Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Live fast, die young (guardian.co.uk)
His life story read like a modern day fairytale - a meteoric rise from an Australian amusement arcade to the high-octane boardrooms of Silicon Valley. But then came the drug charges and, on Sunday, a fiery end in the wreckage of the £640,000 sports car he loved. Rory Carroll reports.
Paul Krugman: Going to Extreme (nytimes.com)
The wild response to health care reform becoming law has exposed the dangerous state of the Republican Party.
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF: Escaping From Poverty (nytimes.com)
Even though there's no magic bullet, experiments with jobs and schooling gleaned promising results for improving the lives of the poor.
Mark Morford: Official member: Evil Gay Conspiracy ( sfgate.com)
"Texas Freedom Network, Planned Parenthood, and the Human Rights Campaign work together as 'triplets' and speak with one voice. Mark Morford is a part of that network. What parent in his right might would want TFN and their network to have any influence over what impressionable and vulnerable students are taught?" -- In hilarious defense of the odious Texas State Board of Education, apparently
"The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works" by Shelley Fisher Fishkin: A review by Jonah Raskin
It is hard to believe -- because he looms so large in our national letters -- that Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens in 1835, died 100 years ago, on April 21. The anniversary of his death provides an occasion to reappraise his work and rethink his life. Fortunately, critics and biographers have been sifting through Twain's published writings and rummaging through his archives. A half dozen new books delve deeply and from nearly every possible angle into perhaps our most profoundly divided writer.
20 Questions: Walter Mosley (popmatters.com)
Walter Mosley, bestselling author of more than 29 critically acclaimed books, presents his latest in the Leonid McGill series, 'Known to Evil' (releasing 23 March).
"The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage: by Anthony Brandt: A review by Marc Covert
A well-known statue of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin stands in London's Waterloo Square, an 8-foot bronze of heroic proportions that carries the following inscription: "To the great Arctic navigator and his brave companions who sacrificed their lives in completing the discovery of the Northwest Passage, A.D. 1847-8." It mentions nothing about Franklin being "The Man Who Ate His Boots," ...
Dorian Lynskey: What does it mean to be 'big in Japan'? (guardian.co.uk)
It's always been a rock in-joke. But these days making it in the far east is nothing to be ashamed of.
Brian McCollum: Five questions for R&B artist Andre Williams (Detroit Free Press)
Street-savvy, grimy and unabashedly raunchy, the music of Andre Williams held a unique spot in the R&B world of the late 1950s. Lusty old songs like "Jail Bait" remain staples of the ex-Detroiter's live show.
David Medsker: A Chat with Findlay Brown, Singer/songwriter (bullz-eye.com)
To be honest, I've never watched David Letterman before. But once they told me he has this amount of viewers, then it started getting quite nerve-wracking. I spent the last half an hour before the show on the toilet.
A new dawn: how street dance came in from the cold (guardian.co.uk)
Street dance used to be a fringe genre. Now it's making the leap to theatre, prime-time TV - and even a 3D film. Sanjoy Roy on how it came of age.
Interview by Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Edward Watson, dancer" (guardian.co.uk)
'A critic once wrote that I couldn't dance, act or partner, and that I was ugly. It was so extreme that I had to laugh.'
Kevin C. Johnson"No joke: Oscar-winning Mo'Nique is focused on comedy" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Oscar-winning actress Mo'Nique is interested only in doing things her way.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Health Care Deformed: Winners and Losers...' Edition
The House of Representatives has passed a Health Care 'Reform' Bill... 'The Man' will sign it and it'll be a done deal... So be it... Now then, Poll-fans, I ask...
What will the President's proposal mean for you? An interactive guide.
Who do you see as the long term Winners and Losers in this imbroglio?
A.) The People
B.) The Democrats
C.) The Republicans
D.) The Insurance companies | Big Pharma | Wall Street vultures
E.) Everybody wins
F.) Everybody loses
G.) How in the hell should I know?
Pick and Choose! Mix and Match! Name names! Point fingers! Rant and Rave!
Praise or excoriate! Let it all out! Have some fun, it'll be therapeutic!
(We're all about fun and wellness here, dontcha know!)
Send your response to
responded:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Vic in AK
Great Idea
Marty...
A real good friend up here in Alaska came up with this Idea to give the Troops part of their Home Country to take with them overseas. He doesn't make any money off this so can't afford advertising. He took soil samples from every one of the 50 United States(certified) and in a ceremony befitting the event he mixed the 50 samples of dirt together (hmmm none from D.C.???) and encloses a little bit in a card so like I said our troops can carry a lil bit of their home-land with them. The guy is like us ,a dyed in the wool Liberal who feels the Righties have no copyright on Patriotism and started this effort to reflect that. Could y'all possibly link to his site?
I already bought a couple for my nephews serving in both Afghanistan and Iraq and they love the idea!
Thank you in advance-
Vic in Alaska
Thanks, Vic!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Calls Out Brown
Rachel Maddow
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has taken out a full-page newspaper ad to declare she's not running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.
The liberal talk show host placed the ad in Friday's edition of The Boston Globe after the former nude model and newly elected Republican Sen. Scott Brown sent out a fundraising appeal alluding to a potential challenge from Maddow.
Maddow says Brown was "using the made-up threat of me running against him to try to scare donors into giving him more money." She has a home in western Massachusetts.
Rachel Maddow
Visits Haiti
Danny Glover
Hollywood actor Danny Glover on Friday compared the devastation inflicted on Haiti by the January 12 earthquake to the destruction of World War Two, but said the world was "paying attention" and ready to help.
"Lethal Weapon" star Glover, a former United Nations goodwill ambassador, made the comments during a visit to the earthquake-hit Caribbean nation, in which he saw camps housing some of the hundreds of thousands of homeless survivors.
"We have to understand the magnitude of this, really the magnitude of this," Glover told Reuters before meeting with another Hollywood star, Sean Penn, who has a relief charity operating in one of the biggest survivors' camps located in the Petionville club golf course in wrecked Port-au-Prince.
"This is ... the pictures I remember watching, of looking at the remnants, the aftermath of World War Two," Glover said. He was accompanied in the talks with Penn by U.S. congresswoman Barbara Lee, a California Democrat.
Danny Glover
JFK Library To Show Letter To Hemingway
J.D. Salinger
It was the summer of 1946 when a young and war-fatigued J.D. Salinger reached out to another writer whose career had also been shaped by war, a writer he had arranged to meet while both had been in Europe.
"The talks I had with you here were the only hopeful minutes of the whole business," Salinger writes at the close of his letter to Ernest Hemingway, which will be displayed publicly for the first time on Sunday at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
The letter, which has been available to and referenced by scholars over the years, is part of the Ernest Hemingway collection that has been kept at the JFK Library for 30 years. It offers a fascinating glimpse of a sardonic Salinger, then serving in the Army, in the period before the 1951 publication of "Catcher in the Rye."
The author even jokingly compares himself with Catcher in the Rye protagonist Holden Caulfield, who had appeared as a character in earlier short stories.
J.D. Salinger
Visits Japan Dolphin Hunt Town
Hayden Panettiere
"Heroes" star Hayden Panettiere and her boyfriend, world champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko, received a chilly reception Friday in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji, where they called for an end to its annual dolphin hunt.
Panettiere said she would "love to be a spokesperson" for the town if it abandons the hunt. Her visit to Taiji comes just weeks after "The Cove," a gory depiction of Taiji's dolphin slaughter, won the Oscar for best documentary.
The celebrity couple arrived in the morning with a small group of environmental activists. Panettiere tried to meet the mayor and representatives from the local fisheries union, but she and Jeff Pantukhoff, an anti-whaling activist from the U.S., were blocked at the door of the town hall.
Fishermen in the village on the rocky coast of southwest Japan consider the hunt a proud legacy. But it has long been targeted by hardcore environmentalists and animal lovers, and the Oscar has given the opposition more mainstream attention.
Hayden Panettiere
George Eastman House
Technicolor Collection
Technicolor, the color-movie pioneer synonymous with Hollywood glamour, is donating filmmaking artifacts to George Eastman House to round out the New York museum's trove of original reels of movie classics such as "Gone with the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz."
The gift of cameras, printers, photos, drawings and documents detailing the creative process behind Technicolor movies produced from World War I to 1974 solidifies the film and photography museum's status as the world's largest research institution for film-technology scholars.
The French telecommunications and film technology company's archives, kept in vaults in Los Angeles, might have been junked if the museum hadn't stepped in and rescued them, said Caroline Frick Page, motion picture curator for Eastman House.
The entire corporate collection "makes it one of the most unique pieces of film history existing in archives for study today," she said Friday.
Technicolor Collection
Wins Odd Title Prize
"Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes"
Defying grim predictions that the economic downturn would clobber specialist books, the annual contest for oddest title has had a bumper year, with the 2009 winner being named on Friday as "Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes."
The book won 42 percent of the vote run by TheBookseller.com to emerge a comfortable winner.
The top six were as follows: 1. Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes 2. What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua? 3. Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich 4. Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter 5. Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots 6. The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Philip Stone, The Bookseller's charts editor, said the magazine had received more than 4,500 votes, which had been a reflection of the oddest and therefore strongest shortlist in the 32-year history of the prize.
"Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes"
Fox Cancels
"24"
The Fox TV network on Friday stopped the clock on its action adventure series "24," ending one of its most successful dramas as ratings began to slip in its current, eighth season.
The final, two-hour program will air on May 24, and in the countdown to that last show, the network will air 11 hours of uninterrupted episodes on Monday nights.
But viewership had begun to decline. The most recent episode drew just under 9 million viewers in the United States, down from last season's average of slightly more than 13 million.
Sutherland and the show's creators now hope to take the character to movie theaters in a film version.
"24"
Music Manager Sues
Axl Rose
Axl Rose is being sued by a famed music manager who claims the singer owes him nearly $2 million in unpaid commissions.
Front Line Management, which was founded by Irving Azoff, sued Rose in Los Angeles on Thursday for nearly $1.9 million in unpaid fees. The company claims it had an oral agreement with Rose to receive 15 percent of the Guns N' Roses' frontman's commissions.
The lawsuit states the commissions are due on more than $12 million in earnings Rose made for performances abroad.
Azoff has represented famous musicians such as The Eagles and Joe Walsh and is currently the executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment Inc., which recently merged with Ticketmaster Entertainment.
Axl Rose
Ordered To Pay Irish Promoter
Prince
A Dublin judge ordered U.S. pop singer Prince to pay $2.95 million to Irish concert promoters Friday for canceling a 2008 concert at the last minute.
High Court Justice Peter Kelly said he was making the total damages public because Prince has yet to pay anything to Dublin promoters MCD Productions Ltd. in their confidential settlement reached Feb. 26.
Kelly ruled that Prince had committed to perform in Dublin's 82,300-seat Croke Park in June 2008, but withdrew without explanation just days beforehand, after 55,000 tickets were sold. The 51-year-old Prince did not testify at last month's hearing.
Kelly said Friday his order was specifically against Prince, not his agents from the William Morris agency, who were absolved of liability. Prince's lawyer Paul Sreenan consented to the order.
Prince
Lawyers Threatened
Natavia Lowery
A judge says relatives of a New York City personal assistant convicted of murdering a former punk-rock manager have threatened defense lawyers.
A Manhattan judge said Friday that members of Natavia Lowery's family made "inappropriate" and "threatening" comments to her attorneys outside court Monday. The judge let her switch lawyers Friday. Both she and they have sought to part ways for weeks.
Lowery's new lawyer, Paul Brenner, says her relatives just wanted to urge her former attorneys to get off the case.
Lowery's family has said she'll appeal her conviction in the 2007 killing of Linda Stein. Stein co-managed the Ramones before becoming a high-powered real estate broker.
Natavia Lowery
Drunk Tried To Revive
Pennsyltucky 'Possum
Police say they charged a Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen trying to resuscitate a long-dead opossum along a highway.
State police Trooper Jamie Levier says several witnesses saw 55-year-old Donald Wolfe, of Brookville, near the animal Thursday along Route 36 in Oliver Township, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The trooper says one person saw Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. He says another saw Wolfe attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Levier says the animal already had been dead a while.
Pennsyltucky 'Possum
In Memory
Paul Dunlap
Paul Dunlap, a prolific film composer for three decades and a frequent collaborator of Sam Fuller, died March 11 in Palm Springs. He was 90.
The classically trained Dunlap composed the soundtracks for more than 133 films and TV shows and worked on another 50 pictures and television episodes as a conductor, musical director, music supervisor and orchestrator, often composing incidental music as well.
Dunlap worked with fiery writer-director Fuller on such films as "The Baron of Arizona" (1950), starring Vincent Price, "The Steel Helmet" (1951), "Park Row" (1952), "Shock Corridor" (1963) and "The Naked Kiss" (1964).
He also wrote the soundtracks for six movies directed by Harold D. Schuster, including the Western "Jack Slade" (1953), and worked on numerous TV shows, including "Have Gun - Will Travel." He was admired for his Western scores and sci-fi sound effects.
A native of Springfield, Ohio, Dunlap also worked on a number of B movies. He composed the scores for Abbott & Costello's final film, "Dance With Me, Henry" (1956); several Three Stooges films of the early '60s; and "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" (1957). His most recent credit was as composer for "Gorp" (1980).
In his later years, Dunlap wrote an opera and a choral piece.
"I can only hope that I will be remembered for my piano concerto, or my choral piece, 'Celebration,' and not the inferior movies I was forced to be associated with," Dunlap once said.
In his heyday, Dunlap entertained at the Formosa Cafe in Hollywood and was pals with Doris Day, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Anne Baxter and producer Lindsley Parsons Sr.
Paul Dunlap
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