Recommended Reading
from Bruce
12 Craziest Prom Outfits (oddee.com)
Two teenage girls took the concept of getting all dolled up for the school prom to an extreme - dressing as life-size Barbie dolls and being wheeled in still sealed in their boxes. Sammy Burns and Megan Barton, both 16, wanted to arrive in something more original than a stretch limo or black cab.
Joe Bob Briggs: NYC's Yuppie Hipster Bicycle Goddess (Taki Magazine)
In one of the world's most notoriously bureaucratic cities, where it takes two years of hearings and community board meetings to get a new swing set on the park playground, Janette Sadik-Khan has authorized enough bicycles-only pavement to stretch from New York to Washington, DC, and beyond.
John Henley: Is this the end for lollipop people? (Guardian)
Local councils, desperate to save money, are axing lollipop men and women across the country. But now concerned parents are fighting back . . .
Tom Danehy: The mayoral candidates who were kicked off the ballot have only themselves to blame (Tucson Weekly)
So, this pickup truck is rolling through a Tucson neighborhood when it hits a big pothole, and all but one of the would-be mayoral candidates go flying out. (We'll assume that it's in Republican Councilman Steve Kozachik's neighborhood, because he says that the Dems on the council won't let him use funds to fix potholes there.)
Connie Schultz: Like It or Not, Michele Bachmann Is No Flake (Creators Syndicate)
Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact, which examines politicians' claims, has analyzed 26 of Bachmann's statements since 2009 and rated only one of them fully true. The tally's breakdown: True 1, Mostly True 0, Half True 2, Barely True 5, False 11, Pants on Fire 7.
Susan Estrich: Go, Michele (Creators Syndicate)
For a Democrat, it's too good to be true. Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney running neck and neck in Iowa. Romney having to worry about the one in five who won't vote for a Mormon, and Bachmann hiring a cadre of top Republican consultants, starting with Ed Rollins and Ed Goeas.
Jim Hightower: States Budgeting for Ignorance
A few years ago, Debbie Riddle, a boneheaded Texas legislator, asked: "Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell," she sputtered.
Ted Rall: "Brave New Book: Political Scientist Argues the U.S. is a Police State"
The United States is a police state. Not in danger of becoming one. Is.
Sophia Hollander: Breathlessly, She Swooned-and Quoted Foucault (Wall Street Journal)
Mary Bly is a rare academic, one who is also a best-selling romance novelist under the pen name Eloisa James (yes, named after Henry).
Dana Stevens: 'Cars 2' is confusing and loud (Guardian)
As disappointing as 'Cars 2' may be, I can't join the ranks of critics hastening to rend their garments over the imminent decline of Pixar.
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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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Less marine layer, more sun.
My computer is set up in what used to be a formal dining room that became a library, and the TV is over-the-air only. Heh - how retro - over-the-air-TV and a crappy dial-up.
Anyway, over the last few months some new channels have cropped up in this (LA) market, on 'sub-channels', and they're in other cities.
The first one was This TV
Here's their schedule - This TV Schedule - Los Angeles
And this is the wiki-write-up - This TV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
It started out on channel 5.2.here, but was moved to channel 5.3 to make room for the 2nd new channel, Antenna TV
The second was Antenna TV.
Here's their the wiki-write-up - Antenna TV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Antenna TV is on 5.2 in LA
A cool note - the network's continuity announcer is disc jockey and voice actor Gary Owens of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In fame.
Then, last week, channel 56 (technically behind the Orange Curtain, and formerly owned by Pat Boone), added
Me-TV
Here's their schedule - Me-TV Network | Schedule
The wiki-write-up - MeTV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And, a list of programs broadcast by MeTV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Me shows up here on 56.3
I'm not a fan of 4-M programs (medical, military, murder and mayhem), or so-called 'reality' (because it ain't), so old sit-coms and odd movies are a much better fit. : )
Coalition Announces Boycott Of CBS
Grammys
A coalition of musicians that has protested the Recording Academy's decision to drop 31 categories from the Grammy Awards is stepping up the pressure, calling for a boycott of the Grammys' telecast partner, CBS, and hiring a lawyer to explore legal action.
"We will ask people to stop watching CBS, boycott their sponsors and then write them," said Bobby Sanabria, a Grammy-nominated Latin jazz musician and the leader of the coalition, in an interview Wednesday night. "We're at a critical juncture."
The group planned a press conference on Thursday to speak about the boycott. A representative for the Academy didn't return requests for comment.
In a surprise move, the Academy announced in April that it was reducing the number of award categories from 109 to 78. While the changes involve mainstream categories such as eliminating the male and female divisions in the pop vocal category to one general field, the Academy also reduced specific categories, including some of the instrumental categories in pop, rock and country; traditional gospel; children's spoken-word album; Zydeco or Cajun music album; best Latin jazz album; and best classical crossover album. Artists in those categories will now have to compete in more general fields, making the process more competitive.
Grammys
Headlines P&G Anti-Dropout Promotion
John Legend
Singer-songwriter John Legend will headline a Procter & Gamble Co. promotion to benefit dropout prevention as part of his broad support of education reform.
The winner of 11 Grammy awards has made commercials that will air ahead of P&G coupon insert booklets with him on the cover with schoolchildren that will be in Sunday newspapers on July 31. The promotion by the Cincinnati-based consumer products giant will include Facebook and other online efforts to raise money for the Communities in Schools organization's efforts to keep children in school.
Legend has focused much of his charitable work on improving education, which he calls "a civil rights issue for our time." He said there's a dropout crisis in some impoverished communities, making it harder to break the cycle of poverty. He's also concerned about what he sees as politically motivated efforts to weaken teachers' unions in his native Ohio and other states.
John Legend
Forgotten Film Fails To Find Buyer
Charlie Chaplin
A forgotten short film featuring footage of comic legend Charlie Chaplin failed to sell at a London auction despite expectations it could raise a "significant six-figure sum."
The reserve price on the reel at Wednesday's sale was 100,000 pounds ($160,000) at Bonhams auctioneers, but apparently it was too high.
"Charlie Chaplin in 'Zepped,'" believed to be a propaganda film made in Britain during World War One, was discovered inside a battered old film reel tin which collector Morace Park bought for 3.20 pounds on the online auction site eBay.
Although Chaplin played no part in the production of "Zepped," he famously satirized Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the 1940 movie "The Great Dictator."
Charlie Chaplin
Extending Berlin Opera Contract
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim, the Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor, is to extend his contract as music director of the Berlin State Opera, city officials said Thursday.
His current contract runs out in July of next year.
City officials did not specify for how long Barenboim would renew his contract, saying this would be made public at a signing ceremony on Wednesday.
A tireless campaigner for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Barenboim conducted an orchestra of top European musicians at a special concert in Gaza in May.
Barenboim will become an honorary Knight Commander of the most excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) but he will not receive a "Sir" title -- an honour reserved for Britons.
Daniel Barenboim
Back At Comic-Con After 20 Years
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is returning to Comic-Con next month for the first time since 1991, presenting portions of his latest film, "Twixt."
The panel at the San Diego Convention Center will be held on July 23. Not much is known about "Twixt," other than it takes Coppola to his early filmmaking roots when he was making flicks for Roger Corman. Coppola wrote the screenplay and self-financed the picture, which stars Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning, and Ben Chaplin.
Coppola calls it "one-part Gothic romance, one-part personal film, and one-part the kind of horror film that began my career." The project was also inspired by the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Comic-Con this year runs from July 21 to July 24. In a "Twixt" twist, will have a live music component. Indie performance artist Dan Deacon will be on hand to "demonstrate the interactive experience of the film," according to the Twixt filmmakers. The film incorporates both 2-D and 3-D elements.
Francis Ford Coppola
Cuts Off California Affiliates
Amazon
Amazon.com Inc. and much smaller Overstock.com Inc. are cutting off their advertising affiliates in California because of a new state rule forcing online retailers to collect sales tax there.
In an email Wednesday to California-based affiliates, Seattle-based Amazon said it would cut ties with affiliates who reside in the nation's most populous state if the law became effective. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the law Wednesday as part of a larger state budget package.
The new rule requires online retailers to collect California sales taxes if they have in-state affiliates. "Affiliate" is the term the online retailers use for individuals or companies who run websites that refer visitors to them and then get paid a commission on any resulting sales.
For Amazon affiliates, these fees vary from 4 percent to 15 percent of a sale.
Amazon
Takes One To Know One
Mark Halperin
MSNBC has suspended political analyst and Time magazine writer Mark Halperin indefinitely over a remark he made about President Obama Thursday morning.
"Mark Halperin's comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable," said MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines in a statement. "We apologize to the President, the White House and all of our viewers. We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air."
Appearing on "Morning Joe" this morning, Halperin, senior political analyst at Time and MSNBC and co-author of the 2008 election opus "Game Change," sought to characterize the president's demeanor at a press briefing the previous day. You can watch the video below--though the term Halperin uses to characterize the president is vulgar, as the partial transcript after the jump will also show:
"I thought he was a dick yesterday," Halperin replied, sending the hosts into a brief moment of panic.
Mark Halperin
High Court Undoes Order
Scaley
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia exercised a rarely used power last fall to let Philip Morris USA and three other big tobacco companies delay making multimillion-dollar payments for a program to help people quit smoking.
Scalia, a cigarette smoker himself, justified acting on his own by predicting that at least three other justices would see things his way and want to hear the case, and that the high court then would probably strike down the expensive judgment against the companies.
This week, the court said he was wrong about that.
On a court that almost always acts as a group, Scalia singlehandedly blocked a state court order requiring the tobacco companies to pay $270 million to start a smoking cessation program in Louisiana. The payment was ordered as part of a class-action lawsuit that Louisiana smokers filed in 1996. They won a jury verdict seven years ago.
Not only did the justices say Monday they were leaving the state court order in place, there were not even four votes to hear the companies' full appeal. And the court provided no explanation of its action.
Scaley
Steps In It, Again
Tracy Morgan
Tracy Morgan had just finished apologizing for his anti-gay jokes, and now the comedian is in hot water again.
In his standup act in New York last weekend, Morgan mocked the mentally disabled, according to The New York Times. This has led to a demand for an apology from the "30 Rock" star by a group promoting the rights of the mentally and physically disabled.
Morgan's wisecracks reportedly included a warning not to "mess with women who have retarded kids."
Thus far, Morgan has offered no response.
Tracy Morgan
Wins Again
Rupert
News Corp Rupert secured British government backing for its buyout of BSkyB on Thursday after the minister responsible rejected complaints the move would give Rupert Murdoch too much power and influence.
The Department of Media gave its blessing to the multi-billion-dollar deal after News Corp agreed to spin off BSkyB's influential Sky News channel to ease competition concerns amongst the industry and politicians.
The Conservative-led coalition government, often charged with being too close to Murdoch, announced a final short consultation period to consider further undertakings designed to guarantee the editorial independence of Sky News.
However, it avoided launching a prolonged investigation into the deal, which could have pushed the acquisition price higher as the British pay-TV group continues to perform strongly, adding new customers and selling new products at a heady pace.
News Corp and BSkyB can now get ready to start negotiating terms for what will be the U.S. media conglomerate's biggest acquisition. Some large BSkyB shareholders have begun to publicize the price they believe News Corp should pay.
Rupert
Face Trial For Alleged Joke Theft
Wayans Brothers
Trial alert! On July 12th, the best comedy in Los Angeles will not be heard at the Improv, but rather a federal court as the Wayans brothers face down a former assistant who charges that they ripped off jokes for their book, "You Know You're a Golddigger When..."
Jared Edwards worked for the comedy family for a decade and wrote jokes about women who prey upon wealthy men. He claims he pitched the idea for a book that would include material like "You know you're a golddigger when you know more about sports players' stats than an ESPN analyst."
Keenen, Shawn and Marlon Wayans rejected the idea, and then allegedly did their own version.
Joke theft allegations have been around almost as long as the first "Knock, Knock" joke, but recently, comedians have become more sensitive to laugh larceny, raising the copyright infringement card.
Because Edwards worked for the Wayans brothers, this case goes a bit above and beyond the typical plagiarism routine of a plaintiff struggling to prove the copying of expression rather than theft of unprotected ideas. Edwards is claiming that the Wayans (and St. Martin's Press) not only committed copyright infringement but also breached an implied promise to pay him for use of his ideas. Writers alleging this type of allegation have increasingly been successful in passing judicial muster.
Wayans Brothers
Buh-Bye
Beck
Glenn Beck, who burned bright and burned fast at Fox News Channel, does his final show on the network Thursday before going into business for himself.
Beck is setting up his own Internet network, GBTV, and will begin streaming a two-hour live show there in September. His fans can pay $9.95 a month for access to GBTV, or $4.95 to see just his daily show. Beck will continue a separate syndicated radio program.
Beck's conservative populism resonated almost immediately with Fox viewers when he started in January 2009, drawing audiences unseen before in a late afternoon time slot on cable news. At his peak in January 2010, Beck's show averaged 2.9 million viewers each day.
His popularity faded, although Beck still led his time slot. He was averaging 1.86 million viewers a day so far this year, down 23 percent from the same period in 2010, the Nielsen Co. said. An advertising boycott that began after Beck said Obama had a "deep-seated hatred for white people" led to more than 400 advertisers telling Fox they didn't want their commercials seen on his show.
Beck
Creators -Wah- Question -Wah- Research -Wah- Again
Baby Einstein
Ever since a University of Washington study published in a major medical journal in 2007 showed baby videos don't make infants smarter, the creators of the Baby Einstein series have been battling the university in court and in the media.
Baby Einstein co-founder William Clark is announcing on Thursday what he feels is a victory in this battle. The university has agreed to pay him $175,000 and turn over the original data from the study that discredited baby videos. And Clark says the data he has been given appears to have some problems.
But the university and a researcher involved in the project stand by the study and the data and say if Clark wants to discredit the research, he should do his own study or reanalyze the data.
Baby Einstein
Uh-Oh -- Plans "Awesome" Launch Next Week
Facebook
Facebook, the world's biggest social networking website, is set to launch a new feature next week, possibly in the mobile or tablet arena, its CEO said.
Chief Executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg told reporters in a visit to Facebook's Seattle office on Wednesday that the company planned to "launch something awesome" next week.
He said the project had been developed at the 40-person Seattle office, Facebook's only major engineering center outside of its Palo Alto, California headquarters.
There has been speculation in technology blogs in recent weeks about various mobile products in development at Facebook, including the release of a long-awaited Facebook app for Apple Inc's iPad and a specialized app for photo-sharing on the iPhone.
Facebook
Mathematicians Want to Say Goodbye
Pi
"I know it will be called blasphemy by some, but I believe that pi is wrong."
That's the opening line of a watershed essay written in 2001 by mathematician Bob Palais of the University of Utah. In "Pi is Wrong!" Palais argued that, for thousands of years, humans have been focusing their attention and adulation on the wrong mathematical constant.
Two times pi, not pi itself, is the truly sacred number of the circle, Palais contended. We should be celebrating and symbolizing the value that is equal to approximately 6.28 - the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius - and not to the 3.14'ish ratio of its circumference to its diameter (a largely irrelevant property in geometry).
Last year, Palais' followers gave the new constant, 2pi, a name: tau. Since then, the tau movement has steadily grown, with its members hoping to replace pi as it appears in textbooks and calculators with tau, the true idol of math. Yesterday - 6/28 - they even celebrated Tau Day in math events worldwide.
But is pi really "wrong"? And if it is, why is tau better?
Pi
In Memory
Edith Fellows
Edith Fellows, a child actress who was the subject of a famous 1936 custody case, has died. She was 88.
Her daughter, Kathy Fields Lander, tells the Los Angeles Times that Fellows died of natural causes Sunday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement home in Los Angeles.
Fellows' mother abandoned her as an infant, and she was raised by her grandmother, who brought her to Hollywood. She made about 50 movies in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, including the 1936 film "Pennies from Heaven." She later turned to the stage and TV.
Fellows was 13 when her mother sued for custody. Fellows testified that she wasn't "used to loving strangers" and remained with her grandmother.
Her childhood earnings were placed in trust, but most later mysteriously vanished.
Edith Fellows
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