Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: The stupidity of the Arizona State Senate continues to amaze (tucsonweekly.com)
Last week, 11 Arizona state senators took the bold stance to show that they believe it is the inalienable right of all people to be potentially deadly *ssholes.
Dean Baker: Missing the Story on Iceland: Can the Bankers Steal Your Kids' Money (prospect.org)
. . . [Iceland's experience] makes a mockery of anyone who claims to support leaving financial activities to the market. In almost all cases, actors in financial markets assume that governments will stand behind banks at the end of the day. Therefore when they say want the government to leave things to the market they are lying. ... In short, the finance boys want a free lunch, not a free market.
Garrison Keillor: When the Solution Is Worse Than the Problem (Tribune Media Services)
The snow is melting in the woods of North Carolina and the kudzu is greening up.
Carlene Thomas-Bailey: The day Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to my grandma (guardian.co.uk)
Doreen Thomas, like 1.8 million others, sent John F Kennedy's widow a letter of condolence, but was astonished to receive a reply. And then she passed the treasure on to her granddaughter.
"Walking on the Moon: The Untold Story of the Police and the Rise of New Wave Rock" by Chris Campion: A Review by Christel Loar (popmatters.com)
Even though this is one of the first, and certainly the most extensive, looks behind the scenes by an outsider with an eye toward in-depth, insider information, it's really nothing new. Even the most casual Police fans will already be aware of much covered here: it's hardly anything untold.
SEAN L. MALONEY: Getting to Know Ke$ha, Pop Sensation (Nashville Scene)
It was the day after Christmas, and we were dancing at 12th & Porter while Ke$ha danced barely three feet away. She already had the No. 2 song in the country, but she wouldn't be a global it-girl for at least another week. In retrospect, we should have cut in.
Jenny Holzer: Nightmares in neon (guardian.co.uk)
Jenny Holzer's bold new show draws on US military memos and torture techniques. Adrian Searle is left feeling paranoid.
Steve Bell: "Ronald Searle: a life in pictures" (guardian.co.uk)
A new exhibition celebrates the work of Ronald Searle as he turns 90. Steve Bell on what makes him Britain's greatest living cartoonist.
Veronica Schmidt: Oscars organisers intentionally snubbed Farrah Fawcett (timesonline.co.uk)
Farrah Fawcett was intentionally left out of the "in memoriam" segment at Sunday's Oscars, organisers have admitted.
Chris Ayres: "The Oscars: Let's get this party started" (timesonline.co.uk)
Once the Oscars are over, the partying starts in earnest.
Interview by Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Imogen Stubbs, actor" (guardian.co.uk)
'I would love to have had a career like Kate Winslet's - but the chance never came my way.'
Christopher Borrelli: It's hard work delivering an effortless performance (Chicago Tribune)
Being George Clooney in a George Clooney movie is a wise place to start if you are George Clooney.
David Bruce: Lois Lowry's "Number the Stars": A Discussion Guide (lulu.com)
Free Download.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Moore of the same, or not?' Edition
Michael Moore wants President Obama to replace Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emanual, with... Michael Moore... Moore has penned an open letter to 'The Man' writing...
"Dear President Obama, I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff. I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement..." Welcome to MichaelMoore.com.
That begs the question...
How well do think Michael Moore would do as Obama's Chief-of-Staff?
A.) Better than Rahm...
B.) Worse than Rahm...
C.) It wouldn't make a whit of difference who it is, we're doomed - doomed I say, any way ya cut the cards, dagnabbit!
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Wolf Tale
Vic in AK
Hey Marty!!!
This just in, Alaska Troopers are almost 100% certain that the teacher found dead of an apparent animal attack was in fact preyed upon by a pack of Wolves, thus becoming the first ever instance of such an act by healthy wolves in the Americas.
Now Alaska F&G will NEVER stop their wholesale aerial slaughter of wolves, now they can say it's for the public good and not their real reason of killing them to increase moose populations so rich out of staters can come bag a trophy.
Vic
Thanks, Vic! (Hi, Thia!)
That's just plain sad.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and warmer.
Wins Battle With EMI
Pink Floyd
n a victory for the concept album, Britain's High Court on Thursday ordered record company EMI Group Ltd. to stop selling downloads of Pink Floyd tracks individually rather than as part of the band's original records.
The prog-rock group sued the music label, saying its contract prohibited selling the tracks "unbundled" from their original album setting.
EMI claimed the clause in the band's contract - negotiated a decade ago, before the advent of iTunes and other online retailers - applied only to physical albums, not Internet sales.
Judge Andrew Morritt backed the band, saying the contract protected "the artistic integrity of the albums."
He ruled that EMI is "not entitled to exploit recordings by online distribution or by any other means other than the complete original album without Pink Floyd's consent."
Pink Floyd
Set To Host "Saturday Night Live"
Betty White
After weeks of speculation, octogenarian actress and "Golden Girl" Betty White is taking her motherly brand of humor to sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live," the show's producers said on Thursday.
White, 88, is a six-time winner of the top U.S. television awards, the Emmys, who has been a TV star going back to the 1950s. She has frequented TV game shows such as "Match Game" and "Password," and was a guest star on the popular "Mary Tyler Moore" show in the 1970s playing TV personality Sue Ann Nivens.
She increased her popularity portraying the absent-minded Rose Nylund who shared a home with several retired women on hit sitcom "The Golden Girls" which spanned the 1980s and early 1990s.
She will host the popular late-night comedy program on May 8, one day ahead of "Mother's Day" in the United States, on which people celebrate moms and grandmas.
Betty White
Reporters Without Borders
Censorship
Repressive regimes have stepped up efforts to censor the Internet and jail dissidents, Reporters Without Borders said in a study out Thursday.
China, Iran and Tunisia, which are on the group's "Enemies of the Internet" list, got more sophisticated at censorship and overcoming dissidents' attempts to communicate online, said Reporters Without Borders' Washington director, Clothilde Le Coz.
Although Zimbabwe and Yemen dropped from the surveillance list, that was primarily because the Internet isn't used much in either country, rather than because of changes by the governments, Le Coz said.
Reporters Without Borders issued the third annual report ahead of Friday's World Day Against Cyber Censorship, an awareness campaign organized by the Paris-based media advocacy group.
Censorship
Court Upholds 'Under God'
Pledge of Allegiance
A federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency, rejecting arguments on Thursday that the phrases violate the separation of church and state.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected two legal challenges by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, who claimed the references to God disrespect his religious beliefs.
"The Pledge is constitutional," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority in the 2-1 ruling. "The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our Republic was founded."
The same court ruled in Newdow's favor in 2002 after he sued his daughter's school district for having students recite the pledge at school.
Pledge of Allegiance
Blog Follows Art Restoration
Vincent Van Gogh
A new blog will allow art lovers to follow the restoration, step by step, of Dutch post impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh's famous "The Bedroom", the Van Gogh Museum said Thursday.
"It is the first time we have rendered each step of a restoration accessible to the public in this way," the museum's director Axel Ruger said in a statement.
The blog, www.vangoghmuseum.com/bedroomsecrets, will have weekly updates of the restoration work with pictures and video, the museum said.
Van Gogh painted the canvas in Arles, France, where he lived in 1888 and 1889 in the well-known "Yellow House" which he shared for a while with fellow painter Paul Gauguin.
Vincent Van Gogh
Takes Show On The Road
Conan
Without a TV show to do every night, Conan O'Brien is taking his act on the road.
The former host of "The Tonight Show" announced a 30-city theater tour on Thursday. Sidekick Andy Richter and the former "Tonight Show" band will join O'Brien for what he promises to be "a night of music, comedy, hugging and the occasional awkward silence."
The "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour" begins April 12 in Eugene, Ore., and concludes June 14 in Atlanta.
The tour will visit theaters in at least 20 states and two Canadian provinces. Additional dates may be added.
Conan
Launch Fashion Lines
Madonna
Pop star Madonna and Iconix Brand Group on Wednesday unveiled a joint venture to launch fashion brands globally, starting with a juniors collection to be sold at Macy's department stores this August.
The company, MG Icon, will be 50 percent owned by Iconix and 50 percent by Madonna and Guy Oseary, her manager, and it will hold a license to use the singer's name for apparel, footwear and other products.
A fast-fashion juniors collection, aptly called "Material Girl" after Madonna's nickname early in her career when she scored hit songs such as "Lucky Star," will be launched in about 200 Macy's stores and online in time for back-to-school shopping in the United States.
The new collection was designed by 51-year-old Madonna and her teenage daughter Lourdes Leon in collaboration with Iconix's in-house fashion department.
Madonna
Turns To Ari Fleischer
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods's entourage has traditionally been second in size only to that of the President of the United States, so it seemed apt on Thursday that the world No 1 was reportedly hiring a former White House press secretary to handle his assimilation back into civilised society
The sports management company set up by Ari Fleischer since leaving the service of resident George W Bush in 2003 advertises itself as being able to "help you handle the bad news and take advantage of the good". It is a mantra to which Woods appears to have related, if claims that he is turning to Fleischer to help rehabilitate his image are to be believed.
Already the pair are said to have agreed on the date for a comeback, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational near his Orlando home on March 25-28, even if one report on Thursday night insisted that he would be delaying the return until the Masters next month. A source "close to Palmer" was quoted as saying: "We have not heard anything."
Fleischer has experience in guiding sporting pariahs, having had his skills enlisted this year by baseball star Mark McGwire after the St Louis Cardinals slugger had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
Tiger Woods
'The Hump'
Whale Sushi
Federal prosecutors filed charges Wednesday against a sushi chef and a Santa Monica restaurant on allegations that they served illegal and endangered whale meat.
Typhoon Restaurant Inc., which owns The Hump restaurant, and sushi chef Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45, were charged with illegally selling an endangered species product, a misdemeanor.
According to a search warrant, marine mammal activists were served whale during three separate visits to the restaurant. Federal labs confirmed the meat came from a Sei whale, an endangered species protected by international treaties, documents said.
Agents also seized some suspected whale meat during a search of the restaurant Friday but are awaiting test results to confirm it was Sei whale, U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozak said.
Whale Sushi
Girlicious Band Member Arrested
Natalie Mejia
Police say a member of the pop group Girlicious was arrested after Glendale officers found more than a dozen plastic bags of cocaine in her Gucci purse during a traffic stop.
Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz says 21-year-old Natalie Mejia was being held Wednesday in jail in the Los Angeles suburb on suspicion of cocaine for sale or distribution.
Lorenz says Mejia was a passenger in a car driven by 28-year-old Peter Asencio Tuesday night when Asencio was pulled over for speeding.
Police say Mejia had just dined at a restaurant in Burbank and was heading to the airport and late for a flight.
Natalie Mejia
ACLU Lawsuit Filed
Constance McMillen
The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi is suing to force a school district to host a prom it canceled after a lesbian student asked to bring her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.
The federal lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen.
The Itawamba County School District said it wouldn't host the April 2 prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School after the ACLU demanded McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend. District officials said they hoped private citizens would sponsor a prom instead.
The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend and wear the tuxedo.
Constance McMillen
Wingnut Problem
Elton John
A Georgia man who posted a video on YouTube of himself holding a sign saying "Elton John must die" has been arrested for making terroristic threats.
Atlanta Police Sgt. Curtis Davenport says Neal Horsley was arrested early Wednesday in Carrollton, about 50 miles west of Atlanta. Davenport would not say who Horsley is accused of threatening, but Horsley's son, Nathan, Horsley, says he believed the arrest is connected to the video about the musician.
Horsley complains in the video about John's comments in a magazine interview last month that Jesus Christ was gay.
Horsley was being held Thursday in the Fulton County jail on $40,000 bond.
Elton John
Shocking - Few Fans Among Mining Execs
"Avatar"
It's enough to make a mining executive grit his teeth or his kids to give him the silent treatment.
In a case of art imitating life -- with perhaps a little poetic license -- Oscar-winning movie "Avatar" paints big mining companies as the villains of the future.
But real-life executives are not entirely amused by their fictional colleagues being cast in evil roles in what is already the biggest-grossing Hollywood movie of all time.
"I gotta say, I gritted my teeth a few times over the manner the mining company was presented," said Charles Jeannes, chief executive of Canada's Goldcorp. "I loved 'Avatar' -- once you get past the storyline, I loved the graphics."
"Avatar"
Potential Heirs' DNA Tested
Caravaggio
Six possible descendants of Baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, have been DNA-tested in the hopes they can help unveil the mystery surrounding the painter's death. Skip related content
The cause of death in 1610 and the whereabouts of the corpse have always been unclear but a team of Italian anthropologists believe that what is left of Caravaggio's body may be hidden among dozens of bodies buried in a crypt in Tuscany.
For months, the team -- from the departments of Anthropology and Cultural Heritage Conservation at the universities of Ravenna and Bologna -- have exhumed remains of long-buried corpses in the hope of performing a belated autopsy.
This week they travelled to the northern town of Caravaggio, where Merisi grew up, to carry out tests with possible descendents -- some of them carrying derivations of the family name. As Caravaggio died childless the team looked for the painter's closest blood descendents in search of a match.
Caravaggio
Seed Vault Hits 1/2 Million Mark
Norway
Two years after receiving its first deposits, a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island has amassed half a million seed samples, making it the world's most diverse repository of crop seeds, the vault's operators announced Thursday.
Cary Fowler - who heads the trust that oversees the seed collection, which is 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the North Pole, said the facility now houses at least one-third of the world's crop seeds.
Located in Norway's remote Svalbard archipelago, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a safeguard against wars or natural disasters wiping out food crops around the globe. It was opened in 2008 as a master backup to the world's other 1,400 seed banks, in case their deposits are lost.
War wiped out seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan, and another bank in the Philippines was flooded in the wake of a typhoon in 2006. The Svalbard bank is designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes and even nuclear strikes.
Norway
Remember Lazlo Toth?
"Little Billy"
Over the years, "Little Billy" learned much from the country's top minds.
Secretaries of state, touched by the 10-year-old's handwritten letters on grade-school notepaper, wrote back advising him how to settle a treehouse dispute with his sister. O.J. Simpson's lawyer told him how to get off the hook on accusations he destroyed a doll. A publisher of racy magazines, asked whether there was a version for kids, told him to read the Sears catalog instead, and "you'll be 18 before you know it."
Billy also turned to twisted minds for their counsel. He wrote to notorious criminals asking whether he should stay in school. Son of Sam told him not to waste his life, like he did; the Unabomber merely wished him luck.
It was all a big setup. Little Billy was actually grown-up Bill Geerhart, punking the famous and infamous by writing letters to them asking questions out of the mouths of babes. Their correspondence back - humorous, head-scratching, poignant - is compiled in a book, "Little Billy's Letters," out this week.
"Little Billy"
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of March 1-7. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses:
1. "Hannah Montana" (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), Disney, 4 million homes, 6.31 million viewers.
2. "Pawn Stars" (Monday, 10:30 p.m.), History, 3.86 million homes, 5.34 million viewers.
3. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.74 million homes, 5.52 million viewers.
4. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.53 million homes, 5.11 million viewers.
5. "Pawn Stars" (Monday, 10 p.m.), History, 3.52 million homes, 4.93 million viewers.
6. "ICarly" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.5 million homes, 5.33 million viewers.
7. "NCIS" (Sunday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.43 million homes, 4.8 million viewers.
8. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.37 million homes, 4.51 million viewers.
9. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.14 million homes, 4.32 million viewers.
10. "NCIS" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.09 million homes, 4.25 million viewers.
11. "NCIS" (Sunday, 6 p.m.), USA, 3.04 million homes, 4.08 million viewers.
12. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 3.01 million homes, 4.02 million viewers.
13. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.97 million homes, 3.91 million viewers.
14. "Penguins of Madagascar" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.956 million homes, 3.99 million viewers.
15. "ICarly" (Saturday, 12 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.955 million homes, 4.14 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Olsen, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman and member of the Los Angeles Rams' "Fearsome Foursome" who followed up football with a successful television career in "Little House on the Prairie," NFL broadcasts and commercials, has died. He was 69.
Utah State, Olsen's alma mater, said he died outside of Los Angeles early Thursday after battling cancer. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining, last year.
Olsen was rookie of the year for the Rams in 1962 and is still the Rams' all-time leader in career tackles with 915. He was named to 14 consecutive Pro Bowls, a string that started his rookie year.
Olsen was also an established television actor with a role on "Little House on the Prairie," then starring in his own series, "Father Murphy," from 1981 to 1983 and the short-lived "Aaron's Way" in 1988.
Utah State honored Olsen in December by naming the football field at Romney Stadium "Merlin Olsen Field." Because of his illness, Olsen's alma mater didn't want to wait until football season and made the announcement during halftime of a basketball game.
Olsen was well enough to attend, but did not speak at the event. He stood and smiled as he waved to fans during a standing ovation and chants of "Merlin Olsen!" and "Aggie Legend!"
Merlin Olsen
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