Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Greg Sargent: Romney expands false Jeep-to-China ad campaign (Washington Post)
Mitt Romney's new television ad suggesting that the auto bailout will result in American jeep jobs getting shipped to China has been widely pilloried by news organizations, both nationally and in Ohio. The Romney campaign's response: It is expanding the ad campaign. … The Romney campaign has explicitly said in the past that it will not let fact checking constrain its messaging, so perhaps it's not surprising that it appears to be expanding an ad campaign based on a claim that has been widely pilloried by fact checkers.
Froma Harrop: The Romney Myth About Helping Detroit (Creators Syndicate)
Of Mitt Romney's many costume changes, the new Superman outfit portraying him as the would-be savior of the American auto industry wins for most imaginative. Understood: His infamous "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" op-ed has proven a great inconvenience to winning votes in the industrial Midwest. But continually insisting that one didn't say what one said is severely not honest. Romney is the kind of politician you ask, "Trick or treat?" and he answers "both."
Michele Hanson: Who can last longest without turning the heating on? (Guardian)
Rosemary and I are wrapping ourselves up in woolies to beat the chill - but at least we can still afford to heat our homes. Others aren't so fortunate.
Mark Morford: All our splendid monuments (SF Gate)
Let's just say it outright - there is no better reminder - not death, not illness, not orgasm, not birth or marriage or divorce, not surgery or getting fired or going slightly mad on a cocktail of laudanum and cocaine and savage karmic dread - there is no better reminder that we know nothing, own nothing, and are powerless to do anything about it anyway, than the weather.
Interviews by Kate Abbot: How we made Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (Guardian)
'Hacking down the door with an axe was easy - all Jack had to do was make the wood crack well.'
Donald Hall: THANK YOU, THANK YOU (New Yorker)
For better or worse, poetry is my life. After a reading, I enjoy the question period. On a tour in Nebraska I read poems to high-school kids, a big auditorium. When I finished, someone wanted to know how I got started. I said that at twelve I loved horror movies, then read Edgar Allan Poe, then… A young man up front waved his hand. I paused in my story. He asked, "Didn't you do it to pick up chicks?"
Mark Coker: Barnes & Noble Opens U.K. Ebook Store Supported by Heavy Brick and Mortar Nook Distribution (Smashwords)
Some publishing industry pundits have poo-pooed B&N's U.K. entry as too little too late. I think the pundits are underestimating Barnes & Noble, and not just because they're flush with $300 million cash from a recent Microsoft investment.
M. Alice LeGrow: Entertainer vs. Parent (bizenghast.com)
I've had a lot of people write in to me because of this thread, and a disturbing number of people have ended their letters with, "I just know you'll make a wonderful parent someday!" Folks, there's a HUGE difference between being good with kids and being able to raise a kid.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce's Blog
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'
Team Coco
Conan
We imagined three directors' Star Wars Episode VII audition tapes:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer morning, overcast afternoon.
Sandy Telethon Tonight - Bravo, CNBC, E!, G4, MSNBC, Style, Syfy and USA
NBC Universal
New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi will join Sting and other top music stars on Friday for a special television benefit concert on NBC to aid victims of Sandy, the giant storm which killed scores and devastated large sections of the U.S. Northeast, the network announced on Thursday.
The commercial-free one-hour telecast, "Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together," will air on Friday night at 8 p.m. EDT, and will include appearances by Christina Aguilera, Billy Joel, Jimmy Fallon and NBC News anchor Brian Williams.
The telethon, also to be shown on NBC Universal networks Bravo, CNBC, E!, G4, MSNBC, Style, Syfy and USA and live streamed on NBC.com, will benefit the American Red Cross, with proceeds going towards victims of Hurricane Sandy.
"Today" show anchor Matt Lauer, who announced the concert on air on Thursday, will host. Donors can also text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 contribution.
NBC Universal
Disney Sale Proceeds To Education
George Lucas
George Lucas plans to put a sizable portion of his windfall from the $4 billion sale of his Lucasfilm to Disney into a foundation supporting education, Lucasfilm said in a statement Wednesday.
Lucas is currently the chairman of Edutopia, part of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. Lucas could put money into the foundation or create a new foundation funded from the sale. In 2006, the George Lucas Educational Foundation donated $175 million to the filmmaker's alma mater USC.
In 2010, Lucas signed the Warren Buffet and Bill Gates Giving Pledge, which commits participants "to giving the majority of their wealth to the philanthropic causes and charitable organizations of their choice either during their lifetime or after their death."
"I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future - and the first step begins with the social, emotional and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt - as educators, storytellers and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so."
George Lucas
Family Tree
George Clooney
Aunt Rosemary was not George
Clooney's only famous relative. You can add a certain Civil War
American president to the Oscar-winning actor's family tree.
Politics has apparently run in the activist actor's blood
for centuries, as website Ancestry.com on Thursday revealed that
the "Ocean's 11" star is distantly related to President Abraham
Lincoln.
According to Ancestry.com, Clooney is the half-first cousin
five times removed from Lincoln, the 16th president. The
genealogy website breaks down the connection, explaining the
"half" means that two of their ancestors were half-siblings -
Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks was the half-sister of Clooney's
4th great-grandmother Mary Ann Sparrow.
Hanks and Sparrow shared the same mother, Lucy Hanks, but
had different fathers. Lucy Hanks was Lincoln's maternal
grandmother as well as the 5th great-grandmother of Clooney.
Clooney's aunt was singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, who
died in 2002.
George Clooney
Cecil B. DeMille Award
Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster is adding a new trophy to her collection - a lifetime-achievement honor at the Golden Globes.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Thursday that Foster will receive the group's Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 70th annual Globes ceremony on Jan. 13.
Foster, 49, is a two-time Globes and Academy Award winner. She was honored with leading actress trophies at both ceremonies for 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs" and 1988's "The Accused," which she won in a three-way tie at the Globes with Sigourney Weaver for "Gorillas in the Mist" and Shirley MacLaine for "Madame Sousatzka."
DeMille Award winners are chosen by the board of directors for the foreign press group. It includes about 90 reporters who cover Hollywood for overseas outlets.
Jodie Foster
Multiple Requests In Bolivia
Sean Penn
It's not clear whether Sean Penn knew ahead of his visit to Bolivia of the missions he'd be asked to assume by President Evo Morales.
Cabinet chief Juan Ramon Quintana told reporters after Tuesday's meeting that Morales asked the Oscar-winning actor to defend the chewing of coca leaf before the United Nations, lobby Chile to restore Bolivia's long-lost access to the Pacific Ocean and help persuade the United States to extradite a former Bolivian president.
Penn is already a goodwill ambassador for Haiti, where he has won respect for his post-earthquake charity work.
Penn later showed up for the start of a soccer match with Morales.
Sean Penn
Cancels Concert
George Jones
A Minnesota casino says legendary country singer George Jones is ill and has canceled a concert scheduled this week.
Jones was scheduled to perform Friday at the Shooting Star Casino, Hotel and Event Center in Mahnomen (muh-NOH'-min). That concert had been rescheduled from April, when Jones needed more time to recover from an upper respiratory infection.
Shooting Star released a statement from Jones' management team, saying the 81-year-old singer has gotten a virus and is being treated by doctors.
Shooting Star says there are no plans to reschedule the performance. Ticket-buyers will receive a refund.
George Jones
UK Comedian Arrested In Savile Row
Freddie Starr
The child abuse scandal consuming the legacy of the late entertainer Jimmy Savile netted its second celebrity arrest Thursday as police swooped in on British comedian Freddie Starr, media reported. Executors of Savile's estate also said they were freezing his assets, clearing the way for a host of potential lawsuits.
Scotland Yard said in a statement released late Thursday that a man in his 60s from the English county of Warwickshire had been taken into custody on suspicion of sexual assault. It didn't name the suspect, but nearly all major British media outlets identified the man as Starr, who is in his 60s and lives in the village of Studley, in Warwickshire.
A phone number for Starr - a 1970s variety show favorite known for his good looks and roguish humor - could not immediately be located. Police refused to answer any questions about the arrest, but the development had been widely anticipated. Starr himself volunteered to speak to detectives after being accused of having groped the woman whose claims are at the center of Savile scandal.
Starr stands accused by Karin Ward, who says she was 14 when the comedian "had a very bad attack of wandering hands" when the pair were backstage at a television show hosted by Savile in the 1970s. Ward's claims have received particular attention because she was the first alleged victim of Savile to speak publicly about her ordeal. Her allegations helped touch off an avalanche of sex abuse claims against the eccentric BBC star, resulting in a massive scandal which has pulverized Savile's reputation, rocked the BBC, and horrified Britons.
Freddie Starr
Slams 'GOP Bloodlust'
Geraldo
Geraldo Rivera slammed the politicization of the attack in Benghazi, firing off a series of tweets while hunkered down at home in Edgewater, N.J., during Hurricane Sandy. Rivera, the Fox News contributor and "Geraldo at Large" host, criticized the controversy being pushed by some conservatives.
It's "clear no C130 gunships were available," Rivera tweeted. "Criticize coverup [but] saying White House watched [and] did nothing to help is a lie."
Rivera called the "GOP bloodlust" surrounding the Obama administration's handling of Libya "insincere," "desperate" and reminiscent of the political firestorm surrounding the "Fast and Furious" gun-walking scandal that rocked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2011.
To suggest the four U.S. consulate workers killed in Benghazi "could have been saved," Rivera added, is a "cruel myth."
Geraldo
Wedding Dress Stolen
Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse's charity says two of the late singer's dresses - including her wedding dress - are missing and believed stolen from her former London home.
The Amy Winehouse Foundation said Thursday the dress Winehouse wore for her 2006 Miami wedding to Blake Fielder-Civil and a newsprint cocktail dress she wore during a British TV appearance are both missing. The presumed theft was discovered during an inventory.
The wedding dress was to have been auctioned off for the charity, established to help young people overcome addiction.
The singer's father, Mitch Winehouse, told the Evening Standard it was "sickening that someone would steal something in the knowledge of its sentimental value."
Amy Winehouse
Storm Of Anti-Obama Text Messages
ccAdvertising
A controversial Virginia marketing and polling firm appears to have used a legal loophole to bombard scores of Americans with unsolicited text messages berating President Barack Obama less than a week before Election Day.
More than a dozen different messages landed on the screens of phone users late on Tuesday, originating from mysterious websites instead of phone numbers. They attacked Obama and Democrats on a variety of issues such as abortion, foreign policy, same-sex marriage and taxation.
The domain names of those websites had been registered with GoDaddy.com through a firm that masks original owners.
On Wednesday, Reuters compiled a list of at least nine websites gathered from reporters who received the political text messages. A review of websites that track domain name registrations revealed that three of the nine websites that sent the messages were registered by Jason Flanary. Those sites had been suspended for spam and abuse.
An email for Jason Flanary indicated he works for ccAdvertising, a division of FreeEats.com Inc. Neither Flanary or the firm returned requests for comment. Based in Centreville, Virginia, ccAdvertising is a firm that has represented Republican candidates. It has been fined, sued and pursued for aggressive political pushes that state authorities and private parties have argued violate laws against robo-calls and other types of automated phone contact.
ccAdvertising
Nutjobs With $
Super PAC
In the final days of the campaign in Ohio, the stops have been pulled out in the scramble to eke out a win. And that means one super PAC calling on African Americans to vote against President Obama because Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.
Cable viewers in several markets across the state are being treated to ads by an obscure self-described "alternative conservative" super PAC called the Empower Citizens Network. One of the group's ads accuses Obama and Democrats of imploding the economy by forcing mortgage companies to lend to "unqualified borrowers" while the Soviet national anthem plays. Another promises welfare recipients that "Republicans can save your money source" by reducing regulations on business.
Details on Empower Citizens Network are sketchy. It was formed in June, according to its FEC filing, but its quarterly filings in July and October showed the group had neither raised nor spent any money. FEC filings made by the group last week show it spending about $98,000 on campaign advertising in Ohio, mostly for newspaper ads.
Documents filed by the group with Time Warner Cable in Ohio identified Akron-area financial planner Bob Warther as the point of contact for Empower Citizens Network. Warther is listed as the group's treasurer in FEC filings (although it is spelled "Walther" in one letter to the FEC that he signed). Warther's office referred questions about the super PAC to Lance Davis at Akron-based Universal Marketing Industries. Davis did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Super PAC
Fooled Mental Health Experts
Psychiatrist
A once-prominent Northern California child psychiatrist is set to be retried on charges that he molested patients after a judge sided with prosecutors who argued that he fooled mental health experts into believing he had dementia to avoid prosecution.
San Mateo County Superior Court Judge John Grandsaert set a March 2013 trial date for William Ayres, 80, on Wednesday.
Ayres was tried in 2009 on charges that he molested several young boys under his care, but a jury couldn't reach a verdict. He was accused of using physical exams that included the genitals as a cover for the abuse.
The psychologist, John McIlnay, said Ayres was able to perform tasks that would be difficult for someone with dementia, including spelling "Alzheimer's" for the nurse filling out his admissions form and recognizing and greeting a fellow psychiatrist he hadn't seen in more than a year.
Ayres is the former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. His patients were a mix of private clients from wealthy families who were referred by their pediatricians and troubled juvenile delinquents ordered to undergo therapy by the courts.
Psychiatrist
Clubs To Enter India
Playboy
The Playboy club is coming to India -- but with "bunnies" in non-revealing outfits.
"The costumes of the bunnies, who are integral to the Playboy culture, will be based on Indian sensibilities and morals," Sanjay Gupta, CEO of PB Lifestyle, which is bringing the brand to India through a licensing agreement, told Reuters.
India has strict censorship laws and there is no Indian version of Playboy, the magazine launched by Hugh Hefner that became as known for its pictures of naked women as for the hedonistic lifestyle propagated by its founder.
Playboy bunnies, or waitresses, typically wear black satin bodices, bow ties, cuffs and bunny ears. PB Lifestyle has not yet decided what waitresses will wear in India, a socially conservative country where it is frowned upon for couples to hold hands in public.
"Our clubs will not have any nudity. So there should not be any problem and we are prepared to deal with it if there is any," said Gupta, whose media and real estate company signed a 30-year licensing agreement with U.S.-based Playboy Enterprises Inc.
Playboy
'Dracula' Desk Up For Auction
Bram Stoker
The desk where Bram Stoker
wrote his famed 1897 book "Dracula" is going up for auction next
month after having been restored and turned into a work of art,
auction company Profiles in History said on Wednesday.
The desk, which will be auctioned off by the California
company on December 15 and 16, has had a long history, which,
over the past century, has left it battered, with missing
drawers and legs sawn short.
The Irish-born Stoker, who died in 1912, initially gave the
desk to his friend J.S.R. Phillips. The current owner
commissioned British-based furniture maker and designer Mark
Brazier-Jones to preserve the desk, but also make it a
stand-alone art piece, the auction house said.
Brazier-Jones said in a statement that he wanted to preserve
the desk's scars and textures, but also pay homage to the man
who introduced the vampire Count Dracula to today's pop culture.
His improvements include embroidered imagery "appropriate to
the great man's inspirations and imagining," including bats, a
savage hound and scrolling rose thorns and buds. Brazier-Jones
also lined with leather two secret compartments which will only
be revealed to the new owner of the desk.
The company expects the desk, along with a matching
candelabra designed and crafted by Brazier-Jones, to sell for
somewhere between $60,000 and $80,000.
Bram Stoker
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. (1) Madonna; $5,128,536; $165.55.
2. (2) Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band; $4,117,638; $93.78.
3. (4) Justin Bieber; $1,176,505; $76.92.
4. (6) "Gigantes Tour" / Marc Anthony / Marco Antonio Solis / Chayanne; $1,042,502; $106.99.
5. (5) Enrique Iglesias / Jennifer Lopez; $944,501; $79.44.
6. (New) Red Hot Chili Peppers; $803,805; $53.58.
7. (7) Jason Aldean; $721,826; $39.16.
8. (8) "Honda Civic Tour" / Linkin Park; $702,819; $49.66.
9. (9) Zac Brown Band; $679,857; $41.43.
10. (10) Brad Paisley; $611,368; $42.47.
11. (12) Rascal Flatts; $554,491; $37.86.
12. (13) Journey; $519,393; $58.17.
13. (14) Def Leppard / Poison; $496,116; $63.15.
14. (15) Carrie Underwood; $489,821; $59.42.
15. (16) Wiz Khalifa / Mac Miller; $417,999; $28.33.
16. (17) Mumford & Sons; $415,747; $45.39.
17. (18) Florence & The Machine; $400,726; $46.14.
18. (19) "Vans Warped Tour"; $344,045; $27.06.
19. (20) Il Divo; $342,257; $91.45.
20. (21) Sugarland; $326,193; $48.40.
Concert Tours
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