Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Gay NASCAR driver, please stand up (SF Gate)
Look, right there. Did you see him? The one who just slam dunked? The one who tackled that receiver? The one who smashed that double to left center? That guy with the huge smile, hint of flair and the crazy thing with the hair? Guess what? Yep. Totally gay.
Diane Ravitch: "Bill Gates: Selling Bad Advice to the Public Schools" (Daily Beast)
The main effect of Gates' policy has been to demoralize millions of teachers, who don't understand how they went from being respected members of the community to Public Enemy No. 1.
Froma Harrop: Playing Chicken With Full Faith and Credit (Creators Syndicate)
New polling by Rasmussen shows voters highly conflicted over which party to blame for our economic troubles and which is best able to end them. But Americans agree on one thing: The economy is lousy. And from that, we can reasonably deduce that they don't want a lousier economy.
Jim Hightower: BIG OIL'S UN-AMERICAN SELFISHNESS
In a time of $4-a-gallon gasoline, stratospheric rises in petro profits, and a federal budget deficit severe enough that Republicans have called for killing Medicare, the spark that exploded the public's fury at oil giants was the revelation that the big five are on the government dole, drawing more than $2 billion a year in corporate welfare payments.
Money Lessons for Every High-School Graduate (Wall Street Journal)
When Felipe Matos enrolled in the New York Institute of Technology to study graphic design, he never thought that degree would be the very thing that prevented him from pursuing his dream career. But more than $50,000 in student debt later, he has found himself working as an assistant building manager in New York City -- with half his salary going toward debt repayment.
Kate Abbott: "Jerry Seinfeld, comedian" (Guardian)
'I once did a show at a disco in 1977. Nobody stopped dancing, and I stood there doing the set to myself.'
Jana Prikryl: The Genius of Buster Keaton (The New York Review of Books)
More than fifty years have passed since critics rediscovered Buster Keaton and pronounced him the most "modern" silent film clown, a title he hasn't shaken since.
Sandra Gonzalez: Sarah Michelle Gellar talks new show 'Ringer,' returning to TV, and her 'Buffy' fans (Entertainment Weekly)
In the series, Gellar plays a woman, who, after witnessing a murder, goes on the run and hides out by assuming the life of her wealthy identical twin sister - only to learn that her sister's seemingly idyllic life is just as complicated and dangerous as the one she's trying to leave behind, according to the logline released by the network.
Roger Ebert: Review of "A Pale Flower" (A Great Movie)
Muraki (Ryo Ikebe), the yakuza, seems loyal more to the ideal of loyalty, a version of the samurai code. It is his fate to be a soldier and follow orders, and he is the instrument of that destiny. He thinks his crime was "stupid," but he is observing, not complaining.
Dick Cavett: The First Shall Be Last - Or, Anyway, Second (New York Times)
So here, in the vernacular of the period, is what really went down at ABC in memory-dimmed 1968.
Debbie Harry: 'I'm sort of a cult figure' (Guardian)
She was the sound of New York in the 70s, yet still inspires today's queens of pop. Debbie Harry talks to Caroline Sullivan about Blondie's rebirth, adoption - and staying hip.
Manda and the Marbles (YouTube Music)
"Through."
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."
The (Occasional) Weekly Poll Presents...
New Question(s)
The "That Was The Week That Was' Edition...
This past week we had a number of marvelously eclectic stories to captivate one's attention and give us some distractions to our otherwise hum-drum lives (haha) ...
Which, if any, of these stories piqued your interest the most this past week?
1.) Ah-nuld's 'Living Loving Maid' and 'Love Child'... (Why am I not amazed?)
2.) The Oprah 'I'll Always Love You' Fan-Fest count-down to her last show...(OMG! What to do? What to watch?... p.s. is she really a 'closet' Scientologist?)
3.) Saturday's 'Apocalypse Now' fizzle... (Good excuse fer a party, though, I'm sayin'...)
4.) Lizzie does Dublin... (No Sex Pistols singin', 'God Save the Queen', more's the pity...)
5.) Obama lectures Israel (Israel sez, "Get real, Dude") Obama then sings, 'We are Family' to AIPAC...
6.) 'When the Levee Breaks'..or, the Great American Flood, as it were...(Gators and snakes and bears, Oh My!)
7.) The 'Helter Skelter' hilarity of GOP presidential candidates doin' the 'You're Hot and then You're Cold' shuffle (featuring 'Newt the Hoot', so much the better...)
8.) Your pick... (Give us a thrill, would ya now, maybe?)
Well, then, Poll-fans... Have at it!
Send your response to
wrote:
took the day off (see Sally's response).
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
MSNBC Suspends
Ed Schultz
Left-leaning Ed Schultz has been suspended from MSNBC for referring to fellow host Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut" and "talk slut" on his syndicated show Tuesday.
In a statement released Wednesday, the cable channel said: "MSNBC management met with Ed Schultz this afternoon and accepted his offer to take one week of unpaid leave for the remarks he made yesterday on his radio program. Ed will address these remarks on his show tonight, and immediately following begin his leave. Remarks of this nature are unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
The remark came as Schultz was taking aim at Ingraham over her criticism of President Obama's trip to Ireland -- where he apparently enjoyed a beer -- while the Midwest was experience severe weather, including devastating tornadoes.
"And what are the Republicans thinking about?" Schultz said. "They're not thinking about their next-door neighbor. They're just thinking about how much this is going to cost. President Obama is going to be visiting Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, but you know what they're talking about, like this right-wing slut, what's her name? Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she's a talk slut. You see, she was, back in the day, praising President Reagan when he was drinking a beer overseas. But now that Obama's doing it, they're working him over."
Ed Schultz
Unsealed Interviews
Jackie Kennedy
A series of unsealed 1960s audio recordings of Jacqueline Kennedy talking about her life with husband and revered President John F. Kennedy will be broadcast on television, ABC News said on Wednesday.
In 1964, the former first lady did seven interviews totaling eight and a half hours with late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. that were recorded for posterity but have never been made public before, ABC said.
They have now been unsealed and will be condensed and aired in several ABC television and radio shows, beginning in September.
"My mother took very seriously the obligation to preserve and document the history of my father's administration -- and these interviews are the result," said Kennedy's daughter Caroline, who is releasing the tapes at the same time as writing the forward of a book based upon the oral history interviews.
Jackie Kennedy
L.A. Gay Pride Grand Marshal
Johnny Weir
"Pop Star on Ice" and "Skating With the Stars" judge Johnny Weir has been named grand marshal of the 2011 L.A. Gay Pride Parade.
The openly gay three-time U.S. figure skating champion and star of "Be Good Johnny Weir" has been an advocate for gay rights and will oversee the June 12 parade as it travels along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood.
Said Weir: "I'm not ashamed to be me. More than anyone else I know, I love my life and accept myself. What's wrong with being unique? I am proud of everything that I am and will become," the two-time Olympian said.
The 41st annual Los Angeles Pride Parade draws more than 400,000 people to West Hollywood for a weekend of events celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender visibility. It is organized by Christopher Street West, the group that produced the first LGBT Pride Parade.
Johnny Weir
Syrian Poet Wins Germany's Goethe Prize
Adonis
Syrian poet Adonis, who has championed democracy and secular thought in the Middle East, was awarded Germany's prestigious Goethe Prize Wednesday.
"The selection committee considered Adonis the most important Arab poet of his generation and granted him the prize for his cosmopolitan (work) and contribution to international literature," the German government said in a statement.
It said Adonis, who calls himself "the pagan poet" will receive the 50,000 euro ($70,320) prize, which is awarded every three years, at a ceremony in Frankfurt, Goethe's home city, on August 28.
Born as Ali Hamid Saeed Esber in 1930 in the mountain village of Qassabin overlooking the Mediterranean, Adonis hails from a long tradition of Arab poets who have acted as a force for modernity against strict interpretations of religious texts.
Adonis
ASCAP Founders Award
Sean Combs
Sean "Diddy" Combs will receive ASCAP's Founders Award during the performing rights organization's 24th annual Rhythm & Soul Music Awards. The invitation-only ceremony will take place June 24 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.
The songwriters and publishers of the most-performed ASCAP songs on the 2010 R&B/hip-hop, rap and gospel charts will also be honored.
Combs joins such previous Founders Award recipients as Dr. Dre, Stevie Wonder, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney. "To be recognized for my contributions to music by ASCAP is a true honor," said Combs in a statement. "All I wanted to do was make people dance and hopefully inspire others to never settle for anything but their best."
Over the course of his career, Combs has worn many hats. A former A&R executive at Uptown Records who worked with Heavy D and Mary J. Blige, he established Bad Boy Entertainment after leaving Uptown in 1993.
Sean Combs
Joins "Biggest Loser"
Anna Kournikova
Russian-born tennis player Anna Kournikova is joining the television weight loss contest "The Biggest Loser" as a trainer, NBC television said on Wednesday.
Kournikova, 29, who became a sensation on and off the courts despite never winning a major singles tennis title, will join the show in September.
Born in Moscow and now an American citizen living in Miami, Kournikova said she had long been a fan of the TV show, in which overweight contestants attempt to lose the most weight through diet and rigorous exercise programs for a cash prize.
Kournikova started playing tennis competitively at the age of eight and made her Grand Slam debut at 15 at the U.S. Open. She won Grand Slam doubles titles with Martina Hingis in 1999 and 2002, but was equally famous as a model and for her romance with pop star Enrique Iglesias.
Anna Kournikova
Music Hall of Fame To Close
Georgia
The Georgia Music Hall of Fame, a museum dedicated to the state's legendary performers including James Brown, Little Richard and Otis Redding, will close next month due to low attendance and budget cuts.
The museum's governing board voted Tuesday to shutter the Music Hall of Fame in Macon on June 12 and move its collection of memorabilia to the University of Georgia and other state colleges.
"Locally, the people are heartbroken," Lisa Love, the museum's executive director, told Reuters on Wednesday.
The state of Georgia built the $6.5 million Hall of Fame in 1996. Located in the center of the state, Macon has a long musical tradition and was home to Phil Walden, who managed Redding and the Allman Brothers Band.
Georgia
Songwriter's Aide Pleads Guilty
Shawni Lucier
A former assistant to the late songwriter Joseph Brooks has admitted helping the Academy Award winner meet 10 women he was charged with sexually assaulting.
Shawni Lucier pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminal facilitation. Her plea came four days after Brooks killed himself at age 73.
The "You Light Up My Life" writer had pleaded not guilty to molesting or raping 13 women lured to his apartment with the promise of acting auditions.
Lucier, who's based in Federal Way, Wash., is expected to get up to 6 months in jail, though a judge said he might spare her any time behind bars.
Shawni Lucier
Tea Baggers Target
'Constitution Week'
America's kids will be learning about the U.S. Constitution this coming school year with help from a decidedly conservative Idaho publishing house, if a tea party group gets its way.
The Tea Party Patriots, Georgia-based but claiming 1,000 chapters nationally, are instructing members to remind teachers that a 2004 federal law requires public schools to teach Constitution lessons every Sept. 17, commemorating the day the document was signed. And they'd like the teachers to use material from the Malta, Idaho-based National Center for Constitutional Studies, which promotes the Constitution as a divinely-inspired document.
The center's founder, W. Cleon Skousen, once called Jamestown's original settlers communists, wrote end-of-days prophecy and suggested Russians stole Sputnik from the United States. In 1987, one of his books was criticized for suggesting American slave children were freer than white non-slaves.
Interest in Skousen, a former FBI employee and Salt Lake City police chief who died in 2006 in Utah, soared in tea party circles after praise from talk show host Glenn Beck. Not surprisingly, groups battling the tea party - and Beck - warn that Skousen's center shouldn't be teaching kids about American history.
"It's indoctrination, not education," said Doug Kendall, director of the Constitutional Accountability Center in Washington, D.C. "They're so far from the mainstream of constitutional thought that they are completely indefensible."
'Constitution Week'
Panel Denies Claim
Tom Hanks
An arbitration panel has rejected a bid by actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, for financial compensation stemming from a long-running dispute with the contractor hired to build the couple's multimillion dollar villa in Sun Valley.
The three-member panel of the American Arbitration Association has concluded the couple failed to make a compelling case that alleged defects in their $10 million home should be pinned on Storey Construction, based in Ketchum.
Hanks and Wilson sought $3 million in damages from the builder. They claim the home north of the ritzy resort town was built with a series of flaws, including a roof that leaked and nearly collapsed after the house was finished in 2002.
The arbitration panel also sided with Hanks and Wilson in a counterclaim filed by the contractor who alleged the couple pursued the damages out of malice, the Idaho Mountain Express reported Wednesday.
The decision is the latest twist in a case that has played out in a variety of state courts in Idaho.
Tom Hanks
UN Delays Destruction Of Virus
Smallpox
Health ministers from around the world agreed Tuesday to put off setting a deadline to destroy the last known stockpiles of the smallpox virus for three more years, rejecting a U.S. plan that had called for a five-year delay.
After two days of heated debate, the 193-nation World Health Assembly agreed by consensus to a compromise that calls for another review in 2014.
The United States had proposed a five-year extension to destroying the U.S. and Russian stockpiles, arguing that more research is needed and the stockpiles could help prevent one of the world's deadliest diseases from being used as a biological weapon.
But opponents at the decision-making assembly of the World Health Organization said they saw little reason to retain the stockpiles, and objected to the delay in destroying them.
Smallpox
Explorers Tussle Over Treasure
Spain
Florida deep-sea explorers asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to overturn an earlier ruling that 17 tons of treasure recovered from a sunken Spanish galleon belongs to Spain, deepening a long-running battle over a trove worth an estimated $500 million that has unfolded not on the high seas but in federal courtrooms.
Attorneys for Odyssey Marine Exploration asked the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the "finders keepers" rule that would give the treasure hunters the rights to silver coins, copper ingots, gold cufflinks and other artifacts salvaged about four years ago from the galleon off the coast of Portugal. Spain's lawyers countered that U.S. courts are obligated by international treaty and maritime law to uphold Spain's claim to the haul.
The ship, called the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, was sunk by British warships in the Atlantic in 1804 while sailing back from South America with more than 200 people on board. Odyssey created an international splash in May 2007 when it announced that it raised more than 500,000 silver coins and other artifacts from the wreck and flew the treasure back to Tampa.
A federal judge sided with Spain in the first round of the tug-of-war in June 2009, accepting the Spanish government's argument that it never surrendered ownership of the ship and its contents. But the two sides - along with a horde of other lawyers representing outside parties - were back in court Tuesday to argue a case that could spill over to treasure hunts for years to come.
Spain
Could Sell For $10 Million
Roman Sculpture
A 2,000-year old sculpture that may have been used as a garden ornament by its wealthy owner could sell for upwards of $10 million at auction next month, Christie's said on Wednesday.
The 41-inch-high piece, which depicts a struggle between the goat-legged god Pan, and Hermaphrodite, a headless figure with a sensuous female body and male genitalia, is one of 200 lots that will go under the hammer during the sale of Antiquities on June 9.
During Roman times, the wealthy typically displayed sculptural groups like the de Clercq Pan and Hermaphrodite in their well-ordered gardens, with the works' bestial nature intended to provide contrast, Christie's explained.
Other highlights of the sale of Greek, Egyptian and Near Eastern art include a Roman marble Hercules and a Roman marble Isis, each circa 1st-2nd century A.D. and estimated at $500,000 to $800,000.
Roman Sculpture
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