Recommended Reading
from Bruce
AccurRadio
What I'm really thinking: the girl in the abortion clinic (Guardian)
"I'm young. I don't feel ready and I'm scared."
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson: Lunch with Michael Moore (Slate)
He hugs Republicans almost every day.
Sharon Eve: "Experience: I delivered a baby on a bus" (Guardian)
'I'd noticed the woman as I got on - late 20s, dark hair, heavily pregnant. Very heavily pregnant, it turned out.'
Paul Krugman's Column: The Bleeding Cure (New York Times)
Fortunately, physicians no longer believe that bleeding the sick will make them healthy. Unfortunately, many of the makers of economic policy still do. And economic bloodletting isn't just inflicting vast pain; it's starting to undermine our long-run growth prospects.
Marc Dion: Working Like a Goat, Voting Like a Sheep (Creators Syndicate)
In Portland, Ore., where everyone starts the day by drinking a cup of rainforest-friendly coffee, putting on a rain hat and shooting heroin, goats are joining the workforce, displacing workers who might have cleared brush by hand. It's official. Every life-form on earth can now take a job that used to be held by an American male who did not go to college.
Terry Savage: Too Little Work (Creators Syndicate)
"Entitlement my --! I paid cash for my Social Security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!!"-one of Terry's readers
Chuck Norris: Finding a Fountain of Youth (Creators Syndicate)
The full list of what Buettner and his team of experts believe people can do to add years to their lives can be found at http://www.BlueZones.com, but here's a sample: Move naturally. "Americans burn fewer than 100 calories a day engaged in 'exercise.' We can get more physical activity naturally if we live in walkable communities. ... Walking is the best activity for longevity.
Leonard S. Marcus: "It's My Party: An Interview with Maurice Sendak" (Horn Book)
In the first picture book he has both written and illustrated since 'Outside Over There' (1981), Maurice Sendak conjures up yet another rambunctious young mischief-maker, this one in the form of a gawky, quarrelsome pig.
"Big Vegan: 400 Recipes: No Meat, No Dairy, All Delicious" by Robin Asbell: A review by Jill Owens
I was a vegetarian for many years, and though I'm not any more, I still cook meatless meals most of the time. Robin Asbell's fabulous new cookbook, 'Big Vegan,' is my latest go-to cookbook and hands-down one of the best vegan cookbooks I've ever used. It contains the most comprehensive, varied, and flat-out tasty recipes since Isa Chandra Moskowitz's 'Veganomicon'; if you're a fan of that cookbook, this will be a tie or at least a close second. (It actually boasts over a third more recipes, as well.)
"The Night Circus" by ERIN MORGENSTERN: Reviewed by Alexandra Mullen
'The Night Circus' is a rich, riffing amalgam on the possibilities contained within the idea of "circus." Or, at least, the idea of a circus without clowns, bleached of color and rid of garish effort and pratfalls. The Night Circus is perhaps an anti-circus or its photographic negative: elegant and beautiful, subtle and mysterious, still and silent.
Rebecca Nicholson: "Jane Lynch: 'Sexual orientation doesn't mean anything out here in Hollywood'" (Guardian)
The 'Glee' actor, who is hosting this year's Emmy awards, shares her thoughts on homophobia, alcoholism and an impulsive nature.
Roger Ebert: Review of "The Girlfriend Experience" (4 stars; An Overlooked DVD; rated R)
Grey wasn't hired because of her willingness to have sex onscreen; there's no explicit sex in the movie and only fleeting nudity. I suspect Soderbergh cast her because of her mercenary approach to sex -- and her acting talent, which may not be ready for Steppenwolf but is right for this film. She owns her own agency and Web site, manages other actresses, has a disconnect between herself and what she does for a living. So does Chelsea.
Larry Shallenberger: 'True Grit' and the Hidden Price of Revenge
There is only one rule for watching a Coen Bros movie: "Read their movies knowing that there is nothing wrong with a Coen Bros' film, not ever. There are only viewers struggling to catch up with their vision."
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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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bunch of stuff going on and I have to take a week off.
Things will resume with what passes for normal next Tuesday (09/27).
Below are links to pages with the daily TV listings.
Hour-Long Episode
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert meeting Radiohead is such a special occasion, a regular episode of "The Colbert Report" wasn't sufficient.
The Comedy Central show will air its first hour-long episode Sept. 26, when Colbert sits down with the British rock group.
Radiohead will perform four songs, featuring material off its most recent album, "The King of Limbs," as well as the recently debuted and unreleased track, "The Daily Mail." An additional song will also be performed for the online version of "The Colbert Report."
Colbert said in a statement: "I look forward to meeting the Radioheads and leveraging their anti-corporate indie cred to raise brand awareness for my sponsors."
Stephen Colbert
New Host Of 'Dateline
Lester Holt
Lester Holt will replace Ann Curry as host of the newsmagazine "Dateline NBC" when it begins its 20th season on Sept. 23.
The NBC News veteran will keep his job as co-anchor of the "Weekend Today" show. Curry, who is now co-anchor with Matt Lauer of the first half of the weekday "Today" show, was judged too busy for both jobs.
The announcement was made Monday.
Holt has been a valued utility player at NBC News, doing multiple reporting and anchoring jobs at the network and sister station MSNBC, and he said people often come up to him wondering when he takes time off.
Lester Holt
Star On Hollywood Walk O'Fame
Jon Cryer
"Two and a Half Men" star Jon Cryer on Monday received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and thanked former co-star Charlie Sheen and the show's co-creators for intervening during last season when troubles arose.
Cryer, 46, was honored with the 2,449th star on the famed walkway. Among those who attended were "Two and a Half" creator Chuck Lorre and co-stars Ashton Kutcher and Angus T. Jones.
Kutcher has replaced Sheen on TV's top-rated comedy after Lorre and the Warner Bros. studio feuded with their erratic, hard-partying star. They fired Sheen last March, cutting the series short. Sheen, however had well wishes for his former show on Sunday during the Emmys.
Cryer made his film debut in the 1984 romantic comedy "No Small Affair," and was best known for his role as Phil "Duckie" Dale in "Pretty in Pink" before landing a spot on CBS' "Two and a Half Men." He has received six consecutive Emmy nominations for supporting actor in a comedy series, winning two years ago.
Jon Cryer
Texas Auction
Mussolini
A suitcase and clothing purported to have belonged to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress and obtained by a World War II veteran from western New York have been sold at an auction for more than $5,000.
The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester reports Mussolini's uniform and Claretta Petacci's dress sold for $5,500 during Sunday's auction in Dallas. The auctioneer had estimated the items would fetch $10,000 to $15,000.
The items were put up for auction by the widow of Paul Moriconi, a Rochester-area doctor who acquired the suitcase in the last days of the war, when he was serving in northern Italy. Italian partisans gave the suitcase to his commanding officer after Mussolini and Petacci were captured and executed while trying to flee to Switzerland in April 1945.
Paul Moriconi died last year.
Mussolini
Fights Extradition
Bruce Beresford-Redman
Attorneys for a former "Survivor" producer charged with killing his wife in Mexico argued in court papers filed Monday that a judge ignored conflicting evidence while permitting his extradition to stand trial in that country.
The motion filed by lawyers for Bruce Beresford-Redman contends the extradition order should be overturned because there is no physical evidence to support returning the reality television producer to Cancun.
The filing accuses Chooljian of "culling through the facts and selecting those most supportive of probable cause while rejecting those which were exculpatory or did not fit the government's theory of culpability."
The Emmy-nominated producer has been jailed in Los Angeles since November on a fugitive warrant. Chooljian ruled in late July there was probable cause to support his extradition.
Bruce Beresford-Redman
Winning
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen and Warner Bros are close to a settlement on the actor's $100 million lawsuit against the studio over his firing from "Two and a Half Men," a source with knowledge of the situation said on Monday.
Sheen, who has been sounding contrite in recent days regarding his troubles with the makers of his old television show, sued Warner Bros in Los Angeles Superior Court in March and the case has been in arbitration.
A Warner Bros. spokesman said no final deal has been reached and declined to comment further. Sheen's lawyer was not immediately available to comment.
Sheen was the highest-paid actor on U.S. television for the role of womanizing bachelor Charlie Harper. But he was fired after several trips to rehab and for publicly insulting creator Chuck "Thin Skinned Misogynist" Lorre and makers Warner Bros. Television.
Charlie Sheen
Claims Claim Not Hers
Mrs. Bachmann
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-Vacuous) said Monday she was not arguing that a vaccine intended to prevent cervical cancer caused mental retardation when she repeated the scientifically unfounded claim last week.
The Minnesota congresswoman said she was relaying what a distraught woman told her after a GOP presidential debate in Florida in which Bachmann criticized rival Rick Perry for ordering the vaccine in Texas.
"All I was doing is relaying what a woman had said," Bachmann told The Associated Press after touring a manufacturer in Waterloo. "I relayed what she said. I wasn't attesting to her accuracy. I wasn't attesting to anything."
During the debate, Bachmann accused Perry, the governor of Texas, of abusing his authority by signing a 2007 executive order requiring school-age girls to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cancer. After the debate, she described an encounter with a woman she says approached her.
Mrs. Bachmann
Change Voting Rules Ahead Of 2012
GOP-Led States
After years of expanding when and how people can vote, state legislatures now under new Republican control are moving to trim early voting days, beef up identification requirements and put new restrictions on how voters are notified about absentee ballots.
Democrats claim their GOP counterparts are using midterm election wins to enforce changes favorable to Republicans ahead of the 2012 presidential election. They criticize such legislation, saying it could lead to longer lines in Democratic-leaning urban areas and discourage people from voting.
Supporters say bolstering ID rules helps prevent fraud. And at a time when counties face tough budgets, they contend local elections officials don't have the money to keep early voting locations staffed and opened.
The process of changing voting rules may be nonpartisan on the surface but it is seething with politics just below the surface.
While states typically adjust voting rules ahead of presidential elections, this year provides an opportunity for new Republican governors and GOP majorities to legislate on election issues.
GOP-Led States
Vintage Mercedes Stolen
John Travolta
John Travolta's vintage Mercedes sports car has been stolen.
Santa Monica police Sgt. Richard Lewis tells the Los Angeles Times that thieves had about a 10-minute window to make off with the 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280-SL.
Lewis says Travolta parked the car on a residential street in Santa Monica Sunday afternoon and stopped in at a nearby Jaguar dealership for about 10 minutes. When he returned, he found an empty parking spot and no sign of the car.
Lewis says Travolta had the keys with him at the time of the theft.
John Travolta
In Memory
Dolores Hope
Dolores Hope, the wife of late entertainer Bob Hope, died on Monday of natural causes at the age of 102, a family spokesman said.
Hope, a singer who put her career on hold after her marriage, died in the Toluca Lake area of Los Angeles, said spokesman Harlan Boll. Bob Hope, her husband of almost 70 years, died in July 2003 at the age of 100.
Dolores Hope had a singing career in New York before she met her entertainer husband and married him. Together, they moved to Los Angeles so he could pursue a career in film and television.
The couple raised four children and Dolores often accompanied Hope on his many visits to entertain U.S. troops overseas.
At the age of 83, she revived her singing career, recording several albums and performing with Rosemary Clooney. She made her last visit to U.S. servicemen at age 84, during the 1991 Gulf War, when she performed "White Christmas" from the back of a truck in the Saudi desert.
Like her husband, Delores Hope was a keen golfer and received multiple awards for her humanitarian work, especially for causes that benefited the poor.
She leaves two children, three grandchildren and a great grandson.
Boll said funeral services would be private and Dolores would be buried next to her husband at the Bob Hope Memorial Garden at the San Fernando Mission outside Los Angeles.
Dolores Hope
In Memory
Tom Wilson Sr.
Tom Wilson Sr., the creator of the hard-luck comic strip character Ziggy, has died, his family said Monday. He was 80.
Tom Wilson Jr., who took over the comic in 1987, said his father died Friday of pneumonia at a Cincinnati hospital. The elder Wilson had moved from Cleveland to a Cincinnati nursing home about eight years ago to be near his family, his son said.
Wilson was an artist at American Greetings card company in Cleveland for more than 35 years and first published Ziggy in a 1969 cartoon collection, "When You're Not Around."
Ziggy was launched in 15 newspapers in 1971 and now appears in more than 500 daily and Sunday newspapers. It also has appeared in books, calendars and greeting cards.
Tom Wilson Jr. said the name Ziggy derived from his father's school experience of being the last alphabetically. When a new classmate arrived with a last name beginning with "Z," the idea took root with the friendly sounding "y'' ending, such as Billy or Tommy.
"Ziggy is a last-in-line character," the son said in a phone interview. "The last picked for everything and kind of a lovable kind of loser character."
Ziggy also starred in the ABC Christmas special, "Ziggy's Gift," which won a 1983 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program and was re-released on DVD in 2005.
Universal Uclick, which syndicated the Ziggy column, said Wilson also was head of a creative team that developed the Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears character licensing.
Besides his son, Wilson is survived by his wife, Carol, and daughters Ava and Julie.
Tom Wilson Sr.
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