Recommended Reading
from Bruce
DICK CAVETT: "I'm Not Weeping; It's an Allergy"
A discourse on weeping, prompted by Tuesday's inauguration.
Google & the Future of Books (nybooks.com)
Google has been digitizing millions of books from major research libraries. What does this mean for the future of the book? Robert Darnton wonders...
Nick Mamatas: Poe at 200 (thesmartset.com)
There are lessons on the horror writer in every American school. And they are crap.
Bettina Boxall: West's trees dying faster as temperatures rise (latimes.com)
A study of old-growth forests predicts that if the trend continues, it could alter not just the region's woodlands, but the quality of wildlife habitat and forests' ability to store carbon.
Patty Stonesifer and Sandy Stonesifer: Sister, Can You Spare a Dime? (slate.com)
I don't give to my neighborhood panhandlers. Should I?
JOEL STEIN: Uncle Sam, and Ashton Kutcher, want you (latimes.com)
Smile, laugh, love ... somebody's got to do it.
CHRIS ERSKINE: These fans enjoy a brush with greatness (latimes.com)
Fan of the house: You gotta support the team.
Dave Tianen: 50 years later, Buddy Holly remains frozen in time (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
The most storied of all rock tours began Jan. 23, 1959, at Milwaukee's Eagles Club and ended in a frozen Iowa cornfield 11 days later.
Amazing Grace: on tour with Ms Jones (timesonline.co.uk)
The rigours of the road do nothing to cool the unexpected warmth and niceness of Grace Jones, says Sophie Heawood.
Patricia Zohn: Off the C(H)uff: Wendy Whelan: Sexy, Modern, Muse of the Dance (huffingtonpost.com)
What's it like to be a muse to famous artists? What is it like to inspire creativity, to have people study your body, the way you move, the tilt of your head?
Roger Ebert: Benjamin buttons it up, as Joker beats Dark Knight's bad day
In a startling upset, "The Dark Knight" failed to make the cut in the Best Picture category Thursday, as this year's Academy Awards nominees were announced. The Batman drama, second top-grossing film of all time after "Titanic," was also a critical favorite and looked to many like a shoo-in.
Richard Roeper: Academy makes bold picks, a few disappointments
The Boss, the Dark Knight and Clint got robbed -- as did the actress [Kristin Scott-Thomas ] who delivered one of the best performances of the decade.
Colin Covert: Oscars ignore 'The Dark Knight,' except for Ledger nomination (Star Tribune)
It was a dark day for "The Dark Knight" as the 81st annual Oscar nominations, announced Thursday, snubbed the most popular film since "Titanic."
CHRISTY LEMIRE: Oscar Snubs In Depth (huffingtonpost.com)
It's been a crowded awards season, full of lavish spectacles and gripping indies. So naturally there were some surprises and snubs among Thursday's Academy Award nominations. Among them: ...
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'All Things To All People' Edition...
Barack Obama is inheriting a myriad of complex problems. Some affect us all. Some are more important than others to particular interest groups and individuals. While I would like to see him become the greatest president ever, he is human and therefore not omnipotent. That said, the question is...
Is there a particular problem that you think President Obama may not be able to solve to the nation's and/or your satisfaction?
BadToTheBoneBob ( BCEpoll 'at' aol.com )
Reader Recommendation
Link
Some entertaining and thought-provoking graphic art.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly gray day with scattered showers.
Fans Invited To Remix Video
Hoobastank
Alternative rock band Hoobastank is using its single "My Turn" to give fans their turn at being music video directors.
In addition to the regular broadcast clip for the song -- the lead track from Hoobastank's fourth Island album, "For(N)ever," due January 27 -- the band and director P.R. Brown (Goo Goo Dolls, Slipknot) have created an interactive version of the video that allows viewers to mix and match a variety of personalities to perform the song.
Many are the four members of the band themselves, performing in a series of costumes. Others include bikini-clad models, senior citizens, frontman Doug Robb's mother and father-in-law, and members of the production crew.
The video, housed at myturn.hoobastank.com and linked from the band's official Web site and MySpace page, also lets users personalize the clip by uploading their own backgrounds.
Hoobastank
Hits The Road
Atheist Bus Campaign
An atheist drive to persuade people that God doesn't exist is catching on in a surprising fashion -- on the sides of buses in a growing number of countries around the world.
With the concise message "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life," the campaign took to the road in Britain this month, while similar drives are underway or planned in Spain, Italy, Canada and Australia.
The British campaign was originally floated by comedy writer Ariane Sherine in a newspaper column in June, and is hoping to reach the majority of the country's population in some fashion or another over the next three weeks.
Soon after it was published, Worth contacted her asking if he could set up a pledgebank based on her idea, and shortly thereafter, the Atheist Bus Campaign began taking donations, initially hoping to raise 5,500 pounds (6,200 euros, 8,200 dollars).
Atheist Bus Campaign
Creeping Toward The Light
Texas
The State Board of Education moved a step closer to dropping a 20-year-old science curriculum requirement that critics say is used to undermine the theory of evolution.
After two days of heated debate, the board made a key vote Friday in favor of dropping a mandate that teachers address both "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theory.
A panel of science teachers had recommended that the language be dropped, suggesting instead that students be required to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations.
The new standards the board ultimately approves - a final vote on the curriculum proposal is not expected until March - will be in place for the next decade. They also will dictate how publishers handle the topic of evolution in textbooks.
Texas
iPod Rescue
James Taylor
James Taylor said he will give a California woman a brand new music player loaded with his songs to replace the one she said she had to give up to a taxi driver when her credit card was declined after a trip to the airport last month.
Natalie Lenhart, 20, said officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport made her give the $140 iPod nano to the driver as payment for the $49 ride from Manhattan on Dec. 8. The driver said he'd return her iPod for the fare.
Lenhart's red iPod was loaded with oldies, including songs by the folk singer. Taylor has written classics such as "You've Got a Friend" and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)." Taylor said he might upgrade Lenhart's device to an iPhone.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency responsible for police at the airport, said it is investigating.
James Taylor
Poetic Justice
Gregory Royal
A Wisconsin appellate court ruled in favor of a trombone player who filed his legal brief partially written in the form of a rap to argue he shouldn't have to pay $3,750 in fees.
Gregory Royal, 47, is not an attorney but represented himself in a dispute with La Crosse County officials stemming from his divorce. He filed a federal lawsuit against county officials who recommended their two children spend most of their time with his ex-wife, but the case was thrown out because the federal courts do not intervene in such domestic disputes.
A county lawyer then asked a circuit court judge to order Royal to pay fees for bringing the case, which the judge later found frivolous.
Among several lines of lyrics in the six-page brief, Royal wrote: "A domestic relations exception, I was supposed to know. Appellee would know too, so why did he spend so much doe?"
The District 4 Court of Appeals ruled Jan. 13 that the judge did not have the authority to order Royal to pay fees, thereby allowing Royal to now seek costs from the lawyer who brought the lawsuit.
Gregory Royal
Madoff Investor
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor has lost at least $7 million as a result of investments with accused financial swindler Bernard Madoff, her lawyer said on Saturday.
The losses could be as much as $10 million, lawyer Chris Fields said.
He added that Gabor, who is listed in entertainment reference sites as being 91, was not taking the damage to her nest egg well, having only discovered it in recent weeks.
Gabor, now married to Prince Frederic von Anhalt, starred in such films as "Moulin Rouge," "Lili" and "Touch of Evil," and was one of three glamorous sisters who stole the Hollywood limelight in the 1950s and 1960s.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
More Accusations
Ted Haggard
Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard's former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard - a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.
Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.
Boyd said an "overwhelming pool of evidence" pointed to an "inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship" that "went on for a long period of time ... it wasn't a one-time act." Boyd said the man was in his early 20s at the time. He said he was certain the man was of legal age when it began.
Boyd said a Colorado Springs TV station reached him Thursday to say the young man was planning to provide a detailed report of his relationship with Haggard to the station. Boyd said the church preferred to keep the matter private, but it was the man's decision to go public.
Ted Haggard
eBay Special
'Lipstick Jungle'
A stage manager has been charged with stealing $30,000 of designer bags and clothing from the television show "Lipstick Jungle" and trying to sell them on eBay.
Arthur Moreira, 27, was arrested Friday after investigators posing as buyers found missing items at his apartment. The haul included 16 coats, bags and suits by Prada, Gucci, Fendi and Dolce & Gabbana.
Prosecutors said Moreira offered to sell the bag and a Burberry coat for less than retail value by explaining that "they fell off the back of a truck."
Moreira worked for a Brooklyn storage and production facility used by the NBC show, which stars Brooke Shields, Lindsay Price and Kim Raver.
'Lipstick Jungle'
Build A Better Fence?
Tasmanian Devils
The Tasmanian devil, a ferocious, snarling fox-sized marsupial, is in danger of going extinct because of a contagious facial cancer. In the meantime, its biggest rival - the European fox - is thriving, and may become so dominant that the devil never comes back.
Scientists now want to build a double fence standing more than three feet tall to stop the cancer's relentless spread toward the rugged northwest of the island, home to disease-free devils and World Heritage-listed rain forest. Devils spread the cancer when they bite each other during mating or squabble over food.
But for any chance of success, the fences would have to be completed within two years, said Hamish McCallum, the senior scientist in the devil rescue program. He predicts the devil will go extinct in the wild within 20 years.
Scientists had hoped to find a genetic solution to the disease through Cedric, a young devil who showed signs of natural immunity in laboratory tests. But last month Cedric contracted a second, mutated strain of the cancer.
Tasmanian Devils
Overturns Bollywood Smoking Ban
Delhi High Court
The Delhi High Court on Friday overturned an Indian federal ban on performers smoking in films, saying it restricted creative freedom of expression, PTI news agency reported.
"A cinematographic film must reflect the realities of life. Smoking is a reality of life. It may be undesirable but it exists," PTI quoted Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who passed the judgment, as saying.
"Directors of films should not have multifarious authorities breathing down their necks...," Kaul said.
India banned smoking scenes in movies and on television in 2005, saying they glamorized the use of cigarettes, but the move angered stars and filmmakers in the country's prolific Bollywood movie industry.
Delhi High Court
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