• A new survey suggests that fathers are better at giving driving lessons than mothers, who tend to panic, while dads just swear. • Brazilian researchers have found that among teenage girls, there are alarmingly high rates of STDs that often go undetected. • The BBC has an amazing video of a monkey teaching its young to floss with human hair. • More monkey news: zoologists have found that monkey tantrums should never go ignored. • From the Institute of No Shit Studies: men in their 60s drive the most powerful cars. • A Miami evangelist claiming to be the anti-Christ has gone into hiding following a court ruling to pay his ex-wife $2.2 million. Wonder if Satan will help him out of this one. • Some asshole put his wife up for sale, describing her as "Nagging Wife. No Tax, Not MOT. Very high maintenance - some rust." He says he was shocked that he received several offers. • The Hijabi Monologues, a little known play about Muslim women who wear the headscarf, is currently showing in LA. • A little over a year ago, Wajeha al-Huwaider made a pledged to get the Saudi ban on women driving lifted by Women's Day 2009. Sadly, the ban is still in place. • The man who threw his shoe at our esteemed former President has been sentenced to three years in prison by an Iraqi court. • This is not exactly news to any American college student, but the American Dietetic Association has found that 58% of "kid cereals" are actually being consumed by adults. • Sad: a survey of Boston teens found that nearly half of them believe Rihanna was responsible for Chris Brown's assault on her. •  Could Coulter's reign of terror be coming to a close? Ann Coulter's new book Guilty isn't selling nearly as well as her others did. • 

Variety:

Marquee lure Combs was considered the weak link on stage. But while he may lack the experience and technique to project to the second balcony, he's more satisfactory — a tad facially inexpressive, but otherwise hitting the right notes — under the camera's intimate gaze. Other thesps, particularly the laureled three female leads and charming Oyelowo, are terrific.

Director Kenny Leon, who also helmed the show on Broadway, attempts to open up the action, drawing on Paris Qualles' screenplay, which in turn is adapted from a TV version of the original play by Hansberry herself. The staging remains a bit creaky, but none of this diminishes the spirit of the play or the cast's commitment to the material, which almost seems palpable. It's still a provocative, powerful piece of work

Combs does a fair enough job hitting his marks, and he has successfully made himself into a working-class man of the middle 20th century; there is no trace of his own fabulous life in his portrayal of Walter Lee, but there are no overtones in his performance, no intermediate shades — it's all primary colors. It's impossible not to notice that he works at a lower skill level than his costars, who support but also eclipse him.

There are no mediocre performances here. Ms. Lathan is terrific at conveying the snobbery that comes from cultural self-loathing. Beneatha doesn't simply want better things; she wants to be part of a world of bigger and better ideas. Walter, a chauffeur to a wealthy white businessman, wants to live well and be seen. That Mr. Combs makes his desires seem like more than empty materialism must come in some part from the fact that he has been hungry at the same table.

We only discovered in 1989, when "American Playhouse" mounted a public-TV version with Danny Glover and Esther Rolle, that a number of passages on class, violence, feminism, and African nationalism (not to mention Beneatha's Afro) had been abbreviated or omitted from the original stage production. They are mostly restored here, too, and more valuable than the attempts to open up the set to the rich interiors and pastoral climes of white employers. Actually, Raisin works well on television, like so many other fifties plays that tended toward the Freudian and claustrophobic, with their Munch-scream close-ups and slammed Ibsen doors.

Beyond giving this rendition a sense of life and dramatic momentum, Leon's direction captures the intimacy and authenticity of the family's interplay — the sardonic humor, eruptions of anger, bonds of understanding and forgiveness among loving albeit often feisty characters living in close quarters.

The latest film version of "A Raisin in the Sun" features Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, surrounded by strong women whose fine acting talents support his less-polished performance. In some ways, his uneven performance is better suited to the role than Sidney Poitier's suave Serious Actor finesse. When this Walter says he's "a volcano," you believe.

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