Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Talking to Steve King (Creators Syndicate)
Rep. Steve King, R-Auschwitz, is the exact reason why his party couldn't win the presidency last time around. The Republicans couldn't win because, while the idea of less government and lower taxes is appealing to a majority of Americans, the party refuses to cleanse itself of bigots, amateur geneticists, woman-haters, quasi-Christian snake-handlers and just plain old race-baiting dumbasses. While people like King play well with the kind of drooling gun nuts who wear camo pants to church, the rest of us are scared nearly to death by the Republican Party's Hitler-inspired far right wing.
Froma Harrop: Cheap Labor Is Nobody's Right (Creators Syndicate)
In Beverly Hills, the owner of Urasawa, a stratospherically priced restaurant known to drop bills for $1,000 on tables for two, is being investigated for allegedly withholding overtime pay for kitchen staff, some making less than $9 an hour. These workers, generally immigrants from Mexico, say they were also denied the right to take breaks.
Lenore Skenazy: Voting Frights (Creators Syndicate)
More and more schools and districts are saying no to the age-old American tradition of hosting elections in the school gym. It's a "risk" they say they cannot take. Except that, as far as I can tell, it never has posed any risk at all - and still doesn't.
Matthew Yglesias: Amazon Sells More Than Ever, Loses Money, Declares Victory (Slate)
… if you're an executive with a principled opposition to handing out raises, Amazon definitely shows you the way to go. They are quite stingy with their workers, but it's all in pursuit of growing sales and advancing customers' interests. Profts, dividends, and such don't enter into the picture. They just want to grow and strike terror into the hearts of lesser businessmen.
Peter Bradshaw: Dial M for Murder - review (Guardian)
Hitchcock's sole foray into 3D gains nothing from the technology, but there are some classic, thrilling touches.
Ben Kenigsberg: Summer of the Mega-Flop (Slate)
Last month, Steven Spielberg predicted a Hollywood implosion. Do recent big-budget disasters already prove him right?
Would You Practice Polygamy If It Were Legal? (Slate)
One person answers yes; one person answers no.
Andrew Dixon: "Seduced by the Illusion: The Truth About Transformation Photos" (Huffington Post)
These marketing campaigns use testimonials and before-and-after transformation photos. Before I claim it's all bullshit, I want to make it clear that there are definitely some very impressive, genuine physical transformations out there. What I do take issue with are the transformations that are manipulated with Photoshop, professional lighting, postures to degrade or enhance their look, pro tans, sucking in or pushing out a bloated belly or flexing muscles vs. not flexing to obtain an optimal look.
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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
Marine layer hung around til mid-afternoon.
Gets OK For Larger Crowd
Burning Man
The largest outdoor arts festival in North America is about to become bigger.
Federal land managers have issued Burning Man organizers a four-year special recreation permit that allows a peak population of 68,000 on the northern Nevada desert this year.
Last year, attendance at the offbeat art and music festival on the Black Rock Desert peaked at some 53,000 - well below the previous maximum allowable population of 60,900.
The gathering, which draws people from around the world, is the largest permitted event on federal land in the United States.
After it moved from San Francisco's Baker Beach, the inaugural Burning Man in Nevada drew some 80 people in 1990. The first 1,000-plus crowd was in 1993, and attendance doubled each of the next three years before reaching 23,000 in 1999. The crowd was capped at 50,000 under a five-year permit that expired in 2010, and has hovered around 53,000 since then. The new multi-year permit allows a maximum crowd of 70,000, but organizers applied for a cap of 68,000 this year.
Burning Man
One Night Only
'Sharknado'
Unless you've been living under a rock you most likely have heard about Syfy's social media hit "Sharknado" at this point. But since the movie only drew 1.5 million viewers for its premiere and 1.9 million for its encore broadcast, chances are you haven't watched it yet.
Well, now moviegoers have a chance to see the cable film on the big screen. Yes, "Sharknado" will be in a real movie theater.
"Sharknado" is coming to select Regal, Edwards and UA Cinemas for one night only, the company announced. Friday, August 2 will see a midnight showing at many participating theaters.
The movie stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid trying to save L.A. from a tornado full of sharks.
'Sharknado'
Warm Weather Means Early Wine Grape Harvest
California
There's no such thing as "normal" weather in California wine country, and vineyard operators say this year that truism could mean good news for wine lovers.
After cool temperatures slowed ripening and kept grapes on the vine until fall in recent years, growers in the nation's premier wine region are facing a heat wave that has made for one of the earliest harvests in recent memory.
Weather hasn't been this warm across the region since 1997, a year that produced a highly regarded vintage. If the heat continues as expected it could mean fruit-intensive wines from an early and abundant crop.
For this vintage, vineyard operators started picking grapes used to make sparkling wines this month, a move that came toward the end of August last year. And they're watching cabernet, merlot and pinot noir grapes, which are already in veraison, turning red and starting to ripen.
California
Gets Her Own Show
Meghan McCain
Meghan McCain is getting her own show on a new TV network targeting the generation of Americans known as millennials.
"Raising McCain" will debut on Pivot, a general entertainment network that launches Aug. 1. It's described as a documentary-talk series for viewers ages 15 to 34. McCain will star and serve as executive producer.
The 28-year-old author and blogger told the Television Critics Association on Friday that the show lets her "be crazy, be myself and talk about issues."
"I came to Pivot because I think there has to be some sort of middle ground between the Kardashians and C-SPAN," McCain said. "I want to give people information but not talk down to them. I am so excited. This is the best thing I've ever done."
Meghan McCain
"Ray Donovan" Producer Pleads Guilty
Bryan Zuriff
A Hollywood producer has pleaded guilty in New York for his role in a high-stakes sports betting business run by an organized-crime enterprise.
Bryan Zuriff is executive producer of the Showtime series "Ray Donovan." He pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to accepting a financial instrument in connection with unlawful Internet gambling.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced the plea Friday, saying Zuriff operated an illegal gambling enterprise in Los Angeles and helped run one in New York.
Authorities in April indicted 34 people accused of being part of a scheme by two Russian-American organized-crime enterprises. They say the enterprises laundered $100 million from illegal gambling including poker games attended by celebrities and pro athletes.
Bryan Zuriff
Pitchman In Contempt
Kevin Trudeau
A federal judge has found author and infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau in contempt of court for failing to pay a more than $37 million fine imposed over misleading ads for one of his wildly popular weight-loss books.
Friday's ruling was the latest round in more than a decade of legal battles that began with a suit filed by the Federal Trade Commission. The regulatory agency alleged some of Trudeau's informercials included false and misleading statements about his books.
A federal judge in Chicago agreed and ordered him to stop. Then in 2007, Judge Robert Gettleman fined Trudeau $37.6 million for violating the order.
On Friday, Gettleman said Trudeau failed to pay and ordered him to transfer ownership of companies and financial accounts to a court-appointed receiver. Gettleman found him in contempt, opting not to give him jail time out of concern that those hurt by his actions would never get compensated.
He likened Trudeau to a puppet master in control of a vast network being used to keep his assets hidden and suggested that without his cooperation there would be no way to get at that money.
Kevin Trudeau
Wants To Reclaim Word
Tim Allen
Tim Allen isn't a fan of the N-word - not just the word, but the phrase.
The 60-year-old actor-comedian told the Tampa Bay Times in Florida that the term "N-word" is worse than the racial slur it represents.
The star of the TV shows "Home Improvement" and "Last Man Standing," and films such as "The Santa Clause" said he thinks the criticism that keeps non-black comedians from using the actual N-word is a step backward from the days when Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce purposefully used such language.
Allen's comments were published this week ahead of a stand-up performance. But he made them last month after it was revealed celebrity chef Paula Deen admitted using racial slurs in the past.
In a statement provided by his spokeswoman, Allen says it wasn't his intention to offend anyone.
Tim Allen
Rescue The Porn Industry
Superhero Parodies
We all know he can leap tall buildings in a single bound and bend steel in his bare hands. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that during a time of crisis even the porn industry turns to Superman.
The same week in June that Warner Bros. released the Superman blockbuster "Man of Steel," Vivid Entertainment Group put out its own superhero flick, "Man of Steel XXX: A Porn Parody."
Although it's safe to assume that "Steel XXX" didn't quite match the $116.6 million opening weekend of the Warner Bros. hit, if it performs anything like 2010's "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody," it will become the most-rented and highest-selling porn video of the year. At a cost of more than $100,000, it will also be one of the most expensive porn movies made.
Parodies, once a cheaply filmed niche segment of the adult movie market, are big business these days - filled with expensive special effects, real story lines, actors who can (sometimes) actually act and costumes that even comic-book geeks find authentic.
The movies may also help save an industry looking to rebound from years of Internet piracy, illegal downloads and amateur videos that have caused a serious financial hit, said Mark Kernes, senior editor at Adult Video News. The business has gone from annual revenues of as much as $12 billion a few years ago to about $7 billion today.
Superhero Parodies
Driving People Crazy
Mysterious Hum
It's known as the Hum, a steady, droning sound that's heard in places as disparate as Taos, N.M.; Bristol, England; and Largs, Scotland.
But what causes the Hum, and why it only affects a small percentage of the population in certain areas, remain a mystery, despite a number of scientific investigations.
Reports started trickling in during the 1950s from people who had never heard anything unusual before; suddenly, they were bedeviled by an annoying, low-frequency humming, throbbing or rumbling sound.
The cases seem to have several factors in common: Generally, the Hum is only heard indoors, and it's louder at night than during the day. It's also more common in rural or suburban environments; reports of a hum are rare in urban areas, probably because of the steady background noise in crowded cities.
Only about 2 percent of the people living in any given Hum-prone area can hear the sound, and most of them are ages 55 to 70, according to a 2003 study by acoustical consultant Geoff Leventhall of Surrey, England.
Mysterious Hum
In Memory
JJ Cale
If musicians were measured not by the number of records they sold but by the number of peers they influenced, JJ Cale would have been a towering figure in 1970s rock 'n' roll.
His best songs like "After Midnight," ''Cocaine" and "Call Me the Breeze" were towering hits - for other artists. Eric Clapton took "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" and turned them into the kind of hard-party anthems that defined rock for a long period of time. And Lynyrd Skynyrd took the easy-shuffling "Breeze" and supercharged it with a three-guitar attack that made it a hit.
Cale, the singer-songwriter and producer known as the main architect of the Tulsa Sound, passed away Friday night at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. His manager, Mike Kappus, said Cale died of a heart attack. He was 74.
While his best known songs remain in heavy rotation on the radio nearly 40 years later, most folks wouldn't be able to name Cale as their author. That was a role he had no problem with.
"No, it doesn't bother me," Cale said with a laugh in an interview posted on his website. "What's really nice is when you get a check in the mail."
And the checks rolled in for decades. The list of artists who covered his music or cite him as a direct influence reads like a who's who of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - Clapton, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Mark Knopfler, The Allman Brothers, Carlos Santana, Captain Beefheart and Bryan Ferry among many others.
Young said in Jimmy McDonough's biography "Shakey" that Cale and Jimi Hendrix were the two best guitar players he had ever heard. And in his recent memoir "Waging Heavy Peace," Young said Cale's "Crazy Mama" - his biggest hit, rising to No. 22 on the Billboard singles chart - was one of the five songs that most influenced him as a songwriter: "The song is true, simple, and direct, and the delivery is very natural. JJ's guitar playing is a huge influence on me. His touch is unspeakable."
It was Clapton who forged the closest relationship with Cale. They were in sync musically and personally. Clapton also recorded Cale songs "Travelin' Light" and "I'll Make Love To You Anytime" and included the Cale composition "Angel" on his most recent album, "Old Sock." Other songs like "Layla" didn't involve Cale, but clearly owe him a debt. The two also collaborated together on "The Road to Escondido," which won the Grammy Award for best contemporary blues album in 2008.
Clapton once told Vanity Fair that Cale was the living person he most admired, and Cale weighed the impact Clapton had on his life in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press: "I'd probably be selling shoes today if it wasn't for Eric."
That quote was typical of the always humble Cale. But while Clapton was already a star when he began mining Cale's catalog, there's no doubt the music they shared cemented his "Clapton is God" status and defined the second half of his career.
Clapton described Cale's music as "a strange hybrid. It's not really blues, it's not really folk or country or rock 'n' roll. It's somewhere in the middle."
Cale arrived at that intersection by birth. Born John Weldon Cale in Oklahoma City, he was raised in Tulsa. Buffeted by country and western on one side and the blues on the other, Oklahoma offered a melting pot of styles. Cale leaned on those roots forms as he spent his formative years in Los Angeles and Nashville, but he also used drum machines and often acted as his own producer, engineer and session player. He'd bury his own whispery vocals in the mix, causing the listener to lean in and focus.
JJ Cale
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