Recommended Reading
from Bruce
MEGHAN DAUM: Do only twits tweet? (latimes.com)
Twitter is all the rage; is it inane, or is it edging toward insane?
"Dying Inside" by Robert Silverberg: A review by Michael Dirda
Most recently, he has been eking out a living by ghost-writing term papers for the Columbia students of the 1970s. He lives by his wits, just above the poverty line, and he is going bald. He is also losing his ability to read people's minds -- and with it his entire past life, his very sense of self.
Incredible Music Machine - University of Iowa
Great animation.
Incredible Music Machine Prank - University of Iowa (hoax-slayer.com)
It's a hoax--but great animation anyway.
Jordan Levin: "Finding her voice: Ximena Sariņana embarks on first U.S. tour" (McClatchy Newspapers)
The title of Mexican songwriter Ximena Sariņana's first album, "Mediocre," is exactly the thing she most fears. The name was a form of public-private therapy.
Walter Tunis: The Flatlanders keep rolling through 'Hills and Valleys' (McClatchy Newspapers)
You might not be able to see the world from the Lone Star metropolis of Lubbock. But according to Butch Hancock, you can stand on its streets and view a pretty sizable chunk of it.
Chris Riemenschneider: Slow and easy with indie-rock hero M. Ward (Star Tribune)
No wonder M. Ward keeps coming back and making the most of the South by Southwest Music Conference: The Portland, Ore.-based indie-rock star has found the perfect place to decompress from the festival's wild whir, which was especially wild for him this year.
Colin Covert: 'Soloist' star Robert Downey Jr. is a shape-shifting chameleon (Star Tribune)
In the past year, Robert Downey Jr. earned a reputation as one of Hollywood's most versatile stars, playing alcoholic, egocentric superhero Tony Stark in "Iron Man" and half-mad method actor Kirk Lazarus in "Tropic Thunder."
Roger Moore: Jamie Foxx goes for gold every time (The Orlando Sentinel)
Is there a figure in show business today with more breathtaking ambition than Jamie Foxx?
Lucy Mangan: 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', as you've never seen it before (guardian.co.uk)
Seven years in the making, by three boys with big dreams and no money, and coming soon to a cinema near you.
Interview by Laura Barnett: Frances Barber, actor (guardian.co.uk)
'You can't go on stage playing a murderess every night and not have it rub off on you.'
James Parker: Devilishly Good (slate.com)
What makes Tony Gilroy's movies so impossible to resist?
The Weekly Poll
The 'Fantasy Island' Edition
Time out! I'm callin' a 'time out' from reality this week... No politics. No Economics. No wing-nuts. No war... Let's engage in a little reverie, shall we? C'mon! It'll be fun!
Given that you had the time and wherewithal to go anywhere you'd wish for a dream vacation, where would go to and what would you do once there?
Send your response, and a (short) reason why, to
On the old TV series, The Flying Nun, Sister Bertrille (Sally Field) was a novice in what religious community?
On the old TV series Lost In Space the mission of the Jupiter 2, and the Robinson family, was to colonize where?
nailed it with:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and on the cool side.
Wedding News
Hayek - Pinault
Celebrities flocked to Venice on Saturday to attend the wedding of Hollywood actress Salma Hayek to French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault.
Rock star Bono and actresses Penelope Cruz and Charlize Theron were among the glitterati spotted at the La Fenice opera hall, as the couple repeated the vows they made in February.
Venice is where Mexican-born Hayek, 42, met Pinault, 46, who is chief executive of PPR, the luxury goods and retailing group controlled by his father Francois Pinault which notably includes the Gucci Group.
The couple -- who had a daughter, Valentina Paloma Pinault, in 2007 in Los Angeles -- married discretely in Paris on Saint Valentine's Day.
Hayek - Pinault
Oklahoma Flap
Flaming Lips
Oklahoma lawmakers who voted against making a Flaming Lips tune the official state rock song represent a minority of "small-minded religious wackos," the band's lead singer says.
Most state House members voted for a resolution recognizing 2002's "Do You Realize??," but conservatives who said they were offended by the band's clothing and language mustered enough votes to keep it from being adopted.
"Me, I just say look, it's a little minority of some small-minded religious wackos who think they can tell people what kind of T-shirts and what kind of music they can listen to, and the smart, rational, reasonable people of Oklahoma are never going to buy into that," frontman Wayne Coyne told Tulsa World in an interview Friday.
Gov. Brad Henry resolved the issue by announcing he would sign an executive order proclaiming "Do You Realize??" the official rock song of Oklahoma. The song earned more than half of the 21,000 votes cast in an online contest.
Flaming Lips
Forbes' Favorite Mother
Madonna
With earnings of $110 million in 2008, Madonna topped Forbes' list of Hollywood's hardest working mothers, followed by actresses Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Mother of three Julia Roberts, who returned to the big screen in a starring role in the film "Duplicity," captured the fourth spot on the list, while actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who has a son with husband Matthew Broderick, rounded out the top five.
Angelina Jolie, who has six children but still earned $14 million last year, came in sixth, followed by model and television presenter Heidi Klum, who is pregnant with her fourth child.
Madonna
Comedy Central Deal
Ron White
On the heels of his latest highly rated stand-up special on Comedy Central, Ron White has signed a deal with the network for his own show.
"The Ron White Show," which Comedy Central will present as a pilot, is a half-hour program designed to showcase the blue-collar comedian's opinionated persona.
White, a member of the Blue Collar Comedy quartet, will look at stories nationwide, focusing on the heartland.
Ron White
Problems In Prague
David Duke
A former US Ku Klux Klan chief arrested here on a speaking tour was freed during the night but will be forced to leave the country later Saturday, Czech police said.
David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Louisiana-founded Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, arrived in Prague on Friday at the invitation of a local far-right group, Narodni Odpor (National Resistance).
The 59-year-old US citizen had been due to give three lectures in Prague and Brno in the east of the country and present the Czech translation of his 1998 book "My Awakening."
His book contains passages denying the Holocaust, a crime punishable by up to three years in prison in the Czech republic, police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky said.
David Duke
Showdown Over DVD 'Ripper'
Hollywood
Hollywood calls it "rent, rip and return" and contends it's one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry's annual $20 billion DVD market - software that allows you to copy a film without paying for it.
On Friday, industry lawyers urged a federal judge to bar RealNetworks Inc. from selling software that allows consumers to copy their DVDs to computer hard drives, arguing that the Seattle-based company's product is an illegal pirating tool.
RealNetworks' lawyers countered later in the morning that its RealDVD product is equipped with piracy protections that limits a DVD owner to making a single copy and a legitimate way to back up copies of movies legally purchased.
The same federal judge who shut down the music-swapping site Napster in 2000 because of copyright violations is presiding over the three-day trial, which is expected to cut to the heart of the same technological upheaval roiling Hollywood that forever changed the face of the music business.
Hollywood
Wants Jewelry Returned
Rihanna
Rihanna is seeking the return of $1.4 million in jewelry she was wearing the night she was allegedly beaten by Chris Brown.
Donald Etra, an attorney for the "Umbrella" singer, filed a motion Tuesday asking that Los Angeles police and prosecutors return a pair of earrings and three rings, which were seized as evidence.
The motion states that Brown's attorney, and a Los Angeles Police Department detective overseeing the case, do not object to the return of the items. They have agreed that photographs can be used if the case goes to trial, the documents state.
The filing indicates the jewelry was loaned to the singer by four companies, which want the items back. The items are wanted for events overseas, the filing states.
Rihanna
Sex Harassment Claim
'Lost'
A woman who claims she was sexually harassed then fired from the TV show "Lost" is suing ABC and actor Henry Ian Cusick.
The lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles alleges that Cusick, who plays Desmond Hume on the show, fondled the woman's buttocks and breasts and kissed her on the lips in October 2007. The lawsuit claims she reported the incident to her supervisor, but was simply told to avoid the actor. She states she was fired 12 days later in retaliation for reporting the alleged abuse.
The filing says the woman had worked for ABC since 1997.
'Lost'
Hidden Population
Paralysis
Roughly one in 50 Americans has some degree of paralysis, and five times more people than doctors thought are living with a spinal-cord injury - nearly 1.3 million - says a startling study released Tuesday.
It's a largely hidden population that neither the government nor medical organizations had ever attempted to fully count, and the findings promise to help health authorities understand the scope of need.
The report found that overall, almost 5.6 million people have some degree of paralysis due to a variety of neurologic problems. Stroke and spinal-cord injury are the leading causes, but they also include multiple sclerosis, brain injuries, birth defects, surgical complications and a list of other ailments.
That's about 30 percent higher than previous estimates. But for spinal-cord injury alone, previous estimates were woeful - suggesting just a quarter million people were living with the trauma, a count that mostly included people like the late actor Christopher Reeve, who wound up at specialty treatment centers.
Paralysis
In Memory
Bea Arthur
Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in the hit shows "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" and who won a Tony Award for the musical "Mame," died Saturday. She was 86.
Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series "All in the Family" as Edith Bunker's loudly outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), and their blistering exchanges were so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series.
"Maude" scored with television viewers immediately on its CBS debut in September 1972, and Arthur won an Emmy Award for the role in 1977.
"Golden Girls" (1985-1992) was another groundbreaking comedy, finding surprising success in a television market increasingly skewed toward a younger, product-buying audience.
In 1992, Arthur announced she was leaving "Golden Girls." The three other stars returned in "The Golden Palace," but it lasted only one season.
Arthur was born Bernice Frankel in New York City in 1922. When she was 11, her family moved to Cambridge, Md., where her father opened a clothing store. At 12 she had grown to full height, and she dreamed of being a petite blond movie star like June Allyson. There was one advantage of being tall and deep-voiced: She was chosen for the male roles in school plays.
After a few years in off-Broadway and stock company plays and television dramas, Arthur's career gathered momentum with her role as Lucy Brown in the 1955 production of "The Threepenny Opera."
Arthur's biggest Broadway triumph came in 1966 as Vera Charles, Angela Lansbury's acerbic friend in the musical "Mame," directed by Gene Saks. Richard Watts of the New York Post called her performance "a portrait in acid of a savagely witty, cynical and serpent-tongued woman."
She won the Tony as best supporting actress and repeated the role in the unsuccessful film version that also was directed by Saks, starring Lucille Ball as Mame. Arthur would play a variation of Vera Charles in "Maude" and "The Golden Girls."
Between series, Arthur remained active in films and theater. Among the movies: "That Kind of Woman" (1959), "Lovers and Other Strangers" (1970), Mel Brooks' "The History of the World: Part I" (1981), "For Better or Worse" (1995).
In recent years, Arthur made guest appearances on shows including "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "Malcolm in the Middle." She was chairwoman of the Art Attack Foundation, a non-profit performing arts scholarship organization.
Arthur is survived by her sons, Matthew and Daniel. and two granddaughters. No funeral services are planned.
Bea Arthur
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