Recommended Reading
from Bruce
MIT 150 Flash Mob (YouTube)
A flash mob of over 150 of MIT's best breakin' it down in lobby 7 at MIT's 150th anniversary.
Scott Burns: "America: Running With Scissors, and Good at It" (Assetbuilder.com)
Witness this. MIT is now celebrating its 150th anniversary. It has just graduated the class of 2011. A brief look at both those events tells us that the American glass isn't half empty. More likely, it's about to gush like a warm can of beer at a Fourth of July cookout.
Paul Krugman's Blog: Barack Herbert Hoover Obama (New York Times)
This is truly a tragedy: the great progressive hope (well, I did warn people) is falling all over himself to endorse right-wing economic fallacies.
William Saletan: Sex, Lies, and Audiotape (Slate)
The collapse of the Strauss-Kahn case is a victory for corroboration and justice.
Lisa Lubin: How Could I Afford to Travel Around the World for Two Years? (Huffington Post)
One of the most common questions I am asked is: "How did you afford to travel around the world?" Here is the simple answer: I saved money by traveling. It would have cost me a lot more to stay and live in Chicago than to travel around the world.
Chris Erskine: Dad and Peter Falk, cut from the same cloth (Los Angeles Times)
The things my father laughed at, I laugh at. I was reminded of this recently when I read of Peter Falk's passing.
Irene Lacher: "The Sunday Conversation: Parker Posey" (LA Times)
The actress, who's joining 'The Big C,' talks about the way Hollywood thinks and her hopes for cable.
Roger Ebert: "Badlands" (1973; A Great Movie)
Holly describes her life as if she's writing pulp fiction. "Little did I realize," she tells us, "that what began in the alleys and back ways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana." It is the wondering narrative voice that lingers beneath all of Terrence Malick's films, sometimes unspoken: Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world.
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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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another marine layer, another nice day.
Hacked?
Fox Twitter Feed
Hackers took control of a FoxNews.com Twitter account on Monday and sent six false tweets saying that U.S. President Barack Obama had been shot dead, prompting an investigation by the Secret Service.
"Hackers sent out several malicious and false tweets that President Obama had been assassinated," Foxnews.com said in a statement about the latest in a wave of high-profile cyber security breaches around the world.
"Those reports are incorrect, of course, and the president is spending the July 4 holiday with his family."
The conservative media propaganda outlet, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, said the incident was being checked.
A group calling itself The ScriptKiddies claimed responsibility for sending the tweets -- including "#ObamaDead, it's a sad 4th of July" -- from the "FoxNewspolitics" news feed before Twitter suspended its access.
Fox Twitter Feed
Opera Dropped
Lee Hall
A community opera involving hundreds of children and written by the author of "Billy Elliot" has been canceled after the writer refused to remove lines spoken by a gay character in which he calls himself "queer."
Education officials said the school removed 300 pupils due to appear in the production because of offensive and derogatory language, but playwright Lee Hall on Monday accused the school of having dated and homophobic views.
The writer said he had refused to remove the lines "Of course I'm queer" and "I prefer a lad to a lass" from the opera "Beached," the story of an eventful day at the seaside set to music by composer Harvey Brough.
Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Hall said he had worked with the school to make other changes - including removing the use of "stupid" as an insult - but that the request about the gay character's lines "seemed to come from an entirely different era."
Mike Furbank, head of learning at the local authority, East Riding Council, said the school had objected to phrases including "fat little queer." Even after the language was toned down, "it was still deemed as unacceptable for 4- to 11-year-olds to be exposed to," Furbank sa
Lee Hall
Tiny Spanish Company Launches Book-Sharing Site
24symbols
Tiny Spanish firm 24symbols has launched a digital book reading and sharing site modeled on European digital music service Spotify, aiming to generate income from publicity and subscriptions.
Users can read books for free if they accept viewing display ads in the margins, or pay a monthly fee to read without commercial publicity. The service was launched on Thursday and is currently available on computers and telephones.
"The advantage for users is they can read for free, if they view a bit of publicity," said Aitor Grandes, chief executive of the small firm, told Reuters in an interview.
The company aims to attract 8.5 percent of its users into premium subscription accounts.
24symbols
Greatest Challenge: Trying To Retire
Dalai Lama
In a lifetime spent advocating the plight of his Tibetan community, promoting inter-religious harmony and pleading for world peace, the Dalai Lama now faces perhaps his greatest challenge: trying to truly retire from politics.
In May, the Dalai Lama formally stepped down as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, giving up the political power that he and his predecessors as Dalai Lama have wielded over Tibetans for hundreds of years. Though he remains the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, his decision to abdicate is one of the biggest upheavals in the community since the Chinese crackdown led him to flee in 1959 into exile in India.
And it raises the question of whether a man worshipped by his people as a living deity can ever stop leading them.
There are other questions as well, of the legitimacy of the exile government to speak for all Tibetans, of China's refusal to talk to the new leaders and of whether elected representatives could ever make a decision contradicting the revered holy man.
Dalai Lama
Donations Help Legal Fight
Ex-Cheerleader
As one of her school's basketball stars approached the free-throw line to hit a shot during a 2009 playoff game, a cheerleader stepped away from her squad, folded her arms and stood in silence, refusing to root for the athlete she says raped her at a party in this Texas town.
Now, two years later, her silent protest is drawing new attention nationwide as the result of an unusual series of events: Suspended as a cheerleader but later reinstated, the 16-year-old and her family sued over her punishment, lost and ended up with $40,000 in penalties from the legal proceedings. Meanwhile, the basketball player settled the criminal case against him by pleading guilty to reduced charges.
An online campaign to help the former cheerleader's family with the legal costs has gained momentum on Facebook and Twitter and collected more than $23,000. The family also has appealed in federal court the judge's order for them to pay the school district's legal costs after their lawsuit was dismissed.
"It's really an awful statement to send on how you treat a teenage sexual assault victim," said Alex DiBranco, whose petition on Change.org has gathered more than 94,000 signatures asking the school district to not to make the family pay the fees. DiBranco, a New York-based women's rights advocate, got involved after reading about the case.
Ex-Cheerleader
Boots Schuller Off Board
Crystal Cathedral
The Rev. Robert H. Schuller has been voted off the board of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, the church he founded more than 50 years ago, the pioneering televangelist's son said Sunday.
Schuller wanted to enlarge the ministry's board of directors but members voted him off instead, said Robert A. Schuller, who was his father's designated successor but himself was ousted from the church by family members in 2008.
The move is the latest of several - some voluntary, some forced upon him - that have brought a diminished role in the California megachurch for the elder Schuller. It is not clear what role, if any, he'll still have.
Robert H. Schuller has been at odds about the church's direction with his two daughters, including Sheila Schuller Coleman, who has served as senior pastor since 2008. The church has seen a host of problems since then, including succession fights, dwindling attendance and most recently bankruptcy brought on by massive debts.
Crystal Cathedral
Sham Marriages
Marines
Military officials are charging three California-based Marine corporals with fraud and larceny for entering in a pair of sham marriages to collect housing funding, officials said.
The military alleges that a lesbian couple - one a Marine, the other a civilian - decided to live together off base and wanted to collect the $1,200 housing benefit granted to married Marines.
The female Marine found a male Marine willing to get married, allowing them to collect the housing benefit, and the civilian woman also eventually married a Marine and collected funds, 1st Lt. Maureen Dooley, a spokeswoman at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, said Saturday.
The female Marine, Cpl. Ashley Vice, told San Diego's KGTV-TV that she and her partner, Jaime Murphy, were forced to enter sham marriages because the military doesn't provide allowances for unmarried couples and they couldn't afford to live off base without the extra money. She and her partner only wanted to "be a family," Vice said.
Even after the military officially drops its ban against openly gay or lesbian members, same-sex couples, even if married, would still not be eligible because of a federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Marines
Holds Clues About Runaway Slaves
Dismal Swamp
The oppressive heat, venomous serpents and boot-snatching muck that made the Great Dismal Swamp a barrier to European settlement ever since colonial times also made it a haven for thousands of people escaping slavery before the Civil War.
This fall, a permanent exhibition will open to provide some detail about those lives, part of an expanding effort by the National Park Service and other agencies to recast the experience of pre-war slaves. Scholars are using sites like the Great Dismal Swamp, straddling the line between North Carolina and Virginia, to highlight a little-known side of history, in which the freedom trail for slaves didn't always run to the north.
"What you find with places like the Dismal Swamp is that there were oases within the South for people," said Michelle Lanier, a curator at the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites and Properties. "When you start to look at these communities that kind of created a safe haven or safer haven, it really explodes our simplified notion of what the underground railroad was."
The swamp is still an inhospitable place. Carefully edging his way along a path dotted with hip-deep patches of mud, a machete swinging by his side, American University professor Dan Sayers has been retracing the paths taken by some of those people for more than a decade. Sayers' research has led to the creation of the permanent exhibit, and to a greater understanding of people who left behind very few testaments to their lives.
Hunched over carefully dug holes, the researchers look for signs of human habitation. They've found dozens of artifacts, ranging from pot shards to musket balls to pieces of flintlock from a French gun made sometime between 1650 and 1800. The work requires a forensic level of attention, with signs that would pass without notice to the untrained eye sparking excitement from the students. Different shades of soil in a particular pattern, for example, could indicate a post hole for a wooden cabin, or perhaps a fire pit.
Dismal Swamp
Weekend Box Office
'Transformers'
Distributor Paramount Pictures estimated Monday that "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" pulled in $116.4 million domestically over the four-day Fourth of July weekend and $181.1 million since opening Tuesday night.
Director Michael Bay's third installment in the sci-fi franchise has added $217 million overseas, bringing its worldwide total to nearly $400 million.
The studio says 60 percent of domestic business came from premium-priced 3-D admissions, which cost a few dollars more than 2-D screenings. Overseas, 3-D admissions accounted for 70 percent of ticket sales.
The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, the animated adventure "Cars 2," slipped steeply in its second weekend with $32.1 million domestically, the movie losing steam more quickly than past features from Disney's Pixar Animation outfit.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Monday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.
1. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," $116.4 million ($217 million international).
2. "Cars 2," $32.1 million ($24.4 million international).
3. "Bad Teacher," $17.6 million.
4. "Larry Crowne," $15.7 million.
5. "Super 8," $9.5 million.
6. "Monte Carlo," $8.8 million.
7. "Green Lantern," $8 million.
8. "Mr. Popper's Penguins," $6.9 million.
9. "Bridesmaids," $4.4 million ($7.2 million international).
10. "Midnight in Paris," $4.3 million.
'Transformers'
In Memory
Jane Scott
Jane Scott, a rock music critic who followed everyone from the Beatles to Britney Spears during a long career that continued into her 80s, has died. She was 92.
The Plain Dealer, where Scott worked for a half-century, reported that a niece, Linda Scott, said her aunt died early Monday following a long illness. The newspaper did not say where Jane Scott died.
Small in stature and always wearing her signature red plastic eyeglasses, Jane Scott was a fixture on the Cleveland rock music scene from the mid-1960s until she retired in 2002, before her 83rd birthday.
She would be seen at shows carrying a large purse filled with her arsenal of concert gear - including earplugs and extra pens in case the star pocketed one to sign autographs - and wearing her backstage pass pinned to her lapel. That way, "if anyone tries to take it, they'd have to tear my blouse off," she said.
Scott was born in Cleveland and was a 1941 graduate of the University of Michigan, where she majored in English and drama. Her first day at The Plain Dealer was March 24, 1952, three days after Cleveland's Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the world's first rock concert.
She began as a society writer, penning columns for teens and senior citizens. It was the Beatles who changed her career and life, though she was more than 20 years older than most of their fans.
"The Beatles came here on Sept. 15, 1964, and naturally I went," Scott told The Associated Press when she retired. "I wasn't assigned to it, but I went and I realized - well you would have realized it, too - that a whole new world had opened up for the kids."
Becoming The Plain Dealer's rock writer, Scott was the only woman at the news conference when the Beatles returned to Cleveland in 1966. She would later cover a Who's Who of rock royalty, including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin and David Bowie. The Doors' Jim Morrison once invited her backstage for a beer.
When Bruce Springsteen played Cleveland in 1975, Scott's review predicted, "He will be the next superstar."
At the time of her retirement, the then-octogenarian rock critic said she knew better than to talk about her beat with her old friends from the University of Michigan.
"What are they going to say if I talk about Britney Spears? They've never heard of her," Scott said.
Jane Scott
In Memory
Anna Massey
Anna Massey, the member of an acting dynasty whose roles ranged from lonely spinsters to Margaret Thatcher, has died. She was 73.
The actress was born in 1937 into a performing family - her father was Canadian actor Raymond Massey and her mother British actress Adrianne Allen. Her brother Daniel Massey also became an actor, and her godfather was director John Ford.
Massey made her West End stage debut at 17 in "The Reluctant Debutante" and her film debut in Ford's 1958 police procedural "Gideon of Scotland Yard."
She had roles in films including Michael Powell's classic chiller "Peeping Tom," Otto Preminger's "Bunny Lake is Missing," Alfred Hitchcock's "Frenzy" and the 2002 adaptation of "The Importance of Being Earnest," in which she played the comic governess Miss Prism.
Massey worked most frequently in television and was a stalwart of British period dramas, often cast as a waspish spinster or maiden aunt. She appeared in TV adaptations of Anthony Trollope's "The Pallisers," Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" and many others.
In 2006, she played former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the TV drama "Pinochet in Suburbia."
Massey won a BAFTA, Britain's top acting award, for her role in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner's novel "Hotel du Lac."
In 2004 she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama.
Massey is survived by her husband, Uri Andres, and David Huggins, her son from a first marriage to the late actor Jeremy Brett.
Anna Massey
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