Al Franken

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota paid a visit to the Joslin Diabetes Center yesterday, meeting with newly appointed Joslin president John L. Brooks III as well as researchers, doctors, and nurses. Franken, who graduated from Harvard, cosponsored the Diabetes Prevention Act of 2009 with Indiana Senator Dick Lugar … . Actor Crispin Glover , who was in town to screen his "Big Slide Show" at the Brattle Theatre, stopped into L'Espalier today for lunch. Author Ben Mezrich was also in over the weekend with wife Tonya to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

CLUBS & DANCE NIGHTS THE PILL 14th ANNIVERSARY It's been 14 years since this long-running indie-rock dance party began on Causeway Street. The Friday night staple relocated to various local haunts since then (including the Milky Way and the Paradise) before settling into its best-known digs at Allston's Great Scott. Resident DJs Ken and Michael V will be on hand to celebrate the Pill's birthday bash. Oct. 7, 10 p.m. Cover: $5. 21+. Great Scott. 617 -566 -9014, www.greatscottboston.com THE HOOT, FAREWELL TO SUMMER Summer's demise is the inspiration for the reprise of The...

ST. PAUL - Al Franken and Norm Coleman's Senate battle goes before Minnesota's Supreme Court today, a critical point in a race that has dragged on for about half a year since the final vote was cast. Coleman, the Republican incumbent, trails by 312 votes. He wants the state's justices to instruct a trial court to open 4,400 rejected absentee ballots. Franken hopes the court sweeps aside the appeal, and demands that he get the election certificate required to take office. But the battle may not end if Coleman loses.

Sure, times are tough. The economy is bad, Washington seems paralyzed, and there's a steady drumbeat of bad news from Afghanistan. Jimmy Tingle sees all that and still thinks we can live the American dream. "Every single generation has had challenges," Tingle said. "How was the job market for the Pilgrims?" We can't get bummed out, the Cambridge comedian insists. We have to remember "the big picture of what America is and our own potential as people. Regardless of what's happening in the economy or with politics, we can't let it hold us back as individuals.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Senator Norm Coleman saw his lead over Al Franken in Minnesota's US Senate race dwindle to two votes yesterday. Meanwhile, a key court ruling put hundreds of improperly rejected ballots in play, promising the recount will drag into the new year. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that improperly rejected absentee ballots be included in the state's recount. It ordered the candidates to work with the secretary of state and election officials to set up a process to identify ballots that were rejected in error.

APPALOOSA . (Comcast Movies: All Movies) Ed Harris’s warmly made, slightly offbeat western gives us two for-hire lawmen (Harris and Viggo Mortensen) whose friendship is complicated when a widow (Renée Zellweger) comes to the New Mexico town that’s hired them to keep the peace. (R; runs through July 5) WESLEY MORRIS SHOOTER . ½ (Comcast Movies: All Movies) “Rambo’’ as Al Franken might have imagined it. This action thriller from Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day’’)

"Man of the Year" has to be one of the most frustrating dropped balls in recent multiplex memory. Jon Stewart -- or someone very much like him -- runs for president and gets elected? What a great idea for a modern comedy, one that pokes right at the sore spot where politics and pop culture intersect today. Barry Levinson is writing and directing? All the better, since 1997's "Wag the Dog" may be the sharpest Washington satire of the past 10 years. Robin Williams is playing the comedian elevated to the Oval Office?

ST. PAUL - Now that Al Franken is headed for the Senate, which Franken will show up in Washington? Will it be the passionate, sometimes angry liberal who hurled playground insults at Rush Limbaugh as an author and radio host? Or will it be the cautious, serious Franken who buttoned himself down the minute he hit the campaign trail? Bet on the latter. Franken arrives in Washington next week to claim a seat that stood vacant for half a year while Minnesota judges deliberated over legal issues in the close race, which Franken ultimately won by 312 votes.

CLUBS & DANCE NIGHTS THE PILL 14th ANNIVERSARY It's been 14 years since this long-running indie-rock dance party began on Causeway Street. The Friday night staple relocated to various local haunts since then (including the Milky Way and the Paradise) before settling into its best-known digs at Allston's Great Scott. Resident DJs Ken and Michael V will be on hand to celebrate the Pill's birthday bash. Oct. 7, 10 p.m. Cover: $5. 21+. Great Scott. 617 -566 -9014, www.greatscottboston.com THE HOOT, FAREWELL TO SUMMER Summer's demise is the...

WASHINGTON - Al Franken has immersed himself in the healthcare debate. He’s posed thoughtful questions to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. He’s signed on as a cosponsor of a half-dozen bills. Weeks into his late-starting Senate career, the former comedian and self-professed lover of policy is focusing on a few issues and the daily details of his new profession. Forget the old celebrity stuff. There was nothing flashy about the Minnesota Democrat’s first victory.

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota paid a visit to the Joslin Diabetes Center yesterday, meeting with newly appointed Joslin president John L. Brooks III as well as researchers, doctors, and nurses. Franken, who graduated from Harvard, cosponsored the Diabetes Prevention Act of 2009 with Indiana Senator Dick Lugar … . Actor Crispin Glover , who was in town to screen his "Big Slide Show" at the Brattle Theatre, stopped into L'Espalier today for lunch. Author Ben Mezrich was also in over the weekend with wife Tonya to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

APPALOOSA . (Comcast Movies: All Movies) Ed Harris’s warmly made, slightly offbeat western gives us two for-hire lawmen (Harris and Viggo Mortensen) whose friendship is complicated when a widow (Renée Zellweger) comes to the New Mexico town that’s hired them to keep the peace. (R; runs through July 5) WESLEY MORRIS SHOOTER . ½ (Comcast Movies: All Movies) “Rambo’’ as Al Franken might have imagined it. This action thriller from Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day’’)

The great Massachusetts comic Eugene Mirman has a routine about people who quote half-remembered statistics. He says he likes to tell those people that he read somewhere that 100 percent of Americans are Asian. “But Eugene,” they say, “you’re not Asian.” And the punchline, delivered with magnificent self-assurance: “I read that I was!” Charles Seife’s spirited new book, “Proofiness,’’ is a nearly 300-page exposition of Mirman’s joke, which, per Seife, is on us. In every realm of life, from commerce to politics to health, we are being snookered by fake numbers, delivered with the false...

WASHINGTON - Al Franken has immersed himself in the healthcare debate. He’s posed thoughtful questions to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. He’s signed on as a cosponsor of a half-dozen bills. Weeks into his late-starting Senate career, the former comedian and self-professed lover of policy is focusing on a few issues and the daily details of his new profession. Forget the old celebrity stuff. There was nothing flashy about the Minnesota Democrat’s first victory.

ST. PAUL - Now that Al Franken is headed for the Senate, which Franken will show up in Washington? Will it be the passionate, sometimes angry liberal who hurled playground insults at Rush Limbaugh as an author and radio host? Or will it be the cautious, serious Franken who buttoned himself down the minute he hit the campaign trail? Bet on the latter. Franken arrives in Washington next week to claim a seat that stood vacant for half a year while Minnesota judges deliberated over legal issues in the close race, which Franken ultimately won by...

ST. PAUL - Al Franken and Norm Coleman's Senate battle goes before Minnesota's Supreme Court today, a critical point in a race that has dragged on for about half a year since the final vote was cast. Coleman, the Republican incumbent, trails by 312 votes. He wants the state's justices to instruct a trial court to open 4,400 rejected absentee ballots. Franken hopes the court sweeps aside the appeal, and demands that he get the election certificate required to take office. But the battle may not end if Coleman loses.

Sure, times are tough. The economy is bad, Washington seems paralyzed, and there's a steady drumbeat of bad news from Afghanistan. Jimmy Tingle sees all that and still thinks we can live the American dream. "Every single generation has had challenges," Tingle said. "How was the job market for the Pilgrims?" We can't get bummed out, the Cambridge comedian insists. We have to remember "the big picture of what America is and our own potential as people. Regardless of what's happening in the economy or with politics, we can't let it hold us back as individuals.

This is an excellent time for "The First Amendment Project," four short films that, seizing various entry points, examine with flair what freedom of expression really means -- and the threats it's facing. In an unusual partnership, this series has been coproduced by the Sundance Channel and Court TV -- both of which will air each half-hour film. Premiering tonight at 9 on Sundance and at 10 on Court TV: "Fox v. Franken" revels in Fox News Channel's quixotic crusade to bar publication of Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced...

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Senator Norm Coleman saw his lead over Al Franken in Minnesota's US Senate race dwindle to two votes yesterday. Meanwhile, a key court ruling put hundreds of improperly rejected ballots in play, promising the recount will drag into the new year. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that improperly rejected absentee ballots be included in the state's recount. It ordered the candidates to work with the secretary of state and election officials to set up a process to identify ballots that were rejected in error.

"Man of the Year" has to be one of the most frustrating dropped balls in recent multiplex memory. Jon Stewart -- or someone very much like him -- runs for president and gets elected? What a great idea for a modern comedy, one that pokes right at the sore spot where politics and pop culture intersect today. Barry Levinson is writing and directing? All the better, since 1997's "Wag the Dog" may be the sharpest Washington satire of the past 10 years. Robin Williams is playing the comedian elevated to the Oval Office?