Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: Guilty After Proven Innocent
"Innocent until proven guilty." We say it. We teach it to our children. But we don't believe it.
Mark Shields: Republicans' Medicare Crisis (Creators Syndicate)
These congressional votes put Republicans squarely on the record in support of completely overhauling Medicare. This is a serious problem for Republicans, because Medicare, in its current form, is enormously popular with three sizeable groups of Americans: A) those who are old themselves, B) those who personally care about someone who is old and C) those who think they, themselves, might one day be old.
Marc Dion: Could I Lynch Casey Anthony? (Creators Syndicate)
My grandmother on my father's side was an illiterate immigrant woman who lived in America for 68 years and never learned to speak English. She was also a heartfelt socialist, having experienced the full force of laissez faire capitalism in a cotton mill, 14 hours a day, six days a week.
Paul Krugman: What Obama Wants (New York Times)
On Thursday, President Obama met with Republicans to discuss a debt deal. We don't know exactly what was proposed, but news reports ... suggested that Mr. Obama is offering huge spending cuts, possibly including cuts to Social Security and an end to Medicare's status as a program available in full to all Americans, regardless of income.
Jim Hightower: NO MORE AMERICANS SHOULD DIE FOR KARZAI
One person was giddy with excitement upon hearing President Obama's announcement that all of America's combat troops would depart from Afghanistan by 2014: Hamid Karzai.
George R. R. Martin (barnesandnoble.com)
The wildly popular fantasist on three science fiction mainstays.
Emma Brockes: "A life in writing: Cynthia Ozick" (Guardian)
'You have to be a fanatic, you have to be a crank to keep going, but what else would you do with the rest of your life? You gotta do something.'
Andy Stanton's 'cult humour for kids' (Guardian)
The author of the Mr Gum stories tells Michelle Pauli how they grew out of a last-minute Christmas present for his cousins.
Roger Ebert's Journal: Gatsby Without Greatness
Did it seem to you that 'The Great Gatsby' was especially difficult to read? It's a book that most American students encounter in high school. When I read it the first time, I certainly missed some of the nuances, but I didn't stumble over any of the words. Even at the time, I noticed the particular beauty of its conclusion. After the whole doomed scenario has played out, Nick looks once again across the waters of the Sound.
Interviews by Anna Tims: The artists' artist: children's authors (Guardian)
Leading writers choose their favourite living children's author.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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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
Back to sunny and seasonal.
Rupet's Fall Guy?
Les Hinton
Les Hinton was adamant. Asked in 2007 by a British parliamentary committee whether the News of the World had "carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry" into the use of illegal phone hacking by the newspaper and was "absolutely convinced" it was limited to a single reporter, Hinton did not hesitate.
"Yes, we have," the then-executive chairman of News of the World's owner News International told the select committee, "and I believe he was the only person, but that investigation, under the new editor, continues."
Four years on, Hinton may have serious reason to regret those words. In the middle of a voicemail hacking scandal that has killed the 168-year-old mass-circulation paper and threatens further damage to Rupert Murdoch's media empire, much of the public anger so far has focused on Rebekah Brooks, editor of News of the World between 2000 and 2003 when some of the most high-profile hacking occurred, and her successor Andy Coulson, under whom it continued.
But attention is now turning to Hinton, 67, who headed up News International during Brooks's and Coulson's editorships and now runs the New York-based Dow Jones & Co., another arm of Murdoch's sprawling News Corp. Murdoch's long-time lieutenant, some News Corp watchers say, could end up being a high-profile casualty in the scandal.
Les Hinton
Priorities
Rupert
A crisis has erupted at media mogul Rupert Murdoch's London newspapers, but that didn't stop the News Corp. chief executive and his wife, Wendi, from hosting a screening of a new movie co-produced by Mrs. Murdoch.
About 100 invited guests attended the screening of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" at the Sun Valley Opera House, on the grounds of the resort where the annual Allen & Co. media conference is in full swing.
The screening was long-planned, and Murdoch stuck to his hosting duties, despite a deepening phone hacking scandal that led him to close his News of the World tabloid and threatens his other British operations including his takeover bid for broadcaster BSkyB.
The movie, based on a critically acclaimed book, tells the tale of a friendship between two people. It will be released later this month. News Corp. also owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio in Los Angeles.
Rupert
7-9-11
'Odd Day'
A San Francisco Bay-area man is calling on people to do some odd things on Saturday - 7/9/11 - one of only six dates this century that features three consecutive odd numbers.
Ron Gordon, a retired Redwood City teacher, has set up a website to celebrate the date, which he has dubbed "Odd Day." Among his recommendations: doing odds and ends, rooting for the odds-on-favorite and watching the "Odd Couple."
Gordon says he has been fascinated with curious dates since he wrote a check in 1981 and noticed that the date, 9/9/81, was coming up. That led to his first Square Root Day.
Other such days then followed, with Gordon turning to the Web to promote them and offering cash prizes to people who do something special to commemorate them.
'Odd Day'
No $1 M Casey Anthony
Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer is caught in the Casey Anthony media frenzy and, he says, for no reason.
Springer dismissed a report that his TV show is offering $1 million to Anthony and her parents as "100 percent fabricated."
The host of "The Jerry Springer Show" said Friday his syndicated program does not feature "known people" such as Anthony.
Jerry Springer
KBR Wins
Jamie Leigh Jones
A former KBR Inc. employee who said she was drugged and raped while working in Iraq lost her lawsuit against the military contractor Friday.
The jury of eight men and three women rejected Jamie Leigh Jones' claims a day after starting deliberations in a Houston federal courthouse. Jones, 26, said she was raped in 2005 while working for KBR at Camp Hope, Baghdad.
Jones sued KBR, its former parent Halliburton Co., and a former KBR firefighter, Charles Bortz, whom she identified as one of her rapists. The Houston-based companies and Bortz denied her allegations.
"I was going up against a monster," Jones, sobbing loudly, told The Associated Press. "I'm devastated. I believe I did the right thing coming forward."
KBR applauded the jury's verdict, which in addition to rejecting Jones' claims that she was raped also denied her fraud claim against the company.
Jamie Leigh Jones
University, Ryan O'Neal Spar Over Portrait
Farrah Fawcett
The University of Texas system and Ryan O'Neal are sparring over ownership of an Andy Warhol portrait of the actor's longtime companion, Farrah Fawcett.
The system's board of regents sued O'Neal in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday, asking a judge to order the Oscar-nominated actor to turn over the painting. The portrait is one of two that Warhol made of the "Charlie's Angels" star and the university claims the actress bequeathed it to their Austin, Texas campus.
O'Neal's spokesman Arnold Robinson blasted the lawsuit in a statement, saying the university has known for more than a year that the actor has painting. "This is completely ridiculous lawsuit," Robinson wrote.
"Ryan O'Neal's friendship with Andy Warhol began 10 years prior to his meeting Farrah Fawcett," Robinson wrote. "When Ryan introduced Andy to Farrah, Mr. Warhol chose to complete two portraits of her, one for Ms. Fawcett and one for Mr. O'Neal. Mr. O'Neal looks forward to being completely vindicated in the courts."
The university's lawsuit claims O'Neal may be holding onto other pieces from Fawcett's art collection that she wanted the university to have after her June 2009 death. Fawcett attended the University of Texas at Austin in the 1960s, according to the complaint.
Farrah Fawcett
DUI Charge In Ga
Hines Ward
Pittsburgh Steelers star wide receiver Hines Ward was arrested early Saturday in Georgia on a drunken driving charge, sheriff's officials said.
The former Super Bowl MVP and reigning "Dancing With the Stars" champ was booked into the DeKalb County jail just outside Atlanta at 3:41 a.m. and charged with driving under the influence. A jail official said he was released on $1,300 bond, though the sheriff's office website said his bond was set at $1,000. The discrepancy couldn't be immediately resolved Saturday.
The sheriff's office said it had turned over paperwork to the courts and couldn't release any further information about the player's arrest.
A Steelers spokesman did not immediately respond to a message, and it was not immediately clear if Ward had an attorney.
Hines Ward
Fire Cuts Concert Short
Rihanna
R&B singer Rihanna cut short a Dallas concert on Friday after a fire broke out near the stage, the artist said in a post on Twitter, and video of the incident showed sparks falling down from above.
"DALLAS!!! We set the stage on FYAH TONIGHT!!! LITERALLY!!!" Rihanna wrote on Twitter. "I was havin so much fun wit yall too!!! I gotta come back man!!!"
"Heading into a production meeting to find out exactly what happened," she later wrote, saying she was glad her fans were safe and promising to come back.
Videos posted on YouTube of the incident showed a light above the stage appear to catch fire, sending sparks spraying down toward the stage at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
Rihanna
Digging For Philistines
Israel
At the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel, archaeologists are piecing together the history of a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible.
The city of Gath, where the annual digging season began this week, is helping scholars paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, who appear in the biblical story as the perennial enemies of the Israelites.
Close to three millennia ago, Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath - the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling.
The Philistines "are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story," said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation.
The latest summer excavation season began this past week, with 100 diggers from Canada, South Korea, the United States and elsewhere, adding to the wealth of relics found at the site since Maier's project began in 1996.
Israel
Film Producer Signs On
Quinnipiac University
A film producer and director whose work includes the hits "Home Alone" and "Mystic Pizza" has signed on as a mentor for students in Quinnipiac University's School of Communications.
Scott Rosenfelt will be a professional-in-residence in film, video and interactive studies for the 2011-12 academic year.
In addition to "Home Alone," his prominent films include "Teen Wolf" and "Extremities." He has also produced and directed several award-winning independent films.
He said in a statement released by Quinnipiac that he wants to help students develop their own visions without being hindered by the industry's myths and roadblocks.
Quinnipiac University
Mind Your P's
Olympic Park
Olympic National Park in Washington state is urging hikers not to urinate along backcountry trails to avoid attracting mountain goats who lick urine deposits for salt.
The advice is part of a plan to avoid aggressive goats like the one that gored a Port Angeles, Wash., man to death in October.
The Peninsula Daily News reports the popular park also may close trails where goats follow people or enter camp sites.
Backcountry campers are advised to urinate 200 feet away from trails to prevent the trails from turning into "long, linier salt licks."
Olympic Park
In Memory
Facundo Cabral
One of Latin America's most admired folk singers, Facundo Cabral, was killed Saturday when three carloads of gunmen ambushed the vehicle in which he was riding, prompting expressions of anguish from across the region. Authorities said the performer's concert promoter was apparently the target.
Interior Minister Carlos Menocal said the Argentine singer and novelist was on his way to Guatemala's main airport at 5:20 a.m. when cars carrying the gunmen flanked it on both sides and opened fire as a third vehicle blocked it from the front.
Speaking at a news conference along with President Alvaro Colom, the minister said early investigations indicated the bullets were meant for the driver, Cabral's Nicaraguan promoter Henry Farinas, who was wounded.
Cabral, 74, rose to fame in the early 1970s, one of a generation of singers who mixed political protest with literary lyrics and created deep bonds with an audience struggling through an era of revolution and repression across Latin America.
Cabral's vehicle was trailed by a vehicle carrying four bodyguards, who opened fire and tried to chase the attackers, Menocal said.
Officials later found one of the vehicles apparently used in the attack alongside a highway toward El Salvador. Menocal said bulletproof jackets, pistols and the clip of a Kalashnikov were found inside.
Menocal said Cabral initially planned to take a hotel shuttle to the airport, but accepted a ride from Farinas.
Cabral was a confirmed vagabond, born poor in 1937 in the provincial city of La Plata after his father abandoned their large family. At the age of 9, he began hitchhiking alone up the length of Argentina to beg for a job for his mother.
He did odd jobs and was illiterate until he got some education in a reformatory as a teenager. He eventually picked up a guitar, singing in the manner of his idol, Argentine folklorist Atahualpa Yupanqui.
Cabral began singing for tourists in the beach resort of Mar del Plata, and by 1970 became internationally known through his song "No soy de aqui ni alla" - "I'm Not From Here Nor There - which was recorded hundreds of times in many languages.
By the time Argentina fell under military rule in 1976, Cabral was clearly identified as a protest singer, and so he fled for his life to Mexico, where he kept recording, writing books and giving concerts.
He lost his wife and a 1-year-old daughter in a plane crash in 1978.
His concerts were a mix of philosophy and folklore, spoken-word poems and music reflecting his roots in the gaucho culture of rural Argentina. He identified himself as an anarchist at times, professing a spirituality unchained to any particular religion. On stage, he celebrated the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, the humanism of Walt Whitman and the observations of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
"Facundo Cabral was our last troubadour. As much a philosopher-poet as a singer, he was a living testament to the search for what unites us in culture and society," said Argentine singer Isabel de Sebastian. "After his concerts, you'd feel that our life in common was richer, more mysterious, more profound."
He lived mostly on the road, in hotels and with friends, telling interviewers that he owned no home. He was particularly proud that UNESCO declared him to be an "international messenger of peace" in 1996. By the end, he often used a cane and had trouble with his vision, but refused to slow down.
He never thought of retiring: "I can't stop, I wouldn't be able to," he said. "I breathe on the road ... on stage I'm 50 years younger, it pleases me to excite people with life."
Cabral said then he would like to die while on a concert tour.
Guatemala's 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, went to the scene of the killing and wept. "For me, Facundo Cabral is a master," she said. "He loved Guatemala greatly." Other Guatemalans also came to the site, leaving flowers.
Words of mourning came from the presidents of Colombia and Ecuador, and even the Twitter site of Venezuela's ailing President Hugo Chavez carried a message of condolence to Argentina at the death of "the great troubadour of the Pampas."
Facundo Cabral
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