Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Die Hard
16-Bit Game
Julian Baggini: "The secret to happiness? It's complicated" (Guardian)
Marriage, money, S&M - a raft of studies into what makes us happy can't agree, but we can still learn from this research.
Paul Krugman: From the Mouth of Babes (New York Times)
Like many observers, I usually read reports about political goings-on with a sort of weary cynicism. Every once in a while, however, politicians do something so wrong, substantively and morally, that cynicism just won't cut it; it's time to get really angry instead. So it is with the ugly, destructive war against food stamps.
Paul Krugman: Newt Economic Thinking (New York Times)
So, should we raise taxes on the rich? Yes, for various reasons, but first of all because we could use the money. Can we actually raise more money that way. Yes. Will it hurt the economy? No. Let's do it.
Paul Krugman: Talking Inequality (New York Times)
An 87-minutes video of last week's CUNY event, which involved Paul Krugman talking with people who actually know what they're talking about.
Andrew Tobias: The Unexpected Highlight
I took yesterday off - it's a lot of work having 285 people over for dinner. (Not to my place, mind you. My place seats 8.)
Anne Billson: "Only God Forgives: Kristin Scott Thomas and other big-screen Barbies from hell" (Guardian)
Nicolas Winding Refn is the latest in a long line of directors to find inspiration among plastic dolls.
Peter Robinson: Morgan Freeman, the man who can do interviews in his sleep (Guardian)
In a Fox News interview, Freeman appeared to nod off, leaving Michael Caine, his Now You See Me co-star, to chat on.
Lucy Mangan: "All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor" (Guardian)
For me, the book was intoxicating - a window on to not just another time and place but another culture. The girls' trips to the library and market place, their summer day's escape from the broiling city to the seaside, their birthday celebrations are interspersed with sketches of Yom Kippur, Purim celebrations and Passover rituals. I loved it.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and hotter.
Hospital News
Lou Reed
Rock icon Lou Reed is recovering after a life-saving liver transplant in the U.S., according to an interview with his wife published Saturday in a British newspaper.
Laurie Anderson told the Times of London that Reed "was dying" before the operation several weeks ago at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic.
She said 71-year-old Reed isn't back to full strength, but "he's already working and doing t'ai chi.
"I don't think he'll every totally recover from this, but he'll certainly be back to doing (things) in a few months," she said.
Anderson, a musician and performance artist, praised the Cleveland facility - one of the leading transplant centers in the U.S. - and said hospitals in the couple's hometown of New York were "dysfunctional."
Lou Reed
The Art of the War Poster
Propaganda
A new exhibit created by a University of Pennsylvania professor and host of a popular public television show examines how wartime propaganda has been used to motivate oppressed populations to risk their lives for homelands that considered them second-class citizens.
"Black Bodies in Propaganda: The Art of the War Poster," opens Sunday and continues until March 2 at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Lectures, film screenings and other programming will be rolled out over the course of the exhibit's run.
The exhibit's 33 posters, dating from the Civil War to both World Wars and the African independence movements, are part of the personal collection of Tukufu Zuberi, Penn professor of sociology and African studies and a host of the PBS series "History Detectives."
The collection includes posters with affirming messages and images of courageous black soldiers to stir in its intended audience a sense of national belonging and patriotic pride. Also implied was a promise that blacks who served their country in war would return home to America or Europe with the rights and freedoms that their white counterparts enjoyed.
Propaganda
SKorean Film Maker
Kim Jho Gwangsoo
The first time a South Korean celebrity announced he was gay, in 2000, the reaction was quick and without empathy. Popular actor and entertainer Hong Suk-chon was banished from television and radio programs for three years, and he said in a talk-show interview this year that he regrets coming out.
In a legal sense, not much has changed since then for gays and lesbians in this deeply conservative country. They can't marry or enter into civil unions, and the law cannot effectively protect them from discrimination. But another celebrity's recent wedding announcement suggests they may be slowly winning the fight for public acceptance.
Movie director Kim Jho Gwangsoo surprised many last month by announcing he will symbolically tie the knot with his longtime male partner Sept. 7 in what would be the highest-profile ceremony of its kind in South Korea. He and Dave Kim envision a massive public event in Seoul with guests honoring their relations by donating money to build a center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Online news outlets carried photos of the boyish-looking 48-year-old kissing his curly-haired, 28-year-old partner, and their names were among the most popular search words in portal sites for much of the day. Some conservative newspapers ignored the announcement, but there was little criticism of the couple in the media.
Kim Jho Gwangsoo
Changing Arctic
Whale Songs
By tracking and listening to whales, scientists have unlocked secrets about the dramatic changes currently underway in the Arctic. They've also learned that these whales are talented singers.
In a wide-ranging talk here at the American Museum of Natural History, researchers and a documentary filmmaker revealed how declining levels of ice have affected the Arctic, as well as the humans that dwell there. Their stories, recounted during a session of the World Science Festival, billed as an annual celebration and exploration of science, reveal the difficulty and beauty of working in the harsh, and quickly changing, environment of the far North.
There, ice is paramount to the traditional order of life. "Ice in the Arctic is everybody's best friend," said Kate Stafford, a researcher at the University of Washington. "All animals and people depend on it."
Stafford has used special devices to listen to the songs of bowhead whales, which has allowed her to track their movements and estimate their populations. In a 2012 study, she heard many more bowhead calls than expected, suggesting that the huge beasts - once hunted to the brink of extinction - may be rebounding. The songs were also more complex than those of other whales, sounding almost like a bird's song, she said.
Stafford also found that, in some cases, bowheads in the Fram Strait, east of Greenland, seem to prefer hanging out under old, thick ice. This is perhaps because the ice acts as a better "theater" in which to broadcast their beautiful calls, or perhaps it offers more protection from killer whales, she said. As ice continues to dwindle in the Arctic - 2012 saw the smallest extent of winter ice ever recorded - killer whales can advance farther north, pressuring even the enormous bowhead whales.
Whale Songs
Secret Demands
Google
A federal judge has ordered Google Inc. to comply with FBI warrantless demands for customer data.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston on Tuesday rejected Google's argument that the so-called National Security Letters the company received from the FBI were unconstitutional and unnecessary. Illston ordered Google to comply with the secret demands even though she found the letters unconstitutional in March in a separate case filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
She acknowledged as much in her four-page order in the Google case made on May 20 and obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.
Illston put the Google ruling on hold until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could decide the matter. Until then, she said the Mountain View, Calif.-based company would have to comply with the letters unless it showed the FBI didn't follow proper procedures in making its demands for customer data in the 19 letters Google is challenging.
Google
Ends Hunger Strike
Pussy Riot
A jailed member of the punk group Pussy Riot has ended her 11-day hunger strike Saturday after prison authorities met her demands, an activist said.
Maria Alekhina had complained that officials at her prison colony in the Ural Mountains attempted to turn fellow inmates against her with a security crackdown. Inmates, who could previously enter and leave their workplace freely, had to wait for up to an hour for prison guards to escort them.
Pyotr Verzilov, the husband of Alekhina's jailed band mate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, told The Associated Press that Alekhina called Saturday to say she has ended her action after prison officials restored the normal security regime.
Verzilov said authorities took Alekhina, who was hospitalized Tuesday, on a tour across the prison colony, so that she sees that all extra security measures were removed. The extra security meant that inmates were denied prompt medical care when they sustained injuries during their work sewing uniforms.
"It looks improbable, it's not in the tradition of the prison system here to make any concessions," Verzilov said. "There must have been a political decision."
Pussy Riot
Sharia Law
H8
Frank Ferri made peace with God years ago. He defeated the Roman Catholic Church just last month.
The openly gay state representative led the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in what may be the most Catholic state in the nation's most Catholic region. And, in early May, Rhode Island became the sixth and final New England state to allow gay couples to marry when its Democratic-dominated Legislature, led by an openly gay House speaker, reversed course after years of the Catholic Church successfully lobbying lawmakers to resist legalization.
"They put the fear of God into people," Ferri said, claiming that "the influence of the church" had been the primary stumbling block as every other neighboring state - and many people across the country - started embracing gay marriage.
Ferri's victory marked the Catholic Church's most significant political defeat in an area where more than 40 percent of the population is Catholic. Perhaps more problematic for the church: Its state-by-state setbacks on gay marriage illustrate a widening divide between the church hierarchy and its members, which may be undermining Catholic influence in American politics.
In March, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a majority of Catholics, 60 percent, felt the church was out of touch with the views of Catholics in America today. And a CBS News/New York Times poll in February found that 78 percent of Catholics said they were more likely to follow their own conscience than the church's teachings on difficult moral questions. That poll highlighted several areas where most Catholics break with church teachings: 62 percent of American Catholics think same-sex marriages should be legal, 74 percent think abortion ought to be available in at least some instances and 61 percent favor the death penalty.
H8
Mally Settles In
Bieber
Justin Bieber's former pet, Mally the Monkey, is getting ready to meet new playmates at his new home in Germany.
The 23-week-old animal was presented to photographers at the Serengeti Park in Hodenhagen, in northern Germany, on Friday. He faces another 25 days in quarantine before he can join his new family: the zoo's six capuchin monkeys, three male and three female - including baby Molly, born in February.
Mally was transferred to the zoo last weekend after living at a Munich animal shelter since he was seized by German customs March 28.
Bieber failed to produce the required vaccination and import papers after arriving for a European tour. Mally's ownership was transferred to the German state May 21 after the singer missed a deadline to send the documents.
Bieber
Builds Working Car Out Of Wood
Istvan Puskas
Putting all other do-it-yourself projects to shame, a Hungarian farmer spent the winter building a car made almost entirely of wood.
"I love to work with wood," Istvan Puskas, a 51-year-old from the village of Tiszaors, said in what should be considered the biggest understatement ever.
The frame, axles, gears and even the gas tank-which Puskas fashioned from an old beer barrel-are made of wood. The engine (from a Fiat 126), steering wheel (from an old Mercedes-Benz) and windshield are virtually the only parts that are not.
Puskas' wife encouraged him to build the car rather than spend the winter at the pub.
"There's not much to do here," Iren Puskas admitted. Last year, her husband built a fully functioning wooden motorcycle.
Istvan Puskas
In Memory
Jean Stapleton
Jean Stapleton, who played Archie Bunker's long-suffering wife Edith in the long-running 1970s television series "All in the Family," died Friday at her New York City home. She was 90.
Stapleton died of natural causes, her family announced Saturday.
She had been a veteran of stage, film and television when she was cast in the CBS sitcom opposite Carroll O'Connor's loud-mouthed, bigoted Archie Bunker, who often addressed her as "dingbat." She won three Emmys for the role.
"The benign, compassionate presence she developed made my egregious churl bearable," O'Connor wrote of Stapleton in his 1998 autobiography. He died in 2001.
Born in New York City on Jan. 19, 1923, Stapleton was the daughter of a billboard advertising salesman and an opera singer.
In 1949, she got a break when she was cast in the national touring company of "Harvey." Many characters later in summer stock, regional and off-Broadway plays, Stapleton starred as a wisecracking waitress in 1953 Broadway production of "In the Summer House."
Stapleton went on to a feature role as Sister in "Damn Yankees," singing the hit tune "You've Gotta Have Heart," and reprised the role in the 1958 film. She also appeared in both the stage and film versions of "Bells Are Ringing" as Sue, the proprietor of Susanswerphone Service. And she originated the role of Mrs. Strakosh in "Funny Girl," which made a Broadway star of Barbra Streisand.
Stapleton is survived by her children, television producer Pamela Putch and film and television director John Putch.
Jean Stapleton
In Memory
Vollis Simpson
Vollis Simpson, a self-taught North Carolina artist famed for his whimsical, wind-powered whirligigs, has died. He was 94.
Beth Liles of Joyner's Funeral Home confirmed the death Saturday. Simpson's wife, Jean Simpson, was quoted by the Wilson Daily Times as saying that her husband died Friday in his sleep at his home in the town of Lucama.
Jean Simpson also was quoted by the paper as saying that her husband had received a successful heart valve replacement in February but experienced complications.
Simpson became known for his whirligigs, wind-driven creations that stand as high as 50 feet and are constructed from recycled parts including motor fans and cotton spindles.
He built the contraptions on land near his machine shop in Lucama, about 35 miles east of Raleigh. More than 30 of them were on display there until last year, when an effort to restore them began. The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park is scheduled to open in November in Wilson, about 50 miles east of Raleigh.
People from across the world visited Simpson at his shop, where he would happily sit and talk with them.
Simpson's creations have also captured national attention, with buyers including a shopping center in Albuquerque, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. Four of them were also put on display at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
The whirligigs weigh as much as 3 tons and have hundreds of moving parts. They're folk art or what's also known as outsider art, works created by someone without formal arts training.
Neither did Simpson have a formal engineering degree. But that didn't stop him from constructing a motorcycle with a bicycle and a stolen motor when he was an Air Force staff sergeant on Saipan during World War II. He also built tow trucks for moving houses.
Vollis Simpson
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