Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: Who I'm Supporting For President
Invest to defeat Republicans, not Democrats. If there's one primary candidate you absolutely love, okay - give her or him 5% of your overall 2020-cycle budget. But no more! Invest either 100% or, at minimum, 95% of your budget in early organizing and registration. … Give little or nothing to individual candidates. That's hard, especially when you know them; but here's why: …
Paul Waldman: Mitch McConnell has a real challenger (Washington Post)
Want to know who the most unpopular politician in America is? Nope, it's not President Trump. Not Nancy Pelosi, either. It's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He's up for reelection next year, and he has a potentially strong challenger in Amy McGrath, who announced her candidacy Monday. McGrath is an appealing candidate, but she has an uphill climb ahead of her, in ways that illuminate the polarized, partisan environment we find ourselves in.
Andrew Pulver: Rip Torn, cult actor and Artie in the Larry Sanders Show dies aged 88 (The Guardian)
Star of a string of 60s classics fell foul of Hollywood because of his temper but found a fresh lease of life in comedy, from TV's Larry Sanders Show to the Men in Black films
Peter Bradshaw: "Rip Torn: a wild man of stage and screen and a titan of US TV comedy" (The Guardian)
His fights with Dennis Hopper and Norman Mailer are the stuff of Hollywood legend, but he is best remembered as the cynical and cantankerous Artie, producer of The Larry Sanders Show.
Scott Tobias: "American Pie at 20: why the raucous comedy could never be made today" (The Guardian)
The 1999 hit that spawned a franchise had moments of sweetness amid the filth, but it also possessed little interest in how women feel about sex.
Scott Tobias: "The Matrix at 20: how the sci-fi gamechanger remains influential" (The Guardian)
In 1999, the sci-fi thriller became an instant pop culture phenomenon and in the years since, its influence on the industry and audiences has endured.
Garrison Keillor: When I consider how my time is spent
A mockingbird couple has set up housekeeping in a tree in our backyard and the male goes crazy whenever we set foot in his territory, which I guess means that their children have hatched and are at that perilous point in life when you're about to fly. When we slip out back for supper, he shrieks at us from the corner of the yard, far from the nest, and flies from branch to branch to fence, cursing us, threatening to peck our eyes out. He's a good father. The mother stays on the nest and he exercises his toxic mockingbird masculinity and yells bloody murder.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Television personality Ed McMahon, who is perhaps best known as playing second banana to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, packed a lot of living into his full life. He kept busy, worked a lot, made a lot of money, and spent a lot of money. One thing he valued was good food. Other things he valued were good beer and other kinds of alcoholic beverages. Because he traveled a lot, he ran into the problem of finding in each town or city a good place to eat. He learned to ask three people-usually a cab driver or chauffeur and a bellhop and some other third person-this question: "What's the best restaurant in town?" He said that almost always two of the three people agreed on a restaurant-that is where he ate. On the rare occasions when all three people disagreed about the best restaurant in town, Mr. McMahon went on a diet. By the way, while travelling to Copenhagen, he noticed that the cab he was in was a Mercedes-Benz. Then he noticed that all the cabs were Mercedes-Benzes. He asked the cab driver how he could buy such an expensive cab, and the cab driver replied, "I buy one cab. It's for life. So I buy one that will last." Also by the way, the young Mr. McMahon had a wonderful high school physics teacher named Ken Coward who made things both fun and educational. Sometimes he would do physics experiments; sometimes he would do magic tricks. He would then have his students figure out which involved legitimate science and which involved legerdemain. Ed remembered much later, "We were seldom right."
• World-famous accompanist Gerald Moore detests background music, of which he writes, "I find it difficult to indulge in the process of thinking even at the best of times, but when this slime is being poured into my ears, thought or study or reading are quite impossible." He once asked an American stewardess to turn off the background music during a flight. She did, but remarked, "Not musical, eh?" Of course, as an in-demand international accompanist, Mr. Moore frequently traveled. He once undertook a sea voyage to Dublin, Ireland, from Holyhead, Wales. He boarded in the evening, drank two large whiskeys, and slept soundly. The next morning, he told a steward, "That is the way to cross the Irish Sea. I slept undisturbed the whole night, unaware of any tossing and pitching, rock 'n' roll." The steward replied, "No, sir, you wouldn't have felt much movement. You see, we haven't cast off yet. It's been too rough."
• Artist James Montgomery Flagg was at one time famous for his Uncle Sam posters-for example, "I WANT YOU for the U.S. ARMY. ENLIST NOW." While traveling with his friend Elbert McGran Jackson, he noticed that they weren't getting good rooms or good service. He asked Jack how he was signing the hotel register, and it turned out that Jack was signing his own name first and then signing Mr. Flagg's name, using initials for his first and middle names. Mr. Flagg told him to reverse the order of the names and to use his (Mr. Flagg's) full name. Suddenly, they began to get good rooms and good service. By the way, Jack found it hard to get up in the morning. One morning Mr. Flagg sent him this telegram: "Hotel on fire. Love and kisses, Richmond Fire Department."
• Very early in her career, practically before she had a career, soprano Beverly Sills took her mother on a cruise on the ship De Grasse to Europe. Another passenger was stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, of whom Ms. Sills said, "A lovely, bright, witty gal, she was a joy to be with." Ms. Sills and Ms. Lee did benefits on board the ship for the Seamen's Pension Fund, and Ms. Lee told contributors, "If you pay to hear Beverly sing, I'll let you stuff the dough down my bosom. She has her thing, I have mine." Much later in Ms. Sills' career, John Tooley, the general administrator of Covent Garden in London, asked her if she needed anything. Ms. Sills replied, "Yes, you can warm up the seat in the loo [bathroom]. It is the coldest thing I have ever put my backside on."
• Violinist Jascha Heifetz and tenor John McCormack once sailed together on a ship to Monte Carlo. They got together in a cabin and had a fun time singing and playing music. Suddenly, they realized that it was dawn! Unfortunately, not everyone had had the fun time that they had had. Their neighbor complained to the room steward, "What the devil was going on all night? One gent caterwauling and another gent scraping a fiddle. I never got a wink of sleep." The room steward told him, "That was Jascha Heifetz and John McCormack." The irate man replied, "When I get home, I'm going to smash every d*mn record I own of either of them!"
• When she was a small girl, Joy Wallace Dickinson, a history columnist for The Orlando Sentinel (Florida), used to travel with her family from up north to central Florida. They always traveled by railroad because she came from a railroad family. At the time, people dressed up to travel, and her grandfather, George Nibloc Dickinson, a railroad engineer for the Pittsburgh and Erie line, wore a double-breasted suit. Her Grandfather Dickinson died of a heart attack; his last act on earth was to safely stop the train.
• Early aviator Katherine Stinson was known for keeping her airplane very clean. Was this because of a woman's stereotypical concern with cleanliness? No. She explained, "It's all right if your automobile goes wrong while you are driving it. You can get out … and tinker with it. But if your airplane breaks down, you can't sit on a convenient cloud and tinker with that!"
• According to Michael Sellers, the son of British comic Peter Sellers, Henry Mancini, the composer of "Moon River," liked to smoke weed, and he carried it with him when he traveled. Peter Sellers once asked him, "But what about Customs?" Mr. Mancini replied, "Who's going to bust the man who wrote 'Moon River'?"
• "Do you know why a Hummer is considered an off-road vehicle? Because you can't afford gas to put it on the road." - Jay Leno.
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Not much of a marine layer, starting to heat up.
Highest-Paid Celebrity
2019
Taylor Swift has been named the highest-paid celebrity in the world for 2019, after earning a pre-tax income of $185m (£148m) over the past year, according to Forbes' annual list.
The singer's number one place on the list comes after her estimated pay grew 131 per cent since 2018, according to the publication, with touring contributing to a huge part of her success.
This is not the first time the 26-year-old has topped the list - in 2016, she was named the highest-paid celebrity in the world with an income of $170m (£136m) as a result of her 1989 World Tour.
Kylie Jenner, who made headlines as the youngest-ever self-made billionaire last year, came in second place, with earnings of $170m.
In third place is Kanye West with $150m (£120m), followed by football player Lionel Messi and Ed Sheeran, with earnings of $127m (£101m) and $110m (£88m) respectively.
2019
Faults 'Collective Shrug'
Amal Clooney
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney accused world leaders Wednesday of failing to protect journalists and responding with "a collective shrug" over the slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.
Clooney, the British government's envoy on media freedom, said at a conference on press freedom that "journalists are under attack like never before," not just while covering wars but for exposing crime and corruption.
"The vast majority of these murders go unpunished," she said, adding that "world leaders responded with little more than a collective shrug" to Khashoggi's killing by agents close to the Saudi crown prince.
According to the United Nations cultural body UNESCO, 99 media workers were killed worldwide in 2018.
The London conference where Clooney spoke was called by U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland with the aim of improving protection for journalists around the world.
Amal Clooney
'Tournament of Champions'
'Jeopardy'
"Jeopardy" hero James Holzhauer and the woman who finally beat him, Emma Boettcher, have both signed on to the show's 2019 "Tournament of Champions." And no, Ken Jennings isn't involved - he was not eligible, a "Jeopardy" spokeswoman told TheWrap.
This tournament only includes winners from Seasons 34 and 35. The 15 contestants will compete for a grand prize of $250,000 over a 10-day period from Nov. 4 - 15.
Holzhauer's 32-game, $2,462,216 winning streak made him a household name this year - but it ended just shy of Jennings' all-time winnings record of $2,520,700 when Boettcher stopped the trivia-machine in his tracks on June 3, just $58,484 away from the record.
Following the show's airing, Holzhauer said, "I never really believed I could win 75 shows, but I definitely thought I had a great shot at Ken's cash winnings record." Now, he has one more chance to regain his former glory.
'Jeopardy'
He IS The Father
Julio Iglesias
A Spanish court ruled on Wednesday that singer Julio Iglesias is the father of a 43-year old man, resolving a paternity dispute that had lasted three decades after the veteran star refused to take a DNA test.
Javier Sanchez-Santos was born in 1976 to Portuguese dancer Maria Edite Santos.
Iglesias' lawyer, Fernando Falomir, said the singer would appeal the ruling by the local court in Valencia.
In its ruling, the court said Iglesias' refusal to take the DNA test and evidence of "certain contact and relations" between the singer and Santos at the time of conception were sufficient to establish paternity.
He has eight other children - three from his marriage to Isabel Preysler and five with his wife Miranda Rijnsburger.
Julio Iglesias
War On Women
Mississippi
A Republican candidate for Mississippi governor says he would not let a woman journalist follow him while campaigning unless she was accompanied by a male colleague - and now he's trying to raise campaign money based on that because he says the "liberal media" are attacking him.
"Before our decision to run, my wife and I made a commitment to follow the 'Billy Graham Rule,' which is to avoid any situation that may evoke suspicion or compromise of our marriage," the candidate, Robert Foster, said in a fundraising email Wednesday. "I am sorry the liberal media doesn't share our views, but their attack on us is all the more reason we need a conservative that will protect these values we share."
Larrison Campbell with the online publication Mississippi Today wrote that she requested to "shadow" Foster to report about his campaign before the Aug. 6 primary, and his campaign director told her Foster wouldn't ride in a vehicle alone with her because people could insinuate Foster and Campbell are having an affair.
Foster told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he won't be alone with any woman other than his wife, even while working or campaigning, because of the possible public perception that he was doing something to hurt his marriage. He said being alone with a man is no problem.
Foster said he has hired women to work for the agricultural tourism business that he and his wife run in northern Mississippi, and that he would hire women staffers if he is elected governor. He said, however: "It's unprofessional to be alone with a woman who's not my wife."
Mississippi
Woman Ordered Cake
'Moana'
A Southern accent is a beautiful thing. It can be romantic, and it can be fierce.
That appears to be what happened when Kensli Davis' mom ordered her a birthday cake. Davis' mother told Dairy Queen she wanted a "Moana"-themed cake for her daughter's 25th birthday.
When she picked it up, however, there was no Polynesian princess. Instead there was a pot leaf and an apparently high My Little Pony smoking a marijuana cigarette - not exactly a Disney movie.
"I think they thought that she said 'marijuana' because we are from south Georgia and kind of have an accent. So, 'Moana,' marijuana?" Davis told WMAZ Channel 13.
Kensli Davis posted a photo of the cake on Facebook, and it has gone viral with more than 11,000 shares, more than 250 comments and 10,000 reactions.
'Moana'
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for July 1-7. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "America's Got Talent," NBC, 6.82 million.
2. "60 Minutes," CBS, 6.8 million.
3. "Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks," NBC, 5.87 million.
4. "The Bachelorette," ABC, 5.77 million.
5. Men's Soccer: Mexico vs United States, Univision, 5.66 million.
6. "Celebrity Family Feud," ABC, 5.3 million.
7. "The $100,000 Pyramid," ABC, 4.9 million.
8. "American Ninja Warrior," NBC, 4.75 million.
9. "Big Brother" (Tuesday), CBS, 4.46 million.
10. "Big Brother" (Sunday), CBS, 4.32 million.
11. "Big Brother" (Wednesday), CBS, 4.25 million.
12. "America's Funniest Home Videos," ABC, 4.03 million.
13. "The Code," CBS, 3.99 million.
14. "Dateline NBC," NBC, 3.93 million.
15. "Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), 3.88 million.
16. "Bull," CBS, 3.76 million.
17. "The Neighborhood," CBS, 3.69 million.
18. "To Tell the Truth," ABC, 3.67 million.
19. Men's Soccer: Haiti vs Mexico, Univision, 3.6 million.
20. "NCIS," CBS, 3.53 million.
Ratings
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