Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Matthew Yglesias: The Fast, the Furious, and the Long-Term Erosion of American Social and Economic Institutions (Slate)
Like any reasonable person, I watch the Fast and Furious film franchise primarily for its insights into moral philosophy and political economy.
Irene Chapelle: "Survey: Australia the 'lucky country' for a better life" (CNN)
Australia has been named the world's happiest industrialized nation for the third year running, based on criteria including satisfaction, work-life balance, income and housing, …
Michele Hanson: Learn to love your body now, because things are only going to go downhill (Guardian)
Crepe skin, corned-beef face, blancmange ankles … the list goes on, so make the best of what you've got while you still can.
Esther Inglis-Arkell: 8 Special Features We Desperately Want in DVDs for Science Shows (io9)
It's rare to pick up any deluxe Blu-ray set without getting the kinds of viewing options that would make for 17 different movies. Everything from deleted scenes to commentary tracks are available, and yet science programs are fairly barren when it comes to special features. This is a shame, because I know of a few special features that really need to happen.
Mara Wilson: "7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective)" (Cracked)
When I was a kid, I acted in a few movies. It was generally a good experience, but every day I'm glad I wasn't Olsen twins famous. Not many child stars make it out of Hollywood alive or sane, and at any given time there are at least three former ones having very public breakdowns. But why does this happen?
Farhad Manjoo: Most Likely to Succeed (Slate)
The school yearbook business is a scandal. Here's how to fix it.
Lucy Mangan: "Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian" (Guardian)
… as someone who still cannot fully enjoy Pride and Prejudice for the ghosts of annotated underlinings that still appear before my GCSE-affrighted eyes 20 years on, I beg you - please, please offer Magorian's masterpiece to your readers before their teachers do, and let them feel the joy.
His Tone Requires A Gear Shift (Not Always Right)
(My uncle owns a chain of bike shops. We're having a meal with my grandparents, and have gathered at the shop waiting for my cousin to finish his shift. An obnoxious customer is giving him trouble.)
Adela Tells It Like It Is (YouTube)
I asked my 3-year-old daughter about an upcoming event and she gave an unexpected, yet factual, answer. We decided this would be the perfect way to announce our news to friends and family.
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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 much warmer.
Hosting Emmys
Neil Patrick Harris
CBS says Neil Patrick Harris is hosting the Emmys again.
It's the second go-around for the TV, film and stage star. He last did the honors at the "Prime Time Emmy Awards" in 2009.
CBS will air the Emmycast live from Los Angeles on Sept. 22.
But for viewers who just can't wait to see Harris in emcee mode, he'll preside over "The 67th Annual Tony Awards" on CBS on June 9. It's Harris' fourth time hosting that show, which salutes the best of Broadway.
Neil Patrick Harris
New TV Talk Show
Larry King
Larry King is returning to TV with a political talk show beginning next month.
The new program, "Politics With Larry King," will air on the RT America network, a global, English-language channel based in Russia, the network announced Wednesday. No premiere date or broadcast schedule was specified.
RT said it will also telecast "Larry King Now," which debuted online on Hulu and Ora.TV last summer.
Both programs will originate from Washington and Los Angeles. They will continue to stream on the Hulu and Ora.TV websites and will be available on rt.com. RT America will be the exclusive U.S. broadcaster for both programs.
Larry King
The Most Interesting Man
Jonathan Goldsmith
An actor known in beer commercials as the most interesting man in the world is supporting an international nonprofit group with an office in his Vermont hometown that's working with survivors of land mine explosions.
Jonathan Goldsmith closes his Dos Equis commercials with "stay thirsty, my friend." He says he first became aware of the work done by Clear Path International when he moved to Manchester almost three years ago and met its co-founder James Hathaway.
He says wars may be over but land mines are "waiting to ruin some kid's life or some poor farmer's life."
Clear Path was founded in 2000 and is based in Bainbridge Island, Wash. It operates in places including Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam and along the border between Thailand and Myanmar.
Jonathan Goldsmith
Hospital News
George Michael
British singer George Michael is out of hospital after being treated for head injuries from a car accident two weeks ago, his website said on Wednesday.
The 49-year-old former Wham! frontman, who has been "under observation" since the May 16th accident, has been discharged and is resting, www.georgemichael.com said.
British media have reported that the "Careless Whisper" singer fell out of a car he was travelling in on the M1 motorway just outside London during rush hour - the latest of a string of accidents and health scares.
The singer has sold an estimated 100 million records over his career, but in the past few years has hit the headlines for his personal life more often than for his music.
George Michael
$102 M Verdict
Las Vegas
A Las Vegas judge affirmed a $70 million verdict against Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp. on Tuesday and tacked on another $31.6 million in interest.
In early May, a jury found against the casino company and in favor of Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen. The jury agreed Suen should be compensated for helping Sands earn a Macau gambling license in 2002.
The interest of 5.25 percent, or $8,400 per day, was calculated from the date Suen filed his suit, in 2004.
Suen won his breach of contract suit in 2008, but Sands appealed and the judgment was tossed on a technicality. Sands is again appealing.
Las Vegas
Settles Suit With Warhol Estate
Velvet Underground
Velvet Underground, the 1960s avant-garde rock band, has settled a fight with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts over the rights to an iconic pop art image of a banana that graced the band's best-known album.
Velvet Underground sued the Warhol Foundation in January 2012 after reports that the foundation was planning to license the banana design for cases, sleeves and bags for Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad.
The settlement, disclosed in a filing in federal court in New York on Wednesday, averts a trial that was set to begin July 29. The court filing did not give the terms of the settlement.
Velvet Underground, founded by John Cale and Lou Reed, collaborated with Warhol beginning in the 1960s. Warhol designed the banana image and the band featured it on its first album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico," in 1967.
Velvet Underground
Moscow's Top Court Rejects Appeal
Pussy Riot
Moscow's highest court has rejected an appeal by punk group Pussy Riot against their sentence for a protest against Vladimir Putin.
Moscow City Court chair Olga Yegorova said Wednesday that she had upheld the group's conviction last year for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and denied the case was politically motivated, Russian news agencies reported.
Pussy Riot lawyer Irina Khrunova told the Associated Press she would appeal to Russia's supreme court.
Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich scandalized Russia after performing an impromptu protest in Moscow's main cathedral. A Moscow court jailed all three, but Samtusevich was later released on appeal.
Pussy Riot
University of Bologna Library
Torah
An Italian expert in Hebrew manuscripts said Wednesday he has discovered the oldest known complete Torah scroll, a sheepskin document dating from 1155-1225. It was right under his nose, in the University of Bologna library, where it had been mistakenly catalogued a century ago as dating from the 17th century.
The find isn't the oldest Torah text in the world: the Leningrad and the Aleppo bibles - both of them Hebrew codexes, or books - pre-date the Bologna scroll by more than 200 years. But this is the oldest Torah scroll of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, according to Mauro Perani, a professor of Hebrew in the University of Bologna's cultural heritage department.
Two separate carbon-dating tests - performed by the University of Salento in Italy and the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign - confirmed the revised dating, according to a statement from the University of Bologna.
Such scrolls - this one is 36 meters (40 yards) long and 64 centimeters (25 inches) high - are brought out in synagogues on the Sabbath and holidays, and portions are read aloud in public. Few such scrolls have survived since old or damaged Torahs have to be buried or stored in a closed room in a synagogue.
Torah
Alaska Ghost Town
King Island
Forty miles off the coast of Alaska lies an uninhabited island, abandoned for the past 50 years.
For Joan Naviyuk Kane, who launched a crowdsourced Web-funding campaign to visit the island, it's rich with family history and ancestral roots.
Now, an anonymous donation has assured the 35-year-old's travel to King Island this summer, which is a rough ride over the Bering Sea, about six hours by boat or two hours by helicopter.
Kane wants to visit the place she has only heard about from her mother and grandparents: An isolated spot where the King Island tribe subsisted for thousands of years, until being relocated a half-century ago.
The island, which once had a population of about 200, was depleted when men were shipped off to fight in World War II, and then further diminished by a tuberculosis outbreak. The islanders had previously managed to survive for thousands of years as hunters and ivory carvers.
"My family comes from King Island," Kane, a member of the island tribe, explains on the USA Projects website. "I am seeking funding in order to research, undertake, and document a trip to the King Island while my mother and her remaining siblings-as well as others who were born and raised on the island-are still alive, interested, and capable of making the trip together to ensure that King Islanders remain connected to our ancestors, culture, and place of origin," she added.
King Island
NY Statue Sought
Ed Wood
A man in upstate New York wants to erect a statue to the Hollywood film director considered by some critics to be the worst of all time.
Ed Wood was born in 1924 in Poughkeepsie, where he became attracted to horror and science fiction films shown at the city's movie theaters. After World War II, Wood moved to Hollywood to make films.
His low-budget, campy movies were universally panned, but have now achieved cult status. "Plan 9 From Outer Space" tops many lists as the worst film ever made. Wood died in 1978.
The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that Joe Mendillo is attempting to raise funds to commission and build a life-size bronze statue of Wood in the city.
Ed Wood
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for May 20-26. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "Dancing With the Stars Results," ABC, 15.2 million.
2. "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 14.97 million.
3. "Criminal Minds," CBS, 11.01 million.
4. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 10.81 million.
5. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 10.18 million.
6. "Modern Family," ABC, 10.01 million.
7. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 9.06 million.
8. "Hawaii Five-0," CBS, 9 million.
9. NBA Playoffs: Indiana vs. Miami (Wednesday), TNT, 8.31 million.
10. NBC News: Oklahoma Tornado Coverage (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), NBC, 8.16 million.
11. "Mike & Molly," CBS, 7.92 million.
12. "NCIS: Los Angeles" (Tuesday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 7.86 million.
13. "NCIS" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), CBS, 7.81 million.
14. "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 7.71 million.
15. "The Middle," ABC, 7.7 million.
16. "The Big Bang Theory" (Monday, 9 p.m.), CBS, 7.46 million.
17. NBA Playoffs: Miami vs. Indiana (Sunday), TNT, 7.28 million.
18. "NCIS" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), CBS, 7.23 million.
19. NASCAR Sprint Cup: Coca-Cola 600, Fox, 7.13 million.
20. NBA Playoffs: Indiana vs. Miami (Friday), TNT, 6.98 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Jack Vance
Jack Vance, an award-winning mystery, fantasy and science fiction author who wrote more than 60 books, has died. He was 96.
Vance died Sunday evening at his home in Oakland, his son John Vance II told The Associated Press.
Jack Vance, whose legal name was John Holbrook, published most of his work as Jack Vance, but he also wrote 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and three as Ellery Queen, as well as books under the pen names of Alan Wade, Peter Held, John van See and Jay Kavanse, according to the Jack Vance website, which is maintained by family and friends.
In 2009, a profile in the New York Times Magazine described Vance as "one of American literature's most distinctive and undervalued voices," according to the website.
Vance collected a number of awards over the years, including Hugo Awards for "The Dragon Masters" in 1963, "The Last Castle" in 1967, and for his memoir "This is Me, Jack Vance!" in 2010.
Born in San Francisco, Vance graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1942. He worked for a while as an electrician in the naval shipyards at Pearl Harbor, leaving about a month before the Japanese attack there, according to the website.
Described as a "blue-collar guy" by his son, Vance worked over the years as a seaman, a surveyor and carpenter. His first book was published in 1945, but Vance did not establish himself as a writer until the 1970s.
Although legally blind since the 1980s, Vance continued to write with the aid of software, including his most recent novel, "Lurulu," his son said. Vance had said "Lurulu" would be his final book, but he completed his memoir, which was published in July 2009.
In his later years, Vance suffered from poor kidney health and diabetes, which he which he maintained by diet control, his son said.
Jack Vance
In Memory
Marshall Lytle
Marshall Lytle, the original bass player for Bill Haley & His Comets, has died. He was 79.
Lytle's niece said he died at his home in New Port Richey, Fla., on May 25.
Lytle recorded hits like "Rock Around the Clock" with Haley in the 1950s. The band was one of the first to make rock 'n' roll music popular with a mainstream audience.
The North Carolina-born Lytle was known for his percussive bass style, slapping the strings as he played, and his lively performances. He would sometimes take the bass over his head or ride it like a surfboard.
Lytle and two other band members quit in 1955 over a money dispute and formed a new band called The Jodimars. He would also later join a Comets reunion band.
Marshall Lytle
In Memory
Clarence Burke Jr.
Clarence Burke Jr., lead singer of the group the Five Stairsteps that sang the 1970 hit "O-o-h Child," has died. He was 64.
His manager, Joe Marno, says Burke died Sunday in Marietta, Ga., where he lived. The cause of his death wasn't disclosed.
Formed in Chicago in 1965, the Five Stairsteps included Burke and four siblings.
The group had several hits in the 1960s and '70s, including "You Waited Too Long," ''World of Fantasy," and "Don't Change Your Love."
The Los Angeles Times says the group disbanded in the late 1970s but the brothers briefly reformed as the Invisible Man's Band and had a 1980 success with the dance single "All Night Thing."
His family says in recent years, Burke performed solo concerts and continued to record.
Clarence Burke Jr.
Gulf Fritillary Season
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