Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Undecade (New York Tmes)
Republicans have invented a history in which it has been fiscal irresponsibility all along - and far too many centrists have bought into the premise. The reality is that we had low debt and no fiscal problem before Reagan; then an unprecedented surge in peacetime, non-depression deficits under Reagan/Bush; then a major improvement under Clinton; then a squandering of the Clinton surplus via tax cuts and unfunded wars of choice under Bush. And yes, a surge in debt once the Great Recession hit, but that's exactly when you should be running deficits.
Tom Danehy: If you have a favorite amendment to the Constitution, consider memorizing it (Tucson Weekly)
Last week in Newtown, Conn., a bipartisan panel of legislators heard from some of the parents of the kids who were massacred at school in mid-December. One father, obviously grief-stricken, asked openly why anyone needs to have a military-style assault weapon with a high-capacity ammo clip.
Froma Harrop: Tough Times for California Bashers (Creators Syndicate)
Something about California sets conservative teeth on edge. In the Republican manual, liberal spending priorities married to an activist government cohabiting with a hedonistic culture can lead only to failure. So when the Golden State conspicuously succeeds, California bashers find themselves at a loss. Until recently mired in deep budget deficits, California's general fund is set to end next year in a surplus.
Connie Schultz: Let's Weigh in on Christie (Creators Syndicate)
But I'm not a Christie fan, because of his version of America. He has consistently attempted to demonize public-school teachers and called their union leaders "political thugs." When a woman asked him, during an interview on a local television show, whether it was fair for him to cut funding to public schools when his children attend private school, he smacked her down. … Christie opposes marriage equality for gay Americans and vetoed a bill last year that would have allowed it. He is also anti-choice.
Tiffany Rose: "Sarah Silverman: 'I've been punched in the face three times'" (Guardian)
The stand-up comedian and star of Wreck-It Ralph on teenage bed-wetting and defending men dressed as chickens from street hoodlums.
Andrew Liptak: THE MANY NAMES OF CATHERINE LUCILLE MOORE (Kirkus)
Moore was born on January 24th, 1911 in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she was "reared on a diet of Greek mythology, Oz books and Edgar Rice Burroughs," early training, she noted, for a career as a writer. Frequently ill as a child, Moore found herself in and out of school, pushing her towards books as a means to keep entertained. After recovering as a teenager, she enrolled at Indiana University in 1929.
Wall of Memory by Pietro Carlo Pellegrini Architetto (Contemporist)
The wall of memory originated from the wishes of the enclosed nuns of S.Gemma to have a space where they could remember and pray for their deceased sisters, through means of a path which, in the project, is represented through the tectonic language of the wall.
Meuy Saelee, Thunder Valley Casino Janitor, Finds $10,000 Cash In Restroom, Returns It To Owner (Huffington Post)
For a moment, a casino janitor had hit the jackpot. On Friday (Feb 1), Meuy Saelee found thousands of dollars in cash in the restroom of Thunder Valley Casino near Sacramento, Calif., where she works, CBS 13 reported. Saelee, who has been an employee for 10 years, returned the full amount, which came to about $10,000.
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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
Overcast day, and a windy, rainy night.
Turd Blossom Launches Preemptive Attack Ad
Ashley Judd
Republicans launched a political ad in Kentucky this week attacking actress Ashley Judd as a "Hollywood liberal" even though she has not yet decided to run for the Senate.
The ad, backed by Republican strategist Karl Rove, prompted Judd to respond that she was grateful for the attention as she mulls a run against Republican U.S. Senate leader Mitch McConnell in the 2014 Kentucky race.
Rove launched a Kentucky-targeted You Tube video advertisement this week that suggests the actress does not fit the conservative culture of the state. Rove said on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" Thursday night that "this is just the opening ad" and there will be more to come.
In the ad, a narrator calls Judd a "Hollywood liberal" and clips show her speaking out for President Barack Obama's health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Ashley Judd
Concedes 'Lincoln' Iinaccuracy
Tony Kushner
The screenwriter for the movie "Lincoln" has conceded taking some liberties in its portrayal of a 19th century vote on slavery, but he said his changes adhered to widely accepted standards for the creation of historical drama.
A congressman who pointed out the flaw, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, said Friday that he was pleased screenwriter Tony Kushner acknowledged that Connecticut congressmen did not vote against a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery, as depicted in the film. He said he hopes a correction can be made before the film is released on DVD.
After watching the movie over the weekend, Courtney praised the artistry of the film about President Abraham Lincoln's political struggle to abolish slavery, but he took issue with a scene that shows two Connecticut congressmen vote against the 13th amendment. He asked the Congressional Research Service to investigate, and it reported that all four Connecticut congressmen backed the amendment in a January 1865 vote.
In a letter to the film's director, Steven Spielberg, the four-term Democratic congressman includes a tally of the 1865 vote by the state's congressional delegation and a passionate defense of the state's role in emancipating millions of blacks.
Kushner, the screenwriter, said in a statement Thursday that the film changed two of the delegation's votes to clarify the historical reality that the 13th Amendment passed by a very narrow margin. He said the film made up new names for the men casting the votes so as not to ascribe actions to real people who did not perform them.
Tony Kushner
Receives Hepburn Medal
Patti Smith
Rock musician and writer Patti Smith was honored by Bryn Mawr College with a medal named after the late actress Katharine Hepburn.
She received the 2013 Katharine Hepburn Medal on Thursday night in a ceremony at the women's liberal arts school in suburban Philadelphia.
The medal named after Hepburn, a Bryn Mawr alumna, honors women who change their worlds and whose work and embodies the intelligence and independence of the four-time Oscar winner.
It was awarded by the college's Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center, which memorializes Hepburn and her mother, an early feminist activist who shared the same name, with programs focusing on the arts and theatre, civic engagement, and women's health.
Patti Smith
Original Monument To Auction
Iwo Jima
The original smaller statue of the iconic raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima in 1945 is expected to fetch up to $1.8 million later this month at a New York auction dedicated to World War II artifacts.
That such a statue even exists is news to all but the most ardent history buffs.
Most Americans are familiar with the 32-foot-tall Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va. Felix de Weldon's 1954 bronze depicts five Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising the flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi as Allied forces struggled to capture the Japanese-held island.
Less well-known is the 12 1/2-foot-tall statue created soon after the event.
De Weldon, a young sculptor serving as an artist in the Navy, became instantly transfixed by an Associated Press image of the Feb. 19, 1945, flag planting, which would earn photographer Joe Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize and resonate around the world.
Iwo Jima
Pays Sarah Ferguson Over Phone Hacking
Rupert
Lawyers for Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, say that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has agreed to pay her for repeatedly intercepting her voicemail messages.
The Duchess of York was one of a slew of phone hacking victims who settled on Friday with News Corp. over its campaign of illegal espionage by its British newspapers.
A statement from Ferguson's lawyers said that the hacking dated back to 2000. News Corp. apologized and agreed to a "significant" but undisclosed settlement.
News Corp. has paid out hundreds of millions of pounds in settlements and legal fees linked to the phone hacking scandal, which erupted in 2011.
Rupert
Symbol of French Republic Defaced
"Liberty Leading the People"
A woman has defaced Eugene Delacroix's painting "Liberty Leading the People" with a black marker as it hung in an outpost of the Louvre gallery in northern France.
Police arrested a 28-year-old woman on Thursday for writing "AE911" across the bottom of a painting so closely identified with the French Republic that its image once graced the 100-franc note and it has been reproduced on postage stamps.
Painted in 1830, the work was on loan from the main Louvre in Paris to the new Louvre-Lens gallery in northern France inaugurated last December by President Francois Hollande.
"AE911Truth" is the name of a website called "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" whose backers say they are seeking to establish the truth of the September 11, 2001 suicide airliner attacks on New York's Twin Towers.
The work, depicting a bare-breasted woman brandishing a tricolor flag and leading her people over the bodies of the fallen, was later adopted as a revolutionary emblem in the 1848 uprising which overthrew the Orleans monarchy.
"Liberty Leading the People"
Gdansk Offended By Portrayal
''Zero Dark Thirty''
The Polish city of said it was offended by Hollywood blockbuster "Zero Dark Thirty" for labeling the home town of the communist bloc's first independent labor union as the location of a secret CIA detention centre.
Polish prosecutors are looking into the country's role in helping U.S. intelligence services transport suspected members of the al Qaeda group who carried out the September 11, 2001 suicide airliner attacks on New York and Washington to facilities outside the United States for interrogation.
The remote airfield in northern Poland where human rights groups accuse the CIA of flying al Qaeda suspects is located some 200 km (124 miles) from Gdansk, where electrician Lech Walesa co-founded the Solidarity trade union movement which toppled the communist government more than two decades ago.
The film offers a view from the sea of an industrial building, a red ship with a darkening sky in the background and the caption: "CIA BLACK SITE, Gdansk, Poland".
"The name 'Gdansk' is synonymous with freedom and Solidarity," Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz said.
"In the movie it has been turned to a gloomy place where secret services interrogate people accused of terrorism. We are simply offended," he told Reuters.
''Zero Dark Thirty''
Steven Tyler Act
Hawaii
Rock stars Steven Tyler and Mick Fleetwood appeared Friday at a Hawaii legislative hearing to push a bill aimed at protecting celebrities' privacy.
The so-called Steven Tyler Act would give celebrities or anyone else the power to sue paparazzi who take photos or video of their private lives in an offensive way.
Tyler says he had his manager draft the bill and requested that Sen. Kalani English introduce it on his behalf.
More than two-thirds of the state Senate co-sponsored the measure. Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne are among more than a dozen celebrities who submitted testimony supporting the bill along with the Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac rockers.
The state's largest newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, published an editorial Thursday that called lawmakers who support the bill "star-struck."
Hawaii
Beard-Cutter Gets 15 Years
Ohio Amish
The ringleader in hair- and beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison and 15 family members received sentences of one year to seven years.
"The victims were terrorized and traumatized," U.S. District Court Judge Dan Aaron Polster said in sentencing leader Sam Mullet Sr., 67, who sat without emotion.
The judge said the defendants had violated the constitutional rights protecting religious practice that had benefited them as Amish - such as an exemption from jury service and allowing Amish children to leave school at age 14.
The 10 men and six women were convicted last year in five attacks in Amish communities in 2011. The government said the attacks were retaliation against Amish who had defied or denounced Mullet's authoritarian style.
Ohio Amish
Principal Lesson
Stockton
Student journalists at a Central Valley high school are getting a lesson in the First Amendment after administrators confiscated their newspaper over concerns about a campus safety article quoting school administrators as saying that recent lockdown drills and two reports of weapons on campus revealed poor communication.
The principal of Stockton's Bear Creek High School, Shirley McNichols, stopped distribution of 1,700 copies of the monthly Bruin Voice newspaper last week, saying a front-page article about allegedly outdated safety policies could panic students.
Editor-in-Chief Justine Chang and adviser Kathi Duffel told The Record of Stockton that the principal was embarrassed about what the article exposed.
McNichols denied that. She also said that the district has a policy that allows administrators to monitor the newspaper's content and withhold it if it causes a safety issue, and administrators quoted in the story were disgruntled employees.
McNichols said safety could be improved, including fixing the school's lockdown alarm and intercom so they function in all classrooms. Portions of the safety plan referred to in the article already had been improved, she said.
Stockton
Rebuilding Takes Money, Mud
Timbuktu
Mud, money and more security: The U.N.'s cultural agency said Friday that not much more is needed to help rebuild 11 mausoleums that Islamic extremists "totally devastated" in the fabled Malian city of Timbuktu.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said she plans to send experts to Mali to assess the full extent of the damage left by al-Qaida-linked Islamists who ran Timbuktu and the rest of northeastern Mali for months before being chased out by French-led troops.
UNESCO estimates there are 300,000 ancient manuscripts - some dating back hundreds of years - in Timbuktu about themes like astronomy, optics and philosophy during a "Golden Age" of Islamic thought and civilization.
Under the French-led military onslaught last month, Islamic fighters torched Timbuktu's new Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research - in an effort to destroy some 30,000 manuscripts believed to be inside.
But many had not been transferred there yet. Estimates vary, but it appears no more than 2,000 were actually burned. Others were squirreled away by 30 or so by families that own most of the estimated 300,000 manuscripts - some for centuries, UNESCO said.
Timbuktu
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