Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jonathan Jones: T-shirts with Myra Hindley on them? Modern art has forgotten how to care (The Guardian)
A fear of sentimentality among artists has led to a troubling over-compensation: cruelty is prized over compassion.
Henry Rollins: Iggy Pop Is the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of Rock (LA Weekly)
After the song finished, he said, "Nothing personal." When the band went directly into "Success" from Lust For Life, that's when it hit me that Iggy might really be saying goodbye, as if he had crossed a career finish line, that the success he was singing about was surviving all he had put himself through over the decades. Hard to take, absolutely, but if this is it, that's that.
Amanda Madden: "Butt Stuff Ruins Lives: 5 Lessons Of A Pro Dominatrix" (Cracked)
Sex is like nutrition: The only people who know anything beyond the basic mechanics are the ones who get paid a lot of money to dive into it face-first. Any idiot can figure out how to work a sex, but the deeper reality of what turns people on is rarely as simple as sticking Tab A into Slot B (or C if it's your birthday). To sort out the hows, whats, no seriously whats, and dear god whys, we talked to a dominatrix named Natasha. She told us …
Clive James: 'I can't mock Donatella Versace, because I am no stranger to the plastic surgeon myself' (The Guardian)
There is the disturbing consideration that, with proper planning, I could have been turning myself into someone better looking.
Hadley Freeman: I'm back in America. Is this where I belong? (The Guardian)
There's so much I love about the US - prefer, even, to Britain. Most importantly, the candy.
Bim Adewunmi: "Why I love… Keanu Reeves" (The Guardian)
He is perhaps the Platonic ideal of a movie star. He is certainly one of the loves of my cinematic life.
Bim Adewunmi: "Crush of the week: Roger Ebert" (The Guardian)
'If another man has written about culture, or life in general, in a more human way over the past 40 years, I have not read him.'
Bim Adewunmi: "Crush of the week: Sia" (The Guardian)
Sia's is a voice that grows on you, but more than anything it conveys passion, which is missing from a lot of pop.
Bim Adewunmi: "Crush of the week: Peeta Mellark" (The Guardian)
Katniss Everdeen may be the star of the Hunger Games, but it's the quiet, kind Peeta who really gets me going. I mean, this boy can bake and everything!
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Gare Says...
Star Advice On Being The Best Star For Your Pet
Reader Suggestion
Anti-Trump Ads
I thought you might find these amusing.
The anti-Trump ads that would've been
Thanks to permanent absentee status, I voted in my yoga pants with a glass of Vinho Verde the other day. Civic duty = done.
Deborah
Thanks, Deborah!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
M.Y.O.B.
BUSTED!
BOSS HOGG WILL THROW THE GRASS IN THE TRASH!
REPUG DUMBSTER DIVING!
SMOKE A "CANUCK".
RACISM IS A STRONG BEAST!
THE NUMBER ONE PURVEYORS OF FASCISM IN AMERICA!
"HEY TRUMP! FUCK YOU!"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer so thick the sun never peeped through.
Eyes Seal
University of New Mexico
New Mexico's largest university is considering revising its half-century old seal amid concerns by Native American students who say it represents the frontier's violent era.
Unlike other moves to change logos and names of buildings, the effort to drop the seal is drawing resistance from another minority groups - Hispanics.
Native American student groups want the University of New Mexico to scrap the seal that depicts a rifle-toting frontiersman and a sword-carrying Spanish conquistador.
Ralph Arellanes, chair of the Hispano Round Table of New Mexico, said he favors a change but removing the conquistador would be unacceptable since it represents the state's Hispanic heritage.
The debate is pitting some community members against each other as university officials try to recruit more Latino and Native American students to attend the campus.
University of New Mexico
Cultural Revolution Memorabilia
China
At the "East is Red" shop in Shanghai, every nook and cranny is packed with memorabilia of China's Cultural Revolution, from small badges of Chairman Mao Zedong to gigantic posters of his iconic image.
Owner Guo Bing himself is a child of the Cultural Revolution, born in 1966, the year the chaotic and violent decade was launched on May 16. His parents named him with the Chinese character for "soldier", a common practice at the time.
But now, Guo sees profits rather than Communist Party ideals in the relics of the past, as the market booms for collectibles from a time scarred victims would prefer to forget.
"Prices have risen because of the anniversary of the Cultural Revolution," said Guo at one of his two shops in China's commercial hub, whose gleaming skyscrapers epitomise the country's economic boom after the abandonment of Maoist orthodoxy.
"People suffered during the Cultural Revolution," Guo admitted, before quickly adding: "We are meeting demand. There is a market."
China
Escape Poachers
African Rhinos
A retired South African sales executive who emigrated to Australia 30 years ago is hatching a daring plan to airlift 80 rhinos to his adopted country in a bid to save the species from poachers.
Flying each animal on the 11,000-kilometre (6,800-mile) journey will cost about US$44,000, but Ray Dearlove believes the expense and risk is essential as poaching deaths have soared in recent years.
The rhinos will be re-located to a safari park in Australia, which is being kept secret for security reasons, where they will become a "seed bank" to breed future generations.
"Our grand plan is to move 80 over a four-year period. We think that will provide the nucleus of a good breeding herd," Dearlove told AFP while visiting South Africa to organise for the first batch to be flown out.
The Australian Rhino Project, which the 68-year-old founded in 2013, hopes to take six rhino to their new home before the end of the year.
African Rhinos
Dutch Holocaust Museum
Netherlands
More than 70 years after tens of thousands of Dutch Jews were deported and killed by the Nazis, the Netherlands is finally getting a national Holocaust museum.
It will be three years before the new museum is completed, but on Monday it opens its doors to host a harrowing exhibition of paintings by actor and artist Jeroen Krabbe.
The location of the museum, a former teacher training school in the heart of Amsterdam's old Jewish quarter, is a small but hugely significant ray of light in the dark history of Jews in the Dutch capital during World War II.
Some 600 Jewish children were spirited to safety via the school from a neighboring kindergarten where they were being held while awaiting deportation, said curator Annemiek Gringold. On the other side of the street stands the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a theater used by the Nazi occupiers as a gathering point for Jews who were rounded up - often with the help of Dutch collaborators paid a bounty for each person they betrayed - and transported to their deaths.
Netherlands
Climate Change Skeptic Advisor
T-rump
Republican presidential contender Donald Trump (R-Pinche Pendejo) has asked one of America's most ardent drilling advocates and climate change skeptics to help him draft his energy policy.
U.S. Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota - a major oil drilling state - is writing a white paper on energy policy for the New York billionaire, Cramer and sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Cramer was also among a group of Trump advisers who recently met with lawmakers from western energy states, who hope Trump will open more federal land for drilling, a lawmaker who took part in the meeting said.
While the ultimate size and makeup of Trump's energy advisory team is unclear, Cramer's inclusion suggests the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's oil policy could emphasize more drilling, less regulation and taxes, and curbs on efforts to combat climate change.
Cramer has said he believes the Earth is cooling, not warming, and he has opposed efforts by the Obama administration to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
T-rump
Fights Nevada Background Check Measure
NRA
The National Rifle Association is using its muscle to fight a Nevada ballot question that would create a universal background check for gun purchases in the state.
The association announced last week that its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, launched a website encouraging people to vote against the measure, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
If passed, background checks would apply to private sales, including online and at gun shows.
Nevadans for Background Checks is pursuing the measure that supporters say closes a legal loophole to keep criminals from obtaining firearms. The measure made it onto the Nov. 8 ballot after legislators failed to pass it during the 2015 session.
New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg funds Everytown for Gun Safety, which donated $2.9 million of the $3.6 million contributed to Nevadans for Background Checks.
NRA
Arrested In Kosovo
Father Laurence
Kosovo police have arrested a Catholic priest accused of child sex offences in Britain and his extradition is being processed, a senior police official said Sunday.
"Andrew Charles Kingston Soper was arrested on Wednesday on a European arrest warrant issued by Great Britain," chief of police's directorate for international cooperation Veton Elshani told AFP.
"He is known as Father Laurence (and) was born in 1943," Elshani added.
Soper has been on run since he jumped bail in 2011 before he could be charged with child abuse offences dating back to when he had taught at St Benedict's School, a private Catholic school in Ealing Abbey in west London.
He faces accusations of abusing five pupils.
Father Laurence
To Be Arraigned
"Mr. Wonder"
A former children's television show host who vanished decades ago amid allegations he sexually abused children on a camping trip in Louisiana is due to be arraigned Monday on rape charges.
Almost 40 years after he was accused of obscene behavior with young boys, 76-year-old Frank John Selas III on Thursday was brought to the Rapides Parish Detention Center, according to the Daily Town Talk. Selas' lawyer says his client is innocent of the charges.
Selas was transferred to central Louisiana from a San Diego County jail in California. He was arrested on Jan. 25 at his home in Bonita, California.
In the late 1970s, Selas hosted the "Mr. Wonder" show on KNOE-TV in northern Louisiana. He allegedly fled to Brazil in 1979 after parents complained to authorities that he abused their children on a camping trip to Kisatchie National Forest in central Louisiana.
The sheriff's office has said investigators identified seven alleged victims in Louisiana as a result of the 1979 investigation, which led to an arrest warrant but not an indictment.
"Mr. Wonder"
Weekend Box Office
"Captain America: Civil War"
It's "Captain America's" weekend at the box office once again by a large margin, but even with $72.6 million in earnings, the superhero pic left some room for other newcomers like "Money Monster," ''The Darkness" and "The Lobster" to play, according to comScore estimates Sunday.
"Captain America: Civil War" dropped 59 percent in its second weekend in theaters, in line with the second weekend showings of "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Iron Man 3." While it's on the higher end of second weekend falls in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Disney and Marvel film is still performing phenomenally well. In just two weeks, it has earned $295.9 million in North America, passing the total domestic grosses of "Captain America: Winter Soldier" film by over $35 million.
Disney's "The Jungle Book" remained in second place with $17.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $311.8 million after five weekends in theaters.
Meanwhile, the R-rated George Clooney and Julia Roberts financial thriller "Money Monster" got off to a healthy third-place start with $15 million, beating expectations in its first weekend in theaters after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. The film cost only $27 million to produce.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1."Captain America: Civil War," $72.6 million ($84.2 million international).
2."The Jungle Book," $17.8 million ($15.2 million international).
3."Money Monster," $15 million ($4.7 million international).
4."The Darkness," $5.2 million.
5."Mother's Day," $3.3 million ($1.1 million international).
6."Zootopia," $2.8 million ($4.7 million international).
7."The Huntsman: Winter's War," $2.6 million ($2 million international).
8."Keanu," $1.9 million.
9."Barbershop: The Next Cut," $1.7 million.
10."The Boss," $1.2 million.
"Captain America: Civil War"
In Memory
Julius La Rosa
Julius La Rosa, a pop singer known for hits including "Eh, Cumpari," whose firing live on the air by Arthur Godfrey in 1953 overshadowed his successes that followed, has died at age 86.
His death was confirmed Saturday by his daughter, Maria La Rosa Smith, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, and Joe Charapata of the Rhodes-Charapata Funeral Home in Crivitz, Wisconsin. Smith said her father died in his sleep of natural causes Thursday at his home in Crivitz. Services will be private, she said.
La Rosa, a native of Brooklyn, New York, was in the Navy when Godfrey heard him sing and invited him to appear on his CBS TV show. Godfrey also urged him to come back after his discharge. La Rosa became a star of Godfrey's show from 1951 to 1953, recording several hits including "Eh, Cumpari."
But his growing popularity annoyed Godfrey. On Oct. 19, 1953, La Rosa was due to begin the TV portion of Godfrey's show but was kept waiting backstage until the final minutes of the radio-only part of the program. As he finished singing "Manhattan," La Rosa and the audience heard Godfrey precede his sign-off by saying, "That was Julie's swan song with us."
Godfrey said he fired him because he lacked "humility" and because he had hired an agent
The public firing actually boosted La Rosa's career for a while. He served as the summer replacement on Perry Como's TV show in 1955. That's when he met Como's secretary, Rosemary Meyer, and married her. He went on to get his own TV show in 1955. He also appeared on numerous other variety shows in the 1950s and '60s, including Ed Sullivan's. He was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 1980 for best supporting actor for his role on "Another World."
La Rosa lived for 42 years in Irvington, in New York's Westchester County, his daughter said, and continued to tour, perform and act for decades. He was also a longtime disc jockey on WNEW-AM in New York.
He and his wife moved to Crivitz, a small town in northeastern Wisconsin, only last November, said Smith, who added that her mother was originally from Wisconsin. She said the La Rosa family vacationed in Wisconsin every summer and spent every other Christmas with her mother's family. Smith also said her brother, Christopher, lives in Crivitz.
"It's a different way of life but he was ready for that," she said. "He didn't need the hustle and the bustle at 86 years old. He loved Wisconsin."
Julius La Rosa
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