Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Space is Key
Addictive game.
Lucy Mangan: Out -- and Proud (Guardian)
When the playgroup leader hands round a petition against gay marriage, there's only one thing for it - head for the door.
Bill Maher: Please Stop Apologizing
This week, Robert De Niro made a joke about first ladies, and Newt Gingrich said it was "inexcusable and the president should apologize for him." Of course, if something is "inexcusable," an apology doesn't make any difference, but then again, neither does Newt Gingrich.
Marc Dion: The Children of God at Wal-Mart (Creators Syndicate)
I do not much like Wal-Mart, if only because Wal-Mart hands you a food stamp application with your first paycheck.
Lenore Skenazy: Predators and Real Estate (Creators Syndicate)
The creep will see a child's room among the photos. He will see the child's name on the wall, and he will then... What? Write down the address of the home and the name of the kid and head over to kidnap her because now he finally knows 1) where some child lives and 2) her first name? Does that make any sense at all?
Susan Estrich: Mitt Romney and Mike Dukakis (Creators Syndicate)
You can see the ads: Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up? Will it be the guy from the Massachusetts days, who trumpeted his liberal credentials and his mother's courage in taking a pro-choice position, or the conservative Romney, who has been out there trying to beat back the Santorum challenge.
Dan Berrett: Freshman Composition Is Not Teaching Key Skills in Analysis, Researchers Argue (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Students in first-semester composition classes are routinely assigned to write a research paper, but this exercise rarely succeeds because they do not yet grasp how to analyze their sources, say the chief researchers of a multi-institutional study of college students' citations.
The Hunger Games - review (Guardian)
There's a tang of satire in this televised survival-contest thriller that allows it to outrun the Twilight comparisons, writes Peter Bradshaw.
Dana Stevens: The Hunger Games (Slate)
Just go see it.
Roger Ebert: Review of "Delicacy" (3 stars)
"Delicacy" is a sweetheart of a love story, and cornball from stem to stern. It stars the French pixie Audrey Tautou as Nathalie, a Parisian cutie who loves, loses and lives to love again; there is not the slightest doubt in our minds that she will pass through all three stages. I am too conscientious a critic to approve of it entirely, and too big a sap not to fall for it, at least a little.
Patrick Goldstein. "Hollywood flop sweat: What caused the latest box-office duds?" (LA Times)
What do A-listers Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, David Milch and Andrew Stanton have in common as of late? If you said major Hollywood duds, you've been paying attention.
Henry Rollins: Memphis on My Mind (LA Weekly)
Sitting on the tour bus, the Bon Jovi Mobile-Def Leppard Express (no offense to either corporations), here in Knoxville, Tenn. It is a beautiful early spring afternoon.
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."
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"As Lies Spin By"
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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
Cold with a steady rain.
NYC Ceremony
GLAAD Awards
A teenager who's campaigning to make it easier for children to see an upcoming documentary about bullying, the producers of the NBC musical drama "Smash" and Lady Gaga were among the winners of Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation media awards announced Saturday.
ABC's "Dancing With The Stars," the popular Spanish-language TV programs "Caso Cerrado" and "Primer Impacto," and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner's recent work "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures" also were among the honorees recognized at a ceremony in New York. GLAAD is set to present more awards in Los Angeles in April and San Francisco in June.
The awards are designed to honor fair, accurate and inclusive representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Craig Zadan and Neil Meron were honored for their careers, which include producing "Smash" and the films "Hairspray" and "Chicago."
GLAAD Awards
Humane Society of the United States
Genesis Awards
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "The Colbert Report" are among the winners of the Humane Society of the United States' 26th annual Genesis Awards.
The awards honoring news and entertainment media for raising awareness about animal issues were presented Saturday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Other winners included TV's "Hawaii Five-O," ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show," ''NBC Nightly News" and "Today."
"Dancing With the Stars" judge Carrie Ann Inaba hosted the ceremony, which is set to air as an hour-long special on Animal Planet May 5.
Genesis Awards
Celebrates 70th
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin has a lot more than her 70th birthday to celebrate: She's reuniting with one of her musical mentors, Clive Davis, for a new album.
In an interview at her swanky birthday party on Saturday, Franklin said she and Davis, who helped engineer her comeback in the 1980s, would be working on new music.
Davis sat next to Franklin for most of the night at the soiree at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, which included a sit-down dinner, a dance performance and a mini-concert that featured rising jazz pianist Kris Bowers.
Other guests included Diane Sawyer, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Willie Wilkerson, Franklin's longtime companion and briefly this year her fiancé.
Wilkerson stood by Franklin's side as she cut her three-tier, lime-green birthday cake while the crowd serenaded her with Stevie Wonder's version of "Happy Birthday."
Aretha Franklin
Earth's Deepest Point
James Cameron
Hollywood icon James Cameron has completed his journey to Earth's deepest point.
The director of "Titanic," ''Avatar" and other films used a specially designed submarine to dive nearly seven miles. He spent time exploring and filming the Mariana Trench, about 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam, according to members of the National Geographic expedition.
Cameron returned to the surface of the Pacific Ocean on Monday morning local time, Sunday evening on the U.S. East Coast, according to Stephanie Montgomery of the National Geographic Society.
He spent a little more than three hours under water after reaching a depth of 35,756 feet before he began his return to the surface, according to information provided by the expedition team. He had planned to spend up to six hours on the sea floor.
Cameron's return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a "faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent," according to National Geographic.
James Cameron
MGM Says It Will Lose Money
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"
MGM said Thursday that it expects to lose money on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and has regained full control of United Artists.
MGM execs told investors that it would only co-finance the next two sequels in the Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy" if it can achieve "better economics."
"Dragon Tattoo," distributed by Sony, generated more than $230 million worldwide, but not enough to pay back MGM for its investment. The movie carried a $100 million production budget.
The studio has an option to co-finance film adaptations of the next two books in the series. MGM said it expects to turn a profit on last weekend's "21 Jump Street" and that it has an option to participate in the sequel that Sony is developing.
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"
Catholic Abuse Trial
Philadelphia
A landmark priest-abuse trial opening Monday in Philadelphia may unveil the cryptic operations of a Roman Catholic archdiocese and detail how child sex-abuse complaints were buried for decades in secret archives adjacent to a soaring cathedral as the priests they named went unpunished.
Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official ever charged with endangering children for allegedly failing to oust accused predators from ministry. But he may not be the last.
Philadelphia prosecutors say he helped carry out "an archdiocesan-wide policy ... (that) was criminal in nature." And they've hinted they could charge others when the trial ends.
Civil lawyers believe the trial will help them refile priest-abuse lawsuits that were thrown out in Pennsylvania because of legal time limits, or persuade the state legislature to open a window for filing child sex-abuse claims.
Also on trial is the Rev. James Brennan who, like Lynn, pleaded not guilty. Last week, a third man, defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child. He was sentenced to 2˝ to five years in prison and ordered to surrender within 10 days.
Philadelphia
Brazil's 'Psychic Surgeon'
John of God
John of God grabs what looks like a kitchen knife from a silver tray and appears to scrape it over the right eye of a believer.
The procedure is repeated on the left eye of Juan Carlos Arguelles, who recently traveled thousands of miles from Colombia to see the healer.
For 12 years, Arguelles says, he suffered from keratoconus, which thinned his cornea and severely blurred his vision.
John of God is Joao Teixeira de Faria, a 69-year-old miracle man and medium to those who believe. He's a dangerous hoax to those who do not.
For five decades he's performed "psychic" medical procedures like that for Arguelles. He asks for no money in exchange for the procedures. Donations are welcomed, however.
John of God
Louvre Unveils 'Last Masterpiece'
Leonardo Da Vinci
The Louvre on Friday unveiled a newly-restored Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece, the "Saint Anne", hoping to lay to rest an art world row that saw the Paris museum accused of endangering the precious oil.
"The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne", which the Renaissance master left unfinished when he died in 1519, goes on display on Thursday as the star of a major exhibit exploring the work's genesis, and its place in art history.
Da Vinci began painting the "Saint Anne", which depicts the baby Jesus grappling with a lamb beside his mother and grandmother, in 1503. When he died, the work was acquired by France's King Francis I, the artist's last patron.
Ageing varnish had left it disfigured by stains, now all but gone, with the overall effect one of lifting a yellow-brown veil, to reveal the soft blue of the Virgin's dress -- and a wealth of detail like a rocky pool of water bathing the subjects' feet.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Mules Fetch Thousands
Marie-Antoinette
A pair of silk mules believed to have belonged to Marie-Antoinette fetched over 43,000 euros at an auction of French Revolution era artefacts on Saturday.
The white silk shoes decorated with tricolour pleated ribbons date back to 1790 and are size 36.5, which corresponds to Marie-Antoinette's shoe size, the organisers of the auction said.
They went under the hammer in the French city of Toulon for 43,225 euros (over $57,000), vastly exceeding the expected sale price of between 3,000 and 5,000 euros.
Organisers said the shoes may have been worn by the Austrian-born Marie-Antoinette, the Queen consort of Louis XVI, at national day celebrations on July 14, 1790.
Marie-Antoinette
Christiania
"Become a Christiania stockholder today!": on its Facebook page Copenhagen's "free city", long a refuge for hippies and artists and a popular tourist destination, pleas for help to save the 40-year-old enclave.
Following a court ruling, the self-governed hippie community needs to come up with 76 million kroner (10.2 million euros, $13.4 million) to buy the area at the heart of the Danish capital.
Christiania was founded on September 26, 1971 when a band of guitar-laden hippies made an abandoned army barracks in central Copenhagen their home. They raised their "freedom flag" and named their new abode "Christiania, free city".
It is one of Europe's last remaining hippie enclaves, counting around 1,000 artists, activists and misfits as residents. There are restaurants, cafes, shops, a flourishing drug trade and some colourful, psychedelic-looking homes designed by residents.
The enclave needs to raise more than 50 million kroner by July 1, otherwise the Danish state will move in and shut it down. The state wants to get its hands on the lucrative property and put an end to the illegal drug trade which some claim is run by international biker gangs.
Christiania
Weekend Box Office
'The Hunger Games'
"The Hunger Games" has filled fan appetites with a $155 million opening weekend that puts it near the top of the domestic record book.
The huge haul marks the third-best debut ever in terms of revenue, behind the $169.2 million opening for last year's "Harry Potter" finale and the $158.4 million opening of 2008's "The Dark Knight."
"Harry Potter" and "Batman" were well-established franchises. "The Hunger Games" set a revenue record for a non-sequel, taking in more than twice what the first "Twilight" movie did with its $69.6 million opening weekend.
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. "The Hunger Games," $155 million ($59.3 million international).
2. "21 Jump Street," $21.3 million ($5.3 million international).
3. "Dr. Seuss' the Lorax," $13.1 million ($5.5 million international).
4. "John Carter," $5 million ($22.2 million international).
5. "Act of Valor," $2.1 million.
6. "Project X," $2 million ($4.4 million international).
7. "A Thousand Words," $1.9 million.
8. "October Baby," $1.7 million.
9. "Safe House," $1.39 million ($2.3 million international).
10. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," $1.37 million.
'The Hunger Games'
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