Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: The black commie Nazi did it! (sfgate.com)
As Paul Krugman rightly points out, most Dems in the HCR fight reluctantly took their cues from Obama himself; they were inspired and urged to move from a place of genuinely trying to do what's right, a rather simple moral good for the nation, even at the expense of their own careers, all led by Obama's genuine ideal that basic health care is a national right, not a privilege.
Andrew Tobias: Health, Taxes, and Dignity, Or Lack Thereof
Pete: "Congrats on finally passing health care reform. I hope that Democrats are rewarded for not only passing this, but also for allowing the opposition plenty of time to contribute or provide an alternative. In the end, Republicans offered nothing more than they did a year ago - and nothing at all when they controlled Congress and the White House."
William Saletan: Repealicans (slate.com)
The GOP's risky plan to run against health care reform.
Daniel Gross: Don't Short Obama (slate.com)
Why political futures markets got the health care bill so wrong.
BOB HERBERT: An Absence of Class (nytimes.com)
Some of the images from the run-up to Sunday's landmark health care vote in the House of Representatives should be seared into the nation's consciousness. We are so far, in so many ways, from being a class act.
CHARLES M. BLOW: Could Obama Be Invincible? (nytimes.com)
The empty-headed chattering class has speculated that the president's approval rating has dropped to its lowest yet. Silly pundits.
Sam Shepard opens up (guardian.co.uk)
With a new collection of short stories to his name and two of his plays currently showing in New York, the notoriously private Pulitzer prize-winner talks to Carole Cadwalladr about masculinity, his battle with drink and his 'tumultuous' relationship with Jessica Lange.
Steve Ryfle: Richard Pryor's Designated Writer: An Interview With Paul Mooney (popmatters.com)
In a new memoir, veteran stand-up comic Paul Mooney reflects on his life and work with the legendary comedian Richard Pryor and their struggle against racism in Hollywood.
Charlie Parker: a genius distilled (guardian.co.uk)
Charlie Parker lived hard, played hard, died young. Now an uncanny sculpture of him in his last months has resurfaced. Richard Williams on a story of jazz, art and devotion.
Ed Vulliamy: "David Byrne: Two heads are sometimes better than one" (guardian.co.uk)
On the eve of releasing 22 new songs with Norman Cook, the Talking Heads frontman tells of the joys of artistic collaboration.
John Patterson: "Sandra Bullock: 'Why I hate romantic comedies'" (guardian.co.uk)
She won an Oscar for a dramatic role in 'The Blind Side,' so could this be the end of Sandra Bullock, 'romcom chick'? Plus, she explains why playing a Christian Republican was so difficult for her.
Irene Lacher: "Ed Asner: 'I'm always thought of in Hollywood ... as the resident communist'" (latimes.com)
Ed Asner is well known to boomers as the gruff editor Lou Grant on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and an eponymous spinoff TV series.
David Bruce: Voltaire's "Candide": A Discussion Guide (lulu.com)
Download: FREE
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Health Care Deformed: Winners and Losers...' Edition
The House of Representatives has passed a Health Care 'Reform' Bill... 'The Man' will sign it and it'll be a done deal... So be it... Now then, Poll-fans, I ask...
Who do you see as the long term Winners and Losers in this imbroglio?
A.) The People
B.) The Democrats
C.) The Republicans
D.) The Insurance companies | Big Pharma | Wall Street vultures
E.) Everybody wins
F.) Everybody loses
G.) How in the hell should I know?
Pick and Choose! Mix and Match! Name names! Point fingers! Rant and Rave!
Praise or excoriate! Let it all out! Have some fun, it'll be therapeutic!
(We're all about fun and wellness here, dontcha know!)
Send your response to
said:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Joan Jett's fashion legacy
Todd Oldham
Todd Oldham on Joan Jett's fashion legacy
Joan Jett has been a hero in the worlds of fashion and music for over three decades now. As a teen, she founded the Runaways, still considered one of the toughest acts of all time. With her next band, the Blackhearts, she not only started one of the first indie labels ever, but she did it with a song that no one wanted to sign. That track, "I Love Rock n' Roll," went on to top the charts for seven weeks straight.
Timed to coincide with the release of Floria Sigismondi's new big-screen biopic The Runaways, Todd Oldham's devotional Joan Jett monograph sets a place at the head of the table for a woman who's always been ahead of the pack. We talk with Oldham about Jett's enduring impact on fashion, reading British music magazines in Iran, and how Mary Tyler Moore brought the designer and the rock goddess together.
Read the full feature and view images from the book
Thanks, Claudia!
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
PURPLE GENE Reviews
PORN vs CORN
'The Hill Have Thighs' - Filmmaker Upset |
Yesterday's E-Page
I HAPPENED TO HAVE SEEN BOTH OF THESE BAD "B" MOVIE AND I PREFER THE PORN (WHICH I SAW LAST NIGHT)
Reader Suggestion
Keith Olbermann
Marty, I saw this on Keith Olbermann tonight and wanted to pass it on
in case you haven't already gotten 57 copies.
BadtotheboneBob
'X-woman'
Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave
The extinct "hominin" (human like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago. An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans...
BBC News - DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman'
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Beautiful sunny day.
Attended the spring semester Open House at the kid's school.
Hi Ms. B.
Blasts Beck
James Cameron
"Avatar" director James Cameron lashed out at Glenn Beck at a press conference Tuesday, offering to debate the Fox News personality on environmental and political issues.
Asked what he thought about Beck during a junket appearance in support of the "Avatar" home-video release, Cameron said: "Glenn Beck is a f---ing asshole. I've met him. He called me the anti-Christ, and not about 'Avatar.' He hadn't even seen 'Avatar' yet. I don't know if he has seen it."
While working for CNN, Beck teed up an on-air interview with Cameron with the following comment, according to a CNN transcript: "Many people believe James Cameron officially has tossed his hat in the ring today and is officially running for anti-Christ."
After blasting Beck, Cameron, surrounded by journalists inside a West Hollywood hillside mansion, seemed to reconsider: "I think, you know what, he may or may not be an asshole, but he certainly is dangerous, and I'd love to have a dialogue with him."
What makes Beck dangerous, The Hollywood Reporter asked Cameron at the junket. "He's dangerous because his ideas are poisonous," Cameron answered. "I couldn't believe when he was on CNN. I thought, what happened to CNN? Who is this guy? Who is this madman? And then of course he wound up on Fox News, which is where he belongs, I guess."
James Cameron
Untelevised - A New Tradition
Governors Awards
The film academy is continuing its new tradition of presenting honorary Oscars at an untelevised ceremony months before the Academy Awards.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Tom Sherak says the second annual Governors Awards will be held Nov. 13. The private dinner event will be produced by past academy president Sid Ganis, Sherak said Wednesday.
Some of the academy's highest honors, including the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, may be presented at the event. The board of governors will meet in August to determine the 2010 honorees.
Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman and Gordon Willis received honorary Oscars and John Calley was presented with the Thalberg award at the inaugural Governors Awards last year.
Governors Awards
Offered For Sale
"Schindler's List"
A New York memorabilia dealer is selling what he claims is the last privately-owned copy of a World War Two manuscript of Jewish names known as "Schindler's list" and made famous in a 1993 movie of the same name.
The list was kept by German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved more than a 1000 Jewish lives from the Holocaust by employing them in his factory during World War Two.
New York memorabilia dealer Gary Zimet, who is seeking $2.2 million for his list, said three others are owned by museums, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Zimet, who is representing the manuscript's seller, told Reuters it had been held for over 55 years by the family of Schindler's accountant, Itzhak Stern. The Stern family recently sold it to the current, unidentified owner, Zimet said.
"Schindler's List"
Relative Seeks Dublin Memorial
Bram Stoker
The Victorian Gothic novel Dracula is associated with the dense forests of Transylvania rather than the Georgian squares of Dublin, but the great great nephew of its Irish born author thinks that is an oversight.
In time for the centenary of Bram Stoker's death, which will be in 2012, Dacre Stoker has begun work to raise money to erect a memorial to his ancestor to join the statues and plaques commemorating Dublin's many other writers, such as James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
"It's an oversight. There is no permanent memorial in his home city to this guy," Dacre Stoker, who lives in South Carolina, United States, told Reuters by phone.
Bram Stoker was born in 1847 in Dublin, where he lived until he moved to London when he was 31. He attended Trinity College before working as a civil servant in Dublin Castle and as an unpaid theater critic for Dublin newspapers.
Bram Stoker
Astrid Lindgren Prize
Kitty Crowther
Belgian illustrator and author Kitty Crowther has won the 2010 Astrid Lindgren Memorial award, named after the Swedish creator of Pippi Longstocking, the fund that awards the prize said Wednesday.
Born in 1970 to a Swedish mother, Crowther told AFP the award was "a fantastic recognition from Swedish culture."
She will receive her prize and a cheque for five million kronor (690,999 dollars, 517,125 euros) at a ceremony in Stockholm on June 1.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was created by the Swedish government after Lindgren's death in January 2002, and claims today to be the world's largest children's and young people's literary prize.
Kitty Crowther
Go 3-D
Pop-Up Books
Pop-up is so passé: South Korean scientists have developed 3-D technology for books that makes characters literally leap off the page.
The popularity of 3-D entertainment has been given a boost by a slew of recent films, including sci-fi blockbuster "Avatar" and Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland."
At South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, researchers used 3-D technology to animate two children's books of Korean folk tales, complete with writhing dragons and heroes bounding over mountains.
Pictures in the books have cues that trigger the 3-D animation for readers wearing computer-screen goggles. As the reader turns and tilts the book, the 3-D animation moves accordingly.
Pop-Up Books
HBO Renews
"Ricky Gervais Show"
Ricky Gervais will continue his podcast musings on HBO; the British comedian's animated series "The Ricky Gervais Show" is getting a second season.
The show is based on Gervais' popular podcast recordings with frequent collaborator Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington. In each animated episode, the three discuss a range of topics that have included donating to charities, public nudity and choosing the best superpowers.
The ratings haven't been great; "Gervais" averages 180,000 viewers an episode, with a 0.1 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. But Gervais is a popular performer who fits HBO's brand. The network previously aired his live-action U.K. series "Extras."
"Ricky Gervais Show"
Sought After Rapper Robbery
Marion 'Suge' Knight
Los Angeles police want to talk to Suge Knight after a rapper initially accused the former Death Row Records chief of robbing him before recanting the story.
Detective Jeff Briscoe says 35-year-old Jerold Ellis, who uses the name Yukmouth, reported he was talking to Knight on Monday night in a Woodland Hills supermarket parking lot about a debt that another rapper allegedly owes Knight.
Yukmouth filed a police report saying 10 other men arrived, knocked him down and took his watch, medallion and other jewelry worth $92,000. He wasn't badly hurt and declined medical treatment.
Briscoe says Ellis identified Knight as a suspect but later recanted. However, the stolen items haven't been recovered and the investigation continues.
Marion 'Suge' Knight
Police Reopen Cold Case
Samantha Novak
British police have reopened their investigation into the 1985 death of singer Shirley Bassey's daughter after detectives received new information that suggested she might have been murdered, they said Tuesday.
Samantha Novak was found face-down in a river near a 250-foot (76.2-meter) suspension bridge in the southwest English city of Bristol 25 years ago. A coroner's report said the 21-year-old tumbled off the riverbank after a night out with friends.
Avon and Somerset Police said the force is making fresh inquiries into the case after the mother of Penny Beale - who was killed by her partner Michael Moffat in 2001 - told police her daughter had said Moffat was involved in the death.
Bassey, 73, has maintained that Novak's death was not an accident or suicide. Novak's father was Sergio Novak, Bassey's second husband.
Samantha Novak
Licking County Rap
Richard R. Finch
Police in central Ohio say a co-founder of KC and the Sunshine Band has told them he had sex with teenage boys.
They say a boy disclosed to detectives last week Richard R. Finch had sexual contact with him at Finch's home in Newark. They say they arrested Finch on Tuesday and while being interviewed he admitted he'd had sex with that boy and others aged 13 to 17.
Finch was being held Wednesday at the Licking County sheriff's office on $250,000 bond.
Sgt. Kevin Biller says no date has been set for Finch's arraignment. He won't disclose the evidence that led to Finch's arrest or the possible charges.
Richard R. Finch
Off `Grey's Anatomy'
Katherine Heigl
Katherine Heigl is done with "Grey's Anatomy" after six seasons.
ABC said Wednesday that Heigl's final appearance in the medical drama aired Jan. 21, four months before the show's season finale in May. Her departure was first reported online by Entertainment Weekly.
ABC Studios said Heigl was ending her run as Dr. Izzie Stevens by "mutual agreement."
Heigl told Entertainment Weekly that she asked to be let out of her contract 18 months early because of her new role as mother to an adopted daughter. The 31-year-old actress is married to singer-songwriter Josh Kelley.
Katherine Heigl
Stolen Work Found
Paul Klee
A painting by Swiss artist Paul Klee that was stolen from a New York gallery in 1989 been recovered after a Montreal gallery owner became suspicious and turned it over to U.S. authorities.
Robert Landau turned the 1930 painting, "Portrait in the Garden," by the neo-impressionist artist over to U.S. authorities after a Florida art dealer tried to sell it to him. It had been stolen from the Marlborough Gallery.
"Once we found out it was stolen, we called Homeland Security in Washington," Landau told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "We don't deal in stolen art."
U.S. authorities then handed the painting over to the London-based Art Loss Register, which maintains a 350,000-item database of stolen artworks.
Paul Klee
Ballot Initiative
California
California voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults after an initiative was certified for the November ballot.
California would become the first state to legalize recreational marijuana if the proposition wins. It is legal to use marijuana for medicinal purposes in California and about a dozen other states, but the drug is illegal under federal law.
On Wednesday, the secretary of state's office certified that petitions seeking to place the question on the ballot had enough valid voter signatures to qualify.
If approved, the initiative would allow those 21 and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and cultivate the plant in gardens.
California
Calls For Ethics Cleanup
"Culture Of Influence"
American psychiatrists need to break away from a "culture of influence" created by their financial dealings with the drug industry, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health said in a leading medical journal.
Dr. Thomas Insel stops short of calling researchers corrupt or asking them to stop taking money from drug companies. But he highlights a "bias in prescribing practices" that favors brand names drugs over cheaper generics and non-drug treatments. And he says the situation must change with new standards for transparency and full disclosure of psychiatry's collaborations with industry.
His efforts got a boost Tuesday with the signing of the health care overhaul legislation which requires drugmakers and others to file annual reports to the government on their financial ties to doctors. The law requires reporting of gifts, entertainment, food, research money and other fees and grants. Consumer advocates applaud the "sunshine" provision because it also requires a database the public can search for their own doctors' ties to industry.
Current National Institutes of Health rules on financial disclosure are confusing, Insel said. They allow researchers seeking federal funds to make their own judgments about what constitutes a significant financial interest, which they must report to their academic or research institutions. The rules also exempt disclosures of anything below $10,000 annually or 5 percent equity interest in a company. Insel is helping oversee a revision of the NIH's rules, which date back to 1995.
Industry pays for much of the medical research in the United States and many scientists have financial relationships with drug and device makers. Researchers at many institutions are expected to fully disclose those ties to their universities, to the NIH and to the medical journals that publish their research.
"Culture Of Influence"
Fear Legalization
Outlaw Pot Growers
The smell of pot hung heavy in the air as men with dreadlocks and gray beards contemplated a nightmarish possibility in this legendary region of outlaw marijuana growers: legal weed.
If California legalizes marijuana, they say, it will drive down the price of their crop and damage not just their livelihoods but the entire economy along the state's rugged northern coast.
Local residents are so worried that pot farmers came together with officials in Humboldt County for a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday night where civic leaders, activists and growers brainstormed ideas for dealing with the threat. Among the ideas: turning the vast pot gardens of Humboldt County into a destination for marijuana aficionados, with tours and tastings - a sort of Napa Valley of pot.
Many were also enthusiastic about promoting the Humboldt brand of pot. Some discussed forming a cooperative that would enforce high standards for marijuana and stamp the county's finest weed with an official Humboldt seal of approval.
Outlaw Pot Growers
It's Even Worse
Bees
The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.
Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.
Bees have been declining over decades from various causes. But in 2006 a new concern, "colony collapse disorder," was blamed for large, inexplicable die-offs. The disorder, which causes adult bees to abandon their hives and fly off to die, is likely a combination of many causes, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition and pesticides, experts say.
This year bees seem to be in bigger trouble than normal after a bad winter, according to an informal survey of commercial bee brokers cited in an internal USDA document. One-third of those surveyed had trouble finding enough hives to pollinate California's blossoming nut trees, which grow the bulk of the world's almonds. A more formal survey will be done in April.
Bees
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by the Nielsen Co. for March 15-21. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 22.91 million.
2. "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 20,51 million.
3. "NCIS," CBS, 18 million.
4. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 15.1 million.
5. "Undercover Boss," CBS, 14.47 million.
6. "The Good Wife," CBS, 13.4 million.
7. "60 Minutes," CBS, 13.28 million.
8. "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 12.7 million.
9. "Amazing Race 16," CBS, 11.99 million.
10. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 11.67 million.
11. "House," Fox, 11.37 million.
12. "Desperate Housewives," ABC, 10.84 million.
13. NCAA Basketball Championships (Saturday, 7:15 p.m.), CBS, 10.29 million.
14. NCAA Basketball Championships (Thursday, 8:59 p.m.), CBS, 10.11 million.
15. "Law & Order: SVU," NBC, 9.65 million.
16. "Cold Case," CBS, 9.43 million.
17. "24," Fox, 9.01 million.
18. "CSI: Miami," CBS, 8.96 million.
19. NCAA Basketball Championships (Thursday, 6 p.m.), CBS, 8.9 million.
20. NCAA Basketball Championships (Thursday, 9:10 p.m.), CBS, 8.88 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Robert Culp
Robert Culp, the actor who teamed with Bill Cosby in the racially groundbreaking TV series "I Spy" and was Bob in the critically acclaimed sex comedy "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," died Wednesday after collapsing outside his Hollywood home, his agent said. Culp was 79.
"I Spy," which aired from 1965 to 1968, was a television milestone in more ways than one. Its combination of humor and adventure broke new ground, and it was the first integrated television show to feature a black actor in a starring role.
He followed "I Spy" with his most prestigious film role, in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice." The work of first-time director Paul Mazursky, who also co-wrote the screenplay, it lampooned the lifestyles of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Bob and Carol (Culp and Natalie Wood) were the innocent ones who were introduced to wife-swapping by their best friends, Ted and Alice (Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon).
Culp also had starring roles in such films as "The Castaway Cowboy," "Goldengirl," "Turk 182!" and "Big Bad Mama II."
His teaming with Cosby, however, was likely his best remembered role.
Both he and Cosby were involved in civil rights causes, and when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 the pair traveled to Memphis, Tenn., to join the striking garbage workers King had been organizing.
Culp and Cosby also costarred in the 1972 movie "Hickey & Boggs," which Culp also directed. This time they were hard-luck private detectives who encountered multiple deaths. Audiences who had enjoyed the lightheartedness of "I Spy" were disappointed, and the movie flopped at the box office.
After years of talking up the idea, they finally re-teamed in 1994 for a two-hour CBS movie, "I Spy Returns."
In his first movie role Culp played one of John Kennedy's crew in "PT 109."
His first starring TV series, "Trackdown" (1957-1959) was a Western based partly on files of the Texas Rangers. In the 1980s, he starred as an FBI agent in the fantasy "The Greatest American Hero."
He remained active in movies and TV. Among his notable later performances was as a U.S. president in 1993's "The Pelican Brief." More recently, he also had a recurring role in the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" and appeared in such shows as "Robot Chicken," "Chicago Hope" and an episode of "Cosby."
Robert Martin Culp, born in 1930 in Oakland, led a peripatetic existence as a college student, attending College of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., Washington University in St. Louis and San Francisco State College before landing at the University of Washington's drama school.
Culp was married five times, to Nancy Ashe, Elayne Wilner, France Nuyen, Sheila Sullivan and Candace Faulkner. He had four children ((Joseph, Joshua, Jason, and Rachel) with Ashe and one (Samantha) with Faulkner.
Robert Culp
In Memory
Jim Marshall
Music photographer Jim Marshall, who spent more than a half-century capturing rock-and-roll royalty ranging from the Beatles to Ben Harper at work and in repose, has died. He was 74.
Aaron Zych, a manager at the Morrison Hotel Galleries in New York City, said Wednesday that Marshall apparently died alone in a New York City hotel room.
Zych says the San Francisco resident was scheduled to appear at another gallery Wednesday night to promote his new book with celebrity photographer Timothy White.
According to his professional Web site, Marshall had more than 500 record album covers to his credit.
The San Francisco resident was best-known for his iconic images from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock in 1969. His more recent subjects included John Mayer and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Jim Marshall
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