Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Video: Lindsay Lohan's eHarmony Profile (funnyordie.com)
Lindsay Lohan is newly single and ready to mingle.
Paul Krugman: Green Shoots and Glimmers (nytimes.com)
With all the talk of signs of recovery, there are still real reasons to be cautious about the economic outlook.
Garrison Keillor: The poet gets the girl (sigh)
April is Poetry Month, whatever that may mean to you, perhaps not much. Perhaps what with your nomination to be assistant secretary for human rights running into rough waters because of that silly song you sang at the company Christmas party in 1997 that has been used to make you look like an insensitive jerk, your interest in poetry is practically nil and, if so-hey, you're not alone.
Ted Gioia: Notes on Conceptual Fiction (conceptualfiction.com)
A critic as astute as James Wood-who ranks, for better or worse, among the most influential writers on literature of our time-can continue to pretend that the "realist" tradition in fiction somehow reigns supreme. Yet any perspicacious reader should be able to see that tinkering with reality is the real driving force in contemporary fiction, and has been for a long time.
Mark Morford: Sluts & Salvation (sfgate.com)
Also: Mysterious chicken, drooling Facebook, maniac presidents. Can you help?
Paul Wilner: Maria Muldaur merges swamp-funk and political passion (montereycountyweekly.com)
She's a playa, not a preacher, but Maria Muldaur can't resist speaking out on the state of the world in her most recent album, Yes We Can! (TelArc). The former Jim Kweskin Jug Band lead singer is most famous, of course, for hits like "Midnight at the Oasis," "Don't You Feel My Leg" and "It Ain't The Meat, It's The Motion," earning her the unofficial moniker "Fertility Goddess" because of the number of children conceived by couples under her raunchy spell.
Jon Bream: Life is sweet for Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles (Star Tribune)
Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles has been everywhere of late: singing with James Taylor and John Legend at President Obama's pre-inaugural celebration, dueting with Adele on the Grammys and appearing this week on "Oprah."
20 Questions: Venice Is Sinking (popmatters.com)
Georgia indie pop group Venice Is Sinking has released a few records that PopMatters rated pretty highly, Sorry About the Flowers in 2006 and AZAR earlier this year. Lucas Jensen, the band's drummer, sits down with 20 Questions to explain his theories about Star Wars and more.
Mike Osegueda: Nirvana tribute band cater to the diehard fans (McClatchy Newspapers)
A week ago marked the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. One Chicago band is helping to keep Cobain's -- and his band Nirvana's -- legacy alive.
Dan Deluca: As Jimmy Fallon's TV house band, the Roots adapt to a new way to work (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
It's 10 minutes to show time backstage at "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," and Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson is wondering what the Roots have gotten themselves into.
KERRIE MILLS: "All the Faith in the World: 'Holiday'" (popmatters.com)
"Holiday" is the sort of movie that gives those who do know it the satisfyingly superior glow of being in on something really good.
Wendy Ide: Let the Right One In (timesonline)
It's all too rare to stumble on to something genuinely original. And it's even more unexpected for that film to be a vampire movie, a genre that has been explored and exploited in every conceivable shape and form. But "Let the Right One In," a deliciously macabre story of a tentative romance between a bullied 12-year-old boy and the strange girl who moves in next door, is pure magic.
The Weekly Poll
The 'Know thy Enemy' Edition...
The ancient Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu (400-320 BC) wrote in his acclaimed work, The Art of War...
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
I whole-heartedly believe in that wisdom and think that progressives should peruse conservative web sites regularly in order to keep up with current conservative trends, strategy and dogma. i.e Know thy Enemy.
That said, the question is... Do you read any conservative web sites and if so, which ones?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
Results Tuesday
On the old TV series I Dream Of Jeannie, Jeannie lived in a bottle. The actual bottle originally held what brand of liquor?
nailed it, again, with:
Reader Points Out
NY's own Coleman/Franken race
20th Congressional District candidate Republican Jim Tedisco submitted a petition to the Dutchess County Supreme Court Thursday asking the judge to declare him the winner of the extremely close special election race, despite the numbers currently being in favor of his opponent, Democrat Scott Murphy.
According to The Associated Press, Murphy leads Tedisco by 178 votes district wide - 79,452 to 79,274. The only ballots that have not been counted are those challenged by each candidate's lawyers, and while Tedisco's office has said the challenges are roughly evenly split between the two camps, Columbia County lawyers for Murphy have only challenged 22 ballots, while Tedisco's have challenged 258.
Tedisco is also asking the court to authorize recanvasing of all machine ballots to acquire the "proper" tallies. He would like them to reassess the validity of absentee votes already counted, and keep ballots challenged by Tedisco unopened. County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Virginia Martin said this new development could result in the election taking quite a bit more time to be decided. She would not venture a guess on how long it will be before the 20th District has a representative in congress.
The last group of unchallenged Columbia County absentee ballots were counted Thursday as well. According to unofficial numbers provided Thursday by the BOE, Murphy accumulated 93 new votes and Tedisco gained another 49. This brings the total unchallenged absentee vote count to: Murphy 476, Tedisco 270.
The votes counted Thursday were military ballots, federal ballots from county residents overseas, affidavit votes from voters who experienced problems at the polls, and the 49 challenges overruled by the Dutchess County Supreme Court Wednesday.
NY's own Coleman/Franken race
Lynn
Thanks, Lynn!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to sunny and warm.
Celebrates Indie Retailers
Record Store Day
Despite the success of online retailers, explosion of Internet downloads and high-profile closings of Virgin Megastores and Tower Records stores, bricks-and-mortar record stores aren't all spinning toward oblivion.
Although hundreds of independent music retailers have gone out of business in recent years, about 2,000 are still around, and many are thriving.
The survivors will celebrate Saturday, as acts such as Erykah Badu and Franz Ferdinand gather to pay homage to the hometown record store.
Record Store Day was the idea of Chris Brown, a long-haired, goateed music guru from Bull Moose, a chain of 10 record stores in Maine and New Hampshire.
Record Store Day
Tentative Deal With Studios
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood studios said Friday they have reached a tentative deal on movie and prime-time TV show productions. The previous contract had expired last June.
The announcement came a day before the Guild's board was scheduled to meet and a year after the two sides began talks.
Both sides said the details of the deal will not be disclosed before the Guild's board reviews it over the weekend.
On many counts, many people who follow the industry say the Guild is likely worse off than where it began.
Screen Actors Guild
Long Island Honors
Harvey Milk
When Harvey Milk attended high school in suburban Long Island in the 1940s, and later taught math and history and coached basketball there, he kept his sexuality a well-guarded secret.
More than half a century later, the Long Island Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Services Network will honor the slain gay-rights activist posthumously to draw attention to gays and lesbians with small-town roots. Milk's nephew, Stuart Milk, will accept the award for his uncle on Saturday.
"Things have changed dramatically since the late 1940s when Harvey Milk graduated from high school," said David Kilmnick, founder of the network of three organizations. "But there's a lot more to be done."
Milk, the focus of renewed attention this year when the biographical film "Milk" won two Oscars, became one of the country's first openly gay elected officials when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
Harvey Milk
Indiana Golden Gloves
Hud Mellencamp
The 14-year-old son of rock singer John Mellencamp has won a division title in the Indiana Golden Gloves boxing tournament.
Hud Mellencamp, who boxes for the Indy Police Athletic League, earned a 4-1 decision over Cody Bennett of the Southpaw Boxing Club of Owensboro, Ky., in a 132-pound senior-division bout Thursday night.
Nine other open-division winners will represent Indiana in the national Golden Gloves tournament May 4-10 in Salt Lake City.
Mellencamp earned a trophy and a hug from his father, who attended the fight at Tyndall Armory.
Hud Mellencamp
$45M To 9 Universities
Mystery Donors
A mystery is unfolding in the world of college fundraising: During the past few weeks, at least nine universities have received gifts totaling more than $45 million, and the schools had to promise not to try to find out the giver's identity.
One school went so far as to check with the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security just to make sure a $1.5 million gift didn't come from illegal sources.
"In my last 28 years in fundraising ... this is the first time I've dealt with a gift that the institution didn't know who the donor is," said Phillip D. Adams, vice president for university advancement at Norfolk State University, which received $3.5 million.
The gifts ranged from $8 million at Purdue to $1.5 million donated to the University of North Carolina at Asheville. The University of Iowa received $7 million; the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Maryland University College got $6 million each; the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was given $5.5 million; and Penn State-Harrisburg received $3 million.
Mystery Donors
NM Ranch For Sale
Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer is trying to sell his ranch near Santa Fe, putting his nearly 6,000-acre ranch on the market for $33 million.
A buyer would get almost six miles of Pecos River frontage, a fishery and wildlife habitat including bears and bobcats. The ranch has a Southwest-style main house of nearly 5,600 square feet and a smaller caretaker's home, as well as other guest homes, barns, garages and outbuildings.
The 49-year-old Kilmer has lived in New Mexico more than two decades and has had the ranch about 13 years.
Val Kilmer
Fileshare Four Get Year In Jail
Pirate Bay
Four men behind The Pirate Bay, one of the world's biggest free file-sharing websites, were each sentenced to a year in jail on Friday for breaching copyright, and ordered to pay $3.6 million in compensation.
Analysts said the guilty verdict in the closely-watched test case could help music and film companies recoup millions of dollars in lost revenues, though they doubted it would stem the tide of illegal downloading.
In a broadcast on The Pirate Bay's website one of the four defendants, Peter Sunde, taunted the court, holding up a mock IOU note for 31 million Swedish crowns ($3.6 million) followed by the initials "JK" -- Internet lingo for "just kidding."
The men linked to The Pirate Bay -- Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom -- were charged early last year by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law and related offences. They denied the charges.
Pirate Bay
Another Shot At Rehab
Redmond O'Neal
A judge is giving the son of Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal one last chance to kick his drug habit.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Millington on Friday transferred two felony drug cases against Redmond O'Neal to a court that could send him to a stringent rehab program. But he sternly warned the 24-year-old that he if he fails at rehab - as he has at least three times before - he's going to prison.
O'Neal appeared in a jail jumpsuit and told Millington he was motivated by Fawcett's ailing health to stay clean. He said Fawcett weighs roughly 86 pounds and that he is ashamed of himself for recent relapses and his April 5 arrest on suspicion of taking heroin to a Los Angeles area jail facility.
Last week, he acknowledged a probation violation to a 2008 drug conviction and was in court Friday for sentencing. The actor has two other drug cases, including one filed after his recent arrest.
Redmond O'Neal
Acquitted In Tax Case
Helio Castroneves
Brazilian race car driver and "Dancing With The Stars" champ Helio Castroneves was acquitted Friday of most charges that he worked with his sister and lawyer to evade more than $2.3 million in U.S. income taxes.
A federal jury acquitted Castroneves on six counts of tax evasion but hung on one count of conspiracy. The jury also acquitted Katiucia Castroneves, 35, who is her 33-year-old brother's business manager, on the tax evasion counts but also hung on the conspiracy. Michigan motorsports attorney Alan Miller, 71, was acquitted on all three counts of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy. The jury deliberated six days after a six-week trial.
All three faced more than six years in prison if convicted of conspiracy and tax evasion between 1999 and 2004. The case mainly revolved around income from a $2 million sponsorship deal Castroneves had with the Brazilian firm Coimex and his $5 million licensing deal he reached with Penske Racing in late 1999.
Castroneves, a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and one of the Indy racing circuit's most popular drivers, was temporarily replaced on Team Penske by Australian Will Power pending the outcome of the case. Castroneves won the TV dance competition in 2007.
Helio Castroneves
Faces NYC Charges
Antwon Tanner
"One Tree Hill" actor Antwon Tanner has pleaded not guilty to involvement in a Social Security scheme.
Tanner appeared in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday on charges of selling Social Security numbers and cards. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
The 34-year-old actor is accused of supplying 16 Social Security numbers and three bogus cards to a middleman between December 2005 and last July.
Tanner, who lives in California, appeared in the 2005 film "Coach Carter."
Antwon Tanner
Censored By Paris Metro
Mr. Hulot
The pipe favored by one of French cinema's most enduring comic characters has fallen victim to advertisers who were worried about breaking an anti-smoking law -- but have earned mockery and ridicule instead.
Jacques Tati's Mr Hulot, whose pipe was as much a trademark as his hat and beige raincoat, is seen riding his Velosolex motor scooter in a poster advertising a retrospective at the Cinematheque de Paris.
But the pipe has been replaced by a small colored whirligig by Metrobus, the group that manages advertising on Paris public transport, because of fears the pipe could break a law forbidding it from "direct or indirect" tobacco and alcohol advertising.
The Liberation daily was among many newspapers mocking the cover-up, pointing out that Mr Hulot is not wearing a helmet, is riding an old-fashioned, polluting vehicle and that the small boy riding behind him is not seated securely.
Mr. Hulot
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