Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Josh Marshall: Will It Soon Be CNN's Time in the Barrel? (TPM)
Do I think AT&T will try to gut CNN? I have no idea. But is Trump pushing for it and grousing and gossiping about it with Roger Stone? I'd say that's a pretty good bet. And given he's the President of the United States … well, you know how that sentence ends.
Henry Rollins: Our Fallen Soldiers Should Never Be Used as Political Fodder (LA Weekly)
Several months ago, I was on a plane that was making its approach to D.C. National Airport. After arriving at the jet bridge, we passengers were asked to kindly remain in our seats so a family who was escorting their fallen military family member's remains could leave the plane first, as they were going to Arlington National Cemetery.
Christian Lorentzen: How I Became Good at Literary Parties (Vulture)
The first time I visited New York after turning 21, it was for a party at George Plimpton's house. I'd only ever been inside one other Manhattan apartment before. Norman Mailer and Lou Reed were there. My best friend told Mailer he'd just read his novel Tough Guys Don't Dance. "Why did you read that one?" Mailer asked. "I wrote it in a weekend, for money." None of my friends had the temerity to talk to Lou Reed.
Toby Young: Why I hate reading to my kids at bedtime (Spectator)
The dreaded tryanny of a bed-time story.
Josef Adalian: How Hocus Pocus Became an Enduring Halloween Hit (Vulture)
It's hard to overstate just how much the movie critics of the day loathed Hocus Pocus. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, whose thumbs up/thumbs down verdicts could make or break films back then, hated Hocus Pocus enough to include it in their annual worst-of-the-year show. "Watching the movie is like attending a party you weren't invited to, and where you don't know anybody, and they're all in on a joke but won't explain it to you," Ebert wrote in his print review, singling out star Bette Midler for specific scorn. (She "tries to use noise as a substitute for acting," he sneered.)
Laurie Gwen Shapiro: An Eye-Popping Mid-Century Apartment Filled With Pollocks, Klines, and de Koonings (The Cut)
If you had Ben Heller's eye, you'd have picked 50 straight Derby winners, or signed 100 future Hall of Fame ballplayers when they were 17. "When I think of my old apartment on the Upper West Side," says the tall, spry Heller, who is 91, "even I'm shocked." In the mid-1950s, the talent he was spotting was Abstract Expressionist, and the art he amassed and later sold would be worth about a billion dollars today.
Stefanie Marsh: "Kathy Burke: 'Lifelong member of the non-pretty working classes'" (The Guardian)
That's how Kathy Burke describes herself. But the famously outspoken actor and director has proved she can't be pigeonholed. Stefanie Marsh meets her.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
responded:
said:
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Michelle's Challenge
Best laid plans...
Yesterday Michelle said:
In the spirit of Halloween, here's a challenge: Everybody name a movie that best describes "The best-laid plans.."
Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton in "A Simple Plan" (1998)
Maynard's much younger, more handsome brother, Ed, concurred, answering:
Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton in "A Simple Plan" (1998)
Dave in Tucson replied:
In response to Michelle in AZ's challenge I would suggest
A Bridge Too Far where everything really did go South.
Billy in Cypress responded:
DELIVERANCE is a good choice, and I would add WALKABOUT.
Thanks, Ed, Dave & Billy!
Any other "best laid plans..."?
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
6 AM Monday
Scene--the WH
Heard in the Portico--KNOCK KNOCK, Motherfucker!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"THE END OF TRUMP"
TAKE THE PLEDGE!
DID CRIMINALS STEAL THE ELECTION?
WEAPONIZED FACEBOOK!
HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU MEET SATAN.
'THEY LOVE THE SMELL OF BILE'.
"CLIMATE APARTHEID"
LET THE SHOW BEGIN!
THE CHICKENS ARE RESTLESS TONIGHT!
THE CHICKEN IN CHIEF IS FEELING THE HEAT
TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH WHILE PUERTO RICO DIES! REPUBLICANS SUCK!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Fnally seasonal.
Oscar For VR Show
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will be awarded a special Oscar for his virtual reality installation that focuses on the plight of migrants, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday.
The Academy said that Inarritu will receive the golden statuette for his six-minute immersive experience "Carne y Arena" (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible), describing it as "a visionary and powerful experience in storytelling."
The award will be presented to the director and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki at the 9th Annual Governors Awards in Hollywood on November 11.
"Carne y Arena," which is currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as well as the Fondazione Prada in Milan and Tlatelolco Cultural Center in Mexico City, takes viewers on the harrowing trek many migrants undertake through the Sonoran desert in the US.
The exhibit has proven a huge hit and tickets in Los Angeles have been sold out for months.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Need A Parent's Note In Biloxi
To Kill a Mockingbird
Junior high school students in Biloxi, Mississippi will be allowed after all to read To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's classic novel of race and racism in the American south, as part of their regular study - but only with permission from a parent.
Earlier this month, the Sun Herald reported that administrators pulled the novel from the eighth-grade lesson plan because language in the book "makes people uncomfortable".
An email to the newspaper from a reader said the use of the word "nigger" was the reason for the book being pulled. The parent who complained about the book told a school board meeting students "were laughing out loud" at the word.
"Is there not a better way to teach about that era and the horrors of that era, other than having kids laughing in class when the N-word is said?" Yolanda Williams asked. "It should not be required reading for all students. My child shouldn't have to sit in that class like that."
Students interested in studying the Pulitzer prize-winning 1960 book - and the Oscar-winning 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman in depression-era Alabama - were required to have a permission slip signed by a parent and a teacher, the paper said. Students who did not wish to read the book would be assigned an alternative title.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Halloween Playlist
NASA
NASA put together a "spooky" playlist of space sounds in honor of Halloween, with audio files from its various missions over the years to places like Jupiter, Saturn and the moons of the outer solar system.
It's true that the emptiness of space lacks any medium on which sound waves can travel, preventing you from hearing anything from the great void (although it doesn't hinder your other senses, like smell). But the sounds transmitted back to Earth from NASA's space probes aren't sounds in the classic sense - they are emissions from the electromagnetic spectrum that are converted into sound waves.
In the case of Saturn, for example, NASA explains that the planet "is a source of intense radio emissions." The Cassini spacecraft, which was surveying the outer solar system in the area around Saturn for several years before its mission ended in September, picked up those radio emissions.
The space agency has previously released sounds that came from Cassini's observations of Saturn. After the spacecraft took a historic dive into the space between the planet and its rings, marking the first time a probe had ever ventured there, NASA released files of the spacecraft whizzing past dust particles in the gap. The whooshes and squeaks that Cassini heard during its dive were distinct from the pops that it heard when it simply crossed the rings' plane.
In NASA's Halloween playlist on SoundCloud, there are sounds collected from Jupiter's magnetosphere, of lightning on Jupiter, and of a spacecraft being pelted with dust particles from a passing comet.
NASA
Offered Hush Money
Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan says someone in Harvey Weinstein's inner circle offered her $1 million in late September to stay quiet about sexual assault allegations against the Hollywood mogul, The New York Times reported.
The "Charmed" actress said she initially responded to the offer, which required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement, by asking for $6 million instead, but quickly asked her lawyer to withdraw the counter.
"I had all these people I'm paying telling me to take it so that I could fund my art," McGowan, 44, told the Times in a interview published Saturday. "But I was like - ew, gross, you're disgusting, I don't want your money, that would make me feel disgusting."
McGowan, who alleged she was raped by Weinstein in his hotel room roughly 20 years ago, reached a $100,000 settlement with him in 1997, but didn't know know until this summer that it had not included a confidentiality clause. She had spoken publicly about being sexually assaulted by a powerful Hollywood executive in the past, though she didn't identify her alleged abuser as Weinstein until after the New Yorker report came out.
Representatives for McGowan and Weinstein did not immediately return requests for comment.
Rose McGowan
Universal Salute
T-rump
She persisted.
Donald Trump's (R-Crooked) motorcade departing from the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia had an extra add-on Saturday, after the president spent the 96th day of his presidency visiting one of his own properties. That addition came in the form of a female cyclist, who had one goal in mind: to flip off the president of the United States.
Pool reporters first noticed the cyclist trailing the motorcade before she managed to snake her way next to the president's car just outside of the Trump National Golf Club. "A female bicyclist along the motorcade route, just outside the golf course, traveling in the right lane repeatedly extended her middle left finger towards POTUS," the pool stated.
The president's car was stopped at a traffic light near the golf course, just about to turn left onto the parkway, when the bicyclist successfully gave the president the middle finger.
Of the 96 visits Trump has taken to his own properties as president, 76 of those have been to golf clubs. Saturday also marked the second-consecutive weekend he visited the Trump National Golf Course in Virginia. It's the first time pool reporters have noted a bicyclist has flipped him off as he was visiting, however.
T-rump
Strong Winds Batter
Central Europe
Strong winds battered northern and central Europe on Sunday, killing two people in Poland, two in the Czech Republic and one in Germany, with rail traffic in large sections of Germany to remain suspended until Monday.
The victims in Poland and the Czech Republic were killed by falling trees. The storm also knocked out power to thousands of Czechs and Poles.
Winds reached more than 100 kph in several parts of the Czech Republic and topped out at 180 kph on Snezka, at 1,602 meters the country's highest mountain, Czech Television reported.
In Germany, railway operator Deutsche Bahn cited what it called "significant damage" on main routes, and said rail traffic on many routes in northern and central Germany would remain suspended until Monday.
The decision left thousands of travelers stranded and cut rail access to cities such as Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Hanover and Kiel. The closures also affect popular routes such as from Frankfurt to Berlin and Dortmund to Hamburg.
Central Europe
Conservation of Migratory Species
34 Endangered Species
Lions, chimpanzees, giraffes, leopards and a wide variety of sharks received added protection at a UN wildlife conference in the Philippines, organisers said Saturday.
Some 34 endangered species were selected to receive heightened conservation efforts at the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) conference that just concluded in Manila.
Protecting migratory species poses particular difficulties since they cross borders, including possibly moving to countries with less stringent wildlife protection systems said Bradnee Chambers, CMS executive secretary.
Lions, leopards and chimpanzees were singled out as needing more conservation work. The chimpanzee in particular is at risk as their numbers have dropped in recent years due to habitat loss, the organisers said.
The giraffe, which is in decline throughout Africa with fewer than 90,000 animals left in the wild, was also listed.
34 Endangered Species
House Rises From Near Ruin
Salem Witch Trials
A yearslong effort to restore the ramshackle Massachusetts homestead where a woman accused of witchcraft during the 1692 Salem witch trials resettled after escaping the hangman's noose is nearing an end.
A $1.5 million renovation project at the Peter and Sarah Clayes House in Framingham is expected to be completed in the spring.
"This is an amazing piece of national history, and it was just falling apart," said Annie Murphy, executive director of the Framingham History Center and a member of the Sarah Clayes House Trust, formed several years ago to save the structure. In addition to its connection to the witch trials, the house is thought to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad and once housed Secret Service agents assigned to protect President Franklin D. Roosevelt's son when he lived nearby.
The home on Salem End Road was privately owned until it was essentially abandoned after a foreclosure around 2000.
It fell into disrepair. Vandals smashed the windows and defaced the interior. The paint peeled, the woodwork rotted and waist-high weeds grew in the yard. Local kids who used the building as a party spot called it the "witch house."
Salem Witch Trials
Weekend Box Office
"Jigsaw"
George Clooney's "Suburbicon," notched one of the most dismal wide-release debuts in recent years on a sluggish pre-Halloween weekend where the horror sequel "Jigsaw" topped all releases despite an underperforming debut.
The eighth "Saw" film landed at No. 1 with $16.3 million in North American ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. That came in below industry expectations and suggested the revived "Saw" franchise isn't connecting with audiences the way other recent horror entries have.
In its first release since the Harvey Weinstein scandal began unfolding, the beleaguered Weinstein Co. feebly released a horror sequel of its own: "Amityville: The Awakening." It played in an unusual Saturday-only engagement on just 10 screens, and grossed a mere $742.
"Jigsaw" distributor Lionsgate also claimed the No. 2 spot with $10 million in the second week of release for "Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween."
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Jigsaw," $16.3 million ($9.5 million).
2. "Boo 2! A Madea Halloween," $10 million.
3. "Geostorm," $5.7 million ($49.3 million).
4. "Happy Death Day," $5.1 million ($4.7 million international).
5. "Blade Runner 2049," $4 million ($16.6 million international).
6. "Thank You for Your Service," $3.7 million.
7. "Only the Brave," $3.5 million.
8. "The Foreigner," $3.2 million ($1.2 million international).
9. "Suburbicon," $2.8 million.
10. "It," $2.5 million ($6.3 million international).
"Jigsaw"
In Memory
Jack Bannon
Jack Bannon, who portrayed the amiable assistant city editor Art Donovan on the acclaimed CBS drama Lou Grant, has died. He was 77.
Bannon died Wednesday in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, according to a report in The Spokesman-Review. He had lived in the town with his wife, actress Ellen Travolta - the older sister of John Travolta - since 1995.
Bannon's parents were actors. His mother, Bea Benaderet, received two Emmy nominations for her work on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, portrayed Kate Bradley on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres and was the voice of Betty Rubble on The Flintstones. His father, Jim Bannon, played the cowboy Red Ryder in four 1940s movies.
Bannon appeared as Donovan on all 114 episodes of Lou Grant, the hourlong drama from MTM Enterprises that starred Ed Asner as the city editor of the fictional Los Angeles Tribune and aired for five seasons, from 1977-82.
Born on June 14, 1940, Bannon graduated in 1963 from UC Santa Barbara, where he studied acting. A year later, he was hired as a dialogue coach on Petticoat Junction and played several characters on the rural sitcom as well.
He went on to appear on such series as Judd for the Defense, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Here's Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, Daniel Boone, Mannix, Kojak and The Rockford Files before starring on Lou Grant.
Bannon later had a regular role on the 1983 ABC drama Trauma Center.
The actor also showed up on the big screen in Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969), Little Big Man (1970), Death Warrant (1990) and Da Vinci's War (1993), that last one with his brother-in-law, Joey Travolta.
Bannon also spent two decades in the company of the Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre and often worked on the stage with his wife, whom he married in 1983. (Ellen Travolta is perhaps best known for playing the mother of Scott Baio's characters on Joanie Loves Chachi and .)
Bannon's other survivors include his sister Maggie and stepchildren Molly and Tom.
Jack Bannon
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