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Mark Coker: Payroll Censorship Update (Scroll down)
THE PROBLEM: PayPal is asking us to censor legal fiction. Regardless of how one views topics of rape, bestiality and incest, these topics are pervasive in mainstream fiction. We believe this crackdown is really targeting erotica writers. This is unfair, and it marks a slippery slope. We don't want credit card companies or financial institutions telling our authors what they can write and what readers can read. Fiction is fantasy. It's not real. It's legal. … Several Smashwords authors have contacted me to stress that this censorship affects women disproportionately. Women write a lot of the erotica, and they're also the primary consumers of erotica.
Marc Dion: How We Really Live (Creators Syndicate)
In a time when the big questions threaten to swamp our leaky little lives, when toothed rocks lie off every shore, when metaphor is cheap, it is as well to consider the death of Smokey, the cat who belonged to my wife and I.
Susan Estrich: Romney's Money Worries (Creators Syndicate)
The 1 percent, or maybe the 0.1 percent: people who work too hard but have the luxury of not worrying about money. I spend the rest of my life among friends and family, where the conversation almost always returns to money: friends who have no jobs or are underwater on their houses, whose kids are slammed by debt and unable to make ends meet, or relatives with no jobs and no health insurance. Money. Money worries. And I should add that these are middle-class people I'm talking about.
Romney's and Obama's tax plans, in one chart
Based on the details Romney has provided so far, his plan would lower tax rates for the top quintile by 5.4 percent, saving the wealthiest an average of $16,134. (The top 1 percent of earners, meanwhile, would save an average of $149,997.) The lowest fifth of earners, by contrast, would see a small tax increase of 1.3 percent under Romney's plan, owing the federal government an additional $143 extra on average.
Bill Maher: The Great Thing About Having Been Poor (Huffington Post)
If you grow up in America, it's pretty rare if you don't love money. One of the first things I ever remember being punished for was stealing money. Five dollars, off my father's dresser.
Alexei Sayle: why I love Polish cinema (Guardian)
Thanks to artists such as Zbigniew Cybulski and Andrzej Wajda, the world of vintage Polish film is stranger than anything else you will ever encounter.
Henry Rollins: Alone in My Man Box, Listening to Al Green (LA Weekly)
This ritual of returning from tour with hours of new sounds and not enough sleep to check it all out is nothing new. This has been happening to me for years. I have found ways around it. There are a few bands whose records I am so familiar with, they feel as though they are from my DNA. These are the ones I play. They are so close to me, I almost can't hear them as they are; instead I hear them as if they are the sound of air going in and out of my lungs.
Dr. Andrew Weil: Walk Like An Australian, Lose 10 Pounds (Huffington Post)
Gasoline is expensive, money is tight, and obesity in America is at record levels -- three good reasons to make the spring of 2012 the time to get serious about walking.
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
Bit of a heat wave - set a record with 91° (!).
Players Aim To Combat Homophobia
Pro Hockey
Thirty players in the National Hockey League have joined a campaign intended to promote gay and lesbian equality in sports with a television ad that will premiere during Sunday's matchup of the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins.
The campaign, called "You Can Play," aims to combat what its organizers call an atmosphere of "casual homophobia" in locker rooms, in which slurs are carelessly used, creating a difficult atmosphere for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender athletes.
"You've got this thing where people don't think there are, or choose not to believe there are, gay athletes in their locker rooms," said Patrick Burke, a talent scout for the Philadelphia Flyers who is one of the co-founders of the program.
Burke said he hoped the campaign could help to persuade closeted pro athletes to identify themselves publicly, so that they can serve as role models for school-age gay and lesbian athletes.
At the moment, there are no players in the four major U.S. sports leagues -- which also include the National Football League, Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association -- who have publicly identified themselves as gay, organizers said.
Pro Hockey
Makes Million Dollar Offer
Larry Flynt
Porn mogul Larry Flynt in a full page newspaper ad on Sunday offered $1 million for information about the sexual indiscretions of well-known US politicians or government officials.
Flynt's offer, appearing in the Washington Post newspaper, asked readers to phone their tips to his hotline, or to send an email to a dedicated online address at his "Hustler" porn magazine.
"Do you have information about infidelity, sexual impropriety or corruption concerning a current United States senator, congressperson or prominent government official?" the ad asks in large, bold type.
"Can you provide documented evidence of your claims? Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine will pay you up to $1 million if we choose to used your material and publish your verified story," the ad said, adding that all correspondence would be kept "strictly confidential."
Larry Flynt
'Lost' Novel Published
Jose Saramago
A "lost" novel by Portuguese Nobel literature laureate Jose Saramago which he wrote in the 1950s before he achieved international acclaim has been published nearly two years after his death.
Saramago sent the manuscript for "Claraboya", which tells the tale of residents of a Lisbon apartment building, through a friend to a Portuguese publishing house in 1953 but never heard back from them.
But in 1989, after the author had become one of Portugal's best-selling contemporary writers, the publishing house contacted Saramago to say they had found the manuscript during a move and would be honoured to publish it.
Saramago, who was known for his blunt manner and difficult prose style, declined the offer, recovered the manuscript and said he did not want it to be published while he was still alive.
"He called it the book that was lost and found in time," Saramago's widow, Spanish journalist Pilar del Rio, said during the presentation in Madrid of the novel, which hit bookstores in Spain and Latin America this week.
Jose Saramago
French Stiletto King
Christian Louboutin
Christian Louboutin, the French designer whose red soles and teetering high heels make female fashionistas swoon, has taken his shoes to dance at the Crazy Horse, the Paris cabaret that insists its strip show is art.
He has helped choreograph four routines in the upmarket club's new show which include a penitent naked nun number, a lesbian romp and an erotic dance to music composed by film director David Lynch.
He said it was the sight of dancers he regarded as "exotic birds" that inspired him to start designing the footwear with 12-centimetre heels and red soles that are now worn by the stars and sell for hundreds of euros (dollars).
Punters will have to pay 85 euros for the cheapest ticket to the show, which will also get them a half bottle of champagne.
The Crazy Horse prides itself on being the most sophisticated of the Parisian topless cabarets, and boasts that it is "avant garde" and intimate compared to the large-scale adult revues at the Moulin Rouge or the Lido.
Christian Louboutin
7th Advertiser Pulls Out
Pigboy
A flower company is the 7th advertiser to pull its ads from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh's radio program in the wake of comments he made about a law student who testified about birth control policy.
ProFlowers said Sunday on its Facebook page that it has suspended advertising on Limbaugh's program because his comments about Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke "went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company."
The six other advertisers that have pulled ads from his show are mortgage lender Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc., online data backup service provider Carbonite and online legal document services company LegalZoom.
Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks Inc. hosts Limbaugh's national radio show.
Pigboy
Flood Threat Highlighted
Himalayas
Before Apa became a legendary Sherpa mountaineer, he was a humble Himalayan potato farmer who worked his fields in the Everest foothills until, without warning, raging floodwaters swallowed his farm.
The flash flood - unleashed when a mountain lake fed by melting glacier waters burst its banks - destroyed homes, bridges and a hydroelectric plant. Apa scrambled up a hill, but at least five neighbors were swept away.
Twenty-six years later, after scaling the world's highest mountain a record 21 times, Apa is on a quest to draw attention to the danger of more devastating floods as glacial melt caused by climate change fills mountain lakes to the bursting point.
The 51-year-old Apa, who like most Sherpas uses only one name, is trekking the length of Nepal to warn villagers to prepare themselves for change. A third of the way along his 120-day journey, he has already seen many lakes that look ready to spill.
There are now thousands of such lakes transforming Himalayan foothills and waterways into extreme danger zones for some of the millions of people in seven countries abutting the massive mountain range.
Himalayas
Publisher's Anti-Racism 'Ambiguous'
Tintin
French rights group CRAN on Thursday attacked the publisher of the Tintin books for his "very ambiguous" anti-racism after he said he was proud to sell the racially stereotyped 'Tintin in the Congo'.
The head of the CRAN (Representative Committee of Black Associations), Louis-Georges Tin, met the boss of Casterman publishers, Louis Delas, on Wednesday and found "his anti-racist convictions very ambiguous."
"Mr Delas said he was sincerely 'anti-racist', which we would very much hope," the CRAN said in a statement.
"However, when Louis-Georges Tin asked him 'Are you proud of having Tintin in the Congo in your catalogue?' he replied without hesitation 'yes', which is perplexing," the statement said.
Delas said "he didn't see why the CRAN was so shocked by 'Tintin in the Congo', and said that no one he knew was shocked by the book," it added.
Tintin
Heart Stolen From Dublin Cathedral
St. Laurence O'Toole
Officials at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin said Sunday they're distraught and perplexed over the theft of the church's most precious relic: the preserved heart of St. Laurence O'Toole, patron saint of Dublin.
O'Toole's heart had been displayed in the cathedral since the 13th century. It was stored in a heart-shaped wooden box and secured in a small, square iron cage on the wall of a chapel dedicated to his memory. On Saturday someone cut through two bars, pried the cage loose, and made off with the relic.
"I am devastated that one of the treasured artifacts of the cathedral is stolen," said the Most Rev. Dermot Dunne, the cathedral's dean. "It has no economic value but it is a priceless treasure that links our present foundation with its founding father."
O'Toole was Dublin's archbishop from 1162 to 1180 and gained a reputation as a skillful mediator between rival Gaelic and Norman factions then fighting for power in Ireland. He died aged 58 while traveling in Normandy on another peace mission. On his death bed he was said to have declined to make a will, claiming not to have a penny to his name.
O'Toole's heart had been the last surviving part of his remains. His bones were re-interred in an English church yard in 1442 but were dug up and disappeared during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
St. Laurence O'Toole
Signal Spring
Storks
Germans are shrugging off their winter coats and peering through binoculars to catch a glimpse of the harbingers of spring: white storks who have started to arrive this week.
The gangly birds returned to Germany from warmer climates, where their arrival has been eagerly anticipated after a spell of bitter weather chilled much of northern Europe last month.
"People associate storks with spring and see them as a sign that winter is gone and warmer weather is on its way," said Bernd Mueller, chairman of one Friends of the Earth group in the eastern state of Brandenburg, a hotbed for the birds in Germany.
People flock to see the storks every year and the German media track the arrival of the first birds with the kind of zeal that U.S. media outfits reserve for Groundhog day.
Storks
PSA For FBI
Michael Douglas
Movie star Michael Douglas might be the FBI's newest and most famous turncoat.
He stars in a federal public service announcement unveiled for television Monday. The commercial denounces corporate greed after opening with a flashback to a famous scene from Douglas' film "Wall Street."
In it, his character Gordon Gekko reminds television audiences that "Greed is good."
The announcement then cuts to Douglas, who says: "The movie was fiction, but the problem is real."
The commercial is part of an ongoing offensive by federal authorities in New York against insider trading. The crackdown has resulted in multiple convictions.
Michael Douglas
Weekend Box Office
"Dr. Seuss' The Lorax"
"Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" raked in all kinds of green, earning $70.7 million in its first weekend to score the biggest box-office debut of the year by far.
The 3-D animated family film from Universal Pictures, featuring the voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron and Taylor Swift, is based on Seuss' cautionary fable about the importance of preserving the environment. Of its opening haul, $5.4 million, or 8 percent, came from IMAX screens, which is on the high side for a family film.
Coming in second place with a strong debut of its own was the R-rated "Project X," about a trio of high school misfits who throw a raging party in hopes of becoming popular. The Warner Bros. comedy made about $20.8 million, according to Sunday studio estimates.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax," $70.7 million.
2. "Project X," $20.8 million.
3. "Act of Valor," $13.7 million.
4. "Safe House," $7.2 million.
5. "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds," $7 million.
6. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," $6.9 million.
7. "The Vow," $6.1 million.
8. "This Means War," $5.6 million.
9. "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance," $4.7 million.
10. "The Artist," $3.9 million.
"Dr. Seuss' The Lorax"
In Memory
Ralph McQuarrie
Ralph McQuarrie, whose conceptual designs were behind the "Star Wars" characters Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO, has died at the age of 82.
Director George Lucas credited McQuarrie for bringing his vision for "Star Wars" to the big screen.
"Ralph McQuarrie was the first person I hired to help me envision Star Wars," Lucas said in a statement.
"When words could not convey my ideas, I could always point to one of Ralph's fabulous illustrations and say, 'Do it like this.'"
McQuarrie also helped to create concept designs for the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV show, along with the movies "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
McQuarrie's conceptual work on the 1985 film "Cocoon" won him the Academy Award for visual effects.
A statement on McQuarrie's official website, posted after his death Saturday, said his influence on design will be felt forever.
"There's no doubt in our hearts that centuries from now amazing spaceships will soar, future cities will rise and someone, somewhere will say ... that looks like something Ralph McQuarrie painted," it read.
Ralph McQuarrie
In Memory
Ronnie Montrose
Rock guitarist Ronnie Montrose, who formed the band that bore his name and performed with some of rock's heavy hitters, has died.
His booking agent, Jim Douglas, says Montrose died Saturday at his home in Millbrae, Calif. He was 64.
Douglas says Montrose had been in declining health for some time, battling prostate cancer and what Douglas termed "personal demons."
In addition to forming his own band in 1973, Montrose performed with a number of rockers, including Sammy Hagar, Herbie Hancock, Van Morrison, Boz Scaggs and the Edgar Winter Group. Douglas says Montrose was working on releasing a DVD and starting a tour that would have taken him across the U.S.
Montrose is survived by his wife, Leighsa, as well as a son, a daughter and five grandchildren.
Ronnie Montrose
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