Recommended Reading
from Bruce
roger ebert's journal: What do you mean by a miracle?
I'm not a miracle. And neither are the Chilean miners. We are all alive today for perfectly rational reasons. Yet there is a common compulsion to describe unlikely outcomes as miraculous -- if they are happy, of course. If sad, they are simply reported on, or among the believing described as "the will of God." Some disasters are so horrible they don't qualify as the will of God, but as the work of Satan playing for the other team.
Susan Estrich: Phoenix Rising (creators.com)
It was one of those moments. My son, a would-be engineer, saw it as a triumph of the very spirit of engineers: the can-do, we-can-solve-anything guts and genius that could figure out how to keep 33 men alive for two months while forging a plan to hoist them up from half a mile underground in a bullet-shaped device linked to a pulley.
Lenore Skenazy: Of Swing Sets and SATs (creators.com)
An empty swing, swaying back and forth. We all know what it represents. It is loss made visible - media shorthand for a missing child. Yet if you've been to any playgrounds lately, you may have noticed that empty swings are increasingly common for another reason.
Ted Rall: HOW TO SAVE AMERICAN CAPITALISM, IN 809 WORDS
American capitalism is broken. So is the Democratic-Republican duopoly that supports it. Neither can be fixed. The system is collapsing. A power vacuum is beginning to open.
Jim Hightower: POP GOES OUR ANTI-POPPY POLICY
Recently, I found myself humming the Old Beatles song: "Poppy Fields Forever."
Suswati Basu: "Lads' mags: the great cover-up" (guardian.co.uk)
Some shops are refusing to move lads' mags to the top shelf, despite their sexist content. Which is why one feminist group is taking direct action.
Poets on television (guardian.co.uk)
Nowadays, you'd never see a poet such as Auden on a chatshow. So what's changed in the culture of television, asks Mark Lawson.
Bob Westal: A Chat with Morgan Spurlock, Star of "Freakonomics" and "Super Size Me" (bullz-eye.com)
We followed ten different people when they were coming into Comic-Con. People think Comic-Con's the place where crazy people go dressed up in costume and hang out and party. That's a piece of it, but there's so much more that goes on.
Saul Austerlitz: Bugs Bunny, role model with a cottontail (Los Angeles Times)
Two new DVD collections of his best work show he was cool under pressure and snappy with comebacks. He's the rabbit we all long to be.
Christopher Beam: Porn Star Zero (slate.com)
Does anyone track the sex lives of adult-film performers?
Sasha Watson: Tarantino's Gal?(slate.com)
An appreciation of film editor Sally Menke.
ROGER EBERT: REVIEW OF "INSIDE JOB" (UNRATED; 4 STARS)
In one of the more refreshing moments during the housing meltdown, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) advised her constituents: "If a bank forecloses on you, don't move and demand they produce a copy of your mortgage. In many cases, they can't." She was prophetic; banks are now halting foreclosures all over the country.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll
As you read this, I'll either be on the way to, already at, or returning from the VAMC in Dee-troit (right on the Wayne State University campus) gettin' a pre-admission work up for my surgery next week. As such, there'll be a Poll hiatus whilst said procedure is done and recovery endured. I hope to have one up on the 26th asking yer predictions concerning the election on November 2nd. Those will be posted that morning (the 2nd) and we shall see later that evening who's got it right. At least that's the plan... Until then, TTFN...
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Selected Readings
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Coastal eddy is still the boss, so no sun again.
Cover Art Fetches $155K
`Charlotte's Web'
The original 1952 cover art for "Charlotte's Web" has sold at auction in New York City for more than $155,000.
Heritage Auctions says the artwork drawn by Garth Williams fetched more than five times its estimated sale price on Friday and is a record for any of Williams' art.
Heritage spokesman Barry Sandoval says the buyer is a New York collector who wishes to remain anonymous.
He says 42 of the late artist's original illustrations for the celebrated children's book were auctioned by his family and brought in more than $780,000. The total included the buyer's premium of 19.5 percent for all winning bids.
`Charlotte's Web'
Stamps Fetch $606,000
Audrey Hepburn
A rare sheet of 10 stamps depicting Audrey Hepburn fetched (EURO)430,000 ($606,000) at a charity auction in Berlin on Saturday, two-thirds of which will go to help educate children in sub-Saharan Africa.
The mint-condition sheet of 10 stamps featuring Hepburn, a coy smile on her face and a long, black cigarette holder dangling from her lips, brought a profitable outcome to a botched stamp series that should have been destroyed years ago - and evokes Hepburn's starring role in the 1963 thriller "Charade," in which the characters chase a set of rare stamps.
Sean Ferrer, 50, Hepburn's son with actor and director Mel Ferrer, and the chair of the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund, said he was thrilled that the sale Saturday brought "focus on children in need," but wished the stamps had sold for a higher price.
Two-thirds of money raised will go to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund, and one-third to UNICEF Germany.
Audrey Hepburn
February Start
'The Hobbit'
Peter Jackson is set to direct "The Hobbit," the two-part prequel to the popular "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and start shooting in February, Warner Bros. said in a release on Friday.
The movies, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's books, had been delayed by union issues and the ongoing restructuring of flailing Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., which owns half the project.
Jackson, who directed the "Rings" trilogy, had originally hired Guillermo del Toro to direct, but del Toro left the project in May because of delays after working on the project for nearly two years.
The two movies will be shot back to back using digital 3-D cameras. Earlier this year, Warner Bros. had been criticized for hastily converting "Clash of the Titans" into 3-D after shooting it using regular cameras.
'The Hobbit'
Didn't Recognise Depp
Keith Richards
Keith Richards has revealed Johnny Depp was a frequent visitor to his home for two years before he twigged he was a Hollywood star.
In an interview with Caitlin Moran in Times2, Keith confesses he had no idea who Oscar-nominated actor was, despite seeing him around his home.
Keith said: "It took me two year before I realised who he was. He was just one of my son Marlon's mates, hanging around the house playing guitar.
"I never ask Marlon's mates who they are because, you know, 'I'm a dope dealer'. Then one day I was at dinner and I'm like 'woah, Scissorhands'."
Keith Richards
Art Collection Auction
Jerry Hall
An auction of art owned by model Jerry Hall has racked up nearly 2.5 million pounds ($4 million) in sales.
Sotheby's said Saturday that the highest price in the two-day sale was for a painting, "Head of Helen Gillespie," by the artist Frank Auerbach. It sold for nearly 1.1 million pounds ($1.76 million), above the estimate of 900,000 pounds ($1.4 million).
Strong bidding pushed up the price of a nude study of Hall by Lucien Freud, painted when she was eight months pregnant with her fourth child with former husband Mick Jagger. It sold for 601,250 pounds ($961,579), double the lower end of the pre-sale estimate.
The two-day Contemporary Art Sale included 14 works owned by Hall. Four failed to sell.
Jerry Hall
Minor Problem
"Tyra"
Next on "The Tyra Banks Show": TV producers who kidnap teenaged sex addicts?
The mother of a 15-year-old self-proclaimed "sex addict" is suing Warner Bros. Entertainment, Tyra Banks and executive producers of her talk show for $3 million for featuring her child on television without consent.
Beverly McClendon, a resident of Georgia, filed the complaint in an Atlanta federal court last week, after her daughter seemingly went behind her back and flew to New York to appear on "Tyra." The lawsuit opens up questions about the care of duty owed when producers of a TV program invite minors on air to speak about their sexual proclivity.
According to the complaint, in October 2009 the "Tyra" show put out an open call on its website for "sex addicts." The call allegedly was answered by Jewel Ciera Washington, 15, who claimed to be a sex addict. Show producers allegedly reached Washington on her cell phone and invited her to appear as a guest.
In November, Washington is said to have flown unaccompanied to New York, was picked up in a limousine and put up in a hotel. Later, she claims, she appeared on the show, which was promoted as featuring a "15-year-old sex addict." She says she was also paid for her appearance.
"Tyra"
Founder Charged
Roc-a-Fella Records
A hip-hop mogul who founded Roc-a-Fella Records with rapper Jay-Z was among 50 people charged on Friday with trafficking tons of marijuana to New York from Florida and California, authorities said.
Kareem Burke, also known as Biggs, was arrested at his home in Bergen, New Jersey, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers said. Another 44 people have been arrested and charged with drug trafficking, while five remain at large, prosecutors said in a statement.
Among the 45 arrested was Matthew Stang, a writer and advertising representative for High Times, a New York-based marijuana advocacy magazine.
Burke and Stang are accused of being a part of a group that trafficked marijuana in the United States from 1992 to 2010.
Roc-a-Fella Records
Executive Resigns After E-Mail Flap
Los Angeles Times
Lee Abrams, chief innovation officer at Los Angeles Times owner Tribune Company, has resigned, Crain's Chicago Business reported Friday.
Abrams was suspended without pay on Wednesday after being criticized for sending around an email containing a video of topless and gyrating women.
Tribune Company's chief executive officer, Randy Michaels, wrote in a memo to staff concerning the suspension, "Lee recognizes that the video was in extremely bad taste and that it offended employees -- he has also apologized publicly. He reiterated those feelings again to me privately today. But, this is the kind of serious mistake that can't be tolerated; we intend to address it promptly and forcefully."
Just a few days earlier, a New York Times article detailed other misogynistic actions of executives at the media company.
Los Angeles Times
First Saint
Australia
The Vatican echoed to the sounds of the didgeridoo on Friday at an Aboriginal show in memory of Mary MacKillop, who is about to be named Australia's first saint.
A dozen bare-chested dancers wearing body paint performed songs and dances in front of hundreds of people, including dozens of nuns wearing turquoise scarves from the order that MacKillop helped found.
MacKillop (1842-1909) is due to be formally recognised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church at a mass in front of Saint Peter's basilica Sunday to be celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI with thousands in attendance.
Australia
Oil Change Reignites Debate
GPS
Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old computer salesman and community college student, took his car in for an oil change earlier this month and his mechanic spotted an odd wire hanging from the undercarriage.
The wire was attached to a strange magnetic device that puzzled Afifi and the mechanic. They freed it from the car and posted images of it online, asking for help in identifying it.
Two days later, FBI agents arrived at Afifi's Santa Clara apartment and demanded the return of their property - a global positioning system tracking device now at the center of a raging legal debate over privacy rights.
That investigators don't need a warrant to use GPS tracking devices in California troubles privacy advocates, technophiles, criminal defense attorneys and others.
GPS
In Memory
Barbara Billingsley
Even decades after the show ended, Barbara Billingsley expressed surprise at the lasting affection people had for "Leave it to Beaver" and her role as the warm, supportive mother of a pair of precocious boys.
The actress, who gained supermom status for her gentle portrayal of June Cleaver in the 1950s television series, died Saturday after a long illness. She was 94.
When the show debuted in 1957, Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, was 9, and Tony Dow, who portrayed Wally, was 12. Billingsley's character, the perfect stay-at-home 1950s mom, was always there to gently but firmly nurture both through the ups and downs of childhood.
Billingsley's own two sons said she was pretty much the image of June Cleaver in real life, although the actress disagreed.
"She was every bit as nurturing, classy, and lovely as 'June Cleaver,' and we were so proud to share her with the world," her son Glenn Billingsley said Saturday.
A wholesome beauty with a lithe figure, Billingsley began acting in her elementary school's plays and soon discovered she wanted to do nothing else.
Although her beauty and figure won her numerous roles in movies from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, she failed to obtain star status until "Leave it to Beaver," a show that she almost passed on.
After "Leave it to Beaver" left the air in 1963 Billingsley largely disappeared from public view for several years.
She resurfaced in 1980 in a hilarious cameo in "Airplane!" playing a demur elderly passenger not unlike June Cleaver.
When flight attendants were unable to communicate with a pair of jive-talking hipsters, Billingsley's character volunteered to translate, saying "I speak jive." The three then engage in a raucous street-slang conversation.
She returned as June Cleaver in a 1983 TV movie, "Still the Beaver," that costarred Mathers and Dow and portrayed a much darker side of Beaver's life.
The movie revived interest in the Cleaver family, and the Disney Channel launched "The New Leave It to Beaver" in 1985.
In 1997 Universal made a "Leave it to Beaver" theatrical film with a new generation of actors. Billingsley returned for a cameo, however, as Aunt Martha.
In later years she appeared from time to time in such TV series as "Murphy Brown," "Empty Nest" and "Baby Boom" and had a memorable comic turn opposite fellow TV moms June Lockhart of "Lassie" and Isabel Sanford of "The Jeffersons" on the "Roseanne" show.
In real life, fate was not as gentle to Billingsley as it had been to June and her family.
Born Barbara Lillian Combes in Los Angeles on Dec. 22, 1915, she was raised by her mother after her parents divorced. She and her first husband, Glenn Billingsley, divorced when her sons were just 2 and 4.
Her second husband, director Roy Kellino, died of a heart attack after three years of marriage and just months before she landed the "Leave it to Beaver" role.
She married physician Bill Mortenson in 1959 and they remained wed until his death in 1981.
Twersky said Billingsley's survivors include her sons, a stepson and numerous grandchildren.
Barbara Billingsley
In Memory
Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit Mandelbrot, a well-known mathematician who was largely responsible for developing the field of fractal geometry, has died. He was 85.
His wife, Aliette, says he died Thursday of pancreatic cancer. He had lived in Cambridge, Mass.
The Polish-born French mathematician founded the field of fractal geometry, the first broad attempt to quantitatively investigate the notion of roughness. He was interested in both the development and application of fractals, which he also showed could be used elsewhere in nature.
For years, he worked for IBM in New York. Later he became Sterling Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University.
He is survived by his wife, two sons and three grandchildren.
Benoit Mandelbrot
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