Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Romney's Economic Closet (New York Times)
According to Michael Kinsley, a gaffe is when a politician accidently tells the truth. That's certainly what happened to Mitt Romney on Tuesday, when in a rare moment of candor - and, in his case, such moments are really, really rare - he gave away the game.
Froma Harrop: If the Iron Lady Watched the Republican Debates ... (Creators Syndicate)
It's a good thing that the Margaret Thatcher we remember isn't running for president as a Republican. A conservative icon, she would nonetheless be tarred today as a "big government liberal," "raiser of taxes," "European socialist" and RINO, which stands for Republican in Name Only.
Connie Schultz: "A Woman's Womb: America's New Sports Arena" (Creators Syndicate)
As it has for millions of mothers, prenatal testing saved my life - and my yet-to-be-born daughter's life, too. The only time I've had high blood pressure was during my pregnancy. I spent most of my third trimester lying on my left side to keep myself and my baby alive. My only outings were for regular ultrasound exams to make sure she was not in distress. I'm as pro-choice as they come. In 1987, I chose to become Caitlin's mommy.
I have stacked shelves and hosed down urinals. Unlike the elite who are now telling lazy scroungers to buck up (Guardian)
Get a suit. Drone on. You could be work and pensions minister. You just need to adjust your attitude, writes Suzanne Moore.
Ed Kilgore: Like Higher Stock Prices? You Should Love Democrats! (Washington Monthly)
So for job-killing, class-warfare-obsessed socialists, Democrats aren't too hard on capitalists.
L.V. Anderson: "You're Doing It Wrong: Pancakes" (Slate)
In the days of near-universal Christianity in Western Europe, the day before Ash Wednesday was a chance to load up on all the rich foodstuffs verboten during Lent. Since pancakes are heavy on eggs, milk, and sugar (all ostensibly sinful ingredients), people made a tradition of eating them before the fasting season began.
Roger Kimball: The Great American Novel (Weekly Standard)
Will there ever be another?
Kids Swede Movies (YouTube)
Kids Do King Arthur vs. the Black Knight.
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
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny and summery.
Pledges $1 Million
Bill Maher
Faux news host Stephen Colbert isn't the only comedian with a super PAC connection. Political satirist Bill Maher got into the act Thursday night, pledging $1 million to a political committee supporting President Barack Obama.
Maher announced during a Yahoo-webcast special, "CrazyStupidPolitics," that he was giving $1 million to Priorities USA Action, a super political action committee backing the president. Even as he made his sizeable pledge, Maher mocked the committee's "tongue-twister name," joking that it was dreamed up by Borat, the English-addled Eastern European comic creation of Sacha Baron Cohen.
A cynic on politics who often takes liberal stands on issues on his HBO talk show "Real Time," Maher joins Dreamworks Animation executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and the Service Employees International Union as the committee's top funders. Katzenberg gave the group $2 million, and the union donated $1 million.
Colbert created and funded his super PAC - Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow - to satirize the unfettered flow of corporate and union funds into political campaigns.
Bill Maher
Back In Force At Oscars
Gift Suites
You know you're in Hollywood when Uggie, the spunky dog from Oscar nominated film "The Artist" gets invited to an Oscar gifting suite -- and turns it down.
But many others are showing up to the suite, one of about a dozen in Los Angeles catering to celebrities in the lead-up to Sunday's Academy Awards. Gift lounges, also called swag suites, have become key marketing tools for companies seeking exposure for products because star endorsements often draw customers.
In recent years, with the economy weak and people out of work, the lavishing of gifts upon celebrities was seen by some as insensitive and many of the companies began donating to charity or stayed away entirely.
But this year, with the economy appearing to be on the mend, they are back in large numbers. Celebrities who accept gift bags are liable for paying tax on the swag following a 2006 crackdown by U.S. authorities.
Gift Suites
'The Artist' Wins 6
Cesar Awards
Silent film "The Artist" has won six awards including best picture, best actress and best director at France's answer to the Academy Awards.
Just two days before the Oscars, co-star Berenice Bejo and director Michel Hazanavicius took top honors at the Cesar awards on Friday.
Best actor honors went to Omar Sy, star of the blockbuster feel-good movie "Intouchables" (Untouchable).
He notably beat "The Artist" star Jean Dujardin who won the category at Cannes, the Golden Globes and Britain's BAFTAs - and is among the best-actor nominees at the Oscars.
Cesar Awards
FX Renews For 4th Season
"Archer"
FX has renewed the animated spy series "Archer" for a 13-episode fourth season. The network has also signed an overall production deal with the show's executive producers Adam Reed and Matt Thompson and their animation studio Floyd County Productions, FX said on Thursday.
"Archer"'s third season, which wraps with a finale on March 22, has improved 44 percent in the adults 18-49 demographic over the second season, with an average 1.58 million viewers in the demo, and 32 percent in total viewers, with 2 million.
The two-year overall deal with Reed and Thompson will keep the pair with FX Productions for any additional seasons of the series, plus any new projects that the duo develops. It also ensures that Floyd County Productions will continue to animate "Archer," along with the FX series "Unsupervised" and any new animated fare produced or developed by FX.
"Archer"
Artist Pleads Guilty
Shepard Fairey
The creator of the Barack Obama "HOPE" poster pleaded guilty Friday to criminal contempt, saying he made a "terrible decision" in 2009 to destroy some documents and fabricate others in a civil lawsuit pertaining to The Associated Press photograph he relied upon to make the poster.
Shepard Fairey entered the plea in federal court to the misdemeanor charge, which carries a maximum potential penalty of up to six months in prison. Sentencing was set for July 16.
"Violating the court's trust was the worst thing I have ever done in my life," said Fairey, 42, of Los Angeles. "I was ashamed as I did all these things, and I remain ashamed."
The criminal case originated after the artist acknowledged he had fabricated information in a lawsuit he brought against the AP in February 2009. The lawsuit sought a court declaration that he did not violate AP's copyrights when he made the Obama image. The AP countersued, saying the uncredited, uncompensated use of its picture both violated copyright laws and was a threat to journalism.
That case was settled last year.
Shepard Fairey
Dispute Heads To SD High Court
Kevin Costner
The South Dakota Supreme Court will hear a case involving Hollywood actor Kevin Costner and some bronze sculptures of bison and American Indians.
Justices will review a judge's decision that Costner did not breach a contract with artist Peggy Detmers by placing the sculptures at his Tatanka attraction near Deadwood in 2006. Detmers challenged the ruling, and the Rapid City Journal reports (http://bit.ly/yV3qdT ) that oral arguments are set for March 19 in Vermillion.
Costner filmed much of his Academy-Award-winning movie "Dances with Wolves" in South Dakota. He commissioned the sculptures in the early 1990s for a resort in South Dakota's Black Hills that still has not been built.
Costner paid Detmers $300,000. Detmers says she gave him a price break because she anticipated selling smaller sculptures at the resort.
Kevin Costner
To Testify In Rhode Island
James Woods
Rhode Island officials say actor James Woods will be testifying before a state legislative committee in support of a bill that would allow doctors to apologize for bad treatment outcomes, but ban those apologies from being used against them in malpractice lawsuits.
The Warwick native is set to testify before the House Committee on Judiciary on Wednesday in favor of the so-called "benevolent gestures" bill.
Woods' brother, Michael, died of a heart attack at Kent Hospital in 2006. Woods sued the hospital accusing emergency room staff of not doing enough to save his brother, but he settled the lawsuit after a hospital executive apologized and agreed to start an institute in Michael Woods' name.
Studies show medical malpractice claims decrease when doctors apologize for mistakes and other negative outcomes.
James Woods
Judge Sanctions Violence
'Zombie Muhammad'
A Pennsylvania judge has dismissed charges against a Muslim man who physically attacked an atheist dressed as "Zombie Muhammad" during the Mechanicsburg, Pa. Halloween parade.
Talaag Elbayomy, a 46-year-old Muslim man, allegedly attacked Ernest Perce V, who was dressed as "Zombie Muhammad" and walking with a man dressed as "Zombie Pope" during the October parade. Both men were members of the Parading Atheists of Central Pennsylvania.
During the attack Elbayomy reportedly attempted to take Perce's "Muhammed of Islam" sign and choked him. Zombie Pope was uninjured.
Judge Mark Martin threw out a grainy video of the attack and explained that there wasn't enough evidence to convict Elbayomy of the harassment charge.
"Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam," Martin said. "In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else's religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it. It makes you look like a doofus… In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society."
'Zombie Muhammad'
Extra Special Water
Pennsylvania
A western Pennsylvania woman says state environmental officials refused to do follow-up tests after their lab reported her drinking water contained chemicals that could be from nearby gas drilling.
At least 10 households in the rural Woodlands community, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, have complained that recent drilling impacted their water in different ways.
The Department of Environmental Protection first suggested that Janet McIntyre's well water contained low levels of only one chemical, toluene. But a review of the DEP tests by The Associated Press found four other volatile organic compounds in her water that can be associated with gas drilling.
DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said on Friday that the low chemical concentrations were not a health risk, and suggested that the contamination may have come from the agency's laboratory itself or from abandoned vehicles on or near the property. But Sunday didn't answer why DEP failed to do follow-up tests if the DEP suspected that its own lab was contaminated.
"DEP cannot just simply walk away," said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.
McIntyre's water showed detectable levels of t-Butyl alcohol, acetone, chloromethane, toluene and 1, 3, 5-trimethylbenzene. The chemicals can be used in the high-pressure hydraulic fracturing process that has led to a production boom of deep shale gas in Pennsylvania. But some are also commonly used in households and other industry, such as toluene, a paint thinner.
Pennsylvania
In Memory
Dmitri Nabokov
Dmitri Nabokov, the only child of acclaimed novelist Vladimir Nabokov who helped protect and translate his father's work while also pursuing careers as an opera singer and race car driver, has died. He was 77.
The younger Nabokov died Wednesday at a hospital in Vevey after a long illness, literary agent Andrew Wylie said Friday. He had been hospitalized in January with a lung infection.
Dmitri Nabokov spent much of his life trying to carve a life away from the shadow of his father, whose books "Lolita" and "Pale Fire" are regarded as some of the best English prose ever written.
The Harvard-educated son was a mountain climber, opera singer, race car driver and playboy. But Dmitri Nabokov always returned to protecting his father's literary legacy, translating and editing his father's plays, poems, stories, the novella "The Enchanter" and "Selected Letters."
After the success of "Lolita," Dmitri Nabokov translated his father's "Invitation to a Beheading" from Russian, and after his father's death, he wrote the memoir "On Revisiting Father's Room."
In 1962, the younger Nabokov began to race cars competitively and until 1982 he maintained an active professional operatic career as a basso profundo. After the death of his mother in 1991, he sold the remainder of the Nabokov archive to the New York Public Library and attended conferences dedicated to his father.
Vladimir Nabokov had to borrow to send his son to Harvard in 1951. He reported that Dmitri's interests there were "mountaineering, girls, music, track, tennis and his studies, in that order... He is completely and as it were dazzlingly fearless, loved by his friends, endowed with a magnificent brain, but a stranger to study."
In 2009, the author's son decided controversially to publish his father's final, fragmentary novel "The Original of Laura," which was written on index cards in 1975-77, the last years of his life. It was an act he said that went against his father's wishes, who had asked that it be burned.
Dmitri Nabokov's early life was nomadic. Vladimir Nabokov and his family fled the chaos of the Russian Civil War and he was living in Paris, but he had to flee again in 1940, this time from the Nazis. He took his Jewish wife, Vera, and then 6-year-old Dmitri, their only child, to the United States. Vladimir Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945, but returned to Europe in 1961 after the great success of "Lolita," settling in Switzerland.
Dmitri Nabokov never married, but believed he would have made a great father, as his own was.
Dmitri Nabokov
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