Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: How to end it once and for all (SF Gate)
Here is my good and dear friend. After far too many years of entanglements and hesitations, scuffles and ego battles, she is about to finally sign the divorce papers.
Paul Krugman: How Bad Things Are (Huffington Post)
An excerpt from "End This Depression Now."
Scott Burns: For The Real Condition of Social Security and Medicare, Turn to Appendix F (AssetBuilder)
Can you spell i-c-e-b-e-r-g? Well, we've hit one and our ship is taking on water.
Beth Ditto: 'I'm constantly learning how to be confident' (Guardian)
Now in her 30s, Beth Ditto's priorities and music are changing. She talks to Alex Clark about her forthcoming marriage and how Abba became an influence on Gossip's latest album.
John Cleese vs. 'The Sun' (Letters of Note)
Cleese's reaction to the story can be seen below, in the form of a fruitless chain of correspondence between him and the newspaper's editor, Kenneth Donlan. He later reported the incident to the Press Council; they agreed and his complaint was upheld.
Bill Hicks on Freedom of Speech (Letters of Note)
Where I come from - America - there exists this wacky concept called 'freedom of speech', which many people feel is one of the paramount achievements in mankind's mental development. I myself am a strong supporter of the 'Right of freedom of speech', as I'm sure most people would be if they truly understood the concept. 'Freedom of speech' means you support the right of people to say exactly those ideas which you do not agree with.
John Patterson: Jay and Mark Duplass: 'Our movies can't lose money' (Guardian)
The Duplass brothers helped pioneer the lo-fi mumblecore movement. But will they change their style now big stars are knocking on their door?
Your next box set: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Guardian)
Buffy was thrilling, snappy and kept you laughing right up to the moment it staked you through the heart: seven seasons of pure genius, writes Lucy Mangan.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
wrote:
answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
Tiny mammoth/Giant shrimp
Tiny mammoth/Giant shrimp - What's it all mean?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Thinner marine layer, more sun.
Plans Brooklyn Concert
Barbra Streisand
Superstar Barbra Streisand is coming home to Brooklyn.
The Oscar- and Grammy-winning diva was born and raised in Brooklyn but has never performed publicly there - until now.
Brooklyn's new Barclays Center arena announced Wednesday that Streisand will give a concert there on Oct. 11.
Barclays Center is still under construction and will be home to the NBA's Nets. CEO Brett Yormark says Streisand's concert will be a defining moment for the arena.
Barbra Streisand
NM Softball Team
Bryan Cranston
Emmy-Award winning actor Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter White in the Albuquerque, N.M.-based TV show "Breaking Bad," announced Tuesday that he'll participate in a celebrity softball game scheduled later this month at an Albuquerque park.
Cranston says he expects his celebrity team to "get slaughtered."
His team is set to face members of the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team on May 19.
The lineup isn't set yet, but Cranston says Lou Diamond Phillips has agreed to join the team. Phillips is shooting the A&E drama "Longmire" in Santa Fe, N.M.
Bryan Cranston
Opera Fans Jeer Plan To Honor Governor
Pittsburgh
The Phantom of the Opera may be fine, but opera fans say Gov. Tom Corbett (R-Marcellus Whore) is a problem.
Fans are protesting the Pittsburgh Opera's plan to give Corbett and his wife Susan a Lifetime Achievement Award this Saturday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Wednesday.
"I'm kind of horrified by the rationale the opera is using to justify this," said Kathleen Andreassi of Butler, who's been a fan of the Pittsburgh Opera for about 10 years. Andreassi, 61, was one of hundreds of people who posted notes of protest on the opera's Facebook page.
"Any respect I had for the Pittsburgh Opera is now gone! You are honoring the man who has cut 1 BILLION dollars from the education budget in one year. Really? Please don't ask for financial support from me again," Andreassi said in post.
The award will be made this Saturday at the opera's annual end-of-season benefit gala. The Corbett's were selected for the honor in October, and the opera described the reasons in a statement last month.
Pittsburgh
Renews "Law & Order: SVU"
NBC
NBC has ordered a double dose of Dick Wolf.
The network has given Wolf's new drama "Chicago Fire" a full season order, and renewed Wolf's long-running police procedural "Law & Order: SVU" for a 14th season.
"Chicago Fire," which Wolf is producing, stars Taylor Kinney, Monica Raymund and Charlie Barnett, is an "action-driven drama exploring the complex and heroic men and women of the Chicago Fire Department." Derek Haas and Michael Brandt ("3:10 to Yuma") wrote the pilot and also produce, along with Danielle Gelber, Peter Jankowski and Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who directed the pilot.
NBC
Censorship At The Library
'Fifty Shades'
Public libraries in several states are pulling the racy romance trilogy "Fifty Shades of Grey" from shelves or deciding not to order the best-seller at all, saying it's too steamy or too poorly written.
Even in the age of e-books and tablets, banning a book from a public library still carries weight because libraries still play such a vital role in providing people access to books.
"When a book is removed from the shelf, folks who can't afford a Nook or a Kindle, the book is no longer available to them," said Deborah Caldwell Stone, the deputy director of the American Library Association's office for intellectual freedom.
"Fifty Shades of Grey," a novel about bondage, wild sex and yes, love, has been called "mommy porn" because of its popularity among middle-aged women. It has become so well-known that "Saturday Night Live" performed a skit about it, joking that a Kindle with "Fifty Shades" uploaded on it was the perfect Mother's Day gift.
Libraries in Wisconsin, Georgia and Florida have all either declined to order the book or pulled it from shelves. Other states may soon follow.
'Fifty Shades'
Ex-Miss USA Gets Probation In DUI
Rima Fakih
Rima Fakih, the first Arab-American to be crowned Miss USA, avoided jail during sentencing Wednesday in her Michigan drunken driving case, an experience she described as "very humbling."
Judge William McConico put Fakih on six months of probation, ordered the former beauty queen to perform 20 hours of community service and said she must pay $600 in fines and costs. Fakih also must attend an alcohol safety class.
The 26-year-old pleaded no contest last month to driving while visibly impaired in Highland Park, an enclave of Detroit. A no contest plea isn't an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing. Fakih faced a maximum penalty of 93 days in jail.
Fakih has said she wasn't drinking the night of her arrest in December, but two police breath tests put her blood alcohol content at more than twice the legal limit.
Rima Fakih
Court Victory For Ex-Village People Singer
Victor Willis
A judge in Los Angeles says the original lead singer of the Village People can reclaim at least partial ownership of the copyrights to more than two dozen of the group's songs, including "Y.M.C.A.," ''Macho Man," and "In the Navy."
U.S. District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz on Monday rejected a lawsuit by two music publishers who argued Victor Willis had no right to regain ownership of 33 songs he co-wrote for the group under contract.
It's the first test of a decades-old copyright provision and could mean millions in additional royalties for Willis.
But Stewart Levy, an attorney for Scorpio Music and Can't Stop Productions, tells the New York Times that it doesn't lay out how much Willis will get and the case is far from over.
Victor Willis
US Not Good Enough For Her Kids
Mrs. Bachmann
Michele Bachmann is now a Swiss citizen.
The Minnesota congresswoman and former Republican presidential candidate was recently granted dual citizenship, Bachmann's office confirmed Tuesday night, according to CNN.
"Congresswoman Bachmann's husband is of Swiss descent so she has been eligible for dual-citizenship since they got married in 1978," spokeswoman Becky Rogness said in a statement. "However, recently some of their children wanted to exercise their eligibility for dual-citizenship so they went through the process as a family."
Asked if she'd be interested in seeking office in Switzerland, Bachmann joked that "there's a lot of competition ... and they're very good."
Mrs. Bachmann
Posts Higher Quarterly Profit
Rupert
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp on Wednesday posted a higher quarterly profit, aided by its cable networks and movie studio business.
The company's fiscal third-quarter net income rose to $1 billion, or 38 cents a share, from $682 million, or 24 cents a share, a year ago.
Revenue increased 2 percent to $8.4 billion.
Murdoch and his company have been embroiled in the fallout from a phone hacking scandal at its UK newspapers that has reverberated throughout the wider New York-based media conglomerate.
A UK parliamentary select committee report published last week said Murdoch was unfit to run a major international business.
Rupert
Oink. Oink.
Pigboy
In an effort to counter the National Organization for Women's campaign against him, Rush Limbaugh (R-Viagra Dependent) has launched "Rush Babes for America," a Facebook page dedicated to "the millions of conservative women who know what they believe in: family, American values and not being told by faux feminist groups how to think."
"I've been tired for a long time of these faux female groups, which are really nothing but groups of liberals," Limbaugh said on his radio show on Tuesday. "The National Organization for Women is not a female organization. It's a liberal organization disguised as a group that's interested in the rights of women. These groups, they happen to have 'woman' or 'women' in their names, and they're claiming to represent all women. And in reality, they represent a tiny number of highly-agitated activist types. They're basically miserable and unhappy women, for whatever reason."
Limbaugh wanted to launch the Facebook group "as a means of contrast" to what he calls the "NAGs," (sic) or "National Organization of Gals." So far, "Rush Babes for America" has more than 22,000 "likes."
The page will be a forum, he said, for issues related to conservative women-including what he calls the media's double standard when it comes to outspoken liberals.
Pigboy
Prices Soar, Records Tumble
Christie's
A Mark Rothko 1961 oil painting set a new auction record for post-war art on Tuesday, soaring to $87 million, while works by Gerhard Richter, Jackson Pollock, Yves Klein and Alexander Calder smashed artists' records at Christie's blockbuster sale that achieved the highest-ever total for post-war art.
The auction house realized a total of $388.5 million including commission against a pre-sale estimate of $236 million to $330 million, led by Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow."
The large-scale work from the Pincus collection soared to $86,882,500, breaking the artist's record of $72.84 million and eclipsing the $86.3 million paid for Francis Bacon's "Triptych, 1976" in 2008 as the most expensive post-war artwork at auction.
With 59 lots on offer only three failed to sell, an almost unprecedented sell-through rate as determined bidders drove prices for many top-priced works well beyond their high estimates.
Christie's
Moving Ahead With Affordable Housing Plan
George Lucas
Filmmaker George Lucas appears to be moving forward with plans to build low-income housing on the Marin County property where he originally proposed erecting a new film studio.
Lucas abandoned the studio plans last month following opposition from some neighbors who complained about its size and raised concerns about traffic. But the San Francisco Chronicle reports the filmmaker is still moving ahead with his proposal for low-income housing on Grady Ranch.
The Marin Community Foundation announced Tuesday that it is working with Lucasfilm to explore options for affordable housing on the site.
Foundation President and CEO Thomas Peters says Lucas has agreed to make technical studies of the property available.
George Lucas
Posthumous Apology For WWII Correspondent
Edward Kennedy
In World War II's final moments in Europe, Associated Press correspondent Edward Kennedy gave his news agency perhaps the biggest scoop in its history. He reported, a full day ahead of the competition, that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally at a former schoolhouse in Reims, France.
For this, he was publicly rebuked by the AP, and then quietly fired.
The problem: Kennedy had defied military censors to get the story out. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry Truman had agreed to suppress news of the capitulation for a day, in order to allow Russian dictator Josef Stalin to stage a second surrender ceremony in Berlin. Kennedy was also accused of breaking a pledge that he and 16 other journalists had made to keep the surrender a secret for a time, as a condition of being allowed to witness it firsthand.
Sixty-seven years later, the AP's top executive is apologizing for the way the company treated Kennedy. "It was a terrible day for the AP. It was handled in the worst possible way," said president and CEO Tom Curley.
Kennedy, he said, "did everything just right." Curley rejected the notion that the AP had a duty to obey the order to hold the story once it was clear the embargo was for political reasons, rather than to protect the troops.
Kennedy, who died in a traffic accident in 1963, had long sought such public vindication from his old employer. His daughter, Julia Kennedy Cochran, of Bend, Ore., said she was "overjoyed" by the apology.
Edward Kennedy
In Memory
Vidal Sassoon
Vidal Sassoon used his hairstyling shears to free women from beehives and hot rollers and give them wash-and-wear cuts that made him an international name in hair care.
When he came on the scene in the 1950s, hair was high and heavy - typically curled, teased, piled and shellacked into place. Then came the 1960s, and Sassoon's creative cuts, which required little styling and fell into place perfectly every time, fit right in with the fledgling women's liberation movement.
His wash-and-wear styles included the bob, the Five-Point cut and the "Greek Goddess," a short, tousled perm - inspired by the "Afro-marvelous-looking women" he said he saw in New York's Harlem.
Sassoon opened his first salon in his native London in 1954 but said he didn't perfect his cut-is-everything approach until the mid-'60s. Once the wash-and-wear concept hit, though, it hit big and many women retired their curlers for good.
His shaped cuts were an integral part of the "look" of Mary Quant, the superstar British fashion designer who popularized the miniskirt.
He also often worked in the 1960s with American designer Rudi Gernreich, who became a household name in 1964 with his much-publicized (but seldom-worn) topless bathing suit.
"While Mr. Gernreich has dressed his mannequins to look like little girls," The New York Times wrote after viewing Gernreich's collection for fall 1965, "Vidal Sassoon has cut their hair to look like little boys with eye-level bangs in front, short crop in back. For really big evenings, a pin-on curl is added at the cheek."
In 1966, he did a curly look inspired by 1920s film star Clara Bow for the designer Ungaro. He got more headlines when he was flown to Hollywood from London, at a reputed cost of $5,000, to create Mia Farrow's pixie cut for the 1968 film "Rosemary's Baby."
Sassoon opened more salons in England and expanded to the United States before also developing a line of shampoos and styling products bearing his name. His advertising slogan was "If you don't look good, we don't look good."
He wrote three books. The first was an autobiography, "Sorry I Kept You Waiting, Madam," published in 1968. "A Year of Beauty and Health," which he wrote with his second wife, Beverly, was published in 1979. In 1984 he released "Cutting Hair the Vidal Sassoon Way."
He sold his business interests in the early 1980s to devote himself to philanthropy. The Boys Clubs of America and the Performing Arts Council of the Music Center of Los Angeles were among the causes he supported through his Vidal Sassoon Foundation. He later became active in post-Hurricane Katrina charities in New Orleans.
A veteran of Israel's 1948 War of Independence, Sassoon also had a lifelong commitment to eradicating anti-Semitism. In 1982, he established the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Growing up very poor in London, Sassoon said that when he was 14, his mother declared he was to become a hairdresser. After traveling to Palestine and serving in the Israeli war, he returned home to fulfill her dream.
"Hairdressers are a wonderful breed," he said. "You work one-on-one with another human being and the object is to make them feel so much better and to look at themselves with a twinkle in their eye. Work on their bone structure, the color, the cut, whatever, but when you've finished, you have an enormous sense of satisfaction."
Married four times, Sassoon had four children with his second wife, Beverly, a sometime film and television actress, usually billed as Beverly Adams.
Vidal Sassoon
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
