Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: "Forget Big Brother: If you're breaking the law while driving, you should be subject to punishment" (tucsonweekly.com)
On our radio show, Emil Franzi and I got a call from former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack. A hero to many in the gun-arsenal crowd, Mack is best known for refusing to execute a part of the Brady Bill that he unilaterally decided was unconstitutional. He chose to fight the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and darned if he didn't win.
Ask a Mexican
Q: You mentioned recently that you would never slander undocumented college students. I'm one of those lil' mojaditos. I didn't just want to blindly cheer on your endorsement for we stationed-on-a-nameless-launchpad, eager-to-launch mojaditos, so my question to you, our articulate Highness of valid critique of all things Mexico: Why would you never slander undocumented college students?
THOMAS BARTLETT: Cheating Goes Global as Essay Mills Multiply (chronicle.com)
From Virginia to Manila: on the trail of papers for cash.
PATT MORRISON: Identity theft hits close to home (latimes.com)
When someone steals your mail, it's a whole new worrisome world.
MEGHAN DAUM: Happiness is in your mind -- and wallet (latimes.com)
A new survey indicates that life satisfaction is mostly a matter of perception -- but a ready supply of cash doesn't hurt.
A portrait of 21st-century poverty (guardian.co.uk)
Today marks the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair's promise to eradicate child poverty by 2020, but about 30% of children remain beneath the breadline. Amelia Gentleman reports.
Charlotte Higgins: Cancellations and pay cuts as recession plunges American orchestras into crisis (guardian.co.uk)
The recession is taking its toll on the American arts scene, with 10,000 organisations liable to fold this year.
Rod Liddle: Feminist slant for female erotica writers (timesonline.co.uk)
A nod in Andrea Dworkin's direction and possibly killing off a male character allows women to escape the tag of peddling porn.
"Ursula Le Guin at 80": A Review by Elisabeth Mahoney
... a charming portrait of the writer, relaxed in its style to match her personality. At ease and sounding remarkably youthful for 80, she answered questions with a lack of pretension, some self-deprecation and an engaging chuckle. Flattered by interviewer China Miéville as having foreseen environmental issues in her writing, she quickly rebuffed the compliment.
Cassandra Spratling: Maya Angelou reflects on life, grace and self-esteem (Detroit Free Press)
If there is one thing women should do for their daughters, it is praise them and tell them that they are somebody special, says the celebrated author, singer and poet Maya Angelou.
Luaine Lee: Cheryl Hines can't curb her enthusiasm for acting (McClatchy-Tribune News Service)
In this youth-obsessed society actresses often worry they're too old for a role. But Cheryl Hines was convinced she was too young. For seven years Hines played Larry David's patient wife on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," a role she was sure she wouldn't win.
Rick Bentley: Portia de Rossi plays another chilly character in new series 'Better Off Ted' (McClatchy Newspapers)
Portia de Rossi, the actress who has starred on television shows from "Arrested Development" to "Nip/Tuck," is in the quirky new ABC series "Better Off Ted."
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Shared Sacrifice' Edition
The New York Times, in an article Sunday, Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits - NYTimes.com , reports that the Obama Administration is open to the idea of taxing certain employer provided health benefits as a way to help finance health care for the uninsured. Would you support such an approach?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
Whose photograph graced the cover of the first TV Guide?
noted:
Reader Suggestion
Alaska
If this is true it's pretty pathetic, I'm not PETA Nutz but I do get pissed when I hear of any animals getting abused!!!
I dont believe the dogs running in the Iditarod are abused or forced to do anything they dont want to do wholeheartedly....These dogs LIVE to run! Running with THEIR pack through the wilderness? Nah, no dog wants that.
Vic in AK
Thanks, Vic!
Reader Comment
Holy Fables, Inc.
Joe S wrote:
A total of 352 "Holy" words were used by Robin from "Holy Agility" to "Holy Zorro". My favorite is "Holy Crap!" Ok, I made that up.
Joe S may actually be on to something here! Jesus' body -- while it certainly was killed -- never actually returned to the earth, or otherwise rotted. Even His blood was caught by a chalise when that Roman reprobate had the effrontery to stab the (as advertised in the HB) the ostensibly dead body of Christ (scientific fact: dead bodies do not bleed ... no blood pressure). After all, (as advertised in the NT) Christ's body did take a ride back to heaven along with that holy spirit.
As a consequence, it can be assumed that any food and/or drink that ever entered the body of Christ experienced the ultimate holy processing, and essentially became incorruptable. Well, GTF (God The Father) certainly could not just casually allow thousands of variously small masses of holy shit to incorruptably remain laying around Palestine for the resulting millennia (and perhaps even stretching along the road from India to North Britian, and if your an adherent to the wackier of the LDS crowd, even across the ocean and much of America), so as Jesus made his holy dumps, it's obvious to me that they would only lay there for around "three days (actually about a day and a half if you do the from-to math)" and then miraculously transport to heaven when nobody was really paying attention (holy flying shit, Batman!).
Hmmm, I wonder if YHWH perpetually has some kind of holy septic container that He uses in order to perptually warehouse all the holy crap that has ever been produced by the perfectly consequent inhabitants of heaven whenever They would choose (though not have to) eat?
Or perhaps He's arranged for different circumstances ... .
DanD
Thanks, Dan!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny, but a bit cooler.
2 US Journalists Detained In NKorea
Current TV
North Korean soldiers detained two American journalists near the country's border with China, South Korean news reports and a South Korean missionary said Thursday.
The journalists - Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based online media outlet Current TV - were taken into custody Tuesday, a missionary who spoke to them earlier that day told The Associated Press.
The Rev. Chun Ki-won of the Seoul-based Durihana Mission said by phone from Washington that he was told that the two women were detained with a guide hired in China to assist them. Chun, a South Korean activist who helps North Korean refugees seek asylum, refused to reveal his sources.
He said U.S. officials were in contact with the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. It represents Washington because the U.S. does not have direct relations with North Korea.
Current TV
Questions Logic
Leonard Nimoy
Mr. Spock would never admit to any emotion, but the actor who portrayed the very logical character is peeved about a decision not to show the premiere of the new "Star Trek" movie in a southern Alberta town.
Leonard Nimoy thinks "Star Trek XI" should go where no film has gone before. A mission by the town of Vulcan, southeast of Calgary, to beam in the movie on opening day May 8 appeared to have failed this week when Paramount Pictures said it couldn't work out details.
"It seems to me that someone at Paramount should show some interest and not take this lightly. This is a serious issue," Nimoy said in a phone interview from Los Angeles with The Canadian Press.
"My position is if they can produce this gigantic movie and get it done with all the physical requirements that are involved in making this film, they can find some way to show it in Alberta, Canada," Nimoy added.
Leonard Nimoy
Widower To Produce "Story"
Adrienne Shelly
Adrienne Shelly, writer-director of the hit "Waitress," which was released after her 2006 murder, left behind another screenplay that her widower will develop and produce.
The project, "The Morgan Story," is a multigenerational family drama that revolves around three sisters and follows them over the course of several decades. Shelly widower Andy Ostroy, who launched All for A Films to maintain and further his wife's legacy, said he believed it to be Shelly's best script.
Ostroy and producing partner Michael Roiff of Night and Day Pictures could again team up on the project, though both stressed it was still early in the process.
The pair recently completed producing another post-"Waitress" project based on a Shelly script, "Serious Moonlight," a dark comedy about a wife who duct-tapes her husband to the bathroom just as burglars arrive. Actress Cheryl Hines ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") is making her directorial debut on the independently financed picture, which will star Timothy Hutton and Meg Ryan. The movie will have its world premiere next month at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
Adrienne Shelly
Thriving Despite Recession
Broadway
If this is how a recession affects Broadway, well then, bring it on!
There was much gnashing of teeth in January when a record number of productions closed and left the rialto looking barren indeed. But since then, some strange things have happened even as the economy continues to struggle to find a foothold.
Broadway grosses are holding their own, with fairly minimal box-office drop-offs, and some shows -- notably the revival of "West Side Story" -- are doing $1 million (699,500 pounds) a week even in previews.
More startling still, this spring features an impressive number of openings, with virtually every theatre booked. By the time the season wraps at the end of April, more shows will have opened during the 2008-09 campaign than in each of the past two years. What's more, the lineup of recently opened and upcoming productions is far more varied and exciting than usual.
Broadway
Auction Raises Over £7M
Versace
A sale of exclusive items from the home of late fashion designer Gianni Versace has taken more than £7 million.
Items from Versace's Villa Fontanelle home included huge classical statues of naked wrestlers, furniture and paintings and were auctioned at Sotheby's in New Bond Street, central London.
A spokesman said the pre-sale estimate was only £2.8 million but many items sold for more than ten times their expected price.
Versace, who was shot dead in Miami in 1997, once described his villa as "a Proust house, whereas the ones in Milano and Miami are more Batman...it is the house that really belongs to me, reflecting a mirror image of all that I am, for better or worse."
Versace
Babies Named
Jesse Jameson & Journey Jett Ortiz
Former adult film star Jenna Jameson and mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz - who welcomed the boys into the world on Monday (16.03.09) - have named their twins Jesse Jameson and Journey Jett.
The 34-year-old blonde beauty gave birth at California's Newport Beach hospital and said she was "thrilled" to become a mother.
Her representative said: "The babies are in very good health. Both Jenna and Tito are delighted, they couldn't be happier."
Jesse Jameson & Journey Jett Ortiz
Many At Gitmo Are Innocent
Larry Wilkerson
Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years."
Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a "mosaic" of intelligence.
"It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance," Wilkerson wrote in the blog. He said intelligence analysts hoped to gather "sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified."
Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no meaningful attempt to discriminate "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation."
Larry Wilkerson
Seeks Bankruptcy, Sale To Marriott
The Greenbrier
The historic Greenbrier resort, which has gone from hosting presidents and royalty to posting losses, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday and unveiled a plan to sell itself to hotel giant Marriott International Inc. for up to $130 million.
A sharp recessionary downturn for luxury hotels helped drive The Greenbrier to a deal that would end nearly a century of ownership by railroad company CSX Corp. and its predecessors of the resort, which blossomed from an 18th century sulfur spring retreat to a society hotspot in the roaring 1920s.
Under the sales plan revealed in the bankruptcy filing, Marriott would receive $50 million over two years from Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX Corp. to operate the resort. Marriott in turn would pay CSX between $60 million and $130 million within seven years, depending on timing and the hotel's financial performance. The deal is expected to close later this year, pending new labor agreements and approval from a bankruptcy court, which is expected to allow other potential buyers to make bids.
The 6,500-acre resort in southeastern West Virginia with 721 rooms also is the site of a once-secret Cold War bunker built to house Congress in case of a nuclear attack.
The Greenbrier
German Retailer Pulls Violent DVDs, Games
Galeria Kaufhof
German retail chain Galeria Kaufhof will pull violent films and video games from its shelves in response to the school shooting last week that shocked and horrified the country.
Beginning in April, Kaufhof, one of the country's largest retailers, will no longer stock films or games sold with an 18-plus rating, meaning material judged inappropriate for young people. The rating is usually reserved for violent material, including horror films and first-person-shooter games.
Violent video games have come under attack here in the wake of last week's shooting, in which a former student gunned down 15 people at a high school in southern Germany. Media reports and local politicians have pointed to the fact that the shooter played popular video game "Counter Strike" as a factor in the massacre.
Germany already has one of the strictest ratings regimes for violent games and films in Europe.
Galeria Kaufhof
Recipients Owe Back Taxes
Bailout
At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece.
The House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight discovered the unpaid taxes in a review of tax records from 23 of the firms receiving the most money, Lewis said as he opened a hearing on the issue.
The committee said it could not legally release the names of the companies owing taxes. It said one recipient had almost $113 million in unpaid federal income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004. Another was behind $1.1 million in federal income taxes and $223,000 in federal employment taxes.
Banks and other firms receiving federal money were required to sign contracts stating they had no unpaid taxes, Lewis said. But he said the Treasury Department did not ask them to turn over their tax records.
Bailout
Goldman Sachs Bids
Universal Studios - Osaka
USJ Co Ltd, the operator of a struggling Universal Studios theme park in Japan, said on Thursday it was being sold for $1.2 billion to a consortium led by Goldman Sachs.
The deal, the biggest such buyout in Japan in a year, was at a 28.5 percent premium to USJ's share price before the offer became public.
Customer numbers at the Osaka theme park, which features rides based on the movies Spiderman and Jurassic Park, have fallen in the midst of the global financial crisis and its shares have halved in value since 2007.
Goldman, which holds about 40 percent of USJ through its fund, said private equity firm MBK Partners and Owl Creek Asset Management would take stakes in the privatized company.
Universal Studios - Osaka
Wanted Again
Henry Hill
A mobster-turned-FBI informant whose life inspired the movie "Goodfellas" is wanted for failing to appear in court on tickets alleging he was drunk in public in San Bernardino.
Henry Hill, 65, faces two $25,000 arrest warrants. He says he wasn't aware he needed to be present in court Wednesday and had asked for a new hearing date because he was having hernia surgery.
"I was hoping the court would understand," Hill told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside from his San Fernando Valley home.
"I don't remember much of all that, but I've been sober a month now," he told the newspaper. "I don't want to drink anymore."
Henry Hill
Last Call For Arcane Drinking Laws
Utah
After more than 40 years, some of the strictest - and strangest - liquor laws in the nation are being hustled out the barroom door, yet another sign that even a state dominated by teetotaling Mormons is willing to reconsider decades-old mores if it helps the economy.
No longer will bartenders be separated from customers by a glass partition known as a "Zion Curtain." And patrons won't have to join a social club or pay a membership fee before entering bars.
Tourists frequently leave bars and restaurants here after becoming flummoxed at what it takes to get a drink. And the state's tourism industry has frequently complained that the liquor laws send lucrative conventions and skiers fleeing to neighboring Colorado.
While not technically requiring a license, Utah does require anyone entering a bar to be a member of the club or a member's guest. At most bars, anyone can become a member by paying a state-ordered fee for a three-week pass that costs at least $4. An annual membership costs at least $12. And a separate membership is required at each bar.
Utah
In Memory
Betsy Blair
Betsy Blair, the Oscar-nominated actress and teenage bride of Gene Kelly, has died in London at the age of 85, her publisher said on Thursday.
Blair swapped suburban high school for life as a nightclub dancer in New York, where she met Kelly, then a choreographer on the brink of success.
They married in 1941 and moved to Hollywood, where Kelly became a major star.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Blair took parts in "The Guilt of Janet Ames," and "A Double Life." But her movie career stalled after her enthusiasm for leftist causes landed her on Hollywood's blacklist.
"To be very left-wing in Hollywood was to work for the unions, to work for the blacks, the ordinary things that are social democratic principles," Blair told Britain's The Guardian newspaper in an interview in 2001.
In 1955, Blair took her most famous role, in "Marty," playing a dowdy school teacher who captures the heart of a lonely Italian-American butcher. The movie brought Academy Award nominations for both leading actors-but Blair lost out on the best supporting actress award, though her co-star, Ernest Borgnine, won for best actor.
Two years later, Blair and Kelly separated. She rarely discussed their split in public, and refused to criticize Kelly, who died in 1996. "I have nothing bad to say about Gene in any way . . . We were married 16 years and it just came to an end," she told The Guardian in 2001.
Blair moved to London and in 1963 she married respected Czech filmmaker Karel Reisz, director of the 1960 movie "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning."
For several years, she worked mainly in theatre and television and briefly halted her acting career to train as a speech therapist.
However, in 1988 - three decades after her last Hollywood film, Blair returned to the United States to star in "Betrayed" alongside Tom Berenger. A year later, she took a part in the television series "Thirtysomething."
Blair was offered a role in 2002 in "The Hours" alongside Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore, but turned down the part to care for Reisz, who died in the same year.
She is survived by her daughter, Kerry, from her marriage to Kelly.
Betsy Blair
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
