Recommended Reading
from Bruce
James Adams: 20 Most Amazing Pictures of Outer Space
As humans have begun to explore the mysteries of outer space, both by sending unmanned probes and physically traveling beyond the Earth's atmosphere, a vast number of amazing pictures have been collected. Often photographs of outer space are recorded for the purposes of science, but are also often breathtakingly beautiful images revealing the wonders of the universe. This post brings together 20 of the most astounding pictures of space ever created.
Kinetic Rain (Vimeo)
"If you're ever in Singapore's Changi Airport, check out Art+Com's "Kinetic Rain." This art installation consists of 608 aluminum and copper balls suspended from steel cables. Computer controls move them in a dance through the air, forming patterns and shapes. The video is mesmerizing." -- Neatorama
Paul Krugman: Centrist Self-Parody (New York Times)
I've written before that "fanatical centrist" is not an oxymoron; in fact, it's a type that makes up a large part of our pundit class - people so wedded to their self-image as centrists standing between the extremes of the two parties that they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that one party already advocates all that they are calling for.
Benjy Sarlin: Pundits Urge President Obama To Back President Obama's Proposals (Taking Points Memo)
President Obama would have this election in the bag, according to a number of leading columnists, if only he would act more like President Obama. A number of pundits are turning up the volume on demands that the White House offer a jobs plan based on new infrastructure spending, a long-term deficit plan that includes taxes and entitlement cuts and a market-based health care plan, among other requests. Obama will have a hard time taking their advice, however, given that he's already proposed those very ideas.
Roger Ebert: This cripple is a Smart Ass
Some of the fiercest and most useful satire on the web right now is being written by a man who signs himself Smart Ass Cripple. Using his wheelchair as a podium, he ridicules government restrictions, cuts through hypocrisy, ignores the PC firewalls surrounding his disability, and is usually very funny. Because he has been disabled since birth, he uses that as a license to write things that others may think but do not dare say.
Mark Morford: "Welcome to ObamaCare! Please, No Stabbing" (Huffington Post)
Did you see? Just last week? The boisterous waving of signs, the cheering in the streets, humans actually yelling and stomping their feet in celebration of the Supreme Court's narrow, pinched decision over exhausted ol' health care reform. Some celebrants were literally weeping aloud that their sick child or cancer-stricken relative will now able to receive a small amount of basic care without bankruptcy or foreclosure or doom. Amazing.
Marilyn Preston: Health Care Reform Lives! This Is What Hopey Changey Looks Like (Creators Syndicate)
Do you remember the day you learned to ride a bike? Your first kiss? Where you were when you heard the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act? I do. I've been tracking healthy lifestyle issues since this column first began in - hold on now - 1976, and clearly the Supreme Court decision on June 28, 2012, is the best new thing in health care since the invention of hand-washing.
Lucy Mangan: Sindy and me (Guardian)
'It took me years to work out why I hated her.'
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'
Day 1
Gulf Fritillary
Came across a couple of Gulf Fritillary larva
on the back fence, so it looks like we'll have a third year of raising butterflies. : )
Click on any picture for a larger version.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunnier and warmer.
Heading To Hershey, PA
Farm Aid
The annual Farm Aid benefit concert is coming to Hershey in September as the country's small and medium-sized farms face a shifting economic landscape, but board member Dave Matthews sees some hopeful signs in the uncertainty.
Matthews, who will perform at the Hersheypark show on Sept. 22 with longtime collaborator Tim Reynolds, sees demand growing for the types of farm products produced by smaller operations.
Farm Aid has been held nearly every year since 1985, including in western Pennsylvania a decade ago, and has raised more than $40 million to help keep family farmers on their land.
Tickets for this year's show go on sale Friday. Matthews' fellow board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp are also slated to perform, as are Jack Johnson, ALO, Pegi Young and The Survivors, and Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real.
Pennsylvania ranks third nationally in direct farmer-to-consumer sales, according to Farm Aid, and sixth with some 600 organic farms. Agriculture is the state's leading industry, and south-central Pennsylvania, where Hershey is located, includes vast areas of highly fertile farmland. The last time the concert was held in Pennsylvania was 2002, in Burgettstown, outside of Pittsburgh.
Farm Aid
Pakistan's Only Nobel Laureate
Abdus Salam
The pioneering work of Abdus Salam, Pakistan's only Nobel laureate, helped lead to the apparent discovery of the subatomic "God particle" last week. But the late physicist is no hero at home, where his name has been stricken from school textbooks.
Praise within Pakistan for Salam, who also guided the early stages of the country's nuclear program, faded decades ago as Muslim fundamentalists gained power. He belonged to the Ahmadi sect, which has been persecuted by the government and targeted by Taliban militants who view its members as heretics.
Salam, a child prodigy born in 1926 in what was to become Pakistan after the partition of British-controlled India, won more than a dozen international prizes and honors. In 1979, he was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, which theorizes how fundamental forces govern the overall dynamics of the universe. He died in 1996.
Despite his achievements, Salam's name appears in few textbooks and is rarely mentioned by Pakistani leaders or the media. By contrast, fellow Pakistani physicist A.Q. Khan, who played a key role in developing the country's nuclear bomb and later confessed to spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, is considered a national hero. Khan is a Muslim.
Hoodbhoy said his body was returned to Pakistan in 1996 after he died in Oxford, England, and was buried under a gravestone that read "First Muslim Nobel Laureate." A local magistrate ordered that the word "Muslim" be erased.
Abdus Salam
India Buys Papers
Mahatma Gandhi
The Indian government has bought thousands of letters, papers and photographs which shed light on the life of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, days before they were to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London, a government official said on Monday.
India paid around 60 million rupees or $1.1 million for the papers, which cover Gandhi's time in South Africa, his return to India and his contentious relationship with his family. The auction that was to be held on July 10 has been called off.
The documents previously belonged to relatives of Hermann Kallenbach, a German-born Jewish architect who met Gandhi in South Africa in 1904 and was impressed by his ideas.
The Indian leader began his civil rights work and philosophy of non-violent resistance during his 20-year sojourn in the African country. He remained friends with Kallenbach after returning to India in 1915.
Mahatma Gandhi
Breaks Up
Chumbawamba
Chumbawamba, the British "anarchist" band responsible for that 1997 smash hit "Tubthumping," announced it was breaking up, in a posting caught by Punk News Monday, and if you're wondering what took them so long, they were probably trying to avoid hearing the obvious jokes about them "getting back up again."
Yes, it seems that the only thing anyone knows about the band is the refrain from "Tubthumping," which goes, "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down."The actual reason the band stayed together so long is that they were busymaking music
Another joke, were one inclined to make it, might hinge on the fact that the band didn't have the most market savvy approach to its product: They once famously encouraged fans to steal their CDs, which lead to some chains pulling them from shelves, according to Billboard.
Chumbawamba
Workers Occupy Italian Film Studios
Cinecitta
Workers have occupied the famous Cinecitta film studios in Rome where classics like "Quo Vadis" and "Cleopatra" were shot in a protest against a major renovation project, trade unionists said on Monday.
"Dozens of workers and artisans will be forced to leave," Alberto Manzini, a regional official from Italy's biggest trade union, CGIL, told AFP.
"We do not see how this project will develop the studios. It is inconceivable to close something that is part of the culture of this country."
The owners of Cinecitta say the sprawling and ageing structure needs a major overhaul and argue that the global film business means the studio has to be more competitive but they say no jobs will be lost in the renovation.
Cinecitta
Nugent Drummer Charged
Mick Brown
A drummer for classic unhinged rocker Ted Nugent faces several charges after police in Bangor, Maine, say he was seen driving drunk in a golf cart stolen from a concert venue.
Officers working at Nugent's Sunday night concert were told that 55-year-old Mick Brown was intoxicated, had stolen the cart and was driving it recklessly on a foot path. Police say when officers tried to stop the cart, Brown sped past them and shoved a security officer. Two security officers then removed Brown from the cart, and he was arrested.
Brown, of Cave Creek, Ariz., was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, driving to endanger, theft and assault. He was released on $4,000 bail.
Mick Brown
Avoids Taxes
Denise Rich
Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship - and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill.
Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and glossy figure in Democratic and European royalty circles, renounced her American passport in November, according to her lawyer.
Her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg, appeared in the Federal Register on April 30 in a quarterly list of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship and permanent residents who handed in their green cards.
Rich, who wrote songs recorded by Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige and Jessica Simpson, is the latest bold-faced name to join a wave of wealthy people renouncing their American citizenship. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin gave up his U.S. passport to become a citizen of Singapore, an offshore tax haven, before the company's initial public offering in May.
Denise Rich
Curbs Churn
Sirius XM
Sirius XM Radio Inc raised its full-year subscriber and revenue targets, fueled partly by strength in the auto industry, where the satellite radio operator gets most of its customers.
Sirius, which competes with free Internet radio services like Pandora Media Inc, raised its full-year subscriber forecast on Monday to about 1.6 million from 1.3 million.
Sirius, which gets the vast majority of its subscribers through new U.S. car sales, said it added 622,042 net subscribers in the second quarter, up 38 percent from the year-ago quarter and well ahead of estimates for 410,000 and 495,000 from two analysts contact by Reuters.
Along with strong auto demand, Evercore analyst Bryan Kraft said the numbers also suggested Sirius did a better job than he expected at curbing customer cancellations, also known as churn.
Sirius XM
Hokkaido Bound
I'll Have Another
The owner of I'll Have Another says he sold his Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner to a farm in Japan for $10 million, a price that far exceeded any amount he was offered in the United States.
J. Paul Reddam made his comments in a blog appearing on the bloodhorse.com website. He writes there were two offers from U.S. breeding operations, one valued at just under $5 million, the other at $3 million.
Reddam also notes that the rights of Derby and Preakness runner-up Bodemeister "recently purportedly sold for about 13 million in America."
The colt made a farewell appearance at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday before heading to a career at stud at Shigeyuki Okada's Big Red Farm on the island of Hokkaido.
I'll Have Another
Makes UK Asylum Bid
Saudi Princess
A Saudi princess, the granddaughter of the nation's founder, is seeking asylum in Britain over fears she could be persecuted by members of her family at home, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
Princess Sara bint Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, also known as the "Barbie" princess due to her pampered upbringing, said she had also applied to the Home Office for political asylum for her four daughters, according to the report.
The divorced princess currently lives in London after moving to Britain in 2007 following a falling-out with her 80-year-old father prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.
It is the first time such a claim has been made by a senior member of the ruling family.
Tensions are currently high within the Saudi royal family due to the illness of King Abdullah and the recent death of Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.
The deceased prince supported Sara as he was also opposed to her father, and it was reported that his recent death may have sparked the asylum request.
Saudi Princess
Dying Art?
Cursive
Judith Thurman has penned a plea to preserve the dying art of cursive in the New Yorker's Page-Turner blog. It's a plea complete with the image of another historical artifact, the Declaration of Independence (all the better to celebrate our nation's birthday last week!). It is a nice plea, a poignant plea, a desire to keep something of the past along with us as we hurtle into the future. And, yes, maybe if we lose cursive, we lose something-what we don't lose is the opportunity to worry about yet another thing that may become extinct in our lifetime. What we don't lose, either, is another chance to talk about cursive.
Being sad about the predicted death of cursive is not exactly new. A little over a year ago, Kate Zezima made "The Case for Cursive" in a much-discussed piece in The New York Times, writing, "For centuries, cursive handwriting has been an art. To a growing number of young people, it is a mystery." She goes on to worry that if kids are no longer taught cursive-public schools in most states are phasing it out-they may grow up without important motor control training (Wii?) and won't even be able to read the Constitution.
Yet, many things common in ancient times are a mystery to us today, and we appear no worse for wear-it's not like man was born with a feather quill in his hand and the inherent ability to write script (the creation of modern cursive is generally credited to an Italian named Albus Manutius, who originated the form of script back in the 1400s). And plenty of documents that existed prior to our ability to read them have been translated so that we can know what they said. The price of progress, after all, means that some of what came before will be lost; other things will be changed and, we hope, bettered.
Cursive
In Memory
Martin Pakledinaz
Two-time Tony Award winner Martin Pakledinaz, who designed hundreds of costumes for stars such as Sutton Foster and Patti LuPone, has died, his agent said Monday. He was 58.
Pakledinaz died Sunday at his home in New York after a long battle with cancer, according to Patrick Herold, his agent.
Pakledinaz received Tonys for his designs for "Kiss Me Kate" in 2000 - with Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell - and "Thoroughly Modern Millie," two years later with Foster, whom he also dressed for her Tony-winning turn in "Anything Goes."
Pakledinaz's additional Tony nominations include his work on "Anything Goes," ''Lend Me A Tenor," ''Blithe Spirit," ''Gypsy," ''The Pajama Game," ''Golden Child" and "The Life." He most recently nabbed a nomination for this season's "Nice Work If You Can Get It."
He also designed costumes for the San Francisco Ballet, the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Metropolitan Opera's "Iphigenie en Tauride," the 2011 Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular and the film "My Week With Marilyn."
Other highlights include costuming Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson in Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie" in 1993, "Grease" with Laura Osnes, "The Golden Ticket" at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Kevin Kline as Hamlet in 1990.
Pakledinaz grew up in Sterling Heights, Mich., and graduated from Wayne State University in 1975. He got his master's at the University of Michigan and moved to New York in 1977.
His work in opera includes the recent Juilliard production of "The Bartered Bride," directed by Stephen Wadsworth. He also had an enduring collaboration with the renowned director Peter Sellars, with whom he created new productions in Spain; Salzburg, Austria; Paris; New York and at the Santa Fe Opera.
He is survived by six brothers and one sister, nine nieces and nephews, and a godson.
Martin Pakledinaz
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