Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Pinch Me ...a message from Michael Moore (michaelmoore.com)
Friends, Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.
Mark Morford: Yes We Did (sfgate.com)
Party like it's 2009, 'cuz baby, now the real work begins.
ANDY BARR: 2008 turnout shatters all records (politico.com)
More than 130 million people turned out to vote Tuesday, the most ever to vote in a presidential election. With ballots still being counted in some precincts into Wednesday morning, an estimated 64 percent of the electorate turned out, making 2008 the highest percentage turnout in generations.
Boyd Reed: I Didn't Vote For Obama Today (talkingpointsmemo.com)
I have a confession to make. I did not vote for Barack Obama today. I've openly supported Obama since March. But I didn't vote for him today. (He has an excellent reason. Read this.--Bruce)
Simon Schama: "Nowhere man: a farewell to Dubya, all-time loser in presidential history" (guardian.co.uk)
"Forgotten but not gone" was the way in which the supremo of Boston politics, Billy Bulger, liked to dismiss the human irritants he had crushed beneath his trim boot. The same could now be said for the hapless 43rd President of the United States as the daylight draws mercifully in on his reign of misfortune and calamity. How is he bearing up, one wonders, as the candidate from his own party treats him as the carrier of some sort of infectious political disease? How telling was it that the most impassioned moment in John McCain's performance in the final debate was when he declared: "I am not George Bush."
Alan Schram: Why the Stock Market is Cheap Now (huffingtonpost.com)
The world is not ending. This stock market should not scare you. You should take advantage of it, by buying solid, well financed businesses, ones that will still be dominant five years from now, and that are available at clearly attractive prices.
Ben Cohen: My Interview With Noam Chomsky on the Economy (huffingtonpost.com)
Noam Chomsky's encyclopedic knowledge of political, philosophical and economic issues is simply breathtaking, as is his ability to break complex subjects down to their rawest essentials.
Ben Cohen: "Daily Banter Exclusive: Interview with Noam Chomsky Part 2" (thedailybanter.com)
In the second part of our exclusive interview with Noam Chomsky, we talk to the MIT Professor and human rights activist about the Bush Administration's legacy, America's history of torture, and role of the mainstream media in holding power to account
Alexander Billet: Raging in the Streets (popmatters.com)
With America rejecting conservative politics, the time is ripe for Rage Against the Machine's return.
Jon Bream: Blue-eyed soul man Boz Scaggs is doing standards - and bluegrass - these days (Star Tribune)
Silky soul man Boz Scaggs has two outside projects: A bluegrass band (really!) and a jazz combo.
Len Righi: Folk legend Joan Baez voices hope for tomorrow (The Morning Call)
From the outset of her career a half-century ago, Joan Baez has possessed a distinctive, spine-tingling three-octave voice.
Soft-shoe shuffle (guardian.co.uk)
Richard Alston came late to ballet, but this year celebrates 40 years at the forefront of British dance. Judith Mackrell reports.
Steven Rea: Sally Hawkins was in denial as Mike Leigh's 'Happy-Go-Lucky' lead (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"I suppose I'm quite smiley," says Sally Hawkins, emitting a little laugh, as if to prove the point.
John Anderson: Edward Norton says he's proud of 'Pride and Glory' (Newsday)
Considered one of the finest actors of his generation, Edward Norton has played psychopaths ("Primal Fear"), neo-Nazis ("American History X"), figments of the imagination ("Fight Club") and even Nelson Rockefeller ("Frida"). He's produced films on several occasions, directed once ("Keeping the Faith") and plans to direct again, eventually, with an adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel "Motherless Brooklyn."
The Weekly Poll
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, but still on the cool side.
Online Sales Of Books Surge
Obama
Barack Obama's historic victory has given yet another boost to his million-selling books, "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."
Both were in the Top 25 on Amazon.com's best-seller list early Wednesday, soon after the Illinois Democrat defeated Republican John McCain to become the country's first black president-elect.
"Dreams from My Father," a memoir released in the 1990s when few had heard of Obama, and "Audacity of Hope," a reflection on politics that came out in 2006 and helped to solidify his national following, have far outsold any of the anti-Obama books that came out last summer.
The most notable and best-selling attack against Obama, Jerome Corsi's "Obama Nation," was ranked No. 466 on Amazon.com early Wednesday. Corsi was co-author of the highly effective "Unfit for Command" at the center of the "Swift Boat" attack against defeated Democratic presidential contender John Kerry in 2004.
Obama
Rated Adults-Only In Finland
'Little House on Prairie'
Finland has rated the DVD release of the much-loved children's television series "Little House on the Prairie" suitable for adult viewing only.
To save money, Universal Pictures decided not to submit the series to state inspection, the company's Finland marketing manager Meri Suomela told Reuters on Wednesday.
Finnish authorities charge 2 euros ($2.57) per minute for assessing the correct age limit on films and television series. Distributors who forego this can only sell their shows with a sticker saying "Banned for under-18s."
"Long series can get quite expensive to check, and some use this exemption in the law to their advantage," said Matti Paloheimo, Director at the Finnish Board of Film Classification.
'Little House on Prairie'
Happy About Hank's Recordings
Jett Williams
Jett Williams never met her father, Hank Williams Sr., who died in the back seat of a Cadillac five days before she was born in 1953.
But she's come to learn more about him from 143 never-released recordings he did for a radio program in 1951.
The recordings were retrieved from a trash bin and ended up part of the Williams estate. They're being released over the next three years (with the first batch hitting stores last week).
Williams and his Drifting Cowboys Band made the recordings for the "Mother's Best Flour" show on radio station WSM-AM in Nashville.
Jett Williams
Free Ain't Cheap
Wikipedia
The nonprofit group that runs Wikipedia launched its annual appeal to donors Wednesday, seeking $6 million to cover the costs of the volunteer-created Internet encyclopedia. That figure would be a threefold increase from what the campaign raised last year.
This fundraising campaign is set to last until Jan. 15, Wikipedia's eight-year anniversary. This is the first year the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation has set an explicit financial goal.
Wikipedia, one of the most popular online reference tools, is free and does not post ads, so it counts on donations to keep operating and growing. To advertise the campaign, Wikipedia is posting banners on its pages that users can click on to donate. So far, the campaign has pulled in one-third of its goal, $1 million of which came from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Wikipedia
Judge Wants To See CBS Papers
Dan Rather
A New York City judge says he wants to see documents that passed between a law firm and a panel CBS hired to investigate a Dan Rather story on President Bush.
Judicial Hearing Officer Ira Gammerman told attorney David Versfelt on Wednesday to let him examine the papers so he can decide whether Rather's lawyers may see them.
Versfelt's law firm was hired to advise the panel. Versfelt says the papers are protected by attorney-client privilege.
CBS hired the panel to investigate a disputed 2004 "60 Minutes II" story about Bush's military service. Rather says he was removed from the evening news anchor chair and given little to do after the story. He is suing CBS for $70 million.
Dan Rather
Slashes Outlook, Profit Dives
News Corp
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp cut its full-year forecast and posted a worse-than-expected 30 percent drop in quarterly profit because of falling TV advertising. Shares dived 12 percent.
The international media conglomerate said display advertising at its Web holdings, including the MySpace social network, was beginning to weaken, and that it was instituting stringent cost-cutting measures company wide.
News Corp's assets include: the Fox TV network, 20th Century Fox movie studio, BSkyB and The Wall Street Journal.
News Corp now expects fiscal 2009 operating income to fall in low- to mid-teen percentage terms, compared to its previous forecast for growth of 4 percent to 6 percent.
News Corp
Divorce Final
Danny Bonaduce
A Los Angeles judge has signed off on the amicable end to Danny Bonaduce's nearly 18-year marriage.
Bonaduce will pay $16,000 a month to his ex-wife, Gretchen, for spousal and child support. The former couple will retain joint custody of their children, who are 14 and 7 years old.
Danny Bonaduce now hosts a radio talk show in Los Angeles, as well as VH1's "I Know My Kid's a Star."
Documents signed by a judge on Thursday indicate Bonaduce isn't giving up on marriage: he's keeping the rights to sell a show called, "The Next Mrs. Bonaduce."
Danny Bonaduce
Pooh Sketch Auctioned
A.A. Milne
An original drawing of A.A. Milne's popular children's characters Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger and Piglet fetched 31,200 pounds ($50,000) at auction on Tuesday.
The amount, which includes a 20 percent buyer's premium, comfortably beat pre-sale expectations of up to 20,000 pounds, not including the premium.
The oval pencil sketch by E.H. Shepard, one of children's literature's most famous illustrators, shows Pooh dipping his paw into a pot of honey while sitting at a table as Piglet and Tigger look on.
Auctioneer Bonhams said the successful telephone bidder was from Germany and bought the picture for his wife, a long-time Pooh fan.
A.A. Milne
Leaving For Family, Religion
Brit Hume
After 12 years at Fox News Channel and four decades in the news business, Washington managing editor Brit Hume will leave "Special Report" and daily journalism for a quieter life, spending time with his grandchildren and following his Christian faith (the anchor still will contribute to the network as a political analyst).
Hume, 65, talked about the demands of the job and how his succession should be handled.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: : WHAT OTHER THINGS WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO IN RETIREMENT?
Hume: I certainly want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died (by suicide in 1998), I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it.
Brit Hume
5th Biggest
Antarctic Ozone Hole
This year's ozone hole over Antarctica was the fifth biggest on record, reaching a maximum area of 10.5 million square miles in September, NASA says.
NASA has tracked the size of the hole for 30 years. Last year, it was 9.7 million square miles, about the size of North America.
The hole is an area of depletion in the stratospheric ozone layer, which blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from space. Created by human-produced gases, the ozone hole generally forms in August and grows to its maximum size in September or October before breaking up.
Antarctic Ozone Hole
eBay Sale
Mystic Caverns
Calling Batman: Cave owner Steve Rush has a deal for you. Rush, 49, is auctioning off the Mystic Caverns in the hills of Ozark Mountains on eBay. The 28-acre property in Arkansas includes a gift shop and three caves, two of which are safe enough for visitors.
The bidding starts at $899,900, cut from Rush's original asking price of $1.2 million.
Rush bought the property near Harrison in 1988 and began giving tours in 1992 to the two accessible caves, Mystic cavern and the Crystal Dome cavern. A third cave on his 28-acre property, Not Much Sink cavern, remains too dangerous for tours.
But business has dropped since a nearby amusement park closed in the 1990s. Rush said the Mystic Caverns still get about 15,000 visitors each year.
Mystic Caverns
In Memory
Jimmy Carl Black
Jimmy Carl Black, drummer, vocalist and self-anointed "Indian of the group" of Frank Zappa's The Mothers of Invention, has died at age 70.
Born James Inkanish Jr. on Feb. 1, 1938, Black had Cheyenne Indian ancestry through both parents. He changed his name legally to Jimmy Carl Black in 1958, adapting the name of his stepfather, Carl Black.
Black appeared on Mothers albums including "Freak Out," "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" and "Burnt Weenie Sandwich." He played trumpet as well as drumming on the 1968 album "We're Only In It for the Money," and also introduced his catchphrase: "Hi boys and girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black, I'm the Indian of the group."
Zappa disbanded the Mothers in 1969, and Black's career thereafter was not lucrative. A recent remix of some of Black's work was titled "Can I Borrow a Couple of Bucks Until the End of the Week?"
"We all just got a phone call from him stating that he had decided to break up the band and your salary has ended as of last week. That is pretty cold," Black said once in an interview.
Following the breakup of the Mothers, Black formed a band named Geronimo Black after his youngest son. The band's 1972 album was not a commercial success, and Black went to work in a doughnut shop in Anthony, Texas.
In 1980, he teamed with ex-Mothers Bunk Gardner and Don Preston in The Grandmothers, a band that broke up and reformed several times over two decades.
During one musical lull, Black formed a house-painting company in Austin, Texas, with Arthur Brown. They also made an album, "Brown, Black and Blue."
Black moved to Italy in 1992, then to Germany in 1995, and has appeared as a singer with The Muffin Men, a Liverpool band that specialized in the music of Zappa and Captain Beefheart.
Black is survived by his wife, Monika, whom he married in 1995 following the death of his second wife; three sons and three daughters.
Jimmy Carl Black
In Memory
Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton, the million-selling author of such historic and prehistoric science thrillers as "Jurassic Park," "Timeline" and "The Andromeda Strain," has died of cancer, his family said.
Chrichton was a brand-name author, known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of "The Andromeda Strain" or dinosaurs running amok in "Jurassic Park," one of his many books that became major Hollywood movies.
The 6-foot-9-inch author was also a screenwriter and filmmaker, earning producing and writing credits for the film versions of many of his titles. He also created the TV hospital series "ER" in 1994.
In recent years, he was the rare writer to get on well with resident Bush, perhaps because of his skepticism about global warming, which Crichton addressed in the 2004 novel, "State of Favor." Crichton's views were strongly condemned by environmentalists, who alleged that the author was hurting efforts to pass legislation to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.
Michael Crichton
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