Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Michael Moore: The Green They Steal, The Greed They Wear (michaelmoore.com)
It was amazing. Every story on the front page of Tuesday's New York Times told the story of the Age of Greed during which a system known as capitalism is slowly, but surely, killing us: ...
Mark Morford: Dear Texas: Please shut up. Sincerely, History (sfgate.com)
Hey, kids! Here's something I bet you didn't know: Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable position.
Andrew Tobias: Daily Comment (andrewtobias.com)
"...South Korea has an average Internet connection speed of 100Mbps nationwide, a network that is currently being upgraded to 1Gbps by 2012. South Korea is implementing a system that is almost 300 times faster than what we get, ten times faster than what we plan to get."- James Musters
Scott Burns: A Convenient Fiction (assetbuilder.com)
Suppose we stopped pretending the corpse is breathing. Suppose we laughed at our leaders for suggesting the U.S. banking system is alive and recovering? Suppose we recognized that putting makeup on a corpse doesn't bring it back to life?
PAUL CONSTANT: Fleshing Out the Narrative (thestranger.com)
On the Pleasures of Having Naked Women Read to You.
Leonard Bernstein, the father I knew (timesonline.co.uk)
His daughter Nina tells Ginny Dougary about the joys and traumas of life with one of music's most inspirational figures.
Matilda Battersby: I prefer the purity of nudes, says cheeky Rankin (independent.co.uk)
"Porn objectifies women, but erotica doesn't," explains renowned British photographer Rankin.
Sean O'Hagan: The fabulous 50s - as seen by Ken Russell (guardian.co.uk)
Before he became Britain's most controversial film director, Russell forged a career as a photographer, capturing the great eccentrics of his youth for posterity.
Takeshi Kitano: one original gangster (guardian.co.uk)
Best known for his violent arthouse films, Takeshi Kitano is also an accomplished comic, prankster and painter. It's all fuel for his big new show in Paris, he tells Steve Rose.
Kenneth Anger: 'No, I am not a Satanist' (guardian.co.uk)
Kenneth Anger's crazy, gorgeous, disturbing films almost landed him in jail. The avant-garde pioneer talks Simon Hattenstone through all his demons.
Meet the real Shirley Henderson (guardian.co.uk)
Her tiny frame and bubble-light voice have made Shirley Henderson a shoo-in for roles such as Harry Potter's Moaning Myrtle - but don't be fooled she's a tough cookie, says Jane Graham.
Jon Caramanica: 'Ugly Americans': drawing partisan lines (latimes.com)
It's not enough to be illustrated and funny anymore: These days, animation is a place for subversion and hidden meaning. It's also the place...
David Bruce: Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper": A Discussion Guide (lulu.com)
Free Download.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'DNA Database Blues' Edition
"President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting... The nation's chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, "It's the right thing to do" to "tighten the grip around folks" who commit crime..."
Wired.com
Do you support mandatory DNA collection upon arrest?
A.) Yes
B.) No
C.) Depends on the crime
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Michigan Mom
How Michigan mom got president's attention
Feeling inspired and thankful, Jennifer Cline of Monroe sat down to write President Barack Obama a letter... She wrote about how she and her husband lost their jobs in 2007 and how she battled two kinds of skin cancer without health insurance. Cline told the president how things were turning around... she never figured the president would really read it. And she especially never thought he would respond...
Jennifer Cline's note from President Barack Obama reads, in part: "Jennifer ... knowing there are folks out there like you and your husband give me confidence that things will keep getting better."
(I hope so! There're a LOT of Clines out there...)
How Michigan mom got president's attention | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
(And 'The Man' did!... Personally!... By his own hand!... What a Guy!)
BadtotheboneBob
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
And the heat wave continues.
Considering Law To Ignore 'Birthers'
Hawaii
Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.
As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama's birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won't give up.
Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued statements last year and in October 2008 saying that she's seen vital records that prove Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama's birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.
A few of these requesters continue to pepper the Health Department with the same letters seeking the same information, even after they're told state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest. Responding wastes time and money, Kim said.
Hawaii
Named U.N. Goodwill Ambassador
Antonio Banderas
The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) has named Spanish actor Antonio Banderas as a "Goodwill Ambassador" for the global fight against poverty, the agency announced on Wednesday.
The UNDP said Banderas will use his celebrity status to draw attention to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets aimed at halving world poverty by 2015 by combating hunger, disease, illiteracy, pollution and discrimination against women.
Banderas, 49, was born in Malaga, Spain. He is an actor, author, singer and producer. He is currently writing, directing and producing a film about Boabdil, or Abu Abdullah Muhammad XII, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, Spain.
Antonio Banderas
Politicians Drop Trousers
Rome
Around 50 left-wing municipal officials dropped their trousers at Rome's city hall on Monday to call for the speedy passage of the Italian capital's 2010 budget.
"Alemanno has reduced us to our underwear," read one protester's poster, referring to the city's right-wing mayor Gianni Alemanno.
Sandro Medici, the mayor of Cinecitta, the home of the city's legendary movie studios, said Alemanno was dragging his feet over passing the budget "for electoral reasons, because it contains unpopular taxes."
Eleven of Rome's 19 districts are headed by left-wing mayors.
Rome
Laments Elusive Equality
Gloria Steinem
A message to all those confident young American women from pioneering feminist Gloria Steinem: For all the advances in women's rights in the past 40 years, equality remains a distant hope.
As she turns 76 next week, the woman who walked the front lines of American feminism in the 1960s and 1970s -- often in a miniskirt, big glasses and buttons with colorful expletives -- celebrates her good health and "huge, huge leaps forward."
American women workers still earn only 70 cents to men's $1, women are barred from combat, women's health care premiums are higher and raising children is not counted as productive work, she says.
While abortion is legal in the United States, Steinem says the reproductive freedom she fought for is under attack, as seen in efforts to include limits on abortion in the health care reform debate now in Congress.
Gloria Steinem
Earliest Surviving Film
Australia
Australia's earliest surviving film -- a 1896 movie known as "Patineur Grotesque" or "Humorous Rollerskater" -- was shown in the country for the first time Wednesday, Arts Minister Peter Garrett said.
The comedy, which shows a cigar-smoking, top-hatted man rollerskating before a crowd with a white hand mark on the seat of his trousers -- is thought to have been filmed in Melbourne by French cinematographer Marius Sestier.
While the one-minute movie, which features some of the earliest images of Australia caught on film, was shown overseas over a century ago, Wednesday's screening is believed to be the first time it has been shown Down Under.
"While Sestier's other films were a fixture of all his shows throughout Australia at the time, there is no record of this film ever having been shown here," Garrett said. "Amazingly, however, it was screened across Europe and as far away as Mexico, making it one of the first films to broadcast images of Australia abroad."
Australia
Image Licenses Library
Handmade Films
Home entertainment distributor Image Entertainment has licensed the 30-plus-title Handmade Films library, which includes such movies as "Time Bandits," "The Long Good Friday" and "Mona Lisa."
Handmade was created in 1978 by former Beatle George Harrison and producer Denis O'Brien. The label's first theatrical release was Terry Gilliam's 1981 "Time Bandits." Other titles include "Withnail and I," "How To Get Ahead In Advertising," "A Private Function" and "Water."
Chatsworth, Calif.-based Image said it planned to make the films available for the first time on Blu-ray and digital download.
Handmade Films
Ga. Senate To Honor
Tyler Perry
Madea is coming to the state Capitol.
Tyler Perry is scheduled to be honored by the Senate on Wednesday for his achievements as an entertainer and humanitarian. The 40-year-old New Orleans native and Atlanta resident is the first celebrity to be honored in the chamber this session.
Five state senators are presenting a resolution to Perry. The resolution cites his sharp-tongued "Madea" character, his creation of Tyler Perry Studios as the first independent movie studio of its size in the state and his donations to area food banks and various charities.
Tyler Perry
Picasso To Be Sold
Andrew Lloyd Webber
A Picasso painting belonging to British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber will be sold at auction, Christie's said Wednesday, four years after it was pulled from sale over alleged Nazi links.
Lloyd Webber -- composer of musicals like "Phantom of the Opera" and "Cats" -- originally announced his intention to sell "Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto (The Absinthe Drinker)" for charity in 2006.
It was later withdrawn from auction after a claim that a previous owner, German-Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, had sold it under duress from the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s.
But von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's descendants reached an out-of-court settlement in the US in January with the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, which is selling the picture, allowing it to retain ownership.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Judge OKs Settlement
Lear Jet Crash
A judge approved a multimillion-dollar legal settlement Tuesday involving the wife and young son of former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker's assistant, who was killed in a 2008 plane crash in South Carolina.
The settlement with Learjet Inc., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and other companies involved in the ownership, operation and making of the jet will pay for college for Chris Baker's 3-year-old son and establish an annuity giving him more than $17 million over his lifetime.
Baker was killed in a plane crash in Columbia, S.C., in September 2008. The crash killed four people and left Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM seriously injured. DJ AM later died of a drug overdose.
Lear Jet Crash
Targeted HIV Patients To Drop Coverage
Assurant Health
In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.
Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.
So he hired an attorney -- not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.
But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney's letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.
Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell's case reveal that Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators.
Assurant Health
Tapes Restored, Go To Library
'GE Theater'
All 208 episodes of television's "General Electric Theater," hosted by then-actor Ronald Reagan, are being delivered to former first lady Nancy Reagan on Wednesday as part of the two-year celebration of the late president's 100th birthday.
The 1954-1962 "General Electric Theater" tapes, most believed to be damaged or lost, were recently uncovered in the General Electric/NBC Universal archives. They were restored to broadcast quality for use in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
Reagan traveled the nation as GE's goodwill ambassador to its plants during the 1950s.
The GE gift includes $10 million in cash, advertising and promotion to support the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration, including money for a museum refurbishing that will be unveiled on the eve of the president's birthday. Reagan was born Feb. 6, 1911.
'GE Theater'
Peasant Fluffing
Trump
Donald Trump isn't firing "The Celebrity Apprentice," but he's bringing back the regular edition of the show with 14 ordinary candidates plagued by the sour job market.
NBC and Trump said Wednesday they want to put America back to work. His revived ordinary-folks "Apprentice" will recruit competitors who have lost their jobs, are stuck with jobs they don't like, or have finished college with no offers in sight.
Trump says the winner will land a position with him, while the rest will get advice on how to find their dream jobs elsewhere.
"The Apprentice" first aired in 2004 and is expected to return in its refreshed edition this fall on NBC.
Trump
Reopens After Major Facelift
London Jewish Museum
They are icons of Britain: a Victorian-era statesman, a World War I soldier-poet, fish and chips.
They're also Jewish - evidence of the 1,000-year history of Jews in Britain, whose story is told in a museum reopening this week after a 10 million pound ($15 million) expansion.
"Fish and chips, which everyone thinks of as very English, is in fact Sephardic Jewish," said celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, who helped relaunch the London Jewish Museum on Tuesday after a two-year closure. Many believe that Britain's national dish has its origins in fried fish introduced to the country by Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
Food and the nature of Britishness both play a significant part in the museum, which has expanded from a Victorian house in London's Camden Town to a former piano factory next door, tripling its floorspace. Among the interactive displays is a chance to smell chicken soup cooking in a recreated East End immigrant's kitchen.
London Jewish Museum
Domesticated In Middle East, Not Asia
Dogs
From French poodles to German shepherds, domestic dogs likely trace most of their ancestry to the Middle East, as opposed to East Asian origins suggested by previous research, a genetic study reported on Wednesday.
The findings, published in the online edition of the scientific journal Nature, support an archaeological record that closely links the domestication of dogs in the Middle East with the rise of human civilization there, scientists said.
"It's significant because this is where civilization developed, and dogs were part of that," said Robert Wayne, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a senior author of the study.
The region, often referred to as the Fertile Crescent, includes much of modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan -- "the same area where domestic cats and many of our livestock originated, and where agriculture first developed," he said.
Dogs
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