Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Web Side Story: A Musical
Andrew Tobias: Daily Column (andrewtobias.com)
"A few weeks ago," writes Vice President Biden, "President Obama asked you to share your personal story about how the health care crisis has affected you and the ones you love. Hundreds of thousands of stories poured in from every corner of the country. The President and I have read through many of them ourselves - and now I'm encouraging you to do so as well. Read these powerful, personal stories from people in your area and around the country."
roger ebert's journal: Raising Free-Range Kids
I wrote recently about my childhood growing up in Downstate Illinois. I mentioned me and my friends roaming all over town on our bikes, walking to the movies and the swimming pool on our own, and riding our bikes through rain water backed up after thunderstorms. Also, for that matter, through piles of burning leaves.
Mark Morford: "Confirmed: God is slightly gay" (sfgate.com)
Just ask the animals. As soon as they stop having all that homosexual sex.
Al Norman: Wal-Mart Pulls Misleading Ads -- Again (huffingtonpost.com)
Advertising watchdogs like NAD and NARB have bitten Wal-Mart repeatedly, but the company's deceptions simply morph into new slogans that imply savings that are neither honest, nor accurate.
'I've seen big men reduced to tears' (guardian.co.uk)
Summer is kidney stone season and one in four of us now suffer from them. Kate Hilpern looks at how they are treated and the best ways of preventing them.
Cory Franklin: "Life's final snub: Getting cheated on your obituary"
Life is unfair. OK, we all know that. But how about death? It's unfair too.
RICHARD ROEPER: What of those others who died last week? (suntimes.com/)
Fawcett, McMahon and many more nudged aside by Jackson.
JIM VERTUNO: "Sky Saxon of 60s band the Seeds dies in Texas; known for hit 'Pushin' Too Hard'" (Associated Press)
Sky Saxon, lead singer and founder of the 1960s band the "Seeds," who had a Top 40 hit in 1967 with "Pushin' Too Hard," has died after a brief illness.
Susie Orbach: Fat celebrities a danger to our health? Come off it (guardian.co.uk)
We are in a culture that is so fat-phobic you wouldn't have thought fat people could be any more demonised.
Kate Bolick: "Back to the Futurists: Italy's First Avant-Garde Turns 100" (slate.com)
F.T. Marinetti was known as "the caffeine of Europe," an animated cross between P.T. Barnum and Andy Warhol.
Patricia Zohn: "A Girl's Guide to Love and Ballet: 'Swan Lake'" (huffingtonpost.com)
On Saturday night, Nina Ananiashvili, the ballet diva and one of the world's most beloved Odette-Odiles finally laid down her feathery headwrap in New York.
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Taking it Personally' Edition
Has the unexpected death of a celebrity ever affected you in a profound manner?
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
AK Report
Northern Edge
From the window of my 10X9 "cell" and lounging down on the Park Strip I have been watching the action over and around Elmendorf AFB and Fort Richardson Army base related to Northern Edge, It's been fun ....Here's some pictures from the military of the event
Vic in AK
Thanks, Vic!
BadtotheboneBob Sez
Eminem
Eminem's new video shot in Detroit | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Yo, M... I'm not a fan of his, being more of a Led Zeppelin/Joni Mitchell sort (Ha! Figure that out, would ya?) But, I gotta give the guy his props fer stickin' by that vast industrial waste land known as Detroit. Him, Kid Rock and Bob Seger have been the counterpart to the 'Motown Sound' that everyone thinks about when it comes to Deh-twa... By the by, I've been in both Tiger Stadium and the Train Station featured in this video way back in day when they were both vibrant places... The Train station is awesome!
BadtotheboneBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny and cooler than seasonal.
Judge Blocks Spinoff Book
J.D. Salinger
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a Swedish author cannot publish in the United States a book he wrote that was advertised as a sequel to J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher In The Rye."
U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts issued her ruling in Manhattan after hearing arguments in a lawsuit brought by the 90-year-old reclusive author against the publishers of "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye."
Batts said Swedish author Fredrik Colting's claim that he wrote the new book to critically examine Salinger's most famous character, Holden Caulfield, was "problematic and lacking in credibility."
She also rejected arguments that a character in Colting's book that was meant to represent Caulfield 60 years later was a parody.
J.D. Salinger
Top-Earning Actresses
Hollywood
Angelina Jolie is Hollywood's top earning actress, banking $27 million in the past year to beat out her partner Brad Pitt's ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, who raked in $25 million, a Forbes.com study showed on Wednesday.
Meryl Streep came in at No. 3 with $24 million, most of which came from her role in "Mamma Mia," while Sarah Jessica Parker was ranked fourth with $23 million in earnings following the movie version of TV series "Sex and the City."
Cameron Diaz rounds out the top five, banking $20 million between June 2008 and June 2009.
"As is still typical for Hollywood, our actresses earned significantly less than their male counterparts," Forbes.com said, pointing out that the top earning male actor, Harrison Ford, made $65 million.
Hollywood
50 Years
'Naked Lunch'
Fans of the US beat writer William Burroughs gathered in Paris on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of his explicit cult novel "The Naked Lunch," unveiling a plaque at the former Left Bank flophouse where he wrote it.
Conferences and readings in his honour, drawing "Burroughsians" from several countries, were to follow the unveiling at the Hotel du Vieux Paris.
Now a smartly-kept establishment in the heart of Paris's tourist districts, in Burroughs's time it was a run-down joint known as the Beat Hotel.
Burroughs finished "The Naked Lunch" while living there, along with other writers such as the "beat poet" Allen Ginsburg, and published the novel in Paris in 1959. Enthusiasts of the beat literature movement hail it as a masterpiece.
'Naked Lunch'
Pre-Fame Nudes
Madonna
Nude photographs of pop icon Madonna taken before she became a worldwide star are set to go on display at an exhibition in London on Thursday. Skip related content
Madonna posed for the black and whites at the age of 20, when she was modelling in New York to pay her way through dancing school and seeking her first big break in the music business.
She was paid just 30 dollars in 1979 -- worth about 90 dollars (65 euros) today -- for the intimate pictures, which include her confidently lounging nude on a chair for New York-based photographer Martin Schreiber.
After she became a star, Schreiber sold the photographs, which he took while teaching a photography course, to Playboy magazine which published them in 1985 -- three years after her first single "Everybody" came out.
Madonna
End Of Liquor Restrictions
Utah
Bartenders in Utah threw open their doors Wednesday as the state ditched a 40-year-old requirement that customers fill out an application, pay a fee and become a member of a private club before setting foot in a bar.
The new rules are an effort to boost the state's $7 billion-a-year tourism industry and make the state appear a little less quirky to outsiders.
In the posh ski resort town of Park City, Steve Liebroder, owner of Lindzee O'Michaels, said bar owners in town celebrated the switch at midnight.
"Tourists will actually know that you can get a drink here now. Maybe all of our business will quit going to Colorado," he said.
Utah
Train Robber Refused Parole
Ronnie Biggs
Ronnie Biggs, 79, notorious for his role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963 and then three decades as a celebrity fugitive in Brazil, was denied parole Wednesday on grounds that he is "wholly unrepentant".
Biggs' lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano called the decision "perverse" and "obscene".
"He is in hospital, he has a nasal gastric feed, he has had three strokes, he can't walk, he can't talk," he told the BBC. "All the other (Great Train Robbers) served a third of their sentences. Why should Mr Biggs be different?"
Biggs played a minor role in the hold-up but was jailed for 30 years in 1964. He subsequently escaped by scaling the wall of the prison and jumping onto the roof of a furniture van.
Prison Reform Trust, a campaign group, attacked Wednesday's decision, saying the government was "condemning a sick, elderly man to spend what seem from reports to be his dying months in prison."
Ronnie Biggs
Exiles Casinos To Siberia
Russia
Casinos and slot-machine halls shut down across Russia on Wednesday as a new law took effect that put sweeping new restrictions on the country's formerly boisterous gaming industry.
Tens of thousands of people were expected to lose their jobs as a result of the law, which was signed in 2006 by then-president Vladimir Putin in a bid to halt the spread of gambling addiction.
Under the law, casinos are only allowed to operate in four remote regions, each at least 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from Moscow and some as far away as Siberia and Russia's Pacific Ocean coast.
Some casinos are expected to refashion themselves into poker clubs under a quirk of Russian law that officially recognises poker as a sport rather than a game of chance. But playing for money will be forbidden.
Russia
Fossil Found
Ganlea megacanina
Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar Burma could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday.
However, other scientists said that the finding, while significant, won't end the debate over the origin of anthropoids - the primate grouping that includes ancient species as well as modern humans.
The pieces of 38 million-year-old jawbones and teeth found near Bagan in central Myanmar Burma in 2005 show typical characteristics of primates, said Dr. Chris Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and a member of the team that found the fossils.
Beard and his team from France, Thailand and Myanmar concluded that the fossils - which they dubbed Ganlea megacanina - came from 10 to 15 individuals of a new species that belonged to an extinct family of Asian anthropoid primates known as Amphipithecidae.
Ganlea megacanina
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of June 22-28. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. "Jon & Kate Plus 8" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TLC, 7.54 million homes, 10.6 million viewers.
2. "BET Awards" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), BET, 5.83 million homes, 10.65 million viewers.
3. Movie: "The Princess Protection Program" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 5.33 million homes, 8.53 million viewers.
4. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 4.73 million homes, 7.29 million viewers.
5. "The Closer" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 4.67 million homes, 6.41 million viewers.
6. "Royal Pains" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 4.38 million homes, 5.94 million viewers.
7. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 4.18 million homes, 6.26 million viewers.
8. Auto Racing: "Sprint Cup/Loudon" (Sunday, 1:59 p.m.), TNT, 4 million homes, 5.55 million viewers.
9. "Wizards of Waverly Place" (Friday, 9:45 p.m.), Disney, 3.94 million homes, 6.01 million viewers.
10. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.87 million homes, 5.34 million viewers.
11. "NASCAR Post Race Show" (Sunday, 5:45 p.m.), TNT, 3.79 million homes, 5.42 million viewers.
12. "BET Awards After Party" (Sunday, 11:44 p.m.), BET, 3.21 million homes, 5.34 million viewers.
13. "NCIS" (Monday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.13 million homes, 4.23 million viewers.
14. "The Secret Life of an American Teen-Ager" (Monday, 8 p.m.), ABC Family, 3.13 million homes, 4.67 million viewers.
15. "Cake Boss" (Monday, 10 p.m.), TLC, 3.11 million homes, 4.47 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Mollie Sugden
Comedy actress Mollie Sugden has died in hospital following a long illness, aged 86.
The Yorkshire-born star of popular sitcom Are You Being Served? died in the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford on Wednesday afternoon.
Sugden's twin sons, Robin and Simon Moore, were at her bedside, according to her agent Joan Reddin.
Sugden, who lived in Surrey, was married to fellow actor William Moore. She never fully recovered from his death nine years ago, said Ms Reddin. "They were very much in love," she said. "She started to go down when he died."
Born in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in July 1922, Sugden trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her early career was spent in repertory theatre, where in Swansea in 1956, she met Moore. They married two years later, when she was 35 and he was 39. Their sons were born six years later.
Mollie Sugden
In Memory
Karl Malden
Karl Malden, the onetime Indiana steelworker and Academy Award-winning actor whose intelligent characterizations on stage and screen made him a star despite his plain looks, died Wednesday, his family said. He was 97.
While he tackled a variety of characters over the years, he was often seen in working-class garb or military uniform. His authenticity in grittier roles came naturally: He was the son of a Czech mother and a Serbian father, and worked for a time in the steel mills of Gary, Ind., after dropping out of college.
Malden won a supporting actor Oscar in 1951 for his role as Blanche DuBois' naive suitor Mitch in "A Streetcar Named Desire" - a role he also played on Broadway.
He was nominated again as best supporting actor in 1954 for his performance as Father Corrigan, a fearless, friend-of-the-workingman priest in "On the Waterfront." In both movies, he costarred with Marlon Brando.
Among Malden's more than 50 film credits were: "Patton," in which he played Gen. Omar Bradley, "Pollyanna," "Fear Strikes Out," "The Sting II," "Bombers B-52," "Cheyenne Autumn," and "All Fall Down."
Malden gained perhaps his greatest fame as Lt. Mike Stone in the 1970s television show "The Streets of San Francisco," in which Michael Douglas played the veteran detective's junior partner.
In the '70s, Malden gained a lucrative 21-year sideline and a place in pop culture with his "Don't leave home without it" ads for American Express.
"The Streets of San Francisco" earned him five Emmy nominations. He won one for his role as a murder victim's father out to bring his former son-in-law to justice in the 1985 miniseries "Fatal Vision."
Malden first gained prominence on Broadway in the late 1930s, making his debut in "Golden Boy" by Clifford Odets. It was during this time that he met Elia Kazan, who later was to direct him in "Streetcar" and "Waterfront."
He steadily gained more prominent roles, with time out for service in the Army in World War II (and a role in an Army show, "Winged Victory.")
He was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago on March 22, 1912. Malden regretted that in order to become an actor he had to change his name. He insisted that Fred Gwynne's character in "On the Waterfront" be named Sekulovich to honor his heritage.
Malden and his wife, Mona, a fellow acting student at the Goodman, had one of Hollywood's longest marriages, having celebrated their 70th anniversary in December.
Besides his wife, Malden is survived by daughters Mila and Cara, his sons-in-law, three granddaughters, and four great grandchildren.
Karl Malden
In Memory
Harve Presnell
Harve Presnell, whose booming baritone graced such Broadway musicals as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "Annie," has died at age 75.
Although he was best known for his roles in musical theater, Presnell also is remembered as William H. Macy's father-in-law in the Coen brothers' 1996 film "Fargo."
Among his other movies were "When the Boys Meet the Girls" (1965), "The Glory Guys" (1965) and "Paint Your Wagon" (1969) as well as the TV series "The Pretender" (1997-2000).
Yet it was in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1960) that the rugged, 6-foot-4 Presnell was first noticed by Broadway audiences. In the Meredith Willson musical, he played lucky mining prospector "Leadville" Johnny Brown opposite Tammy Grimes' feisty Molly. Presnell repeated his role in the 1964 film version which starred Debbie Reynolds as the buoyant title character.
For a good part of his career, Presnell portrayed the wealthy, follicle-challenged Daddy Warbucks in various incarnations of "Annie." The actor was first offered the role in a tour of "Annie" and thought the title was a show business abbreviation for "Annie, Get Your Gun," the musical in which he had once played sharpshooter Frank Butler.
The actor was born George Harvey Presnell on Sept. 14, 1933, in Modesto, Calif. He went to the University of Southern California on a sports scholarship. After three weeks, the head of the music school heard him sing and offered him the same scholarship for music. He soon quit school and spent three seasons singing in Europe. And it was in Berlin that Willson, the composer of "Molly Brown," first heard him sing.
Harve Presnell
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