Recommended Reading
from Bruce
The Happy Planet Index
The questions on the following pages will ask you about where you live, your health, lifestyle, and how you feel about life. The answers you give are used to calculate your own personal score on the Happy Planet Index. How happy are you... and at what price to the environment?!
Mark Morford: Ten million bloody plastic eyeballs (sfgate.com)
Hello, Chinese factory worker! Thank you for my little bag of spiders.
Anna Kessel: Gymnast Daniel Keatings puts his high-life party on hold (guardian.co.uk)
Britain's first all-around world medal winner says his life is a blur and he has yet to take in his achievement.
Interview by Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Mark Morris, choreographer" (guardian.co.uk)
'Who would I most like to work with? Handel - he taught me everything, and he's not around to take the credit.'
Marion Maneke: It's the End of the Book World as We Know It (thebigmoney.com)
And publishers should feel fine.
Anthony Grafton: Did Thucydides Really Tell the Truth? (slate.com)
The hidden agenda of the pioneering historian.
JENNIFER BALDERAMA: Style and Alchemy (nytimes.com)
"I hate the guts of English grammar," an illustrious stylist once wrote. Reader, perhaps you can relate. But would you believe it if I told you the writer was E. B. White, as in half of Strunk and White, those august ambassadors of precision and clarity behind "The Elements of Style"? This grain of wit is one among many unearthed by Mark Garvey in "Stylized," his "slightly obsessive" history of "Elements," which is much more than basic history and undeniably obsessive.
Randy Romig: Review of "Punk Rock and Trailer Parks," a graphic novel by Derf (popmatters.com)
'Punk Rock and Trailer Parks' is about the music scene in Akron, Ohio in 1979, where punk rock is booming. Early on, one of the characters lays the groundwork for understanding the setting by saying this: "It started a few years agoŠ with DevoŠ So they make it big. Then some other Akron bands get signed. Rubber City RebelsŠ Tin HueyŠ Chrissie Hynde pops up with the Pretenders. SuddenlyŠ Akron is this breeding ground for Punk and New Wave." "My pointŠ is that this is one of the places to be! New YorkŠ LondonŠ and f**kin' Akron, Ohio!"
Michael Roberts: Roger Daltrey Isn't Quite Ready for His Senior Discount (Westword)
... Daltrey's spent more than 65 years on the planet -- a benchmark that's even more noteworthy given the fact that he famously sang "I hope I die before I get old" in the early Who classic "My Generation."
Laura Potter: "My body & soul: VV Brown, 25, singer/songwriter on sleep, fad diets and having a good sex life" (guardian.co.uk)
I'm not going to lie: I don't think weed is that bad, but if you become addicted to it, just like if you become addicted to alcohol or any of those things, it can open the door to harder drugs once you don't get that euphoric feeling any more. Go out with your friends and find other things that can make you feel euphoric - have sex!
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Ham-demic' Edition
USDA Confirms H1N1 in Minnesota Pig - CBS News
Will you get an H1N1 (swine) flu inoculation, if it's made available to you?
Send your response to
Results Tuesday
wrote:
Developing Theme?
(Another) Blue Heron
My Uncle Bob, from behind the Orange Curtain, had a blue heron land in his backyard a few weeks ago.
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Nature Called
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle could be holding Hollywood's comedy endurance record if he'd only been able to hold something else.
The comic, who famously walked away from a $50 million deal four years ago to continue his Comedy Central TV show, was on stage at the Laugh Factory on Sunday, seemingly on his way to setting the club's endurance record for continuous standup comedy.
But then, five hours into his routine, he walked away to go to the bathroom and was disqualified, said club owner Jamie Masada.
The result: the seven-hour, 34-minute marathon performance that Dane Cook turned in last year stands as the club's record.
The late Richard Pryor set the original record, two hours and 41 minutes, in 1980. Cook broke it 27 years later with a three-hour, 50-minute set.
Dave Chappelle
University of Texas Getting Papers
Walter Cronkite
A University of Texas official says Walter Cronkite's papers and photographs will be permanently housed at the Austin campus and then exhibited in May.
Don Carleton, director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History Center, told The Daily Texan student newspaper that the papers are the "most influential documents in the history of broadcast journalism."
The center already has most of Cronkite's papers stored in its archives, including all of his reporter's notebooks from his 1968 tour through Vietnam.
Walter Cronkite
Berlin Anniversary Concert
Daniel Barenboim
Conductor Daniel Barenboim said Wednesday he felt proud and honoured to be leading an orchestra in Berlin, 20 years after staging a free concert to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Barenboim said he felt the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the wall's destruction on November 9 marked its passage into history.
Aside from Barenboim's concert at the Berlin Opera, the German authorities are planning a two-hour "Festival of Freedom" at the Brandenburg Gate, which will end with a firework display set to music.
US President Barack Obama will miss the event because of a trip to Asia, and his place will be taken by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Daniel Barenboim
Europe's Porn Film Awards Return
'Hot d'Or'
A black-tie crowd of 1,000 people involved in adult film attended the return after a nine-year absence of Europe's porn equivalent of the Oscars, the "Hots d'Or", or Golden Hots.
Awarded annually from 1992 to 2001 on the fringes of the Cannes film festival, the awards were revived "to help an industry upset by digitalisation," Paul Jerome, of the organisers, Hot Video magazine, told AFP. "It's our response to the crisis."
Held in the prestigious Wagram concert hall on Tuesday night, the Hot d'Or for Best Film went to "Billionaire" by Spanish director Alessandro del Mar, while Czech actress Tarra White picked up Best Actress.
Best Actors went to Choky Ice and Jesse Jane.
'Hot d'Or'
Rebuilt With Dominos
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall will be back to briefly divide the German capital again next month -- but with giant brightly colored dominos rather than cement slabs.
As the highlight of a 5-million euro celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, a 1.5-km (one-mile) long segment of the Wall will stand for two days along its original route in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
The row of 1,000 20-kg dominos standing 1.5 meters apart -- painted in bright colors by school children and rising 2.5 meters high -- will be toppled at the end of a gala ceremony as a symbolic tribute to the collapse of the Wall 20 years earlier.
"It's only a temporary attraction," said Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, outlining plans for a two-day festival commemorating the fall of what the communist East had portrayed as an "Anti- Fascist Protection Barrier" to ward off Western aggression.
Berlin Wall
Stage For Sale
James Dean
The stage in a long-closed central Indiana high school where James Dean first performed is up for sale.
The group that owns the dilapidated Fairmount High School hopes to find a buyer to salvage the stage as it works on plans to demolish the building, the Chronicle Tribune reported.
Madison-Grant Youth Basketball League treasurer Matt Patton says the group doesn't know how much the stage might be worth. The league has considered selling the auditorium chairs, but Patton says they're connected and would have to be sold as entire rows.
Dean grew up on a farm near Fairmount and graduated from the high school in 1949. He landed his iconic role in "Rebel Without a Cause" before his death at age 24 in a 1955 California car crash.
James Dean
Full Season Pick Up
"Castle"
ABC has picked up a full season of Nathan Fillion's mystery drama "Castle," adding nine more episodes to its order for the show.
The sophomore series has shown promise on Monday nights, where it airs against CBS powerhouse "CSI: Miami."
ABC still has two more 10 p.m. shows without full-season orders, "The Forgotten" and "Eastwick." Both have averaged lower ratings than "Castle" against weaker competition (though also with weaker lead-ins).
"Castle"
Book of Genesis
R. Crumb
His religious upbringing might well be as unorthodox as the psychedelic-inspired comic-strip characters that have made R. Crumb the most famous underground artist of his time.
Which, come to think of it, may have made Crumb the perfect artist for his latest project, an illustrated, comic-book version of "The Book of Genesis," the work that comprises the first 50 chapters of the Bible.
Raised in a secular household that was headed by a rigidly strict, ex-marine father who was actually a closeted atheist, Crumb was sent off to Catholic school at age six because his father had always admired the discipline Catholic nuns were famous for instilling in their students.
"We never got a lot of religion at home," Crumb says of himself and his siblings. "But we certainly got the whole indoctrination and brainwashing in school."
Sixty years later, the creator of comic book characters like the R-rated Fritz the Cat and the bizarre Mr. Natural has finally put that religious training to good use.
R. Crumb
Town Defends Dolphin Slaughter
Taiji
Residents of Japanese town defended their annual dolphin hunt on Wednesday as a U.S. documentary showing the event premiered at a Tokyo film festival to a sell-out audience.
"The Cove," which opened in the United States in July, follows a team of activists, including former dolphin trainer from the "Flipper" television series Ric O'Barry.
They battle Japanese police and fisherman to gain access to a hidden cove in Taiji, southern Japan, where barbed wire blocks people from filming dolphin killings that begin in September each year.
Taiji mayor Kazuzaka Sangen, who was among more than 150 people who saw the film at the Tokyo International Film Festival, was skeptical about whether it would change the long tradition of dolphin hunts in his town.
Taiji
Sticks To Script
Contessa Brewer
MSNBC's Contessa Brewer has apologized for mixing up civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
She made the slip-up Wednesday while introducing Jackson during a segment on homelessness.
After the introduction, Jackson stared at the camera from a studio in Burbank, Calif., and said, "I'm Rev. Jesse Jackson."
Brewer explained that her script read that she was to introduce "the Rev. Al Sharpton."
Contessa Brewer
Former 'Smallville' Star Busted
Sam Jones
A former actor in Superman-themed US television series "Smallville" was arrested in Los Angeles on drugs charges, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Sam Jones, 26, who played the young Clark Kent's best friend for three seasons, was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents Wednesday for conspiracy to sell more than 10,000 pills of oxycodone or oxycontin.
The drug, a powerful opiod painkiller, is often described as "hillbilly heroin." The US Attorney's office said Jones was involved in a series of deals involving the drug in 2008.
According to documents filed in US District Court in Los Angeles Jones was the "Hollywood connection" in a plot to purchase and distribute the substance.
Sam Jones
New E-book Delayed
Stephen King
The latest weapon in the publishing price wars: Stephen King.
Scribner announced Wednesday that the digital edition of King's "Under the Dome," a 1,000-plus page novel, would not be released until Dec. 24, virtually the end of the holiday season and a month after the hardcover.
E-books have already been delayed for Sen. Edward Kennedy's "True Compass" and Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" as publishers try to prevent the cheaper digital editions from taking sales from hardcovers, which, until recently, cost more.
"Given the current state of the marketplace and trends in digital book pricing, we believe that this is the most appropriate publishing sequence for this particular 1088 page work of fiction," said spokesman Adam Rothberg of Scribner's parent company, Simon & Schuster.
Stephen King
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the week of Oct. 12-18. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. NFL Football: N.Y. Jets vs. Miami (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), ESPN, 9.65 million homes, 13.13 million viewers.
2. MLB National League Championship Series: Philadelphia vs. L.A. Dodgers, Game 1 (Thursday, 7:59 p.m.), TBS, 4.93 million homes, 6.83 million viewers.
3. "Hannah Montana" (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), Disney, 3.95 million homes, 5.71 million viewers.
4. MLB Division Series: Philadelphia vs. Colorado, Game 4 (Monday, 6 p.m.), TBS, 3.71 million homes, 5.2 million viewers.
5. "NCIS" (Wednesday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.56 million homes, 4.87 million viewers.
6. MLB National League Championship Series: L.A. Dodgers vs. Philadelphia, Game 3 (Sunday, 8 p.m.), TBS, 3.45 million homes, 5.03 million viewers.
7. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.41 million homes, 4.84 million viewers.
8. MLB National League Championship Series: Philadelphia vs. L.A. Dodgers, Game 2 (Friday, 4 p.m.), TBS, 3.34 million homes, 4.42 million viewers.
9. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.27 million homes, 4.73 million viewers.
10. College Football: S. Carolina vs. Clemson (Saturday, 7:41 p.m.), ESPN, 3.26 million homes, 4.61 million viewers.
11. "Suite Life on Deck" (Friday, 8:30 p.m.), Disney, 3.18 million homes, 4.65 million viewers.
12. "ICarly" (Saturday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.11 million homes, 4.67 million viewers.
13. "Wizards of Waverly Place" (Friday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 3.07 million homes, 4.55 million viewers.
14. "NCIS" (Wednesday, 7 p.m.), USA, 2.995 million homes, 3.93 million viewers.
15. "Phineas and Ferb" (Friday, 9 p.m.), Disney, 2.990 million homes, 4.44 million viewers.
Ratings
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