Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: What to do when it all goes right (sfgate.com)
Tragedies come in swarms. Evil comes in mobs. Piles of bilious bad news and nefarious negativity hit the fan, spray all over the walls of your exhausted perspective, befoul your entire week. You know how it is.
Jon Henley: The rise and rise of the tattoo (guardian.co.uk)
One fifth of British adults are now 'inked', according to a survey. Even the prime minister's wife has one. Just why has the artform of sailors, bikers and assorted deviants become mainstream?
Andrew Tobias: The Well-Intentioned Right
One of you - genuinely well-meaning but off-base, in my view - has been emailing me with the general argument that, "The Democrats are bad for the country. They are bad for society. They are killing us."
Jim Hightower: SURPRISE! THE PEOPLE SPEAK (jimhightower.com)
Michael Duke is the Big Wally of Walmart. As CEO of the low-wage behemoth, he siphons some $19 million a year in personal pay from the global retailer.
Scott Burns: Solvent Seniors and the Matrix of Misery (assetbuilder.com)
Will we make it through retirement? That question dominates my email as readers try to figure out how the recession, low interest rates and a dismal stock market will affect their future.
JAKE COYLE: 'I Write Like' Website Goes Viral, Authors Bewildered (huffingtonpost.com)
The recently launched I Write Like has one simple gimmick: You paste a few paragraphs that exemplify your writing, then click "analyze" and - poof! - you get a badge telling you that you write like Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway or Chuck Palahniuk. (David Bruce writes like Cory Doctorow.)
"The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir" by Nick Flynn: A review by Julie Babcock
Nick Flynn organizes his second memoir, "The Ticking Is the Bomb," into the same short, piercing moments that won him a PEN award for "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City."
20 Questions: Gene Weingarten (PopMatters)
Gene Weingarten, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, nationally syndicated humor columnist and writer for The Washington Post, and now one-half cartoonist (the other half is his talented son), has a new book out. Well, of course he does.
"Muriel Spark: The Biography" by Martin Stannard: A review by Michael Anderson
Muriel Spark is the mistress of mystification of postwar British fiction. She is best known for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", her slim 1961 novel about the influence of an Edinburgh teacher on her young female pupils, which made her a literary star following its publication in "The New Yorker" and adaptation for stage and screen.
Chris Riemenschneider: Courtney Love is in another Hole (Star Tribune)
Only five days passed between the premiere of VH1's propagandistic "Behind the Music" episode on her - talking about how this is her year, she's finally getting her act together, etc. - and the night Courtney Love publicly went off the rails again.
HEATHER MAC DONALD: Classical Music's New Golden Age (city-journal.org)
Thanks to period-music evangelists, breathtaking virtuosity, and millions of listeners, the art form remains vibrant.
Bolshoi ballet: Power and poise (guardian.co.uk)
They are one of the world's greatest ballet companies. As the Bolshoi arrive in Britain, Judith Mackrell explains their explosive appeal - while photographer David Levene is given intimate access to rehearsal.
David Bruce: "The Funniest People in Dance: 250 Anecdotes"
A Kindle Book: $1.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Mad Mel' Edition...
Mel Gibson has been called a religiously insane, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, racist by a great many people. His actions and words certainly point to that as being the case. However, he has made movies that have been very popular and, in some instances, awarded and/or critically acclaimed...
So...
What is your view of Gibson as an actor and are there any of his movies that you have enjoyed?
Send your response to
wrote:
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Response
Marine Blue Butterfly
Hi Marty,
Today's butterfly appears to be a Marine Blue (Leptotes marina), a south-western specialty. If
this link works there should be several pix including some that show it with the wings open. The caterpillars like legume flowers.
Steve
Thanks, Steve!
We've seen them in the yard before, but this was the smallest one, so far.
Reader Response
Re: butterfly
Hi Marty
That butterfly would be easier to identify if the top wings were displayed.
At a guess it is some species of blue or a copper.
Paul
Thanks, Paul!
The butterfly was so small we were afraid to touch it's wings, and it wasn't in much of a cooperate mood.
Links from RJ
Two-Fer
Hi
A couple of possible for you? Thanks for looking!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly overcast and cool.
The Power Of The Conservative Media
Shirley Sherrod
A conservative blog posts 2 minutes, 38 seconds of video clips of a black federal agriculture official saying she didn't do everything she could to help a white farmer. The blogger labels it racism. Calls grow for the Obama administration to remove her. No one at the Agriculture Department or the White House checks further. The official is forced to resign.
A complete, 43-minute version of the video surfaces the next day, Tuesday, and casts a much different light on Shirley Sherrod's comments: They were part of an NAACP speech about how she overcame her racial prejudice to help the farmer, not about prejudice that stopped her from helping him.
By Wednesday afternoon, Sherrod is sitting at a studio in CNN's Atlanta headquarters, watching on live television as White House press secretary Robert Gibbs apologizes to her.
She accepts and says: "Being afraid of the machine that the right has put out there - that's what's driving this."
A split screen shows her face and Gibbs' in a surreal moment, concluding a whirlwind 48 hours in which conservative media had the Obama administration on the defensive.
Shirley Sherrod
Humanitarian Award
George Clooney
George Clooney will be recognized for his humanitarian efforts at the Emmy Awards.
The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will present the 49-year-old actor with its Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the ceremony next month.
Clooney is being honored for the "Hope for Haiti" TV special, which is nominated for an Emmy award, and his efforts to raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina and raise awareness about genocide in Darfur.
The Bob Hope Humanitarian Award was established in 2002. Clooney is the fourth recipient of the honor and will receive the award at the Emmy ceremony on Aug. 29.
George Clooney
Celebrity-Hosted Daytime Talk Show
CBS
CBS will take a new view of daytime after the end of "As the World Turns."
When the soap opera concludes its 54-year run in September, it will be replaced by an hour-long daily talk show with six celebrity co-hosts - all women, an echo of ABC's popular "The View" series.
CBS announced Wednesday that the hosts of the as-yet untitled daytime show include Sharon Osbourne ; Sara Gilbert of TV's "Roseanne" fame; Holly Robinson Peete from "Celebrity Apprentice;" Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur; Leah Remini of "The King of Queens;" and Julie Chen, who hosts CBS' "Big Brother" and "The Early Show."
Gilbert developed the program, which will be the network's only daytime talk show, and is its executive producer. It's set for a fall debut, but a specific date was not announced.
CBS
Piano For Sale
Beatles
A coffee-stained piano used by the Beatles at London's Abbey Road studios is expected to sell for more than 100,000 pounds, an auction house said Wednesday.
The battered Challen upright piano, covered in cigarette burns and coffee stains, can be heard on hits such as "Paperback Writer" and "Tomorrow Never Knows", both recorded in Abbey Road's Studio Three in 1966.
The piano also features on Pink Floyd's 1973 "Dark Side of the Moon" LP.
"I think it is the first instrument from the Abbey Road studios to come on the open market," Stephen Maycock, the consultant specialist for Beatles memorabilia at Bonhams auction house, told AFP.
Beatles
Lost Writings Resurface
Franz Kafka
It seems almost Kafkaesque: Ten safety deposit boxes of never-published writings by Franz Kafka, their exact contents unknown, are trapped in courts and bureaucracy, much like one of the nightmarish visions created by the author himself.
The papers, retrieved from bank vaults where they have sat untouched and unread for decades, could shed new light on one of literature's darkest figures.
In the past week, the pages have been pulled from safety deposit boxes in Tel Aviv and Zurich, Switzerland, on the order of an Israeli court over the objections of two elderly women who claim to have inherited them from their mother.
Literary experts in both cities are sifting through the boxes, and the contents are expected to be of priceless literary and monetary value. What exactly is there remains unknown, but the papers include handwritten manuscripts, letters and various literary works by the famed Jewish writer, said Meir Heller, an attorney for the Israeli National Library, which also claims ownership of the trove.
Franz Kafka
Sheriff Investigating Ex For Extortion
Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson
Sheriff's detectives in Los Angeles are checking extortion allegations against Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson's ex-girlfriend.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore says the agency is looking into whether Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva may have tried to extort the Academy Award-winner. He declined to offer any other details on the inquiry.
Detectives earlier this month interviewed Grigorieva after she claimed Gibson abused her during an incident in January.
No arrests have been made, and neither has been charged with any crimes.
Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson
Compares Sugar Tits To Oil Leak
$chwarzenegger
Gov. Arnold $chwarzenegger (R-Austrian Passport) wise-cracked about Mel "Sugar Tits" Gibson (R-Religiously Insane) on Wednesday, comparing him to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.
$chwarzenegger told a group of utility commissioners in Sacramento that while BP appears to have contained its well, "no one has figured out how to contain Mel Gibson."
$chwarzenegger also told participants to turn off their cell phones "because we are expecting a call from him."
Gibson spokesman Alan Nierob says he is happy to hear that $chwarzenegger is maintaining a sense of humor, adding, "He's obviously paving the way for a return to showbiz."
$chwarzenegger
Charged With Trespass
Oscar Gatecrasher
An actor who traded lawsuits with the motion picture academy after being detained outside the Oscars has been charged with criminal trespass.
The City of Los Angeles has filed charges against Michael AvMen and his wife, Mandy, for attempting to attend the Academy Awards without tickets in March. They have been ordered to appear in court July 29 to face the charges -- and if they don't, an arrest warrant will be issued.
AvMen sued the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in April for $50 million, claiming false imprisonment after the couple was detained for hours outside the Kodak Theater.
The Venezuela-born actor (a.k.a. Michael Avila), who claims he has small parts in the upcoming "Battle: Los Angeles" and "Straw Dogs," argued that his publicist arranged for him to attend the March 7 ceremony and told him that he could pick up his tickets once inside the venue. But when the AvMens arrived on the red carpet without tickets, they said they were "rushed away to an AMPAS detention center where they were held and questioned about how they had been able to get onto the red carpet." Six hours later, they were transferred to the police station and released without any charges.
Oscar Gatecrasher
Candidate Can't Use Description
Ieshuh Griffin
An election oversight board says a legislative candidate can't use a profane, racially charged phrase to describe herself on the Wisconsin ballot. Ieshuh Griffin, of Milwaukee, is an independent running for the state Assembly. She contends free speech allows her to use the phrase, "NOT the 'whiteman's b---.'"
State law lets independent candidates list five words after their names on the ballot. The state Government Accountability Board ruled Wednesday that Griffin's choice was pejorative and not allowed.
Three of the five members of the all-white board who voted actually support Griffin, who is black. Four were needed for approval.
Griffin says she will seek an injunction in federal court to let her use the phrase.
Ieshuh Griffin
Actors Want Money
"America's Most Wanted"
Has any "America's Most Wanted" viewer ever stopped to ask whether the actors portraying serial rapists and bank robbers studied Method? Probably not.
Allegedly, the producers of the long-running Fox show gave these actors short-thrift as well.
Kenneth Reichling and Robert Wu are suing Fox and STF Prods. for failing to pay residuals. In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the actors claim they made various appearances on the show but are now owed money for re-airings, foreign, Internet and print use of their spots, as well as re-cutting of spots aired as different segments.
Reichling says the situation became apparent to him after being made aware of an episode of "AMW" that re-aired in June 2009. Upon investigation, he claims he discovered there were "innumerable instances" in which the show had re-aired spots in which Reichling appeared.
"America's Most Wanted"
Film Crew Skips Out On Hotel Bill
"Little Murder"
A luxurious suburban Detroit hotel says it was stiffed by a film company that left town without paying nearly $37,000 in food, lodging and services.
A lawsuit filed in Oakland County Circuit Court by the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham claims it provided Little Murder Productions and Arizona-based Mind in Motion Entertainment with an open account last year when the independent film production crew was filming "Little Murder," a thriller set in New Orleans, post-Hurricane Katrina.
Among those named in the suit are actor Cary Elwes and Tim Gendreau, Mind in Motion president.
The Detroit News says company officials could not immediately be reached for comment, and a telephone listing in Detroit was disconnected.
"Little Murder"
Hollywood Braced For Walkout
Teamsters
Television would be hit hardest if Hollywood transportation workers go on strike for the first time in 22 years next month when their current labor agreement expires, according to industry observers.
Upward of 20 shows are in production ahead of the fall television season, and production executives are puzzling over ways of getting actors and others on and off their lots without crossing picket lines.
It's possible the Teamsters would agree to work under a contract extension even if their pact expires August 1 without a new agreement in place, but the union's Hollywood Local 399 is expected to take a strike-authorization vote during a general membership meeting on Sunday morning.
The transportation union's talks with Hollywood studios involve proposals for a new two- or three-year contract but have hit an impasse over money terms. The Teamsters want annual raises of 3%; management is offering 2% yearly boosts. The studios would prefer a three-year deal but are offering two years at the union's request, which would allow the Teamsters to synch up their contract expiration with the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees. That, in turn, would give the Teamsters more input into contract matters affecting the pension and health plan that covers members of both unions.
Teamsters
Tries To Find Reporter's Source
Sumner Redstone
Viacom chief Sumner Redstone is facing an embarrassing story about a voicemail message left to a reporter in an attempt to find out the source of a story.
Redstone made the call to Peter Lauria, reporter for the Daily Beast website, about a story on Redstone's interest in pushing MTV to do a show about a band called the Electric Barbarellas. On the message, Redstone tells the reporter that "we're not going to kill" the source, adding: "We just want to talk to him."
The 87-year-old Redstone also tells the reporter he will be "well rewarded and well protected" if he gives up the source. Lauria told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday he wouldn't do it.
Viacom Inc. spokesman Carl Folta confirmed to "Today" that it was Redstone's voice on the message and said the mogul had made a mistake.
Sumner Redstone
Not A College Sport
Cheerleading
Competitive cheerleading is not an official sport that colleges can use to meet gender-equity requirements, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in ordering a Connecticut school to keep its women's volleyball team.
The volleyball players had sued Quinnipiac University after it announced last year that it would eliminate the team for budgetary reasons and replace it with a competitive cheer squad.
The school contended the cheer squad keeps it in compliance with Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics.
"Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX," U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill wrote in his decision. "Today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students."
Cheerleading
Banned From Australia Film Festival
"Gay Zombie Porn"
An Australian film board has banned a Canadian movie featuring "gay zombie porn" from screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival -- to the delight of the filmmaker.
The Australian Film Classification Board told festival organizers not to show "L.A. Zombie" directed by Canadian Bruce LaBruce as it would refuse classification for the film featuring alien zombies scouring Los Angeles for dead bodies and gay sex.
The Melbourne International Film Festival's Executive Director Richard Moore said LaBruce's film could be deemed controversial but it was a surprise that the board refused to allow the festival to show the film as planned on August 7 and 8.
It is the first film to be banned from the festival since Larry Clark's "Ken Park" in 2003. "Ken Park" revolved around the abusive home lives of a group of teenage skateboarders.
"Gay Zombie Porn"
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