Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Brendan O'Neill: The revolutionary potential of the Queen's English (Spiked)
There is revolutionary potential in having everyone adhere to the same linguistic rules; there is only the dead end of division and parish-pump platitudes in the promotion of a linguistic free-for-all in which eevn spleling doens't matetr.
Marc Dion: Wisconsin Voters Hate Veterans (Creators Syndicate)
Those left-wing, America-hating pansies who stormed ashore on Normandy Beach have finally been defeated. Those scumbags who fought on Iwo Jima were wrong, and finally a brave, proud America has rejected all the socialist entitlement crap those dumb bastards thought they were fighting for, in that war we build monuments to but can't place.
David Lazarus: Microsoft ending consumers' ability to file class-action suits (LA Times)
Microsoft, maker of the dominant Windows computer operating system and the Xbox game console, is changing many of its customer contracts to prohibit class-action lawsuits.
Sandip Roy: At What Temperature Does a Kindle Burn? Remembering Ray Bradbury (Huffington Post)
Bradbury spent his final years fighting the inevitable march of time. One of his last great passions was to try and save his local public library in an age when libraries and bookstores were dying without the help of the flamethrowers from book-burning firemen. Apparently, there was something worse you could do to books than burn them. "There's no reason to burn books if you don't read them," he lamented.
Roger Moore: At 80, Ray Bradbury still fighting the future he foresaw (Raybradbury.com; published 11 years ago)
"I don't try to describe the future," Bradbury has often said. "I try to prevent it."
J.J. Colao: Apple's Biggest (Unknown) Supplier of E-Books (Forbes)
"Commercial merit is a dangerous way to judge a book," he argues. "It means you get more stuff by Kim Kardashian than by undiscovered authors potentially writing future classics."
Susan Estrich: Caught in the Middle (Creators Syndicate)
The usual rule in politics is that if both extremes are mad at you, then you must be doing something right - or at least something politically smart. Ultimately, elections are won in the middle, and if the middle is with you, you win.
Will Oremus: What Do Hackers Do With Stolen Passwords? (Slate)
Add them to dictionaries, trade them on the black market, and use them for "spear phishing."
Dave Seminara: Meet The Man Who Spent 11 Years Walking Around The World And The Woman Who Waited For Him To Return
I owned a small neon sign factory but when Quebec had a terrible ice storm in the winter of 1998, we lost power for weeks. We had to close the factory and then my wife had to move to Montreal for her job. I had a midlife crisis in the meantime. I began to sell neon signs but I wasn't making much money. I said, 'My God, what happened with my life? I'm throwing my life away.'
Henry Rollins: Stop Whining About How Today's Music Sucks (LA Weekly)
I am lucky to be someone who is easily contented. For me, listening to music is the best thing. I don't need company or even a very high-end system. Just to be able to spend some time listening to music and not have to jump and do anything for a little while, this is as good as it gets for me. Truly, this is the best thing I know.
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
Bosko Suggests
Abandoned Islands
Have a great day,
Bosko.
Thanks, Bosko!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mid-60s by night, mid-70s by day. Quite nice.
Guitar Auction Fetches Nearly $5M
Les Paul
An auction of guitars and memorabilia owned by the late Les Paul, known as the godfather of the electric guitar, has raised nearly $5 million for a foundation in his name benefiting music education and innovation.
Julien's Auctions of Beverly Hills said Sunday that the two-day sale fetched record-setting prices for guitars. The items most coveted by rock musicians, museum curators and collectors included a 1951 Fender No-Caster, which sold for $216,000, a 1982 Gibson Les Paul that went for $180,000 and a 1940s Epiphone Zephyr that fetched $144,000.
Other Paul memorabilia included a recording console ($106,250), research notes ($28,125) and guitar schematics ($40,625).
Paul invented one of the world's most widely played guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. The sale concluded Saturday, on what would have been his 97th birthday.
Les Paul
Video Mashup Honors
Mister Rogers
Fred Rogers, the late host of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," is featured in a PBS Digital Studios video mashup that celebrates the power of imagination. The piece posted online Friday turns clips from Rogers' PBS show into a sweetly inspiring music video, "Garden of Your Mind."
The salute to the treasured children's TV host drew reaction from the public and celebrities, with Neil Patrick Harris calling it a "groovy" tribute in a Twitter posting, and Alyssa Milano tweeting that the mashup will "make you cry tears of joy."
Rogers' widow, Joanne, is among the video's "biggest fans," said Kevin Morrison, COO of the Fred Rogers Company.
John Boswell, an artist also known as Melodysheep, created the Rogers tribute. He's also done autotuned video pieces featuring prominent scientists including Neil DeGrasse Tyson and the late Carl Sagan.
Mister Rogers
Honored In France
Donald Sutherland
Actor Donald Sutherland has been awarded the honor Commander of the Arts in France for his contribution to cinema.
Sutherland was decorated on Saturday evening at a ceremony in Paris by former French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, who praised the Canadian star's "extraordinary" career - with diverse roles in films such as Federico Fellini's "Casanova."
There were chuckles as Mitterrand struggled to tie the medallion around the 76-year-old actor, who sported the long silver hair last seen for his role in blockbuster movie "The Hunger Games."
Sutherland said he loved France, and thanked his French-speaking wife for introducing him to the country's culture through "cinema, but also cheese and baguettes."
Donald Sutherland
Auction Beats Forecast
Folies Bergere
From French can-can dresses to plumed headdresses, an auction of extravagant costumes by the long-time owner of the Folies Bergere cabaret beat expectations at the weekend.
Nicknamed the "empress of the night", Helene Martini ran the Folies Bergere -- Paris's biggest music hall, founded in 1869 -- from 1974 until last year, when it was acquired by the Lagardere group.
Over three decades the showgirl-turned-cabaret manager salvaged some 6,000 stage costumes, keeping them in an outbuilding of her 19th-century chateau southeast of Paris and in a storeroom in the Pigalle red-light district, where she still lives most of the time.
In all, a treasure trove of about 1,000 items was put on sale, raking in a total of 413,212 euros ($516,762) over the weekend, beating expectations.
Folies Bergere
Bully In A Pulpit
Creflo Dollar
An Atlanta megachurch pastor who is accused of domestic violence on Sunday vehemently denied the charges from the pulpit, telling his congregation that he never attacked his teenage daughter.
Creflo Dollar, who was arrested on Friday on charges of family violence, child cruelty and battery, called the accusations "an exaggeration and sensationalism."
The sympathetic congregation responded with applause and shouts of "Yes" from the seats.
"There were not any scratches on her neck, but the only thing on her neck was a prior skin abrasion from eczema. Anything else is exaggeration and sensationalism," he said.
He said investigators didn't "have enough intelligence" to ask him what it was, and he called the omission "appalling."
Creflo Dollar
But No Women Or Music
"Buraydah's Got Talent"
A Saudi city known for its ultra-conservatism has created its own version of the "Arabs Got Talent" television reality show, but with no music and women banned from taking part.
Instead, competitors will be permitted to perform religious chants, recite poems and engage in sports events.
The contest is being held north of the capital in the city ofBuraydah, known as a centre for Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam that is followed in the desert kingdom, Al-Hayat daily reported on Sunday.
"Buraydah's Got Talent" is the title of the contest which will abide by the strict rules of segregation between the sexes, meaning it is not open to women.
"Buraydah's Got Talent"
Fatal Police Shootings Rise By 70 Percent
LAPD
The number of suspects killed by police in Los Angeles County has risen nearly 70 percent in 2011 over the previous year.
The Los Angeles Times reports Sunday that 54 people were killed by law enforcement in 2011 countywide. In about two-thirds of the cases, the person was armed with a gun, knife or other weapon. In 12 cases, the person was unarmed.
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck says the majority of shootings are legitimate responses to serious threats. He says police have become more adept at responding quickly to violent situations.
The increase in police killings come at a time when murder rates have fallen to historic lows - 612 homicides were recorded countywide last year.
LAPD
Kin Sought For Reality TV
Hatfield-McCoy
Television producers are looking for descendants of the once-feuding Hatfield and McCoy families to take part in a reality show that will be filmed in West Virginia.
Bill Richardson is a West Virginia University Extension agent who is involved with casting for the show. He told the Charleston Gazette that the show will set five to 10 members of each family against one another in a competition to create businesses around their history.
If selected, cast members must prove their lineage to a member of the Hatfield or McCoy clans through a family tree. The warring families were known for violent clashes during the Civil War era.
Hatfield-McCoy
Gets New Name
Crystal Cathedral
Southern California's landmark Crystal Cathedral has been given a new name as the evangelical church transforms into a Catholic church.
The iconic, glass-paned megachurch founded by "Hour of Power" televangelist Robert Schuller was sold to the The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange last year. On Saturday, Bishop Tod Brown renamed it Christ Cathedral during a priest ordination and named Christopher H. Smith to the top post of the new church.
The Garden Grove cathedral's name came after more than 4,100 submissions from Catholics all over the world.
The diocese bought the 2,900-seat cathedral and its grounds for $57.7 million. It will have to renovate the cathedral for Catholic worship before services can begin.
Meanwhile, the Crystal Cathedral congregation, which will be moving about a mile away to St. Callistus Catholic Church in June 2013, will have to renovate that church for the "Hour of Power" to be filmed there.
Crystal Cathedral
Rare Letter Exhibits English Skills
Napoleon
An illuminating letter written by Napoleon in English, sold at auction Sunday for €325,000 ($405,000), offers a window into the mind of the French emperor, struggling with syntax of the language of enemy Britain.
The standard-sized sheet of paper is a homework exercise Napoleon sent to an English teacher for correction in 1816 and was sealed with the imperial eagle wax stamp.
It's one of three such English-language letters by Napoleon in the world, according to the auction organizers, and was bought by Paris' Museum of Letters and Manuscripts in a dramatic bidding war near the Chateau of Fontainebleau, one of Napoleon's south of Paris.
The selling price - five times what was predicted - suggests the document's historic value, as rare proof that Napoleon, who famously dismissed England as a "nation of shopkeepers," learned to speak the language of Shakespeare late in life.
He wrote the letter while a captive by the British in the remote island of Saint Helena following his defeat at Waterloo, according to the Osenat auction house.
Napoleon
Weekend Box Office
"Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted"
The cuddly critters of "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" led the weekend with a $60.4 million debut domestically, followed by a big opening for Ridley Scott's alien saga "Prometheus" at No. 2 with $50 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"Madagascar 3" outdid the $47.2 million debut of the 2005 original, though it came in behind the $63.1 million opening of the first sequel, 2008's "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa." ''Europe's Most Wanted" had the added benefit of today's higher ticket prices and a bump from fans who caught 3-D shows, which cost a few dollars more than 2-D screenings.
"Prometheus," from 20th Century Fox, stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron in an offshoot of director's Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror tale "Alien." ''Prometheus" did big business despite an R rating, which can limit a movie's audience since fans under 17 must see it with an adult.
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. "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," $60.4 million ($75.5 million).
2. "Prometheus," $50 million ($39.2 million international).
3. "Snow White & the Huntsman," $23 million ($24.6 million international).
4. "Men in Black 3," $13.5 million ($38.3 million international).
5. "The Avengers," $10.8 million ($7.8 million international).
6. "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," $3.2 million.
7. "What to Expect When You're Expecting," $2.7 million.
8. "Battleship," $2.3 million.
9. "The Dictator," $2.2 million ($4.9 million international).
10. "Moonrise Kingdom," $1.6 million.
"Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted"
In Memory
Frank Cady
Frank Cady, a character actor best known as the general-store owner on the sitcom "Green Acres," has died. He was 96.
Cady's daughter Catherine Turk tells the Los Angeles Times that her father died Friday at his home in Wilsonville, Ore. A cause of death wasn't released.
Cady played Sam Drucker, one of the less loony denizens of Hooterville in "Green Acres." The show, about a Manhattan couple who left the big city to live in a rundown farm, ran from 1965 to 1971. Cady also played the same character in "Petticoat Junction" and "The Beverly Hillbillies."
He also had a recurring role as Doc Williams on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet."
He and his wife, Shirley, moved to Oregon in the 1990s. She died in 2008.
Frank Cady
In Memory
Pete Cosey
Pete Cosey, an innovative guitarist who brought his distinctive distorted sound to recordings with Miles Davis, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, has died, his daughter said. He was 68.
Cosey died May 30 of complications from surgery at Vanguard Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said his daughter Mariama Cosey.
Pete Cosey's musical journey began early, his daughter said, noting that Cosey's father died when he was 9 years old.
"That's how he dealt with his father's passing ... and if I had to pick one instance in his life that just really rocked his world, that was it," she said. "I think he tried to spend his time trying to communicate with my granddaddy."
In the 1960s, Cosey was a member of the studio band at Chess Records in Chicago, where he played on Waters' "Electric Mud" and Howlin' Wolf's "Howlin' Wolf Album." Cosey also worked with Etta James and Chuck Berry.
He took a creative approach to stringing and tuning his guitars, and liberally applied the distortion pedal to his licks. He started to develop his unique sound as a teenager in Arizona, where he would play in the mountains near Phoenix, according to a Chicago Tribune article.
In an interview with music writer George Cole, published on Cole's "The Last Miles" website, Cosey said Davis sought him out, wanted him at the front of the band and told him to turn up his guitar's volume.
Cosey ended up playing on many of Davis' boundary-pushing recordings in the 1970s, including "Dark Magus," ''Agharta" and "The Complete on the Corner Sessions."
Cosey was also in Martin Scorsese's 2003 blues documentary, "The Blues: A Musical Journey."
In recent years, health problems had slowed Cosey, but he had been playing music in children's hospitals and schools, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Cosey's daughter said that, to her father, music was a language.
"He taught me that music is not genre-specific. It's one way that everyone around the world communicates," she said. "It wasn't about being black or white, but it was about making notes universally."
Pete Cosey
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