Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: The Sheer Terror of Sitting Still (SF Gate)
Pause and you get eaten. Introspection is for hippies. Ruthlessly forward is the only perspective, the only direction, the only proper attitude. Self reflection and mindful presence? Calm and OM and inner stillness? Sounds adorable, but holy hell have you seen the pace of the world today? Who has the time? Who has the energy? Who has the patience?
Amanda Marcotte: Cleveland Turns Backlogged Rape Kits Into Stream of Indictments (Slate)
Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has decided to go Eliot Ness on rapists.
Helaine Olen: "Room service no more: why luxury is leaving the middle class behind" (Guardian)
Hilton's pulling of room service in New York is another example of how middle income earners are losing access to life's luxuries.
Hadley Freeman: I hate jeans, but I hate age limits more, which is why older men can wear denim (Guardian)
Yes, men over 40 can look awful in denim, but it's more to do with the kind of jeans and how they're wearing them.
Oliver Laughland: "Everlyn Sampi: pain, pride and the trail of the Rabbit-Proof Fence" (Guardian)
In 2002 she starred in a classic Australian film. In a rare - and shocking - interview, the actor explains what happened next.
History is Never Old News (Not Always Right)
"Do you see this baby in this picture? This was me when I was just a few days old. This was the only time my father ever held me before he died. This is all I have to remember him by, and you just helped me to keep them preserved so I can keep his memory alive."
Kenneth Smith
Bio, a collection of his columns (Dramas of the Mind), and more.
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
1st June Astro Column
Gare G
Reader Comment
Re: The Last Telegram
Marty,
I have heard (unofficially, of course) that as India prepares to mothball its Telegram services, the country is gearing up to replace that antiquated technology with the more up-to-date communication innovations we know as Telex and Fax. Welcome to the 20th Century, India. ;-)
Roy in Tyler, TX
Thanks, Roy!
OTOH, since I'm still on a crappy dial-up I really shouldn't comment. ; )
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Nice day for a field trip.
Launches Tree-Friendly Paper Brand
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson is putting his paper where his passions are.
The 51-year-old actor is the co-founder of Prairie Pulp & Paper Inc., which launched its brand of environmentally friendly paper Wednesday.
The company spent 15 years researching and developing its Step Forward Paper. It's made of wheat-straw waste and wood fiber rather than virgin trees.
The company says replacing two packs of traditional copy paper with their product saves one tree.
Woody Harrelson
$90 Cup Of Coffee
Kopi Kuwak
Coffee snobs can now take it to a whole new level. The world's most expensive cup of coffee is made from beans that are extracted from the excrement of a small animal.
The Kopi Kuwak is famously produced by the Paradoxurus, a relative of three different breeds of civet, a slinky mammal that looks like a cross between a cat and a mongoose. The coffee blends originates on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and is produced when the Paradoxurus eats coffee cherries, digests them and then the beans are extracted, cleaned and roasted.
Amazingly, a cup of Kopi Kuwak typically costs about $90. Or, you can pick up a pound of the beans for around $1,000. Just getting a cup of the coffee typically requires an appointment.
The coffee website Funnel Mill describes the Kopi Kuwak process as, "The resulting coffee is said to be like no other. It has a rich, heavy flavor with hints of caramel and chocolate. Other terms used to describe it are earthy, aromatic, sweet and exotic. The body is almost syrupy and it is probably the smoothest coffee known to mankind."
Kopi Kuwak
Long Lost Recording Discovered
Bennett-Brubeck
Tony Bennett never forgot the first time he performed with Dave Brubeck more than half a century ago. But the tape of that memorable collaboration between two American jazz masters lay forgotten in a record label's vaults until its discovery by an archivist just weeks after Brubeck's death in December, and it's just been released as "Bennett/Brubeck: The White House Sessions, Live 1962."
President John F. Kennedy's White House made this jazz summit possible when it booked Brubeck and Bennett to perform at a concert on Aug. 28, 1962, for college-age summer interns. The crowd was so big that the concert had to be moved from the Rose Garden to an open-air theater at the base of the Washington Monument.
After Brubeck and Bennett each performed with their bands, the pianist came back on stage with his drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright to accompany the singer on four encore numbers: "We haven't rehearsed this, so lots of luck, folks," Bennett joked with the audience.
Columbia Records had sent its mobile recording unit to tape the concert. But only one song, their version of "That Old Black Magic," surfaced years later on several compilation albums. The nearly one-hour tape had been mislabeled as "American Jazz Concert" with no reference to the two jazz legends and ended up lost in a section of the massive Sony Music Entertainment archives mostly devoted to classical music recordings.
Bennett-Brubeck
Returns Stretch Of Riverbank
Paris
Paris has given back a stretch of its riverbank to pedestrians - and just in time for summer.
Mayor Bertrand Delanoe inaugurated the 2.3-kilometer (1.4 mile) stretch along the Seine River between the Royal and Alma bridges on the Left Bank on Wednesday. Once a road with buzzing traffic, it's now a liberating walkway with athletic activities, restaurants, a floating garden, a picnic spot and a children's area.
The project got underway back in April 2010 and has cost about 35 million euros ($47 million) to complete. Delanoe has made environmental concerns one of his top priorities. He brought to Paris the bicycle rental system known as the velib, followed by a similar system in the form of electric cars.
Paris
Men's Wearhouse Ousts Founder
George Zimmer
In a terse release issued Wednesday, Men's Wearhouse said it has fired the face of the company and its executive chairman, George Zimmer, who appeared in many of its TV commercials with the slogan "You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it."
In a statement issued to CNBC, Zimmer said that over the past several months he and the company's board disagreed about the company's direction and that the board "inappropriately has chosen to silence my concerns," by firing him.
Men's Wearhouse gave no reason for the abrupt firing of Zimmer, who built Men's Wearhouse from one small Texas store using a cigar box as a cash register to one of the North America's largest specialty men's clothiers with 1,143 locations.
The timing of the announcement was odd -it happened the morning the company's annual shareholder meeting had been set to take place. The company delayed the meeting but didn't give a new date.
The abrupt departure comes a week after Men's Wearhouse reported that its fiscal first-quarter profit increased 23 percent, helped by stronger profit margins and an earlier prom season.
George Zimmer
Family Sues Over Death In TV Project
"Brothers In Arms"
Survivors of a woman killed during the production of a reality TV show pilot have filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Discovery Communications Inc. and Anthropic Productions Corp.
Terry Flanell's husband and daughter filed the lawsuit last week in federal court in Denver.
It says the companies were producing a pilot focusing on the family's Colorado Springs business, Dragon Arms Inc. The suit says the opening sequence was to have employees walk through a cloud of smoke, but pyrotechnic devices that were used to create the smoke malfunctioned, and one struck Flanell.
The lawsuit alleges no licensed pyrotechnics operator was on scene last year for filming of the "Brothers In Arms" pilot.
"Brothers In Arms"
Some Of Her Best Friends...
Paula Deen
Celebrity cook Paula Deen said while being questioned in a discrimination lawsuit that she has used racial slurs in the past but insisted she and her family do not tolerate prejudice.
The 66-year-old Food Network star and Savannah restaurant owner was peppered with questions about her racial attitudes in a May 17 deposition by a lawyer for Lisa Jackson, a former manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House. Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, own the restaurant. Jackson sued them last year, saying she was sexually harassed and worked in a hostile environment rife with innuendo and racial slurs.
According to a transcript of the deposition, filed Monday in U.S. District Court, an attorney for Jackson asked Deen if she has ever used the N-word.
"Yes, of course," Deen replied, though she added: "It's been a very long time."
Paula Deen
Issues Statement
Serena Williams
Serena Williams says she's reaching out to the family of the victim in the Steubenville rape case after the tennis star was quoted in a Rolling Stone article saying "she shouldn't have put herself in that position."
"I am currently reaching out to the girl's family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article," Williams said in a statement released through her agent Wednesday. "What was written - what I supposedly said - is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame."
The comment was made in one paragraph of a lengthy story posted online Tuesday about Williams, a 16-time Grand Slam title winner who is ranked No. 1 heading into Wimbledon, which starts next week.
According to the Rolling Stone story, Williams says the perpetrators of the crime "did something stupid," and she asks: "Do you think it was fair, what they got?"
She adds, "I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people."
Serena Williams
No Respite From Tax Man
Italian Icons
Sophia Loren wore green silk and sunglasses for her date with the taxman, Luciano Pavarotti a suit and sneakers. Diego Maradona gave up his diamond stud earring to pay off a tax debt.
Some of Italy's most well-heeled residents have come under the glare of successive governments who have declared wars on tax evasion, yet it remains a perennial problem for the debt-laden nation. On Wednesday, it was the turn of designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who were convicted of failing to declare 200 million euros ($268 million).
Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared a tax amnesty in 2009, repatriating billions at a negligible penalty of 5 percent. He, too, has been caught up in the crackdown: Last year the billionaire media mogul was convicted of tax fraud related to his media business, a charge he denies.
His successor, Premier Mario Monti, dispatched tax police to resorts to ensure that receipts were being properly issued and income declared. While hiding income abroad may suit the jet-set, a more widely practiced and insidious form of evasion in Italy is the failure to issue receipts for anything from handy work to private medical visits to a cup of espresso.
Italian Icons
In Memory
Slim Whitman
Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!," died Wednesday at a Florida hospital. He was 90.
Whitman died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center, his son-in-law Roy Beagle said.
Whitman's tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks - and an inspiration for countless jokes - thanks to the TV commercials that pitched his records.
But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularizing the style there. Whitman also encouraged a teen Elvis Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was making his professional debut.
Whitman recorded more than 65 albums and sold millions of records, including 4 million of "All My Best" that was marketed on TV.
His career spanned six decades, beginning in the late 1940s, but he achieved cult figure status in the 1980s. His visage as an ordinary guy singing romantic ballads struck a responsive chord with the public.
Born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. in Tampa on Jan. 23, 1923, he worked as a young man in a meatpacking plant, at a shipyard and as a postman.
He was able to get on radio in Tampa and signed with RCA Records in 1949 with the help of Col. Tom Parker, who later became Presley's longtime manager. RCA gave Whitman the show business name Slim - he was a slender 6-foot-1 - to replace his uninspiring birth name.
In 1952, Whitman had his first hit record, "Love Song of the Waterfall," which 25 years later became part of the soundtrack of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Another Whitman hit from that year, "Indian Love Call," was used to humorous effect in the 1996 "Mars Attacks!" - his yodel causes the Martians' heads to explode.
His version of "Rose Marie," the title song from the venerable operetta that spawned "Indian Love Call," became a huge hit in England in 1955, staying at No. 1 on the charts for 11 weeks.
He was survived by his daughter, Sharon Beagle, and his son, Byron Whitman.
Slim Whitman
In Memory
Kim Thompson
Kim Thompson - co-publisher of the influential Seattle-based publisher Fantagraphics Books known for celebrated alternative comics, graphic novels and comic strip anthologies - has died.
Fantagraphics announced Thompson's death Wednesday, four months after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was 56.
Fantagraphics has been publishing since 1976, beginning with literary and comics, journalism and essays, and then comics, graphic novels, anthologies and translations of works from other languages. Many of its titles are some of the best known among readers and collectors of graphic novels and books, with works like "Love and Rockets" by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez; Daniel Clowes' "Ghost World" and the "Acme Novelty Library."
Thompson was born in Denmark and moved to the U.S. when he was 21 in 1977. Soon after arriving, Thompson met Gary Groth and Michael Catron who founded Fantagraphics. He began contributing to "The Comics Journal" soon after.
Along with Groth, Thompson was one of the leaders in bringing adult themes and diverse characters into comics, along with stripping the focus on superheroes.
Fantagraphics built a reputation for quality work, eventually winning publishing rights for hard cover anthology editions of classic strips starring Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson and Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts.
Thompson's fluency in languages helped him translate several key editions of European titles into English, giving works by creators like Jacques Tardi, Ulli Lust and Guy Peelaert a wider audience for their creations.
Thompson is survived by his wife, Lynn Emmert, mother, father and his brother.
Kim Thompson
In Memory
James Gandolfini
James Gandolfini, whose portrayal of a brutal, emotionally delicate mob boss in HBO's "The Sopranos" helped create one of TV's greatest drama series and turned the mobster stereotype on its head, died Wednesday in Italy. He was 51.
Gandolfini played mob boss Tony Soprano in the groundbreaking HBO series that aired from 1999 to 2007. His film credits included "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Killing Them Softly," and he amassed stage credits as well.
Gandolfini's performance in "The Sopranos" was indelible and career-making, but he refused to be stereotyped as the bulky mobster who was a therapy patient, family man and cold-blooded killer.
After the David Chase series concluded with its breathtaking blackout ending, Gandolfini's varied film work included comedies such as "In the Loop," a political satire, and the heartwarming drama "Welcome to the Rileys," which costarred Kristen Stewart. He voiced the Wild Thing Carol in "Where the Wild Things Are."
In a December 2012 interview with The Associated Press, Gandolfini said he gravitated to acting as a release, a way to get rid of anger. "I don't know what exactly I was angry about," he said.
James Gandolfini
In Memory
Vince Flynn
Best-selling author Vince Flynn, who wrote the Mitch Rapp counterterrorism thriller series and sold more than 15 million books in the U.S. alone, died Wednesday in Minnesota after a more than two-year battle with prostate cancer, according to friends and his publisher. He was 47.
Flynn was supporting himself by bartending when he self-published his first novel, "Term Limits," in 1997 after getting more than 60 rejection letters. After it became a local best-seller, Pocket Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint, signed him to a two-book deal - and "Term Limits" became a New York Times best-seller in paperback.
The St. Paul-based author also sold millions of books in the international market and averaged about a book a year, most of them focused on Rapp, a CIA counterterrorism operative. His 14th novel, "The Last Man," was published last year.
Flynn was born to an Irish Catholic family in St. Paul, the fifth of seven children. After graduating with an economics degree from the University of St. Thomas in 1988, he went to work as an account and sales marketing specialist with Kraft General Foods. That marketing background later came in handy as he promoted "Term Limits."
Wanting a new challenge, he quit Kraft in 1990 when he landed an aviation candidate slot with the Marine Corps, but he was later disqualified due to seizures he suffered following a childhood car accident. Thwarted from becoming a military aviator, he got the idea of writing thrillers.
Flynn was diagnosed with stage three metastatic prostate cancer in November 2010. The fatigue from his radiation treatments eventually made it difficult to focus on writing for more than an hour or two, and in October 2011, he reluctantly postponed publication for several months of his 13th book, "Kill Shot," which followed Rapp's adventures as he pursued those responsible for the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
Flynn is survived by his wife, Lysa Flynn, and three children.
Vince Flynn
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