Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Kruman: Wasting Our Minds (New York Times)
In Spain, the unemployment rate among workers under 25 is more than 50 percent. In Ireland almost a third of the young are unemployed. Here in America, youth unemployment is "only" 16.5 percent, which is still terrible - but things could be worse. And sure enough, many politicians are doing all they can to guarantee that things will, in fact, get worse.
Simon Doonan: Where Did All the Accomplished People Go? (Slate)
We used to revere scientists. Now we worship Kim Kardashian. Why?
Roger Ebert: The greatest films of all time
I am faced once again with the task of voting in 'Sight & Sound' magazine's famous poll to determine the greatest films of all time. Apart from my annual year's best lists, this is the only list I vote in. It is a challenge. After voting in 1972, 1982 and 1992, I came up with these ten titles in 2002:…
Rosanna Greenstreet: "Q&A: Joss Whedon" (Guardian)
'I'd go back to the 20s, where I'd invent modern comic books and be like, "No, I totally thought of this stuff myself! Let's Charleston!"
Alec Scott: Frye's Anatomy (University of Toronto Magazine)
To his English students, Northrop Frye, the brilliant literary critic, was an intellectual god and a master lecturer. One-on-one, though, he could be difficult to read.
David Weinberger: Shift Happens (Chronicle of Higher Education)
If you've seen that bumper sticker, you've seen what our culture has made of one of the central ideas in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, published 50 years and 1.4 million copies ago. For the marketers and boosters of personal transformation who casually talk about paradigm shifts, the phrase designates not just a gestalt switch that casts things in a new light, but a world so insubstantial that it can be thoroughly transformed by a single idea.
Henry Rollins: Down Under and Hard to Find (LA Weekly)
Years previous to my first setting foot in Sydney, I had been listening to Australian bands for many years. They included the Saints, the Victims, Radio Birdman, the Scientists, the Birthday Party and all of the spinoff projects post-BP breakup in 1983 (the Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution and SPK), to name a handful.
Stephanie Rabiner: Death by Coca-Cola. What a way to go. (Reuters)
Or not. Investigators believe a 2-gallon-a-day Coke habit may have contributed to the death of Natasha Harris, a 30-year-old New Zealand woman. The mother of 8 died in February from what appears to have been a heart attack.
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
International Labor Day
Subject: In honor of International Labor Day
May First is International Labor Day. I'm a rich man. I own an excellent Ford car, I own my own home, I have Medicare, I have Social Security, I have a pension (two actually), and my two sons graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy. I have all this because of the Labor Unions I belonged to and worked to make them strong. LABOR creates all wealth, the folks who do the work to create the wealth should get their fair share of it.
Solidarity Forever
There is Power in a Union
Bread and Roses
Banks of Marble
Rebel Girl
Union Maid
All You Fascists are Bound to Lose
Scabs
Peace --Joe
Thanks, Joe!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
May gray a day early - the marine layer never burned off.
"Lesser Of Two Evils"
Larry Flynt
Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who once ran for governor of California with the slogan "the smut peddler who cares," told The Daily Caller that he will vote to re-elect President Barack Obama in November.
Flynt has been a longtime Obama skeptic. In December 2010 he penned an open letter to the president in The Daily Beast titled "President Obama: You Are Toast."
But despite his disappointment with Obama on civil liberties issues, on ending foreign wars, on health care reform and on extending the Bush-era tax cuts, Larry Flynt is prepared to change his mind.
Asked if he was dissatisfied with Obama's performance as president, Flynt said Obama "has fallen far short in many ways," mentioning the extension of the Patriot Act and "the way he's dealt with Congress."
But Flynt said it's important "to consider the lesser of two evils."
Larry Flynt
Put Past Differences Aside
Beach Boys
A "miracle."
That's the word Al Jardine not-so-jokingly uses to describe the latest Beach Boys reunion - this one consisting of himself and fellow founding Beach Boys Brian Wilson and Mike Love, as well as longtime players Bruce Johnston and David Marks.
After decades of prolonged separations, legal spats and near reunions, the core Beach Boys are back together, both on stage and for an upcoming new album. Their rebirth, which became a reality earlier this year when the group performed "Good Vibrations" with Maroon 5 and Foster the People at the Grammys, has reawakened musical memories for 69-year-old Jardine.
"When I'm rehearsing over there, I'm hearing stuff I haven't performed for many years," Jardine said during a recent break from rehearsals for the iconic band's 50th anniversary tour, which kicked off last week in Tucson, Ariz.
Beach Boys
Sale Could Top Auction Record
"The Scream"
Edvard Munch's "The Scream" could become the most expensive painting ever sold at auction on Wednesday if predictions that the work could fetch up to $150 million are to be believed.
The vibrant pastel, one of four versions by the Scandinavian artist and the only privately owned, is estimated to sell for $80 million when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby's in New York.
But London-based art expert Nicolai Frahm, of Frahm Ltd., believes the price could soar much higher.
"I think it will go to $150 million," he said in a telephone interview, which would smash the auction record of $106.5 million set by Pablo Picasso's "Nude, green leaves and bust" in 2010.
Other independent art market experts have suggested a final price of around $125 million.
"The Scream"
Baby News
Gloria Ray Sarsgaard
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard have welcomed a second daughter.
Gyllenhaal's publicist said in an email Monday that the actress gave birth to Gloria Ray on April 19 in New York. No more details were provided.
The couple had their first daughter, Ramona, in 2006. They got married in 2009.
Gloria Ray Sarsgaard
Broadcast Deal With NBC Valid
Golden Globes
A federal judge ruled Monday that producers of the Golden Globe Awards acted properly when they negotiated a deal keeping the glitzy gala on NBC through 2018.
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz's 89-page ruling states that the production company, dick clark productions, has a right to negotiate the deal and work on the show as long as it airs on NBC. That right was a key part of a long-running dispute between the company, known as dcp, and the Globes' organizers, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
The association sued over the broadcast deal in November 2010, but the two sides have worked together on the past two awards shows. The production company has claimed it has a perpetual right to work on the show as long as it airs on NBC, but the association argued that it never agreed to those terms and it was facing the loss of its creation.
The Globes have become big business, with Hollywood A-listers appearing each year. The journalists' group and producer split the multimillion-dollar annual profits evenly.
Matz's ruling states the dcp only has a right to work with NBC, but that it does not need to receive approval for its broadcast deal directly from the HFPA anymore because of a 1993 amendment to their working relationship.
Golden Globes
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit
Grammys
A lawsuit filed against the Recording Academy over its decision to trim the Grammy Award categories from 109 to 78 has been dismissed.
The ruling last week by New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Oing granted the Academy's motion to reject a lawsuit by Grammy-nominated jazz musician Bobby Sanabria and three others. Sanabria had been the loudest opponent of the Academy's decision last year to reduce its categories and fold some genres into larger fields.
The Academy announced last April that after a more than yearlong review, it had decided to trim its categories by 31, in part to make the awards more competitive. That meant eliminating categories by sex, so men and women compete in the same vocal categories.
In his lawsuit, Sanabria accused the Academy of not following the proper procedures to implement the changes, and demanded that the best Latin jazz category be reinstated, saying the removal had a detrimental effect on the musicians' careers by taking away the Latin jazz category specifically.
Grammys
Lawsuit Rejected
Greg Mortenson
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a civil lawsuit against author Greg Mortenson, calling claims "flimsy and speculative" that the humanitarian and his publisher lied in his best-selling "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones Into Schools" to boost book sales.
The lawsuit by four people who bought Mortenson's books claimed that they were cheated out of about $15 each because the books were labeled as nonfiction accounts of how Mortenson came to build schools in central Asia. They had asked U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon to order Mortenson and publisher Penguin Group (USA) to refund all the money collected from Mortenson's book sales.
The readers from Montana, California and Illinois filed the lawsuit after "60 Minutes" and author Jon Krakauer reported last year that Mortenson fabricated parts of those books.
The plaintiffs said Mortenson, co-author David Oliver Relin, Penguin and Central Asia Institute were involved in a fraud and racketeering conspiracy to build Mortenson into a false hero to sell books and raise money for CAI, the charity Mortenson co-founded.
Haddon wrote in his ruling that their racketeering allegations "are fraught with shortcomings" and the plaintiffs' "overly broad" claims that they bought the books because they were supposed to be true were not supported in the lawsuit.
Greg Mortenson
Arrested on Drug Charges
Courtney Wagner
Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner's daughter, Courtney Wagner, was arrested for coke and heroin possession after police received a report of a gunshot at her Malibu home.
TMZ reported that police were called to the home of 38-year-old Wagner last Sunday after a woman's screams were heard, followed by a gunshot. No one was injured. However, when police arrived they found Wagner in possession of cocaine and heroin and arrested her on suspicion of felony drug possession, the website said.
Wagner has since posted $10,000 bail, according to TMZ. Attempts to reach Wagner for comment weren't immediately successful.
A man who was involved in a dispute with Wagner was arrested for negligent discharge of a firearm, the website said.
Courtney Wagner
ISPs Must Block Pirate Bay
UK
Britain's High Court has ordered the country's Internet service providers to block file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, the U.K.'s main music industry association said Monday.
A High Court judge told Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media on Friday to prevent access to the Swedish site, which helps millions of people download copyrighted music, movies and computer games.
Music industry group BPI welcomed the order by justice Richard Arnold that the service providers block the site within the next few weeks.
The service providers said they would comply with the order. A sixth provider, BT, has been given several weeks to consider its position, but BPI said it expected BT would also block the website.
UK
'Crocodile Dundee' Ends Tax Battle
Paul Hogan
"Crocodile Dundee" star Paul Hogan has resolved his seven-year battle with Australian tax authorities over alleged unpaid taxes dating back to his first international hit movie in the 1980s.
Hogan and his friend and producer John Cornell said through their lawyer, Andrew Robinson, on Monday the pair had reached a confidential settlement with tax authorities to resolve over 150 million Australian dollars ($156 million) in alleged unpaid taxes and penalties.
Tax officials barred the Australian actor from returning to his Los Angeles home for two weeks over the matter in 2010 when he returned to Sydney for his mother's funeral. Hogan's lawyers eventually secured a deal that allowed him to leave Australia.
Paul Hogan
Born Addicted to Prescription Painkillers
Babies
An epidemic similar to that of "crack babies" in the early 90s may be resurfacing, with the number of infants being born addicted to prescription painkillers increasing fivefold since 2000.
According to a new study released Monday, babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome--exposure to addictive drugs while in the mother's womb--are increasingly addicted to Oxycodone, Vicodin, Heroin or opiates and can suffer from seizures, breathing problems, difficulty feeding and inconsolability, according to Stephen Patrick, a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellow at the University of Michigan and lead author of the report.
"Opiate painkillers are the new epidemic," he says. "It's becoming a problem. We need to increase attention from a public health perspective and talk about how we deal with opiates and the way they're prescribed."
The addiction is rarely if ever fatal, but treatment of the 13,000 "Oxy Babies" born addicted to painkillers in 2009 cost more than $720 million. About 80 percent of affected infants were on Medicaid, according to Patrick's report.
Babies
Death Sparks Feud
Thomas Kinkade
The death of painter Thomas Kinkade earlier this month has pitted Kinkade's family members and close friends against Kinkade's live-in girlfriend in a fight over his company, legacy and public image.
Kinkade died April 6 at his Northern California home, which he shared with his girlfriend and personal assistant, Amy Pinto-Walsh. Kinkade was still married but separated from his wife of 30 years, Nanette Kinkade.
Following Kinkade's death, Pinto-Walsh, 48, made statements to local newspapers saying that Kinkade had died in his sleep and that she was the one who'd called 911 from the home they shared. Pinto-Walsh also identified herself as Kinkade's girlfriend of 18 months, and disclosed that Kinkade and his wife had separated.
A recording of the 911 call received by Santa Clara County Emergency Services indicated that Kinkade had been drinking heavily the night before he died, provoking widespread media coverage of Kinkade's battle with alcoholism.
Now the painter's widow and his estate are battling Pinto-Walsh over her comments, claiming she broke a confidentiality agreement when she spoke publicly about Kinkade's health and threatened to disclose information about his family and businesses.
Thomas Kinkade
Yodel School
Berlin
The distinctive warble of yodeling strikes a dissonant note in the middle of a gritty Berlin district that is home to a thriving Turkish population and peppered with trendy bars.
But if you walk down the street from the kebab shops and anarchist graffiti scrawled on the pavement, you will catch the mellifluous sounds usually heard in Swiss Alps -- a noise that grows louder when you enter Doreen Kutze's hairdressing salon.
Instead of perms and highlights, Kutze rents out the space to offer wannabe yodellers lessons in the art of alpine singing.
Once used by alpine cattle herders to communicate across the open meadows and deep valleys of the Alps, yodeling is usually associated more with the fusty repertoire of the Sound of Music's von Trapp family than the edgy music scene of Berlin.
But the 37-year-old is coaxing yodeling down from the snow capped peaks and into the urban jungle of the German capital, in the hope of stripping alpine singing of its kitschy image.
Berlin
In Memory
Thomas 'Amarillo Slim' Preston
Thomas Austin "Amarillo Slim" Preston Jr., a poker champion whose brash style, fast talking and love of the spotlight helped broaden the professional game's appeal and made him one of its most recognizable characters, has died.
Preston's son, Bunky Preston, said he died Sunday of colon cancer while in hospice care in Amarillo, where he lived.
Thomas Preston got his nickname playing pool, according to his son, and with his cowboy hat and southern drawl, he wouldn't have been out of place gambling in an Old West saloon.
Preston would bet on just about anything, and he mastered the art of stretching the truth. Among his many claims laid out on his website are that he played Minnesota Fats in one-pocket billiards using a broomstick; beat Bobby Riggs, of Billie Jean King fame, at ping pong using an iron skillet; and outran "a horse for a hundred yards (no one ever said nothing about the race being straight-away)."
"Look around the table. If you don't see a sucker, get up, because you're the sucker," he said on his website. "... They anticipate losing when they sit down and I try my darndest not to disappoint one of them."
Preston's accomplishments at the poker table were very real, and his 1972 win in the fledgling World Series of Poker in Las Vegas helped make him an unofficial ambassador for the game. Often not the best player at the table, Slim nonetheless sought out the spotlight
Preston wrote or co-wrote several books about the game and himself, and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1992.
The self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Gambler" was born in Johnson, Ark. His family later moved to Texas and settled in Amarillo.
Slim's later life brought charges he molested a young relative. Records show a 2004 conviction on three misdemeanor charges of assault causing bodily injury in Amarillo in a case involving the 12-year-old girl. Slim, 75 at the time, was sentenced to two years' probation with deferred adjudication and fined $4,000.
He was in special services for the military and entertained troops at the end of World War II by giving pool exhibitions, Bunky Preston said.
Amarillo Slim went into hospice care about a week before his death, according to his son, and still played poker even during the last days of his life.
"He was playing poker until the very, very end," Bunky Preston said.
Thomas 'Amarillo Slim' Preston
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