Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Hilda L. Solis: What the Triangle Shirtwaist fire means for workers now (Washington Post)
A century ago this week, in Lower Manhattan, a young social worker named Frances Perkins was having tea at the Greenwich Village townhouse of her friend, the socialite Margaret Morgan Norrie. They were interrupted by clanging fire truck bells. Then they heard the anguished screams: "Don't jump!"
Jim Hightower: DOWNWARD MOBILITY IN A RISING ECONOMY
At last, some uplifting economic news - a sign that the economy is really starting to hum again!
Paul Krugman's Blog: Work of Depressions Watch (New York Times)
Mark Thoma leads us to new research from the San Francisco Fed showing that recent college graduates have experienced a large rise in unemployment and sharp fall in full-time employment, coupled with a decline in wages. Why is this significant?
Connie Schultz: Meanwhile, in Afghanistan... (Creators Syndicate)
On March 1, actor Charlie Sheen triggered yet another cycle of round-the-clock punditry after his spectacular unraveling on ABC's "20/20." That same day, the Department of Defense announced that 21-year-old Spc. Brian Tabada of Las Vegas had died in a battle in Afghanistan's Kunar province.
Ted Rall: "Libya: Another War We Shouldn't Believe In"
There are a lot of questions we-and journalists-should be asking Obama. Obviously, we're broke. Our military is overextended, losing two wars against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. How can we afford this?
Jon Stewart: We're At War -- Again? (VIDEO)
Further, Stewart noted, politicians have recently been saying that America is broke. If that's true, how can we afford another war? "You can't simultaneously fire teachers and Tomahawk missiles," Stewart said.
Steve Lopez: Saving the state would cost $260 each (Los Angeles Times)
Approving Gov. Brown's proposal to extend sales, vehicle and income tax hikes for five years would preserve education and mental health programs from excessive cuts. Even the L.A. Chamber of Commerce is on board.
Bill Press: Saving Big Bird - and Jim Lehrer, Too (billpressshow.com)
NPR and PBS will survive without federal funding. So will public broadcasting stations in bigger markets, with a large listener/contributor base. The real victims will be local stations in smaller, mainly rural, markets, without such a substantial membership base, which depend on help from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - and without which they'll simply have to close their doors.
Susan Estrich: "Target: Women" (Creators Syndicate)
Someone is giving the university I love a bad name. An e-mail purportedly written by a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity at USC has gone viral. The idea is that women are targets, to be judged by their willingness and anatomical ability to satisfy a man sexually, and that men can benefit by exchanging such information on a weekly basis with great specificity so they will know who to target.
Richard Roeper: Rebecca Black, Ben Hansbrough spark nasty, loud comments
Imagine being one of those people. Imagine going to bed at night, looking back at your day and recalling how you typed out a death threat or grotesque comments about an eighth-grade girl because her music video offended your artistic sensibilities. In the immortal words of Mr. Winner-Winner Sheen Dinner, you're ... LOSING. In life.
MARK BITTMAN: "Food: Six Things to Feel Good About" (New York Times)
On the food front, not all the news is bad.
Tom Danehy: UA alum Channing Frye hopes to help the Phoenix Suns sneak into the playoffs (Tucson Weekly)
This column is about the Phoenix Suns, so if you're one of those people who focus on granola or worry about Japanese radiation drifting over Tucson, you can look elsewhere for a kindred spirit. However, I will weigh in: granola, good; radiation, bad.
David Bruce has 41 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $41 you can buy 10,250 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
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The 'Devil Spawns' Special Edition...
Hey, Poll-fans... Back for one that I couldn't resist...
Glenn Beck Contemplates Starting Own Channel
The possibility that Beck-elzebub will exit the Faux News Channel at the end of the year has prompted a big question in media circles: if he leaves, how will he bring his demonically possessed minions with him? Two of the options His Evilness has contemplated, according to people who have spoken about it with him, are a partial or wholesale takeover of a cable channel, or an expansion of his subscription video service on the Web...
Glenn Beck Contemplates Starting His Own Channel - NYTimes.com
What would be an appropriate name for a Beck-elzebub cable channel?
Results Tuesday, March 29... Cut-off 8pm EST Monday (03/28)...
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and cold.
Sutherland Refutes Claim
"Don't Look Now"
Donald Sutherland, who starred in 1973 film "Don't Look Now," on Thursday refuted an upcoming book's claim that he had sex on camera with co-star Julie Christie while filming a scene in the movie.
One day earlier, show business newspaper The Hollywood Reporter posted a blog by a reporter who had seen an advance copy of a book, "Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex)," written by Hollywood veteran Peter Bart who claimed the sex was real in the scene.
Bart is a former executive at Paramount Pictures and editor at another entertainment publication, Daily Variety. Bart writes that as a Paramount executive he watched the scene being filmed and saw the pair of actors engaged in sex, according to the blog posting in The Hollywood Reporter.
"Not True. None of it. Not the sex. Not him witnessing it," Sutherland said in a statement. "From beginning to end there were four people in that room. Nic Roeg (director), Tony Richmond (cinematographer), Julie Christie and me. No one else."
The scene in question has long been the subject of speculation over whether Sutherland and Christie actually engaged in real sex on camera or were just acting.
"Don't Look Now"
UN Peace Messenger
Michael Douglas
Actor and U.N. messenger for peace Michael Douglas offered his condolences Thursday to the Japanese people struggling amid nuclear crisis after this month's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
Douglas spoke at U.N. headquarters alongside a new exhibit of petitions containing the signatures of more than 1 million people calling on the world's leaders for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has added his signature to the petitions gathered by more than 4,500 mayors worldwide.
"Our hearts go out to the Japanese people as they deal with this catastrophe," Douglas said. "The Japanese have a history of rebuilding their country after natural and manmade catastrophes."
Michael Douglas
FX Cancels
"Lights Out"
It's a knockout for FX's "Lights Out."
Despite critical accolades and heavy internal support, FX has decided to cancel the little-watched boxing drama after just one season.
The pilot reached a modest 1.5 million viewers when it bowed last January, and that was the high point for the show, which continued to shed viewers. The network will air the final two episodes March 29 and April 5.
To be sure, the news comes as little surprise, given both the viewership and FX boss John Landgraf's candor. In an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter" earlier this month, Landgraf said viewership results for "Lights," along with the similarly disappointing performance of since-canceled "Terriers," caused him great pain.
"Lights Out"
"Life's Too Short"
Johnny Depp
He was the butt of some controversial sparring at the Golden Globes for his role in "The Tourist," but Johnny Depp doesn't seem to have taken Ricky Gervais's high-profile ribbing to heart.
The star of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchises is confirmed to appear in Gervais's upcoming BBC2 sitcom "Life's Too Short," according to a post on Gervais's blog.
Depp will guest star in the comedy, which is expected to have a host of big name cameo spots, though Gervais used his "This Side of The Truth" blog to dismiss rumors that Jerry Seinfeld would also make a guest appearance.
"Life's Too Short," which is being co-written by Gervais' longtime creative partner Stephen Merchant, will air on HBO as well as BBC2. It features the continuing adventures of diminutive star Warwick Davis who plays an egomaniac dwarf who runs a talent agency for other dwarves.
Johnny Depp
Gives $1M To Penn
Maury Povich
Talk-show host Maury Povich is donating $1 million to support journalism programs at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater.
The gift establishes the Povich Fund for Journalism Programs, which will fund seminars and other events at Penn's Kelly Writers House.
Povich and his wife, Connie Chung, established a writer-in-residence program at the university's Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing in 2006. The couple also own the Flathead Beacon, a weekly newspaper in Kalispell, Mont.
Povich graduated from Penn in 1962.
Maury Povich
PG-13 Version To Be Released
`The King's Speech'
"The King's Speech" has been washed out with soap.
The Weinstein Company announced Thursday that the Oscar best picture winner will be released in a PG-13 version. The original release of the film was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for a handful of swears.
The Weinstein Company didn't say what edits were made to alter the rating.
The new cut will open April 1 on 1,000 screens, replacing the R-rated original. The long-rumored move is expected to widen the film's audience and help boost the box office, which has reached $132.9 million domestically.
`The King's Speech'
Hospital News
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor's publicist says the shock of Elizabeth Taylor's death made Gabor fear she was next and sent her to a Los Angeles hospital with high blood pressure.
John Blanchette says the 94-year-old celebrity learned from television news Wednesday morning that her friend and one-time neighbor had died.
Blanchette says Gabor's blood pressure soared and she commented that after the recent deaths of Jane Russell and Liz Taylor she believed she would be next.
Blanchette says Gabor was hospitalized and released Wednesday evening.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Set To Abandon Nuclear Power For Good
Germany
Germany is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done.
The world's fourth-largest economy stands alone among leading industrialized nations in its decision to stop using nuclear energy because of its inherent risks. It is betting billions on expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands instead.
The transition was supposed to happen slowly over the next 25 years, but is now being accelerated in the wake of Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant disaster, which Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a "catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions."
And experts say Germany's phase-out provides a good map that countries such as the United States, which use a similar amount of nuclear power, could follow. The German model would not work, however, in countries like France, which relies on nuclear energy for more than 70 percent of its power and has no intention of shifting.
"If we had the winds of Texas or the sun of California, the task here would be even easier," said Felix Matthes of Germany's renowned Institute for Applied Ecology. "Given the great potential in the U.S., it would be feasible there in the long run too, even though it would necessitate huge infrastructure investments."
Germany
Criticizes Malaysia Censorship
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga has urged young Malaysians to protest the censorship of lyrics in her hit song that encourage acceptance of gays.
The Associated Press reported last week that radio stations in Muslim-majority Malaysia were playing edited versions of "Born This Way" that use garble to replace the lyrics: "No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I'm on the right track, baby."
Lady Gaga criticized the censorship during a visit Tuesday to Google company headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Broadcasters have said they are being cautious with Lady Gaga's song because Malaysia's government forbids offensive content. They risk fines of up to 50,000 ringgit ($16,000) and other penalties for breaking the rules.
Lady Gaga
Canada's Mood To Buy
Muzak
Muzak, the company famous for "elevator music", is being acquired by Canada's Mood Media in a deal that Mood said will create a global media provider servicing more than 470,000 commercial locations.
Shares of Toronto-based Mood jumped by as much as 16.5 percent after the $345 million takeover of Muzak Holdings was announced on Thursday. They ended the session up 6.8 percent.
Mood, which offers music, visuals, and scents to create atmosphere and drive sales in retail outlets, will pay $305 million in cash, and the rest in debt and warrants for privately held Muzak. Mood will finance the deal with debt.
The takeover is expected to close in the second quarter.
Muzak
Promotes New Caffeine-Alcohol Drink
Snoop Dogg
Rapper Snoop Dogg is promoting a new, caffeine-laced alcoholic drink that has triggered calls for its ban even before it goes on sale next month.
The drink, called Blast by Colt 45, is manufactured by Pabst Brewing Company and scheduled for release on April 5. A promotional video features Snoop Dogg posing with scantily clad young women at a photo shoot.
The 23.5 ounce drink has a 12 percent alcohol content and comes in grape, raspberry watermelon, strawberry lemonade and blueberry pomegranate flavors.
Snoop Dogg
Book Sparks Debate
Hell
The debate over Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins" has quickly spread across the evangelical precincts of the Internet, in part because of an eye-catching promotional video posted on YouTube.
Bell, the pastor of the 10,000-member Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., lays out the premise of his book while the video cuts away to an artist's hand mixing oil paints and pastels and applying them to a blank canvas.
He describes going to a Christian art show where one of the pieces featured a quote by Mohandas Gandhi. Someone attached a note saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."
"Gandhi's in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?" Bell asks in the video.
Hell
Warhol's Portrait To Be Auctioned
Elizabeth Taylor
A portrait of Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor by Andy Warhol will go under the hammer in New York on May 12 and is expected to fetch as much as $30 million, auctioneers Phillips de Pury said on Thursday.
"Liz #5" was painted in 1963 and is "a dazzling tribute to Elizabeth Taylor," the auction house said in a statement.
According to the company, the portrait "embodies the most important themes of Warhol's oeuvre including celebrity, wealth, scandal, sex, death and Hollywood.
British actor Hugh Grant sold a Warhol portrait of Taylor in New York in 2007 for $23.6 million, several times what he paid for the work.
Elizabeth Taylor
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of March 14-20. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. "Jersey Shore" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 4.9 million homes, 6.59 million viewers.
2. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.74 million homes, 5.87 million viewers.
3. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.56 million homes, 5.43 million viewers.
4. "Teen Mom II" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 3.2 million homes, 4.52 million viewers.
5. "Fairly Legal" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.11 million homes, 4.04 million viewers.
6. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Texas vs Arizona (Sunday, 6 p.m.), TNT, 3.04 million homes, 4.4 million viewers.
7. "Army Wives" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), Lifetime, 3.03 million homes, 3.84 million viewers.
8. NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Kansas vs Illinois (Sunday, 8:52 p.m.), TNT, 3.02 million homes, 4.4 million viewers.
9. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.97 million homes, 4.1 million viewers.
10. "NCIS" (Monday, 8 p.m.), USA, 2.92 million homes, 3.98 million viewers.
11. "The O'Reilly Factor" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 2.865 million homes, 3.69 million viewers.
12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.86 million homes, 3.97 million viewers.
13. "ICarly" (Saturday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.84 million homes, 4.59 million viewers.
14. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.83 million homes, 3.93 million viewers.
15. "Shake it Up" (Sunday, 8:30 p.m.), Disney, 2.79 million homes, 3.63 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock, a documentary filmmaker and pioneer of the unobtrusive camera technique cinema verite who followed John F. Kennedy on his presidential campaign and was seen by some as the grandfather of reality television, has died at age 89.
Leacock died in Paris on Wednesday, said one of his daughters, Victoria Leacock Hoffman, of New York. He had been in declining health and had taken several recent falls, she said in an email.
Leacock's technical acumen supplied the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut with the tools of their trade. His insightful direction laid the groundwork for generations of filmmakers seeking to use their cameras to capture real life as it happened, colleagues said.
"He had a poetic eye behind the camera, which gave him access to anybody because they sensed they could trust him," said documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles, who first worked with Leacock on "Primary," the seminal documentary that followed JFK's presidential campaign in Wisconsin.
Leacock, born in London, made his name as an innovator.
"He was the first one to do what we call `Reality TV,'" said Bob Doyle, a Cambridge, Mass.-based inventor who knew Leacock and maintains a website in his honor. "He was famous for making documentary films which captured people being very natural. But he had a critical eye that exposed weakness or insights into people he was filming."
In the post-World War II period, filmmakers were increasingly preoccupied with escaping the confines of the film set and capturing real life as it was happening. But that ambition, known as cinema verite (French for "truthful cinema"), faced a daunting technical challenge: Taking the camera out of the studio made it extremely difficult to capture high-quality sound.
Filmmakers needed to find a way to soak up speech and video independently without letting the pair slip out of sync, and it was Leacock who hit upon the idea of using a system of American-made Bulova watches to keep the two in accordance.
Leacock wrote, directed and edited "Toby and the Tall Corn," a 1954 documentary about a traveling tent theater in Missouri. It aired on television as part of the cultural program "Omnibus."
In 1960, Leacock formed a partnership with documentarian D.A. Pennebaker. Besides "Primary," Leacock had a hand in the documentaries "A Stravinsky Portrait," about composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky, and the historic concert film "Monterey Pop," about a 1967 rock music festival. He also was cinematographer on Robert Drew's 1963 "The Chair," which documented Chicago lawyers trying to get a man off death row.
He moved to Paris in 1989 after retiring from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was the head of the film/video section, his daughter said.
Besides his daughter, Leacock is survived by his wife, Valerie Lalond, and four other children: Elspeth Leacock, Robert Leacock, David Leacock, and Claudia Leacock. He has nine grandchildren and a great grandchild due on what would have been his 90th birthday, July 18.
Richard Leacock
In Memory
Leonard Weinglass
Leonard Weinglass was a modern-day Clarence Darrow, an attorney who defended people for their politics not their alleged crimes, friends said.
His clients included Black Panthers, radicals, a cop-killer who sparked crusades against the death penalty, the Chicago Seven in the 1960s and the so-called Cuban Five in recent years.
Weinglass died Wednesday in New York City. He was 77 and had pancreatic cancer.
"I always considered Lenny the modern-day Clarence Darrow," said Michael Krinsky, a partner at Rabinowittz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and Lieberman, where Weinglass worked. "He was a lawyer who devoted himself to defending people, usually for political reasons. I think one of the reasons he was so effective with juries is they saw his decency and sincerity."
In 1968, Weinglass was part of the defense team representing the Chicago Seven, accused of various crimes stemming from violence at the Democratic National Convention.
"I thought then that Len was the best trial attorney I ever met," said Tom Hayden, one of the defendants. "We roomed together during the trial and he taught me to be his sort-of assistant counsel. I think everybody in the courtroom came to realize what an extraordinary lawyer he was."
Some of the defendants were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot, but an appeals court later reversed the convictions. The Justice Department never retried the case.
Later, Weinglass helped defend Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo, who were charged with leaking the Pentagon Papers. Criminal charges against the two, who copied and disseminated the classified documents about the U.S. role in the Vietnam War, were eventually dismissed.
Ellsberg said he owed his life to Weinglass.
"He wasn't drawn to making money. He was drawn to defending justice," Ellsberg said. "He felt in many cases he was representing one person standing against the state. He was on the side of the underdog. He was also very shrewd in his judgment of juries."
Weinglass was a 1958 graduate of Yale Law School and served as a U.S. Air Force captain with the judge advocate's office from 1959 to 1961. He opened a law office in Newark, N.J., in the 1960s, Krinsky said, and soon was representing defendants in civil rights cases.
Other high-profile defendants included Angela Davis, a former Black Panthers member acquitted of murder and kidnapping charges in California in 1972.
Another client, Kathy Boudin, was a member of the Weather Underground who was charged with murder during a 1981 robbery of an armored truck in New York. She was convicted for her role in the holdup and was paroled in 2003.
He also worked on the ongoing death row appeals of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther convicted in the slaying of a Philadelphia police officer.
In recent years, he took part in the Cuban Five case, where defendants were accused in Florida of spying for the Cuba.
Hayden said of his friend: "He exemplified the best qualities of a Jewish upbringing; he questioned everything. He was a funny man, a man of wisdom and passion who would throw himself into deeply unpopular causes because he believed in human rights."
Weinglass, who was divorced, had no children. He is survived by two sisters, one brother and several nieces and nephews. A private funeral will be held, followed by a public memorial this spring.
Leonard Weinglass
In Memory
Lanford Wilson
Lanford Wilson, the Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright of such plays as "The Hot L Baltimore," "Burn This," "Fifth of July" and "Talley's Folly," has died. He was 73.
The Steppenwolf Theatre said Thursday that Wilson died Wednesday at a long term acute care facility in Wayne, N.J. The playwright, who had been a longtime resident of New York's Sag Harbor, died on the eve of the Chicago company's first preview production of a staging of his "Hot L Baltimore."
Wilson was one of four founders of The Circle Repertory Company in New York, an incubator of important off-Broadway works. He was nominated for Tony Awards for "Angels Fall" "Talley's Folly" and "Fifth of July."
He won the Pulitzer for drama in 1980 for "Talley's Folly," the second in a trilogy of plays that follows the Talley family of Lebanon, Mo., over several generations. Wilson himself was born in Lebanon, Mo.
Lanford Wilson
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