Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: The great impending OMG of 2011 (SF Gate)
It was, to my slippery and wayward mind, one of the wonkiest, wobbliest, most sputteringly interesting years in ages, full of sound and fury and shrill, insufferable conservatism signifying nothing, but in a way that makes it seem like, you know, everything.
Ralph Nader: To the Editor (New York Times)
There are plenty of distinguished progressive champions lobbying, rallying, exposing, suing and organizing at the national, state and local level. Yet they have been mostly left out of the mass media, on television and radio and in the news, feature, style, opinion and book review pages of major newspapers, including The Times.
Stanley Fish: Anonymity and the Dark Side of the Internet (New York Times)
When it comes to the Internet, are even free-speech advocates having second thoughts?
Froma Harrop: Mystery of the Missing Millionaires (Creators Syndicate)
A daffy Wall Street Journal editorial about the "vanishing millionaires" of Oregon lit a spark in a fairly humorless week. It offers the usual boilerplate about the rich fleeing to tax-friendlier provinces because their state raised taxes, but this time with a great visual: "One-quarter of the rich tax filers seem to have gone missing."
David N. Cicilline: Passing the Baton in Providence Mayor (Andrewtobias.com)
It's funny. When you look back in time, you can see every single mile you've traveled, all the peaks and valleys, all the wonderful vistas you've enjoyed, and all of the storms you've weathered. When you look to the future, though, it's natural to see blue sky, the limitless horizon, and the promise of everything that's possible.
Jim Hightower: "AIRPORTS: SURRENDER ALL LIBERTY, YE WHO ENTER BY ME"
Wasn't it great in the holiday season to enjoy friends, family, good meals... and, of course, being radiated or groped at the airport security line.
Ben Yagoda: The Elements of Clunk (The Chronicle Review)
Four years ago, I wrote an essay for The Chronicle Review cataloging "The Seven Deadly Sins of Student Writers"-the errors and infelicities that cropped up most frequently in my students' work. Since then a whole new strain of bad writing has come to the fore, not only in student work but also on the Internet,
Ben Yagoda: The Seven Deadly Sins of Student Writers (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
I have been teaching college writing since 1992. The corrections I find myself making on student assignments fall into two general categories.
Peter Bradshaw: "Pete Postlethwaite: A face we won't forget" (Guardian)
Pete Postlethwaite, who died on Sunday, was one of our finest actors. Peter Bradshaw recalls the rugged features that made him so famous - and the unwitting role he played in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Franny Armstrong: Pete Postlethwaite and The Age of Stupid (Guardian)
Pete was the best actor of his generation because of his integrity.
Interviews by Tim Lusher: Pete Postlethwaite remembered (Guardian)
Colleagues of the late actor recall their memories of working with him.
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," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The '2011 Crystal ball' Edition...
I read somewhere this past week that some manner of 'seer' has predicted that Michelle Obama will become pregnant this year. O-o-o-kay... Not sure how the Obamas feel about that, but I think it might give the White House a much needed PR boost... Anyway...
Anybody game to make some 2011 Predictions?
Send your response to
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
New Feature
Caption this
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Some sun, mostly cloudy.
Comes To TV
The Onion
For nearly a quarter-century, The Onion has skewered the media with its satirical newspaper, then, starting in 1996, its website and, as of four years ago, the Onion News Network's online videos.
Now it's poised to make a two-fisted assault from within the most fitting of targets: television.
On Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. EST on Comedy Central, "Onion SportsDome" will begin its weekly swipe at TV sports coverage and commentary.
Then on Jan. 21, at 10 p.m. EST on the IFC network, "Onion News Network" launches its spitting-image TV version of cable-news excesses.
The Onion
Paid Directly By iTunes
Beatles
It seems that the EMI/Beatles deal that finally brought the Fab Four's catalogue to iTunes may be more groundbreaking than originally thought.
According to industry sources, iTunes is paying the Beatles' royalties from digital download sales in the United States directly to the band's company, Apple Corps, and is paying the songwriting mechanical royalties directly to Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which controls most of the Beatles' song catalogue.
That suggests the royalty split could be more lucrative for the Beatles than it would be under the typical provisions of a standard artist contract, which treat digital downloads as a retail sale.
Because iTunes is making royalty payments to the Beatles and Sony/ATV, EMI may be treating its deal with the digital retailer as a licensing pact.
Under such deals, the licensee pays mechanical royalties directly to a publisher and revenue from use of a master recording is split evenly between an artist and a label, making it far more lucrative for the artist than a standard artist contract.
Beatles
Art Collection Up For Auction
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper shot two bullet holes through an Andy Warhol portrait of Mao Zedong. But instead of getting mad, Warhol pronounced the "Easy Rider" star a collaborator.
Warhol's "Mao" is among 300 works of fine art and memorabilia owned by the late actor-director of the 1969 counterculture film up for auction at Christie's next week. The 1972 colored screenprint is expected to bring $20,000 to $30,000.
Most of the items adorned the actor's Venice Beach, Calif., home.
Hopper began collecting in the 1960s after the venerable actor, Vincent Price, himself an avid collector of Impressionist art, told him: "You need to collect, this is where you need to put your money," said Cathy Elkies, Christie's director of iconic collections. "This really was his calling."
Dennis Hopper
Renewed For Three Years
"TMZ"
Three more years of breathless coverage of celebrities leaving restaurants and arriving at airports.
"TMZ," the syndicated TV show that was spun off the Hollywood gossip web site in 2007, has been renewed through the 2013-14 season on Fox Television Stations, and on stations covering more than 75 percent of the country, distributor Warner Bros. said Tuesday.
"TMZ"
21st Century Censorship
Mark Twain
Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an effort not to offend readers.
Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219 times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain once humorously defined as those "which people praise and don't read."
"It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous reading experience and a lot of readers," Gribben said.
Yet Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the right word and the almost right one was "the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
Mark Twain
To Sue Australia For Failed Tax Probe
Paul Hogan
"Crocodile Dundee" star Paul Hogan will sue the Australian government for damaging his reputation during a failed criminal investigation into his tax dealings.
Fairfax Media on Thursday reported that Hogan's lawyer said the actor could seek up to $80 million for his loss of earnings from the five-year probe.
Lawyer Andrew Robinson is quoted as saying: "His earning potential and reputation has been decimated in the international community and it has had that level of effect on his position."
Investigators sought to prove suspicions that Hogan used offshore bank accounts to conceal earnings after his "Crocodile Dundee" trilogy became a hit in 1986. The investigation was dropped in November.
Paul Hogan
Dine 'N Dash
Gary Collins
Television host and actor Gary Collins has been arrested for leaving a restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi without paying his bill, police said on Wednesday.
Collins, 72, a former host of the Miss America beauty pageant, was charged with defrauding an innkeeper, said Rodney McGilvary, assistant chief of the Biloxi Police Department. He said Collins walked out on a $59.35 restaurant tab on Tuesday.
Restaurant employees followed him out of the restaurant into the parking lot, but he refused to stop, police said.
Collins had been drinking alcohol, McGilvary said, and was later arrested at his home but was not breath tested because he was not driving a vehicle at the time. Collins later posted bond of $5,000.
Gary Collins
Made Up Attack
Heidi Jones
A TV meteorologist told police she concocted claims of being attacked because she was under personal and professional stress and wanted attention, a court document released Wednesday shows.
Heidi Jones said nothing as she appeared briefly in a Manhattan court Wednesday to answer misdemeanor charges of false reporting. Her lawyer, Paul F. Callan, said she would fight the charges and had been "unfairly characterized and vilified" in some press reports on her case.
Jones, who has been suspended from her job at New York's local ABC station, told police Dec. 1 that she'd been attacked in Central Park in September and then again outside her apartment in November, according to a court complaint prosecutors filed Wednesday.
Police have said she told them the same man targeted her both times - the first time while she ran in the park - and she provided a detailed description including the alleged attacker's race, height and clothing.
Heidi Jones
Halting Profanity Citations
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania State Police have agreed to stop issuing disorderly conduct citations to people who use profane language, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said.
The ACLU sued the police in May 2010 on behalf of a woman ticketed for yelling "asshole" at a motorcyclist who swerved close to her.
The civil liberties group said such profanity is protected speech under the Constitution.
Under the settlement, police officers will be told they can no longer ticket people who use profane words or gestures, even if they are directed at the officers.
Officers will receive mandatory training in free speech, and will be told that "obscene" does not mean profanity, indecent speech, or gestures, the ACLU said.
Pennsylvania
Not Returning To "Real Housewives"
Camille Grammer
Camille Grammer will not be returning for a second season of cable network Bravo's "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."
The soon-to-be ex-wife of actor Kelsey Grammer has been the subject of much scrutiny during the series' freshman season, which averages more than 2 million viewers a week.
Among them are her parenting habits (she has four nannies for two children), her friendships with married tennis partner Nick Stabile and real-life medium Allison Dubois. There is also her now infamous feud with co-star Kyle Richards (aunt of socialite and reality star Paris Hilton).
While a second season has yet to be officially announced by the network, a source close to production confirmed that Grammer has decided that she has no interest in participating either way.
Camille Grammer
Hitting Canadian Talk Circuit
$chwarzenegger
Former California governor and Hollywood actor Arnold $chwarzenegger (R-Two Passports) will hit the speech circuit in Canada later this month to discuss green energy solutions, and his experience in movies and bodybuilding.
The former "Terminator" star will give talks in Calgary, Toronto and Montreal from January 25 to 27, event organizers said Tuesday.
"On his first speaking tour, the governor will talk to the Montreal business community about his career in politics, movies and bodybuilding," the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal said in a statement.
Tickets to attend the Montreal event cost between 275 and 1,200 dollars.
$chwarzenegger
Rarely Seen Documents
National Archives
Ronald Reagan's handwritten changes to the text of his "Evil Empire" speech, his correspondence with Mikhail Gorbachev and a bronze cast of Moscow's Kremlin from the one-time Soviet leader are going on rare public display at the National Archives.
The small collection unveiled Wednesday will be part of a rotating exhibit of the former president's documents and items to mark the 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth on Feb. 6. The exhibition starts Friday.
Reagan first declared the Soviet Union an "evil empire" in a 1983 speech before the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida. It became one of his best-known speeches.
Other items document Reagan's personal diplomacy with Gorbachev and other leaders of the since-disbanded Soviet Union.
National Archives
Memorial Cross Unconstitutional
California
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a San Diego war memorial marked by a four-story-tall Christian cross on public land violates the U.S. constitutional ban on government endorsement of religion.
Capping a legal dispute brewing since the late 1980s, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower-court decision that threw out a legal challenge to the hilltop cross brought on behalf of Jewish war veterans.
A group that filed a brief on behalf of 25 members of Congress supporting the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial, the American Center for Law and Justice, condemned the appeals court ruling as "a judicial slap in the face to our military veterans."
The appeals court, recognizing volatile feelings generated on both sides by the case, wrote that America's war veterans can and should be honored, "but without the imprimatur of state-endorsed religion."
California
From Funny Pages To The Runway
Beetle Bailey
Don't tell Sgt. Snorkel, but perennially put-upon private Beetle Bailey's Army green fatigues are influencing a new collection of limited-edition designer duds.
Arguably the longest-serving private never to have been promoted, Beetle Bailey will get the red carpet treatment next week when a line of clothing and accessories bearing his imprint is unveiled at apparel trade show PROJECT New York.
Working in conjunction with King Features Syndicate, designers Darren Romanelli and Hitoshi Tsujimoto have banded together to develop an Americana-inspired and military-infused collection of jackets, sweaters, T-shirts, hats, shoes, pants and bags.
"It's an Americana type of clothing line. It's real authentic clothes that people wore - jackets, blue jeans and stuff like that," Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker told The Associated Press Tuesday. "All sweaters, all the stuff that the ordinary guys wear, not the fancy guys."
Beetle Bailey
Fetches Record $396,000 In Tokyo
Big Tuna
A giant bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo on Wednesday, in the first auction of the year at the world's largest wholesale fish market.
The price for the 754-pound (342-kilogram) tuna beat the previous record set in 2001 when a 445-pound (202-kilogram) fish sold for 20.2 million yen, a spokesman for Tsukiji market said.
The massive tuna was bought and shared by the same duo that won the bidding for last year's top fish: the owners of Kyubey, an upscale sushi restaurant in Tokyo's Ginza district, and Itamae Sushi, a casual, Hong Kong-based chain.
Reporters thronged Hong Kong entrepreneur Ricky Cheng after his big win, which reflects the growing popularity of sushi around the world, particularly in Asia.
Big Tuna
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by the Nielsen Co. for Dec. 27-Jan 2. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football (Tuesday): Minnesota at Philadelphia, NBC, 23.74 million.
2. NFL Football (Sunday): St. Louis at Seattle, NBC, 19.36 million.
3. "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 15.06 million.
4. "Tuesday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 14.51 million.
5. "60 Minutes," CBS, 12.85 million.
6. "The OT," Fox, 12.27 million.
7. "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 12.19 million.
8. "Undercover Boss," CBS, 11.87 million.
9. "Football Night in America," NBC, 11.54 million.
10. "CSI: Miami," CBS, 10.92 million.
11. "NCIS," CBS, 10.64 million.
12. "The Mentalist," CBS, 9.97 million.
13. "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 9.75 million.
14. "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," ABC, 9.40 million.
15. "Kennedy Center Honors," CBS, 9.35 million.
16. "Criminal Minds," CBS, 9.27 million.
17. "New Year's Rockin' Eve," ABC, 9.24 million.
18. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 9.18 million.
19. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 9.02 million.
20. "Mike & Molly," CBS, 8.22 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Dick King-Smith
Dick King-Smith, the British author of the popular children's books which spawned the hit film "Babe", has died at the age of 88, his publishers said on Wednesday.
The prolific writer, whose 1983 book "The Sheep-Pig" was made into the 1995 film, died in his sleep on Tuesday at his home near Bath in southwest England, said a spokeswoman for Random House.
King-Smith described his creations as "farmyard fantasies" for children and many of his more than 100 books featured animals, drawing on the two decades he spent as a farmer after fighting in World War II.
A late starter as a writer, his first book, "The Fox Busters", was published in 1978 when he was already in his 50s and he went on to sell more than 15 million books worldwide.
But it was "The Sheep-Pig", about a little pig trained as a sheepdog, which really made his name and was eventually turned into the film received a number of Academy award nominations.
King-Smith is survived by his second wife Zona, three children, 14 grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.
Dick King-Smith
In Memory
Per Oscarsson
Swedish police on Wednesday confirmed that actor Per Oscarsson, who won a best actor award at Cannes in 1966 and appeared in films based on Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy died in a fire at his house.
Spokesman Ulf Edberg said remains found in Oscarsson's house had been identified as belonging to the 83-year-old actor and his wife, 67-year-old Kia Ostling.
The building, remotely located outside the town of Skara in southwest Sweden, burnt to the ground early Friday. Only the chimney was left when firefighters arrived at the scene.
Oscarsson won the best actor award at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival for his role as starving writer Pontus in the movie "Hunger." During his career he starred in more than 100 Swedish films and TV series.
Most recently, he appeared in the Swedish film "The Girl Who Played With Fire" based on Larsson's popular book. He played Holger Palmgren, the legal guardian to the heroine, Lisbeth Salander.
In his review of the film, U.S. critic Roger Ebert singled out Oscarsson's performance and described him as "a great Swedish actor ... who incredibly never worked with Bergman."
Per Oscarsson
In Memory
Mick Karn
Mick Karn, bass player in the 1980s group Japan, has died.
Statements posted on his website and Facebook page said the 52-year-old musician died of cancer at his home in London on Tuesday. In June, he announced on his website that he had been diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer; the specific type was not mentioned.
Karn was co-founder of Japan along with David Sylvian and Steve Jansen. The group's 1982 album, "Tin Drum," included the hit song, "Ghosts."
Karn was born Andonis Michaelides in Cyprus, and came to Britain with his family at age 3.
He is survived by his wife Kyoko and son Metis.
Mick Karn
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