Late Edition...today

I've fully recovered from last night's games and the commercials. I have to say that my favorites were the ones that included the clydesdales that reside at Grant's Farm or Anheuser-Busch. I've been to the Brewery so I've seen some of the clydesdales. Whether they were used in the commercials, I don't know.

Rep. Bernie Sanders collapsed yesterday but appears to have recovered just fine.

The Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame will induct new members in April.

The inductees include Don Neagle, a co-owner and operator of WRUS-AM in Russellville, Ky.; Larry Spitzer, a now-retired photographer from The Courier-Journal in Louisville; David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association; Ferrell Wellman, former Frankfort, Ky., bureau chief for Louisville's WAVE-TV and now an associate professor at Eastern Kentucky University; and Bob White, also known as "Mr. High School Sports" with The Courier-Journal before he retired.

Yet another former employee of Evan Bayh is running for office. Steven Graves is running for the Indiana State Senate. He served then-Governor Bayh as an administrative assistant when he worked at state's health and human services department.

NBC has two pilots about comedy shows. Rachel Dratch may be joining the one that Tina Fey is working on. This means that Rachel may be leaving SNL if the pilot is picked up. Tina Fey is the head writer and plans to film her scenes when SNL is on hiatus so that she can keep working as head writer and Weekend Update anchor.

On the proposed series, Fey's character is beset with the hassles of being the peacemaker between the show-within-a-show's fickle star and its executive producer.

At the same time, NBC is developing a high-profile drama also loosely based on SNL by The West Wing creator/writer Aaron Sorkin.

That show about the behind-the-scenes action at a fictional late-night network sketch comedy show is tentatively titled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

It features a powerhouse cast, including Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet Steven Weber, D.L. Hughley and Evan Handler (Sex and the City), Michael Stuhlbarg, Nathan Corddry (The Daily Show) and Carlos Jacott.

Despite having two shows with similar themes in the works, it is very possible that both shows could be on NBC's fall schedule, insiders says.

The network is lagging in third place behind CBS and ABC in total viewers and is trying ideas it might not have attempted a few years ago when it was on top of the Nielsen charts.

"One is a 60-minute drama and one is a 30-minute comedy," says an industry source familiar with both shows. "Look at it this way, ER and Scrubs have co-existed quite nicely on the [NBC] schedule for many years."

Forty members of the state house have signed on to the bill that bans abortion in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I hope that this bill gets killed in committee. I have not checked the text of it but if it doesn't get killed in committee then at least add an amendment to make rape, incest, and the health of the mother an exception. That would be the least that they could do.

Jason Bateman has joined Natalie Portman and Dustin Hoffman in the cast of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

ABC censored lyrics of "Start Me Up!" and "Rough Justice" during The Rolling Stones concert portion of the Spring Halftime Show. Heck, the radio doesn't even censor the lyrics of these songs.

I agree that consumers need a break from high costs of gas.

Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said last week that consumers deserve a break from high gasoline and home heating oil prices — especially since oil companies are ringing up record profits.

Comedian Andy Kindler will be The Late Show with David Letterman tonight to introduce a clip that he shot yesterday at Ford Field in Detroit.

Chris Carney, a candidate for Congress, has called on his opponent, Congressman Don Sherwood to return the money that he took in contributions from ExxonMobil.

Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Lundergan has sent out an email to party members with regards to Louisiana and the displaced voters.

At a most basic level, if you know of an area of a city or a hotel housing displaced persons, that information is very helpful. If we all work together to identify displaced residents, communicate their voting rights to them and drive absentee voting turnout, we can win elections in Louisiana while protecting the voting rights of its citizens. For more information, please contact the Louisiana Democratic Party at 225-336-4155. Or if you will forward any information you may have to me here at Kentucky Democratic Headquarters, we'll see that it gets to the right people.

Turin/Torino has a rich Jewish history within its community.

The symbol of the city hosting the Winter Olympics was originally conceived of as a synagogue.

The building in question in Turin, Italy, is a towering structure with a steep, four-sided dome and soaring spire. Now called the Mole Antonelliana, it now forms the symbol of Turin, where the Olympics will take place from Feb. 10-Feb. 26.[...]

The exhibition centers on three key symbols of the Jewish experience in Piedmont — the ghetto, the synagogue, and the life and work of Primo Levi, the Turin-born writer and chemist who survived Auschwitz and evoked the Holocaust and its horrors in his writings.

Another local Jew, Rita Levi-Montalcini, escaped fascist persecution to the United States and went on to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Visitors to the Olympics can also visit a score of towns and cities in Piedmont where extraordinary examples of Jewish heritage illustrate the sweep of Jewish history in the region.[...]

Historically, much of Piedmont was ruled by the House of Savoy. Jews were segregated from Christians as early as 1430, and formal ghettos were established in Turin and elsewhere in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In many places, Jews were forced to pay special taxes, wear special identifying badges and submit to other severe restrictions. But ghetto life was still less restrictive than in other parts of Italy. Jews could carry out a variety of professions, and there was frequent interaction between Jews and their Christian neighbors.

Piedmont was the cradle of the Risorgimento, or unification, movement that led to Italian independence, and many Jews were active in the struggle, linking their own aspirations for freedom to those of other Italians. In 1848, Savoy King Carlo Alberto issued the landmark Edict of Emancipation that granted Jews full civil rights.

Piedmont Jews assimilated into Italian society, so much so that in the decades before World War II, many Piedmont Jews supported the fascist regime. The anti-Semitic laws passed in 1938 devastated the community, and many local Jews became anti-fascist partisans.

About 1,400 Jews lived in Piedmont before World War II. A monument at Turin’s Porta Nuova station commemorates the approximately 400 who were deported to their deaths in Auschwitz.

The most magnificent synagogue in Piedmont is in Casale Monferrato, south of Turin. It was originally built in 1595 in the heart of the old Jewish ghetto, but over the following two centuries it was enlarged, redesigned and redecorated in a rococo style.

The opulent decor boasts huge gilded chandeliers, and white, cobalt and gold-colored walls on which Hebrew inscriptions are framed by gilded stucco work. The ark, where the scrolls of the Torah are kept, features fluted Corinthian columns and an elaborately carved frieze and cornice.

In 1969, after a full-scale restoration carried out by the state, the synagogue was declared a national monument and opened to the public as a Jewish museum, where the tiny local Jewish community sponsors concerts and other cultural events.

More on Malcom Cherry who is running for the State House:

Lifetime Warren County resident & small business owner Malcolm Cherry threw his hat into the political ring on Tuesday when he announced his candidacy for the Kentucky House of Representatives, 21st District. Cherry, a Democrat, will challenge Republican incumbent Jim DeCesare, who has served only one term.

"It is my lifelong dream to represent the people of Warren County. I have lived in the 21st District most of my life, and I know the needs of the people in this region." Said Cherry. "Today, I offer the people of the 21st District a real choice. They now have the opportunity to vote for a lifelong resident of Warren County who has committed himself to family, country and community."