Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: After his tax-cut capitulation, Obama has lost the confidence of this Democrat (Tucson Weekly)
A solid majority of Americans favor extending the Bush tax cuts for the poor and middle class, and letting them expire for people who make more than $250,000 a year (which, despite the protestations of some, certainly qualifies somebody as rich). A compromise, Mr. President, would have been to allow the tax cut to remain in place for the first $250,000 of a rich person's income, and then tax the rest at a higher rate.
Paul Krugman: Orwell and the Financial Crisis (New York Times)
There was a long effort by conservative groups to promote privatization, a term they themselves devised. Cato had a Project on Social Security Privatization. But then, when it turned out that the term polled badly, they began rewriting old records in an attempt to cover up the fact that they had ever talked about it.
Jim Hightower: NEW CONGRESS CRITTERS ACT LIKE OLD PROS
Just days after their election, even before they had been assigned office space in the capitol, dozens of these so-called "citizen legislators" were holding lobbyist-sponsored fundraisers at various swank watering holes around Washington.
MAUREEN DOWD: Usurper in Chief? (New York Times)
So much for the Birthers bringing down a presidency in dramatic fashion during a court-martial.
Susan Estrich: Holbrooke's Blessing (Creators Syndicate)
Richard Holbrooke was a legend, the high priest of what we used to call the "priesthood" (even though they finally did let Madeleine in), the foreign policy elite that played musical chairs whenever a Democrat was running for or elected to the presidency. Arrogant? You bet. Frustrated with those who didn't get it, wouldn't do it, didn't push themselves as hard as he did? Absolutely.
Interview with economist Deirdre McCloskey by MATTHEW SHAFFER: "Needed: An Economics for Grownups"
…so long as various Oriental protectionists (in the 1970s it was the Japanese, not the Chinese) are so foolish as to send Americans TV sets and hammers and so forth in exchange for IOUs and green pieces of paper engraved with American heroes, wonderful. Would you personally turn down such a deal? If your personal checks circulated as currency, and the grocer was willing to give you tons of groceries in exchange for eventually depreciated Matt-dollars, wouldn't you go for it? I would, and drink champagne.
Froma Harrop: Madoff's Saddest Victim (Creators Syndicate)
Bernard Madoff went to jail for his stupendous financial con. His eldest son, Mark, has gone to oblivion, having hung himself from a dog leash on the second anniversary of his father's outing as perpetrator of a $20 billion con.
STANLEY FISH: The Value of Higher Education Made Literal (New York Times)
The privatization of higher education continues apace, as evidenced by a new report from England.
Larry Strauss: Evaluation Old School (huffingtonpost.com)
if districts and politicians want mathematical formulas to determine teacher tenure and pay, hiring and firing, they might want to look at more than just standardized test results.
Seductively Dangerous (Wall Street Journal)
Robert Morrison's "The English Opium-Eater" is the biography of one of the first and best and most seductively dangerous of literary journalists, Thomas De Quincey, an opium addict who translated German ghost stories and covered the latest theology and political science. Lee Sandlin reviews.
Paul Di Filippo: "Beyond the Horizon: 21st-Century SF"
This year completes the initial decade of the twenty-first century-unless, of course, you are a numerical fussbudget along the lines of the revered Arthur C. Clarke, and insist on dating the start of the century to 2001. But tell me truly: does the year 2011 really resonate with you as an evocative, memorable milestone?
Where is the protest music for 2010? (Guardian)
Music and protest have always gone hand in hand. But, as Britain's youth get militant, is anyone giving voice to their anger? John Harris meets the one man rising to the challenge.
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(s)
New Question
The 'Holiday Season A/V Attractions and Distractions' Edition...
There's a bazillion (at least) movies, songs and commercials connected to the 'Holiday Season' that are streamed non-stop out over the ether this time of year celebrating all manner of things spiritual, secular and avaricious... Yes, I know that you are not shocked at that statement, so don't write and say that you are (haha)... Ahem... Moving right along... All righty then...
Share with us, if'n ya please, yer favorites as well as the ones that make ya want to get yer Scrooge on... I'll tell ya mine, if'n you tell me yours...
1.) Movies
2.) Music
3.) Commercials
Send your response to
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Cloudy and cooler.
Ready To Return To China
Sesame Street
Twenty-seven years after Big Bird first landed in China, a short, localized, Mandarin-language version of "Sesame Street" will premiere in Shanghai on December 22.
A lot has changed in the media since the one-off movie "Big Bird in China" first brought Chinese and Western television together in 1983. The eight-foot-tall yellow bird returned when General Electric sponsored "Sesame Street" on Shanghai TV from 1998-2001, but his nest didn't last in a media landscape where regulators held greater sway than consumers.
While Viacom's Nickelodeon has managed to make "Spongebob Squarepants" among the top TV shows for kids in China, government regulations have in recent years made it difficult for other imported kids' programing to reach what 2008 data from UNICEF suggest is the potential target audience of more than 87 million Chinese viewers under the age of five.
Key to "Sesame Street's" Chinese relaunch was working with Ye Chao, the deputy general manager of Toonmax Media, the youth-oriented satellite channel owned by the Shanghai Media Group, China's No. 2 media conglomerate after state-run China Central Television. Ye worked on the original Chinese "Sesame Street," known, in literal translation, as Zhima Jie.
Sesame Street
Targets Depiction Of Girls
TV Watchdog
Primetime TV shows that appeal to teenagers are promoting the "sexualization" of girls at an alarming rate, including more portrayals of underage females being objectified than adults, especially for laughs, according to the Parents Television Council.
The watchdog group is calling on producers, advertisers and government regulators to take an honest assessment of the sexually provocative way girls are portrayed on TV and take it down a notch. Or two.
The PTC argues that girls are increasingly shown as having their worth dependent upon their sexuality, a media phenomenon it says leads to passivity, depression, eating disorders and low self-esteem.
The report notes that 73 percent of televised sexual incidents that involved girls under 18 were designed to be funny, thus using "laughter to desensitize and trivialize topics that might normally be viewed as disturbing."
The study says 98 percent of the portrayals of underage girls acting in a sexual manner occurred with partners with whom they have no committed relationship, and 75 percent of such shows don't include the "S" descriptor beforehand to warn parents what's coming.
TV Watchdog
Opening Delayed, Again
"Spider-Man"
Troubled Broadway musical "Spider-Man," the most expensive show ever created for the Great White Way, appears headed for another delay as producers weigh a decision to push its opening into February, according to media reports on Thursday.
The New York Times, citing two unnamed sources involved with the "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," said moving it from a planned January 11 debut will allow creators to stage a new final number, rewrite some dialogue and add or delete scenes.
Based on the teenage comic book superhero, "Spider-Man" was directed by Julie Taymor with music from U2's Bono and The Edge, and it cost upwards of $65 million to bring from concept to the stage.
Already, its opening has been delayed a few times, initially due to financial problems and more recently performers suffering injuries followed by technical difficulties during current previews.
"Spider-Man"
Board Approves Rainbow Spin-Off
Cablevision
Cablevision Systems Corp's board authorized a spin-off of Rainbow Media Holdings, home to the AMC and Sundance Channel cable television networks, the company said on Thursday.
The spin-off, expected to be completed by mid-2011, would be structured as a tax-free distribution to stockholders, the company said.
Cablevision's Class A and Class B shareholders will receive Class A shares and Class B shares in Rainbow.
Cablevision, which is controlled by the Dolan family through Class B shares, has sought to spin off properties and pay a dividend after several failed attempts to take the company private. Those attempts came to an end in 2007.
Cablevision
Didn't Steal Lightning McQueen
"Cars"
An Oklahoma appeals court has handed Disney and Pixar a victory against a race car
How does a race car sue for violation of its publicity rights? Publicity claims have been increasing exponentially in recent years. Individuals have brought cases seeking to protect the commercial exploitation of their names, voices, signatures, photographs, images, likenesses, distinctive appearances, gestures and mannerisms.
But their wheels? Mark Brill alleged that the fictional character Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) in the movie was too similar to his own race car. Brill is closely associated with such a car.
On November 30, the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals affirmed a lower court's summary judgment order putting the breaks on Brill's lawsuit. It ruled that "a fictional, talking, driver-less red race car with the number 95 on it cannot be construed as a likeness of a driver of a similarly colored/numbered race car."
"Cars"
Actor Gets Life
Shelley Malil
An actor who appeared in the film "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was sentenced Thursday to life in prison with possible parole for stabbing his ex-girlfriend more than 20 times when he stopped by her home unannounced and found her with another man.
Shelley Malil was sentenced by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Harry Elias three months after a jury convicted the actor of attempted premeditated murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The victim, Kendra Beebe, suffered punctured lungs and wounds to her neck, chest, back and arms in the 2008 attack.
Malil - who played Haziz, a co-worker of Steve Carell's character in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" - had faced a maximum penalty of life in prison with no possibility for parole for 14 years.
The jury deliberated less than four hours before convicting the actor of the two most serious charges and acquitting him of residential burglary.
Shelley Malil
Lawyer Arrested
The 'Other' Kenneth Starr
A former lawyer for a financial adviser to celebrity clients was arrested Thursday on money-laundering charges filed in New York alleging he helped conceal the adviser's Ponzi-like scheme.
Attorney Jonathan Bristol was to be arraigned later Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. The name of his attorney was not immediately available.
An indictment alleges that Bristol hid investor money stolen by Kenneth Starr - a one-time adviser to Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone and Martin Scorsese - in secret escrow accounts.
Prosecutors say Bristol raided the accounts in January to pay $1 million to settle a claim by a disgruntled Starr client. They say another $100,000 was used to cover bills from Bristol's law firm.
The 'Other' Kenneth Starr
Wrong Again
Benny The Rat
Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday that Christians suffer more religious persecution than any other group, denouncing lack of freedom of worship as an "intolerable" threat to world security.
The message reflected a pressing concern by Benedict in recent months for the plight of Christian minorities in parts of the world, especially in the Middle East.
"Sadly, the year now ending has again been marked by persecution, discrimination, terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance," Benedict lamented in the message for World Peace Day, celebrated by the church on Jan. 1, but traditionally released in advance
Benedict singled out the "reprehensible attack" on a Baghdad cathedral during Mass in October, killing two priests and more than 50 other worshippers, as well as attacks on private homes that "spread fear within the Christian community and (create) a desire on the part of many to emigrate in search of a better life."
Benny The Rat
Prison, Dismissal For Army Birther
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin
An Army doctor who disobeyed orders to deploy to Afghanistan because he questioned President Barack Obama's eligibility to be commander in chief was sentenced by a jury Thursday to six months in a military prison and dismissal from the Army.
The military jury spent nearly five hours deliberating punishment for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin on Thursday after three days of court martial proceedings at Fort Meade, outside Baltimore.
Lakin was convicted of disobeying orders - he had pleaded guilty to that count - and missing a flight that would have gotten him to his eventual deployment. An Army commander, Maj. Gen. Karl Horst, still has to approve the sentence returned by the jury. Upon approval of the sentence, Lakin is granted an automatic appeal that would be considered by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He was to begin serving his sentence immediately.
In online videos posted on YouTube, Lakin aligned himself with the so-called "birther" movement that questions whether Obama is a natural-born citizen, as the Constitution requires for presidents, and said he was inviting his own court martial.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin
How To Piss Away $200 Million
Sand Berms
The big set of sand barriers erected by Louisiana's governor to protect the coastline at the height of the Gulf oil spill was criticized by a presidential commission Thursday as a colossal, $200 million waste of BP's money so far.
Precious little oil ever washed up on the berms, according to the commission - a finding corroborated by a log of oil sightings and other government documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request.
Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered the berms built over the objections of scientists and federal agencies - and secured money from BP to do it - out of frustration over what he saw as inaction by the Obama administration. During the crisis, Jindal boasted that the sand walls were stopping oil from coming ashore, and the idea proved popular in Louisiana.
In its stinging report, however, the commission, appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the spill, called the project "underwhelmingly effective, overwhelmingly expensive." Still, the panel did concede that the sand might ultimately prove helpful in Louisiana's long-term effort to restore its badly eroded coastline.
Sand Berms
$37,000 Top Bid For Coffin
Lee Harvey Oswald
An auction house that put Lee Harvey Oswald's coffin on the market has extended by two hours the deadline to make bids, after receiving a rush of last-minute offers.
Nate D. Sanders Auctions of Santa Monica, Calif., had planned to close bidding at 5 p.m. Thursday until the last-minute bids poured in. The top bid stood at $37,404 at 5 p.m., up $15,000 from the high bid the day before.
The coffin was offered for sale last month by a Texas funeral home owner who swapped it with Oswald's family for a new one when the body was briefly exhumed in 1981. The body was dug up so it could be positively identified.
Funeral home owner Allen Baumgardner said he felt it was time for the coffin to have a new owner.
Lee Harvey Oswald
In Memory
Neva Patterson
Neva Patterson, who played Cary Grant's fiancee in the 1957 classic "An Affair to Remember," has died. She was 90.
Her daughter, Megan Lee, tells the Los Angeles Times that Patterson died Tuesday at her home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. She suffered complications from a broken hip.
Patterson already was a Broadway veteran when she was cast to play Lois for the Cary Grant movie. She originated the role of Helen Sherman in the 1952 Broadway play "The Seven Year Itch."
Her career in movies and TV ran from the 1940s to the 1990s and included more than 100 appearances. Her roles in the 1980s mini-series "V" and "V: The Final Battle" won her a continuing fan base.
Neva Patterson
In Memory
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards, the director and writer known for clever dialogue, poignance and occasional belly-laugh sight gags in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "10" and the "Pink Panther" farces, is dead at age 88.
Edwards died from complications of pneumonia late Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said publicist Gene Schwam. Blake's wife, Julie Andrews, and other family members were at his side. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.
A third-generation filmmaker, Edwards was praised for evoking classic performances from Jack Lemmon, Audrey Hepburn, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Lee Remick and Andrews, his wife of 42 years.
Edwards directed and often wrote a wide variety of movies including "Days of Wine and Roses," a harrowing story of alcoholism; "The Great Race," a comedy-adventure that starred Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood; and "Victor/Victoria," his gender-bender musical comedy with Andrews.
He was also known for an independent spirit that brought clashes with studio bosses. He vented his disdain for the Hollywood system in his 1981 black comedy, "S.O.B."
Although many of Edwards' films were solid hits, he was nominated for Academy Awards only twice, in 1982 for writing the adapted screenplay of "Victor/Victoria" and in 1983 for co-writing "The Man Who Loved Women." Lemmon and Remick won Oscar nominations in 1962 for "Days of Wine and Roses," and Hepburn was nominated for "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in 1961.
The motion picture academy selected Edwards to receive a lifetime achievement award in 2004 for "his writing, directing and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen."
Edwards had entered television in 1958, creating "Peter Gunn," which established a new style of hard-edged detective series. The tone was set by Henry Mancini's pulsating theme music. Starring Craig Stevens, the series ran until 1961 and resulted in a 1967 feature movie "Gunn."
The Edwards family history extended virtually the entire length of American motion pictures. J. Gordon Edwards was a pioneering director of silent films, including more than 20 with the exotic vamp Theda Bara. His son, Jack McEdwards (the family name), became a top assistant director and production manager in Hollywood.
William Blake McEdwards was born July 26, 1922, in Tulsa, Okla. The family moved to Hollywood three years later, and the boy grew up on his father's movie sets.
Edwards began in films as an actor, playing small roles in such movies as "A Guy Named Joe" and "Ten Gentlemen From West Point." After 18 months in the Coast Guard in World War II, he returned to acting but soon realized he lacked the talent. With John Champion, he wrote a Western, "Panhandle," which he produced and acted in for the quickie studio, Monogram. He followed with "Stampede."
In 1947, Edwards turned to radio and created the hard-boiled "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" for Dick Powell; it was converted to television in 1957, starring Powell with Mary Tyler Moore as his secretary, whose face is never seen on-screen.
Tiring of the TV grind, Edwards returned to films and directed his first feature, "Bring Your Smile Along." After a few more B movies which he usually co-wrote, he made the big time in 1958 with "The Perfect Furlough," starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, and "Operation Petticoat" with Cary Grant and Curtis.
"Breakfast at Tiffany's" in 1961 established Edwards as a stylish director who could combine comedy with bittersweet romance. His next two films proved his versatility: the suspenseful "Experiment in Terror" (1962) and "Days of Wine and Roses" (1963), the story of a couple's alcoholism, with Lemmon in his first dramatic role.
"The Great Race," about an auto race in the early 1900s, marked Edwards' first attempt at a big-budget spectacle. He spent Warner Bros.' money lavishly, raising the ire of studio boss Jack Warner. The 1965 release proved a modest success.
Edwards' disdain for the studios reached a peak in the 1970 "Darling Lili," a World War I romance starring his new wife, Andrews, and Rock Hudson. The long, expensive Paris location infuriated the Paramount bosses. The movie flopped, continuing Andrews' decline from her position as Hollywood's No. 1 star.
For a decade, Edwards' only hits were "Pink Panther" sequels. Then came "10," which he also produced and wrote. The sex comedy became a box-office winner, creating a new star in Bo Derek and restoring the director's reputation. He scored again in 1982 with "Victor/Victoria," with Andrews playing a woman who poses as a (male) female impersonator. His later films became more personal, particularly the 1986 "That's Life," which he wrote with his psychiatrist.
Andrews and Edwards married in 1968. She had a daughter, Emma, from her marriage to Broadway designer Tony Walton. Edwards had a daughter, Jennifer, and a son, Geoffrey, from his marriage to Patricia Edwards. He and Andrews adopted two Vietnamese children, Amy and Jo.
Blake Edwards
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