Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Susan Estrich: The Shirtless Congressman (Creators Syndicate)
His career in public service is over not because he did anything that makes him unfit to serve. It's over because of the way the media writ large (I mean all of us) turn private mistakes into public firestorms far more threatening than the mistakes themselves.
Jim Hightower: Congress Slumps Back to Tom DeLay Ethics
This new Republican-run House of Representatives is looking a lot like the old ethics-be-damned House run just a few years ago by the convicted money-launderer, Tom DeLay - only more so.
Eric Felton: Now College is the Break (Wall Street Journal)
College students have long had the reputation for being lazy and doing nothing to prepare themselves for the real world that comes after. But maybe they're not the ones to blame?
Dwight D. Eisenhower: Letter
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
Paula Span: "A Walk to Remember? Study Says Yes" (New York Times)
In healthy adults, the hippocampus - a part of the brain important to the formation of memories - begins to atrophy around 55 or 60. Now psychologists are suggesting that the hippocampus can be modestly expanded, and memory improved, by nothing more than regular walking.
John Henley: The bizarre world of animal sex (Guardian)
Chimpanzees, along with the birds and bees, are busy doing it - but not in the way you might have imagined, as a new exhibition at London's Natural History Museum proves.
Pubic hair removal: The naked truth (Guardian)
Young women are doing it, and now they're being aped by their mothers. Why are we imitating porn stars and shaving our pubic hair, asks Bidisha.
Stuart Jeffries: "Less is more: the age of minimalism" (Guardian)
Who needs books, DVDs or photos now that our lives are increasingly digitised? There are some things we can never let go.
Steven Zeitchik: 'Little Miss Sunshine' directors, producers and costar will reunite for a new film (Los Angeles Times)
Five years after it came out, "Little Miss Sunshine" remains the yardstick by which so many indie films are measured: a small movie made with first-time directors that blew up at Sundance, became a box-office sensation and an Oscar best picture nominee.
Crispin Glover: Back to the dissected snails (Guardian)
Crispin Glover made it big in 'Back to the Future.' Since then, he's had another life making weird films, writes Catherine Shoard.
Patrick Goldstein: Jeffrey Katzenberg's notorious memo: How does it hold up 20 years later? (Los Angeles Journal)
In late January 1991, fax machines were humming all across Hollywood, spreading the news that Jeffrey Katzenberg, then head of production at Disney, had written a scalding, often self-critical 28-page memo blasting the movie industry's "tidal wave of runaway costs and mindless competition."
Dana Stevens: Review of "Just Go With It" (Slate)
The only acceptable explanation for the existence of Just Go With It is that everyone involved in the creation of this movie-the director Dennis Dugan, the co-writers Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling, the entire misused and humiliated cast-hates romantic comedy and wants it to die.
David Bruce has 40 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $40 you can buy 10,000 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and way too warm for the season.
Southern California Icon
Ramona Ripston
Before a crowd of 800 in a Beverly Wilshire Hotel ballroom, a series of prominent figures from politics, entertainment and law are taking the podium to praise the career of Ramona Ripston, Los Angeles' tough-talking doyenne of civil liberties.
Ripston is about to retire after nearly 40 years as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, so she is subject to a little ribbing. One speaker tells how Ripston recovered from a stressful meeting by power-shopping through Saks Fifth Avenue. Another quips that this svelte 83-year-old grandmother "draws the line at freedom of the press" whenever newspapers print her age.
Once upon a time, Ripston was a frustrated New York housewife with do-good instincts. In California, she transformed herself into a formidable force as head of one of the ACLU's largest and, some would say, most liberal affiliates. She stood up to angry San Fernando Valley parents opposed to school integration, assailed the Los Angeles Police Department for brutality and hounded an abrasive police chief - Daryl Gates - until he resigned.
"Ramona Ripston," television producer Norman Lear declares, "may be my favorite lefty!"
On this occasion - the ACLU's annual Bill of Rights fundraising gala - Lear makes mention of the sad state of liberal America, which has been reeling from political assaults. "No one calls himself a liberal anymore. Everyone is a progressive," complains the man who created TV's archetypal knee-jerk conservative, Archie Bunker. With Democrats beleaguered by the "tea party" onslaught, the retirement of Ripston, who is as much an icon of liberal Los Angeles as Lear, carries special poignancy for many in the room.
Ramona Ripston
Attends Pistons Game
Aretha Franklin
The Queen of Soul came out to watch King James - and Dwyane Wade, too.
Aretha Franklin was on hand Friday night when LeBron James and the Miami Heat visited the Detroit Pistons. She sat in the second row next to the Rev. Jesse Jackson and said at halftime she hopes to resume her public schedule in May - probably at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
"Probably starting at Radio City, reschedule what I had to cancel," she said.
Neither Franklin nor her publicist have said what was ailing the 68-year-old singer, but she was in good spirits Friday.
Aretha Franklin
Directing Film
Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel, the tenth and last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, is offering European Film Market buyers a little piece of history.
The trailer for his directorial debut "Leaving," unspools here to buyers and sales agents alike for the first time Saturday ahead of a private reception to celebrate the film's completion.
For the Czech multi-hyphenate, who counts playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician on his "done that" list and whose uncle founded the famous Barrandov Studios near Prague, it's in the blood. And on his desk.
Based on his own play, first published in 2007 some 18 years after his first playwriting efforts and a political career in the intervening years, Havel's filmmaking efforts come as he approaches his 76th year.
Vaclav Havel
Cross-Eyed Opossum To Pick Oscar
Heidi
Heidi, Germany's beloved cross-eyed opossum, is taking a page from Paul the Octopus' playbook: the marsupial will attempt to pick this year's Oscar winners.
Leipzig Zoo Director Joerg Junghold told Germany's RTL television on Friday that Heidi will be appearing on the "Jimmy Kimmel Show" alongside the Oscars on Feb. 27.
He isn't revealing much about the show but says: "quite similar to Paul, it will be about tips." He says Heidi will be filmed in Germany over the next few days for the U.S. show.
Junghold says Heidi's appearance fee will be donated to an animal protection charity.
Heidi
Illnesses Reported
Playboy Mansion
Hugh Hefner's legendary Playboy Mansion is the focus of a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health investigation after reports that dozens of visitors contracted a mysterious respiratory illness after attending a fund-raiser there earlier this month.
The Feb. 3 event at the Westwood mansion was part of the annual DOMAINfest Global conference. This year's gathering was held the first week of February at the Fairmount Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.
The health department sent an e-mail Friday to all attendees warning them that they had received a cluster of reports that people had become ill after attending the conference and the Playboy Mansion event. The e-mail asked recipients to fill out a survey. The reports of illness complained of respiratory problems, including pneumonia.
Many of those who became ill said they suspect a fog machine that was used at the party.
Playboy Mansion
Climate Change Keenly Felt
Alaska
Thawing permafrost is triggering mudslides onto a key road traveled by busloads of sightseers. Tall bushes newly sprouted on the tundra are blocking panoramic views. And glaciers are receding from convenient viewing areas, while their rapid summer melt poses new flood risks.
These are just a few of the ways that a rapidly warming climate is reshaping Denali, Kenai Fjords and other national parks comprising the crown jewels of Alaska's heritage as America's last frontier.
These and some better-known impacts -- proliferation of invasive plants and fish, greater frequency and intensity of wildfires, and declines in wildlife populations that depend on sea ice and glaciers -- are outlined in a recent National Park Service report.
Since the mid-1970s, Alaska has warmed at three times the rate of the Lower 48 states, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And with nearly two-thirds of U.S. national parkland located in Alaska, the issue of climate change is especially pressing there, officials say.
Alaska
Expected To Pass $200 Million
"The King's Speech"
By Oscar week, "The King's Speech" will have jumped the $200 million mark at the worldwide box office, a dizzying performance for an independent historical drama.
In the U.S., the film has earned $86.4 million to date for the Weinstein Co., and should do well again this weekend and next, which is the President's Day holiday. The Academy Awards are February 27.
Overseas, "Speech" has earned $86.8 million to date, with several major territoriesGermany and Japan among themstill to open.
The film's worldwide total is $173.2 million.
"The King's Speech"
Quebec
Ice Hotel
A winter wonderland on the outskirts of Quebec City has become one of Canada's hottest attractions and most sought out accommodations.
Guests huddle for warmth in sleeping bags on beds of ice, bonnets pulled over their ears to prevent frostbite, while sipping cocktails in glasses also made of ice.
A cool place to host a memorable wedding or for a romantic getaway, the Quebec Ice Hotel has attracted 600,000 curious tourists, including 30,000 who stayed overnight, since opening seasonally 11 years ago.
Average temperatures fall below minus 20 degrees C (minus four F) in winter, but inside the hotel's 36 rooms it is relatively cozy.
Ice Hotel
Airlift Rescue
LA Chihuahuas
Blame it on Paris Hilton: the craze for owning small dogs as fashion accessories has led to an explosion in the number of chihuahuas in Los Angeles, where tiny canines are everywhere.
But now an animal-friendly philanthropist has come to their rescue, organizing an airlift of diminutive pooches abandoned by impatient owners in California -- jetting them off by private plane to Canada, of all places.
The phenomenon has increased after films like "Legally Blonde," and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" said organizer Madeline Bernstein of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles (spcaLA).
On Friday Bernstein and a group of other dog-lovers took action, strapping some 60 dogs in for a three-hour "Air Chihuahua" flight from Long Beach, California, to Edmonton, Canada.
LA Chihuahuas
Novel Valentine's Gift
Roaches
In what is described as the perfect Valentine's Day gift, New York's Bronx Zoo is offering the chance to name a Madagascar hissing cockroach after that special someone in your life.
"Flowers wilt. Chocolates melt. Roaches are forever," the zoo said on its website about the name a roach gift, which was also billed as a limited Valentine's Day offer.
More than 1,000 people chose the cockroach option for their Valentine in the first 24 hours of the offer this week, a zoo spokesman said.
The recipient of the present gets a certificate explaining that there is a special insect living at the zoo with his or her name on it.
Roaches
In Memory
Betty Garrett
Actress Betty Garrett, who starred in the musical film "On the Town" alongside Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, died on Friday evening at the age of 91.
Garrett's son Garrett Parks confirmed to KABC that the actress died at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, California with her family by her side.
Garrett was a sunny singer, dancer and comic actress who starred in the TV shows like "Laverne and Shirley" as Edna Babish and "All in the Family" as Irene Lorenzo. Her best known films were "On the Town," "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," "My Sister Eileen" and "Neptune's Daughter." Garrett often contributed to the soundtracks of her films as well.
Garrett's husband, actor Larry Parks was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the 1946 film, "The Jolson Story." Parks and Garrett were involved in the Communist scare in the 1950s and Parks made the Hollywood Blacklist.
Garrett received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May, 2003. The actress is Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges's godmother.
Garrett is survived by her sons, composer Garrett Parks and actor Andrew Parks.
Betty Garrett
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