Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Helaine Olen: Why 'financial literacy' is a bunch of hooey - and why the banks promote it (Guardian)
Companies and colleges say that if we all understand our finances, financial crises won't happen. This is simply untrue.
Michael Moore: The Real IRS Scandal Is That 'They Let General Electric Not Pay Any Taxes' [in 2010] (Huffington Post)
GE did pay taxes in 2012 at a rate of 8.2 percent, which is still lower than the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent, according to the left-leaning think tank the Citizens for Tax Justice. CTJ also found that the company paid an average tax rate of about negative 11 percent over the past four years.
Andrew Tobias: What The Humane Society Has To Do With Any Of This
This is the story of how the right destroys, or attempts to destroy, good people working to do good things - in this case, the Humane Society. But you could substitute Al Gore or the Clintons or Barack Obama . . . or advocates for the poor, like ACORN.
Michael Kranish: Washington's robust market for attacks, half-truths (Boston Globe)
A look inside an industry of distortion, where unnamed corporations pay richly to bend the debate their way.
Michele Hanson: Nobody seems able to stop the rich doing as they please (Guardian)
Manchester's exquisite public baths have been closed for 20 years, while the super-rich continue building their own private pools. When will things change?
Hadley Freeman: A muffin top? Yummy. No, such names for women's body parts are unsavoury (Guardian)
It's interesting how these names often sound cuddly, with words such as 'love' and 'muffin' thrown in, as if to sweeten the criticism.
Lucy Mangan: "The Borrowers by Mary Norton" (Guardian)
The perfectly realised miniature world is, naturally, people's strongest memory of the book, but I suspect that is because if you first read it as a child, you cannot put a name to the uneasy feeling within you that the book evokes, and so perhaps as the years pass, the memory falls away. I had forgotten it myself until I read Victor Watson's essay on the series, where he identifies it as melancholy.
Swedishness (Neatorama)
A David Attenborough soundalike delivers a anthropological piece poking fun at Sweden's equality, agnosticism, tolerance, and sexual liberation. Featuring the actual prime minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfeldt, plus several famous Swedish actors. Contains NSFW language.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Team Coco
Conan
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Thick marine layer, not a lot of sun.
First Edition Fetches Record Price At Auction
"Harry Potter"
A unique first edition of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" annotated by author J.K. Rowling has sold for a record 150,000 pounds ($227,421) at a London charity auction, Sotheby's said on Tuesday.
The 1997 book, featuring handwritten notes, 22 original illustrations and a 43-page "second thoughts" commentary by the author, fetched the highest price to date for a printed book by Rowling, Sotheby's said in a statement.
The full sale featured 51 first editions, all unique one-offs featuring annotations and commentary from authors, as part of the "First Editions, Second Thoughts" sale to benefit charity organization English PEN, which promotes freedom of expression.
Other top sellers included Roald Dahl's "Matilda" with new illustrations by Quentin Blake for 30,000 pounds ($45,470), Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day" for 18,000 pounds ($27,278) and Julian Barnes' "Metroland" for 14,000 ($21,216).
"Harry Potter"
Lyrics Headed For British Library
Beatles
Shakespeare, the Magna Carta - and now some of John Lennon's finest lyrics.
The British Library on Wednesday added substantially to its already formidable collection with handwritten lyrics to Beatles' classics "Strawberry Fields Forever", "She Said She Said" and "In My Life."
Although these three songs are legally credited to Lennon and band mate Paul McCartney, the wistful, evocative lyrics are primarily associated with Lennon. The manuscripts and a number of Lennon's letters were donated to the library by Hunter Davies, a Beatles biographer with longtime connections to the Fab Four.
The library already had some rare Beatles material on display, including some scrawled partial lyrics to earlier songs written on hotel stationery during the band's tours. The new material, however, catches the band near the height of its creative powers, with Lennon's haunting lyrics often offset by McCartney's sunnier take on life.
Beatles
$100,000 Wall Insulation
Action Comics No. 1
While remodeling his newly purchased home in Elbow Lake, Minn., David Gonzalez noticed something unusual amid the old newspapers that had been used as wall insulation.
It was a copy of Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, the very first comic to feature the granddaddy of all superheroes, Superman.
StarTribune.com spoke with Gonzalez about his amazing find as well as a subsequent family accident that knocked down the value of his windfall.
So far, the answer is, well, a lot. With roughly three weeks left on the auction block, the high bid is around $113,000.
Not bad, considering Gonzalez bought the house for $10,100. But, still, the comic could be worth a lot more were it not for an argument among family members.
Action Comics No. 1
Germany Celebrates Composer's 200th
Richard Wagner
Germany on Wednesday celebrated the 200th birthday of Richard Wagner, the 19th-century composer whose music has been hailed as sublime art at the height of Western culture even as he remains tainted by his visceral anti-Semitic views, which later found favor with the Nazis.
Wagner's birthplace of Leipzig, the nearby city of Dresden - where he was appointed chief conductor at the Saxon royal court - and Bayreuth, which hosts an annual festival of the composer's work, are all staging events this week in honor of his bicentennial.
German tenor Jonas Kaufmann starred in a concert by Dresden's Staatskapelle late Tuesday, with Christian Thielemann conducting parts of "Der Fliegende Hollaender," ''Lohengrin" and "Tannhaeuser" in front of an audience that included thousands gathered around the city's Semperoper opera house.
A monument to the composer - showing a young Wagner overshadowed by his older, famous self - was to be unveiled Wednesday in Leipzig. Later in the day some of his works will be performed in Bayreuth, where the composer's descendants preside over a Wagner festival every year.
The glut of Wagner celebrations, which include performances at major concert houses throughout the year, has been accompanied by a fresh examination of the composer's racist views.
Richard Wagner
Case Goes To Jury
T-rump
The lawyer for an 87-year-old woman who accuses Donald Trump of cheating her in a skyscraper condo deal told jurors in Chicago on Wednesday that he was personally repulsed because he felt the "Apprentice" star conned his client and lied about it on the witness stand.
Plaintiff attorney Shelly Kulwin's comments came during a sarcasm-filled closing argument at the federal civil trial that pits Jacqueline Goldberg against the billionaire real estate mogul-turned TV showman.
"Send a message not just to Mr. Trump ... but to others like him," he said pounding his hand on a podium. "You can say to them, 'These people who do these things have crossed the line.'"
In his final remarks, Trump's attorney told jurors their obligation was to the evidence, not to their sense of sympathy or to any urge to send a message.
"This isn't the chance for you to decide that Wall Street is bad ... and (now) we're going to show these fat cats," Novack said. "Look at the facts."
T-rump
Part Of Exhibition Stolen
Marilyn Monroe
Part of an exhibition displaying outfits and photographs of Marilyn Monroe was stolen while being transported to the Czech Republic from Italy, the event's curator said on Wednesday.
The exhibition, commemorating the 50th anniversary of her death, was created by the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence last year.
Ferragamo was the actress' favourite shoemaker and she owned a dozen pairs of his hand-made shoes.
Curator Jan Trestik said a truck carrying mannequins and photographs was raided in an apparently coordinated attack in the central Czech Republic on trucks carrying luxury goods from Italy.
Marilyn Monroe
Woman Gets Probation
Stalking
A New York City woman has been sentenced to probation for stalking actress Marion Cotillard on the Internet.
Teresa Yuan was sentenced Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court. She pleaded guilty last fall.
Prosecutors said Yuan sent 504 emails and 120 webcam videos of herself to a Cotillard fan website in 2011.
The 32-year-old Yuan is being treated for bipolar disorder. The Daily News reports that Judge William Kuntz warned her to stay on her medications.
In addition, the judge said she is allowed to use only one device with access to the Internet for easier monitoring by authorities.
Stalking
Bad Experience
Amy's Baking Co
A Scottsdale, Ariz. restaurant reopened for business Tuesday night to good reviews after it temporarily shut its doors following an embarrassing reality TV experience.
Wife and husband Amy and Samy Bouzaglo recently invited the popular makeover show "Kitchen Nightmares" to their restaurant, Amy's Baking Co., after years of bad online reviews from unhappy customers. The Bouzaglos complained on the show that they were the victims of online bullying, but host and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay agreed with the bad reviews. He declared the food at the upscale pizzeria undercooked and poorly seasoned. The Bouzaglos got angry with Ramsay and he left the restaurant before making it over - a first for his show.
Amy's Baking Co. temporarily closed last week after the episode aired and hundreds of "Kitchen Nightmares" fans began leaving angry comments on the restaurant's Facebook page.
The couple said during the episode that they keep all tips because they do more work than their wait staff. They said they had invested more than $1 million in the eatery since opening in 2006.
Amy's Baking Co
Ad Agency Sues
The Talking Orange
A North Dakota advertising agency is suing the creators of a Cartoon Network show, alleging that they copied a state marketing campaign.
H2M, a Fargo-based advertising and marketing agency, filed the lawsuit against Dane Boedigheimer and Spencer Grove in U.S. District Court in North Dakota on Monday. Boedigheimer and Grove are the creators of the animated series "Annoying Orange."
H2M alleges Boedigheimer and Grove ripped off a copyrighted character called The Talking Orange that was created for television commercials for the North Dakota Department of Transportation. The commercials aired in North Dakota and western Minnesota from 2005 to 2010. The lawsuit also names Annoying Orange LLC and Annoying Orange Inc., both based in California.
"Defendants Dane Boedigheimer and Spencer Grove were raised, resided, educated, attended film school, were employed and first obtained access to 'The Talking Orange' in North Dakota and western Minnesota - the same area where Plaintiff H2M's 'The Talking Orange' and its derivatives, were widely disseminated on cable television," the suit states.
The Talking Orange is comprised of an inanimate orange that has a superimposed mouth with lips, tongue and teeth. An actor's mouth speaking the character's part is composited onto the orange. It has a "snotty, annoying and slightly obnoxious" voice, which gives it an abrasive and abusive persona, the lawsuit stated.
The Talking Orange
In Memory
Wayne Miller
Photographer Wayne F. Miller, who created a ground-breaking series of portraits chronicling the lives of black Americans in Chicago after serving with an elite Navy unit that produced some of the most indelible combat images of World War II, died Wednesday at his home of six decades in Orinda, Calif. He was 94.
Miller, who was also known for his work as a curator on an international photojournalism exhibition called "The Family of Man" and for contributing the photos to Dr. Benjamin Spock's "A Baby's First Year," had become ill only in the last weeks of his life, his granddaughter Inga Miller said.
Born in Chicago, Miller trained for a career in banking but became a photographer when famed fashion photographer Edward Steichen picked him to be part of the military unit assigned to document the war. While assigned to the Pacific theatre, he took some of the first pictures of the atomic bomb-devastated Hiroshima.
His best-known wartime photograph shows a wounded pilot being pulled from a downed fighter plane. Miller had been scheduled to be aboard the plane before it was shot down, and the photographer who took his place was killed, according to Inga Miller.
After returning home to Chicago, Miller spent two years in the late 1940s on the city's south side capturing the experiences of black residents, many of whom had moved north during the war in search of jobs and the promise of civil rights. The originals from his "The Way of the Northern Negro" series are now held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.
While he mostly turned his lens on ordinary Americans, his subjects for the series included emerging stars such as Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Eartha Kitt.
During the early 1950s, Miller reunited with Steichen in putting together "The Family of Man," a Museum of Modern Art exhibit featuring hundreds of portraits by photographers from all over the world. A book of the same name based on the exhibit sold more than four million copies. An iconic photograph of Miller's that was part of the exhibit showed his son David being delivered as a baby by his grandfather. It was included in a phonographic time capsule Carl Sagan put together that was launched with the Voyager spacecraft in the late 1970s.
Miller also produced an intimate book of his photography called "The World is Young."
He spent the next several decades as a photojournalist for Life, Ebony, the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines. For six years, he was president of Magnum Photos, a photographer's cooperative. Magnum's current president, Alex Majoli, praised Miller as a pioneer who "paved the ground for the rest of us who tried to depict the streets, the real life."
Miller stopped working as a professional photographer in the mid-1970s, but he found a new passion crusading for the preservation of California's redwood forests. He and his wife, Joan, restored a clear-cut patch of forest and helped lobby for the passage of laws that provided incentives for landowners to protect rather than log trees. According to his family, the forest was Miller's main photographic subject after his retirement.
Wayne Miller
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