Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Matthew DeBord: Hello recession, my old friend (latimes.com)
Economic downturns? He's seen more than a few.
Patrick May: 50 years later, how the credit card has changed America (San Jose Mercury News)
They called it the Fresno Drop. Fifty years ago this month, Bank of America mass-mailed to nearly every home in Fresno, Calif., a small piece of plastic called the BankAmericard. The credit card had arrived, a shiny corkscrew for each recipient to unbottle thousands of dollars in spending money that hadn't existed before they ripped open those envelopes.
Bolder and wiser (guardian.co.uk)
For Will Young, Pop Idol is a distant memory. He talks to Jude Rogers about his acting career, coming out, his guilt over his twin and his Nashville ambitions.
David Medsker: A Chat with Richard Jones of the Feeling (bullz-eye.com)
"I would like to see Squeeze reunite and Status Quo break up, only on grounds of false advertising; they've been going out on their farewell "last ever" tour for the last 25 years."
'We were the guinea pigs of punk' (guardian.co.uk)
Eric's was tiny, overcrowded and short on girls, but it was the most thrilling nightclub in 1970s Liverpool. Frank Cottrell Boyce salutes its glory.
Jordan Levin: Latin Grammy nod fuels free-spirited singer Concha Buika (McClatchy Newspapers)
Success in pop music can do strange things to people, as anyone who has watched the breakdown of stars from Britney to Alejando Sanz can testify. But for Concha Buika, the Spanish singer with the spine-tingling soul who ravished an audience in the Miami neighborhood of Little Havana in her U.S. debut last October, success has only made her more confident in her music and her resolutely free-spirited self.
Walter Tunis: Two former Jayhawks are flying together again (McClatchy Newspapers)
When is a Jayhawk not a Jayhawk? For Mark Olson - co-founder and, for a time, co-lead singer and songwriter for the fabled Americana band The Jayhawks - it can be when passion is reignited for the folkish, alt-country music he walked away from in 1995. He is again recording and touring with fellow Jayhawks chieftain Gary Louris, but the music they are creating is, in essence, entirely new.
Regrets? (guardian.co.uk)
I've had a few ... Bette Midler's career has taken her from New York to Hollywood, and now to Las Vegas. She wishes it had all gone a little differently, she tells Emma Brockes, but she is still a star in her 60s - and that's not easy these days.
Simon Pegg: on top of the world (timesonline.co.uk)
Just how did he become the toast of Hollywood? Stephen Armstrong meets the world's unlikeliest romcom hero.
When animators get horny: Andrew Osmond on X-rated manga (guardian.co.uk)
The American science-fiction author Harlan Ellison tells a cautionary tale about how not to sex up a Hollywood movie. Hired as a writer by the Disney studio, Ellison was in the studio cafeteria on his first day, regaling amused co-workers with ideas for an X-rated Disney cartoon. He was even acting out the parts of Disney characters in pornographic situations. Unluckily for Ellison, several studio executives were sitting nearby, watching his routine. Returning to work, Ellison found a pink slip on his desk: he was fired. Moral: don't mess with the Mouse.
Dominic Maxwell: French and Saunders on the end of their partnership (timesonline.co.uk)
Britain's best loved comedy duo, who are bowing out with their London stage show, explain why it has to end
Alonso Duralde: Little Britain Hops the Pond (advocate.com)
Matt Lucas and David Walliams bring their smash U.K. comedy show to the United States, mixing new characters with beloved old favorites. Is America ready for "the only gay in the village"?
Vic in AK was first, and correct, with:
Photo from Marsha
Autumn is Here
Marty:
Now that autumn is here, the Butterflies are gone, I can only find one
Mantis, and the leaves are falling. The bugs go where they go when they
are getting ready for winter.
Free Music
Note from Nashville
If you wish, you are more than welcome to spread our new songs and videos around, which come from a new CD release we are offering as a free download off of our website. Any of the songs or videos noted below can be spread around without fear of copyright infringement, as they have been released for free off of our website.
Every song and video on this CD is released as a free download, thus there is no worry about violating copyright; songs and videos may be posted, downloaded and copied on to disc as much as anyone wants.
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB? - Video - Bush administration corruption and religious wrong agenda
(both song and video released as free download)
BEFORE THEY CARE - video - congressional corruption and religious wrong agenda
(both song and video released as free download)
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?
Twenty track CD downloadable for no cost
MORE VIDEOS:
BROTHER MARTIN - tribute to MLK in light of how things might be better if he were alive today
(both song and video released as free download)
WHERE WERE YOU? - Kennedy/King/Kent State tribute video
(both song and video released as free download)
HERE IN AMERICA - 9/11 tribute video (non-partisan)
(both song and video released as free download)
FUTURE - environmental video (non-partisan)
(both song and video released as free download)
HOMELESS - from CD, "Homeless In America"
(both song and video released as free download)
Thank You,
Richard Aberdeen
Freedom Tracks Records
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and pleasant.
Busts McSame
Dave
David Letterman absolutely tore John McCain a new one on last night's show, after McCain supposedly called Dave at the last minute to cancel his appearance because he had to "race to the airport" to go watch after our crappy economy.
But here's the kicker: Later on, Dave cut to live footage of Johnny boy getting his makeup done for an interview with Katie Couric -- only a couple blocks away from Dave's studio and far from an airport.
After Dave busted McCain with his pants down, he used the opportunity to rail his elder some more.
Dave
Video
Civil War Dispute
Federico Garcia Lorca
The tranquil, pine-carpeted hills in this patch of southern Spain hold awful secrets. Now, one of them has been thrust into the spotlight of a still painful accounting of atrocities committed in the Spanish Civil War.
At the start of the 1936-39 war, Viznar, near the ancient city of Granada, became one of many execution grounds for perceived opponents of Francisco Franco, the army general who unleashed the conflict by rising up against the elected, leftist Republican government.
People were rounded up, brought here and shot, their bodies dumped in a ravine in unmarked graves - all for simply having been considered supporters of the government.
Federico Garcia Lorca, widely considered Spain's best 20th century poet and playwright, was shot along with a schoolteacher named Dioscoro Galindo Gonzalez and two labor union activists - Francisco Galadi and Juan Arcolla - on Aug. 18, 1936. Their bodies are believed buried near an olive tree near Viznar.
Federico Garcia Lorca
Not Welcome In Russia
US Cartoons
Pornographic, extremist and immoral -- that's how Russian prosecutors are describing popular US cartoons like The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park.
The channel that carries them has been forced to suspend broadcasts of the offending programmes pending legal action and throngs of teenagers have taken to the streets to demand their favourite cartoons back.
But channel executives have suggested in recent interviews that the religious campaign could just be a cover-up for corporate raiding.
"Someone apparently needs our frequency... There's this bloodlust, there really seems to be an organised campaign against this channel," 2x2 director Roman Sarkisov said in an interview with the Kommersant daily this month.
US Cartoons
Jerusalem Concert
'Violins of Hope'
Sixteen violins used by Jewish Holocaust victims -- including an instrument whose case was used to smuggle explosives that blew up a Nazi base -- were played on Wednesday in a concert in Jerusalem.
"Each violin has its own story," said Amnon Weinstein, 69, who together with his son has spent more than a decade restoring the violins collected from across Europe.
Weinstein, a violin maker, said he received the instruments in various states of disrepair, many of them decorated with stars of David, a testimony to their former Jewish owners.
They were played together for the first time in a concert titled "Violins of Hope" by members of Israel's Raanana Symphonette and the Philharmonia Istanbul Orchestra.
'Violins of Hope'
Maine Anchor Resembles Palin
Cindy Michaels
A Maine TV news anchor who bears a resemblance to the Republican vice presidential nominee says she's been getting "hate mail and nasty phone calls" from viewers who think she's trying to copy Sarah Palin's signature style.
Cindy Michaels from WVII-TV has long brown hair that she sometimes wears up in a style similar to Palin's, and she also wears glasses on occasion.
Michaels says viewers recently began accusing her of trying to copy Palin's style or, worse, somehow trying to subliminally sway votes.
While smarting over accusations of bias, Michaels says she's generally flattered by the comparisons to Palin. Michaels describes her as a "beautiful woman."
Cindy Michaels
Credits Fertility Water
Nicole Kidman
Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman said swimming in Australian Outback waterfalls may promote fertility and might have contributed to her unexpected pregnancy over the past year.
The 41-year-old Aussie, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose in July, said she and six other women who swam in the waters of a small Outback town during production of the epic romance "Australia" became pregnant.
"I never thought that I would get pregnant and give birth to a child, but it happened on this movie," Kidman told The Australian Women's Weekly in an exclusive interview for the magazine's 75th anniversary edition, released Wednesday.
"Seven babies were conceived out of this film and only one was a boy. There is something up there in the Kununurra water because we all went swimming in the waterfalls, so we can call it the fertility waters now."
Nicole Kidman
Hollywood's 'Golden Age'
Big Tobacco
Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Bob Hope, Henry Fonda and other stars of Hollywood's "Golden Age" were paid millions of dollars in today's money for promoting cigarettes, a study published on Thursday said.
Once-secret tobacco industry documents show that American Tobacco, Reynolds, Liggett & Myers and other majors of the time paid lavish sums to A-list stars to endorse cigarette brands in newspaper advertisements, it said.
Almost 200 stars, including two-thirds of the Top 50 box-office actors from the late 1930s and 1940s, took part in the campaigns, praising brands for taste or smoothness, for providing relaxation on a movie set or -- as in the case of John Wayne, who eventually died of cancer -- helping the actor's voice.
The document trail stretches from 1927 -- starting with a push by Al Jolson of "The Jazz Singer" fame -- to 1951, when TV replaced cinema as the best promotional vehicle.
Big Tobacco
Case Dismissed
Tim Burton
A judge has ended a long-running dispute between Tim Burton and his ex-girlfriend over whether the acclaimed director owes her more of his earnings.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa Sanchez-Gordon signed an order Sept. 16 finding in Burton's favor and stating that his ex, Lisa Marie, did not present a valid case.
Marie sued Burton in December 2006. She claimed she was cheated out of money that Burton had promised her during their relationship. The pair dated for nearly a decade and the director included her in several of his projects before their relationship ended in 2001.
The judge's ruling noted that Marie and Burton signed agreements around the time they went their separate ways that provided her with at least $5.5 million, rights to a New York co-op apartment and a Jaguar coupe. The judge declared those agreements "valid and enforceable."
Tim Burton
NBCs On-Air Training Program for Connected White Boys
Luke Russert
NBC News reporter Luke Russert said he made a "dumb" misstatement on the "Today" show Wednesday when he suggested that smart people supported Barack Obama for president.
Russert, 23, said about the university: "The smartest kids in the state go there so it is leaning a little bit toward Obama."
Oops. Now he's either implied that students at other colleges in Virginia aren't as smart as those at the University of Virginia or that you have to be dumb not to support Obama. Or both.
"I meant to say that many of the kids who go to UVA are from affluent, highly educated households who are leaning (toward) Obama and hence their kids lean Obama," he said. "Plenty of smart college kids will vote for John McCain from UVA and plenty of smart kids go to Virginia Tech or George Mason and they, too, could end up being big Obama voters.
Luke Russert
Unexpectedly Hit By Downturn
Las Vegas
Vegas barreled through previous U.S. economic recessions with no problem, but the current slowdown -- marked by home foreclosures and then high gasoline prices -- has had a much bigger impact on the gambling mecca than economists expected.
And while free rooms and room discounts have kept hotels relatively full -- occupancy is down just 1 percent in the year to July -- gambling revenue is down 6.5 percent.
Harrah's and MGM, which operates 10 properties on the Strip including Bellagio and Circus Circus, have each cut about 1,500 Las Vegas jobs over the past year.
Since last October, shares of Las Vegas Sands, owner of the Venetian and the Palazzo, have fallen about 75 percent, while shares of MGM Mirage have lost about two-thirds of their value. Harrah's, the world's biggest gambling company, is owned by Apollo Advisors and TPG Capital.
Las Vegas
Fart = Battery Charge
Jose Cruz
A West Virginia man has been charged with battery on a police officer for allegedly passing gas toward a patrolman. Jose Cruz, 34, of Clarksburg was also charged with driving under the influence, driving without headlights and two counts of obstruction.
Cruz was pulled over by South Charleston police Tuesday for driving without headlights. After failing field sobriety tests, Cruz was taken to the station for a breathalyzer test.
The criminal complaint says that as a patrolman was preparing the machine, Cruz scooted his chair over, lifted his leg, passed gas and fanned it toward the officer.
Cruz admits passing gas, but said it wasn't aimed at the officer. He also denies being drunk and uncooperative.
Jose Cruz
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