Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Wall Street Whitewash (New York Times)
The financial crisis has provided a teachable moment, all right, but not the one first expected.
Henry Rollins: Why Are We Sacrificing Two Soldiers a Day in Afghanistan? (Vanity Fair)
A few days ago, I read that a suicide bombing in front of a NATO base in Zhari, Afghanistan-a district in Kandahar, in the southeast of the country-killed six NATO soldiers and two Afghan soldiers. I also read that more than 670 international soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year.
Henry Rollins: The Simple Solution to America's Unemployment Problem (Vanity Fair)
America is the best at everything, so then you would want Americans in your factories and other industries because they are absolutely the finest in the world. If you are an American company who has taken its business out of the country, you obviously don't share that sentiment. Why do you hate America?
Froma Harrop: So You Thought Health Care Was Fixed … (Creators Syndicate)
So you thought health care was fixed. Well, maybe not "fixed," but you assumed that the new law had put us on the path to solving one of America's most pressing problems - spiraling health care costs amid surging numbers of uninsured citizens.
No, no, no, no.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 28 October 1785 (University of Chicago)
In this letter, Jefferson describes a good deed he did and muses on excessive inequality in wealth.
Paul Krugman: The SPECTRE of Inequality (New York Times)
… there's a scene early in the movie when the minions of SPECTRE, the evil conspiracy, are shown reporting on their profits from dastardly activities. And the numbers are … ludicrously small. I know that's a running gag in Austin Powers, But it's true, it's true! Even the big one - demanding a ransom for two stolen nuclear warheads - is 100 million pounds, $280 million. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $2 billion - or one-eighth of the Goldman Sachs bonus pool.
Patrick Goldstein: Paging Osama Bin Laden: Michael Moore embraces the WikiLeaks controversy (:os Angeles Times)
Somehow I can't say I'm suprised to discover that Michael Moore has leaped into the WikiLeaks media furor.
Jim Hightower: AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, CONFUSISTAN
America's leaders can't seem to get a grip on "The Stans."
Marshall P. Duke: Pancake People, Rise Up! (Huffington Post)
When asked to write papers on a particular topic, a class of 20 students will provide slightly different variations on work based upon the exact same set of references and sources. This hints at a serious problem for the coming generations.
Why celebrity memoirs rule publishing (Guardian)
One celebrity memoir made John Harris cry - but the rest just bored him to tears. What would reading 11 of them in four days do to his brain?
Mary Ann Gwinn: "Q&A: Nancy Pearl on travel writing and books to go (The Seattle Times)
Q: What makes a great travel writer?
A: They are able to go with the flow. They don't mind that it's a bad hotel room or that they've missed their plane - they just take it all in. Michael Mewshaw had a great quote about travel: "The pleasure of being where I had never been before, doing what I had never done, bound for who knew what - I found it all thrilling. I always have."
David L. Ulin: A strong reminder why 'Doonesbury' matters (Los Angeles Times)
It's been years since I thought about - really thought about - "Doonesbury," Garry Trudeau's Russian novel of a comic strip, in which dozens of characters loop in and out of one another's orbits, sketching a portrait of their times. I was, for many years, a devoted reader, but somewhere in the 1990s my attention began to drift.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll(s)
New Question
The 'Holiday Season A/V Attractions and Distractions' Edition...
There's a bazillion (at least) movies, songs and commercials connected to the 'Holiday Season' that are streamed non-stop out over the ether this time of year celebrating all manner of things spiritual, secular and avaricious... Yes, I know that you are not shocked at that statement, so don't write and say that you are (haha)... Ahem... Moving right along... All righty then...
Share with us, if'n ya please, yer favorites as well as the ones that make ya want to get yer Scrooge on... I'll tell ya mine, if'n you tell me yours...
1.) Movies
2.) Music
3.) Commercials
Send your response to
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rain followed by more rain.
Suspends Twitter Page
Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann suspended his Twitter account on Thursday after receiving a barrage of angry tweets in the wake of an interview with Michael Moore two days earlier.
The MSNBC host of "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" was speaking to Moore about the filmmaker's decision to contribute $20,000 to bail out Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder accused of sex crimes.
Moore told Olbermann that Assange is a "pioneer of free speech" for posting thousands of secret Pentagon documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq onto the Internet.
Then Moore suggested that Assange's arrest was a government plot to smear him. "This whole thing stinks to the high heavens," Moore said.
The exchange between Moore and Olbermann caused a firestorm of angry tweets suggesting Olbermann and Moore were too flippant when discussing the accusations that Assange raped two women.
Keith Olbermann
Gift Exchange
Ferguson & Fallon
Late-night rivals Jimmy Fallon and Craig Ferguson are filled with the Christmas spirit. They even sent each other gifts.
At the end of the monologue on NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," the New York-based host showed viewers a photo of the present he had sent to Ferguson - a "beautiful, top-notch Christmas sweater" (in Fallon's words) accented with both his face and Ferguson's against a Christmas ornament.
"He's over at CBS in L.A. and I know how cold it gets at night there," Fallon explained.
What had Ferguson given in return? Under his desk, Fallon found a large gift box containing two kittens named Regis and Kelly.
Ferguson & Fallon
Tiny London Gig
Paul McCartney
Former Beatle Paul McCartney played his smallest gig in more than a decade Friday in a bid to save a landmark London club faced with closure because of a steep rent increase.
McCartney played a lunchtime show before about 300 fans at the 100 Club in central London, wooing the crowd with "Magical Mystery Tour," "All My Loving" and a host of other favorites.
It marked the first time McCartney had played the 100 Club, which once hosted the Rolling Stones, the Who, Metallica and others, including American jazz great Louis Armstrong.
"Who wants to save the 100 Club?," McCartney asked fans after he and his band walked on stage singing an a cappella version of "Hey Jude."
Paul McCartney
'Abbey Road' Suit To Auction
John Lennon
The white, two-piece suit John Lennon wore on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album will be among items auctioned in Connecticut less than a month after the 30th anniversary of the singer-songwriter's death.
The suit, the blazer Lennon wore in the "Imagine" music video and a 1972 Chrysler station wagon that once belonged to Lennon and Yoko Ono are among the memorabilia being auctioned by Braswell Galleries of Norwalk, Conn., on New Year's Day.
Auction house co-owner Gary Braswell tells The Hour newspaper that the suit's current owner decided to sell after experiencing some economic hardship. He did not disclose the seller's name.
Braswell said he did know how much the wool-blend suit would fetch, but noted that the suit and blazer together sold for $120,000 in 2005.
John Lennon
Indicted In Fatal Crash
Amy Locane
An actress who appeared on the original "Melrose Place" has been indicted in a fatal car crash in New Jersey.
The Courier News of Bridgewater reports that 39-year-old Amy Locane-Bovenizer of Hopewell is charged with aggravated manslaughter and assault by auto. The indictment was handed up Thursday in Somerset County.
Authorities say Locane-Bovenizer's Chevrolet Tahoe hit a Mercury Milan driven by Fred Seeman of Montgomery as he was turning into his driveway June 27. Seeman's wife, Helene, was killed.
Officers arrested Locane-Bovenizer after detecting alcohol on her breath.
Amy Locane
Drops Abuse Claims
Nicollette Sheridan
Remember those bombshell allegations of physical and emotional abuse on the set of "Desperate Housewives" that Nicollette Sheridan lobbed at ABC and the show's creator Marc Cherry in April?
Well, now the actress has agreed to drop the most explosive claims in her $20 million lawsuit against the network and Cherry.
In a joint stipulation filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Sheridan drops her claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress and agrees she won't assert any claim for emotional or physical damages.
In exchange, she won't have to submit to a mental or physical examination.
Nicollette Sheridan
Misses Court Hearing
Evi Quaid
It's another missed court date, another arrest warrant for Randy Quaid's wife, Evi.
The 47-year-old failed to appear for a probation hearing Thursday in Santa Barbara and faces a new $100,000 arrest warrant, Deputy District Attorney Anthony Davis said.
Randy and Evi Quaid are wanted in the coastal city for a felony vandalism case in which they're accused of causing more than $5,000 damage to the guest house of a home they once owned. Neither has shown up for any court hearings since a criminal case was filed in October and have already forfeited $1 million in bail.
They remain in Canada, where they are seeking asylum from a group they have dubbed the "Hollywood star-whackers."
Evi Quaid
Alleges Religious Discrimination
Astronomer
An astronomer argues that his Christian faith and his peers' belief that he is an evolution skeptic kept him from getting a prestigious job as the director of a new student observatory at the University of Kentucky.
Martin Gaskell quickly rose to the top of a list of applicants being considered by the university's search committee. One member said he was "breathtakingly above the other applicants."
Others openly worried his Christian faith could conflict with his duties as a scientist, calling him "something close to a creationist" and "potentially evangelical."
Even though Gaskell says he is not a creationist, he claims he was passed over for the job at UK's MacAdam Student Observatory three years ago because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of the theory of evolution.
Astronomer
Governor To Weigh Pardon
Billy the Kid
Billy the Kid, the Wild West outlaw who is reputed to have killed 21 men and whose exploits have been widely chronicled in U.S. popular culture, is under consideration for a pardon.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said on Thursday he was reviewing a pardon petition based on the widespread belief that New Mexico territorial Governor Lew Wallace promised the 19th century gunman a pardon in exchange for his testimony in a murder trial.
The two-term Democratic governor, who leaves office at the end of the month, asked historians and others to weigh in with their opinions on a website dedicated to the issue, www.governor.state.nm.us/btk.php.
Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett shot Billy the Kid to death at point-blank range in 1881. Newspapers had already turned the young outlaw, whose real name was Henry McCarty, into a larger-than-life figure by the time of his death in his early 20s. A book by Garrett transformed McCarty into a legendary figure of America's western frontier. He has since become the subject of many songs, films and books.
Billy the Kid
Book Pick Off To Slow Start
Oprah Winfrey
When she learned that Oprah Winfrey had a new book pick coming, Cathy Langer of the Tattered Cover store in Denver ordered hundreds of copies, as she always does, even though the actual choice is not officially revealed until Winfrey announces it on her show.
But so far, Langer has seen few takers for the bound paperback volume of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations."
Dickens remains among the most popular of "classic" authors and Winfrey has been the publishing industry's most dependable maker of hits. But her selection, which went on sale Dec. 6, has had an unusually slow start.
The paperback, released by Penguin with a heart-filled red, black and white cover and an announced printing of 750,000 copies, has not cracked the top 10 on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks around 75 percent of sales, the paperback sold just 21,000 copies its first week and ranked No. 43 among best-sellers for that time.
Oprah Winfrey
Antique Toy Collection Sold
Malcolm Forbes
A collection of rare and valuable toys amassed over almost 40 years by the late Malcolm Forbes and his sons sold for $2.3 million at auction in New York.
The Forbes collection of antique toys was estimated to bring in anywhere from $3 million to $5 million at Friday's sale at Sotheby's.
It included toy boats, soldiers, motorcycles and board games, including a handmade Monopoly game from 1933.
The highlight was a 3-foot-long replica of the Cunard Line's Lusitania ocean liner, complete with crew and passengers. It sold for $194,500 to an American collector, a record for a toy boat at auction. The price included the buyer's premium.
Malcolm Forbes
In Memory
Don Van Vliet
Musician and artist Don Van Vliet, who performed a complex brand of experimental rock under the name Captain Beefheart, died Friday. He was 69.
The Michael Werner Gallery in New York confirmed Van Vliet's death in California due to complications stemming from multiple sclerosis. The gallery exhibits his paintings.
Van Vliet was probably best known for the album "Trout Mask Replica," which was released in 1969 by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.
The album's angular, dissonant take on blues rock and Van Vliet's growling, surreal lyrics put him outside the mainstream, but staked his place in rock history.
Rolling Stone magazine recently ranked "Trout Mask Replica" number 58 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album was produced by fellow experimental rock pioneer Frank Zappa, a high school friend from the desert town of Lancaster, Calif.
"Record producers have always been certain that Don Vliet was just a hype away from the big money," according to a 1970 profile in Rolling Stone. "But Beefheart stubbornly continues what he's doing and waits patiently for everyone else to come around."
By shunning commercial success and a more accessible sound, Van Vliet became a role model for subsequent generations of musicians. His music is cited as an influence on the rise of punk, post-punk and new wave. Beefheart is also claimed as a kindred spirit by free jazz musicians and avant-garde classical composers.
In the 1980s, Van Vliet turned full-time to art. He painted in a raw, expressionistic style and showed his acclaimed work widely even as he withdrew from the public eye.
He is survived by his wife of more than 40 years.
Don Van Vliet
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