Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Survey of Presidents (SIENA RESEARCH INSTITUTE) pdf file
John Byrne: 238 presidential scholars: Bush worst president of modern era, fifth worst in US history (rawstory.com)
It's one thing for a coterie of liberals at a late-night Washington soirée to say that George W. Bush was the worst president in their lifetimes. It's another thing when the same is said by the nation's 238 leading presidential scholars, who have been polled annually for the last 28 years.
Mark Morford: 10 amazing truths you already suspected (sfgate.com)
Watch in awe as every one of the country's 238 respected presidential scholars recently agreed, without the slightest doubt or hesitation and despite all their varying backgrounds, ages, political affiliations, heights and weights and hairstyles, that George W. Bush really is the worst president in modern history
Froma Harrop: Raise Taxes To Cut Government? (creators.com)
As the debate rages over letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, Republicans have raised their starve-the-beast theory from its coffin. They insist that government (the "beast") can be shrunk by cutting taxes: The less money government has, the less government there can be.
Martin Wolf: The political genius of supply-side economics (Financial Times)
My reading of contemporary Republican thinking is that there is no chance of any attempt to arrest adverse long-term fiscal trends should they return to power.
Jim Hightower: WHY ARE WALL STREET BANKERS GRINNING? (jimhightower.com)
Banker greed is like ugly on a toad - it can't simply be rinsed off, no matter how much regulatory soap you use.
Should universities teach students how to find a job? (guardian.co.uk)
Sarfraz Manzoor has been following the fortunes of six young people who graduated last year. How well do they feel that university prepared them for today's economic realities?
Farhad Manjoo: Get a Blazing Fast Computer for Free (slate.com)
How to give your creaky old Windows computer an Ubuntu makeover.
BILL FORMAN: The Life, Death and Resurrection of Britain's 22-20s (COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT)
Named for the early Skip James song, 22-20s were always enamored with the blues, at least until front man Martin Trimble ended up coming down with a case of his own.
Patrick Kingsley: Vampire Weekend's legal face-off (guardian.co.uk)
The US band Vampire Weekend have got themselves into a legal wrangle over their use of a 30-year-old picture of a woman.
Jordan Levin: Seu Jorge brings universal change to Brazil (McClatchy Newspapers)
On his latest album, "Seu Jorge and Almaz," 40-year-old Brazilian singer Seu Jorge dares to cover Michael Jackson's "Rock With You," and turns the King of Pop's sunny disco celebration into a sultry, enigmatic statement so much his own that it's almost unrecognizable.
David Medsher: A Chat with Jonathan Marks, Hey Champ Drummer (bullz-eye.com)
I'm a huge drum dork, and Bill Bruford is one of my favorites. Yes has always been the staple in my vocabulary, which is actually due to my little brother. It was all he listened to, and I caught on.
David Bruce: "The Funniest People in Comedy: 250 Anecdotes"
A Kindle Book: $1.
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
Results Delayed - B2tbBob's a bit under the weather.
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:
said.
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
DJ Useo Recommends
cool link
Hey M-Here's a cool link from a pals' new site for you to post to BCE. -D
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer burned off before lunch.
National Archives Reveals Papers
FDR
A handwritten letter from fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini congratulating President Franklin D. Roosevelt on his inauguration, and a note from a woman who had a brief affair with Roosevelt were shown to the public for the first time Wednesday at the National Archives.
The 5,000 documents and gifts collected by Roosevelt's secretaries include a note from Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who had an affair with Roosevelt that forever changed his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt when she discovered the infidelity in 1918.
Rutherfurd wrote Roosevelt's personal secretary, Grace Tully, a week before his death in 1945 to arrange a visit with a portrait painter and photographer. The "Unfinished Portrait" was in progress when he collapsed and died.
The meetings with Rutherfurd were kept secret from Eleanor Roosevelt until after her husband's death, and the letter is evidence Tully was involved in communications between Rutherfurd and Roosevelt.
The 14 boxes of items had been sealed with duct tape for years, and were considered the last great privately-held collection of papers for Roosevelt's presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y.
FDR
Heirs Skeptical About Lost Negatives
Ansel Adams
It's an antique collector's dream: buying an old box at a garage sale and discovering it contains famous lost works worth a fortune.
Norsigian, who works for the Fresno Unified School District, is already planning to capitalize on his discovery. He's set up a website to sell prints made from 17 negatives from $45 for a poster to $7,500 for a darkroom print with a certificate of authenticity. A documentary on his quest to have the negatives authenticated is in the works, as well as a touring exhibition that will debut at Fresno State University in October.
Representatives of Adams, however, said they're not buying Norsigian's claims.
Bill Turnage, managing director of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, said he's consulting lawyers about possibly suing Norsigian for using a copyrighted name for commercial purposes. He described Norsigian as on an "obsessive quest." "We've been dealing with him for a decade," he said. "I can't tell you how many times he's called me."
Ansel Adams
Rare 3D Film
Warsaw
The plane slowly descends from white clouds and sweeps over a panorama of a city destroyed by the Nazis: the skeletons of bombed bridges jutting from a quiet river, the empty walls of burned-out houses, the Jewish ghetto totally flattened.
It is Warsaw in the spring of 1945, just after World War II.
The sea of rubble that Warsaw was reduced to during the war is vividly reconstructed in a 3D film that historians and computer graphics experts showed for the first time in Warsaw on Wednesday.
The goal of the film, which must be seen with special 3D glasses, is to bringing home to a young generation the scope of the wartime devastation of Poland's capital.
Warsaw
Ohio Museum Exhibit
Ronnie Wood
Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood is coming to Ohio with a different kind of solo show, spotlighting his paintings and other art.
The Butler Institute of American Art says the exhibition opening is the first for Wood at a major American museum.
The 63-year-old British musician plans to be at the museum for a reception on the show's opening day, Sept. 21.
The exhibition includes 30 of Wood's paintings, 22 pen-and-pencil drawings and seven mixed-media works.
Ronnie Wood
Outlawed In Catalonia
Bullfighting
Lawmakers in Catalonia outlawed bullfighting Wednesday, making it Spain's first major region to ban the deadly, centuries-old ballet between matador and beast after heated debate that pitted animal rights against a pillar of traditional culture.
Cheers broke out in the local 135-seat legislature after the speaker announced the ban had passed 68-to-55 with nine abstentions. The ban will take effect in 2012 in the northeastern coastal region whose capital is Barcelona.
Catalonia is a powerful, wealthy area with its own language and culture and a large degree of self-rule. Many in Spain have seen the pressure here for a bullfighting ban as a further bid by Catalonia to stand out from the rest of the country.
The practical effect of the ban will be limited: Catalonia has only one functioning bullring, in Barcelona, while another disused one is being turned into a shopping mall. It stages 15 fights a year which are rarely sold out, out of a nationwide total of roughly 1,000 bouts per season.
Bullfighting
Wants Case Arbitrated
Casey Affleck
Actor/filmmaker Casey Affleck, who was sued Friday for sexual harassment by a producer on his upcoming documentary "I'm Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix," filed a motion Wednesday seeking to move the case from the very public Los Angeles Superior Court to private arbitration. Affleck says Amanda White signed an agreement with an arbitration provision requiring that all disputes be resolved quietly.
That's an interesting move, considering that White argues in her complaint that one of the reasons she sued is because she never got a written contract for her producing services.
Regardless, litigator Marty Singer has taken over the case from the production's lawyer Michael Plonsker, who issued an initial statement on Friday denying the charges and vowing to countersue White. That move makes sense: Singer has represented Affleck's brother Ben in past cases.
White's $2 million suit alleges she was forced to endure debauched behavior during production of "I'm Still Here," including "uninvited and unwelcome sexual advances in the workplace" and an impromptu shoot in a Las Vegas hotel room filled with hookers and transvestites.
Casey Affleck
Rounding Up Roma
Sarkozy
French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday ordered authorities to expel Gypsy illegal immigrants and dismantle their camps, amid accusations that his government is acting racist in its treatment of the group known as Roma.
Sarkozy called a government meeting Wednesday after Gypsies clashed with police this month following the shooting death of a youth fleeing officers in the Loire Valley.
Sarkozy said those responsible for the clashes would be "severely punished" and ordered the government to expel all illegal Roma immigrants, almost all of whom have come from eastern Europe.
He pushed for a change in France's immigration law to make such expulsion easier "for reasons of public order." He said illegal Gypsy camps "will be systematically evacuated," calling them sources of trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution.
The language has chilling undertones in a country where authorities rounded up Gypsies and sent them to concentration camps during the Nazi occupation in World War II. Former President Jacques Chirac, the first French leader to acknowledge the state's role in the Holocaust, condemned "the Nazi madness that wanted to eliminate the Gypsies."
Sarkozy
New State Holiday
Russian Orthodox Church
Russia marked its adoption of Christianity in 988 on Wednesday with a new public holiday, the latest show of Kremlin support for an Orthodox Church that has grown increasingly powerful since the fall of Communism.
Rights groups have criticized the new holiday, approved by President Dmitry Medvedev, as undermining Russia's secular constitution and members of the country's large Muslim minority have complained that it excludes them.
Marking the anniversary Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, held a liturgy in Kiev, the capital of modern Ukraine and mediaeval Kievan Rus, whose leader Prince Vladimir made Christianity the state religion more than 1,000 years ago.
The Orthodox Church has undergone a revival since the fall of the Soviet Union almost 20 years ago ended decades of repression under Communism, and Russia's leaders have endorsed it as the country's main faith.
Russian Orthodox Church
Pilgrims Must Pay
Benny The Rat
Pilgrims will have to pay as much as 25 pounds ($39) to attend one of the two public events in England to be led by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit in September, church officials said Wednesday.
The charges - believed to be a first for a papal event - are for a prayer vigil in London's Hyde Park on Sept. 18 and the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman in Birmingham on Sept. 19.
In Rome, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said Wednesday that the Vatican understands that the faithful will be asked to make a "contribution" toward the visit but are not being charged a fee as such. Lombardi said he understood that those who cannot pay will be not be required to do so.
Benedict's Sept. 16-19 visit marks the first time a pope has traveled to Britain since Pope John Paul visited in 1982. During the trip, Benedict will meet with Queen Elizabeth II and will preside over the beatification of Newman - an important 19th century Anglican convert to Catholicism.
Benny The Rat
Early Milli Vanilli
Plastic Bertrand
Belgian pop star Plastic Bertrand confessed Wednesday he did not sing his 1977 hit record "Ca Plane Pour Moi" -- nor any of the songs on his first four albums.
"I don't mind saying it was not my voice," he told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir in an unusual confession for the pop world.
"I'm the victim. I wanted to sing, but he would not let me access the studio," Bertrand said about the real singer behind the hit single, Lou Deprijk.
"He asked me to keep my mouth shut in exchange for 0.5 percent of the rights, and promised he would make a new version with my voice, which of course he never did," Plastic Bertrand said.
A Belgian appeal court in 2006 ruled that Bertrand was the "legal performer" of the classic track.
Plastic Bertrand
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of July 19-25. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. "Rizzoli & Isles" (Monday, 10 p.m.), TNT, 5.33 million homes, 7.27 million viewers.
2. "The Closer" (Monday, 9 p.m.), TNT, 5.23 million homes, 6.97 million viewers.
3. "Burn Notice" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), USA, 4.23 million homes, 5.87 million viewers.
4. NASCAR Spring Cup - Indianapolis (Sunday, 1 p.m.), ESPN, 4.16 million, 5.71 million viewers.
5. "Royal Pains" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.91 million homes, 5.28 million viewers.
6. "Covert Affairs" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.88 million homes, 5.21 million viewers.
7. "Deadliest Catch: Captain" (Tuesday, 10:01 p.m.), Discovery, 3.71 million homes, 5.54 million viewers.
8. "Deadliest Catch" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), Discovery, 3.67 million homes, 5.47 million viewers.
9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.66 million homes, 5.17 million viewers.
10. "True Blue" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), HBO, 3.10 million homes, 4.74 million viewers.
11. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.08 million homes, 4.40 million viewers.
12. "Hannah Montana Forever" (Sunday, 10 p.m.), Disney, 3.06 million homes, 4.19 million viewers.
13. "Hannah Montana Forever" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 3.02 million homes, 4.07 million viewers.
14. "White Collar" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), USA, 2.98 million homes, 3.96 million viewers.
15. Movie: "The Client List" (Monday, 9 p.m.), Lifetime, 2.89 million homes, 3.90 million viewers.
Ratings
In Memory
Ben Keith
Ben Keith, a steel guitarist who played on Patsy Cline's 1961 hit "I Fall to Pieces" before appearing on several Neil Young albums, has died at age 73.
Director Jonathan Demme told the Los Angeles Times that Keith, who had been staying at Young's California ranch, died of a heart attack.
Most recently, Keith had been touring with Young's wife, Pegi, in support of her second solo album, "Foul Deeds," for a handful of performances.
Keith met Young in 1971 in Nashville, where the rocker was working on what would become his commercial breakthrough album, "Harvest."
Their association ran through such Young albums as "Tonight's the Night," "Comes a Time," "Harvest Moon," "Greendale" and "Chrome Dreams II."
He also was featured as an actor, in the role of Grandpa Green, in Young's film of the stage production of the "Greendale" concept album.
Keith, who was born in 1937, played live or in the studio with artists including Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Ringo Starr and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
The Los Angeles also said on its website that Keith also produced singer-songwriter Jewel's 1995 debut album, "Pieces of You."
Among his own recordings, Keith released "Seven Gates" in 1994, a holiday collection in which he accompanied such high-profile friends as Johnny Cash, songwriter J.J. Cale and Neil and Pegi Young.
Ben Keith
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