Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Tom engages in a bit of late-spring cleaning (Tucson Weekly)
I'd like to start by announcing that I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2012. There, that makes me the 1,000th person to do so ... this week.
Paul Constant: Republican Science-Fiction Land (The Stranger)
The Undocumented Worker in the Oval Office and Other Supposed Nonfictions.
Roland Buerk: Japan pensioners volunteer to tackle nuclear crisis (BBC News, Tokyo)
A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station. They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young.
Connie Schultz: If He Insists You Change Your Name, He's Wrong (Creators Syndicate)
For years, a male reader who disagrees with everything I write has left voice messages, which always open with this: "Hey, Mrs. Connie Schultz Brown." If you look at my byline, you'll note that my name ends at Schultz. Brown is my husband's last name. For me, taking my husband's name would feel like a cattle branding. Fortunately, he never has needed me to prove my love by altering my identity to mirror his. If we were any happier, we'd be Smurfs.
Louis Menand: Live and Learn (New Yorker)
Why we have college.
Jim Hightower: CHARLES KOCH'S CRY FOR FREEDOM
Having inherited and expanded his father's industrial empire, this poor guy is now a billionaire 21 times over, as is his brother David. But, in a recent op-ed piece, Charles wails that everyone from "The White House to fringe bloggers" is assailing the Koch boys. "We are now being vilified, mischaracterized, and threatened," he exclaims.
Brian Palmer: I May Be Poor Now, but Wait Until I'm 65 ... (Slate)
Is there a way to get the poor to save for retirement?
Annie Lowrey: The Rent Isn't Too Damn High (Slate)
Why it's good news that more Americans are renting rather than buying homes.
James Q. Wilson: Hard Times, Fewer Crimes (Wall Street Journal)
The economic downturn has not led to more crime-contrary to the experts' predictions. So what explains the disconnect? Big changes in American culture, says James Q. Wilson.
Susan Estrich: The (Political) Rules (Creators Syndicate)
"The Rules" urged women trying to hook a man to play "hard to get." As insulting, dehumanizing and childish as the rules might have been (for instance, say no if he doesn't call by Wednesday for the weekend), there's plenty of anecdotal evidence (not to mention the sales figures for the book) suggesting they work.
Andrew Tobias: Don't Forget to Vote
The bottom line is that Republicans want to make it hard to vote, Democrats want to make it easy. They can't come right out and say their goal is to suppress the Democratic vote, so they say it's to prevent fraud. To strengthen this case, the Bush Justice Department made it such a high priority to find examples of voter fraud that several U.S. Attorneys were fired for failing to find any. It seems that it's hard enough to get most people to vote legally, let alone risk a felony conviction (or deportation) for voting illegally.
Paul Krugman's Blog: Medicare Doublethink (New York Times)
Or:
Paul Krugman's Blog: Medicare Doublethink (New York Times)
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."
wrote:
answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
Prince of Asturias Award
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but cool.
Hosting Emmy Awards
Jane Lynch
Get out the megaphone: "Glee" star Jane Lynch will be hosting the Emmy Awards.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced Thursday that Lynch will host "The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards" honoring excellence in prime-time TV. The ceremony will be held at Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre and will air Sept. 18 on Fox.
Lynch stars as a megaphone-wielding cheerleading coach who bullies students on the hit Fox series about a high school glee club.
The actress says she's "tickled pink" to be chosen as Emmy host. The awards show will be executive produced by Mark Burnett of "Survivor" and "Celebrity Apprentice" fame.
Jane Lynch
Named 'Person' Of The Year
IBM's Watson
The "Jeopardy"-playing IBM computer Watson has been named person of the year by the Webby Awards.
The Webbys, which honor Internet achievement, announced their special honorees Thursday.
The recently disbanded rock group LCD Soundsystem was chosen artist of the year. The band presented their final concert at Madison Square Garden in a live webcast in April.
"It Gets Better Project" founder Dan Savage will be honored for special achievement. Savage's online video campaign has urged young people to stand up to bullying against lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender teens.
IBM's Watson
Call For Softer Drugs Laws
British Celebrities
British celebrities call for softer drugs
LONDON (AFP) - Actress Judi Dench, entrepreneur Richard Branson and pop star Sting joined three former police chiefs in urging the British government to decriminalise drugs possession.
They signed a petition drawn up by campaign group Release and sent to Downing Street on Thursday that calls on Prime Minister David Cameron to review the effectiveness of current drug laws in tackling abuse and addiction.
The petition calls for those caught possessing illegal substances to be fined rather than jailed and for addicts to be referred for treatment rather than given a criminal record.
"
Release describes itself as a group that "campaigns for changes to UK drug policy to bring about a fairer and more compassionate legal framework".
British Celebrities
Spelling Bee
'Cymotrichous'
Fourteen-year-old Sukanya Roy of South Abington Township, Pa., has won the 84th Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Sukanya took the title with the winning word cymotrichous, which means wavy hair.
Sukanya gets more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.
Sukanya becomes the fourth consecutive Indian-American to win the bee and the ninth in the last 13 years. The nationally televised bee lasted more than three hours.
'Cymotrichous'
Enters 20th Century
New York Times
The New York Times named Jill Abramson as its first woman executive editor, putting her in control of one the world's most respected newspapers as the industry struggles to keep advertisers and readers.
Abramson, 57, will lead the Times newsroom in a new era for papers, when a generation of readers increasingly prefers to get news from online sources such as Twitter, Facebook and a host of websites.
Currently the paper's managing editor, Abramson will succeed Bill Keller, 62, who will become a writer for the New York Times Magazine and for the paper's Sunday opinion section.
Assistant Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet will become managing editor.
Both appointments are effective September 6, the New York Times Co said on Thursday.
New York Times
"Nude" Pictures Fake, Publicist Says
Blake Lively
A series of widely circulated photographs purporting to show "Gossip Girl" actress Blake Lively posing naked are "100 percent fake," her spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
The Internet was abuzz late in the day as the five photos of a naked busty blond taking snapshots of herself with an iPhone in front of a bathroom mirror spread among major gossip websites.
"Blake Lively won't be happy about this," said celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, noting that the 23-year-old starlet has just reportedly started dating Leonardo DiCaprio.
Rival site Zap2It, noting the early-generation iPhone and different shaped nose, suggested the pictures were several years old.
Blake Lively
Bracelet Malfunctions
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan's attorney says the actress's electronic monitoring bracelet has been replaced after a malfunction.
Attorney Shawn Holley said Thursday that Lohan's electronic monitoring system went off on Monday.
Holley says a representative from the monitoring company went to Lohan's house in Venice and found her at home. The bracelet was replaced the next day.
Dave Leone, bureau chief of adult services for Los Angeles County's probation department, says private companies sometimes contract with the county to oversee electronic monitoring. He did not comment on Lohan's case.
Lindsay Lohan
State Medical Board Revokes Doctor's License
Octomom
The Beverly Hills fertility doctor who helped "Octomom" Nadya Suleman become the mother of 14 children through repeated in vitro treatments is being barred from practicing medicine.
The Medical Board of California said the decision to revoke Dr. Michael Kamrava's license was necessary to protect the public. The revocation takes effect July 1. The 45-page decision was made public Wednesday.
Kamrava has acknowledged implanting 12 embryos into Suleman, then 33, prior to the pregnancy that produced her octuplets. It was six times the norm for a woman her age.
That was a mistake, according to the board, which rejected an earlier recommendation to give Kamrava five years of probation to dole out the harsher punishment.
Octomom
US Must Do More
Richard Gere
Actor-activist Richard Gere urged the United States on Thursday to do more to support the rights of Tibetans, as the State Department warned of a deterioration in the Himalayan territory.
Appearing before Congress, Gere -- a Buddhist and longtime Tibet campaigner -- said President Barack Obama "has found new footing on how to deal with the Chinese" but would "like to see him go further."
"Every time we are wishy-washy with them, they take advantage of it," Gere told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, saying that the Chinese "only deal with pressure, seriousness, firmness."
Gere warned that the Tibetan language was under threat. He called for the Obama administration, as part of its initiative to raise the number of US students in China to 100,000, to encourage study of not only Mandarin but also Tibetan and other minority languages.
Richard Gere
Defends 3-D
Bob Iger
Disney CEO Bob Iger defended the use of 3-D in movies Thursday, after several movies received less of their tickets sales from 3-D screenings than previously.
Iger told the D: All Things Digital conference that it's "way too early to write 3-D's epitaph."
His comments come after stock analysts noted that The Walt Disney Co.'s fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.'s second "Kung Fu Panda" movie generated around 40 percent of their revenue from 3-D screenings, compared with about 60 percent for earlier films.
Iger qualified his remarks to say that 3-D has to be used in the right way creatively and technologically to meet the demands of savvy moviegoers.
Bob Iger
Franco Bio May Need Fixing
Spain's Royal Historical Academy
Spain's Royal Historical Academy said Thursday it may issue some rapid corrections after a favourable biography of General Francisco Franco was received with outrage.
More than 12 years in the making, the academy's 50-volume Spanish Biographical Dictionary provoked a storm of criticism over several entries, particularly one seen as being sympathetic to Franco.
Spain's leading daily El Pais said the entry's author Luis Suarez was "openly sympathetic to Franco".
The biography never uses the word "dictator", argues Franco's regime was "authoritarian but not totalitarian", and says he was forced into teaming up with German and Italian fascist leaders.
Historians have estimated that half a million people were killed during the civil war sparked by Franco's insurgency against the democratically elected left-wing Republican government.
Spain's Royal Historical Academy
Sign Won't Go Back To Gate
Auschwitz
The notorious sign that once spanned the main gate at Auschwitz will not return to its original spot after being recently repaired from the damage it suffered during a 2009 theft, an international council that oversees Auschwitz-Birkenau decided Thursday.
The sign bearing the Nazis' cynical slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Sets You Free) will instead be housed in a planned exhibition hall, said Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the memorial site.
Sawicki said the proposal to house the sign in a secure indoor center came from the Auschwitz memorial museum director Piotr Cywinski. There were no objections to that proposal by the International Auschwitz Council - a 25-member body made up of Holocaust survivors, historians and others - at a two-day meeting that ended Thursday.
Experts say the sign is best preserved in a situation of stable humidity and in temperatures ranging from 63 to 66 fahrenheit - conditions that require it to be indoors, a statement issued after the council meeting said.
Auschwitz
NBC Bringing Back
`Fear Factor'
NBC is reviving "Fear Factor," the reality show that boasted challenges ranging from daring to gross.
"Fear Factor" aired on NBC from 2001 to 2006 with host Joe Rogan. The network said Thursday it's ordered new episodes but didn't announce an air date or whether Rogan would return.
"Fear Factor" contestants, supervised by Hollywood stunt coordinators, will face challenges that test their endurance and mental resolve, NBC said.
The network didn't specify if the prize would be more than the $50,000 awarded in the original "Fear Factor."
`Fear Factor'
Effort To Return Dress
Marilyn Monroe
The iconic white dress Marilyn Monroe wore in "The Seven Year Itch" may be headed back to New York City, where a gust of air from a subway grate sent it billowing upward and into movie history.
A New York-based technology company is raising funds to buy the dress when it comes up for auction later this month in Los Angeles and to bring it home to New York to be placed on permanent display, possibly in a museum.
Profiles in History, the auction house handling the sale, says the dress is worth between $1 million and $2 million.
Monroe originally filmed the scene while standing over a subway grate on Lexington Avenue near 52nd Street in Manhattan, surrounded by a huge crowd of photographers and onlookers. The crowd noise was so loud that Billy Wilder, the director of the 1955 film, was forced to re-shoot the scene on a soundstage.
Marilyn Monroe
Medical Marijuana Superstore
weGrow
Some local wags are calling it the "Wal-Mart of Weed" or "Home DePot."
Seeking to capitalize on Arizona's newly enacted medical marijuana law, a California-based company on Wednesday opened a superstore-sized garden center in Phoenix catering to those who want to grow their own cannabis.
"We sell everything but the plant itself," said Dhar Mann, founder of weGrow, the company that began franchising its big-box stores with outlets in Oakland and Sacramento, California. "We sell the products and the services for people to safely and responsibly cultivate their medicine."
The 21,000-square-foot store offers some 2,000 products, including soil, grow lights and irrigation trays, specially designed for effective marijuana growing, Mann told Reuters.
A doctor also is on site to furnish eligible patients the initial medical approval needed to apply to the state health department for cards authorizing them to legally grow and use marijuana as treatment for a variety of qualifying ailments.
weGrow
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of May 23-29. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. NBA Playoffs: Miami vs. Chicago (Thursday, 8:33 p.m.), TNT, 7.27 million homes, 10.4 million viewers.
2. NBA Playoffs: Chicago vs. Miami (Tuesday, 8:33 p.m.), TNT, 7.01 million homes, 9.77 million viewers.
3. NBA Playoffs: Dallas vs. Oklahoma City (Monday, 8:56 p.m.), ESPN, 5.35 million homes, 7.41 million viewers.
4. NBA Playoffs: Oklahoma City vs. Dallas (Wednesday, 9:01 p.m.), ESPN, 5.21 million homes, 7.01 million viewers.
5. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.45 million homes, 5.6 million viewers.
6. "Inside the NBA Playoffs" (Thursday, 11:21 p.m.), TNT, 3.44 million homes, 4.58 million viewers.
7. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.37 million homes, 5.23 million viewers.
8. "Inside the NBA Playoffs" (Tuesday, 11:39 p.m.), TNT, 2.92 million homes, 3.77 million viewers.
9. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 11:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.74 million homes, 3.78 million viewers.
10. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.72 million homes, 3.88 million viewers.
11. "Family Guy" (Monday, 11:30 p.m.), Cartoon, 2.609 million homes, 3.03 million viewers.
12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 11 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.603 million homes, 3.68 million viewers.
13. "Sportscenter" (Monday, 12:12 a.m.), ESPN, 2.54 million homes, 3.19 million viewers.
14. "Family Guy" (Monday, 11 p.m.), Cartoon, 2.53 million homes, 2.94 million viewers.
15. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.52 million homes, 3.61 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Harry Redmond Jr.
Harry Redmond Jr., a special effects artist and producer whose career reached back more than 80 years to the dawn of talking pictures, has died at the age of 101.
He died May 23 in the Hollywood Hills home that he and his wife designed and built more than six decades ago.
Redmond got his first big break at RKO Radio Pictures, where he worked on such films as "King Kong" (1933), "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1935), "She" (1935) and "Top Hat" (1935).
As an independent, he went on to create effects for such classics as Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon" (1937), Howard Hawks' "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), Howard Hughes' "The Outlaw (1943), Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Window" (1944) and Orson Welles' "The Stranger" (1946).
While working on "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1937) for David O. Selznick, Redmond met Dorothea Holt, a pioneering production illustrator who was designing the interiors for "Gone With the Wind" (1939) and "Rebecca" (1940). They were married in 1940.
After World War Two, during which he designed and built a studio for the Army Film Training Lab, Redmond returned to Hollywood to work on such films as the Marx Brothers' "A Night in Casablanca" (1946), "Angel on My Shoulder" (1946), "The Bishop's Wife" (1947), "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947) and "A Song Is Born" (1948).
Redmond was never nominated for an Oscar or an Emmy, nor did he receive any industry awards.
Holt, who helped design the Seattle Space Needle, the restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport and much of Main Street at Disneyland following her career in films, died in 2009 at age 98.
Harry Redmond Jr.
In Memory
Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt
Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a former Black Panther Party leader who spent 27 years in prison on a murder conviction that was later overturned, has died. He was 63.
Pratt died at his home in a small village in Tanzania, where he had lived for at least half a decade, lawyer Stuart Hanlon, who helped Pratt win his freedom, told The Associated Press from San Francisco on Thursday.
Hanlon said he learned of Pratt's death through the former activist's family members. He did not know what caused Pratt's death, but said he had suffered from high blood pressure.
Pratt was convicted in 1972 of being one of two men who robbed and fatally shot schoolteacher Caroline Olsen on a Santa Monica tennis court in December 1968. No one else was arrested.
Pratt claimed he was in Oakland for Black Panther meetings the day of the murder, and that FBI agents and police hid and possibly destroyed wiretap evidence that would prove it.
His lawyers, who included high-profile defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, blamed his arrest on a politically charged campaign by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI against the Black Panthers and other perceived enemies of the U.S. government.
Pratt's belated reversal of fortune came with the disclosure that a key prosecution witness hid the fact he was an ex-felon and a police informant.
Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey granted him a new trial in June 1997, saying the credibility of prosecution witness Julius Butler - who testified that Pratt had confessed to him - could have been undermined if the jury had known of his relationship with law enforcement. He was freed later that month.
Prosecutors announced two years after the conviction was overturned that they would abandon efforts to retry him.
He settled a false imprisonment and civil rights lawsuit against the FBI and city of Los Angeles for $4.5 million in 2000.
Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
