Recommended Reading
from Bruce
RICHARD ROEPER: Plan to stock up on Whoppers goes up in flames (suntimes.com)
Burger King Facebook offering is 1 per customer, not 320.
"Beat the Reaper" by Josh Bazell: A review by Ron Charles
Of course, this is the doctor hero we've adored for years: the cynical iconoclast with a heart of gold who breaks all the rules but saves the patients no one else can. Bazell has sutured together Alan Alda's Capt. Hawkeye and James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano, and so long as he keeps everything operating fast enough, it's too much fun and too much gore to take your eyes off the page. Beware the risk of dependency: This is the first of a planned series, and movie versions aren't far behind.
Mara Rose Williams: Future of school textbooks written in cyberspace (McClatchy Newspapers)
Northwest Missouri State University students started spring semester classes Monday, but many aren't lugging thick textbooks around campus. Instead, most students are carrying a lightweight electronic device that can fit in a coat pocket and hold the textbook material for all their classes. Some students will download their text information onto their laptops.
Malcolm X Abram: Rock hall's 2009 class is pretty solid - with one glaring omission (Akron Beacon Journal)
Year after year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame adds new names to its illustrious membership. And year after year, folks who still care find a reason to complain about said new names.
We lost a driving force with Buddy (timesonline.co.uk)
Fifty years ago, Holly - who played a part in the 1960s music boom - died in a plane crash. John Gribben pays tribute.
Roger Ebert: NOTORIOUS (R; 3 1/2 stars)
He was known as the Notorious B.I.G., a man-mountain of rap, but behind the image was Christopher Wallace, an overgrown kid who was trying to grow up and do the right thing. The image we know about. The film "Notorious" is more interested in the kid. He was born in Brooklyn, loved his mother (a teacher who was studying for a master's degree), got into street-corner drug dealing because he liked the money, performed rap on the street and at 20 was signed by record producer Sean Combs. Four years later, he was dead.
Roger Ebert: I feel good! I knew that I would!
I've been saying for years that I never cry during sad moments in the movies, only during moments about goodness. At the end of "Terms of Endearment," I didn't cry because of Debra Winger's death, but because of how she said goodbye to her sons. Now I've have discovered a scientific explanation for why I feel the way that I do, and there is even a name for my specific emotion.
Robert W. Butler: Emma Thompson, starring in a new romantic comedy, is truly down to earth (McClatchy Newspapers)
Emma Thompson was snorting with laughter. At something I said. Very satisfying.
LAUREN HUTTON: Lindsay LOHAN (interviewmagazine.com)
She's got the bones of a flamingo and the spirit of a gladiator. And I agreed to do this interview because I was curious how young celebs in the 21st century (the last gasp of the patriarchies) are replaying the roles of gods and goddesses of classical times, as figures to both live through and learn from.
Richard Roeper: Which hunk of gold-tinted metal matters? (suntimes.com)
For years now, we've been hearing that the Golden Globes are to the Oscars what the NIT is to the NCAA tournament.
Joseph V. Amodio: Fast chat with 'Che' star Benicio Del Toro (Newsday)
You've seen the T-shirts. Everywhere. With that face - the beard, beret, eyes burning with revolution. Yet, few people know much about the man behind the tee.
Kevin Maher: Knockout for an unlikely tag team (timesonline.co.uk)
Darren Aronofsky used everything in the director's handbook to help Mickey Rourke to a Golden Globe for "The Wrestler."
Ripoff Report: By Consumers, for Consumers
The Weekly Poll
New question Tuesday.
BadToTheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
responded:
Reader Suggestion
Lunchtime Follies
Hi Marty,
This is what the local Fox News anchor does for fun in Tampa Bay.
Local Fox News Anchor in Scuffle
Colby
in Frostproof, FL
Thanks, Colby!
That's quite a shiner Mr. Rhodes is sporting.
Reader Comment
RE: Andrew Wyeth
Marty
I was saddened by the death of Andrew Wyeth on Fri. I was a great admirer of his, as well as his father, N.C. Wyeth, and his son Jamie Wyeth. Andy Wyeth was an artist that lived and painted for a while on Monhegan Island, Maine, where my grandparents had a summer cottage. I spent many a summer there with them. This was an era when Rockwell Kent, AJ Bogdanove, and Andy Winter also lived and painted on Monhegan. Because of Andy Wyeth's connection to Monhegan, I followed his art career and enjoyed his paintings. "Christina's World" is one of my favorites, as are the work he did with the Helga paintings. Andy Wyeth will be missed, but his work lives on.
Jamie Wyeth also lived and built a house on Monhegan. And I have followed his work also. In March 1987, Wyeth visited the Soviet Union, to attend the opening of An American Vision: Three Generations of Wyeth Art, a major exhibition of 117 works by him, his father and grandfather.
At a press conference in Leningrad, Wyeth said, "Painting, music, dance, and literature are not themselves the tools of politics - and should not be - but they do set yardsticks of aspiration, standards of excellence, and emblems of humanity. It is my fervent hope that the work of my family, that this exhibition in some small way will contribute to a world of better understanding and peace."
Quote from: www.jamiewyeth.com/biography.html
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny with a nice breeze.
Chavez Fan
Oliver Stone
U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone said he sees Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as an energetic, principled champion of change in Latin American and hopes to capture the spirit of his drive to roll back U.S. influence in an upcoming documentary.
After two weeks of filming in Venezuela and elsewhere in South America, Stone said Thursday night that he probably has enough material "for two documentaries."
"The film's about the spirit of the changes in South America," Stone told The Associated Press in an interview. "It's to capture the spirit of this thing, which frankly is huge. ... There is something going on here, and it's outside the IMF, it's outside American control - that's what interests me."
Stone also interviewed Chavez's left-leaning allies in Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia - all of whom have participated, he said, in the region's "liberation from the United States."
Oliver Stone
Banned In Genoa
Bus Ads
Italian atheists have lost a bid to run "no God" advertisements on city buses after strong opposition from conservative political parties, a member of the group said on Saturday.
The ads reading "The bad news is that God doesn't exist. The good news is that you don't need him" were to have been put on buses in the northern city of Genoa, home to the Catholic cardinal who is head of the Italian Bishops Conference.
The mock-up was ready and the contract was sent to the group for signing but the publicity agency changed its mind and said the ad could not run it because it violated an ethics in advertising code, according to Giorgio Villella of The Italian Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics (UAAR).
"It's strange that in a country where ads depicting near-naked women wearing skimpy lingerie is permitted on buses that we can't run ads about atheism," Villella said.
Bus Ads
Reuniting For 40th Anniversary
Mott The Hoople
Glam rockers Mott The Hoople are to reunite to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary.
The All the Young Dudes hitmakers will perform two shows in London in October (09) to mark their 40th year.
The concerts will mark the first time the original line-up, consisting of Ian Hunter, Mick Ralphs, Verden Allen, Dale Griffin and Overend Watts, has performed together in 35 years.
Hunter says, "I can't speak for the others, but I'm doing it just to see what it's like."
Mott The Hoople
U.S. Company Has Plans For Catalog
Ingmar Bergman
Rights to the complete works of Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman, at least in the United States, now rest with the former owners of a Colorado movie theater after an eight-year legal battle with a Scandinavian media group.
To satisfy an unpaid multimillion-dollar court judgment against Svensk Filmindustri, a Colorado judge last year ordered rights to its entire movie catalog transferred to operators of the landmark Isis Theater in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado.
The process of assigning and recording rights to Bergman's films and dozens of others with the U.S. Copyright Office was completed in late December, Isis representatives said on Friday.
Transferred so far are roughly 450 movie and television titles, including Bergman's complete film collection, among them "Cries and Whispers," "Fanny and Alexander," "Hour of the Wolf," "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries."
Ingmar Bergman
Cutting 1500 Jobs
Clear Channel
Clear Channel Communications Inc, which operates radio stations and outdoor advertising space, plans to lay off about 7 percent of its U.S. staff, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The newspaper, citing a person familiar with the situation, said the move will affect about 1,500 employees -- mostly in ad sales -- of the 20,000 work force in the United States.
The report said Clear Channel, the largest U.S. company, by revenue, in both radio and outdoor advertising, was also implementing other cuts aimed at saving close to $400 million.
For example, the company plans to replace more local shows with syndicated content, the newspaper said.
Clear Channel
Nude Photo To Auction
Madonna
A nude photo of Madonna, taken before erotic songs and risque costumes catapulted her to superstardom, is expected to sell for at least $10,000, Christie's auction house says.
Madonna, then known as Madonna Louise Ciccone, may have earned as little as $25 for the 1979 modelling session.
The raw, full frontal black-and-white image, taken by Lee Friedlander, appeared in Playboy in 1985 and is to be auctioned Feb. 12. Madonna was a 20-year-old dancer trying to make ends meet when she answered Friedlander's newspaper ad seeking a nude model, said Matthieu Humery, head of Christie's photography department.
Humery said this week that six photos from the shoot were sold to Playboy and the one up for auction is "maybe the most explicit one."
Madonna
Speaks Nonstop For 124 Hours
Lluis Colet
Frenchman Lluis Colet broke the world record for the longest speech after rambling nonstop for 124 hours about Spanish painter Salvador Dali, Catalan culture and other topics.
The 62-year-old Catalan and local government worker spoke for five straight days and four nights to set the record in the southern French town of Perpignan.
Three notaries were on hand to recognise the feat which allows Colet to enter it in the Guinness Book of Records.
The previous record was held by an Indian man who delivered a 120-hour speech.
Lluis Colet
Fear Imported Hives
Beekeepers
Beekeepers who are battling a mysterious ailment that led to the disappearance of millions of honeybees now fear the sting of imported Australian bees that they worry could outcompete their hives and might carry a deadly parasite unseen in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed shipments of Australian bees to resume despite concerns by some of its own scientists.
Australia had been airfreighting the insects across the Pacific for four years to replace hives devastated by the perplexing colony collapse disorder. But six weeks ago the Australian government abruptly stopped the shipments, saying it could no longer be certain the country was free of a smaller, aggressive bee that has infested areas near the Great Barrier Reef, U.S. officials said.
Early this month, the USDA decided to permit the bee shipments to resume with some precautions, and the first planeloads arrived in San Francisco last Monday.
Beekeepers
What Global Warming?
Warmest Years
Last year was the eighth warmest year on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The world's temperature in 2008 tied that of 2001 according to the center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Preliminary calculations show the world's average temperature for 2008 was 0.88 degree Fahrenheit above the 20th Century average of 57.0 degrees F.
The ranking means that all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997.
The climate center noted that since 1880, the annual combined global land and ocean surface temperature has increased at a rate of 0.09 degree F (0.05 degree C) per decade and the rate has increased over the past 30 years.
Warmest Years
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