Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Connie Schultz: Home Care Workers' Pay: Eventually, It's Personal (Creators Syndicate)
This is not to romanticize home care providers or the work they do. It's a tough job, and not everyone embraces it as God's work. Still, most of the people I've met who do these jobs are, indeed, committed to providing good care. They're also shamefully underpaid. In most states, they don't even make minimum wage.
Froma Harrop: Health Care Politics Go Into Extra Innings (Creators Syndicate)
While the federal government will be spending billions to make insurance obtainable to those without, it will save more than that through other parts of the law that curb costs and add revenues, an estimated $525 billion. For example, as Medicare now stands, the program must pay for almost any treatment that works, regardless of whether the same could be done for much less. The law prepares government (and private insurers) for more careful spending by funding research to identify $10,000 treatments that do just as fine a job as the $40,000 variety.
Julie K. Brown: The South Florida cop who won't stay fired (Miami Herald)
For years, through a variety of chiefs, Opa-locka has been trying to get rid of German Bosque. The firings never stick.
Simon Doonen: Why Do Hotels Turn Us Into Monsters? (Slate)
You wouldn't believe the appalling things people will do in a Marriott suite.
Paul Lukas: Permanent Record (Slate)
Entry 8: The saddest story in the report cards I found-and how it came to have a happy ending.
Tom Danehy: Chicago absolutely deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Tucson Weekly)
Chicago, which still features some of the core members after more than 40 uninterrupted years of recording and touring, has sold tens of millions of albums. Along with the Beach Boys and Metallica, it's among the top three album-selling American bands of all time. (Various websites differ as to which is actually No. 1. Chicago has 22 gold, 18 platinum and eight multi-platinum albums, including five that went to No. 1. The band also has 21 Top 10 singles.)
"The Trouble With Harry": Hitchcock's lost masterpiece (Guardian)
It was the master of suspense's biggest flop - and was withheld from release for years. But, says Peter Bradshaw, it's time to view 'The Trouble With Harry' with fresh eyes.
Frank Bowling and the politics of abstract painting (Guardian)
He graduated from art school second only to David Hockney - and then gave up on the British art scene. Frank Bowling talks to Laura Barnett about pigeonholes, prejudice - and why he's still waiting for that really big show.
David Bruce: Wise Up! Problem-Solving (Athens News)
H. Allen Smith had an Aunt Nelly who baked some cherry pies, then left them to cool on a windowsill. When she returned to get her pies, she discovered a rooster pecking at them. This made her so mad that she punished the rooster the only way she knew how - she cut a switch, then chased the rooster around the barnyard, hitting its bottom with the switch. People laughed at her, but after the switching, the rooster left her pies alone.
DAVIDBRUCEBLOG (WordPress)
Read one new good deed per day.
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
Michelle is on vacation
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Spike Jensen
Obamacare For All ???
I was on vacation for a while so I haven't put up any new stuff lately. Sorry about that. Went camping at a few rest stops between Washington and Bakersfield CA. You can't beat the price to stay at those places. Free is good. Anyway, I read my neighbors newspaper the last few days so I guess I can get sick or break a big toe now. I could do it before this Obamacare dealy bob got the thumbs up from that Supreme Court but I had to wait like a day and half at the ER to see a sorta doctor tell me to walk it off if I didn't have insurance which I still don't have yet. I guess it's a good deal for people like me. I mean we're not crazy about paying that tax/penalty if we don't sign up for health insurance so I'm about to do it soon. Why? I sat down last night and added up the bills from my little hospital visits over the last few years for all sorts of things and no way that freaking tax/penalty is more than what they've billed me for. I haven't even made a dent in the price tag for the most recent drop by I did after blowing up my little finger with an M-80 on New Year's Eve. That cost a couple grand and all because of a crappy fuse. That was when I figured that whatever the hell those politicians came up with for fixing this cluster fuck we go through seeing a doctor it would be better than the way it is these days.
Since I don't like to sit down and read a butt load of government paperwork for fun I really don't know for sure what the President's plan is exactly. I know from watching Fox News though I am about to lose my country to socialism and also maybe my manhood too if I don't throw a tantrum and maybe a couple teabags at my congressman when he holds one of those "Town Hall" meetings at my local library. A few years ago I did go to one of those things and boy was it boring. I really didn't plan to sit through it as I walked into this meeting room that I thought was a bathroom. All I heard were these old people bitching about taxes and those death panels everyone back then was talking about. I tried to leave a couple times but I was getting slam danced around this wild mob and couldn't make my escape for like 20 minutes or so while they screamed at this poor guy who never thought his gig in DC would be such a buzz kill. One guy spit at him for saying Obama was really not a Muslim and another kept saying over and over "Obama is the anti-Christ." I don't think anyone in the crowd was into someone not willing to lynch the President so it was no surprise the congressman left crying. Not sorta tears but full on bawling.
I guess a bunch of Republican Governors led by those two Ricks, Perry from Texas and Scott from Florida are going to take a pass on the new Health Care Law. Didn't know states could just flip off government laws like that. Now that this angle is becoming really popular with these right wing guys you wonder if they will stop there. Maybe next month after thinking about it more the Republicans will want to ignore that stupid 1964 Voting Rights Act that made sure people who weren't white could vote without passing a test or paying a tax. That was the Federal Government sticking its nose where it didn't belong and it's still there.
For the rest - Obamacare For All ???
Thanks, Spike!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another juicy marine layer kept the sun out of sight til late afternoon.
Abandons Plans
HBO
HBO is dropping its plans to make a film on Roger Ailes and the rise of Fox News Channel.
The network had optioned film rights to work by media writer Gabriel Sherman, who is writing a book on Fox News. But HBO said Thursday that it's not going forward with those plans, saying it wouldn't be appropriate considering the network's ties to Fox competitor CNN. Both HBO and CNN are owned by Time Warner.
Until a report on the website Deadline Hollywood on Thursday, it wasn't even common knowledge that HBO was working on a Fox film. HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson says little work had been done so far.
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are among the producers of the shelved film.
HBO
Go On Hunger Strike
Pussy Riot
Three members of an all-girl punk band who were charged with hooliganism after singing an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a Russian church went on hunger strike Wednesday after a ruling to fast-track their case.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina -- all members of Pussy Riot -- swore off food after a Moscow court ruled Wednesday they and their lawyers had only five more days to study the case materials.
"I announce a hunger strike because it is unlawful," said Tolokonnikova, wearing a T-shirt with the famous slogan of the Spanish Civil War, "No pasaran!" ("They shall not pass"), emblazoned across it.
Over 100 of Russia's best known actors, directors and musicians called for the women's release in an open letter last month, saying they presented no "real danger" to society and that the criminal case against them compromised the Russian judicial system.
"I think the behaviour of the state is absolutely criminal in using the church to cover up their acts. This is a deeply political case," historian Yelena Glushko said outside the courtroom.
Pussy Riot
Pro-Legalization
Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone has smoked great marijuana all over the world, from Vietnam and Thailand to Jamaica and South Sudan. But the filmmaker says the best weed is made in the USA and that pot could be a huge growth industry for taxpayers if it were legalized.
Stone, whose drug-war thriller "Savages" opens Friday, has been a regular toker since his days as an infantryman in Vietnam in the late 1960s and knows a good herb when he inhales one. He insisted in a recent interview that no one is producing better stuff now than U.S. growers.
"There's good weed everywhere in the world, but my God, these Americans are brilliant," said Stone, 65, who sees only benefits from legalizing marijuana. "It can be done. It can be done legally, safely, healthy, and it can be taxed and the government can pay for education and stuff like that. Also, you can save a fortune by not putting kids in jail."
"Savages" co-star Salma Hayek had some worries that the film could have become a sermon in favor of drug legalization. She was glad the film wound up sticking to a good story and generally keeping politics out of it, even though she agrees that legalization makes sense for marijuana, at least.
Oliver Stone
Acquires 2 Collections
Museum of the White Mountains
Female artists who captured the sweeping vistas of New Hampshire's White Mountains will get some long overdue recognition when their paintings are displayed in a museum now under construction at Plymouth State University.
The Museum of the White Mountains, scheduled to open in February with galleries, classrooms and state-of-the-art storage, is designed to create a central place for the study of the region's art, culture and heritage. It recently acquired a collection of 19 paintings by female artists such as Maria a'Becket, Susan Ricker Knox and Lizzie Stevens that feature mountain views, pastoral valley scenes and detailed renderings of the mountain flora.
The paintings are similar stylistically to those produced by the more well-known male artists of the mid-19th century "White Mountain School" of painting, but the women often were overlooked, said Catherine Amidon, the museum's director. Some of the women didn't sign their paintings because the work wouldn't sell as well if they identified themselves, she said.
"All too often, if you ask, 'Are there White Mountain women artists?' People are going to say, 'No, there weren't.' When in fact, there were a number of them," she said. "One thinks of the Victorian era of ladies in hoop skirts doing embroidery, when in fact they were out painting and tramping and going to Europe to study art. This collection will allow us to bring to light not only an important chapter in women artists but also in the White Mountains themselves."
Museum of the White Mountains
Web Series Set In Cars
Jerry Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld is going back on the road.
The comedian announced Thursday that he'll debut the Web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" on July 19. The interview show will feature Seinfeld's comedian friends as guests.
In a teaser video, Seinfeld is shown driving various vintage cars with Larry David, Ricky Gervais, Michael Richards, Alec Baldwin and others.
The show is presented by Crackle, the digital network owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Jerry Seinfeld
MGM Files To Stop Sequel
"Raging Bull"
MGM Studios has sued to stop production of a sequel to the acclaimed film "Raging Bull," which won two Academy Awards 32 years ago, and called "Raging Bull II" "a low-budget B-movie."
Jake LaMotta, whose story was told in the 1980 film that wonRobert De Niro an Oscar for his performance, was obligated to offer motion picture rights of first refusal to MGM for a 1986 book he co-authored, "Raging Bull II," the document said.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in Superior Court in Los Angeles, said LaMotta breached his contract by authorizing RB II Productions to produce a sequel based on the book. The complaint said RB II refused to comply with MGM's demands to halt production, and were associating the sequel with the first film in a way that would "irreparably tarnish" its value.
The sequel does not involve Scorsese or De Niro. Actors William Forsythe and Mojean Aria play old and young versions of LaMotta in a cast that also features Ray Wise and Tom Sizemore.
"Raging Bull"
Sues Ex-Accountants
Rihanna
Rihanna has sued her former accountants in New York, blaming them for tens of millions of dollars in losses from the singer's tours.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.
It seeks unspecified damages against New York-based Berdon LLP and two accountants. A Berdon spokeswoman says the company has no immediate comment.
The lawsuit says the company was supposed to provide accounting and financial management services. Rihanna alleges the company engaged in misconduct and malfeasance, culminating in overall losses in her 2009 "Last Girl on Earth" tour despite large revenues.
Rihanna
Up To The Voters
L.A.
Los Angeles County voters will decide in November whether to requireporn actors to use condoms during film shoots, in a ballot measure that marks a new front for an AIDS group that has long targeted the adult entertainment industry.
The ballot initiative is the latest salvo against the industry, after the city of Los Angeles passed a similar requirement in January that has yet to be enforced.
Backers of the initiative submitted about 370,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, well over the 232,000 required, said Ged Kenslea, a spokesman for the group AIDS Healthcare Foundation which is behind the proposal.
If county residents approve the measure in November, it could affect the way porn movies are made. Producers have warned they could move from Los Angeles to dodge the requirement.
The vast majority of U.S. porn productions are produced in Los Angeles, in particular, a suburb of Los Angeles called the San Fernando Valley.
L.A.
Disaster Due To "Collusion"
Japan
Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis was a preventable disaster resulting from "collusion" among the government, regulators and the plant operator, an expert panel said on Thursday, wrapping up an inquiry into the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.
The panel criticized the response of Fukushima Daiichi plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, regulators and then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who quit last year after criticism of his handling of a natural disaster that became a man-made crisis.
"The ... Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco, and the lack of governance by said parties," the panel said in an English summary of a 641-page Japanese document.
"Across the board, the Commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organization that deals with nuclear power. We found a disregard for global trends and a disregard for public safety," the panel said.
Japan
Monday Deadline
Malware
The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.
But tens of thousands of Americans may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.
Despite repeated alerts, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. Of those still infected, the FBI believes that about 64,000 are in the United States.
Users whose computers are still infected Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their service providers for help deleting the malware and reconnecting to the Internet.
To check whether a computer is infected, users can visit a website run by the group brought in by the FBI: www.dcwg.org .
Malware
Republican Conference
Alabama
A controversial pastor's conference welcoming only "white Christians" is underway in Lamar County, Ala., upsetting residents of the nearby town of Winfield in the western part of the state.
Christian Identity Ministries is holding a three-day conference for so-called "white Christians" who contend they have been treated unfairly, the Rev. Mel Lewis toldlocal TV station WSFA. Lewis, the organizer and keynote speaker, says they have the right, like any other Americans, to worship how they wish.
Ku Klux Klan flags and white supremacy slogans surround the conference, which will conclude with a cross being set on fire Friday night. Organizers say it's not a cross-burning, but rather sacred Christian cross lighting.
Organizers say their ministry is not a hate group and that although there is a strong KKK presence, the Klan did not sponsor the event.
Alabama
Hits Fundraising Trouble
Creation Museum
Five years after it opened, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., still gleams, and life-size dinosaurs still tread the Earth, shoulder-to-shoulder with humans. But behind the scenes, one of the most ambitious efforts in America to counter evolutionary theory has hit a roadblock.
When you walk into the Creation Museum, one of the first things you see is an exhibit of a doe-eyed human child crouched next to a velociraptor dinosaur. The two seem not at all surprised that their epochs have collided. Homo sapiens and velociraptors missed each other by a good 65 million years, according to most scientists, but in the world of the Creation Museum, humans and dinosaurs were created on the same day 6,000 years ago, coexisting peacefully in the Garden of Eden. A thousand years later, a 600-year-old man ushered them onto Noah's ark.
Answers in Genesis, a ministry founded in Australia, built the Creation Museum. The group seeks to convince others that the theory of evolution is wrong and that the account of creation told in Genesis is literally true. The result: a place that resembles a slick and entertaining natural history museum, even as it peddles the exact opposite message.
Now, the people behind this museum are looking to erect something much bigger: a 160-acre park with a life-size replica of Noah's Ark built to stand 500 feet long and 80 feet high. They're hoping to tap four teams of Amish builders to construct this giant ark, which would become the largest timber structure in the country. Including parking and other areas, the entire Ark Encounter would sit on 800 acres about a 40-minute drive away from the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky.
Creation Museum
Pennsylvania
Angels
A former police officer who retired from the FBI due to post-traumatic stress disorder linked to her role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks has written a book about seeing legions of angels guarding the Pennsylvania site where a hijacked airliner crashed.
Lillie Leonardi served as a liaison between law enforcement and the families of the passengers and crew members killed in the United Airlines Flight 93 crash. She arrived on the scene about three hours after the crash.
Although Leonardi's book, "In the Shadow of a Badge: A Spiritual Memoir," centers on her vision of angels, she argues her life has been changed more by what she didn't see that day.
"The biggest thing for me is that that there were no bodies," she said.
Leonardi, 56, remembers the burning pine and jet fuel stinging her nostrils. She said she also remembers a smoldering crater littered with debris too small to associate with the jetliner or 40 passengers and crew on board.
"That's when I started seeing like shimmery lights ... and it was kind of misty and that's when I first saw, like, the angels there," Leonardi said. "And I didn't say anything to the guys because you can imagine if I would have said, 'I just saw angels on the crash site,' they'd have called the office and they'd have said, 'She lost her mind and tell her to go home.'"
Angels
Top 20
Concert Tours
The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
1. (2) Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band; $2,161,463; $91.86.
2. (1) Roger Waters; $2,086,906; $107.32.
3. (3) Cirque du Soleil - "Michael Jackson: The Immortal"; $1,377,036; $109.47.
4. (4) Red Hot Chili Peppers; $779,647; $58.21.
5. (5) Nickelback; $689,918; $67.80.
6. (6) Lady Antebellum; $501,350; $41.42.
7. (New) One Direction; $499,246; $43.06.
8. (7) The Black Keys; $475,306; $46.90.
9. (8) Miranda Lambert; $429,040; $36.64.
10. (9) Il Divo; $338,147; $93.66.
11. (10) Eric Church; $320,774; $36.31.
12. (11) Rain - A Tribute To The Beatles; $218,228; $47.34.
13. (New) Styx / REO Speedwagon / Ted Nugent; $201,449; $33.54.
14. (12) "Riverdance"; $176,055; $56.91.
15. (14) Bassnectar; $157,428; $35.30.
16. (13) Yanni; $157,193; $65.89.
17. (15) Rise Against; $155,652; $36.11.
18. (18) The Moody Blues; $149,909; $68.97.
19. (16) Casting Crowns; $145,815; $28.25.
20. (20) Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $144,417; $51.48.
Concert Tours
In Memory
Mike Hastings
An Australian forklift driver who some historians argued was the true heir to the British throne has died in the small New South Wales town he called home, his local newspaper reported Thursday.
Mike Hastings, 71, was a real-life aristocrat, born the 14th earl of Loudoun, who moved to Australia in 1960 in search of adventure.
He made international headlines in 2004 when a documentary team from Britain's Channel Four conducted extensive research into the monarchy and concluded his ancestors were cheated out of the crown in the 15th century.
Hastings, an avowed republican, died on June 30 and was buried Thursday in Jerilderie, about 750 kilometres (465 miles) southwest of Sydney, the local Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser reported.
Hastings was a descendant of England's House of York, whose dynastic struggle with the House of Lancaster became known as the Wars of the Roses and was dramatised by William Shakespeare.
The British documentary's historian Michael Jones found documents in France's Rouen Cathedral that he believed showed King Edward IV, who ruled with a brief interruption from 1461 to 1483, was illegitimate.
Jones believes that Edward's father Richard of York was fighting the French at Pontoise when he was conceived, while his mother Cecily was 200 kilometres (125 miles) away at Rouen, allegedly in the amorous arms of an English archer.
If true, the crown should have passed on to Edward's younger brother George, the duke of Clarence, who was a direct ancestor to Hastings.
Hastings showed little interest in pursuing his claim to the monarchy when interviewed by AFP in 2005, citing the intense public scrutiny endured by the royals.
However, he joked that his claim to the crown could prove lucrative if confirmed.
"I reckon I might send Lizzie (Queen Elizabeth II) a bill for back rent. The old girl's family have been living in my bloody castle for the last 500 years," he said.
His son Simon, who now becomes the 15th earl of Loudoun, also appears in no hurry to try to seize the throne.
Mike Hastings
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