Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Akinator (Game)
Twenty Questions, 21st Century Style
Tom Danehy: Tom loves his readers-especially those who make comments online (Tucson Weekly)
I love reading the comments that people post in the online edition of this publication. It's cool that people have someplace where they can have their say. I will forever hold in great disdain the journalistic Typhoid Mary who, in the dawn of this electronic-media age, decided that people could hide behind fake names, but that's a relatively minor concern. For the most part, I'm happy that people can still get fired up enough to sit down at the computer and spew.
John Crace: What does your blood type say about you? (Guardian)
A Japanese minister has resigned, saying that his blood type accounted for his failings. According to Japanese belief, what might yours mean?
Connie Schultz: Honoring a Fallen Marine, One Baby at a Time (Creators Syndicate)
On Aug. 3, 2005, Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II was one of 14 men in the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment who were killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
Jim Hightower: THE WAR IS OVER, SO BRING OUR TROOPS HOME
At long last, America's overdue withdrawal from Afghanistan has begun. "The tide of war is receding," declared President Obama as he announced that 10,000 troops would come home this year and 20,000 more next year.
Matt Ridley: Eating Your Greenery-And Having It, Too (Wall Street Journal)
Fossil fuels have well known disadvantages, but this is one of their easily overlooked benefits. By substituting oil and coal for horses and firewood, we have relieved the pressure on greenery to supply our needs. By using gas to make fertilizer, we can feed ourselves from a smaller acreage, leaving more acres for other species.
Andrew Tobias: The Key is What We Spend Our Money On
We've neglected infrastructure for decades now and weren't nearly ambitious enough in the first stimulus package. (Guess which party stood in the way.) Making long-term plans to modernize our physical plant will, over time, put millions of people to work doing things that crucially need doing (work done primarily by the private sector).
NICHOLAS BAKALAR: Researchers Link Deaths to Social Ills (New York Times)
Poverty is often cited as contributing to poor health. Now, in an unusual approach, researchers have calculated how many people poverty kills and presented their findings, along with an argument that social factors can cause death the same way that behavior like smoking cigarettes does.
Mark Bittman: Banned From the Barn (New York Times)
Iowa's ag-gag law failed to pass before summer recess last week: a good thing. The ridiculous proposition, which died along with similar ones in Minnesota, Florida and New York, would have made it illegal to videotape or photograph in the agricultural facilities that house almost all of our chickens and pigs.
OLGA ZHULINA: "'Fear and Loathing' Turns 40" (Rumpus)
Hunter S. Thompson wanted to write a book devoted to the "death of the American Dream," but he never truly got around to it.
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
Still hot, still humid, still cranky.
Kills Off News of the World
Rupert
The Murdoch media empire unexpectedly jettisoned the News of the World Thursday after a public backlash over the illegal guerrilla tactics it used to expose the rich, the famous and the royal and remain Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper.
The abrupt decision stunned the paper's staff of 200, shocked the world's most competitive news town and ignited speculation that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. plans to rebrand the tabloid under a new name in a bid to prevent a phone-hacking scandal from wrecking its bid for a far more lucrative television deal.
Mushrooming allegations of immoral and criminal behavior at the paper - including bribing police officers for information, hacking into the voice mail of murdered schoolgirls' families and targeting the phones of the relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and the victims of the London transit attacks - cast a dark cloud over News Corp.'s multibillion-dollar plan to take full ownership of British Sky Broadcasting, an operation far more valuable than all of Murdoch's British newspapers.
Some suspected shutting the paper was a ploy to salvage Murdoch's British media empire as well as the job of Rebekah Brooks, the trusted chief executive of his British news operation.
News International spokeswoman Daisy Dunlop denied rumors that The Sun, the News of The World's sister paper that publishes Monday through Saturday, would now become a seven-day operation. Still, she seemed to leave room for further developments.
Rupert
ABC Commentator
Elizabeth Smart
Elizabeth Smart is taking a job with ABC News as a commentator focusing on missing persons and child abduction cases.
The Utah woman who was kidnapped from her bedroom at knifepoint, raped and held captive at age 14 by a Salt Lake City street preacher can provide viewers with a unique perspective, network spokeswoman Julie Townsend told The Associated Press on Thursday.
A deal with the now 23-year-old has been the works for several months and she could be on the air within the next few weeks, Townsend said.
The scope of Smart's assignment has yet to be fully defined, but ABC expects she will contribute across the spectrum of the network's programs and formats, including appearances on Good Morning America, Nightline, ABC News and radio, Townsend said.
Elizabeth Smart
Smurfs' Creator
Payo
The self-taught Belgian cartoonist behind the Smurfs is getting some long-awaited recognition with a first-ever retrospective of his work that opened in Paris on Thursday.
"Everybody knows the Smurfs, a real international success, but no one knows their creator Pierre Culliford," alias Payo, said Eric Leroy, curator of the show at the Arcurial gallery just off the Champs Elysees.
The show -- running until August 30 -- features more than 200 original panels retained by Payo's family after his death in 1992 at the age of 64, as well as photographs, albums and some personal objects.
Fans of the sock-topped blue critters -- animated stars of a Hollywood family comedy that's due out in 3D at the end of July -- will discover how much Payo enjoyed dreaming up stories but doubted his artistic talent.
Payo
Picked Up For Second Season
"Falling Skies"
The Steven Spielberg-produced "Falling Skies" has been renewed for a second season, TNT announced on Thursday. The second season will consist of 10 episodes which are slated to begin running in summer 2012.
The series, which stars former "E.R." star Noah Wyle as a Boston history professor who becomes a resistance leader following an alien invasion, premiered June 19, receiving total viewership of 8 million from live broadcasts plus time-delayed viewing, with 3.8 million of those viewers falling in the coveted audience group of adults, 18- to 49-years-old.
Those numbers were enough to make the "Falling Skies'" debut the year's biggest cable launch of the year.
Overall, the series has averaged more than 6.4 million total viewers, when live views and time-shifted (i.e, through a digital video recorder) viewing are combined.
"Falling Skies"
Part Of Rule Overturned
U.S. Media Ownership
A federal appeals court has overturned part of a 2008 loosening of U.S. media-ownership rules that made it easier to own a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in a single market.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said on Thursday that this cross-ownership portion of the Federal Communications Commission's order had failed to meet notice and comment requirements set out by law.
The court's narrow ruling on procedural grounds left most of the 2008 order intact along with the FCC's authority to preserve media competition, a blow to proponents of fewer ownership restrictions such as the National Association of Broadcasters.
In late 2007, the FCC narrowly approved a loosening of its three-decade-old restrictions on ownership of a newspaper and broadcast outlet in the 20 biggest U.S. cities, over the objections of consumer groups and some lawmakers.
The decision by then-FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, with the support of his two Republican colleagues, was challenged by public interest groups seeking greater competition and diversity in the industry.
U.S. Media Ownership
Opera Back On
Lee Hall
The latest show from "Billy Elliot" playwright Lee Hall will go on after all.
A dispute over words spoken by a gay character had threatened to derail his new project - a community opera involving 300 children - but officials said Thursday a compromise had been reached.
"We are delighted to announce that the revisions which the school requested have now been made and the author has addressed the points raised by the school," the statement said. "The final libretto is now an age appropriate text which was all the school had requested."
The opera opens July 16 in Bridlington, northeast England.
Lee Hall
Settles Celeb Records Cases
UCLA Health System
Years after hospital employees were accused of snooping into the medical records of celebrity patients, UCLA Health System agreed to pay an $865,000 settlement for potential violations of federal privacy laws.
The settlement that UCLA reached with federal regulators Wednesday did not name the stars involved and did not require the hospital system to admit liability.
The investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revealed that workers repeatedly accessed patients' electronic health records between 2005 and 2008.
The hospitals have agreed to report to a federal monitor on the implementation of its corrective plan over the next three years.
UCLA Health System
Hackers Break Into Jobs Site
Washington Post
Hackers broke into the Washington Post Co's jobs website in two incidents last month, affecting more than a million user IDs and emails, the company said on its website.
The company said about 1.27 million users' IDs and email addresses were affected but no passwords or other personal information was accessed.
The company said the jobs accounts of users whose email addresses were accessed remained secure.
Washington Post said it quickly identified the attack and took action to shut it down. It is pursuing the matter with law enforcement and conducting an audit of the security of its jobs site.
Washington Post
French Firm Fined
Spike Lee
A Paris court has ordered private French television station TF1 to pay 32 million euros (46 million dollars) in compensation for failing to distribute a war film by US director Spike Lee.
The court said TF1 Droits Audiovisuels, a subsidiary of the broadcaster, failed to honour its agreement to distribute "Miracle at St. Anna" in markets across the world, excluding the United States, Canada and Italy.
The company signed an agreement in 2007 with On My Own production company to bring the film, about the overlooked contribution of African-American soldiers in World War II, to global markets.
The film hit US cinema screens in the United States in 2008 but it was never released internationally because TF1 said the version of the film it received did not conform to what it had been promised.
Spike Lee
Lawsuit Pits Producer Vs. Producer
"Rock of Ages"
A would-be producer of "Rock of Ages" is singing an unhappy tune about allegedly being left out in the cold when it comes to producers' fees.
Carl Levin filed a breach of oral contract lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, claiming that he's owed more than $400,000 from the Tom Cruise musical, which is slated for a June 2012 release.
According to the suit, he and business partner Matt Weaver conceived of and produced the Broadway production of "Rock of Ages," and were paid, along with partner Scott Prisand, a producer's fee of $1.25 million by New Line Cinema for the movie version.
Levin claims that, under a previous agreement with Weaver, they had agreed to divide the proceeds from all of their ventures, with Levin receiving one third and Weaver and his other partners receiving the rest.
Though Levin ultimately was not kept on as a producer for the movie, his suit claims that he's still entitled to his cut, so he's suing Weaver and Prisand's production company, Corner Store Entertainment, for $416,666.66, plus interest. The suit claims that New Line has shelled out $767,750 to date.
"Rock of Ages"
Pleads Not Guilty
James Rosemond
Hip hop mogul James Rosemond has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he ran a cocaine trafficking ring between Los Angeles and New York.
The CEO of New York-based Czar Entertainment was arraigned Wednesday in Brooklyn.
He's charged with running a criminal enterprise that shipped cocaine in music equipment cases, money laundering and obstruction.
He was arrested last month.
Shortly before that, an Internet report attributed to a prisoner alleged Rosemond orchestrated a 1994 ambush that wounded Tupac Shakur outside a Manhattan recording studio. Rosemond denies any involvement and the criminal complaint against him makes no mention of that case.
James Rosemond
To Live On, Online
ABC Soaps
Canceled soap operas "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," will now live on -- not on the small screen but on the Internet, mobile phones and other online formats, the broadcaster said on Thursday.
ABC said it has licensed the two long-running daytime dramas to a Los Angeles-based production company in a multi-platform deal that "enables the soaps' stories to continue beyond their finale dates on ABC."
According to the statement, production company Prospect Park, which is behind the hit USA cable TV show "Royal Pains", will produce the two shows in the same format and length as ABC, but make them available on new devices, including Internet-enabled TV sets.
No date was given for when or where the new episodes would be available and it was not immediately clear whether the cast for the two shows would remain the same.
ABC Soaps
Most Obese State
Mississippi
The number of obese U.S. adults rose in 16 states in the last year, helping to push obesity rates in a dozen states above 30 percent, according to a report released on Thursday.
By that measure, Mississippi is the fattest state in the union with an adult obesity rate of 34.4 percent. Colorado is the least obese -- with a rate of 19.8 percent -- and the only state with an adult obesity rate below 20 percent, according to "F as in Fat," an annual report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Four years ago, only one U.S. state had an adult obesity rate above 30 percent, according to the report, which defines adult obesity as a having a body mass index -- a weight-to-height ratio -- of 30 or more.
Over the last two decades, people in the United States have been eating less nutritious food and more of it. At the same time, activity levels have fallen.
Mississippi
Arrest In Stolen Drawing
Picasso
Police say they have made an arrest in connection with the daytime theft of a valuable Picasso drawing from an art gallery in downtown San Francisco.
According to witnesses, a man took the artwork from the Weinstein Gallery on Tuesday morning and fled in a waiting taxi. The gallery says the piece was a 1965 pencil-on-paper drawing titled "Tete de Femme," recently purchased at an auction for $122,500.
Surveillance video from a restaurant several doors down from the gallery showed a man walking by carrying a piece of framed artwork under his arm. He was dressed similarly to the police description of the suspect.
Picasso
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of June 27-July 3. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. Auto Racing: Sprint Cup/Daytona (Saturday, 7:30 p.m.), TNT, 3.99 million homes, 6.02 million viewers.
2. "NASCAR Post-Race Show" (Saturday, 10:37 p.m.), TNT, 3.62 million homes, 5.49 million viewers.
3. "Royal Pains" (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.61 million homes, 5 million viewers.
4. "HLN News" (Sunday, 4 p.m.), HLN, 3.54 million homes, 4.52 million viewers.
5. "Necessary Roughness" (Wednesday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.48 million homes, 4.67 million viewers.
6. "HLN News" (Sunday, 3 p.m.), HLN, 3.42 million homes, 4.29 million viewers.
7. "HLN Special Report" (Sunday, 5 p.m.), HLN, 3.41 million homes, 4.41 million viewers.
8. "Weekend Express" (Sunday, 11 a.m.), HLN, 3.38 million homes, 4.5 million viewers.
9. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.36 million homes, 4.46 million viewers.
10. "HLN News" (Sunday, 2 p.m.), HLN, 3.29 million homes, 4.04 million viewers.
11. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.17 million homes, 5.03 million viewers.
12. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.11 million homes, 4.85 million viewers.
13. "Weekend Express" (Sunday, 10 a.m.), HLN, 3.05 million homes, 3.93 million viewers.
14. "Covert Affairs" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.03 million homes, 4.01 million viewers.
15. "Swamp People" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), History, 2.96 million homes, 4.5 million viewers.
Ratings
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