Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Both Sides Now? (NY Times Column)
Many in the news media feel the need to set up a false equivalence between a candidate who lies repeatedly and his opponent.
Andrew Tobias: Testing Your Vocabulary; Saving Your Democracy; Interferepence
Mike Pence is deeply religious. Wonderful. Nothing in the Democratic platform platform would interfere with his right to live as he wants. But his agenda deeply interferes with women's lives - he would not allow them to control their own bodies - and deeply interferes with my own. He would deny my right to full equality. He would forbid my marrying the person I love. He even favored diverting money from HIV/AIDS prevention in order to fund "conversion therapy." Better, in his view, to try to change people's sexual orientation* than try to prevent the spread of AIDS. Welcome to the Republican ticket.
Online English Vocabulary Size Test
Ever wonder about your vocabulary size? Even if you are a daily English speaker or a native English speaker, you still might find this test challenging! We conducted academic research and looked at online resources to design the model of this quiz. We believe we've prepared the best quiz for you!
Michelle Hanson: It's marvellous that summer's here, but am I too old to sunbathe? (The Guardian)
I'm a melting slug in this heat, what with the itchy, pink blotches and fatigue. Perhaps it's best to stay indoors.
Lindy West: I am a new woman now. I am a Pokémon Go genius (The Guardian)
I get parents' frustration about kids always being on their phones … but I now own 13 worms and parrots that I tracked down and tamed with my bare thumbs.
David Sax: "At your next concert: stop filming, start listening" (The Guardian)
Musicians and Silicon Valley are calling time on bad mobile phone etiquette. A richer engagement with memory might be the result.
Bridie Jabour: "Taylor Swift's 'downfall': what the online celebrations really say" (The Guardian)
Gleeful celebrations of singer supposedly being brought low by video released by Kim Kardashian West speak volumes about attitudes to successful women.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Superhero Materials
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
ANARCHY AND COMMUNISM.
IS THAT AN ECHO?
FEEL THE WARM!
SHALL WE DANCE!
SICK FUCKING PUKES!
"FOLLICULAR SUSPENSE!"
THE SPECULATOR!
REQUIEM FOR A PIG!
TRUMP AND TRUMPER!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Picked the first figs of the season.
Crashes RNC
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert is no stranger to mocking the GOP, and the late night jokester was back at it Sunday, hijacking a microphone ahead of the RNC to poke fun at one of his favorite targets: Donald Trump.
Colbert, who is in Cleveland all week recording The Late Show live from the RNC, dressed up as The Hunger Games' MC Caesar Flickerman and called the event "The hungry for power games."
"Look, I know I'm not supposed to be up here, but let's be honest, neither is Donald Trump," he said on stage Sunday at the Quicken Loans Arena.
Security eventually came and escorted the comedian off the stage.
The video has gotten more than 600,000 views in less than 24 hours after being posted.
Stephen Colbert
HBO Reveals Season 7 Debut
'Game of Thrones'
HBO has confirmed a later premiere date for the next season of the popular "Game of Thrones" series, revealing it has been pushed back from from its normal March/April debut.
"Game of Thrones" Season 7 will now premiere in the summer of 2017, with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss divulging that part of that delay is due to the fact that they "need their locations to be more wintery" (via Collider).
Additionally, the network confirmed that Game of Thrones" Season 7 will consist of just seven episodes, unlike the 10 episodes that were delivered to eager fans for previous season, with production to be based in Northern Ireland, with some filming also taking place in Spain and Iceland.
The later start date also means that the series will not be eligible for the Emmy Awards until the 2018 installment rolls around. As previously announced, Season 7's episodes will be directed by Alan Taylor, Jeremy Podeswa, Mark Mylod, and Matt Shakman.
'Game of Thrones'
'Art of the Deal' Ghostwriter Speaks
T-rump
Tony Schwartz was the ghostwriter for Donald Trump's 1987 book The Art of the Deal, and now he's speaking out critically about the Republican presidential candidate in a tell-all interview with The New Yorker. The former writer currently owns a consulting firm and says he feels deeply remorseful for any of the assistance he provided Trump in garnering more success.
"I put lipstick on a pig," Schwartz told The New Yorker, as he spoke about his experience shadowing Trump as research for the book. "I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is."
"I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization," continued Schwartz.
Schwartz earned half of the book's $500,000 advance and half of the royalties, which are several million dollars. This year, he is pledging all of his Art of the Deal royalties to very specific charities: the National Immigration Law Center, Human Rights Watch, the Center for the Victims of Torture, the National Immigration Forum and the Tahirih Justice Center. While he doesn't feel he's absolving himself, he says he likes that he's using the money to "donate to the people whose rights Trump seeks to abridge."
"Lying is second nature to him. More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true."
T-rump
Dark Secrets
Le Corbusier
Love him or loathe him, few people have changed the world we live in more than Le Corbusier, one of the fathers of modern architecture, whose works were placed Sunday on UNESCO's prestigious World Heritage List .
His ideas about utilitarian concrete buildings have altered the face of cities across the planet and have had an equally profound influence on urban planning.
From his modernist masterplanning of Chandigarh in northern India to Paris, which he dreamed of levelling to make way for his own more rational city, the Swiss-born designer was never afraid of thinking big.
He left his greatest mark on France, his adopted home, where no less than 10 of the 17 projects which UNESCO classified as world heritage sites are located.
From the La Cite Radieuse housing project in Marseille to the Dominican monastery of La Tourette near Lyon and La Villa Savoye near Paris, it is also where he left some of his greatest masterpieces.
Le Corbusier
Murdochs To Oust
Ailes
Rupert Murdoch (R-Evil Incarnate), executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox Inc, and his sons James and Lachlan agree that Fox News Channel boss Roger Ailes should leave the company but they have not settled on the timing, New York magazine reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources.
Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson has sued Ailes, claiming sexual harassment. Ailes has denied the charges. Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an internal investigation.
New York magazine reported that two sources briefed on the investigation said that all three Murdochs "have settled on removing" the 76-year-old Ailes. Lachlan Murdoch is executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox and James Murdoch is chief executive officer.
After reviewing the initial findings of the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison investigation, James Murdoch "is said to be arguing that Ailes should be presented with a choice this week to resign or face being fired," the magazine reported.
Lachlan "is more aligned with their father, who thinks that no action should be taken until after the GOP convention this week," the magazine reported.
Ailes
Top Executives Reserve Right To Resign
Viacom
Viacom Inc Chief Executive Philippe Dauman and Chief Operating Officer Thomas Dooley have reserved their legal right to resign "with good reason" in a move to protect tens of millions of dollars in potential severance pay.
The move is the latest in the battle for control of Viacom, part of Sumner Redstone's $40 billion media empire, which has caused a rift between Redstone, backed by his daughter, and his long-time lieutenant Dauman.
According to regulatory filings made public on Monday, Dauman and Dooley sent letters reserving the right to resign if a judge issues a final order approving Redstone's action last month to remove Dauman and four other directors from Viacom's board.
Monday's move is important as executives are generally entitled to receive severance pay if they resign with good reason, but not if they are removed. Dauman and Dooley's employment agreements state they can resign with good reason if there are changes to Viacom's board.
Under their employment agreements, Dooley could receive more than $30 million in severance compensation and Dauman could receive more than $90 million, according to the company's most recent proxy filing.
Viacom
Lives Dictated
Saudi Women
Saudi Arabia's guardianship system, which bars women from traveling abroad, obtaining a passport, marrying or exiting prison without the consent of a male relative, remains the most significant impediment to realizing women's rights in the kingdom, according to a report released Sunday by a leading human rights group.
The Human Rights Watch study takes on increasing significance as the kingdom works to implement its "Vision 2030" and "National Transformation Plan" to wean the country off its dependence on oil, including government targets to boost women's participation in the workforce.
The report also comes just seven months after Saudi women were allowed the right to run and vote for the first time in the country's only local elections, for municipal council seats.
The report finds that even with these greater opportunities, a woman's life in Saudi Arabia rests largely on "the good will" of her male guardian - often a father, husband, brother, or in some cases her son.
Saudi Women
Genetically Modified Silkworms
'Dragon Silk'
Genetically modified silkworms that spin special fibers, known as "Dragon Silk," could soon be used to protect soldiers in the U.S. Army, its manufacturer, Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, announced this week.
The U.S. Army recently awarded the Michigan-based company a contract to test its silk products, Kraig Biocraft Laboratories announced on Tuesday (July 12). Researchers at the lab will collect the modified silk and give it to another company. That company will weave it into fabric and then give it to the U.S. Army for testing, the company said.
"Dragon Silk scores very highly in tensile strength and elasticity," which makes is one of the toughest fibers known to man, Jon Rice, the chief operations officer at Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, said in a statement.
Despite its mythical name, Dragon Silk is actually the work of genetic engineers. It's widely known, at least in the materials industry, that spider silk has exceptional strength, resilience and flexibility, Rice told Live Science.
"Spider silk is five to 10 times stronger than conventional silkworm silk," Rice said. "It's also, in some cases, as much as twice as elastic. It's even tougher than Kevlar."
'Dragon Silk'
Discovered in UK Grave
Ancient Roman Soldier
The 1,600-year-old remains of a middle-age man buried alongside an ornate belt decorated with images of dolphins and dogs have been found in a grave in Leicester, England, archaeologists report.
The belt's style suggests that its owner worked as a solider or civil servant during the Late Roman period, during the second half of the fourth century A.D or the early fifth century A.D., the archaeologists, from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS), said on July 7.
The team made the discovery during an excavation in which they dug up 83 skeletons from a Late Roman cemetery in Leicester's West End. One of the graves, a simple one dug into mudstone by the bank of the River Soar, held the middle-age man's remains, as well as the extraordinary belt.
The cemetery is located southwest of an ancient Roman town and close to what was once a major Roman road known as Fosse Way. But despite Rome's extensive settlements in England, it's rare to find such an ornate belt that has most of its parts, including the buckle, belt plate and strap end, ULAS researchers said.
Ancient Roman Soldier
In Memory
David Horowitz
David Horowitz, the well-respected Hollywood publicist known for his close association with Barbra Streisand and success with Academy Award campaigns, has died. He was 86.
Horowitz, who also engineered Bill Clinton's appearances playing saxophone on The Tonight Show and The Arsenio Hall Show, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, according to his wife, Lynn.
Horowitz began his close association with Streisand with the 1968 film Funny Girl, followed by Hello, Dolly! (1969), On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). He also arranged for her to serve as one of the star performers at a benefit concert for civil rights, attended by 18,000, at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968.
Horowitz also promoted such memorable films as The Graduate (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), The French Connection (1971), Tommy (1975), All the President's Men (1976) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and such television projects as Roots, The Thorn Birds and Katharine Hepburn's The Corn Is Green.
Horowitz served as president of corporate entertainment, president of the film division and president of the TV division at Rogers & Cowan; advertising and publicity vp with Kirk Douglas' Bryna Productions; unit publicist for several Billy Wilder pictures, including Irma La Douce (1963) and The Fortune Cookie (1966); and vp publicity at TriStar to handle The Natural (1984), at Robert Redford's request.
Beginning in 1990, for nearly two decades, Horowitz specialized in Oscar campaigns. He polled media, industry tastemakers and studio executives and then issued the results to key press and Academy members in what became an influential document.
Highlights of his campaigns included the New Line sweep in 2004 for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which took 11 Oscars out of 11 nominations, still a record; back-to-back best picture wins for Orion Pictures' Dances With Wolves (1990) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991); and many other wins and scores of nominations for Orion, Warner, Miramax, Paramount and New Line.
Horowitz worked with top stars and filmmakers including Hepburn, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Mel Brooks, George Burns, Diahann Carroll, Kevin Costner, Bette Davis, Judi Dench, Richard Dreyfuss, Jodie Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Dorothy Lamour, Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Bob Newhart, Al Pacino, Richard Pryor, Don Rickles, The Rolling Stones, Rosalind Russell, Steven Spielberg, Tina Turner, The Who, Flip Wilson and The Muppets.
In 1988, after relatively unknown Arkansas Gov. Clinton gained notoriety for a speech at the Democratic Convention that ran too long, Clinton friends and TV producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason sought Horowitz's help to undo the perceived gaffe by having the governor play the sax on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Horowitz got the booking, Clinton played and Carson got a huge laugh by bringing out a giant hourglass at the start of the interview. "That was a good night for Clinton," Thomason recalled.
The Thomasons again asked Horowitz for advice to bolster Clinton's candidacy for president in 1992. That led to another late-night sax gig, this time on The Arsenio Hall Show, where Clinton jammed on "Heartbreak Hotel" and "God Bless the Child." The appearance increased Clinton's popularity among minority and young voters.
David H. Horowitz was born on July 21, 1929, in New York City. He soon moved to Miami with his family and when he was 11, they came to Los Angeles. He graduated from University High School at age 15 and entered UCLA as a pre-med student, but a summer job with an advertising agency convinced him medicine was not for him.
After graduation, he worked at KERO-TV in Bakersfield, Calif., first as a cameraman and then as a director of local shows. After three years, he returned to advertising in the mid-1950s as an account executive at The Goodman Organization, handling Warner Bros., United Artists and American International Pictures.
A colleague at Goodman told Horowitz that filmmaker Robert Aldrich was seeking a publicity vp. In the interview, Aldrich asked about Horowitz's experience. "Well, I do know advertising but, actually, nothing about publicity." "You're hired," Aldrich said. "You're the first honest publicist I've ever met."
His campaign helped Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) become a critical and commercial success and garner five Oscar nominations, including one for Davis for best actress, and one win.
In 1959, Horowitz married Lynn Rockman. They lived in their home in Westwood for the last 52 years.
In addition to his wife of 56 years, Horowitz is survived by his sister-in-law Norma; godchildren Annelis and Will Laakkos and their parents Keith and Betsy; and surrogate daughter Linda Dresie and her family.
Services will be held at Mount Sinai Memorial Park on Forest Lawn Drive in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. on July 25. Contributions can be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center or to Mazon, an organization whose aim is to end hunger in the U.S. and Israel.
David Horowitz
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