Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: 13 VS. 2,000,000
Fort Hood Shootings a Shocker...Why Not U.S. War Crimes?
Daniel Gross: The Lost Decade (slate.com)
Why the last 10 years have been an economic disappointment for most Americans.
Evan R. Goldstein: Isaiah Berlin, Beyond the Wit (chronicle.com)
Isaiah Berlin-renowned liberal theorist, historian of ideas, Oxford don, cultural gadfly-was one of the great raconteurs of his generation.
Julia Goldberg: Margaret Atwood Renders Today's Troubles into Absorbing Dystopian Tomorrows (Santa Fe Reporter)
Atwood discusses her new novel, 'The Year of the Flood,' today's environmental movement, and why no one can predict the future.
Question time: Cindy Crawford (guardian.co.uk)
She talks to Hannah Pool about supermodels and supermoney, her flourishing career in business, and whether models today are too thin.
Luaine Lee: 'Monk' role has been a dream job for Traylor Howard (McClatchy-Tribune News Service)
"It doesn't seem quite real," sighs Traylor Howard, who has been playing Monk's assistant for five years.
'True Blood': A tale of glamour, sex and vampires (guardian.co.uk)
Simon Chilvers salutes the TV series of vampires in small-town America that is now enthralling British viewers.
Roger Ebert: PLEASANTVILLE (PG-13; 4 stars)
In the twilight of the 20th century, here is a comedy to reassure us that there is hope -- that the world we see around us represents progress, not decay. "Pleasantville," which is one of the year's best and most original films, sneaks up on us. It begins by kidding those old black-and-white sitcoms like "Father Knows Best," it continues by pretending to be a sitcom itself, and it ends as a social commentary of surprising power.
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Two or Three and out' Edition
Washington (CNN) -- A handful of Republican senators have proposed a constitutional amendment to limit how long a person may serve in Congress.
Currently, there are no term limits for federal lawmakers, but Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, and several of his colleagues are advocating that service in the Senate be limited to 12 years, while lawmakers would only be allowed to serve six years in the House
GOP senators push for term limits - CNN.com
Are you in favor of term limits for US representatives and senators?
Send your response to
Results Tuesday
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Contributor Suggetsions
BadtotheboneBob
Veteran director Martin Scorsese will receive the Cecil B DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes next year.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Lifetime Globe prize for Scorsese
Hellish hairy sea monster cast ashore (photo) - Pravda.Ru (Haha! This is better than the National Enquirer!)
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and still on the cool side.
Czechs Celebrate 20 Years
Velvet Revolution
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel opened the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Velvet Revolution with a concert attended by celebrities.
Underground rocker Lou Reed, soprano Renee Fleming and folk singer Joan Baez performed to a crowd of about 500 gathered at 13th-century church in downtown Prague.
Baez performed "We Shall Overcome" in both Czech and English to massive applause by an audience that included former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was born in Prague. Fleming sang "Rusalka" by Antonin Dvorak and "Ave Maria" by Franz Schubert, and was then joined by Reed on his song "Perfect Day."
Video messages from President Barack Obama, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were broadcast along with greetings from rock stars Mick Jagger and Bono during the nationally televised concert.
Velvet Revolution
Marks Anniversary Of Peking Opera School
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan didn't take acting lessons or attend a fancy conservatory. The biggest star in kung fu cinema learned his craft from a retired Peking Opera star who turned his apartment into a performing arts boot camp for working-class Hong Kong children in the 1960s.
On Friday, Chan and dozens of his fellow graduates gathered at a luxury Hong Kong hotel to mark 50 years since their late teacher Yu Jim-yuen launched the now-defunct Hong Kong-China Opera Institute, a small boarding school that became a breeding ground for top Chinese action stars and action choreographers.
Chan is the most famous of the 40-plus students, but their ranks also include Sammo Hung, best known in the U.S. for his two-season TV series "Martial Law," Corey Yuen, an action director on Hollywood films like "Lethal Weapon 4" and "X-Men," and Yuen Biao, who earned a big following in Japan with films like "The Champions" and "Peacock King." Yuen Wah from "Kung Fu Hustle" was a stunt double for Bruce Lee.
Dressed in identical red jackets and red-and-black striped ties, the now-middle-aged filmmakers reminisced about their childhoods spent under Yu, a strict disciplinarian who regularly caned his students if they deviated from a rigorous regimen of acrobatics, dance, kung fu and singing lessons.
Jackie Chan
French Legion of Honor
Clint Eastwood
President Nicolas Sarkozy awarded U.S. actor and director Clint Eastwood one of France's top honors on Friday, hailing him as a cinema legend and a symbol of the type of America that the French adored.
It is unusual for a foreigner to be elevated to the rank of commander of the French Legion of Honor but Eastwood, who went from playing tough guy roles like Dirty Harry to directing highly praised films, said he saw France as his second home.
He jokingly referred to Sarkozy as "my president" after receiving the red-ribboned medal, and said he planned to go out and show off his award.
"As a commander of the arts and letters, I think I will go out on the streets of France today and throw my weight around," said Eastwood, 79, who recently finished making a supernatural thriller in France, "Hereafter."
Clint Eastwood
Prepares For Cable Takeover
NBC
Eight decades after pioneering the concept of broadcasting, NBC is on the verge of a startling move that illustrates broadcast television's decline.
Cable TV operator Comcast Corp. is expected to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, perhaps as early as this week, bringing the network of Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Tom Brokaw under the corporate control of the company that owns the Golf Channel and E! Entertainment Television.
Starting Sunday, Vivendi SA has an option to sell its 20 percent stake in NBC Universal. Majority owner General Electric Co. is expected to buy it and then sell a 51 percent stake of the entire NBC Universal unit to Comcast, which serves about a quarter of the nation's subscription TV households.
Broadcast people, the folks who remember when television was ABC, CBS, NBC and little else, used to look down upon cable.
NBC
Strippers-On-A-Truck Halted
Las Vegas
A Las Vegas strip club has agreed to stop an advertising promotion that involved hauling bikini-clad exotic dancers around in a truck with clear plastic sides.
Larry Beard, marketing director of Deja Vu Showgirls, said Friday that he's taking his lawyer's advice and parking the truck.
"We're going to respect the opinion of the folks that are against it," Beard told The Associated Press. "We're going to be good citizens and take it off the street."
Beard had told the AP earlier this week that he was prepared to fight county leaders and others who thought the moving truck promotion was unseemly or unsafe.
Las Vegas
Tax Bill
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor's lawyer blames convicted swindler Bernard Madoff for a hefty tax bill owed by his client.
According to documents obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, the Internal Revenue Service filed a lien of more than $118,000 for the years 2001 and 2002 against the 92-year-old actress on Oct. 5 in the Los Angeles County Recorder of Deeds.
Gabor lawyer Chris Fields estimates that Gabor lost about $7 million in Madoff's Ponzi scheme and the tax bill is part of the fallout. Fields says third-party money managers invested Gabor's money with Madoff.
Fields says Gabor and husband Frederic von Anhalt are pulling together their resources and working out a payment plan with the IRS.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Estate Sues For Wrongful Death
'DJ AM'
Court documents say the estate of Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein is suing several defendants for wrongful death.
Goldstein sustained serious injuries in a plane crash in September 2008 in South Carolina and later died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and cocaine in August in New York.
Before his death, Goldstein filed a negligence and breach of contract lawsuit.
The amended complaint filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court names several defendants, including Clay Lacy Aviation and Learjet Inc.
'DJ AM'
LA Tagger Busted
John Scott
A 74-year-old man said to be the oldest graffiti vandal ever captured in Los Angeles County was arrested Friday, authorities said. Deputies spotted the septuagenarian John Scott putting stickers on a stairwell at a downtown Metro Center subway station. The black-and-orange bumper stickers ask, "Who is John Scott?" and have been seen stuck on buses in Baldwin Hills and areas on the Westside of the city.
Stickers used in such a way are referred to as "slap tags" by those in the law enforcement community. They can be adhered to public property in a second or two but are difficult to remove.
Scott faces at least one felony vandalism charge when he is arraigned Monday. Deputies did not immediately know if he'd retained an attorney.
Ruble said the oldest suspect they'd previously arrested for such vandalism was 36.
John Scott
What Your Photos Say About You
Posting Pics Online
Those photos you post on Facebook could paint an accurate picture of your personality, new research on first impressions suggests.
And perhaps as expected, the more candid a shot the more nuances of your personality show through.
"In an age dominated by social media where personal photographs are ubiquitous, it becomes important to understand the ways personality is communicated via our appearance," said study researcher Laura Naumann of Sonoma State University. "The appearance one portrays in his or her photographs has important implications for their professional and social life."
With this information, there's always the option of tweaking your image, and thus your personality to the outside world. "If you want potential employers or romantic suitors to see you as a warm and friendly individual, you should post pictures where you smile or are standing in a relaxed pose," Naumann said.
Posting Pics Online
In Memory
Paul Wendkos
Director
Paul Wendkos, whose career spanned 50 years and covered some 100 films and television shows including the 1959 surf movie "Gidget," has died due to a lung infection that followed a stroke. He was 84.
Despite the comedic tone of "Gidget," about a girl played by Sandra Dee who falls for a surfer under the California sun, and later "Gidget Goes Hawaiian," Wendkos' work more often focused on dark and edgy subjects.
His other films included 1969's "Guns of the Magnificent Seven," and on television, he helmed movies and mini-series such as "The Legend of Lizzie Borden," starring Elizabeth Montgomery, and "A Woman Called Moses" with Cicely Tyson.
Wendkos was born on September 20, 1925 in Philadelphia and served in the U.S. Navy during World War Two. He attended Columbia University in New York and later studied film history and aesthetics at The New School for Social Research.
Wendkos' first movie was the documentary "Dark Interlude" that looked at rehabilitating the blind, and his first narrative movie was the 1957 drama "The Burglar," starring Jayne Mansfield, who was a little known actress at the time.
Wendkos married Ruth Burnat in 1953, and the couple had one son, Jordan Elkan Wendkos. Ruth died in 1978. Wendkos's second marriage was to former NBC television producer Lin Bolen. He is survived by Bolen, his son Jordan, a granddaughter, niece and nephews.
Paul Wendkos
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