Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Open wide and never stop gasping (sfgate.com)
I am completely in love with endless jaw-dropping forehead-slapping heart-stopping bursts of insatiable, inexhaustible, completely unknowable mystery
Dan Savage: (662) 862-3104
CONFIDENTIAL TO SAVAGE LOVERS: I need to ask you to do something. Not for me, but for a teenage lesbian in a small town. Constance McMillen is a senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi. When she asked if she could attend prom with her girlfriend, she was told no.
Paul Krugman: Why We Reform (nytimes.com)
A South Carolina case in which a teenager with H.I.V. had his insurance policy revoked is a reminder of why we need health care reform now, imperfect as it is.
Froma Harrop: Jihad Jane: Terror by Reason of Insanity (creators.com)
Consider the case of "Jihad Jane." Divorced twice (first marriage at 16), Colleen LaRose was arrested for drunkenness in Texas. She ended up living with a boyfriend in a Philadelphia suburb and taking care of his elderly father. Let's say that LaRose was not one of life's winners under conventional definitions.
Connie Schultz: Please, Enough With the Partisan Chain E-mail (creators.com)
For five years, Joyce and John Good silently tolerated angry partisan e-mails forwarded by family and friends. They even ignored the steady vitriol flowing from the husband and wife they'd known for 40 years
Susan Estrich: The Last Lap (creators.com)
It was 30 years ago that we first put national health insurance in the Democratic Party platform. I was working for Ted Kennedy then. We had lost the nomination to Jimmy Carter, but both sides were still fighting. Whatever we were for, President Carter and his team were against. And we were very much for health care.
Michael E. Ross: Review of "Last Words" by George Carlin with Tony Hendra (popmatters.com)
Writing the book that caps your 50 years in the entertainment business, a book you know will probably serve as your valedictory address, can be a very liberating experience.
Janice Turner: We need to talk about Lionel Shriver (timesonline.co.uk)
Tough, funny, angry, the award-winning writer talks about life, death, being a batty old lady and having seriously eccentric eating habits.
"Hocus Bogus: (Margellos World Republic of Letters): by Emile Aja: A review by M. A. Orthofer
'Pseudo,' finally available in English as 'Hocus Bogus,' is one of the oddest works of (semi-)fiction of recent times. A documentary novel (of sorts), it came about because of the circumstances its author Romain Gary got himself into.
Jeanette Winterson: I wanted to use myself as fiction and fact (timesonline.co.uk)
Twenty-five years after publishing 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,' the author looks back at her startling debut.
Evan Sawdey: "20 Questions: Patrick & Eugene" (popmatters.com)
Eugene Bezoids of aptly named British pop duo Patrick & Eugene answers PopMatters' 20 Questions, discussing how good he'd look in an ellipsis, why setting Patrick's hair on fire may or may not be part of a magic trick, and his unabashed love for ... cider.
Rafer Guzmán: "Jett set: Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning play pioneering female rockers in 'The Runaways'" (Newsday)
Here's a challenge: Make a list of successful all-female rock bands, starting with The Runaways, the short-lived teen group from the 1970s. After the Go-Go's, the Bangles and The Donnas, your list will probably be nearing its end.
Stephen Armstrong: Hanks on the mother of all wars (timesonline.co.uk)
Co-creator Tom Hanks talks about 'The Pacific,' an epic, unflinching portrait of America's bitter war with Japan.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'DNA Database Blues' Edition
"President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting... The nation's chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, "It's the right thing to do" to "tighten the grip around folks" who commit crime..."
Wired.com
Do you support mandatory DNA collection upon arrest?
A.) Yes
B.) No
C.) Depends on the crime
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Finally cooling off to more seasonal temperatures.
Fuming At Retired US General
Dutch
The Dutch prime minister Friday denounced as "irresponsible" a claim by a retired U.S. general that gay Dutch soldiers were partly to blame for allowing Europe's worst massacre since World War II.
Dutch officials, from the Cabinet to the military, were outraged by retired Gen. John Sheehan's remarks at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Sheehan claimed that Dutch military leaders had called the presence of gay soldiers in the army "part of the problem" that allowed Serb forces to overrun the Srebrenica enclave in Bosnia in July 1995 and kill some 8,000 Muslim men.
The Netherlands has a long history of accepting homosexuality, and gays have long been welcome in the country's armed forces - which also allow labor unions.
Dutch
Ellen Presents Check
Constance McMillen
A lesbian high school student embroiled in a legal flap over her school's prom policy has received a $30,000 scholarship on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
Constance McMillen was speechless Friday when the talk show host pulled out an oversized check from the Web site Tonic.Com, a digital media company.
DeGeneres says she admires McMillen for challenging Itawamba County School District rules that would prevent her from escorting her girlfriend to the prom. The school district canceled the April 2 prom after McMillen's request.
A hearing is scheduled Monday in federal court in Aberdeen on American Civil Liberties Union efforts to force the district to hold the prom.
Constance McMillen
Kicks Off Cable-Broadcaster Review
FCC
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission launched a review into how broadcasters and cable companies negotiate retransmission deals following a recent spat between Walt Disney Co's ABC Network and Cablevision Systems Corp.
ABC pulled its signal from New York's Cablevision on the night of the Oscars earlier this month in a dispute that highlighted growing tension over how much TV distributors should pay for the right to carry the free-to-air broadcast signals of ABC, CBS Corp, News Corp's Fox and NBC, controlled by General Electric Co.
In a release Friday seeking public comment, the FCC said more than a dozen entities including companies and public interest groups are proposing reforms to rules and finding a proper dispute resolution mechanism.
The deadline for submitting public comments is April 18.
FCC
Lifetime Achievement Award
Patti Smith
Punk rock pioneer Patti Smith will receive a lifetime achievement award from the music industry next month in honor of her genre-bending 40-year career as singer, poet, political activist and painter.
Smith, 63, will be presented with the Founders Award during performing rights group ASCAP´s annual pop music awards dinner honoring the composers and publishers of the most-performed songs of 2009.
Smith steadfastly denies categorization and especially disdains the sobriquet "Godmother of Punk," but is nonetheless considered a key figure of the New York punk scene in the 1970s, perennially eulogized by rockers including R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe.
The daughter of a blue-collar New Jersey couple drew upon such influences as William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, Walt Whitman and William Burroughs to supply the oft-romanticized revolution with a defiant vocabulary epitomized by the lyric "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."
Patti Smith
Shocked At Destruction Of Old Hong Kong
Nancy Kwan
Actress Nancy Kwan said Friday she was shocked at the wholesale destruction of the colonial Hong Kong that formed the charming backdrop to her classic 1960 film "The World of Suzie Wong".
The former screen siren said her hometown used to be a "laid-back sea port" with Chinese junks plying its famed Victoria Harbour -- a rare sight these days in the bustling financial hub of seven million people.
Kwan, 70, visits the former British colony every few years, but said she still cannot believe its metamorphosis.
"I can't believe it -- every time I come back it's like going to a new city.... I loved the old colonial buildings in Hong Kong, but now they've torn them down. It's terrible."
Nancy Kwan
German Magazine Admits Fake Interviews
Neon
German celebrity gossip magazine Neon admitted Friday it had published five made-up interviews since 2004 with stars such as Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and Snoop Doggy Dog.
In a message published on its Internet site, Neon said it "apologised to its readers and the artists concerned" for the fictitious articles and stressed it had fired the journalist responsible.
The scandal came to light in January when Beyonce's management team queried an interview published in the magazine by freelance reporter Ingo Mocek.
When the Neon team confronted Mocek, "he was not able to verify certain statements, particularly the statements regarding a marriage contract of Ms. Knowles," the magazine statement said.
Neon
Pundits Attack 11-Year-Old
Compassionate Conservatives
Conservative talk show hosts and columnists have ridiculed an 11-year-old Washington state boy's account of his mother's death as a "sob story" exploited by the White House and congressional Democrats like a "kiddie shield" to defend their health care legislation.
Marcelas Owens , whose mother got sick, lost her job, lost her health insurance and died, said Thursday he's taking the attacks from Rush Limbaugh , Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin in stride.
"My mother always taught me they can have their own opinion but that doesn't mean they are right," Owens, who lives in Seattle , said in an interview.
Owens' grandmother, Gina, who watched her daughter die, isn't quite so generous.
"These are adults, and he is an 11-year-old boy who lost his mother," Gina Owens said. "They should be ashamed."
Compassionate Conservatives
Irish Letter
Pope
Pope Benedict XVI addresses Ireland on Saturday in a letter apologizing for the sex abuse scandal here - a message being watched closely by Catholics from Boston to Berlin to see if it also acknowledges decades of Vatican-approved cover-ups.
The church is only beginning to come to terms with decades of child abuse in its parishes and schools. The scandals first emerged in Canada and Australia in the 1980s, followed by Ireland in the 1990s, the United States this decade and, in recent months, Benedict's German homeland.
Victims' rights activists say that to begin mending the church's battered image, Benedict's message - his first pastoral letter on child abuse in the church - must break his silence on the role of the Catholic hierarchy in shielding pedophile clergy from prosecution.
That includes abuses committed decades ago under the pope's watch, when he was Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, as well as the pontiff's role in hushing up the scandals.
As leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger was responsible for a 2001 Vatican edict that instructed bishops to report all cases of child abuse to Vatican authorities under strict secrecy; it made no mention of reporting crimes to police.
Pope
Fires Back
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga is firing back at a music producer who claims he launched her career and is suing her for $30.5 million.
Her lawyer said in a court filing made public Friday the agreement at the heart of the suit was "unlawful."
Song writer and music producer Rob Fusari filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Manhattan against the Grammy Award-winning performer. He said his protege and former girlfriend, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, ditched him as her career soared.
But Lady Gaga lawyer Charles Ortner wrote in his response that the arrangement was "structured in such a way as to mask its true purpose - to provide to the defendants unlawful compensation for their services as unlicensed employment agents."
Lady Gaga
Viacom Vs. YouTube
Dirty Laundry
Viacom Inc. and Google Inc.'s YouTube site began airing each other's dirty laundry Thursday, providing a tantalizing peek at the wheeling and dealing that triggered a bitter battle over the copyright laws governing the Internet.
The previously confidential information came out as part of the evidence in a copyright lawsuit that Viacom filed against YouTube in 2007 for alleged copyright infringement of "The Colbert Report," "The Daily Show" and other shows.
The sensitive documents were unsealed because Viacom and YouTube are both trying to persuade U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton to decide the case without a trial.
Both YouTube and Viacom are getting muddied in the process.
Dirty Laundry
Still Getting Screwed
Anna Nicole Smith
A federal appeals court says Anna Nicole Smith's estate will receive none of the more than $300 million that she claimed her late billionaire husband had promised her.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest stop in the 15-year legal battle over the $1.6 billion estate that oil magnate J. Howard Marshall left after his 1995 death at age 90. Smith had married Marshall the previous year.
The appeals court ruled Friday that a Texas jury's 2001 verdict should be honored because it had heard from all parties during the five-month trial. The jury ruled in favor of Marshall's son, E. Pierce Marshall.
The appeals court says subsequent federal court decisions that granted Smith various parts of Marshall's fortune should be ignored.
Anna Nicole Smith
Launches Hostile Bid For Lions Gate
Carl Icahn
Activist shareholder Carl Icahn raised the stakes in his yearlong dispute with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. on Friday, launching an all-out bid to take over the movie studio following disagreements over its spending.
The hostile bid comes a week after Lions Gate rejected Icahn's offer to buy a larger minority stake and rewrote its bylaws to make such a takeover attempt more difficult in the future.
The new offer for all outstanding shares also raised the specter of Canadian government involvement because Icahn, an American, could own the Vancouver-based company and cause friction with the country's cultural policies.
Icahn owns almost 19 percent of Lions Gate, and his new offer for the remainder was unchanged from the $6 per share he offered last month when he sought to increase his stake to just under 30 percent. That bid represented a 15 percent premium over the stock's latest closing price at the time.
Carl Icahn
Scientists Hide Gold
"Invisibility Cloak"
German scientists have created a three-dimensional "invisibility cloak" that can hide objects by bending light waves.
The findings, published in the journal Science on Thursday, could in the future make it possible to make large objects invisible, but for now the researchers said they were not keen to speculate on possible applications.
Transformation optics use a class of materials called metamaterials that guide and control light.
In their study, Tolga Ergin of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and his colleagues used photonic crystals with a structure that looks like piles of wood to make an invisibility device, or cloak.
"Invisibility Cloak"
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