Recommended Reading
from Bruce
David Bruce: Wise Up! Advertising (athensnews.com)
Not everyone likes dogs. Susan Conant's father loved dogs, but her mother hated dogs. Her mother once placed this classified advertisement in a newspaper: "My husband's $50 puppies for $25. If a man answers, hang up."
Tom Danehy: Mourning the loss of two men who were legends in their fields (tucsonweekly.com)
When you're on the downward slope of life, the deaths keep coming at you with numbing regularity. There are the celebrities, the distant relatives and the people you knew in school.
Garrison Keillor: Charm beats out smarts every time
My time is short and so is yours, so why not tell the truth: A person can get along very well in life without one bit of the mathematics and physics they rammed into our brains in high school. Fifty years later, and there hasn't been a single moment when I've thought, "Oh, if only I could remember higher algebra!"
roger ebert's journal: My vocation as a priest
It was my mother who decided I would be a priest. I heard this beginning early in my childhood. It was the greatest vocation one could hope for in life. There was no greater glory for a mother than to "give her son to the church." I speculated that my mother had given me birth with the specific hope of passing me on to the church.
Jesse Kornbluth: The Holocaust Ended? In Jeannette Katzir's 'Broken Birds,' Her Mother Brings It With Her To Los Angeles (huffingtonpost.com)
You don't, it turns out, jettison the Holocaust --- or any searing childhood experience --- just by moving 3,000 miles. You carry it with you. And if you avoid facing it, dealing with it, accepting the damage it's done, you pass it on, in a new language, to the next generation.
Robert Pinsky: Firmness in the Write (slate.com)
Why Abraham Lincoln's poetry is the real thing.
Emily Colette Wilkinson: Review of "Marcus Aurelius: A Life," by Frank McLynn (incharacter.org)
To read the Meditations, you would not imagine them to be the writings of a man encamped in barbarian lands in the midst of war, nor of a man commanding the largest army ever assembled on the frontier of the Roman empire, nor of a man whose empire and army were in the grip of a deadly plague. The Meditations' lack of political or worldly anguish and anxiety is a mark of the philosophy they profess: Stoicism.
Stephen Moss: "Yann Martel: 'Jewish people don't own the Holocaust'" (guardian.co.uk)
Yann Martel has been critically savaged for writing about the Holocaust in his follow-up to Life of Pi. But, he says, artists have a right to tackle anything.
Steve Rothaus: "A star is (re)born: High-def discs show Judy Garland at her finest" (McClatchy Newspapers)
Audiences don't usually jump out of their chairs and cheer when a movie star's name is projected on the big screen - especially when the movie is 56 years old and the star's been dead more than four decades.
Alain Resnais: vive la différence (guardian.co.uk)
He used to tackle big issues: Hiroshima, the Algerian war. But Alain Resnais's latest film is about the theft of a wallet. The director tells Gilbert Adair why.
Werner Herzog: a killer at the table (guardian.co.uk)
Werner Herzog has teamed up with David Lynch to make a film about a disturbed actor who kills his own mother with a sword. Jeremy Kay sits in on the final day of filming.
Will Harris: A Chat with Billy West, voice actor extraordinaire (bullz-eye.com)
Billy West is a voice actor extraordinaire, having been a part of everything from Hanna Barbera to "The Howard Stern Show," but in recent years, he's become best known for his work on "Futurama," where he's responsible for the voices of Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan, and quite a few other random characters.
The Weekly Poll
Summer Sabbatical
I've decided to take a short 'sabbatical' from the Poll thing for some R&R (fishing, easy hiking, campfires... that sort of thing) and spend some time contemplating the errors of my ways, haha... You might see, from time to time, trivia responses and the odd article or picture from me. I have a laptop and an 'air-card' so if I can get a cell signal, I can access the web. Do not despair though (yeah, right!)... I'm like a bad penny. I'll turn up again...
As always, Yer the Best!
BadToTheBoneBob
wrote:
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lovely marine layer hung around til mid-afternoon.
Take Our Jobs
Immigrant Farm Workers
In a tongue-in-cheek call for immigration reform, farm workers are teaming up with comedian Stephen Colbert to challenge unemployed Americans: Come on, take our jobs.
Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers, says workers are tired of being blamed for taking American jobs.
According to the Labor Department, more than half the nation's farm workers are illegal immigrants.
To drive the point home, Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" plans to feature the "Take Our Jobs" campaign on July 8.
Immigrant Farm Workers
£37,000 For 'Bed-In' Cartoon
John Lennon
A self-portrait cartoon of John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono drafted during their infamous 1969 "bed-in" has sold for more than £37,000 at auction.
The simple caricature was drawn by the former Beatle as he staged his peace protest Suite 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
Also sold at the rock and pop memorabilia sale at Christie's in South Kensington was a sequinned jacket worn by Michael Jackson - which went for more than 10 times the estimate.
A Gibson SG guitar used by Pete Townshend during a 1971 tour with The Who was the highest priced item, going for £49,250 - twice the estimate.
John Lennon
Signs Off
`As the World Turns'
The summer after CBS' "Guiding Light" was cut down after 72 years on radio and then television, the doomsday scenario that has plagued soaps for decades has now claimed "ATWT."
ABC's "General Hospital," which premiered in April 1963, will now inherit the title as TV's oldest soap. But who knows for how long?
Used to be, at any given time there were a dozen or more daytime dramas on the networks. Soon there will be only six, with only ABC's "One Life to Live" still originating in New York. The ratings for all of them are a fraction of what they once were, and continue in a downward spiral. "ATWT," ranked last, this season is averaging 2.4 million viewers, whereas in the 1991-92 season, it drew 6.7 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Co.
Last December, CBS made it official, a death decree that, paired with the demise of "Guiding Light," marks the exit of Procter & Gamble's production arm from the soap opera business. This, of course, is a company for which the term "soap opera" was coined in the radio era when it began deploying such shows to advertise its detergent and soap products. ("ATWT" took over the studio space where yet another Procter & Gamble soap, "Another World," was taped until NBC canceled it in 1999.)
`As the World Turns'
Missing Art Shown
Sanssouci Palace
A treasure trove of 17th and 18th century paintings went on show on Thursday in a Prussian palace outside Berlin that was their pre-war home before going missing in 1945.
The paintings, which include a "Maria lactans" (1614) from Peter Paul Rubens's studio, were spirited away from the Sanssouci palace in Potsdam during World War II. After 1945 the works vanished -- until this year.
"A young man arrived in March, opened the boot of his car, took out four paintings and put them on my table," an amazed Samuel Wittwer from the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundations said.
The works were part of an impressive collection amassed by Frederick the Great (1740-1786) that included works by Caravaggio and Van Dyck. Many were taken by the Red Army to the Soviet Union as war booty.
Sanssouci Palace
Ruled Illegal
Palin Fund
Thousands of donors who contributed to a $390,000 legal defense fund for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will get their money back after an investigator said Thursday the fund was illegal because it was misleadingly described on a website.
State Personnel Board investigator Timothy Petumenos said the Alaska Fund Trust inappropriately used the word "official" on its website, wrongly implying that it was endorsed by Palin in her role as governor.
But Petumenos also found that Palin - the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee - acted in good faith and relied on a team of attorneys to make sure the fund was lawful and complied with the Alaska Executive Branch Act.
Thursday's findings are an outgrowth from a preliminary, confidential report by another board investigator that also implicated Palin. Petumenos said the first investigator, attorney Thomas Daniel, withdrew as independent counsel for the personnel board after Palin challenged the participation of his law firm, which had ties to President Barack Obama, who defeated Palin's former running mate John McCain in the presidential election.
Palin Fund
Seizes Oil Rigs
Venezuela
Venezuela's government has seized control of 11 oil rigs owned by U.S. driller Helmerich & Payne, which shut them down because the state oil company was behind on payments.
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez announced that Venezuela would nationalize the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based company's rigs. He said in a statement Wednesday that Helmerich & Payne had rejected government demands to resume drilling operations for more than a year.
Helmerich & Payne announced in January 2009 that it was stopping operations on two of its drilling rigs, because Venezuela's state-run oil company, PDVSA, owed the company close to $100 million. It said it would shut down the rest of its rigs by the end of July as contracts expired unless PDVSA began to make good on its debts.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said he hopes Helmerich & Payne is compensated and suggested the takeover and other recent nationalizations are scaring off private investment in Venezuela.
Venezuela
Goldman Sachs Debt Pact
Weinstein Films
The Weinstein Co is close to a deal to restructure its debt and hand over control of more than 200 films from its library to creditors Goldman Sachs and an insurer, an attorney for the studio said on Thursday.
New York-based Weinstein Co -- started in 2005 with more than $1 billion in financing arranged by Goldman Sachs -- has struggled to produce hit movies, apart from 2009's "Inglourious Basterds," and the company has fought to avoid bankruptcy.
The restructuring agreement is expected to be concluded within days, said Bertram Fields, an attorney for the Weinstein Co. Goldman Sachs and insurance company Assured Guaranty Ltd will gain control of 200 to 250 films from the library.
Under the deal, the independent film studio run by brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein can reclaim ownership of its films once its debt is paid, and the Weinsteins will retain control of about 150 films in their library, Fields said.
Weinstein Films
Woman Held
Bam Margera
A woman accused of assaulting Bam Margera outside his suburban Philadelphia nightclub has been held for trial.
Fifty-nine-year-old Elizabeth Ray lives near The Note, a club the 30-year-old MTV star owns in West Chester, Pa.
Margera says he was waiting for a ride around 2 a.m. on June 12 when he got into a verbal altercation with Ray.
Margera says he was walking away and thought the argument had ended when he collapsed to the ground, suffering a concussion and a large cut on his head. A woman who was with Margera says she saw Ray holding a long, pipe-like object.
Bam Margera
Heavy Metal
Whales
Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.
A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.
The researchers found mercury as high as 16 parts per million in the whales. Fish high in mercury such as shark and swordfish - the types health experts warn children and pregnant women to avoid - typically have levels of about 1 part per million.
The whales studied averaged 2.4 parts of mercury per million, but the report's authors said their internal organs probably had much higher levels than the skin samples contained.
Whales
"Islam Would Have Saved Michael"
Jermaine Jackson
Converting to Islam would have saved the life of pop legend Michael Jackson, his brother Jermaine said in an interview to be aired Thursday.
Speaking ahead of the first anniversary Friday of the death of the "King of Pop" at the age of 50 from a prescription drug overdose, he told the BBC that his brother should have left the United States.
"I felt that if Michael would have embraced Islam he would still be here today and I say that for many reasons," Jermaine Jackson, who is a Muslim, told BBC World Service radio.
"Why? Because when you are 100 per cent clear in your mind as to who you are and what you are and why you are and everybody around you, then things change in a way that?s better for you. It?s just having that strength."
Jermaine Jackson
Shipwreck Found After 112 Years
Lake Michigan
A great wooden steamship that sank more than a century ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm has been found off the Milwaukee-area shoreline, and divers say the intact vessel appears to have been perfectly preserved by the cold fresh waters.
Finding the 300-foot-long L.R. Doty was important because it was the largest wooden ship that remained unaccounted for, said Brendon Baillod, the president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association.
The Doty should have been able to handle the weather. The ship was only five years old, and the 300-foot wooden behemoth's hull was reinforced with steel arches.
But it was towing a small schooner, the Olive Jeanette, which began to founder in the storm after the tow line apparently snapped, Baillod said. The Doty probably sank when it came to the schooner's aid. All 17 of its crew members died, along with the ship's cats, Dewey and Watson.
Lake Michigan
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
