Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Intimidated Fed (New York Times)
I'd say that the Fed's policy is to do nothing about unemployment because Ron Paul is now the chairman of the House subcommittee on monetary policy. So much for the Fed's independence. And so much for the future of America's increasingly desperate jobless.?
Benjamin Wallace-Wells: What's Left of the Left (New York Magazine)
Paul Krugman's lonely crusade.
Froma Harrop: Is the New Walmart New Enough? (Creators Syndicate)
Walmart's famous aversion to sharing its vast revenues with the factory and retail hands who make them possible has not exactly turned the discounter into America's corporate sweetheart. True, the company has improved store worker compensation in recent years. Also true, it has done great environmental good, reducing the use of plastics and energy.
Jim Hightower: TEA PARTY REBELS QUICKLY TAMED
They came they saw, they conquered. This line pretty well sums up a little-reported but important story about the new tea partiers in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Robert Reich: The Wageless Recovery
In 2000, 30 percent of GE's business was overseas and 46 percent of its employees; now 60 percent of its business is outside the U.S., as are 54 percent of its employees. Over the past five years, Oracle added twice as many workers overseas as in the US; 63 percent of its employees now work abroad.
Patrick Kingsley: Eating for £1 a day (Guardian)
The Global Poverty Project (GPP) has challenged me to eat for £1 a day for a working week. Thirty-six hours in, I've realised that the food I bought at the weekend just isn't going to last until Friday. I've no more cash, so I'm foraging instead.
Ryan J. Reilly: Birth Certificate Revelation! Widow Discovers That Her Husband Delivered President Obama (Talking Points Memo)
Ivalee Sinclair, the doctor's widow, woke up this morning to discover that her late husband was the one who delivered the future leader of the free world. Talk about a nice surprise. TMZ interviewed her today and it's clear that this was quite a charming little surprise.
Amy S. Rosenberg: Sendak, picturing mortality (Philadelphia Inquirer)
He's "a little crotchety with the world," but savors memories of a mural now in Phila.
Elissa Bassist: Unsolicited Writing Advice You Want (The Rumpus)
If anyone has told you you shouldn't write or that no one would read your writing if he/she had a choice or that you're unloveable, please email me at elissa.bassist@gmail.com, and I will tell you that any person who craps on your dream is a tampon popsicle.
Roger Ebert's Journal: The Best Train Set a Boy Could Want
The 2011 edition of a movie critic's dream unreels again this week. In my own home town, I'll be able to show the films of my choice in a classic movie palace, flawlessly projected on a giant screen before a movie-loving audience. To paraphrase Orson Welles when he was given the run of RKO Radio Pictures to make his own movie, it's the biggest train set a boy could ever want.
Steven Zeitchik: Arnold returns to 'Terminator.' Is it a good idea? (Los Angeles Times)
The news Tuesday that Arnold Schwarzenegger will return to the "Terminator" franchise provides a colorful coda to several story lines.
Jazz Finds a Country Home (Wall Street Journal)
With new albums by Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis, Anna Wilson, and others, a spate of artists are aiming for common ground between the two venerable American music traditions.
David Bruce has 41 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $41 you can buy 10,250 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
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Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
RE: Superman
"Superman has started a stir with a bold declaration he intends to renounce his U.S. citizenship in a move aimed at giving him more global clout and authority." (yesterday's page)
Scene: Perry White's office of the Daily Planet.
Perry: Clark, I want you to find out what's behind this!
Clark Kent: I'll do my best sir.
Lois Lane: Perry, I have heard rumors that Donald Trump was going to ask for Superman's birth certificate.
Perry: Great Caesars Ghost! Can't that egomaniac Trump keep his tribble head out of what's good for the country?
Uncle Sky
Thanks, Uncle Sky!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny, still breezy. No complaints.
Pulls Sunday Night's Line Up
Fox
The much-hyped Animation Domination crossover event that was to see a hurricane sweep through Fox's "Family Guy," "American Dad" and "The Cleveland Show" on Sunday has been pulled from the schedule in the wake of this week's deadly storms in the South.
A Fox spokeswoman confirmed that the crossover event will instead air next spring and that the remainder of the season's episodes for the respective series will air as planned.
Reruns will air in place of the crossover event. The missing episodes, written about 18 months ago, are not expected to impact any of the animated series' story lines.
Fox
"Inside Job" Director To Shoot WikiLeaks Film
Charles Ferguson
Charles Ferguson, who won an Oscar this year for directing the financial-meltdown documentary "Inside Job," is attached to shoot an HBO Films movie about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The movie would mark Ferguson's first non-documentary project. His other credits include the Oscar-nominated "No End in Sight," about the American occupation of Iraq.
Assange was put in the U.S. government's crosshairs in November when his group published secret diplomatic cables. Not long afterward, he was accused of rape and sexual assault and is now on bail in England facing extradition to Sweden for questioning.
Two feature films about Assange also are in the works, at DreamWorks and Universal.
Charles Ferguson
Jumps To CNN
Erin Burnett
CNBC business anchor Erin Burnett is joining CNN Worldwide as its chief business and economics correspondent, CNN said on Friday.
Burnett, who hosts the CNBC programs "Squawk on the Street" and "Street Signs," will start work at CNN in June anchoring a weekday general news program.
She will also contribute to CNN's coverage of national and international breaking news and to CNN.com.
Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide, said Burnett's perspective "will add meaningfully to CNN's coverage of the top national and international news stories we cover each day."
Erin Burnett
Neads Drama Desk nominations
'Book of Mormon'
The profane musical "The Book of Mormon" and the zany revival of "Anything Goes" received the most nominations Friday from the Drama Desk, which honors both Broadway and off-Broadway productions.
"The Book of Mormon," by the creators of "South Park and "Avenue Q," nabbed 12 nominations, including ones for best musical, lyrics, music, direction and choreography. Acting nominations from the show went to Andrew Rannells, Rory O'Malley and Nikki M. James.
"The Book of Mormon" has been a critical and box-office darling. It has also received six Outer Critics Circle Award nominations and a Fred & Adele Astaire Award nomination, which recognizes excellence in dance.
The musical, about two Mormon missionaries who find more than they bargained for in Africa, was written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of "South Park," and Robert Lopez, co-creator of the Tony Award-winning musical "Avenue Q." All three were nominated for the show's music, book and lyrics. Casey Nicholaw, who co-directed with Parker and choreographed, also was nominated.
'Book of Mormon'
Tattoo Artist Sues To Block "Hangover"
Mike Tyson
The man who gave Mike Tyson his distinctive facial tattoo has sued Warner Bros. over the similar-looking facial art on Ed Helms' character in the upcoming comedy "The Hangover: Part II."
S. Victor Whitmill, an award-winning tattoo artist who calls the Tyson design "one of the most distinctive tattoos in the nation," is asking for an injunction to stop the release of the highly-anticipated comedy sequel, set to bow in the United States over Memorial Day weekend at the end of May.
"When Mr. Whitmill created the Original Tattoo, Mr Tyson agreed that Mr. Whitmill would own the artwork and thus, the copyright in the Original Tattoo," argues the complaint, filed Thursday in federal court in Missouri.
It's an interesting lawsuit. Copyrighted works are copyrighted works, no matter whether they are painted on canvases or walls or the bodies of former heavyweight champions. Whitmill attaches to the lawsuit his copyright registration for the "Original Tattoo," as well as Tyson's signed release granting rights in the work. (He also includes some photos of himself with the boxer while applying the tattoo in 2003 in Las Vegas.)
Mike Tyson
Burglar Convicted
Paris Hilton
A jury took less than hour on Friday to convict a man of attempting to burglarize Paris Hilton's home last year while the heiress was inside.
Nathan Lee Parada, 31, was convicted of first-degree attempted residential burglary and faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced on June 29, said district attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison.
Hilton testified this week about her and her boyfriend being awoken early on Aug. 24 after Parada banged on one of her home's windows with the butt of a knife.
Her boyfriend, Cy Waits, detained Parada at gunpoint until police arrived. While being interviewed by detectives, Parada said he wanted to steal as much as he could from the house and planned to move to a deserted island after the burglary, according to testimony in the case.
Paris Hilton
Daughter Sues Tailors For Cape
James Brown
The Ohio makers of James Brown's signature capes are being sued over one the Godfather of Soul never got to wear.
Brown's daughter faces his longtime tailors in a Cleveland area small claims court on Friday. Deanna Brown Thomas tells The Plain Dealer newspaper of Cleveland she sued Curtis and Marilyn Gibson as a last resort, after asking them repeatedly to turn over a silver cape made for her father before he died in late 2006.
Thomas says she wants her father's costumes for a museum and that she paid the Gibsons $7,000 for what they had.
Curtis Gibson maintains that Thomas never contacted him about the cape and says he was stunned that she decided to sue him. He said he planned to bring the cape to court.
James Brown
Cooperated With Book Insists Publisher
Harper Lee
The publisher of a book about Harper Lee is insisting that the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" cooperated with the project.
Earlier this week, Penguin Press announced it had acquired "The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee," a memoir by former Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills. The publisher said the book was written with "direct access" to Lee, who has rarely talked to the press over the past half century. "To Kill a Mockingbird," released in 1960, was her only novel.
Lee, who turned 85 on Thursday, then issued a statement through the law firm Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter in Monroeville, Ala., where she is based. The statement said she had not "authorized such a book" or "willingly participated."
But on Friday, Penguin released a letter from Mills to the author's sister, Alice Lee, dated March 20, 2011.
The Monroeville law firm, reached on the phone Friday by The Associated Press, said it would have no further comment. Adding to the confusion: The Lee in Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter is Alice Lee.
Harper Lee
Bookstore Stocks Only One Book
"Martian Summer"
Visitors to a New York City bookstore can browse its "New and Noteworthy" or "Science" sections or even "Staff Favorites" but all they will find is thousands of copies of a single book.
"Please let us know if we can help you find something," Andrew Kessler told customers on Friday amid shelves and tables piled with copy after copy of a hardcover called "Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission."
It's author, Kessler, 32, said that in the last few weeks he has sold nearly 500 copies of the only book he stocks.
"It's so hard to get people to notice if you're a first-time author," said Kessler, who is otherwise the creative director at an advertising agency.
"The crazy thing is we're actually pretty close to breaking even," he added, sounding surprised.
"Martian Summer"
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