Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Now that the dust has settled, here's what the next two years should bring (Tucson Weekly)
The dust has settled from last week's insanity, and the next two years lie ahead of us, not in the form of that mind-numbingly straight stretch of road between Las Vegas and Reno, but rather like a road map of Bisbee, with hills, white-knuckle narrow passages and surprise dead ends. These next two years could well shape America (or what's left of it) for decades to come.
Matt Miller: Why we need a third party of (radical) centrists
Speaking to 400 professionals of all stripes in California the other day, I asked who would be seriously interested in a third major political party. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal. Nearly every hand shot up.
Paul Krugman: Unserious People
Oh, and they're talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer - except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren't living much longer. So you're going to tell janitors to work until they're 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.
Lee Drutman: Playing Politics With the Economy (Slate)
How's the economy doing? Depends on which party you belong to.
Clarence Page: A GOP not for 'whites only'
What's the most overlooked, underappreciated story from the midterm elections? My nominee would be the surprising new racial and ethnic diversity of Republican congressional and gubernatorial winners - even if we don't see as much diversity among the party's voters.
Jim Hightower: MURDOCH STRIPS FOX OF ANY JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY
Fox TV has quit reporting the news... to become the news. To promote its corporate political agenda, Fox has surrendered any pretense of media integrity. Earlier this year, the far-right poobah of Fox, Rupert Murdoch, bolted from his journalistic hidey hole to donate a million dollars from his corporate coffers to defeat Democrats running for Congress. He followed with another million dollars to elect Republican governors.
James Thurber, The Art of Fiction No. 10: Interviewed by George Plimpton & Max Steele (The Paris Review, from 1955)
"When I did the cartoon originally I meant the naked woman to be at the top of a flight of stairs, but I lost the sense of perspective and . . . there she was stuck up there, naked, on a bookcase."
Josh Patner: Sui Generis (Wall Street Journal)
Out with a career-spanning book this month, the prolific fashion designer Anna Sui reminisces and shares a few secrets.
Move to rescue obscure words (The Guardian)
Hundred of words such as suffarcinate, jobler and welmish have fallen out of everyday use. But they're not dead yet, says Will Dean.
"Invasion of the Mind Snatchers: Television's Conquest of America in the Fifties" by Eric Burns: A review by James Morris
Eric Burns's lapel-grabbing title does his book a disservice. The invocation of a 1956 sci-fi movie that made people wary of watermelons is at odds with his more sober judgments about how the new medium changed the country. Television did not turn us into zombies: "What we Americans learned to do as the fifties progressed was incorporate television into our lives rather than allow our lives to be controlled by it. The medium became a choice rather than a czar."
Richard Lea: "Hannu Rajaniemi: the science of fiction" (The Guardian)
The author of this year's most exciting SF debut, 'The Quantum Thief,' talks about how 24 pages of an unfinished first novel won him a three-book deal, his split writing personality and why science fiction is more honest than the mainstream.
Russell Baker: A Genius for Contempt (New York Review of Books)
A final shot at the farmer-"this prehensile moron"-and Mencken is off to abuse what he truly despises: Congress and presidents. Not every object of his contempt was accorded such lovingly phrased abuse as the farmer. Calvin Coolidge, though a president, could be disposed of without finesse: a "third-rate, small-town attorney, stuffed with copy book platitudes" and "a cheap, sordid and grasping politician, a seeker of jobs all his life, willing to do almost anything imaginable to get them."
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Pelosi Problem...' Edition
The new year will begin with a new Speaker of the House (No doubt, 'Tan-boy' Boehner, R-Orange). Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing Speaker, has announced her intention of running for Minority Leader of House... Some Democratic Representatives think this is not such a good idea. Rep. Albio Sires (D-NY) said, "We need some new direction, and I think the best way is for her to move on."... Others support Pelosi, "I am confident that under her leadership we will never abandon our principles," said Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-NJ).
Speaker Nancy Pelosi to seek minority leader post
What say You?
A.) Pelosi should be Minority Leader...
B.) Pelosi should step aside...
C.) Get back to me after the holidays...
Send your response to
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Windy and a bit warmer.
Merger?
Newsweek and Daily Beast
Website Daily Beast and magazine Newsweek have agreed a deal to combine, just weeks after abandoning merger talks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The agreement, set to be released on Friday, will combine the two groups in a venture called the Newsweek Daily Beast Company, people familiar with the deal told the WSJ.
Tina Brown, Daily Beast's co-founder and a former editor of The New Yorker and Talk magazines, will be editor-in-chief of the new group, the newspaper reported.
Newsweek has been without an editor since its owner, stereo magnate Sidney Harman, bought the magazine from The Washington Post Co for a token cash price of $1 in a deal that closed in September.
Newsweek and Daily Beast
January Line Up
London
Rock legends The Who are to perform alongside Jeff Beck, Blondie singer Debbie Harry and The Verve's Richard Ashcroft in a charity concert against cancer.
The stars will appear at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, London, on January 13, 2011 to raise money for KILLING Cancer, a charity that funds research into little-known cancer treatment Photodynamic Therapy (PDT).
PDT, which involves making cells more sensitive to light before exposing them to laser light, could help to treat cancers and precancerous conditions near the surface of the skin or internal organ linings.
The Who have performed to raise awareness of cancer before. In March the band joined up with Arctic Monkeys, JLS and Noel Gallagher to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
London
Renewed For 23rd Season
"The Simpsons"
"The Simpsons" have plenty more adventures to go on.
Fox television said on Thursday it was renewing the subversive animated TV show about America's favorite TV family for a 23rd season. The show is already the longest-running comedy on U.S. television.
"Like many 22-year-olds, 'The Simpsons' is extremely happy remaining at home, on Fox, and hopes it doesn't have to go out into the real world for many years to come," said executive producer Al Jean.
The renewal for another TV season will bring the total episodes for the series to 515, Fox said.
"The Simpsons"
Prize-Winning Canadian Novel
"The Sentimentalists"
Book lovers seeking a copy of the winner of Canada's premier literary award are out of luck, unless they're ready to settle for an electronic version.
"The Sentimentalists," a surprise winner of the C$50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize this week, is trickling only slowly into bookstores as its tiny publisher cranks out copies.
The book, by first-time novelist Johanna Skibsrud, is sold out across Canada.
Nova Scotia-based specialty publisher Gaspereau Press can produce only 1,000 copies a week of their finely bound books, using an old-fashioned press.
"The Sentimentalists"
Returns To The Arab World
Berlin Philharmonic
The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra returned to the Arab world for the first time in 42 years with a concert in Abu Dhabi.
Under the baton of British conductor Sir Simon Rattle it performed classics by Joseph Haydn, Johannes Brahms, Alban Berg and contemporary composer Brett Dean at the Tuesday evening concert at the opulent Emirates Palace hotel.
The last time the orchestra performed in an Arab country was at the 1968 Baalbek International Festival in Lebanon, where it was conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
It also played in Tehran in 1975.
Berlin Philharmonic
Rehab
Butch Patrick
The former child star who played boy werewolf Eddie Munster on TV has entered a drug and alcohol treatment facility.
Butch Patrick's agent said Thursday that the 57-year-old is in a private facility in New Jersey.
Agent Jodi Ritzen says Patrick is in rehab "to deal with a lifetime problem of substance abuse." Ritzen wouldn't disclose the name of the facility where he's being treated.
Patrick moved to the Philadelphia area earlier this year after being contacted by a West Chester woman who was a fan of "The Munsters" back in the 1960s. She announced last week that they had split.
Butch Patrick
Union Picketing
"Biggest Loser"
A union drama unfolded Wednesday in the Santa Monica Mountains high above Malibu, CA.
A small group of below-the-line workers picketed at the state park where NBC's "The Biggest Loser" is produced.
LaborCrew members and their International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees supporters are demanding a union contract for the reality show.
Wages and working conditions are not the issue, sources told THR; pension and health benefits are.
"Biggest Loser"
Surrender First Class Perk
US Actors
US actors may have to give up flying first class under a new agreement hammered out between unions and employers battling to cut costs to survive the economic downturn.
Under the provisional accord, actors will have to travel economy in trips under 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), or between Los Angeles and Vancouver, and New York and Toronto, according to the Los Angeles Times and industry daily Variety.
For trips above 1,000 miles, actors would have the right to fly business class, or first class if no business class seats are available.
The union concession was made in return for a six percent wage increase over three years and a 10 percent increase in employer contributions to health and pension plans.
US Actors
Probing Leak
Disney
The Walt Disney Co. said Thursday it is investigating the early release of its fourth-quarter earnings, which showed an unexpected decline, after shares fell 5 percent in unusually heavy trading about half an hour before a press release was scheduled to go out. The incident follows the guilty plea two months ago of a Disney employee who was trying to sell the early release of quarterly results.
Trading was in a tight range until about 3:29 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, when the share price plunged $1.81, or 4.9 percent, to $35.39 by 3:33 p.m., before popping back up slightly. The company press release then went out at 3:44 p.m.,16 minutes earlier than normal. Trading volume by the end of the day was more than three times the average at 37.7 million shares.
"We are aware that information regarding our fourth-quarter earnings became available ahead of its formal release and we are investigating how this occurred," Disney's senior vice president of investor relations, Lowell Singer, told analysts on a conference call. "We do regret any confusion caused by this incident."
In September, Bonnie Hoxie, a secretary to Disney's head of corporate communications, pleaded guilty in a federal court in New York to conspiracy to commit securities fraud for trying to sell access to the company's quarterly earnings ahead of their release.
Disney
Not Main Selection
Bush Book
Fitting for a residential memoir, George W. Bush's "Decision Points" is a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the 84-year-old institution that offers top sellers and critical favorites at discount prices.
Surprising for a memoir by a president whose "base" was more to the right than for any chief executive since Ronald Reagan, "Decision Points" is only an alternate at the Conservative Book Club, a 50,000-member organization founded in 1964 and adhering to the motto of "Conservatives Serving Conservatives."
Editor-in-chief Elizabeth Kantor wouldn't offer a specific reason why Bush was not a main selection, a status granted to former top Bush aide Karl Rove's "Courage and Consequence." She did note, "It is true that conservatives have mixed feelings" about Bush and cited the No Child Left Behind Act and the growth of government during his administration.
Conservatives will see a lot of Bush during his promotional tour. He is giving interviews to Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and other favorites of the right, and will make a few appearances on the Fox News Channel. But he is not universally praised. Glenn Beck, for example, has called Bush a "progressive" Republican and suggested he helped pull Republicans away from conservative principles.
Bush Book
Fetches Record $69 Million
Qianlong Vase
A Chinese vase discovered during a routine house clearance in a London suburb sold for 43 million pounds ($69 million) Thursday, 40 times its estimate and an auction record for any work of art from Asia, the auctioneer that sold it said.
The hammer price did not include 20 percent in fees and taxes.
According to the auctioneer, the vase dates from the 1740s from the Qianlong period, would have resided "no doubt" in the Chinese Royal Palace and was fired in the imperial kilns.
The auctioneer said it was a mystery how the 16-inch high piece ended up in London. Its provenance was described simply as belonging to an English family collection, probably acquired during the 1930s.
Qianlong Vase
In Memory
Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis, one of the last great, intrepid film producers who with unmatched showmanship shepherded movies as varied as "La Strada" and "Barbarella," has died. He was 91.
De Laurentiis helped build the Italian film industry during the heyday of its "new wave," oversaw seminal American films such as "Serpico" and Blue Velvet," and pursued blockbusters in flops like "Dune" and critical fiascos such as the 1976 remake of "King Kong," which nearly ended the career of a young Jessica Lange.
In producing more than 500 wide-ranging films over six decades, he presided over an incredible mix of high and low. That the same filmmaker could be involved with Federico Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria" and Arnold $chwarzenegger's "Conan the Barbarian" would seem to contradict normal understanding of taste. Instead, he was irrevocably drawn to the spectacle of the movies.
An entrepreneur, De Laurentiis, who died Wednesday night in Beverly Hills, pioneered the way films were sold internationally - and he did it all in grand style. The sprawling studio complex he built on the outskirts of Rome he dubbed Dinocitta (Dino City).
Raised outside of Naples and one of six children born into the family's pasta-making business, De Laurentiis dreamed of being an actor but quickly realized that his destiny was in moviemaking. He was central to the rise of his native country's film industry, which in the 1950s rose to international prominence as the Italian New Wave.
The serious success began after World War II, starting with "Bitter Rice," in 1948, which launched the career of his first wife, Silvana Mangano.
In 1950, De Laurentiis went into business with another rising director, Carlo Ponti. They soon dominated the Italian movie business, monopolizing top stars such as Mangano, Sophia Loren (who later married Ponti) and Marcello Mastroianni. Their first international production was the epic "War and Peace" (Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer) in 1955.
With the lure of huge salaries, he often imported international movie stars to boost a film's prospects. For Fellini's "La Strada," which won the Academy Award for foreign language film in 1957, he persuaded Anthony Quinn to come to Rome. De Laurentiis also produced Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria," which won the foreign film Oscar a year later.
At Dinocitta, he married Hollywood stars with spectacle: "Barrabas" (Quinn); "The Bible" (George C. Scott, Ava Gardner); "Anzio" (Robert Mitchum); "Waterloo" (Rod Steiger). He also made more offbeat fare, such as Roger Vadim's sex romp, "Barbarella" (Jane Fonda).
De Laurentiis was one of the first producers to understand the box-office potential of foreign audiences, and helped invent international co-productions, raising money by pre-selling distribution rights outside North America.
Throughout his career, he alternated lavish, big-budget productions with less commercial films by directors such as Robert Altman, Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch, and he often packaged the blockbusters with art films to secure distribution for the smaller films.
He began to move away from his base in Italy in the 1960s when the government changed the rules to mandate totally Italian productions to qualify for subsidies. He sold Dinocitta to the government in 1972. He relocated the studio in Wilmington, N.C., and dubbed his production company the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.
The Oscar-winning "Serpico," in 1973 with Al Pacino, was De Laurentiis' Hollywood debut. Charles Bronson's "Death Wish," Robert Redford's "Three Days of the Condor" and John Wayne's last film, "The Shootist," followed.
He often stayed loyal to young, talented directors, even though the results weren't always strong. He made "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" with Robert Altman. Even after Michael Cimino's huge flop "Heaven's Gate," De Laurentiis made "Year of the Dragon" and "Desperate Hours" with him. Despite the failure of "Dune," he stuck with David Lynch and two years later produced the acclaimed "Blue Velvet."
But he continued to be a small factory for tackiness. Though he had earlier worked with revered filmmakers such as Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini and Ingmar Bergman, some of his schlock included the plantation drama "Mandingo," the horror film "Amityville II," the cult comedy "Army of Darkness" and Madonna's "Body of Evidence,"
His most famous flops, though, included "King Kong," King Kong Lives"" and "Hurricane."
Personal tragedy took its toll. In 1981, his son Federico was killed in a plane crash. The strain of the loss helped end De Laurentiis' marriage to Mangano. They were divorced in 1988, the same year De Laurentiis Entertainment Group went into bankruptcy, finished off by the flop of "King Kong Lives."
De Laurentiis, close to 70, was undaunted and started over. Within two years, he had a new wife, 29-year-old Martha Schumacher, formed a new company and started producing moneymakers again.
Survivors include three daughters with Mangano - Rafaela, Francesca and Veronica - and two with Schumacher: Carolina and Dina. Funeral arrangements have not yet been determined.
Dino De Laurentiis
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