Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Reclaiming America's Soul (nytimes.com)
The only way for the nation to regain its moral compass is to investigate how the government's interrogation abuses happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.
Obama's Inspirational Speech: What Starfish, Service, And Senator Ted Kennedy Have In Common (huffingtonpost.com)
Ted Kennedy is that young man who will not rest until we've made a difference in the life of every American.
Volunteer
On April 21, 2009, President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, a bold expansion of opportunities for all Americans to serve their communities and our country. During a time of almost unprecedented challenges it is critical that we all work together, the government alone cannot fix everything. Working together in a sustained, collaborative effort, we can harness our greatest resource, our people, and change the course of history.
Mark Morford: Newsom in 2016! (sfgate.com)
Governor? Pshaw. SF's sly mayor will make a great president for Generation Tweet.
PAUL CONSTANT: Columbine Isn't History (thestranger.com)
Cullen patiently clears the record of popular myths, tracking their birth and development, like the early claim that Harris and Klebold were gay.
RICHARD ROEPER: Does Miss California Carrie Prejean deserve the flak she got over Perez Hilton gay-marriage question? (suntimes.com)
Miss Arizona Alicia Monique-Blanco was even worse on universal health care.
Roger Ebert: 410 East Washington Street
I was born at the center of the universe, and have had good fortune for all of my days.
Tim Jonze: Rock god by night, shelf stacker by day (guardian.co.uk)
Plenty of musicians have held down a day-job well into their career, treading the delicate line between effortless cool and having to ask if you want extra cheese with your curly fries.
Hannah Pool: Question time (guardian.co.uk)
Back after a 15-year break, singer Billy Ocean explains what he's been up to - and what it's like to be a black person in a white man's industry.
Ginny Dougary: Peter Hall - my memories of Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett (timesonline.co.uk)
Nudging 80, he's full of memories of his theatrical past, but the great director's love of work - and family - is undimmed
Maureen Ryan: Therapy back in session for Byrne, 'In Treatment' (Chicago Tribune)
When he was shooting the enthralling first season of "In Treatment," Gabriel Byrne despised the chair he occupied when he was playing therapist Paul Weston.
Corey Scholibo: "First Look: Ang Lee's 'Taking Woodstock'" (advocate.com)
Advocate.com's exclusive first look at Ang Lee's new film Taking Woodstock includes this photo of Liev Schreiber, who plays Vilma, a drag queen who serves as a bodyguard during the Woodstock festival. The film is based on the memoir by Elliot Tiber, the gay man who made one call and a few weeks later managed to stage one of the most defining cultural events in American history.
The Weekly Poll
The 'Fantasy Island' Edition
Time out! I'm callin' a 'time out' from reality this week... No politics. No Economics. No wing-nuts. No war... Let's engage in a little reverie, shall we? C'mon! It'll be fun!
Given that you had the time and wherewithal to go anywhere you'd wish for a dream vacation, where would go to and what would you do once there?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
Intense young surgeon, Ben Casey, practiced at what hospital?
nailed it with:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and cool again.
'Haiku' Spelled Backwards
Ukiah
Rugged Ukiah. Spelled backward, it reads haiku. Poets congregate. Things are taking a turn for the verse in this Northern California city as the local literati throw their annual bash celebrating all things haiku.
The one-day ukiaHaiku Festival, taking place Sunday at the Ukiah City Conference Center, drew more than 1,500 entries from 10 countries this year, a big jump from the 300 it started out with seven years ago.
Ukiah, an old logging town, gets its name from an Indian word meaning "deep valley," according to the city's website. Haiku fan Susan Sparrow and others credit local librarian Dori Anderson, who has since died, with coming up with the idea of capitalizing on the fact that the name in reverse alludes to verse.
The event started small, primarily involving area schoolchildren. The children are still a big part of the festival - the best part of the afternoon for Sparrow is listening to them read their efforts - but it turns out adults like haiku a lot, too, competing in categories including traditional and contemporary.
Ukiah
Archive Opens At Emory
Alice Walker
Georgia native Alice Walker began storing her notebooks, journals and photos as a teenager, creating a personal archive spanning 40 years that paints a vivid picture of her development as a writer.
The yellowing letters and fading photographs tell a story of a woman who found a mentor in activist and writer Howard Zinn, doodled short stories in between her college class notes and was the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction writing.
Now, that catalogue is open to the public at Emory University in Atlanta, where Walker is placing her archive.
The exhibit opened Thursday with a two-day symposium featuring feminist Gloria Steinem and Zinn, among others, discussing the impact of Walker's writing. Her work has spotlighted the struggle of Southern blacks, particularly women, and she has travelled the globe speaking out for human rights.
Alice Walker
Car Wash Protest
Esai Morales
Actor Esai Morales is to lead a protest in Los Angeles on Saturday urging motorists to boycott four leading city car washes.
The former NYPD Blue star will join other Screen Actors Guild members as part of an ongoing protest against so-called deplorable working conditions.
The activists will gather outside the Vermont Hand Wash in the Los Feliz community.
The actor says, "It is truly unconscionable for anyone who supports a livable wage and safe working conditions to patronise a business like Vermont Hand Wash. Car wash employees should be able to support their families and receive a basic level of workplace respect."
Esai Morales
Dedicates Bench In Ohio
Toni Morrison
Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison says her campaign to commemorate African-American historical sites has brought her home.
Morrison was in Ohio on Thursday to dedicate a memorial bench in Oberlin, a stop on the Underground Railroad. The 78-year-old author grew up in Lorain, 11 miles away in the region west of Cleveland, and says her books such as "Beloved" grew out of the stories shared around her mother's kitchen table.
The bench is one of 10 planned across the country as part of Morrison's "A Bench by the Road Project" marking key locations in African-American history.
She said Oberlin is an ideal spot for a bench, because it was a town where slaves on the run found assistance from both blacks and whites.
Toni Morrison
Memorabilia Auction
Jean Cocteau
A collection of memorabilia of the French 20th century writer and artist Jean Cocteau, including letters to his partner, the actor Jean Marais, goes on sale in Paris on Monday.
Cocteau, who died in 1963, collaborated with artists ranging from the composers Igor Stravinsky and Eric Satie to Pablo Picasso and the ballet impresario Sergey Diaghilev, carving a distinctive place in French art and writing.
His works range from novels such as "Les Enfants Terribles" to portraits, advertising commissions, theatre sets and cinema. He gave Marais two of his best known film roles in "Beauty and the Beast" and in "Orphee."
Many of the lots, which came from Marais' Paris apartment and house on the Riviera, testify to the close relationship between the two men, including correspondence and a number of Cocteau's sketches and portraits of the actor.
Jean Cocteau
Released From Hospital
Leno
NBC and a spokesman for Jay Leno say the "Tonight" host is out of the hospital after an overnight stay. Leno had checked himself into the hospital Thursday after feeling sick. His publicist, Dick Guttman, said doctors found that Leno's illness wasn't "symptomatic of anything serious" and he was released Friday.
Guttman said he couldn't provide details of what ailed the 58-year-old comedian.
NBC said Leno was feeling much better and was "anxious to return to work Monday."
Leno
Civil Beating Case
Snoop Dogg
A man suing Snoop Dogg for millions told a jury Friday that the euphoria of being near one of his idols quickly turned to terror during a 2005 concert when he was savagely beaten.
Richard Monroe Jr. claims the rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, hit him with a brass-knuckle microphone after he jumped onstage and put his hand on the performer's shoulder.
Broadus sat a few feet away as Monroe described waking up naked, robbed, and in a pool of blood after the beatdown by other performers and the rapper's security detail. A videotape of the incident that occurred at the White River Amphitheater near Seattle was also shown to jurors Friday.
Broadus' attorneys said the video doesn't show the blow to the back of the head that Monroe claims the rapper delivered, nor evidence that the rapper should be forced to pay any damages.
Snoop Dogg
Joins CNN
Mary Matalin
Heavily botoxed Republican strategist Mary Matalin has signed a deal with CNN as a political contributor. She joins her husband, Democratic strategist James Carville, who also serves as a political contributor for the cable network.
The former "Crossfire" co-host will appear on various CNN programs, including "Anderson Cooper 360" and "The Situation Room With Wolf Leslie Blitzer."
Matalin also will appear twice monthly alongside Carville on "State of the Union." Their first joint appearance will be Sunday for a special "First 100 Days Edition" of the show.
Mary Matalin
Horny Bishop Spawned
Fernando Lugo
A third woman in two weeks has claimed that Paraguay's bishop-turned-president Fernando Lugo fathered her child, intensifying a political scandal that has made him the butt of lewd jokes and even a pop song.
Damiana Moran, a teacher aged 39, told local media that Lugo was the father of her 1-year-old son and she was negotiating child support with the president's lawyer.
Two days after going public, a second woman, Benigna Leguizamon, 27, filed a lawsuit Wednesday to get Lugo to take a DNA test to prove he is the father of her 6-year-old boy.
Earlier this month, Viviana Carrillo, 26, stunned Paraguayans when she revealed that Lugo, known as the "bishop of the poor" before he quit the church in late 2006 to run for president, was the father of her son, who is almost 2.
The president recognized Carrillo's boy as his son and even remarked that they looked alike, but he has not accepted or denied paternity in the two newer cases.
Fernando Lugo
Watercolors Sell At Auction
Hitler
What a British auction house claims are a set of paintings and sketches by a young Adolf Hitler sold at auction Thursday for 97,672 pounds ($143,358).
Among the 15 pictures is a portrait of solitary figure dressed in brown peering into wine-colored waters. The date is 1910, the signature reads "A. Hitler" and scribbled just over the mysterious figure are the letters: "A.H."
The portrait itself sold for about 10,000 pounds ($14,600). The buyer John Ratledge, 46, said he planned to hang it at home or in his office.
Historical documents expert Richard Westwood-Brookes said the paintings were sold to the current vendor, who is not identified, by a soldier serving with Britain's Royal Manchester Regiment in 1945, when it was stationed in the German city of Essen.
Hitler
'Secret' Lawsuit Unsealed
Sharon Stone
A civil lawsuit against Sharon Stone that had been held in secret turns out to be a routine dispute over legal fees that the judge says she sealed in error.
The case was unsealed Friday after media questioned why there were no official records. The dispute over $107,000 in fees was filed by an attorney in November and settled.
Court officials released the complaint and transcripts that detail how the case remained a secret. Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis, who issued a broad order sealing the entire case, filed a document Friday stating she'd done so in error.
Court transcripts show the order was brought to the attention of Duffy-Lewis on March 19, a full month before news organizations began repeatedly requesting its release.
Sharon Stone
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