knows it. It's already a marker there. SUSSMAN: Everybody knows it. His -- his maternal grandmother's still alive. It'll be up to the government to decide if a marker needs to be placed there. Now, this government official later -- no, no, no, I was misquoted, I was misquoted. No, we just heard you, sir. He said he was referring to Barack Obama's birth father, and where he was born -- where the dad was born. OFFICER VIC: Right. SUSSMAN: Did -- now did it sound like that to you? OFFICER VIC: No, it did not, quite frankly. [...] SUSSMAN: Hillary Clinton, secretary of state. That's what we're waiting for him to announce. He's -- Dr. Susan Rice -- OFFICER VIC: Rice. SUSSMAN: -- is another very, very liberal member of his national security team. I'm looking at Tom Daschle, Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel. Isn't Bill Richardson somewhere in the mix? OFFICER VIC: Yes. SUSSMAN: Yeah. Janet Napolitaniyano or whatever her name is. These are all Clinton retreads, you know, hope and change. I'm hoping there's gonna be some change left in my pocket after the Clintons do me over. OFFICER VIC: Yes. Here's your hope, keep the change. SUSSMAN: I just thought -- I thought it's really interesting about all of this, and -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, during the primaries, there was no love lost between these two. OFFICER VIC: No. And she was out there saying he has no experience, he's not qualified. SUSSMAN: I just wondered, maybe she knows the truth about his citizenship. Because one of her ardent supporters, and a guy who has raised a lot of money for her -- dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat, former assistant attorney general of the state of Pennsylvania. And that would be the guy that -- Philip Berg, the gentleman who's filed this lawsuit that's going to be addressed by the Supreme Court later this week regarding Barack Obama's citizenship. You just wonder if she knows all of the information that Philip Berg has on Barack, and there was a deal struck in the background. OK, Barack, listen. We're not gonna blow the whistle on your citizenship. In fact, we'll help you keep a lid on all this. You get the nation, I get the world. You take the United States, I get secretary of state, and we're bringing in all my peeps. I mean, one has to wonder, right? OFFICER VIC: Very interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. SUSSMAN: You just have to wonder. This -- this is not change. This is the Clinton administration coming back at you. OFFICER VIC: Your mind works in strange, Machiavellian ways. SUSSMAN: And, of course, Barack Obama says, well, you know, all of these people have experience, and it's the kind of change we need. That's how he spins it. From the November 24 broadcast of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose: QUINN: By the way, changing -- switching gears here for a second. I told you about this over the weekend. Somebody sent me this. This is a -- about one minute from a radio show, a morning radio show, on WRIF in Detroit, once known as Rockin' Stereo WRIF. I know, 'cause I hired a guy from there. Anyway, this is just a little piece of -- of what is supposed to be a prank call, OK? You see, this is one of those morning shows where everyone is laughing but nobody knows why. Because -- and the reason is because they can't tell the difference between what's funny and what isn't. TENNENT: Right. QUINN: Kind of like here. So -- so anyway, so they place a phone call after Obama gets elected. They place a phone call to Kenya, and they actually end up getting the Kenyan ambassador on the phone. Toward the end of this, tell me if you hear what I hear. [begin audio clip] FELLHAUER: How's the national anthem of Kenya? Can we hear a little bit of it? Do you know the national anthem? OGEGO: Yes, I know the national anthem. It is online. You could Google it. CLARK : Online googling. Ha ha ha, that's great. FELLHAUER: You won't share it with us? You won't tell us? Can't you tell us what it is? OGEGO: It is a national prayer, actually. CLARK: Oh, it's a prayer. FELLHAUER: So you don't get to sing it? [end audio clip] QUINN: Holy cow, they allow prayer? TENNENT: Wow. QUINN: In government? In Kenya? [begin audio clip] OGEGO: It's -- it's a prayer. It's easily available online. CLARK: Yeah, yeah. I understand. You're ducking singing it. FELLHAUER: You don't want to sing it? CLARK: And that's -- that's a good move. Yeah. You know what you're doing. Well, listen. We want to congratulate you on -- on Barack Obama, our new president, and you must be very proud. OGEGO: We are. CLARK: Yes. OGEGO: We are. We are also proud of the U.S. for having made history as well. FELLHAUER: Hey, one more quick question. Obama -- President-elect Obama's birthplace over in Kenya, is that gonna be a national spot to go visit, where he was born? OGEGO: It's already an attraction. FELLHAUER: Yeah? OK. OGEGO: His -- his paternal grandmother is still alive, and --. FELLHAUER: But his birthplace, they'll be -- they'll put up a marker there? OGEGO: It would depend on the government. It's already well known. CLARK: Do you know the -- Barack Obama -- his father's name? Is it Barack Hussein Obama Sr.? Is that true? Do you know? [end audio clip] QUINN: Anyway, now -- TENNENT: It's already an attraction. It's well known, he says. Except for here. QUINN: It's well known his birthplace is already an attraction. TENNENT: It's well known, except for here. QUINN: Yeah. Well, I mean -- somebody needs to get in touch. With - 'cause I mean, I've -- you know, I think one of the reasons Media Matters harps on us when we're like, what, number 56 in the country among talk shows? TENNENT: Yeah. QUINN: I mean, you -- you pick up Media Matters, and you would think that it was Rush Limbaugh, [Mark] Levin, [Sean] Hannity, [Michael] Savage, and us. Now -- TENNENT: Well that's pretty impressive. I like that. QUINN: Well, I'm beginning to think, 'cause whenever they criticize -- like the other day, they say, "Quinn trivializes gay marriage." You can't trivialize something that doesn't exist. OK? You can't -- trivalize -- trivialize an oxymoron. Anyway, so one of the things they always say, though, is, "continues to repeat the discredited rumor that Barack Obama was not born here." Now, we don't do that. We have said -- we have spent so little time on this subject, and every time we've talked about it, we have said, we don't know. We're just waiting to see what --what happens. We're just reporting; we're not really deciding here. And yet, it seems to get in their craw about this. Now remember, Media Matters is run by John Podesta, who is the chief of the transition team for Barack Obama. Could it be that this -- that because we talk about this, that this is one of those things that's really -- that -- that they just want quashed? TENNENT: To go away? QUINN: Yeah, they really want this to go away, and this is one of those things that really needles them. TENNENT: Well, there's a lot of lawsuits out there right now. QUINN: There's about 17 of them. TENNENT: And I don't understand why he can't just present it, and let us -- let us be done with it. QUINN: Yeah, I mean, and I've said often, it's a distraction. It's a pain in the butt. I mean, frankly, I would rather not even deal with it. But, I mean, here's the -- here's the ambassador in Kenya saying that Barack Obama's birthplace in Kenya is already a -- it's already well known, and it's already an attraction. I think you and I should -- maybe we should go do our show from -- from Barack Obama's birthplace. TENNENT: Well, remember, I wanted to go over there, with [Obama Nation author Jerome] Corsi. I'm glad I didn't. QUINN: That's true, because they all ended up getting arrested and detained there before they left. TENNENT: Yeah. I don't need that. My nerves are shot. From the December 1 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: CALLER: As we speak, I'm a little concerned about something that hasn't been brought up on any of the media. I am a veteran. All my brothers served. My brother was in Vietnam. I was in during the Vietnam era. Our Constitution's pretty important. It's not just pretty important -- it's extremely important. And there's about four cases that are fixing to go before the Supreme Court. One of them goes today. And it's not Alan Keyes. There's a lot of them that are challenging Obama's -- DAVIS: Yeah. CALLER: Eligibility, his birth certificate. DAVIS: The pesky birth certificate issue. Yep. CALLER: Well, you know, and he could've -- he could've answered that if it was so simple. DAVIS: Yep. CALLER: Put one forth. And the reason I know is because I adopted my son -- DAVIS: Sure. CALLER: -- years ago while I was in the military. DAVIS: I tell you what I'll do, because with about two and a half minutes, and it'll be involved. First of all, let's examine the ways in which you are totally right. One would think that a presentation of the actual birth certificate, which is in a vault in Honolulu somewhere -- CALLER: Yes. DAVIS: If it could settle this, why not present it? That is a very, very good question. CALLER: Well, and I talked to Andy Martin. I actually got him on the phone. And he just -- he was very short, just like I'll be here. And he said, Bobby, he said, I do not know what's in there -- DAVIS: And we never will. CALLER: -- he says, but we don't know because they won't show us. DAVIS: Right. And they don't have to because the laws essentially allow for -- for the yanking of a birth certificate by people if, you know, some direct family connection, have some very, very personal regard in this. CALLER: Well, we have -- we should have standing, though, Mark, because we're citizens and we're requiring -- DAVIS: But that's not what the law says. But that's simply not what the law says. If we want to craft a law that says that if somebody gets to president, and there's a doubt whether his citizenship is -- is all kosher, then we should be -- I think that'd be a pretty good law. But we don't have it. CALLER: You're probably right there. There's four of them -- Pennsylvania. New Jersey. There's Lee Donofrio. There's Chris Strunk in New York. There's Cort Wrotnowski in Connecticut. I mean, I'm looking at them right now on theobamafile.com. DAVIS: Can -- can I ask you something? Because with -- with about a minute here, because listen, before the election, and I talked to Phil Berg myself -- I talked to the guy, and he's not a nut. And he has questions, not just about the birth certificate, but about whether Barack Obama's mom logged sufficient time of American residency to have any progeny of hers automatically be citizens. Because, obviously, you know, if he was born in Hawaii, then he's a citizen. Boom. But, you know, did she meet those criteria? They're all thoroughly valid questions. Now that he has won, the best thing -- the only thing that could happen -- only thing -- if he is somehow retroactively found unfit to -- to have won, you get President Joe Biden. So like, you know, OK. CALLER: Well, it isn't the matter of that. It's the matter of us circumventing the Constitution. DAVIS: OK. CALLER: If we break the law on one, where do we stop? DAVIS: You know, and that's -- and that's very valid. Because, OK, we get President Joe Biden. Which may be better or may be worse, but -- CALLER: Yeah. I'm not -- it doesn't matter. DAVIS: -- at least we will have stuck up for making somebody. Now the Alan Keyes thing in California -- and Alan is a very interesting man -- dog -- nothing if not dogged -- is essentially trying to get California's electors from casting their ballots for -- for Barack Obama until it comes out. Likelihood of any of this succeeding is extremely close to zero. It -- so that's what everybody's waiting for is to see if that changes. Be right back. From the December 1 broadcast of Westwood One's The Lars Larson Show: LARSON: And yes, as to the president-elect's birth certificate, I'm not satisfied yet, either. But I'm not sure we're ever gonna see the proof that he's constitutionally qualified to have run, so we may have to accept the outcome and just figure that we'll fix it on the next election. From the November 28 broadcast of ABC Networks' The Mark Levin Show: GRANT: But there is a nagging question, and I don't bring it up in order to enter into a -- an on-the-air search. That would be pointless, and I think it might be looked upon by some people as being below the belt. But what I'm referring to is what Dr. Alan Keyes is doing. Dr. Keyes, Alan Keyes -- I met him many years ago when he was the -- the head of Citizens Against Government Waste -- and I had the privilege of doing the broadcast from his office in the nation's capital. Alan Keyes, who had been appointed to an ambassadorship -- he had a under secretary of the state role in the Reagan administration. But Alan Keyes ran against Barack Obama, the state of Illinois, conducted this ridiculous campaign -- a ridiculous campaign -- and made Barack Obama a sure winner back in that election of 2004. But what is Alan Keyes doing now? He is claiming that Barack Obama has not proven his citizenship, and that we are in danger of unmasking a person who does not pass constitutional muster to be the president of the United States. I know it seems unthinkable, but stop and think about all the unthinkable things that have happened in your lifetime and in mine. Things that we thought were unthinkable, but they happened. I'm not saying it's true that he's not really a native-born American citizen. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that people like Alan Keyes do believe that because he hasn't been able to produce the valid birth certificate, he is -- he is hiding something. That's what he claims, and they filed another court case out in California. Why California? Because Alan Keyes was an elector out there and does have what they call "standing." Will anything come of this? I don't think so. But it is disturbing that when you say, well, you could end the conjecture by just producing the proof. And the proof is not produced. And then, of course, there are many of us who say, well, it's too late. No, the Constitution's very clear. I just thought I'd -- I'd bring that up, not to spoil your weekend, but to make you think about all the possibilities there are out there. And one of the most vexing questions is not the citizenship of the 44th president. To me, it's what is happening to Western culture. I'm thinking about the United Kingdom. I'm thinking about the London that I have visited many times and admired, and how it has changed. Going down to the lobby of the hotel -- and I love to peruse newspapers. I'm looking at the newspapers, and it's written in Arabic, every single one. Therefore, I thought about that when I read the report of what was going on in Southwest India, and someone had made the report that citizens of the United Kingdom, British citizens, were involved. They were Muslims who had moved or were born in England, and living there they obviously did not adopt Western ways, or British grace, British courtesy, or British customs, but hated their host country and determined to cause it damage.

Cars and Guitars Autopia's 10 Best Songs About Cars

As we prepare for the annual Thanksgiving slog over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house, we're compiling a playlist to keep us from falling into a tryptophan-induced stupor on the long drive home. After all, British researchers have found belting out your favorite song behind the wheel makes it less likely you'll plow into the back of a semi. Being car guys, it occurred to us that there are approximately 1.2 gazillion songs about cars. Has any topic short of love so often been the subject of song? We don't know for sure but we'd bet Karl Benz had no sooner fired up his Motorwagen before someone was writing a ditty about it. Cars are as much a part of rock-n-roll as sex, drugs and Marshall stacks. We could spend days compiling the ultimate moto-centric playlist, but why bother when we can let you do it for us? To get you started we offer our picks for the best songs ever written about cars. Use the Reddit Widget to tell us what you think, add your own and vote for your faves.10. Chuck Berry - No Particular Place to Go. Chuck Berry made a whole career out of singin' about fast cars, pretty girls and having fun, and all three themes play prominently in this classic from 1964 in which young love is thwarted by a malfunctioning seat-belt. Same thing happened in a Camaro we once owned. 9. Rush - Red Barchetta. Lyricist and drummer extraordinaire Neil Peart is a hardcore motorcycle fanatic, but he's clearly spent some time behind the wheel. This track from 1981's Moving Pictures perfectly captures the imagery of tearing up the countryside in a vintage Ferrari. 8. Sammy Hagar - I Can't Drive 55. The national anthem of Gearhead Nation and a song that only sounds good blaring through a pair of 6x9 speakers. Bonus points because the video for this track, from 1984's VOA, featured a Ferrari. 7. The Beach Boys - 409. Everyone cites Little Deuce Coupe, but for our money, this B-side to 1962's Surfin' Safari is the best of the Boys' many car songs because nothing says "bad ass" like a mid-60s Chevy with lousy brakes and an obscenely large engine putting out 425 horsepower. 6. Ween - El Camino. Only a band so lovably weird as Ween would memorialize a car so lovably weird as the the El Camino - and do it in a song with a flamenco flavor. Extra points for references to those other great American cars with Latin names, the Toronado and the Cordoba. Brilliant, just like the rest of 1990's GodWeenSatan - The Oneness. 5. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Crosstown Traffic. A great song that uses a car as a metaphor, in this case for a girlfriend who's tying ol' Jimi down -- "just like crosstown traffic, all you do is slow me down." This track from 1969's Electric Ladyland is packed with metaphors, our favorite being "tire tracks all across your back, I can see you've had your fun." Ouch. 4. Golden Earring - Radar Love. We've all been there - driving all night, hands wet on the wheel, half-past four and shifting gears. This classic from 1973's Moontan is perfect for hauling ass on an open road in the dead of night. It's been covered by at least half a dozen band including, regrettably, White Lion, but the original still sounds great after 35 years. 3. Drive-By Truckers - Daddy's Cup. The old line about real musicians having day jobs could just as easily apply to auto racers, and this song from 2004's The Dirty South perfectly conveys what it's like to have grease under your nails, racing in your blood and dreams of glory in your head. 2. Sir Mix-A-Lot - My Hooptie. When you get right down to it, songs about bad-ass cars are as big a  rock-n-roll cliche as sunburst Les Pauls. On 1989's Seminar, Sir Mix-A-Lot gave a shout-out to heaps. What makes it great is how easy it is to relate to: "Lifters tickin', accelerator's stickin', somethin' on my left-front wheel keeps clickin'." Sounds just like a Camaro we once owned. 1. Prince - Little Red Corvette. This song isn't really about a Corvette, it's - spoiler alert! - about a one-night stand. Prince wasn't the first to use a car as a metaphor for a woman and he won't be the last, but his catchy tune from the album 1999 will always rank among the best. Honorable mention: Cars by Gary Numan. Highway Star by Deep Purple. Bitchin' Camaro by the Dead Milkmen. And although Lowrider by War and Drive My Car by the Beatles are great songs, we didn't include because everyone puts them on their top-10 list. So -- let us know what songs are on your list of the best songs about cars... Photo by Flickr user Count Rushmore. Show songs that are: hot | new | top-rated or submit your own song   Submit a song While you can submit as many songs as you want, you can only submit one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed. Back to top

Gallery: A Century of Presidents

: Photo: Bain News Service/Courtesy Library of CongressRepublican William Howard Taft (the portly gentleman at center) receives his ballot in November 1908. Taft won that election but lost his re-election bid in 1912. He is widely remembered (or remembered widely) today as the heaviest president (peaking near 350 pounds ? girth of a nation, some have called it). He was also the first president to throw out the ceremonial first ball of the baseball season, in 1910. From 1921 to 1930, Taft served as chief justice of the United States, the only president ever to do so. For that reason alone, he must be counted among the nation's most successful ex-presidents. : Photo: Courtesy Library of CongressDemocrat Thomas Woodrow Wilson (yes, that was his name) poses in the seat of power in the Oval Office in 1913, the year he was sworn in. Wilson had been president of Princeton University before moving on (but not necessarily up) to governor of New Jersey. Although he had two full terms as president of the United States, he really didn't serve the end of the second term, having suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution (covering presidential disability) wasn't ratified until 1967, so Wilson's wife and doctors effectively ran the White House for many months. : Photo: National Photo Company/Courtesy Library of CongressPresident Wilson (left) rides with the incoming Republican president, Warren G. Harding, in the back seat at Harding's inauguration, March 4, 1921. Sen. Philander Knox (now, there's a name) and Rep. Joseph Cannon, both Republicans, ride in front. Harding was the first sitting U.S. senator elected to the presidency. He has a reputation as a White House philanderer. His death in San Francisco in 1923, supposedly by accidental food poisoning, is now thought by some to be no accident at all. : Photo: National Photo Company/Courtesy Library of CongressRepublican John Calvin Coolidge (yep, his name) tips a ceremonial Smoki Indian hat on the grounds of the White House, Oct. 22, 1924. When Harding died, Coolidge succeeded to the presidency and was sworn in by his father, a notary public, in the middle of the night at their family home in Vermont. Coolidge was elected in his own right to a second term in November 1924. Notoriously taciturn, he earned the nickname "Silent Cal." It's said that he once learned that a guest at a banquet had bet a friend that the president wouldn't say three words all night. Coolidge learned of the bet and kept his mouth zipped until he was leaving the dinner. He then walked up to the gent who'd scoffed at tales of the president's laconic habits, leaned over and said, "You lose." : Photo: National Photo Company/Courtesy Library of CongressRepublican Herbert Hoover (center, just to the right of first lady Lou Henry Hoover) and the presidential party stand for the national anthem on baseball's opening day, April 17, 1929. It was a few weeks after Hoover's inauguration and six months before the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. Hoover, like Taft, had an extraordinary career following his presidency. He organized post-World War II food relief in Europe (as he had done after World War I), and heading the "Hoover Commission" on the reorganization of the executive branch. Hoover was the last Republican president elected on a ticket that did not include a Nixon or a Bush. : Photo: Courtesy Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and MuseumDemocrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, a distant cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigns for vice president of the United States, in his hometown of Hyde Park, New York, Aug. 9, 1920. FDR lost that race and was stricken by polio the following year, but recovered sufficiently to win election to the governorship of New York in 1928. Roosevelt is the only person elected to the presidency more than twice, winning the elections of 1932, '36, '40 and '44. He died in office April 12, 1945, just before the successful conclusion of World War II. : Photo: Sammie FeebackFormer President Harry S. Truman comes out of the voting booth after casting his ballot in Independence, Missouri, April 10, 1956. Democratic Vice President Truman had succeeded FDR in 1945. He was elected in his own right in 1948, overcoming defections by both the left (Progressive) and right (Dixiecrat) wings of his own party and defying expectations of victory by Republican Thomas E. Dewey.: Photo: U.S. Army/Courtesy ?Library of CongressSupreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower talks to American paratroopers in England just before D-Day in 1944. Republican Eisenhower was a popular war hero who swept into office in the GOP landslide of 1952, and he was re-elected in 1956. Ike followed Generals Washington, Jackson, W.H. Harrison, Taylor, Pierce, A. Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur and B. Harrison in the presidency. Nonetheless, he warned in a farewell address to the nation in 1961: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." : Photograph: Cecil Stoughton, White House/Courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumA young girl is lifted above the crowd to shake hands with Democratic President John F. Kennedy, Sept. 25, 1963, in Billings, Montana, during the president's "conservation tour" of Western states. JFK would be shot and killed two months later while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Kennedy thus became the eighth U.S. president to die in office, the seventh consecutive president who'd been elected in a year ending in zero to die in office, and the fourth U.S. president to be assassinated. Kennedy was the last sitting U.S. senator to be elected president. With Sen. John McCain running against Sen. Barack Obama, that 48-year losing streak is likely to end today. : Photograph: Cecil Stoughton, White House/Courtesy Library of CongressU.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes administers the oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One at Love Field, Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963. Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, widowed just two hours before, stands at the new president's side. Johnson won election in his own right in 1964, but was forced out of the Democratic nomination race in 1968 by challengers to his conduct of the unpopular war in Southeast Asia. : Photo: Courtesy Architect of the Capitol and Library of CongressRepublican Richard M. Nixon delivers his inaugural address on the east portico of the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 20, 1969. Nixon served as Eisenhower's vice president from 1953 to 1961. He was defeated for president in 1960 and for governor of California in 1962, but rose from the political ashes to be elected president in 1968 and re-elected in 1972. His conduct in the Watergate scandal forced him to resign in disgrace and under threat of impeachment in August 1974. He is the only president of the United States to resign. Ashes to ashes. : Photo: David Hume Kennerly/White House/Courtesy Gerald R. Ford LibraryMusicians Billy Preston and George Harrison pose with President Gerald Ford in the Oval Office, Dec. 13, 1974. Republican Ford reached the presidency through an extraordinary double fault. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in October 1973 in a bribery and tax scandal. Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1967. When Nixon resigned the presidency less than a year later, Ford became the first U.S. president who had not been elected to the presidency or vice presidency. He ran for election to a second term in 1976 and lost. : Photo: Courtesy the Carter CenterEgyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin make a three-way handshake during the White House signing of the Middle East peace accord in March 1979. Democrat Carter was elected in 1976, but his re-election bid in 1980 was derailed by an energy crisis, the Iranian hostage crisis and the campaigning ability of Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless, he followed in the footsteps of Presidents Taft and Hoover ? and John Quincy Adams before them ? in remaining a major political force after leaving the White House. : Photo: Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential FoundationProfessional golfer Raymond Floyd gives President Ronald Reagan putting lessons in the Oval Office, June 24, 1986. Republican Reagan was a Hollywood actor of some repute who was elected governor of California in 1966 and 1970. He won the presidency in 1980 and 1984. His acting skills, which were considerable for a politician, and his ability to sell an idea, led his admirers to dub him, "The Great Communicator." : Photo: Courtesy Architect of the Capitol and Library of CongressChief Justice William Rehnquist (back to camera) administers the oath of office to George Herbert Walker Bush on the west front of the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 20, 1989. First lady Barbara Bush is holding the Bible, and Vice President Dan Quayle stands just behind her. Republican Bush, Reagan's vice president for two terms, was elected in 1988 but defeated for re-election in 1992. : Photo: White HousePresident Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton dance at the inaugural ball, Jan. 20, 1993. Democrat Clinton was elected in 1992 and 1996, but impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998 over his testimony regarding a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate acquitted Clinton, and he completed his term in office, only the second president in U.S. history to be impeached. : Photo: White HousePresident George W. Bush stands on the ashes of the destroyed World Trade Center towers, Sept. 14, 2001. Republican Bush was elected in narrow, disputed contests in both 2000 and 2004. Bush is the son of George H.W. Bush. Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison were related, as were Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But not since John Adams and John Quincy Adams, near the dawn of the republic, had a father and son both occupied the highest office in the land. Bush is slated to complete his second term Jan. 20. With President Clinton before him, it will be the first time since 1825 that two consecutive presidents (James Madison and James Monroe) have served two complete terms in office.