Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Monica Sanchez: House Health Reform Bill Produces A $6 Billion Surplus (ourfuture.org)
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of the House health care reform bill and the headlines are painting a distorted picture of the findings.
JEFFREY R. YOUNG: When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom (chronicle.com)
Long after college, what sticks in student memory? Gee-whiz graphics? Slick PowerPoints? Or having really talked with smart, engaged professors?
Scott Burns: Reversion to the Mean May Be Good, Not Mean (assetbuilder.com)
It's official. The stock market has been a terrible place to be. And not just for a few years, but for decades.
Farhad Manjoo: Why 2024 Will Be Like 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' (slate.com)
How Amazon's remote deletion of e-books from the Kindle paves the way for book-banning's digital future.
"Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North" by Thomas J. Sugrue: A review by Scott Saul
The year 1943 seemed, to contemporary observers, "1776 for the Negro" -- a revolutionary time in which the promises of full citizenship for African-Americans were finally to be redeemed.
Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Michael Rosen, writer" (guardian.co.uk)
'Kids don't get the chance to enjoy poetry. They're too busy counting adjectives.'
Sarah Crown and John Crace: "Bookshelf etiquette. How to arrange your books" (guardian.co.uk)
James Purnell has been using his time to rearrange his bookshelves alphabetically. Bad mistake. Here's why.
Marcia G. Yerman: What Would You Do If You Woke Up Tomorrow and You Were Beautiful? (huffingtonpost.com)
Margaret Cho's All American Girl was replaced in the line-up by The Drew Carey Show. Cho pointed out that a double standard was at play. Why wasn't Carey, also a comedian, judged by his looks?
Irene Joyce: Ani DiFranco on music and motherhood (boulderweekly.com)
Thirty-eight-year-old Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco is a role model and muse for women all over the world. She's the founder of Righteous Babe Records, which has served as an illustration of successful David vs. Goliath-esque musical commerce since the early '90s.
Robert Wilonsky: The Eight-Track Lives On In Arlington! (dallasobserver.com)
Perhaps you saw that new Cheap Trick eight-track cartridge that Stephen Colbert was holding up and promoting on his Colbert Report last week? Made in Arlington. Hand to God. By mom-and-pop outfit KTS Productions, to be specific-though you'd never know it from reading recent stories concerning Cheap Trick's expensive gimmick, which will set you back $30 should you pre-order a copy of the band's latest, 'The Latest.'
Marian Liu: Snoop Dogg may be 'Blazed and Confused,' but he's still standing (The Seattle Times)
There are few rappers as iconic as Snoop Dogg - and hardly any when you just count those who haven't gone into retirement.
Sam Leith: Why can't art simply shock? No one ever accuses a work of being beautiful just for the sake of it (guardian.co.uk)
Why can't art simply shock? No one ever accuses a work of being beautiful just for the sake of it .
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Disappearing Dailies' Edition
Newspapers are in major trouble. Some notable dailies such as The Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Post and Baltimore Examiner have folded completely. Others such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and my home town paper, The Bay City Times, among others, have adopted a hybrid on-line only and/or partial printing scheme trying to survive. All papers are losing money hand over fist, laying off workers and renegotiating labor contracts. (newspaperdeathwatch.com)
Everyone blames the Internet and 24/7 cable news availability.
Do you subscribe to or otherwise pay for and read hard copy newspapers?
What do you think?
Send your response to
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot and sticky.
Been thinking about stitching together a couple of Sham-Wows to make a seasonally suitable shirt.
Hawaii Chosen
Thirty Meter Telescope
Hawaii was chosen Tuesday as the site for the world's biggest telescope, a device so powerful that it will allow scientists to see some 13 billion light years away and get a glimpse into the early years of the universe.
The telescope's mirror - stretching almost 100 feet in diameter, or nearly the length of a Boeing 737's wingspan - will be so large that it should be able to gather light that will have spent 13 billion years traveling to earth. This means astronomers looking into the telescope will be able to see images of the first stars and galaxies forming - some 400 million years after the Big Bang.
"It will sort of give us the history of the universe," Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory Corp. spokesman Charles Blue said.
The telescope will be built by the University of California, the California Institute of Technology and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy.
A partnership of European countries plans to build the European Extremely Large Telescope, which would have an 138-foot mirror. The group is considering sites in Argentina, Chile, Morocco and Spain. It plans to decide on a location next year and be able to host its first observation in 2018.
Thirty Meter Telescope
Home Reopens
John Keats
The London house where John Keats wrote some of his most famous poems is to reopen this week after a 500,000 pound ($800,000) renovation, city officials said Wednesday.
Keats lived in the house near leafy Hampstead Heath between 1818 and 1820, writing "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale" there. He also courted the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, who became the love of his short life.
The house has been a museum since 1925, but was closed for refurbishment in 2007. It reopens Friday, restored to its original decor and with displays of prints, drawings and the engagement ring the poet gave Brawne.
Keats died of tuberculosis at 25 in 1821, obscure and out of fashion, but was later recognized as one of the greatest Romantic poets.
John Keats
House Foreclosed
Langston Hughes
A boyhood home of writer Langston Hughes has been sold in foreclosure in Cleveland.
The 2 1/2-story, wood-frame house on the city's east side was sold at a sheriff's auction in February for $16,667. Wells Fargo bank plans to put the house on the market.
Hughes was born in Joplin, Mo., and lived in Lincoln, Ill., before moving into the Cleveland house as a teenager around 1917. It was during his time at Cleveland's Central High School when Hughes saw his work published in the school magazine.
The Academy of American Poets says his novels, plays and poems displayed insightful portrayals of black life in America. He died in 1967 in New York City, where his Harlem residence has landmark status.
Langston Hughes
Another Trial In Nuremberg (Nürnberg)
Garden Gnome
German prosecutors said on Wednesday they have decided that displaying a golden garden gnome in a Nuremberg art gallery with its right hand raised in a Hitler salute was not illegal.
After a preliminary enquiry over the past week, prosecutors in the Bavarian city ruled that the 40-centimetre (15-inch) gnome is ridiculing the Nazis rather than promoting a return of the Third Reich.
"It is pretty clear that garden gnomes are silly and that they do silly things. In 1942 I would have been shot by the Nazis for this," prosecutors quoted the gnome's creator, artist Ottmar Hoerl, as saying.
Hoerl, who expressed surprise at the investigation when it was announced, has also exhibited his golden Nazi gnomes in Belgium, Italy and Aschaffenburg, Germany.
Garden Gnome
Hypocrisy In Action
Fort Myers Beach
A South Florida town manager who married a porn star last year was fired at an emergency meeting after the mayor and council members learned about it.
Fort Myers Beach town council voted 5-0 to fire Scott Janke "without cause" after Mayor Larry Kiker called the Tuesday night meeting.
Kiker told the News-Press of Fort Myers he learned Tuesday afternoon that Janke's wife is an adult film star, and the elected officials took the action a few hours later.
"We did everything we could not to judge," Kiker told the paper lied.
Kiker acknowledged that Janke had violated no rules or laws and added that he had done a good job for the town. But the mayor was concerned whether Janke could remain effective at his position.
Fort Myers Beach
Funny Business
Magna Entertainment
Racetrack operator Magna Entertainment Corp fraudulently transferred more than $125 million to companies controlled by Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach before filing for bankruptcy, creditors charged in a court filing.
The complaint by unsecured creditors claimed that horse-racing enthusiast Stronach used his control of MI Developments Inc (MID), the majority shareholder of Magna Entertainment (MEC), to secure prized assets and fraudulently transfer payments to his companies.
The complaint, filed in Delaware's bankruptcy court by the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors and dated Tuesday, seeks to subordinate MI Developments' secured claims in the Magna Entertainment bankruptcy and recover the payments.
The complaint claimed that MI Developments prevented Magna Entertainment from selling assets that might have allowed it to successfully restructure. At the same time, according to the complaint, MI Developments propped up failing Magna Entertainment, which owns the Pimlico Race Course that hosts the Preakness Stakes, and "larded" it with secured loans made through an Icelandic unit.
Magna Entertainment
Sues Over Chandelier Mishap
Dennis Franz
Actor Dennis Franz and his sister have filed lawsuits over alleged injuries suffered when a chandelier fell at Franz's house on Lake Coeur d'Alene in 2007.
The suits filed July 16 in Idaho District Court claim 72-year-old Marlene Schraut suffered serious injuries and that a toddler she was holding was also injured.
Franz, known for his role as Detective Andy Sipowicz on the TV drama "NYPD Blue," also claims the negligence of the defendants forced him to forgo a $16 million personal services contract. The suit does not describe what that work entailed.
Named as defendants in both suits are Edwards Construction, Inc., ACME Electric, Aladdin Light Lift Inc. and company representatives.
Franz's lawsuit says that as Schraut lay "bleeding in the hospital," the defendants entered the home without permission and disabled the mechanism, potentially compromising the evidence in the case.
Dennis Franz
Shrinks By A Fifth
Cook Glacier
One of the biggest glaciers in the southern hemisphere shrivelled by a fifth in 40 years, French scientists said on Wednesday.
The Cook glacier on Kerguelen, an island in France's southern Indian Ocean territories, covered 501 square kilometres (193 square miles) in 1963.
Combining satellite images with other data, glaciologists from the Laboratory for Studying Geophysics and Space Oceanography estimate the glacier lost an average of nearly 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) in height each year by 2003, shedding almost 22 percent of its original volume.
In terms of area, the glacier shrank by 1.9 sq. kms. (0.74 sq. miles) per year from 1963 to 1991.
Thereafter the loss doubled, to 3.8 sq. kms (1.48 sq. miles) per year. By 2003, the glacier covered only 403 sq. kms (155 sq. miles), a retreat of 20 percent compared with 1963.
Cook Glacier
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of July 13-19. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. "Home Run Derby" (Monday, 8:18 p.m.), ESPN, 5.86 million homes, 8.25 million viewers.
2. "Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 5.80 million homes, 9.29 million viewers.
3. "The Closer" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 4.75 million homes, 6.59 million viewers.
4. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), USA, 4.63 million homes, 6.66 million viewers.
5. "Royal Pains" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 4.48 million homes, 6.23 million viewers.
6. "Home Run Derby Prelude" (Monday, 8 p.m.), ESPN, 4.37 million homes, 6.07 million viewers.
7. "Hannah Montana" (Friday, 9:30 p.m.), Disney, 3.98 million homes, 6.09 million viewers.
8. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.74 million homes, 5.37 million viewers.
9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.72 million homes, 5.52 million viewers.
10. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Sunday, 8:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.65 million homes, 5.17 million viewers.
11. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.58 million homes, 4.95 million viewers.
12. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.49 million homes, 5.09 million viewers.
13. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Saturday, 10:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.48 million homes, 4.67 million viewers.
14. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Saturday, 10 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.37 million homes, 4.47 million viewers.
15. "SpongeBob Squarepants" (Sunday, 9:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.35 million homes, 4.68 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Gidget the Chihuahua
Gidget the Chihuahua, the bug-eyed, big-eared star of 1990s Taco Bell commercials who was a diva on and off the screen, has died. She was 15.
Gidget suffered a massive stroke late Tuesday night at her trainer's home in Santa Clarita and had to be euthanized, said Karin McElhatton, owner of Studio Animal Services in Castaic, which owned the dog.
Although she was hard of hearing, Gidget was otherwise in good health up to the day of her death, eating well and playing with her favorite squeaky toys at the home of trainer Sue Chipperton, McElhatton said.
In a 1997 Taco Bell television commercial, Gidget was seen as a male dog who, through the magic of special effects and a voice actor, proclaims in a richly accented voice: "Yo quiero Taco Bell" - Spanish for "I want Taco Bell."
Viewers were charmed. What was supposed to be a single ad became a campaign that ran from 1997 to 2000.
While other Chihuahuas had bit parts, McElhatton said it was Gidget who got the closeups and the quips (Carlos Alazraqui was the voice).
Gidget the Chihuahua
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