Recommended Reading
from Bruce
OK Go: Skyscrapers (YouTube)
Well-created video.
Tom Danehy: Tom thinks the bracket thing has gotten out of hand ... so he wrote a whole column about it (Tucson Weekly)
With the Final Four just finishing up, I feel obligated to report on a trend that, like many things, probably started out as good, clean, innocent fun, and then got taken to extremes.
Ted Rall: Every Policeman Is A Licensed [Finger] Rapist
The Court heard examples of people who were strip-searched "after being arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell." They considered amicus briefs by nuns and other "women who were strip-searched during periods of lactation or menstruation."
Noam Chomsky: The Assault on Public Education (Truthout)
Public education is under attack around the world, and in response, student protests have recently been held in Britain, Canada, Chile, Taiwan and elsewhere.
Stuart Jeffries: Christine Brooke-Rose obituary (Guardian)
Critically acclaimed author of experimental, tongue-in-cheek novels.
Irish Indie Author Claire Farrell Reaches Global Market Writing Books She'd Want to Read (Smashwords)
Irish indie author Claire Farrell eschews social media, preferring instead to spend her days writing books she'd want to read. When the recession hit hard, she made writing her full time job. Two years later, her books are selling so well she supports her large family on her writing income. As she told us in the interview below, she writes up to 5,000 words a day. She's a great example of why authors should distribute as widely as possible, keep writing and stay patient because you never know when or where your books will start resonating with readers.
Martin Chilton: "Gulliver's Travels (Adapted and Updated) by Martin Rowson: review" (Telegraph)
Artist and writer Martin Rowson has produced a zany and edgy graphic novel update of Jonathan Swift's classic satire 'Gulliver's Travels.'
KMairowitz: Great French Films (Internet Movie Database)
This is a personal list. I am absolutely not trying to do a general list of important French films.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but cooler than seasonal.
"To Kill a Mockingbird"
Harper Lee
Alabama author Harper Lee doesn't speak publicly very often, but she says she's honored President Barack Obama is taping an introduction to a special showing of the movie based on her novel "To Kill a Mockingbird."
USA Network says it will air a fully restored version of the movie Saturday evening. It will include a brief introduction by the president, who recognized Lee at a White House event last year.
Lee lives in the south Alabama town of Monroeville. In a statement released by the network, Lee says she is deeply honored that Obama will introduce the movie to a national audience.
The 50-year-old film features actor Gregory Peck as Alabama attorney Atticus Finch fighting for justice for a black defendant in a small southern town. The character is based on Lee's father.
Harper Lee
Halt Of Print Edition Triggers Sales
Encyclopaedia Britannica
It turns out all Encyclopaedia Britannica had to do to breathe new life into the sale of its print edition was to kill it.
Since Britannica announced last month that it was discontinuing its print editions, the Chicago-based company said sales have skyrocketed. It has sold all but 800 of the 4,000 sets of the 32-volume 2010 edition it had left at a Kentucky warehouse, the company said.
"We were averaging about 60 sets a week and the next thing we knew, we were selling 1,050 a week," Britannica spokesman Peter Duckler said Thursday. "When people thought they were going to be around forever there was no rush to buy one and then suddenly, boom, and now there is a scarcity and it's a collector's item."
As they did before the announcement, the sets are selling for $1,395. If that sounds like a lot of money, secondary sellers online are asking more than $3,200 a set for the 2010 edition - and that's before the company has run out of the ones it has.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Weinstein Cuts The 'F' Out For PG-13
'Bully'
The Weinstein Co. says the rating for the documentary "Bully" has been lowered from R to PG-13.
The company announced Thursday that an edited version of the film will be released April 13 with a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
The MPAA originally gave the film an R rating for language and declined to change it when the Weinstein Co. appealed.
The Weinstein Co. says three uses of an expletive were removed to earn the PG-13 rating.
'Bully'
Signs New 'Today' Deal
Matt Lauer
Matt Lauer is sticking with the "Today" show.
Lauer plans to announce Friday on the air that he has signed a long-term contract to remain as co-host of the top-rated morning show, NBC News spokeswoman Megan Kopf said Thursday.
Although "Today" is on a historic winnings streak in the ratings, ABC competitor "Good Morning America" has been gaining ground.
Lauer's decision provides important stability for "Today" and puts to rest speculation that he might reunite with his former co-host, Katie Couric, on the syndicated show she's launching this fall.
Matt Lauer
Baffled By The U.S. Supreme Court
Europe
Europe is scratching its head over possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down President Obama's signature legislative achievement. As the judiciary and the Obama administration trade legal barbs over the high court's authority, the idea that health care coverage, largely considered a universal right in Europe, could be deemed an affront to liberty is baffling.
"The Supreme Court can legitimately return Obamacare?" asks a headline on the French news site 9 POK. The article slowly walks through the legal rationale behind the court's right to wipe away Congress's legislation. "Sans précédent, extraordinaires" reads the article. In the German edition of The Financial Times, Sabine Muscat is astonished at Justice Antonin Scalia's argument that if the government can mandate insurance, it can also require people to eat broccoli. "Absurder Vergleich" reads the article's kicker, which in English translates to, "Absurd Comparison." In trying to defeat the bill, Muscat writes, Scalia is making a "strange analogy [to] vegetables."
Over in Britain, the opposition is more direct. The Guardian's Kevin Powell called the debate "surreal" in his Monday column. "Wasn't the point to make sure the richest and most powerful nation on the planet could protect its own people, as other nations do?" he wrote. "If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare?"
The Independent's Rupert Cornwell, meanwhile, is astonished by the high court's legal sway. "When an American president nominates a new member of the Supreme Court, I sometimes used to wonder, why all the fuss? Is this appointment of a single judge - just one justice among nine - really important enough to throw Congress into a spin, dominate the blogosphere and mobilise every lobbying group in the land?" The Telegraph's Mark McKinnon, meanwhile, just marvels at the court's power. "These six men and three women will have a voice in determining not only Obama's long-term legacy, but also his short-term future as the November election looms," he writes. "They are six men and three women, aged between 51 and 79, and two of them have been in the same job since Ronald Reagan was in the White House." What can we say? Welcome to America, Europe.
Europe
Sues Current TV For $50M
Olbermann
Keith Olbermann is moving his grievances with his former employer Current TV from the airwaves to the courtroom, suing the network for more than $50 million and blasting it for what he claims were shoddy production values.
Olbermann's breach-of-contract lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Thursday also seeks a judge's ruling that he didn't disparage the network before his firing, and that his former bosses violated his agreement by disclosing how much he was being paid.
The suit makes several attacks on Current co-founder Joel Hyatt and network President David Borman, claiming they were responsible for many of his show's problems.
The complaint describes a litany of technical issues, including shoddy equipment that wouldn't work if it rained, "terrible sound and filming" of the show, guests who were abruptly dropped from the air, busted teleprompters and an earpiece that malfunctioned.
While the host is critical of Gore - at one point describing him and Hyatt as "dilettantes portraying entertainment industry executives" - his complaint does not attack the former vice president in the same way as he does others. The case even airs Olbermann's dissatisfaction with the network's decision to hire Cenk Uygur, who created the talk show "The Young Turks."
Olbermann
Says Olbermann's Lawsuit Is Malicious
Current
Keith Olbermann is moving his grievances with his former employer Current TV from the airwaves to the courtroom, suing the network for more than $50 million and blasting it for what he claims were shoddy production values.
Current spokesman Christopher Lehane fired back, saying Olbermann was fired for missing work, "sabotaging the network" and disparaging his bosses.
Lehane's statement said the network looked forward to airing the grievances, which it called false and malicious, in a courtroom where they would be treated objectively.
It also swatted back at Olbermann, whose attorney at one point in the lawsuit likened Current to a public-access cable channel.
Current
Challenges Victim
Rupert
Rupert Murdoch's News International is challenging celebrity phone hacking victim Sienna Miller over her legal bill, a person close to the case said late Wednesday.
Miller was one of the first public figures to take the British newspaper company to court for illegally eavesdropping on her telephone messages.
In May, News International agreed to pay the "Alfie" star 100,000 pounds (about $160,000) to settle her claim, but a person close to the case says there's been no agreement how much to pay out in legal costs and that the issue is headed to court.
The scandal over illegal interception of voicemail messages at News International's now-defunct News of the World tabloid has taken a bite out of parent company News Corp.'s bottom line. In February, Murdoch's international media company disclosed that the bill linked to police and parliamentary probes, a judge-led inquiry, and a slew of lawsuits was close to $200 million.
In the last quarter of 2011 alone, the company paid out $87 million, the vast majority of which was for legal and consulting fees.
Rupert
Admits More Hacking
Rupert
Rupert Murdoch's British satellite news channel on Thursday became the latest branch of the mogul's global media empire to acknowledge bending the rules in an effort to stay ahead.
Sky News admitted its reporters hacked emails on two separate occasions, insisting that it was done in the public interest.
But legal experts said that's no defense, the police are investigating, and Murdoch's goal of taking full control of Sky News' profitable parent company, British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC, may be at risk.
"It seems less likely, and it may not be in their best interest," said Michael J. Mannor, an assistant professor of business strategy at the University of Notre Dame. "News Corp. is under a lot of pressure in a lot of different ways.... It's important for a news media organization to have the trust of the public, and that's been a big struggle."
Murdoch's media empire - whose holdings include Sky News' sister channel Fox News and The Wall Street Journal - has spent the better part of a year in the spotlight over widespread illegal behavior at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, where journalists routinely hacked into public figures' phones in an effort to win scoops.
Rupert
Accused Hacker Pleads Guilty
LulzSec
Accused LulzSec hacker Cody Kretsinger pleaded guilty on Thursday in federal court in California to charges of taking part in an extensive computer breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Kretsinger, 24, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer in a deal with prosecutors. LulzSec, an offshoot of the international hacking group Anonymous, has taken credit for hacking attacks on government and private sector websites.
"I joined LulzSec, your honor, at which point we gained access to the Sony Pictures website," Kretsinger, who went by the hacking moniker "Recursion," told the judge after entering his guilty plea.
The plea agreement is under seal, although Vandevelde said Kretsinger would likely receive substantially less than the 15-year maximum sentence he faces. His sentencing is scheduled for July 26. Neither Kretsinger nor his lawyer would comment after the proceedings.
LulzSec
Wins Reversal In Landmark YouTube Case
Viacom
A U.S. appeals court dealt Google Inc a major defeat by reviving lawsuits by Viacom Inc, the English Premier League and various other media companies over the use of copyrighted videos on Google's YouTube service without permission.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed a June 2010 lower court ruling in favor of YouTube, which had been considered a landmark in setting guidelines for websites to use content uploaded by users.
The $1 billion lawsuit filed by Viacom in 2007 to stop the posting of clips from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "South Park," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and other programs addressed a crucial issue for media companies: how to win Internet viewers without ceding control of TV shows, movies and music.
It was seen as a test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 federal law making it illegal to produce technology to circumvent anti-piracy measures, and limiting liability of online service providers for copyright infringement by users.
Viacom
Author To Stay With CAI
Greg Mortenson
"Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson will remain the face of the charity he co-founded, despite his having to repay $1 million after an investigative report released Thursday concluded he mismanaged the organization and misspent its money.
Central Asia Institute Interim Executive Director Anne Beyersdorfer said Mortenson will continue to draw a salary from the charity. But it won't be as executive director and he is barred from being a voting member of the board of directors as long as he is still employed by the organization.
A new title has not been created for the mountaineer and humanitarian, but he will continue to represent the organization in speaking engagements and work to build relationships in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the charity builds schools and promotes education, she said.
The investigation found Mortenson had little aptitude for record keeping or personnel management, resulting in still-unknown amounts of cash earmarked management costs or wired overseas for projects without receipts or documentation on how that money was actually spent, the report said. The two other board members were Mortenson loyalists who generally did not challenge Mortenson, and he resisted or ignored CAI employees who questioned his practices, it said.
Greg Mortenson
Photoshop Stunt
Russian Orthodox Church
Based on the reflection in the table, it is clear a watch on Patriarch Kirill's wrist was photoshopped out of the image.
The Russian Orthodox Church issued an official apology for digitally removing a luxury watch from an image of Patriarch Kirill.
He was pictured in a meeting with Russian Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov.
The original photo, dated July 3, 2009, showed Kirill, 65, wearing the expensive watch, according to the BBC
The watch was a gold Breguet, with an estimated value of more than $30,000, the BBC reported.
Russian Orthodox Church
DOJ Breaks Off Negotiations
Sheriff Joe
The Justice Department has cut off negotiations with Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R-Deluded) and officials with the Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff's Office in its effort to install an independent monitor to rein in the unconstitutional tactics used by officers there.
Arpaio, who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff," defied the Justice Department suggestion that it could sue the county and the sheriff's office to force the issue.
In December, the Justice Department released findings in its investigation of Arpaio's office, noting there were significant civil rights violations, including the use of excessive force, and other systemic problems.
The Justice Department said in a letter to Arpaio's attorney today that despite the sheriff's office acknowledging the need for an independent judicial monitor to oversee reforms, "MCSO has now walked back from its agreement."
Sheriff Joe
Judge Rules Mummy Mask Can Stay
St. Louis
A 3,200-year-old mummy mask at the center of an international dispute will remain in St. Louis following a ruling by a federal judge.
The U.S. government sought to return the funeral mask of Lady Ka-Nefer-Nefer to Egypt, claiming it had been stolen before the St. Louis Art Museum purchased it from a New York art dealer in 1998. But U.S. District Judge Henry Autry in St. Louis ruled on March 31 that the mask can remain with the art museum.
Autry says the government failed to prove that the mask was stolen. Museum officials say the mask's ownership history was researched before the purchase and that there is no indication it was stolen.
St. Louis
In Memory
Jim Marshall
Ears still ringing from the 1960s? Jim Marshall might be to blame.
Marshall was the man behind "The" amplifier, the weapon of choice for guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend of The Who, and Eric Clapton - "The Marshall."
The sixties superstars' ear-shattering sounds, blasting first in small clubs and music halls and later in stadiums and arenas, relied on the basic Marshall amp for their frenzied, thunderous roar.
That was no accident. Marshall, who died Thursday at the age of 88, was not looking for precision when he and his sound engineers came up with the early Marshall amps in 1960. He said in a 2000 interview that what he wanted was raw, fuzzy power.
He said the rival Fender amp, tremendously popular at the time, produced an extremely clean sound that worked well with jazz and country and western but did not satisfy younger players searching for something different. He was looking for a rougher sound.
Marshall was a larger than life figure with a taste for single malt Scotch whiskey and Cuban Montecristo cigars. Even in his 70s, when he was already suffering from some serious health problems, he thought nothing of hopping a plane to catch an Iron Maiden concert.
The familiar amps bearing his name can be seen in thousands of rock 'n' roll performance photos dating back to the era when Townshend and the Who would smash their Marshall amps at the conclusion of their stage shows - Marshall said in 2000 that Townshend had actually been careful not to destroy the expensive speakers, damaging only the cloth exterior, which was easy (and cheap) to repair.
Terry Marshall said the first amp was produced in 1960, a few years before the musical explosion that would give guitar-oriented rock its place in music history.
The first Marshall amps didn't look like much - just a simple black box with a speaker inside and basic controls on top - but they packed a formidable punch. Aficionados credit him with developing the "amp stack" that allowed garage bands to make a powerful noise in small dance halls and gymnasiums.
Jim Marshall turned his amplifiers into a successful business, keeping much of his production in England. The company is based in a small factory near Milton Keynes north of London.
Marshall was proud that he resisted suggestions that he shift all production outside of England to save costs.
In his later years, Marshall became involved with numerous charities and in 2003 was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for his successful export of British-made goods and his various charitable deeds.
He is survived by two children, two stepchildren and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Jim Marshall
In Memory
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, the creator of Porsche's 911 sports car, has died at age 76, Porsche said on Thursday.
A grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who founded the Stuttgart-based sports car maker and developed the Volkswagen Beetle under a contract with the Nazis in the 1930s, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche invented the 911 model in 1963.
Originally labeled as 901, Porsche's two-seater classic model has since been upgraded over seven generations of the car with the latest version unveiled at last September's Frankfurt Auto Show.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche quit the company's operational business in 1972, though stayed on as member of Porsche's supervisory board. He was chairman between 1990 and 1993 when Porsche was still saddled with losses stemming from declining vehicle sales and towering development costs.
The company gave no cause for Porsche's death. A cousin of Ferdinand Piech, the chairman of VW, Porsche was a member of the Porsche and Piech families who together control about 90 percent of common shares of Porsche SE, the holding company which holds about 51 percent of VW stock.
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche
In Memory
Barney McKenna
"Banjo" Barney McKenna, the last original member of the Irish folk band The Dubliners, died Thursday while having a morning cup of tea with a friend. He was 72 and had just marked his 50th year with the troupe.
Irish classical guitarist Michael Howard, who was with McKenna when he died, said he was talking with his longtime friend at his kitchen table, when "all of a sudden Barney's head dropped down to his chest. It looked as if he'd nodded off." Howard said paramedics over the phone talked him through emergency revival procedures, but McKenna "was pretty much gone."
McKenna was considered the most influential banjo player in Irish folk music. He spent a half-century performing, recording and touring with the band ever since its 1962 creation in the Dublin pub O'Donoghue's. The other three founders - Ronnie Drew, Ciaran Bourke and Luke Kelly - died in 2008, 1988 and 1984, respectively.
McKenna completed a United Kingdom tour with The Dubliners last month and performed Wednesday night at a Dublin funeral. Howard, who also performed there and drove McKenna home afterward, said his friend performed "absolutely beautifully. When he finished there was a spontaneous, thunderous round of applause in the church."
Born in Dublin in 1939, McKenna tried to join the Irish army band but was rejected because of bad eyesight. He busked in the streets and pubs of the capital and developed a reputation as an innovative performer on a specially tuned, four-stringed tenor banjo, then a virtually unknown instrument in Ireland that he made an Irish folk favorite.
The gravel-voiced Drew recruited him to Friday night "sessions" - impromptu barside concerts - at O'Donoghue's, a diminutive pub near the Irish parliament so famously packed that its barmen had to stand on stepstools to take orders. It soon gained a reputation as the country's top venue for live folk music, with The Dubliners performing alongside such other rising folk stars as The Chieftains and the Fureys.
His Dutch wife, Joka, died 28 years ago and the couple had no children. He lived alone in the upscale fishing port of Howth and spent spare time tinkering with his boat and fishing on the Irish Sea. He continued to perform, despite suffering from diabetes and a mild stroke.
McKenna is survived by his partner Tina, sister Marie and brother Sean, who is also a top Irish banjo player. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
Barney McKenna
In Memory
Claude Miller
Claude Miller, the French film director and disciple of Francois Truffaut, has died, his production company said Thursday.
He was 70 and was reportedly working on an adaptation of the novel "Thérèse Desqueyroux" as a vehicle for "Amelie" star Audrey Tautou.
Miller is perhaps best known for "L'Effrontée," a 1985 drama about a young girl growing up in poverty, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, and for "La Classe de Neige," a 1998 film about a young boy suffering anxiety attacks on a ski trip.
Miller won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for "La Classe de Neige" and received several César nominations for writing and directing.
His other notable works include "La Petite Voleuse," a 1988 drama about a petty thief that was based on an unfinished script by Truffaut; "Garde à Vue," a 1981 mystery about a rape investigation; and "Dites-lui que je l'aime," a 1977 psychological thriller about a man obsessed with his former lover.
Before moving behind the camera, Miller worked as an assistant director on films from such legendary New Wave directors as Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard.
He also served as production or unit manager on many of Truffaut's best known films, such as "Day for Night" and "The Wild Child."
Claude Miller
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