Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Sequester of Fools (Creators Syndicate)
House Republicans, on the other hand, want to take everything that's bad about the sequester and make it worse: canceling cuts in the defense budget, which actually does contain a lot of waste and fraud, and replacing them with severe cuts in aid to America's neediest. This would hit the nation with a double whammy, reducing growth while increasing injustice.
Robert T. Gonzalez: In Oklahoma, faith-based explanations can get you an "A" in science class (io9)
On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Common Education committee considered HB 1674 - a House bill that would prevent teachers in science classes from penalizing students who contest evolutionary principles with untestable, faith-based claims. It passed, 9-8.
Froma Harrop: No, We Don't All Sin Like Mark Sanford (Creators Syndicate)
"I've experienced how none of us go through life without mistakes," Sanford says in a new congressional campaign television ad. "But in their wake we can learn a lot about grace, a God of second chances, and be better for it." We? What do you mean "we"? How is Sanford's spectacular fall from grace about us, as opposed to about him?
Lenore Skenazy: From Prison to Stadium (Creators Syndicate)
The result of our increased eagerness to lock folks up is that America now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. For every 100,000 Americans, we've got 730 behind bars. Our next-closest "competitor" is Russia, with 500 per 100,000. Iran has 350, and China is looking like Sweden or something, with just over 100. Peace out, China! How is it that America is so much more jail-happy than even the most repressive regimes?
Paul Krugman: Alan Simpson and Bernie Madoff (New York Times)
So what is it that makes [Alan] Simpson the figure he is? Clearly, it's an affinity thing: never mind his obvious lack of knowledge, his ludicrous track record, reporters trust and idolize Simpson because he's their kind of guy.
Kevin Ayers: 'I never considered another profession' - one of his final interviews (Guardian)
In 2008, Word magazine ran what turned out to be one of the final ever interviews with Soft Machine founder Kevin Ayers, who died this week aged 68. Here it is in full.
Caspar Llewellyn Smith: Kevin Ayers dies aged 68 (Guardian)
Singer-songwriter and founding member of pioneering psychedelic band Soft Machine has died.
Adam Kirsch: "The New Essayists, or the Decline of a Form? The essay as reality television" (New Republic)
"It is cheating to treat oneself as an object, or as an image to tend to, or as an icon," Heti concludes. "It was true four thousand years ago when our ancestors wandered the desert, and it's as true today when the icon is our selves." In opposing the idolatry of the self, How Should a Person Be? offers a deeply intelligent antidote to the new essayists, and to much of the autobiographical writing of Heti's generation-a generation that is now on the cusp on forty, an age when it is no longer charming for one's heart to be an idiot.
Mourners attend James McConnell funeral after Facebook appeal (BBC)
More than 200 people attended the funeral of a former serviceman following a Facebook appeal, amid fears he would be buried without mourners.
Mike Krumboltz: Couple finds, returns over $11,000 found near Golden Gate Bridge
A couple visiting San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on Valentine's Day discovered an unattended camera bag in a nearby parking lot. Inside the bag: credit cards, some papers and (wait for it) over $11,000.
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Michelle in AZ
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Ugliest Pets
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Clear and windy.
The Oscars are tomorrow night (02/24), so how about a little contest to see who can predict the most winners?
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Director
Best Picture
Best Documentary Feature
Here's a complete list of all the nominees
Bonus/Tie-Breaker Question:
The Oscars plan to honor the James Bond franchise. Rumor has it 5 of the 6 actors who portrayed the iconic character will be in attendance. Which actor will NOT be there?
Sean Connery
George Lazenby
Roger Moore
Timothy Dalton
Pierce Brosnan
Daniel Craig
No prizes - just bragging rights.
Send your predictions to Marty by 11pm (pst) Saturday, 23 February (Hey - that's tonight!).
Top Music Earner In 2012
Madonna
Madonna was named the biggest money maker in music in 2012 on Friday, with a world tour helping her take home up to $34.6 million and highlighting the earning power of live performances as the industry increasingly goes digital.
The 54-year-old Material Girl topped Billboard Magazine's annual list of 40 top money makers for the second time after earning an estimated $32 million - 93.5 percent of her revenue - from her 88-date "MDNA" tour, 2012's biggest tour.
Madonna, who also led the list in 2008 due to tour income, was the only woman in the top 10 with last year's winner, Taylor Swift, who fell to 15th place as she did not tour in 2012.
In second place in the music magazine's list was Bruce Springsteen whose $33.4 million revenue was also primarily driven by touring, playing to sold-out stadiums and arenas.
Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd, came a distant third with earnings of $21 million largely from "The Wall Live" tour and Van Halen was fourth with $20 million after touring in support of their album "A Different Kind of Truth".
The full list can be seen here
Madonna
2013 Inductees
Songwriters Hall of Fame
Aerosmith song-writing duo Steven Tyler and Joe Perry headline this year's class of inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the organization said on Friday.
Singer Tyler and guitarist Perry wrote such rock classics as "Dream On," "Walk This Way" and "Love in an Elevator" since the band formed in 1970 and went on to win four Grammy awards.
Other inductees include British songwriter Tony Hatch, British-American duo Mick Jones and Lou Gramm of rock group Foreigner, Tina Turner songwriter Holly Knight, and J.D. Souther, who helped write hits for 1970s rock group the Eagles.
A panel of music industry voters chose the five inductees into the Hall of Fame from a list of 24 nominees that was released last year.
Songwriters Hall of Fame
Canada Ambassador Feels Slighted
"Argo"
Canada's former ambassador in Iran, who protected Americans at great personal risk during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, says if "Argo" wins the Oscar for best picture on Sunday there would be something wrong with director Ben Affleck if he didn't mention Canada.
Ken Taylor said Friday he continues to feel slighted by a movie that he says makes Canada look like a meek observer to CIA heroics in the rescue of six U.S. citizens caught in the crisis. He says there would be no movie if the Canadian embassy didn't take in the Americans.
Taylor says if Affleck doesn't say something in his acceptance speech "then it's a further reflection" on him.
Affleck's CIA thriller "Argo" is widely expected to take home the best-picture trophy on Sunday.
"Argo"
Hosting NBC Game Show
Jane Lynch
Jane Lynch is hosting the new NBC game show "Hollywood Game Night," which will pit A-list contestants against mere mortals in a cocktail-party atmosphere.
NBC has ordered eight episodes of the series, from Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner.
The show promises a loose, festive atmosphere with flowing drinks, passed hors d'oeuvres and a live house band. One of two non-celebrity contestants will win a cash prize.
The series is produced by Hazy Mills Productions ("Grimm," "Hot in Cleveland, "Soul Man"), Mission Control Media (Syfy's "Face Off"), and Universal Television. Hayes, Milliner, Michael Agbabian and Dwight D. Smith are the executive producers.
Jane Lynch
Loses Lawsuit Against Pitbull
Lindsay Lohan
Attention rapper and singers, it appears you're free to use Lindsay Lohan's name in your songs.
On Thursday, Lohan lost a legal battle against Pitbull (Armando Christian Perez) after the actress claimed a lyric in the rapper's 2011 hit "Give Me Everything" was a violation of her publicity and publicity rights and also caused her emotional distress.
In the song, Pitbull raps, "So, I'm tiptoein', to keep blowin', I got it locked up, like Lindsay Lohan.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the judge sided with Pitbull, ruling that the song was a protected work of art and is protected by the First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley dismissed Lohan's lawsuit, writing, "The fact that the Song was presumably created and distributed for the purpose of making a profit does not mean that plaintiff's name was used for 'advertising' or 'purposes of trade' within the meaning of the New York Civil Rights Law."
Lindsay Lohan
Scranton TV Station Snubs Ad
'Dunder Mifflin'
A northeastern Pennsylvania TV station is refusing to run a commercial for the real-life Dunder Mifflin paper brand.
Quill.com produces a line of paper products inspired by the fictional company at the center of "The Office," the long-running NBC comedy set in Scranton.
Quill had planned to run an ad on WNEP-TV, the ABC affiliate, during this Sunday's Oscars telecast. But WNEP declined to air the spot.
Paul Bessinger works for Lincolnshire, Ill.-based Quill, a division of Staples. He tells The Times-Tribune of Scranton the spot was apparently declined because "The Office" airs on a rival network.
The ad will air instead on another ABC affiliate, in Utica, N.Y. Like Scranton, Utica is home to a Dunder Mifflin branch on "The Office."
'Dunder Mifflin'
Just A Story Line
WWE
Could Glenn Beck (R-Unstable) be getting ready to rumble with the WWE?
For anyone who's ever thought that conservative firebrand Beck's style of punditry comes off like pro wrestling, your suspicions may be confirmed on Monday's edition of "Raw."
The wrestling organization invited Beck to appear on Monday's show, after Beck took issue with new WWE character Zeb Colter, who he feels is "demonizing" the Tea Party.
Responding to the character - a hyper-patriotic, pro-deportation Vietnam vet - on his TheBlaze TV on Thursday, Beck slammed the WWE, predicting that the wrestling organization would alienate its audience.
The WWE counters that the creation of the Colter character is in line with its history of protagonists and antagonists, and was intended to both address contemporary topics and appeal to its considerable Latino audience.
WWE
Bad Trooper
Utah
During her 10 years as a Utah state trooper, Lisa Steed built a reputation as an officer with a knack for nabbing drunken motorists in a state with a long tradition of tee totaling and some of the nation's strictest liquor laws.
Steed used the uncanny talent - as one supervisor once described it - to garner hundreds of arrests, setting records, earning praise as a rising star and becoming the first woman to become trooper of the year.
Today, however, Steed is out of work, fired from the Utah Highway Patrol, and she - and her former superiors - are facing a lawsuit in which some of those she arrested allege she filed bogus DUI reports.
In 2009, Steed became a member of the DUI squad. Her 400 DUI arrests that year were thought to be a state record, and more than double the number made by any other highway trooper. She earned special recognition at the state Capitol.
By April 2012, her credibility had come into question so much that a prosecutor said he would no longer prosecute DUIs if Steed's testimony was the only evidence.
Utah
LA Judge Grants Name Change
Jermaine Jacksun
Jermaine Jackson has a new, brighter surname - Jacksun.
A Los Angeles judge approved the change to singer's name Friday.
The 58-year-old, who shared lead singing duties with his younger brother Michael in the Jackson 5, did not appear in court.
He sought the name change for "artistic reasons" and says it has nothing to do with a recent rift in his family over the care of Michael Jackson's children and family matriarch Katherine Jackson.
Jermaine Jacksun
In Memory
Cleotha Staples
In a family of vocalists, it was Cleotha Staples' smooth and velvety voice that helped set apart the sound of the influential and best-selling gospel group The Staple Singers.
Staples, the eldest sister and member of the group her father Roebuck "Pops" Staples started in the 1940s, died Thursday at age 78. She was at her Chicago home and had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for the past decade, said family friend and music publicist Bill Carpenter.
The group included sisters Pervis, Yvonne, Mavis and Cynthia, but Cleotha was the backbone, defining herself by being the "strong, silent type," said Carpenter, author of "Uncloudy Day: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia."
Staples, known as "Cleedi," was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with her family in 1999 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 2005. The Staple Singers gained a huge audience with their first No. 1 hit "I'll Take You There" in 1972 and followed with top 40 hits "Respect Yourself," ''Heavy Makes You Happy," and "If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)."
The family's music career had its roots with Pops Staples, a manual laborer who strummed a $10 guitar while teaching his children gospel songs to keep them entertained in the evenings. They sang in church one Sunday morning in 1948, and three encores and a heavy church offering basket convinced Pops music was in the family's future.
The Staple Singers was born. Two decades later the group became an unlikely hit maker for the Stax label. The Staple Singers had a string of Top 40 hits with Stax in the late 1960s, earning them the nickname "God's greatest hitmakers."
Cleotha Staples was born April 11, 1934, in Drew, Miss., the first child of Pops and his wife, Oceola. Two years later, the family moved to Chicago, where Pops worked a variety of jobs performing manual labor and Oceola worked at a hotel. Chicago also was where the family's four other children were born.
Pops and Mavis primarily took the lead on the group's vocals, but a 1969 recording of duets featured Cleotha's voice on the song "It's Too Late," a bluesy ballad about a lost love.
The family also became active in the civil rights movement after hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver a sermon while they were on tour in Montgomery, Ala., in 1962. They went on to perform at events at King's request. It was during that period that the family began recording protest songs, such as "Freedom Highway," as well as gospel. The group even covered Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."
At the end of her life, Cleotha Staples lived near her sisters Mavis and Yvonne on Chicago's South Side. Carpenter said the sisters were vigilant caretakers of Cleotha, just had she had been when the sisters were younger.
Cleotha Staples
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