Recommended Reading
from Bruce
David Plotz: The New New Deal (Slate)
President Obama's stimulus has been an astonishing, and unrecognized, success, argues Michael Grunwald.
Paul Krugman: What's in the Ryan Plan? (New York Times)
A number of commenters have asked for a summary of what's actually in the Ryan plan. So this is a utility post.
Froma Harrop: The Mixed Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown (Creators Syndicate)
It took a poor girl from the Ozarks to look upon the candy store of sex and money that was postwar urban America and rearrange the shelves. Helen Gurley Brown was she, the brains behind the racy Cosmopolitan magazine empire and author of the 1962 sensation "Sex and the Single Girl." Was her influence good, bad or an in-between thing? Answer to come.
Oliver Burkeman: I'd never boast about it, but I'm a master of the new art of underbragging Guardian)
Now everyone is bragging on Facebook and Twitter, the really smart people are developing new ways of promoting their magnificence.
Michael Moran: Penis Riot (Slate)
"Either take off the cross or put on panties," he tweeted in his best diplomatic prose.
Howard Reich: Von Freeman, Chicago jazz legend, dead at 88 (Chicago Tribune)
Revered around the world but never a major star, worshipped by critics and connoisseurs but perpetually strapped for cash, the towering Chicago tenor saxophonist Von Freeman practically went out of his way to avoid commercial success.
John Cage: musicians and artists on a legend (Guardian)
John Cage used plants, liquidisers, radios and even silence to make music. As the Proms prepare to celebrate the centenary of his birth, musicians and artists tell Stuart Jeffries how the composer continues to inspire them.
Melissa Ruggieri: Does video kill the concert vibe? (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Stacy Daxe entered Sting's recent Atlanta concert as a fan and left irritated.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce's Blog
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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Michelle in AZ
Bosko Suggests
Sand
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot. Still cranky.
Staff Cuts
Tonight Show
Published reports say The Tonight Show has laid off about two dozen workers and host Jay Leno has taken a large pay cut to save the jobs of other staffers.
The moves are part of a restructuring to save money at NBC. NBC Universal imposed the cutbacks Friday, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. Both newspapers cited an unnamed person familiar with what happened.
The layoffs and Leno's salary concessions were first reported by Deadline Hollywood, a website that tracks the entertainment industry.
The network has been losing money, increasing the pressure to cut expenses under corporate parent Comcast Corp.
Tonight Show
Where Americans Find New Music
Radio
Video hasn't yet killed the radio star after all, although YouTube has taken over as the place where most teens listen to music, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Nielsen's Music 360 report found that radio is still the place where most people (48 percent) discover new music, compared to just 7 percent for YouTube.
But once they have found it, 64 percent of teens listen to music through YouTube, the popular video-sharing website owned by Google Inc.
The report found that 56 percent of teens listen to music on the radio while 53 percent use Apple Inc's iTunes music player and half of teens still listen to music on compact discs, or CDs.
Radio
Looking For Mayberry
Mount Airy
In the town of Mayberry from "The Andy Griffith Show," a small-town sheriff and his trusty deputy always outwitted big-city crooks, and problems never got much bigger than a trigger-happy kid with a slingshot.
But while Mayberry was fiction, it was inspired by a real place: Mount Airy, N.C., the late Andy Griffith's hometown. And more than a half-century after the series first aired, fans are still coming to Mount Airy, looking for a glimpse of small-town life and the simpler times portrayed on the show.
Here visitors can eat at the Snappy Lunch, which Griffith's character, Sheriff Andy Taylor, once recommended as a nice place to take a date. They can satisfy a sweet tooth at Opie's Candy Store, named for the sheriff's son, or book a Squad Car Tour of the city at Wally's Service Station. Businesses with Mayberry in the name are too numerous to count, but they include the Mayberry Motor Inn and Mayberry Trading Post. There's also an Andy Griffith Museum and a bed-and-breakfast created from the actor's childhood home.
Tourism in Mount Airy is up since Griffith died, with about 10,400 people visiting the Andy Griffith Museum in July, almost double the 5,300 who visited in July 2011. More than 2,500 showed up at the museum in the three days after Griffith's death July 3, and so many came for autographs from actress Betty Lynn- who played Thelma Lou, the deputy's girlfriend - that fans had to be turned away after the first 500.
Griffith's recent passing may also attract more visitors to the 52nd annual Mayberry Days, scheduled for Sept. 27-30. The event typically attracts 25,000 to 30,000 people. This year, the Surry Arts Council, which sponsors the event, plans tributes to both Griffith and George Lindsey, the actor who played Goober and who died in May.
Mount Airy
N. Dakota Diner
Tom Hanks
The owner of a diner in North Dakota got a surprise Friday when actor Tom Hanks showed up for an early breakfast.
Tammy Hagensen says she got a call Thursday evening from a jet company that often sends their pilots to TNT's Diner in West Fargo. A company official asked if she would open early Friday for a special guest whose name could not be revealed right away.
Hagensen told the Forum newspaper she agreed to open early because she was curious. She says she was stunned when Hanks, his wife, Rita Wilson, and their two sons walked through the door.
Hagensen says Hanks and his family ate breakfast and left, but not before a couple of photos were taken and he signed a couple of T-shirts.
Tom Hanks
Up For Parole Again
John Lennon
Officials say John Lennon's killer, who is up for parole for the seventh time, could have a parole hearing as early as Tuesday.
New York Department of Corrections spokeswoman Linda Foglia says Mark David Chapman is scheduled to be interviewed by members of the parole board this week. She says they could make a decision by Thursday or Friday.
Chapman was transferred in May from the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York to the nearby Wende Correctional Facility. Both are maximum security. The prison system doesn't disclose why inmates are transferred.
Chapman was denied parole for the sixth time in September 2010.
John Lennon
Evidence Took Up Too Much Space
Charges Dropped
The federal government has more than 400,000 pages of evidence against fugitive Miami doctor Armando Angulo, taking up some two terabytes of digital space. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty solid case. But at the urging of prosecutors, charges were dropped against the doctor because the evidence is simply taking up too much space on government servers.
"Continued storage of these materials is difficult and expensive," wrote Stephanie Rose, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa, describing the ongoing evidence storage as "an economic and political hardship" for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The evidence against Angulo alone reportedly was taking up 5 percent of the DEA's entire worldwide global storage network. Part of that limited storage capacity stems from the fact that the DEA has not recently upgraded its storage capacity. An external hard drive with a terabyte of storage can be easily purchased online at outlets like Best Buy for around $100.
Angulo fled to his native Panama shortly after the investigation began in 2004. In 2007 he was indicted on federal charges of selling prescription drugs online to patients who were never examined or interviewed by licensed physicians.
Charges Dropped
Russian Clerics Forgive
Pussy Riot
Russia's top Orthodox clerics on Saturday asked for mercy for the punk band Pussy Riot for its anti-government protest in a Moscow cathedral, but the church's forgiveness is unlikely to change the band's punishment in a case that caused an international furor over political dissent.
Despite its plea for clemency for the three rock activists, a leading cleric called the demonstration "awful" and defiant of the powerful church that is the heart of Russia's national identity.
The Pussy Riot case has underlined the vast influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Although church and state are formally separate, critics say its strength and symbolism in the country effectively makes it a quasi-state entity. Some Orthodox groups and many believers had urged strong punishment for an action they consider blasphemous.
The church has a history of cracking down on its critics in post-Soviet Russia: Gleb Yakunin, a priest and former lawmaker was defrocked and excommunicated after discovering in the early 1990s that church leaders had been enlisted as KGB agents.
The current head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has made no secret of his strong support for Putin, praising his leadership as "God's miracle," and has described the punk performance as part of an assault by "enemy forces" on the church.
Pussy Riot
Britain Stops Export Of Picasso Painting
"Child with a Dove"
Britain has placed a temporary export ban on a key Picasso painting which had been on loan to a public gallery since 1974 before its aristocratic owners decided to put it up for sale.
"Child with a Dove" was painted in 1901 and marked the beginning of the Spanish artist's "blue period." It has been valued at 50 million pounds.
Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said on Friday he was preventing the work from leaving the country until December 16, and, if a "serious" attempt to meet the asking price was made by a private buyer or institution outside Britain, until June 16, 2013.
Works can be bought by public institutions for significantly less than the guide price through private sale arrangements that involve sharing tax advantages between the two parties.
"Child with a Dove"
To Sail Again
USS Constitution
The world's oldest commissioned warship will sail under its own power for just the second time in more than a century to commemorate the battle that won it the nickname "Old Ironsides."
The USS Constitution, which was first launched in 1797, will be tugged from its berth in Boston Harbor on Sunday to the main deepwater pathway into the harbor. It will then set out to open seas for a 10-minute cruise.
The short trip marks the day two centuries ago when the Constitution bested the British frigate HMS Guerriere in a fierce battle during the War of 1812. It follows a three-year restoration project and is the first time the Constitution has been to sea on its own since its 200th birthday in 1997.
Before that, it hadn't sailed under its own power since 1881. The Constitution is periodically tugged into the harbor for historical display.
USS Constitution
In Memory
Martine Franck
Belgian photographer Martine Franck, a member of the Magnum Photos cooperative and the second wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson, has died aged 74, a source close to Franck said Friday.
Born in Anvers in 1938, the elegant Franck spent her childhood in the US and in England before studying art history in Madrid and at Paris's Ecole du Louvre.
Her photography took off in 1963 with trips to the Far East and a job at Time-Life's photographic laboratory in 1964.
In 1966, she decided to go freelance, selling her work to a range of publications including Life, Fortune and Vogue magazines, before joining the Vu agency four years later.
Franck was one of the founding members of the Viva agency in Paris in 1972 before going on to become a full member of the Magnum Photos cooperative, whose co-founder Cartier-Bresson she would later marry.
Her work at Magnum was wide-ranging, taking in portraits of artists and writers and coverage of humanitarian stories.
She became the official photographer of the Theatre du Soleil company, led by Ariane Mouchkine, and worked with the International Federation of the Little Brothers of the Poor, helping the elderly and vulnerable.
Franck married Cartier-Bresson in 1970, and was instrumental in preserving her husband's legacy by setting up the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in 2002.
Last year, the foundation auctioned off 100 of Cartier-Bresson's pictures, raising two million euros to swap its premises in Montparnasse in Paris for somewhere more spacious.
Franck herself was much feted in Paris: the Claude Bernard gallery showed a selection of her work this spring and a number of her portraits of artists were exhibited in November 2011 at the contemporary photographic art centre Maison Europeene de la Photographie.
She snapped a number of foreign artists -- including Miquel Barcelo, Marc Chagall, Leonor Fini, Zao Wou Ki and Fernando Botero -- in their Parisian studios, telling AFP at the exhibition openign that she enjoyed working with fellow foreigners and knew how to get their best portrait.
Franck's funeral will be held in the south-eastern French village of Luberon, where Cartier-Bresson was buried after his death in 2004.
Martine Franck
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