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Good Guy Gaga (Imgur)
Lady Gaga took a photo with and gave money to a homeless man. He said, "But I smell," and she replied, "don't worry, I smell too."
Aaron Carrell: Peggy Noonan's telling anecdote (Incidental Economist)
… it's telling where Noonan got her anecdote. It wasn't from among the 560,000 people in Oregon who were uninsured in 2011 and will likely benefit from the ACA. It wasn't from the 237,000 people in Oregon who are expected to buy a guarantee- issue and community-rated policy (many with subsidies!) on the exchange. It wasn't from the 222,700 people in Oregon who will be newly eligible for Medicaid under the expansion. It wasn't even from the 14,300 people in Oregon who are currently eligible for Medicaid but not getting it for some reason.
Brian Palmer: The Case Against the Annual Checkup (Slate)
Going to the doctor when you're not sick does more harm than good.
Daniel Johnson: McDouble is 'cheapest and most nutritious food in human history' (Telegraph)
Describing the McDonald's double cheeseburger as "the cheapest, most nutritious, and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history" might seem beyond fanciful, but according to the author of Freakonomics, it is not as absurd a suggestion as it appears.
Todd Andrlik: How Old Were the Leaders of the American Revolution on July 4, 1776? (Slate)
Younger than you think.
Carl Wilson: The Song of Midsummer (Slate)
Sam Phillips' Push Any Button is the perfect album for right now.
Colin Robinson: Writers should take a year off, and give us all a break (Guardian)
What if everyone stopped scribbling for a year? Will Self could pull on his hiking boots, Martin Amis could sharpen his tennis serve, and we could catch up on our reading.
Paul Constant: Cereal Killers (Stranger)
What if Pop-Culture Art Is the Art of the Future?
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is off teaching Miss Maddie Muffin how to fish.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Weather must be changing - had to move the TV antenna. Haven't had to move it in about a month.
Highest Paid Stars
TV
There is a new king of late night, according to TV Guide Magazine's annual survey of star salaries. And he's a very rich king.
The Daily Show host Jon Stewart is now earning between $25-30 million a year, according to several sources (his network, Comedy Central, did not comment). That puts Stewart ahead of the past perennial late night salary leaders Jay Leno and David Letterman. Leno took a significant pay cut last year, as NBC wanted to reduce costs at Tonight. He now earns around $20 million a year after being up near $30 million. Letterman is also said to be in the $20 million range as the license fee CBS pays to his production company, Worldwide Pants, for Late Show has been reduced in recent years.
It's the biggest shift in this year's survey, based on conversations with agents, managers, and studio heads and network executives. Ashton Kutcher remains the top paid actor in prime time with $750,000 an episode for his role on Two and a Half Men. NCIS star Mark Harmon is still the salary champ in drama, with $525,000 an episode plus a piece of the show's profits.
Judy Sheindlin is biggest earning performer in any genre, taking in $47 million a year for the top rated syndicated daytime show Judge Judy. Simon Cowell's The X Factor has not been the ratings blockbuster that Fox hoped for, but his ownership of the music competition franchise that airs around the world makes him a mogul with earnings of around $95 million.
For the full list - TV
Declines Invitation, Outs Self
Wentworth Miller
Actor and screenwriter Wentworth Miller, best known for his leading role in Fox television drama "Prison Break," came out as a gay man on Wednesday in a letter declining an invitation to attend a Russian film festival in light of Moscow's recently adopted anti-gay laws.
Miller, 41, turned down an offer to attend the St. Petersburg International Film Festival as a "guest of honor" in a letter posted on the website of advocacy group GLAAD, which monitors media representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people and issues.
"Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes. However, as a gay man, I must decline," Miller wrote to festival director Maria Averbakh.
Miller wrote that he was "deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government," and did not want attend a festival in a country where "people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly."
Miller's letter comes after Bravo channel host and executive producer Andy Cohen told E! News last week that he would not be co-hosting Donald Trump's Miss Universe pageant this year in Moscow because he "didn't feel right as a gay man stepping foot into Russia."
Wentworth Miller
Movies Lag Behind TV
GLAAD
We may be seeing more prominent gay and lesbian characters on TV shows, but the movie industry lags well behind the small screen, an advocacy group reports.
In its first study of LGBT roles in major studio releases, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation found that compared with TV, where there has been a significant shift over the past decade, "Major studios appear reluctant to include LGBT characters in significant roles or franchises."
In its report released Wednesday, GLAAD found that of the 101 releases from Hollywood's six major studios in 2012, just 14 included characters identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Most were no more than cameos or minor roles, it said - and none of the films tracked had transgender characters.
The report - called the 2013 Studio Responsibility Index - rates each of the six studio according to the number of LGBT-inclusive films they released. Faring worst: 20th Century Fox and Disney, which each receive "failing" grades; the other four - Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. - receive grades of "adequate."
GLAAD
Wedding News
Arquette - Morgan
Actress Rosanna Arquette married fiancé Todd Morgan on Sunday, People reports.
This is the fourth marriage for Arquette, 54, who has been with Morgan, an investment banker, for two years.
Arquette, the older sister of actors David and Patricia Arquette, was previously married to Tony Greco, James Newton and John Sibel, with whom she has a daughter.
Arquette - Morgan
Last Batch Released
Nixon Tapes
The Nixon Library has released the last batch of embargoed materials from the Richard Nixon White House.
The materials, released on Wednesday afternoon, consist of 140,000 pages of documents and 340 hours of old recordings covering topics such as Watergate, Vietnam and the historic 1972 summit between Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Another interesting recording, released on Wednesday, was a conversation between Nixon and then-California Governor Ronald Reagan on April 30, 1973, following the President's address to the nation about the Watergate controversy.
According to Mediaite, the recording has some speculating about whether Nixon had been drinking during the call.
Nixon Tapes
Confirms Firing
Fox "News"
Fox News Channel has confirmed the termination of a high-ranking employee for what it described as "financial irregularities."
The network said Wednesday that executive vice president Brian Lewis was dismissed late last month. He had been a long-time lieutenant to Roger Ailes, the network's founder and chief executive.
A company statement said Lewis was fired after "an extensive internal investigation" turned up "issues relating to financial irregularities" as well as "significant breaches of his employment contract." No specific detail was released.
News of Lewis' firing was first published Tuesday by The Hollywood Reporter.
Fox "News"
Charged With Drunken Driving
David Cassidy
Former teenage idol David Cassidy of 1970s U.S. television series "The Partridge Family" was arrested and charged with felony drunken driving on Wednesday, authorities said.
Cassidy, 63, was stopped shortly after midnight in Schodack, N.Y., about 15 miles south of state capital Albany, when he failed to turn off his car's high-beam headlights against oncoming traffic, said Schodack Police Chief Bernhard Peter.
Cassidy, who shot to stardom as an actor and singer in the early 1970s, failed a field sobriety test and was booked at Rensselaer County Jail for driving while intoxicated, authorities said. His blood-alcohol concentration was 0.1, above the state's limit of .08, they said.
Cassidy was arrested in 2010 in Florida, where he has a home, on suspicion of drunken driving. Authorities said his misdemeanor conviction in that case led to Wednesday's felony charge. If found guilty, he could face up to four years in prison.
David Cassidy
Positive Test Prompts Proposal
Porn Moratorium
The adult film industry's trade association is calling for a moratorium on filming after an actor tested positive for HIV.
The Free Speech Coalition said Wednesday the actor's sex partners are in the process of being tested.
The coalition's executive director, Diane Duke, says a possible moratorium would be lifted once any risk of transmitting the disease further has been eliminated.
Duke did say the actor is not believed to have been infected on a film set.
Porn Moratorium
ABC TV Laying Off Two Percent Of Staff
Disney
Walt Disney Co's ABC television unit on Wednesday will begin laying off about 175 people, or 2 percent of its workforce, to adjust to changes in technology and viewing habits, a person familiar with the decision said.
The move was prompted by a company-wide review to explore cutbacks in jobs Disney no longer needs, either because of improvements in technology or redundancies following a string of major acquisitions in the past few years. Reuters first reported on the internal review in January.
The new layoffs will occur across the Disney/ABC Television Group, which includes the ABC broadcast network as well as the Disney and ABC Family cable channels, the source said. Most of the cuts will come in technical operations, such as broadcast engineering, and at eight ABC-owned stations across the United States.
This year, Disney in April cut 150 jobs at its movie studio, 150 at its newly acquired Lucasfilm unit, and an undisclosed number in its consumer products division, sources told Reuters. Its ESPN sports network began eliminating 300 to 400 jobs in May, but a source said at the time that those cutbacks were unrelated to the broader review.
Disney reported $1.85 billion in net income for the quarter that ended in June, a 1 percent gain from a year earlier. Operating income at media networks, the company's largest unit which includes cable channels and ABC, rose 8 percent.
Disney
In Talks For 'Rambo' TV Series
Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone could soon be blowing stuff up and mangling people on the small screen.
The actor is in negotiations to take part in television series based on his iconic movie "Rambo," Entertainment One - which is co-developing the project - said Wednesday. Should Stallone sign on, he would be involved on a creative level, and could potentially reprise his role as Rambo.
Entertainment One is developing the project with Avi Lerner - the producer behind the 2008 film "Rambo" and the "The Expendables" movie series, which also stars Stallone - and Nu Image. Under the agreement, they will collectively develop the series and shop it to broadcasters in the U.S. and internationally.
Sylvester Stallone
Accepts NC-17 Rating
'Blue Is the Warmest Color'
The Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Blue Is the Warmest Color" will be released with an NC-17 rating in the United States, Sundance Selects announced on Tuesday.
The decision to release Abdellatif Kechiche's sexually explicit coming-of-age story with the NC-17 makes it the first movie of the year to bear that rating, and only the fourth in the last five years.
The film will be released on October 25, after upcoming screenings at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals.
"Blue Is the Warmest Color" stars Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Sedoux as young women who become involved in a sexual relationship. Though it gained initial attention because of a lengthy sex scene between the two, the film won raves at Cannes, and jury president Steven Spielberg said it was an easy choice for the festival's top prize.
The press release pointed out that the film was rated acceptable for viewers over 12 in France, and Sehring criticized the MPAA ratings system that was the target of a past IFC release, Kirby Dick's documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated."
'Blue Is the Warmest Color'
Says "God Told Me" To Resign
Benny the Rat
Former Pope Benedict has said he resigned after "God told me to" during what he called a "mystical experience", a Catholic news agency reported.
Benedict, whose formal title is now Pope Emeritus, announced his shock resignation on February 11 and on February 28 became the first pontiff to step down in 600 years.
According to the agency, Benedict told his visitor, who asked to remain anonymous, that God did not speak to him in a vision but in what the former pope called "a mystical experience".
According to the Rome-based Zenith, Benedict told his visitor that the more he observes the way Francis carries out his papal duties, the more he realized the choice was "wanted by God".
Benny the Rat
Swedish Museum Recovers Artifact
Skokloster Astrolabe
A rare 16th-century scientific instrument used by early astronomers that has been missing from a Swedish museum for around a decade has been recovered and will be returned this week, the London-based Art Loss Register says.
The brass-and-silver astrolabe, made in 1590 and worth around half a million euros ($750,000), turned up when an Italian collector discovered that the piece was listed as missing and came forward to return it, Register Director Chris Marinello said.
Bengt Kylsberg of Skokloster Castle, north of Stockholm, said the astrolabe was stolen in 1999, one of a string of unexplained thefts of books and objects at the castle. Then, in 2004, a scandal rocked the Swedish cultural world when it emerged that dozens of precious manuscripts were missing from the Royal Library.
Anders Burius, then head of the library's manuscript division, confessed to stealing and selling dozens of valuable manuscripts. He was arrested, but during a temporary release from custody, he committed suicide, slitting his wrists and cutting a gas line to his kitchen stove. That sparked an explosion in his Stockholm neighborhood that resulted in about a dozen injuries.
Skokloster Astrolabe
In Memory
Marian McPartland
Marian McPartland, a British musician who hosted a jazz program on National Public Radio for more than four decades, has died at age 95, NPR said on its website.
McPartland, the longtime host of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, died of natural causes at her Long Island home on Tuesday, NPR said.
As host, the jazz pianist paired conversation and duet performances, reaching an audience of millions as she interviewed jazz luminaries, before stepping down in 2011.
Born Margaret Marian Turner in Slough, England, she married American soldier and cornetist Jimmy McPartland in 1946 and discovered music at an early age.
She told NPR in 2005 that her interest in music started after she heard her mother play piano, saying "From that moment on, I don't remember ever not playing piano, day and night, wherever I was."
McPartland recorded and performed throughout the 1950s and into the next decade, then turned to lecturing at colleges and in 1964 began an interview and music program on New York's WBAI-FM, which paved the way for Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on NPR in 1978.
Among her scores of albums, she was paired with jazz legends including Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae and Shirley Horn. Her honors included a 2004 lifetime achievement Grammy award.
Marian McPartland
In Memory
Sid Bernstein
Misty-eyed music promoter Sid Bernstein, who booked such top acts as Jimi Hendrix, Judy Garland and the Rolling Stones and hit the highest heights when he masterminded the Beatles' historic concerts at Shea Stadium and Carnegie Hall, died Wednesday at age 95.
Bernstein's daughter, Casey Deutsch, said he died in his sleep at a hospital. She cited no illness and said he died of natural causes.
For decades, the squat, floppy-haired Bernstein excelled like few others at being everywhere and knowing everybody. He worked with Garland, Duke Ellington and Ray Charles, promoted Dion, Bobby Darin and Chubby Checker and managed Esy Morales, the Rascals and Ornette Coleman. He was an early backer of ABBA, setting up the Swedish group's first American appearances. He was behind one of the first rock benefit shows, the 1970 "Winter Festival for Peace" at Madison Square Garden, which featured Hendrix and Peter, Paul and Mary. And he helped revive Tony Bennett's career with a 1962 show at Carnegie Hall.
A master of schmooze and schmaltz in an industry that never quits, Bernstein also had a studious side that led to his biggest break. He took a course on Western civilization at the New School for Social Research that required students to read a British newspaper once a week. It was 1963, and the Beatles were just catching on in their native country.
"This was the right time to be reading an English newspaper," he explained in a 2001 interview with the music publication NY Rock Confidential. "So here I am reading little stories about this group from Liverpool that is causing a lot of 'hysteria.' By the end of the course, I was so Beatle-ized by what I read, even though I did not hear a note, I said, 'gotta get 'em.'"
As Bernstein recalled, he couldn't get his agency interested in the group, so he handled the job himself. He tracked down Beatles manager Brian Epstein and convinced him that he could line up a gig at Carnegie Hall. The Beatles were still unknown in the U.S., and the price was cheap - $6,500 for two shows, a fraction of what Garland might have commanded. The promoter used his own money to pay Epstein, while officials at the classy Carnegie, where no rock stars had been permitted, apparently thought they had taken on a folk quartet. (The story has varied over the years.) The timing was perfect. By February 1964, Beatlemania had crossed over to the States, and the band was set to play on "The Ed Sullivan Show" just three days before the Carnegie concerts, guaranteeing maximum attention at minimum cost.
Once the Beatles hit, Bernstein was primed to get the bands that followed. He arranged shows for the Stones, the Animals and other British groups, while saving his biggest dreams for the Beatles. Everything for Bernstein was the latest and the greatest, but his word was never more golden than in 1965, when he landed the group at Shea Stadium, the idea given to him by a ticket manager at Carnegie Hall.
It was rock's first major stadium concert and its all-time primal scream. With about 55,000 fans losing their voices and their minds on an August night, the show broke box-office records and likely some sound barriers. The New York Times described the scene as meeting the "classic Greek meaning of the word pandemonium - the region of all demons."
The Beatles played again at Shea in 1966 but turned down $1 million from Bernstein to return in 1967 and never worked with him again, although he remained friendly with individual members after their breakup.
Like so many in the music business, Bernstein was the hustling son of Jewish immigrants, born on Manhattan's Upper East Side, raised in Harlem and hooked on sound and rhythm. He sneaked into the Apollo Theater as a boy, booked local acts in high school and, while studying journalism at Columbia University, ran a ballroom in Brooklyn that featured such Latino stars as Morales, Tito Puente and Marcelino Guera.
Bernstein was connected to all kinds of music, getting Charles, the Drifters and Bo Diddley for a show at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre; rounding up Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson and Tom Paxton for a folk festival at Carnegie Hall; arranging a jazz concert that featured Ellington, Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane.
Over the past 20 years, Bernstein's best client became himself. He wrote two memoirs, "It's Sid Bernstein Calling" and "Not Just the Beatles," gave frequent talks about his life and even recorded an album of duets. At age 90, he started a Twitter account, sending regards to Ben Stiller and Lenny Kravitz, reporting on his lunch at the 2nd Avenue Deli and catching up with Beatles fans.
Bernstein and his wife, Geraldine Bernstein, were married for more than 40 years. They had six children.
Sid Bernstein
In Memory
Jim Brothers
A Kansas artist whose bronze sculptures are on display in the nation's capital and at historical monuments around the country has died. He was 72.
Jim Brothers died Tuesday at his home in Lawrence where he had been receiving hospice care, said Audrey Bell, a funeral director at Warren McElwain Mortuary in Lawrence, Kan. Friends and colleagues said he had cancer.
Brothers is best known for two projects - creating a sculpture of Dwight Eisenhower that's on display at the Capitol in Washington and as the chief sculptor for the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., said Paul Dorrell, who represented Brothers and owns the Leopold Gallery in Kansas City. Dorrell said the D-Day contract, which included 12 monumental bronzes and was worth $1.6 million, had a "huge impact on his career."
Dorrell and Brothers met in 1991 after a friend said the artist needed representation.
"He sculpted in this ill light, ill painted, poorly heated chicken shed," Dorrell recalled. "And I saw the raw power of this guy's work and thought to myself, 'What is this guy doing in Lawrence, Kan., and why doesn't anyone know he exists?' And I went to work trying to change that."
One of his first big monuments was one honoring the Civilian Conservation Corp in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. That was followed by a monument of Mark Twain in Hartford, Conn., where Twain lived for about two decades. Along the way, companies, including Boeing, and well known private individuals, including filmmaker Steven Spielberg, the late "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz and the late historian Stephen Ambrose, also acquired pieces from Brothers.
Alan Webster, a friend of Brothers who used to own the Lawrence foundry that cast the artist's work, said Brothers never stopped creating and was directing his assistants on how to finish his last sculpture while he was sick. He said Brothers had a wide circle of friends, played washboard in a string band and obtained a license that allowed him to perform civil weddings - typically garbed in western attire and carrying a shotgun.
Jim Brothers
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