Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Susan Estrich: It's Greek to Me (creators.com)
It really is. Take a look at the front page of Drudge today, or any of the news broadcasts, and it's enough to break the heart of all of us who love almost all things Greek.
James Moore: "The Sound of Summer: A Farewell to Ernie Harwell" (huffingtonpost.com)
If America had a voice, it would sound like Ernie Harwell. He understood that there was an almost sacred connection between fans and their teams and he always gave us reason to believe in happy outcomes.
Andrew Tobias: $87,000 In Taxpayer Funds For THIS Expert? (andrewtobias.com)
... one of "America's most prominent anti-gay crusaders," George Rekers, a founder of the Family Research Council, ... as you've doubtless read or seen elsewhere by now, hired a male prostitute to accompany him on a ten-day trip to Europe.
Gareth Thomas on being gay in sport and switching to rugby league (guardian.co.uk)
The former Wales captain tells Donald McRae about his new life as a divorced, gay rugby player who recently switched sporting codes.
'Gay Dog' Refused Entry To Australian Restaurant (huffingtonpost.com)
An Australian restaurant has been forced to apologize and pay compensation after refusing to let a blind man enter because they thought his dog was gay.
Jon Mooallem: Long-Lost Wallets (slate.com)
They turn up more often than you think.
Barry Hammond: Walk Of The Living Dead (seemagazine.com)
From film to the streets, Zombie culture is spreading like a plague.
William Saletan: Bubble Think (slate.com)
How to escape a partisan echo chamber.
CHRIS FARAONE: Is genius immortal? (thephoenix.com)
Tech god Ray Kurzweil is a modern-day Edison. Now he's battling to stay alive - forever.
Kathy M. Kristof: How close are you to the financial edge? Take this quiz (latimes.com)
Americans are falling deeper into debt, and they are increasingly waiting too long to seek help, a credit counseling expert says. Find out where you stand financially by answering these 10 questions.
The Stunts: Angelina Jolie in 'Salt' (latimes.com)
Angelina Jolie and stunt coordinator Simon Crane share a shorthand developed over six movies in which the petite, 34-year-old actress has spent almost as much time harnessed to cables as she has sitting in the makeup chair.
Susan King: "Barbie wouldn't have been safe with young Michael Keaton: 'She would have been part of a ceremony'" (latimes.com)
In the world according to Barbie, the Mattel doll met and fell in love with Ken in 1961 on the set of a TV commercial.
The Weekly Poll
New Question(s)
The 'Double-Trouble' Edition...
This past week has brought two significant issues to our (ahem) attention that begs to be commented upon. (I'm pretty sure you all have opinions on these matters, haha...)
The 'What does that even mean?' Question...
In the aftermath of the enactment of Arizona's 'Papers, please' law, various and sundry administration officials, politicians and activists have said that this event only proves the need for immediate "Comprehensive Immigration Reform". However, specific details were lacking and
Mr. Obama has shied away from the issue by saying congress has no appetite for that political 'hot potato' with the fall mid-term elections looming. So, here's your opportunity to give them your input (or a piece of yer mind, if that works). I trust (cough) Rahm reads Bartcop E*...
What would you like (or not like) CIR to include and when (or) should it be done?
The 'Drill, Baby... Spill!' Question...
Not a month has passed after President Obama proposed increased off-shore oil drilling operations when karma bit him in the ass with the BP platform disaster. (Hello? 911? Gaia calling!)
Should Mr. Obama rescind or modify (how?) his decision?
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Mensa
Mensa: 'Who's the genius who picked Detroit?'
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know Detroit has an image problem. But try telling that to the 2,000 high I.Q. Mensa members (including rocket scientists) who will gather in Dearborn in July for their annual convention under the slogan: "Who's the Genius Who Picked Detroit?"
Mensa: 'Who's the genius who picked Detroit?' | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Link from RJ
Bat Flower
Hi there
You might like this (I hope!). A little silly but fun I hope!
Reader Comment
Lou Pritchett
Have you seen this?
A LETTER FROM A (former) PROCTER AND GAMBLE EXECUTIVE TO THE PRESIDENT*
By Lou Pritchett
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
[snippage]
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
For the whole thing
Yikes.
Some Guy
Thanks, Guy!
It passes the sniff test at both
Urban Legends - Lou Pritchett Letter - An Open Letter to President Obama
and
snopes.com: An Open Letter to President Obama - Lou Pritchett
That's just sad.
Contributor Comment
Tom Murro
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Nice, sunny afternoon.
Says Teachers Should Be Paid More
Sting
School teacher-turned-rock star Sting says teacher salaries must be raised to attract society's best minds into classrooms.
Sting spoke to reporters Saturday in Mexico City before a $550-a-ticket concert. The show is part of a fundraising "Learning for Life" tour that supports education in developing countries.
Sting, the former leader of the British rock band The Police, said: "One of the most important jobs in the planet is to teach children. Our entire future depends on children being educated."
Sting
Draws Inspiration From Rock Events
Serenata Festival
A new outdoor music event is braving the British weather to bring the rock festival model to the classical genre.
While one-off outdoor classical events in the United Kingdom are commonplace throughout the summer, the three-day Serenata Festival in Dorset, England, claims to be the first to offer on-site camping facilities along the lines of the Glastonbury fest.
Scheduled for August 26-28, the inaugural event has booked big classical crossover names like Welsh soprano Katherine Jenkins and Mancunian tenor Russell Watson in an attempt to attract classical fans. Adult weekend tickets start at 155 pounds ($236), but there are also a number of upscale options, including the 795-pound ($1,212) Serenata Club ticket, which includes silver-service three-course meals and private camping.
Lesley Malpas, founder/managing director of Classical Festival Co. said sales of the 400 available Serenata Club tickets have been particularly strong since the festival's official launch April 21. She's targeting 4,000 ticket sales per day, with an event capacity of 5,000, but said, "We don't need to make massive profits to go into year two. We're taking a long-term view."
Serenata Festival
New Track Leaks Online
Lindsay Lohan
"Can't Stop, Won't Stop," a new song from Lindsay Lohan, has been leaked to the Internet.
Lohan started working on her third album in 2007 after signing with Universal Motown, but revealed in November 2008 that work on the album had stalled. The leak of "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" (and another song, "Stuck," which was released exclusively to Perez Hilton for airplay earlier in the year) suggests that the actress/singer could be returning her focus to a music career.
In recent years, Lohan's career has been overshadowed by constant media attention focused on the alleged issues in her personal life. She has not confirmed that work on her third album has resumed.
Lindsay Lohan
New Co-Anchor Of Weekend 'GMA'
Bianna Golodryga
ABC News has named its business reporter Bianna Golodryga co-anchor of the weekend edition of "Good Morning America."
Golodryga will join co-anchor Bill Weir, news anchor Ron Claiborne and weather anchor Maryso Castro on the broadcast beginning Saturday.
Golodryga joined ABC News in 2007, covering the economy and business beat. She also served as substitute co-anchor and news anchor on "Good Morning America."
Golodryga grew up in Houston and began her career at CNBC. She is engaged to White House budget director Peter Orszag.
Bianna Golodryga
Chicken Quip Grounds Candidate
Sue Lowden
Right wing, left wing, chicken wing. Suddenly Nevada politics is all about chickens - bad news for the Republican Senate front-runner but a ray of hope for struggling Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.
Sue Lowden recently suggested bartering with doctors for medical care - "our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor." The line from the millionaire casino executive and former beauty queen immediately became a late-night joke and YouTube sensation, and upended a GOP race that had been hers to lose.
Democrats set up a website, "Chickens for Checkups," and dispatched a volunteer in a chicken suit to one of her fundraisers. GOP rival Danny Tarkanian circulated a video of her comments and asked if she were the best candidate to take on Reid.
In discussing health care, Lowden said, "I'm telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say, 'I'll paint your house.' ... Doctors are very sympathetic people. I'm not backing down from that system."
Sue Lowden
Sent To Remote Village
Predator Priest
A rutted red dirt track leads to the "bar," a couple of homemade wood benches in the shade of an old tree dripping with wild mangoes. Within easy reach, there's a yellow plastic jerry can of the fiery palm wine the American priest loved.
A 40-year-old schoolteacher now charges that the Rev. James Tully gave the palm wine to teenage boys to make them more susceptible to his advances.
This faraway corner of West Africa - with no electricity or piped water - is where the Roman Catholic Church sent Tully, twice. The teacher told The Associated Press that Tully abused him and other boys repeatedly during his first stint in Sierra Leone, from 1979 to 1985. After a conviction in the U.S. for giving minors alcohol and groping them, the church sent Tully back to Sierra Leone for a second stint from 1994 to 1998.
Tully's story is an example of how the church transferred abusive priests from country to country, in a scandal now emerging worldwide. But it also shows the deep reluctance to come out against a Catholic priest in many parts of Africa.
Predator Priest
Allows Blocking Of Set-Top Box Outputs
FCC
Federal regulators are endorsing Hollywood's efforts to let cable and satellite TV companies turn off output connections on the back of set-top boxes to prevent illegal copying of movies.
The decision by the Federal Communications Commission, announced late Friday, is intended to encourage studios to make movies available for home viewing on demand soon after they hit theaters or even at the same time.
Critics warned that the FCC order could prevent 20 million Americans with older, analog TVs from seeing these new-release movies at all. That's because the order allows the studios to limit delivery of new movies to only those households with newer digital sets.
Public Knowledge, a public interest group, said the FCC "has succumbed to the special-interest pleadings of the big media companies."
FCC
Boycotts Cannes
Italian Government
Italy's minister of culture said he would boycott next week's Cannes Film Festival after a documentary on the L'Aquila earthquake in April 2009 he deemed propaganda was included in the programme.
Sandro Bondi declined the invitation, expressing his "regret and his concern" over the selection of "a propaganda film, 'Draquila', which insults the truth and the Italian people".
"Draquila: Italy Trembles" by the comedian and satirical author Sabina Guzzanti, will be screened out of competition at the 63rd Cannes festival running May 12-23.
Clips of the film have already been aired on television, and show Guzzanti impersonating Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and condemning the takeover by politicians of reconstruction projects in the central town of L'Aquila.
Italian Government
No Bids For Eccentric Portrait
Michael Jackson
The outlook for the sale of a one-of-a-kind Michael Jackson portrait isn't thrilling.
The eBay.com auction of a fantastical portrait the King of Pop posed for before his death ended with no bids, according to the auction's organizer. The painting's owner had hoped to fetch millions for "The Book," a 50-by-40-inch painting by Australian artist Brett-Livingstone Strong of Jackson wearing a red velvet jacket and clutching a journal.
The painting's owner, Marty Abrams, anticipated the portrait, originally sold to Japanese businessman Hiromichi Saeki for $2.1 million in 1990, would go for over $3 million in the auction, which required a minimum starting bid of $2.75 million. The toy inventor acquired the painting with his partner, John Gentilly, in 1992 from Saeki as payment on a debt.
For over 17 years, Abrams kept the painting in storage in a New Jersey warehouse. It was briefly on display at Dancy-Power Automotive showroom in New York's Harlem after Jackson's death last June. Abrams said last month the portrait, which also features a Peter Pan statue painted behind a seated Jackson, was now hanging inside his home in Kings Point, N.Y.
Michael Jackson
10 Years In Isolation For Hair
Rasta Inmates
Kendall Gibson would seem to be one of Virginia's most dangerous prisoners.
For more than 10 years he has lived in segregation at the Greensville Correctional Center, spending at least 23 hours every day in a cell the size of a gas station bathroom. In a temporary home for the worst of the worst - inmates too violent or disruptive to live among the rest of society's outcasts - he has been a permanent fixture.
The only thing imposing about Gibson is his long black dreadlocks, resting on the front of his shoulders so they won't drag the ground as he shuffles along in his orange jumpsuit.
It is his hair - winding locks he considers a measure of his Rastafarian faith - that makes him a threat, according to Virginia Department of Corrections Operating Procedure No. 864.1.
The rule took effect on Dec. 15, 1999. Inmates had two choices: cut their hair no longer than their collars and shave their beards, or be placed in administrative segregation.
Today, it's difficult to tell exactly how many remain in isolation. The Department of Corrections won't volunteer the information, but has confirmed 10 names given to The Associated Press by a group of Rastafarian inmates.
Rasta Inmates
Died From Constipation?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley died of chronic constipation, it has been claimed.
The rock 'n' roll legend - who died on the toilet in 1977 from what has always been believed to have been heart failure - is said to have refused surgery which would have relieved him of the problem, according to a doctor close to the star.
Doctor George 'Nick' Nichopoulos said: "We didn't realise until the autopsy that his constipation was as bad. We found stool in his colon which had been there for four or five months because of the poor mobility of the bowel.
"He would get embarrassed. He'd have accidents onstage. He'd have to change clothes and come back because of the way we were trying to treat his constipation."
According to Dr. Nichopoulos, Elvis suffered from a hereditary condition called bowel paralysis, and the autopsy revealed his colon was five to six inches in diameter, compared to the usual two to three inches.
Elvis Presley
In Memory
Walter Hickel
Former Alaska Gov. Walter J. Hickel, who served as Interior secretary under President Nixon until he was dismissed for objecting to the treatment of Vietnam War protesters, has died at age 90.
The two-time Alaskan governor died Friday of natural causes at an Anchorage assisted living facility, said longtime Hickel assistant Malcolm Roberts
Hickel was fired from his Interior post in late 1970, after sending Nixon a letter critical of his handling of student protests following the National Guard shootings at Kent State and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.
"I believe this administration finds itself today embracing a philosophy which appears to lack appropriate concern for the attitude of a great mass of Americans - our young people," Hickel wrote.
Days before he lost the post in Nov. 1970, Hickel had told CBS' "60 Minutes" that he would not quit under pressure. He said he would only go away "with an arrow in my heart, not a bullet in my back."
Hickel's political career started in the early 1950s as a crusader for Alaska statehood, both at home and in Washington. He was also involved in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which helped pave the way for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
He never quite got out of politics. In 1990, at age 71 and after several unsuccessful gubernatorial bids, Hickel won the job a second time.
Hickel also was an early supporter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during her campaign in 2006. However, that support waned after she became Republican John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential race.
In a September 2009 guest column in the Anchorage Daily News, he decried what he said was her penchant for partisan politics during the campaign.
"Palin became the spokesperson for the divisive voices in American politics. She dismissed the greatness of our immigrant heritage, indeed of today's Alaska, where in Anchorage alone nearly 100 languages are spoken in the homes of the children in our public schools," he wrote.
"She missed a golden opportunity to challenge the rest of the country to adopt the welcoming spirit of the Alaska frontier and the message of mutual respect," he wrote.
Walter Joseph Hickel was born Aug. 18, 1919, in Claflin, Kan., the oldest son of a German wheat farmer. As the Depression-era Dust Bowl swallowed Kansas, he made plans to leave the Great Plains.
He took up boxing as means of travel and won the Kansas Golden Gloves championship. At age 20, Hickel, impatient over the wait for a passport and visa for a trip to Australia, chose Alaska.
In 1941, he married Jannice Cannon, who died in 1943. They had one son, Ted.
In 1945, Hickel married Ermalee Strutz. They had five more sons - Bob, Wally Jr., Jack, Joe, and Karl.
He is survived by his wife, his sons, 21 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.
Walter Hickel
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