Recommended Reading
from Bruce
How to avoid getting hit by a train (25-second YouTube video)
Keep Drawing (Letters of Note)
This charming letter was written in 2009 by long-serving Viz cartoonist Graham Dury to a young man named Charlie, in response to some cartoons he sent to the comic's offices. For an aspiring artist and fan of the comic to receive such a positive reply - not to mention the nibs and unwanted Roger Mellie doll - must have been quite something.
Doctors always know best (Letters of Note)
The publication of Blaggard Castle - a 1932 comic book featuring Mickey Mouse and sidekick Horace Horsecollar, in which three mad scientists (Professors Ecks, Doublex and Triplex) claimed that X-rays, if fired at someone, would burn their brains - caused so much unease amongst young patients in Pennsylvania that a Dr. Reuben G. Alley was forced to complain to Disney Studios. A response came in the form of the following letter, written by Mickey Mouse himself in an effort to quieten the wards of Western Pennsylvania Hospital.
Susan Estrich: There He Goes Again (Creators Syndicate)
There he goes again, fulfilling another promise. Imagine that. When he announced the surge in Afghanistan, he said it was temporary. Democrats, especially liberals, screamed bloody murder. How dare he do what he said he would do during the campaign: focus on Afghanistan, on the threat posed by al-Qaida, on capturing Osama bin Laden, dead or alive?
Paul Krugman's Blog: The Urge to Purge (New York Times)
There's something going on here, and I don't think it's really about economic analysis. Like others, the BIS is clearly engaged in monetary Calvinball, making up rules and concepts on the fly so as to justify monetary tightening whatever the circumstances. There seems to be a deep urge to inflict pain, to purge the rottenness or something. It's scary. And the world will suffer for it.
Paul Krugman's Blog: Wrong Wrong Wrong (New York Times)
The point is that these people have been wrong about everything - and yet tax-cut magic is the official religion of the GOP.
Jim Hightower: PERRY IS PEDDLING TEXAS SNAKE OIL
Most damning, however, is that Perry-jobs are really "jobettes," offering low pay, no benefits and no upward mobility. In fact, under Rickonomics, Texas has added more minimum wage jobs than all other states combined! Indeed, Gov. Perry presides over a state that has more people in poverty and more without health coverage than any other.
Scott Burns: Women are the New Men (assetbuilder.com)
In the first decade of this century Labor department figures show that women have gained 2,119,000 jobs. During the same period, men gained a piddling 54,000 jobs. This is the kind of score you'd have if the Yankees played against a Little League team or the Dallas Mavericks played against a very small high school. Basically, we guys never had the ball. Women got 97.5 percent of all the new jobs created between 2000 and 2010.
Jonah Lehrer: When We See What We Want (Wall Street Journal)
In 1981, Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould published "The Mismeasure of Man," a fierce critique of various scientific attempts to measure human intelligence. Mr. Gould began the book with a takedown of "craniometry," a popular 19th-century technique that attempted to find correlations between skull volume and intellect.
Ann Zimmerman: The Trickster Behind the Magic Tricks (Wall Street Journal)
Mark Setteducati's career as an independent inventor of children's toys, magic tricks and puzzles that he licenses to major toy manufacturers has spanned 30 years and has earned him 18 patents.
The astonishing genius of Brian Wilson (Guardian)
First came the drugs, then the voices. Brian Wilson's brain has taken a battering. Alexis Petridis tries to get inside the complicated mind of a musical legend.
William Douglas: The bell is beginning to toll for baby boomers' aging music idols (McClatchy Newspapers)
Months before he passed away, saxophonist Clarence Clemons told Rolling Stone magazine that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 2009 tour was pure hell for him physically.
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 Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
'June Gloom' til mid-afternoon. : )
Right Town, Wrong John Wayne
Oopsie
Mixing up an American screen legend with a serial killer -- just another day on the campaign trail, right?
Michele Bachmann delivered her presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, Monday because she was born there, but she inadvertently ended up reminding residents of a dark chapter in their town's history.
In an interview with Fox News Channel, Bachmann, the Minnesota conservative, pointed out that John Wayne, the actor, was from Waterloo. "That's the kind of spirit I have, too," Bachmann said.
Small problem: John Wayne didn't hail from Waterloo. The former Marion Morrison was born in Winterset, Iowa, more than 100 miles to the south.
The most famous John Wayne from Waterloo is instead John Wayne Gacy, the infamous "killer clown" of Chicago, who was convicted of killing more than 30 young men in the 1970s and stashing their bodies in a crawlspace in his house.
Oopsie
Fox Apologizes
'Flake'
Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace says he "messed up" by asking Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann whether she's a flake.
The talk show host posted the video apology after his "Fox News Sunday" interview with the Minnesota congresswoman, who formally announced her presidential bid Monday in Iowa.
Wallace said on the Fox show that Bachmann had a reputation in Washington for making questionable statements, noting she had called fellow members of Congress anti-American. He paused and asked her: "Are you a flake?"
Bachmann answered that she was a "serious person" and found insinuations that she was a flake to be "insulting."
'Flake'
11th Annual
BET Awards
R&B star Chris Brown, fully rehabilitated in the public eye after beating up ex-girlfriend Rihanna two years ago, led the list of winners with criminal pasts at the BET Awards on Sunday.
Brown took home four awards, including the viewers' choice prize, amid some confusion at the 11th annual celebration of black musicians, actors and sports people. He led the contenders with six nominations.
In an unfortunate turn, Brown's name was called as the winner of the viewers' choice award, and then Rihanna's. Canadian rapper Drake awkwardly appeared on stage at the Shrine Auditorium to accept on her behalf.
But at the end of the show, it was revealed that Brown was the actual winner and there had been a technical snafu. Alas, that was too late to save the lucky fan charged with announcing the winner from being savaged on Twitter.
Other winners included professional football player Michael Vick, on the comeback trail after serving 19 months in federal prison for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring. He was named best sportsman, but was not on hand to accept the award.
BET Awards
Gets Own Version Of Hollywood Walk O'Fame
Madrid
Penelope Cruz, Pedro Almodovar and Antonio Banderas were among 25 Spanish film stars honoured with a sidewalk plaque on Madrid's new Walk of Fame, which was inaugurated Monday.
The granite, marble and steel plaques feature a large star and the celebrity's name, like the ones on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which has become one of Los Angeles' top tourist draws since it opened in 1960.
Spain's film academy at first honoured 25 personalities -- 16 actors and nine directors -- to mark its 25th anniversary but plans to add one or two plaques each year to the central Madrid street that is home to several cinemas.
In April Cruz received the 2,436th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming the first Spanish actress to receive the honour.
Madrid
"Cold Case" Veteran Joins "L&O: SVU"
Danny Pino
Former "Cold Case" co-star Danny Pino will join the cast of "Law & Order" SVU" next season, essentially replacing Christopher Meloni, who turned down an $8 million salary to stay with the cop show.
Also joining the cast is Kelli Giddish ("All My Children"), who will play a cop in the NYPD's sex-crimes unit as well.
The NBC show's 13th season will feature a new look in the wake of Meloni's departure and Mariska Hargitay's decision to scale back her number of episodes.
Series veterans Ice-T and Richard Belzer will return. With "Law & Order: Los Angeles" getting the axe, "SVU" will be the sole "Law & Order" franchise on NBC next season.
Danny Pino
High Court To Rule On Indecency Policy
FCC
The Supreme Court will take up the First Amendment fight over what broadcasters can put on the airwaves when young children may be watching television.
The justices said Monday they will review appeals court rulings that threw out the Federal Communications Commission's rules against the isolated use of expletives as well as fines against broadcasters who showed a woman's nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of ABC's "NYPD Blue."
The Obama administration objected that the appeals court stripped the FCC of its ability to police the airwaves.
The U.S. television networks argue that the policy is outdated, applying only to broadcast television and leaving unregulated the same content if transmitted on cable TV or over the Internet.
In a landmark 1978 decision, the court upheld the FCC's authority to regulate both radio and television content, at least during the hours when children are likely to be watching or listening. That period includes the prime-time hours before 10 p.m.
FCC
CA Ban Double-Plus Ungood Says Fat Tony
Violent Video Games
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that it is unconstitutional to bar children from buying or renting violent video games, saying government doesn't have the authority to "restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed" despite complaints that the popular and fast-changing technology allows the young to simulate acts of brutality.
On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento had ruled that the law violated minors' rights under the First Amendment, and the high court agreed.
"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm," said Justice Antonin Scalia (R-Sadistic Bastardo), who wrote the majority opinion. "But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."
But at least two justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, indicated they would be willing to reconsider their votes throwing out the law, taking issue with the sweep of the court's holding.
Violent Video Games
Tied To Sleep Woes
Violent TV
If your preschooler can't sleep - turn off the violence and nighttime TV.
That's the message in a new study that found sleep problems are more common in 3- to 5-year-olds who watch television after 7 p.m. Watching shows with violence - including kids' cartoons - also was tied to sleeping difficulties.
Watching nonviolent shows during the day didn't seem to have any connection with sleep problems in the 617 youngsters studied.
The study builds on previous research linking media use with kids' sleep problems, and also bolsters arguments for limiting children's screen time.
Kids who watched the most nighttime or violent TV had the most sleep trouble. TV was the main source of screen time rather than computers or video games.
Violent TV
The Purloined Warhol?
Farrah Fawcett
Here's some advice: If you're harboring a missing $30 million Warhol in your home, try to take it off the wall before filming an interview for your new reality show. Failure to follow this simple maxim has led a private investigator searching for a Pop Farrah Fawcett portrait straight to actor Ryan O'Neal, the late actress's longtime partner. The missing Warhol silkscreen portrait can be seen hanging above O'Neal's bed in the first episode of "Ryan and Tatum: The O'Neals," a documentary series about the actor and his daughter on the OWN network.
The investigator was hired by Fawcett's alma mater, the University of Texas, where she studied art. In her living trust, the "Charlie's Angels" star left her entire art collection to the university - but when the institution slowly began assembling Fawcett's holdings after her death two years ago, it was unable to track down one of the two portraits Warhol made of Fawcett in 1980. They are reportedly the most valuable works in her collection.
A passage in actress Tatum O'Neal's new memoir, "Found: A Daughter's Journey Home," initially tipped off the university to the portrait's whereabouts. O'Neal describes her father's home: "On every wall, there are pictures of us and the rest of the family in our golden days. The original poster from 'Paper Moon,' Andy Warhol's portrait of Farrah." Good one, Tatum.
"That was a 'Thank God, we've caught you' moment," Fawcett's friend and former business partner Craig Nevius, who is assisting in the search, said to ABC. "I told the university, 'Be patient and wait, because this man is so arrogant, he's going to show it.'" Fawcett left nothing in her will for O'Neal, her partner for 30 years.
Farrah Fawcett
Lawsuit Goes To Trial
"The Expendables"
Here's the scenario: A film's lead actor is revealed to have a growth in his throat shortly before production begins on an $80 million movie.
Medical experts say he'll likely be fine with antibiotics but there's a possibility the actor -- English action hero Jason Statham -- will require surgery and need two weeks of vocal rest. Should the producers go ahead with their film, "The Expendables," or wait to see whether the antibiotic treatment is effective?
This answer will now be in the hands of a Louisiana jury after a federal judge decided on Tuesday to let Alta Vista Prod., a producer of last year's hit action film, proceed with its lawsuit looking to collect more than $1 million in insurance reimbursements. The company made the decision to shut down production for two weeks after doctors discovered a benign growth in Statham's throat.
After the condition was discovered, producers had a difficult decision on their hands: Putting everything on a two-week hiatus would cost about $1 million, but going ahead with production and then having to stop mid-stream would cost several million dollars more.
"The Expendables"
Suing Over Tribute Album
Bagdasarian Prods
The owner of the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, is suing the producers of an "artistically inferior knockoff" Chipmunks tribute album on iTunes, Amazon.com and other digital stores.
Bagdasarian Prods. claims the Jerry Naylor Company distributed a digital album entitled "A Tribute to Alvin and the Chipmonks," that uses a nearly identical set of songs to past Chipmunks hits, including "The Chipmunk Song," "Funkytown" and "Mess Around."
The fact that the defendant spelled Chipmonks with an "o" and is re-recording past hits from Ray Charles and the Lips, among others, isn't enough to escape Bagdasarian attention. The plaintiffs claim the "knockoff"/tribute infringes its trademarks and is likely to confuse the public on its source of origin.
The Chipmunks were the creation of Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., who in 1958 had the bright idea of recording his own voice and speeding it up. He made a Grammy-winning chart-topper, "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)," and followed it up with an animated TV show, hit feature films, and albums full of hit pop songs done at high speeds. The franchise has made more than $1 billion.
Bagdasarian Productions, now run by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., is seeking more than $1 million in believed damages and an injunction. The suit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in California.
Bagdasarian Prods
Sued Over Japan Earthquake Charity
Lady Gaga
Pop superstar Lady Gaga has been sued over sales of her wristbands for Japan's earthquake relief efforts in a class action that claims that not all the proceeds went to victims as she had promised.
Michigan legal network 1800LAWFIRM also alleges that Gaga and other companies involved in the sale and marketing of the $5 white and red "We Pray for Japan" wristbands overcharged buyers on shipping costs and "artificially inflated reports of total donations".
"While we commend Lady Gaga for her philanthropic efforts, we want to ensure that claims that 'all proceeds will be donated to Japan's earthquake' are in fact true," said Alyson Oliver, an attorney for 1800LAWFIRM.
"Our intention via this lawsuit is to uncover any improprieties committed by Lady Gaga and appropriate the full donations assumed to the victims in Japan."
Lady Gaga
Boston Museum To Pay Restitution
Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has determined that a 17th century Dutch painting in its collection was once owned by a Jewish art dealer who died at the hands of the Nazis in World War II.
The Boston Globe reports the museum has agreed to pay restitution to Walter Westfield's heir but will keep the Eglon van der Neer painting.
The sum to be paid to Westfield's family was not disclosed. Fred Westfield, who lives in Tennessee and is Walter Westfield's nephew, told the newspaper the family was appreciative of the way the museum handled the matter.
Walter Westfield was killed at Auschwitz. Investigators believe the painting was likely stolen by the Nazis. The MFA purchased it for $7,500 from a New York art dealer in 1941.
Museum of Fine Arts
Ban On Drug Ballads No Match For YouTube
Mexico
The more Mexican authorities try to stamp out violent drug ballads celebrating the joys of narcotics trafficking, the more their fame spreads like wildfire, fanned by the Internet.
The accordion and brass-driven "narcocorridos" that glamorize the shady underworld of smugglers has been forced underground in the border state of Baja California, which since 2001 has pressured radio stations, music stores and bars into a kind of self-censorship that stops short of an outright ban.
Now politicians are emulating Baja California to impose curbs in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, cradle of Mexico's drug trade, and the violent state of Chihuahua, worried they are adding fuel to the flames of the nation's brutal drug war.
"They are evil," said Hector Murguia, the mayor of Mexico's deadliest city Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua's biggest. "They are a breeding ground and it serves no one that they reach our youngsters and poison their souls," he told Reuters in support of Chihuahua Governor Cesar Duarte's bid to ban them.
Mexico
2 For The Price Of 1
Palins
Sarah Palin (R-Quitter) will be stopping by for the start of her daughter's book tour.
The former half-term Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate will appear with Bristol Palin (R-Opportunist) on Wednesday in Bloomington, Minn., at the Barnes & Noble in the Mall of America. HarperCollins Publishers announced Monday that the two will sign copies of their latest books.
Sarah Palin (R-Hypocrite) says in a statement that she is "so proud" of her daughter and " thrilled to be joining her to kick off her book tour."
Bristol Palin's memoir, "Not Afraid of Life," came out last week and Wednesday is her first public event. Sarah Palin's "America by Heart" was released last fall. HarperCollins imprints published both books.
Palins
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