Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Big Dither (nytimes.com)
When it comes to dealing with banks, the Obama administration is dithering. And the result could be an economy that sputters along for a very long time.
Ted Rall: SUICIDE VIA COMFORMITY
NEW YORK--An editorial cartoon is like nothing else in a newspaper. Editorial cartoonists don't need any special degrees. Unlike reporters and editorial writers, they don't even have to pretend to be "fair." Moderation in what Jules Feiffer called "the art of ill will" is the ultimate vice: boring.
Mark Morford: Let's all get wet (sfgate.com)
It's pouring rain and water's gushing everywhere. You call this a drought?
JOEL STEIN: Getting the ax -- it's awesome (latimes.com)
Adam Carolla gets fired, and then gets busy.
Sam Leith: "Now it's official: the entire beauty industry is built on the peddling of pernicious nonsense" (guardian.co.uk)
It sells products that don't really work to people who don't really need them at prices they can't really afford.
NICOLE SOLOMON: "Translating Sacred Texts: An Interview with Alina Simone" (popmatters.com)
Alina Simone's interpretive covers of Soviet cult legend Yanka Dyagileva's songs have helped preserve the memory and music of the last Russian punk poet -- and sparked debates about cultural ownership and authenticity.
EVAN SAWDEY: "There's Been No Wrong Turns, There's Just Been Detours: An Interview with the All-American Rejects" (popmatters.com)
All-American Rejects guitarist Nick Wheeler doesn't care about matching the success of his last album, what other people think of him, or what album covers he lands on. All he cares about is his music.
DREW FORTUNE: "'It's a Gut Feeling About the Music': An Interview with Mac McCaughan" (popmatters.com)
After founding the influential Merge Records, the inimitable Superchunk, and the prolific solo project known as Portastatic, Mac McCaughan is finally ready to look back at his career, his bands, and those wonderful four-track recordings that he thought he lost 'lo those many years ago.
"Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney" by Dennis O'driscoll: A review by Adam Kirsch (The New Republic; Posted on Powells.com)
"Remote on the one hand from the banal, on the other from the eccentric, his genius was calculated to win at once the adhesion of the general public and the admiration, both sympathetic and stimulating, of the connoisseur." So writes Thomas Mann about Gustav von Aschenbach, great writer and national institution, in Death in Venice; and the description applies unexpectedly well to Seamus Heaney.
"Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell: A Review by Joseph Epstein (weeklystandard.com)
The first step in the bestseller formula is to tell people something that they want to hear. Gladwell tells his readers that, with a few sensible alterations--a nip here, a tuck there in society's institutions, throw in a bit of persistence and lots of practice--everyone has a shot at success such as that achieved by the Beatles, Bill Gates, J. Robert Oppenheimer, you name him. In prose that never lingers over complication, he explains that life is fairly simple; no great mystery about it. Nothing cannot be explained, nothing not changed, nothing not improved. Knowledge is ever on the march. Life need no longer be unfair. Utopia is at hand, ours, with the aid of social science, to seize.
Chris Jones: "Horton Foote 1916-2009: Wrote screenplay for 'To Kill a Mockingbird'" (Chicago Tribune)
Horton Foote, a generous, genteel American dramatist whose profound human insights were expressed with uncommon empathy for the fears of decent, small-town Americans, died Wednesday at age 92. According to several reports, Foote was in his temporary apartment in Hartford, Conn., working on a future production of one of his plays.
Mark Caro: How Oscar got it wrong (Chicago Tribune)
Few are begrudging Kate Winslet winning her first Oscar in six nominations for "The Reader." As the common refrain in Hollywood went last week: "It's time."
Jon Stewart Eviscerates CNBC and Rick Santelli - March 4, 2009 (youtube.com)
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Can't Take a Joke' Edition
Clint Eastwood has slammed Political Correctness, saying "I think the PC madness is what's refreshing about playing this character. When I grew up there were a lot of people like this, and everybody didn't take themselves so seriously. People would kid themselves about everybody's... whatever race they were, whatever ethnic, religious groups they were. Everybody would joke about it and everybody got along just fine,"
He continues with "But then we've come to this now where everybody has to be walking on eggshells - kind of very... sensitive. And so it's become boring, kind of, and I think everybody would like to be Walt Kowalski for about 10 minutes."
A two-parter...
Do you agree with his take about Political Correctness stifling humor?
Is PC selective in its application?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
Results Tuesday.
responded:
Reader Comment
New Comic Series
I had ALWAYS been a HUGE fan of the comics, till now....thank you again Sarah!!!
And knowing the people from out in the Valley, I am sure it's printed on Blotter Acid......
Vic in AK
Thanks, Vic!
Only thing I remember from that valley was Matanuska Thunderfuck, and how it didn't even come close to living up to that name. ; )
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and windy.
Court Blocks Senator
Al Franken
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday blocked Democrat Al Franken's petition for an election certificate that would put him in the U.S. Senate without waiting for a lawsuit to run its course.
The decision means the seat will remain empty until the lawsuit and possible appeals in state court are complete. Republican Norm Coleman's lawsuit challenging Franken's recount lead is at the end of its sixth week, and both sides expect it to last at least a few more weeks.
After a state board certified recount results showing Franken 225 votes ahead, he sued to force Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie to sign an election certificate. Franken argued that federal law stipulates each state will have two senators when the Senate convenes, and that law trumped a state law that blocks such certificates while lawsuits are pending.
But the state Supreme Court disagreed. In their ruling Friday, the justices said states aren't required to issue such certificates by the date that Congress convenes.
Al Franken
Verbal Vomit
Pigboy
A Democratic official rebuked conservative commentator Republican party chairman and chief propagandist Rush Limbaugh (R-OxyContin & Viagra) on Friday for suggesting a health care proposal will be named in memory of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer. On his radio show, Limbaugh said President Barack Obama's proposed health care revisions will be championed by "the liberal lion Teddy Kennedy."
"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill," Limbaugh said.
Brian Wolff, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called the remark outrageous and reprehensible.
Pigboy
Capitol Hill Goes Gaga
Brad Pitt
From the moment he stepped into the Capitol on Thursday, sunglassed and goateed, Brad Pitt's star power transformed congressional business-as-usual in a way any lawmaker or new president might envy.
Pitt's superpowers are such that he and President Barack Obama pulled off an improbably secret meeting on the same topic earlier in the day, White House spokesman Thomas F. Vietor confirmed.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not immune to his charms. Praising Pitt for his work to rebuild New Orleans' hurricane-ravaged 9th Ward, she even allowed that meeting him affords her "bragging rights to my children and my grandchildren - a real treat for me as well."
And during a closed meeting earlier, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confided to Pitt that he was envious that his lieutenant, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, got to meet soccer star Mia Hamm a day earlier, according to one person who was present and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Brad Pitt
Doctorates To Auction
Albert Einstein
The doctorate certificate that Albert Einstein obtained from the University of Zurich in 1906 will come up for auction in June, auctioneers Fischer Galerie said Friday.
An honorary doctorate certificate awarded to the physicist by the University of Geneva in 1909 will also come under the hammer, the Lucerne-based auctioneer said.
Einstein, who revolutionised physics, was awarded the doctorate of philosophy by the University of Zurich's mathematics and natural sciences department after finishing his doctoral thesis titled "A new determination of molecular dimensions" which explains how the size of atoms could be determined.
Three years later, the University of Geneva awarded him a honorary doctorate in physical sciences, noting that he had become "well worthy" of it.
Albert Einstein
Tinnitus Trouble
William Shatner
Star Trek icon William Shatner once contemplated suicide because his hearing problems were driving him mad.
The actor has revealed the permanent hiss of tinnitus, caused by an explosion on the set of Star Trek, used to keep him awake at night - and he started fearing he'd never shake the noise.
He tells the Globe magazine, "It was like listening to the hiss of a TV that's not tuned to a channel. I thought I'd go deaf or nuts.
Shatner eventually underwent tinnitus refraining therapy, which helped him retrain his brain to ignore the noise.
William Shatner
Pulling Plug On Hospital
Hollywood
In 1940, Hollywood humanitarian Jean Hersholt purchased 48 acres of walnut and orange groves in the far reaches of the San Fernando Valley for a hospital to be run by the Motion Picture Relief Fund.
Hersholt, a popular character actor of the day, was president of the fund, which had been founded 20 years earlier by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and others to aid needy members of the film industry.
After a delay caused by World War II, the Woodland Hills hospital was finally completed in 1948. Among those attending the opening ceremonies were Robert Young, Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan and Hersholt, who is probably best known today as the namesake of a special Oscar recognizing charitable work - most recently given to Jerry Lewis.
For the next 60 years, the hospital provided treatment for stars and janitors, directors and secretaries. Those who could afford to pay their way - such as Norma Shearer - did so. Those who were broke - and there were many in the topsy-turvy film industry - were taken care of.
Now, Hollywood has been shocked with news that the hospital itself is passing away, a victim of red ink and an ailing economy.
Hollywood
Busted At LAX
Coolio
Authorities say rapper Coolio has been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of drug possession (crack cocaine)..
He was arrested and booked on felony narcotics possession after being stopped at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday morning.
The 45-year-old Coolio, whose real name is Artis Leon Ivey Jr., was released after posting $10,000 bail.
The arrest was first reported by the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com..
Coolio
LA DUI
Brian Bosworth
Former NFL player-turned-actor Brian Bosworth has been arrested in Hollywood on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Los Angeles police Sgt. Alex Ortiz says Bosworth was arrested early Friday. The 43-year-old Bosworth was being held on $5,000 bail.
Bosworth played for Oklahoma before retiring three years into a 10-year contract with the Seattle Seahawks because of a shoulder injury.
Bosworth's screen credits include "Stone Cold," "Three Kings" and "The Longest Yard."
Brian Bosworth
Pork Producers Brace
HBO
U.S. pork producers, already worried that high prices for their product may chase pinched shoppers to the chicken section, are facing another possible hit - an HBO special on animal cruelty in factory farming.
Producers at the annual Pork Industry Forum were discussing the documentary, "Death on a Factory Farm," which the network plans to premier on March 16 and show 20 times by April 1.
The documentary, based on a video taken by the Humane Farming Association, an animal rights group, "takes a harrowing look at animal cruelty in an Ohio factory farm as chronicled through undercover footage," the HBO website said.
The video also contains footage of the trial where representatives of the pork industry gave testimony detailing acceptable hog care practices, Tom Simon, co-producer of the documentary, told Reuters.
HBO
Uppity Women United
Les Chiennes de garde
A French feminist group awarded its "Macho of the Year" award Friday to the archbishop of Paris for his remark that women needed not just a skirt but "something between your ears as well".
Les Chiennes de garde (literally "The Guard Bitches"), one of France's most outspoken women's groups, made the award two days ahead of International Women's Day.
It gave second prize to comedian Fabrice Eboue for his comment on French television that "feminism is not just for authoritarian or sexually frustrated women, it's also for lesbians".
Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois made his prize winning remark about the difficulties of recruiting women to jobs in the Roman Catholic Church last November on a radio programme, sparking a string of protests.
Les Chiennes de garde
In Memory
Molly Kool
Molly K. Carney, who as Molly Kool was the first woman in North America to become a licensed ship captain, has died at her home at the age of 93.
Known in Canada by her maiden name, Molly Kool won her captain's papers in 1939 and sailed the Atlantic Ocean between Alma, New Brunswick, and Boston for five years, her friend Ken Kelly said.
Kool grew up in the village of Alma, where she learned a love of the sea and sailing from her father, a Dutch ship captain. At 23, she made history by earning the title of captain, after the Canadian Shipping Act was rewritten to say "he/she" instead of just "he," Kelly said.
She overcame superstitions about women working at sea and won the respect of her male counterparts as she sailed her father's 70-foot boat in the dangerous waters of the Bay of Fundy, said Mary Majka, who joined Kelly in a fundraising effort to pay to move her ancestral home from Alma to a knoll in nearby Fundy National Park overlooking the bay this spring.
Kool left New Brunswick after marrying Ray Blaisdell, of Bucksport, Maine, in 1944. They were together for 20 years before he died. In the 1960s, she married businessman John Carney, who bought her a boat, which he dubbed the Molly Kool.
In her final years, she lived in an independent retirement community in Bangor, where there was a lighthouse and a captain's wheel in the hallway outside her room and where residents called her Captain Molly, Kelly said. She died there Feb. 25.
She is survived by a sister, one of four siblings. A memorial service is planned next month in Bangor, and this summer her ashes will be returned to New Brunswick, where her wish of being returned to the sea will be honored.
Molly Kool
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