Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman's Column: Credibility, Chutzpah and Debt (New York Times)
The real question facing America, even in purely fiscal terms, isn't whether we'll trim a trillion here or a trillion there from deficits. It is whether the extremists now blocking any kind of responsible policy can be defeated and marginalized. (This column can be accessed free through Krugman's Twitter account.)
Michael Moore: "30 Years Ago [Aug 5]: The Day the Middle Class Died"
From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?"
Connie Schultz: True Love Sure is a Bargain (Creators Syndicate)
For a few short years, I thought my frantic-parent days were long behind me.
Rachel Maddow Continues Her Reign of Greatness on MSNBC (AfterElton)
"We try every day to get Republicans on the show and it's very, very hard to get them to come on the show," Rachel said. "One of the ways I try to make it so that we can get more Republicans on the show is by trying doubly, tripley, quadruply hard to be as fair and as cordial as possible so that people feel it's a welcoming environment to say what they think, and say what they feel even if they are in disagreement with me while they are saying it. That's my constant attitude toward it."
Jeff Daly: "Experience: I found my sister after 47 years" (Guardian)
'Just before I turned six, Molly disappeared. If I mentioned her, I was sent to my room.'
Paul Constant: Books Without Borders (The Stranger)
My Life at the World's Dumbest Bookstore Chain.
'Ghost World' Revisited (PopMatters)
Terry Zwigoff's film serves as a reminder of what independent cinema could and should be, yet often isn't.
"Ringer" Star Sarah Michelle Gellar Slays With Her Charm (AfteElton)
Bridget is the recovering alcoholic on the run from the mob, who takes over wealthy, glamorous Siobhan's identity after the latter mysteriously disappears during a boating excursion. Soon enough, Bridget discovers there was much more to Siobhan than meets the eye. Twisty plot developments ensue.
Roger Ebert's Journal: Memories are made of this
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Gene Siskel and I fought like cats and dogs, and we made some good television. During those early years for "Sneak Previews" our favorite occupation was dreaming up "special editions" which were sort of like the "think pieces" we wrote for our papers.
Henry Rollins: Who Killed Amy Winehouse? (LA Weekly)
It's been two weeks since Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment in London, and her passing happened at almost the same time as the awful events in Norway. It was a bad weekend for news. It is almost impossible to get one's head around the pain, sadness and complete shock of what countless people are enduring in Norway and all over 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."
wrote:
is taking some time off to re-set his sleepy-time clock.
3 4 5 6 7 8 CaterpillarsGulf Fritillary Butterfly
Here are today's pictures:
Caterpillar #1 - pupated (7/24/11) (not looking so good)
Caterpillar #2 - pupated (7/26/11)
Caterpillar #3 - pupated (8/01/11)
Caterpillar #4 has disappeared. Don't know if it's pupating somewhere or if a wasp got it.
Caterpillar #5 died while pupating (08/07/11)
Caterpillar #6
Caterpillar #7
Caterpillar #8 - the newest addition
Gulf Fritillary Butterfly Archive
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Middle Class Political Economist:
Timothy Sinclair, the leading political science expert on credit rating agencies, guest blogs today
http://middleclasspoliticaleconomist.blogspot.com/2011/08/entitlement-programs-are-target-of-this.html
Middle Class Political Economist: Entitlement Programs are the Target of this Downgrade
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Gotta love that Coastal Eddy!
Two Benefits
Haiti
Former President Bill Clinton will be co-hosting a New York City gala to benefit The Stiller Foundation that's building schools in Haiti.
The foundation says he'll host the Sept. 23 fundraiser with actor Ben Stiller and New York art dealer David Zwirner at the Skylight Soho.
The gala will be held a day after "Artists for Haiti," a benefit auction at Christie's. The auction will feature works donated by artists including Jasper Johns and Jeff Koons.
All proceeds will go to support nonprofit groups already working in Haiti.
Haiti
Former CNN Chief Named Current TV President
David Bohrman
A former CNN Washington bureau chief is the new president of Al Gore's Current TV.
Current said Monday that David Bohrman is replacing Mark Rosenthal, who left as Current chief last month.
Besides running the Washington bureau of CNN for a decade, Bohrman in May had become CNN's senior vice president and chief innovation officer.
The announcement was made by Gore, the former vice president and the network's chairman, and co-founder Joel Hyatt, who is chief executive officer.
David Bohrman
Chicago Names Street
'Buddy Guy Way'
Chicago blues great Buddy Guy now has his own street.
The city of Chicago has renamed the stretch of Wabash Street in front of his club, Legends, "Buddy Guy Way."
The blues guitarist says he "wanted to cry" when the honor was bestowed Sunday. Chicago Alderman Bob Fioretti read a proclamation from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" as Guy received a copy of the street sign.
He celebrated his 75th birthday on July 30.
Guy was born in Louisiana in 1936 and moved to Chicago in 1957. He started a career as a session musician, backing blues legends such as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter before recording his own music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.
'Buddy Guy Way'
Cancels Tour Dates
Gregg Allman
Rock legend Gregg Allman has canceled tour dates from Aug. 26 to Sept. 15 because of a persistent illness.
A statement from Allman's publicist on Monday says the 63-year-old has an "upper respiratory condition" that will require several days of hospitalization and four to six weeks of bed rest.
Allman underwent a successful liver transplant last year and returned to the road just a few months later.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee canceled the final four dates of his recent European tour because of the same illness. Doctors had hoped the rest would resolve the ailment, but Allman remained sick.
Gregg Allman
Army Approves Atheism-Themed Concert at Fort Bragg
Rock Beyond Belief
A concert event organized by atheist, agnostic and other non-theist soldiers has been cleared by the Army to take place next spring at Fort Bragg, concert organizers and a spokesman for the post said Monday.
Organizers planned to hold the Rock Beyond Belief event this year, but they canceled after saying Bragg leadership was not providing the same support it gave to an evangelical Christian concert last fall.
"You know those goosebumps you get when your favorite song hits that sweet spot? I got those," said Sgt. Justin Griffith, main organizer of the event and the military director of American Atheists, in an email. "I was overcome with joy and a sense of vindication."
The plan is to hold the event on March 31 at the main parade field at Fort Bragg, where the Christian-themed Rock the Fort concert was held. Famed atheist Richard Dawkins is scheduled to appear, along with musicians, speakers and other entertainment.
The event had its origin in the Rock the Fort concert last fall, which was organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Groups like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State opposed the event, saying it was an unconstitutional use of military resources aimed at winning converts to Christianity. Military leaders at the time said any private event, regardless of religious orientation, would receive the same level of support, and Griffith, stationed at Bragg, decided to take them up on that.
Rock Beyond Belief
Mountain Peak Hits Snag
John Denver
A movement to name a Colorado mountain peak after the late John Denver has hit a snag.
The effort has gained momentum in recent weeks as thousands of people signed a petition to recognize the singer with a mountain near where he wrote his hit, "Rocky Mountain High." Denver is a revered figure in Colorado - so much that it made "Rocky Mountain High" an official state song.
The peak in question is on Mount Sopris, named after a man who led a prospecting expedition near the mountain. It's also in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area, which poses a problem for the proposal, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
The board's executive secretary, Lou Yost, said renaming the peak could be forbidden under a federal wilderness law.
He said that based on the board's interpretation of the Wilderness Act of 1964, applying any more new names to features in wilderness areas detracts from the wilderness experience. Exceptions could be made for safety or educational purposes, he added.
John Denver
Judge May Allow Lawsuit To Continue
'Hurt Locker'
A federal judge has indicated she is leaning toward dismissing most of an Iraq war veteran's lawsuit against the makers of "The Hurt Locker" but may allow him to pursue his key claim that the Oscar-winning film is based on his life.
The producers, director and screenwriter of the movie had been seeking an outright dismissal of Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver's lawsuit, but U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Nguyen indicated in a tentative ruling that she may allow him to pursue a misappropriation of name and likeness claim. Her draft ruling indicated that she plans to dismiss Sarver's claims of defamation, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Sarver sued in March 2010, days before it went on to win six Academy Awards, including for best picture and honors for director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal.
Boal was embedded with Sarver's unit in Iraq and spent a month profiling him for a story he wrote for Playboy magazine titled "The Man in the Bomb Suit." The sergeant claims Boal had no right use his life as a template for "Hurt Locker."
'Hurt Locker'
Trial Delayed
Vince Neil
Motley Crue singer Vince Neil is getting an emergency postponement in his Las Vegas trial on misdemeanor charges stemming from a confrontation with an ex-girlfriend at a casino comedy club.
A Las Vegas judge granted the request Monday during a brief hearing. The trial was rescheduled for Nov. 7.
A lawyer for the 50-year-old rocker did not explain why he was requesting the continuance. Neil did not appear in court for the hearing.
He's accused of poking the chest of Las Vegas entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs in a casino comedy club March 24, and cursing and pointing at Jacobs and two friends sitting with her.
Vince Neil
Pleads Guilty
Felicia "Snoop" Pearson
An actress who played an assassin for a Baltimore drug gang in HBO's "The Wire" has pleaded guilty in a drug conspiracy case.
Thirty-one-year-old Felicia "Snoop" Pearson entered the plea to conspiracy to distribute heroin Monday, a day before her trial was set to begin. She was sentenced to three years supervised probation.
Pearson was one of 64 people charged in March in "Operation Usual Suspects," a joint state-federal prosecution of an east Baltimore drug gang.
Pearson's lawyer says she didn't play a significant role in the alleged conspiracy. But attorney Benjamin C. Sutley says she decided to enter the plea to rid herself of the burden of dealing with the charges.
Felicia "Snoop" Pearson
Art Exhibit
Philippines
Former Philippine first lady and art patron Imelda Marcos on Monday joined Roman Catholic leaders in denouncing an art installation that combines religious symbols with phallic objects.
The exhibit at Manila's Cultural Center of the Philippines by contemporary Filipino artist Mideo Cruz has provoked heated debate about freedom of expression in the predominantly Catholic nation.
Critics vandalized the installation last week by removing a wooden penis from a poster depicting Jesus Christ. Another sculpture shows a penis hanging from a wooden cross while another portrays Christ as Mickey Mouse.
Marcos, the flamboyant widow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and founder of the cultural center near Manila Bay, said after visiting the exhibition that the work was a "desecration" and no longer represents art.
Philippines
New Theory Blames KGB
Albert Camus
Famous French author Albert Camus, who died in a car accident in 1960, may have been the victim of a Soviet plot, new research suggests.
Italian academic Giovanni Catelli, an eastern European specialist, put forward the theory in the pages of the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera. On Monday it was greeted with scepticism among other experts.
He noted that a passage in a diary written by Czech poet Jan Zabrana, published as a book, was absent from the Italian translation.
According to Catelli the missing paragraph concerns a meeting between Zabrana and and a Russian KGB contact.
Albert Camus
In Memory
Nancy Wake
Nancy Wake, Australia's greatest World War II heroine and a prominent figure in the French Resistance known as the "The White Mouse" for her ability to evade the Germans, has died in London.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the woman who was once the Gestapo's most wanted person, was "a devastatingly effective saboteur and spy".
Wake, who died in a London hospital on Sunday just days short of her 99th birthday, was the nation's most decorated servicewoman from WWII, holding France's Legion d'Honneur, Britain's George Medal and the US Medal of Freedom.
Born in Wellington, New Zealand, she grew up in Australia and politicians in both countries led tributes to the woman who survived several firefights with the enemy, being shot at in a pursuit and a brief imprisonment during the war.
Wake ran away from home aged 16 and by the early 1930s was living in Paris, where she worked as a journalist.
Witnesses to the rise of fascism in Europe, Wake and her wealthy industrialist husband Henri Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France's surrender in 1940.
She once described a visit to Austria in 1933 as a first-hand look at Nazi cruelty.
"In Vienna they had a big wheel and they had the Jews tied to it, and the stormtroopers were there, whipping them. When we were going out of Vienna they took our photos. That was my experience of Hitler," Wake said.
Wake and her husband helped Allied servicemen and Jewish refugees escape into Spain before she took her partner's advice and fled to England in 1943, where she began work in special operations.
She parachuted back into France in April 1944 before D-Day, tasked with helping distribute weapons to Resistance fighters.
"In those days it was safer, for a woman had more chance than a man, to get around, because the Germans were taking men out just like that," she later recounted.
Wake was never to see Fiocca again, learning only after the liberation of France that he had been killed by the Gestapo in August 1943.
After the war, Wake returned to Australia in 1949, where she made several failed attempts to win a seat in parliament.
She went back to England, where in 1957 she married RAF officer John Forward, but the couple settled in Australia within two years, living there for the next four decades until Forward's death in 1997.
Restless again, Wake left Australia for England in 2001 with the intention of remaining there for the rest of her life.
The fearless heroine was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2004, praised for her outstanding actions in wartime.
She is expected to be cremated privately and her ashes scattered at Montlucon in central France, scene of her 1944 heroism.
Nancy Wake
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
