Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: It's Trump's Party (NY Times)
Don't let anyone pretend otherwise.
Jules Barrueco: The Real Reason People Question if Hillary Clinton Is Human (Cosmopolitan)
As a lawyer who's become less likable and more robotic myself, I take this criticism personally.
Stuart Heritage: Haters Back Off: it's Napoleon Dynamite for the YouTube generation (The Guardian)
This Netflix sitcom about a monstrous budding internet sensation in small-town America is a gem - if you can handle the shouting.
Caroline Sullivan: "Pretenders: Alone review - Chrissie Hynde still a magnificent one-off" (The Guardian)
Always a one-off, Hynde is magnificent here - unapologetic and deferring to no one.
Jude Rogers: "'The history of punk was always HIS story': the women rewriting rock" (The Guardian)
Music memoirs by artists such as Chrissie Hynde and Viv Albertine have taken the publishing world by storm, satisfying a hunger for less-told rock tales and changing our idea of what it means to be an 'older woman.'
Graham Robb: Flaubert - the writer's writer par excellence - is a real challenge to write about (Spectator)
The irritable perfectionist led an uneventful life. But as a man of his time he's fascinating, according to Michel Winock.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
took the day off.
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Secrets for Selling Your Home
David
Thanks, Dave!
Reader Comment
Lumpy
I hear about how brilliantly he has "played" the media for millions in free publicity for the Trump brand, but after looking at his angry, ugly face so many times and hearing about Trump University and his bankruptcies and Trump products made in China & other places and his avoiding paying taxes for decades and building with foreign steel, etc--as far as I'm concerned, the Trump brand is toxic. I would not touch anything with his repulsive name on it.
So keep pooping your name on everything you touch, Cheeto Asshole. Midas Touch? Poop Touch! Wish I had the skill to draw an orange ass pooping out the word Trump.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Temp
Team Coco
CONAN
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
TRUMP BOOK REPORTS.
"INVESTOR DEATH SPIRAL."
TRUMP DOES STANDUP.
"OH NO."
SINKING LKE A STONE!
"PORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN!"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
It was 'Obama-Jam' Monday. That's how the locals refer to the resultant traffic nightmare of a presidential visit.
Shakespeare Will Share Credit For Henry VI
Oxford
Oxford University Press' new edition of William Shakespeare's works will credit Christopher Marlowe as co-author of the three Henry VI plays, underscoring that the playwright collaborated with others on some of his most famous works.
Marlowe, a playwright, poet and spy, will share billing in the latest version of the New Oxford Shakespeare being published this week. While scholars have long suspected that Shakespeare's plays included the work of others, new analytical methods helped researchers conclude that sections bore the hallmarks of Marlowe's hand.
A team of 23 international scholars looked afresh at the man many consider the greatest writer in the English language. The challenge, put simply: If one is going to compile the complete works of Shakespeare one first has to determine what they are.
Five of the world's most senior Shakespeare scholars -Gary Taylor, Hugh Craig at the University of Newcastle in Australia, MacDonald P. Jackson at the University of Auckland in New Zealand; Gabriel Egan at De Montfort University, Leicester and John Jowett of the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham - had to be convinced of the issues of authorship in the works.
The editors concluded that 17 of 44 works associated with Shakespeare had input from others. The scholars used computerized data sets to reveal patterns, trends and associations - analyzing not only Shakespeare's words, but also those of his contemporaries.
Oxford
"Wizard of Oz"
Ruby Slippers
It took just seven days for "Wizard of Oz" nostalgics to raise more than $300,000 in a crowdfunding drive to restore Dorothy's iconic slippers to their ruby red glory.
The US Smithsonian's Museum of American History, which owns the slippers, said Monday that its Kickstarter campaign had gone "over the rainbow."
The sequined pumps were famously worn by Judy Garland as she danced down the yellow brick road in the 1939 musical, one of Hollywood's first color films.
Support for restoring them "spanned six continents and 41 countries," the museum said in a statement.
Since the crowdfunding campaign runs for another 23 more days, the museum announced a "stretch goal" that "will involve another beloved Wizard of Oz character." It did not say which one.
Ruby Slippers
National Museum of American History
'Oz' Scarecrow
Now that the Smithsonian has reached its crowd-funding goal to preserve the ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," the museum is asking for more money to conserve another relic from the beloved movie.
The National Museum of American History announced Monday that it has extended the Kickstarter campaign that brought in $300,000 in one week to maintain the ruby slippers. The museum will seek another $85,000 to care for and display a Scarecrow costume worn by actor Ray Bolger and donated to the museum by his widow, Gwendolyn Bolger, in 1987.
If the campaign is successful, the museum will place the Scarecrow's hat alongside the slippers in a new pop-culture exhibit that's scheduled to open in 2018. The entire costume would be shown temporarily but is too delicate to go on permanent display.
The slippers, one of four pairs made for the 1939 movie that are known to exist, are among the most popular items in the museum's collection. They were sold at auction in 1970, donated to the museum in 1979 and have been on near-permanent display ever since. Not built to last, the sequin-covered shoes have deteriorated from exposure to light and moisture, and most of the $300,000 will go toward scientific research on how best to construct a new display case that will better protect them.
The efforts involving the Scarecrow costume will be similar: Museum staff will assess what needs to be done to preserve and treat the costume and prepare it for display.
'Oz' Scarecrow
Australian Initiative
Great Barrier Reef
You've probably heard of pouring one out for the departed, but one Australian initiative wants you to pour one to save a life that's not lost just yet - the life of the Great Barrier Reef.
After launching a crowdfunding campaign in December 2015, the Good Beer Company have finally realised their dream of a socially-minded brew, with the beverage launching in Queensland Monday.
The suitably named Great Barrier Beer comes in three forms; a kölsch beer, a cider and a blonde beer. All three environmentally conscious drinks were created by three chefs (Spencer Patrick, Ryan Squires, and Ben O'Donoghue) to directly impact the wellbeing of the Great Barrier Reef.
They're are also petitioning for members of the public to vote for their favourite feel-good drink, with hopes that the most voted-for brew will be distributed nationally.
So just how does drinking beer translate to saving the "largest living organism" on earth? Half of the profits raised from each beer purchased will go directly to the reef via the Australia Marine Conservation Society (AMCS).
Great Barrier Reef
Congress Knew, Did Nothing
National Guard
The California National Guard told the state's members of Congress two years ago that the Pentagon was trying to claw back reenlistment bonuses from thousands of soldiers, and even offered a proposal to mitigate the problem, but Congress took no action, according to a senior National Guard official.
The official added that improper bonuses had been paid to National Guard members in every state, raising the possibility that many more soldiers may owe large debts to the Pentagon.
"This is a national issue and affects all states," Andreas Mueller, the chief of federal policy for the California Guard, wrote in an email to the state's congressional delegation Monday. Attention had focused on California because it was "the only state that audited" bonus payments at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.
In the email, Mueller reminded members of Congress that the Guard had informed them about the issue two years ago. Whether members of Congress understood the scope of the problem at the time is unclear.
The Times reported Saturday that the Pentagon has been demanding repayment of enlistment bonuses - which often reached $15,000 or more - from thousands of California Guard soldiers, many of whom had served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Audits completed last month concluded that 9,700 California Guard members were not entitled to the payments or that there had been errors in their paperwork.
National Guard
Jared's Ex-Wife Sues
Subway
The ex-wife of former Subway sandwich pitchman and child sex offender Jared Fogle sued the company in Indiana on Monday, alleging it knew about his pedophilia and failed to act.
Kathleen McLaughlin, who divorced Fogle last year, charged in the lawsuit that Subway depicted her and their children, now 5 and 3, in a commercial without permission while aware of Fogle's sexual interest in minors.
"Subway knew of Jared's depravities and failed to act as a responsible corporation should," according to the lawsuit filed in Indiana's Hamilton Superior Court.
The lawsuit filed by attorneys for the Church, Church, Hittle and Antrim law firm said that on at least three occasions during Fogle's 15 years as Subway's spokesman, the company received reports about his sexual interest in children.
Subway responded to two of the reports by sending a public relations employee to ask Fogle about them. The company has admitted that the third report was "'not properly escalated or acted upon,'" the lawsuit said.
Subway
Afghan Cultivation Spikes
Opium
Afghanistan saw a 10 percent jump in opium cultivation this year because of bumper harvests, collapsing eradication efforts due to growing insecurity and declining international aid to combat drugs, the UN said Sunday.
Cultivation dropped last year due to drought but it has been on the rise in the past decade, fuelling the Taliban insurgency and spurring a growing crisis of drug addiction despite costly US-led counter-narcotics programmes.
High levels of cultivation this year meant the estimated opium production soared 43 percent to 4,800 tons, a UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report said, underscoring a "worrying reversal" in efforts to combat the scourge of drugs.
"The cultivation has increased by 10 percent this year compared to the same time in 2015 -- from 183,000 hectares to 201,000 hectares," counter-narcotics minister Salamat Azimi told reporters while releasing the UN report.
The statistics represent the third-highest level of cultivation in Afghanistan in more than two decades -- after a record high in 2014 and 2013.
Opium
Egyptian Antiquities
Ohio
Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art is selling 68 antiquities from its collection, a move drawing criticism from a nationally known archaeologist and Egyptian officials.
About half the items are from Egypt, The Blade newspaper reported. Others come from Cyprus, Greece and Italy. They're being sold at a New York auction on Tuesday and an online sale closing the same day.
According to the newspaper, the Egyptian government indicated in news coverage in that country that it's seeking to stop the sales.
The process is called deaccession, which the Toledo Museum of Art similarly used in whittling down its modern contemporary collection in 2002, its Old Masters collection in 2006 and its Asian art collection in 2008.
Many of the objects either haven't been put on display in decades or appeared only sporadically.
Ohio
Gravestones Returned To Cemetery
Rhode Island
Centuries-old gravestones missing from a Colonial-era cemetery in Rhode Island have been returned after turning up elsewhere, including one found in a Pennsylvania woman's yard.
The oldest stone dates to 1690 and was for a 1-year-old child. The 12-inch-by-24-inch stone was found in August by Stephanie Pallas, of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, said Lew Keen, of the Newport Historic Cemetery Advisory Commission.
"She was doing some landscaping, hit this flat stone in her yard, dug it up, flipped it over and realized it was a gravestone. Then, with the help of the internet, did some research to discover it belonged not in Pennsylvania, but in Rhode Island," Keen said.
The others were from 1835 for a Newport woman, Elizabeth Cook, and her children, and they were last seen in 1874. Those were found in a Newport yard during a renovation in the 1980s and stowed in a basement until the homeowner alerted the commission in the spring, Keen said.
Rhode Island
In Memory
Tom Hayden
Veteran social activist and politician Tom Hayden, a stalwart of America's New Left who served 18 years in California's state legislature and gained a dash of Hollywood glamour by marrying actress Jane Fonda, has died aged 76, according to media reports.
Hayden died in Santa Monica, California, after a long illness, The Los Angeles Times reported on its website.
Hayden, who forged his political activism as a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society, which stood at the core of the 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements, was principal author of the group's revolutionary manifesto, the Port Huron Statement.
The University of Michigan student ventured into the Deep South, where he joined voter registration campaigns and was arrested and beaten while taking part in the "freedom rider" protests against racial segregation.
Hayden, however, became perhaps best known as one of the "Chicago Eight" activists tried on conspiracy and incitement charges following protests at the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention. He was ultimately acquitted of all charges.
Outliving contemporaries Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, Hayden remained active in left-wing politics well into the 21st century, posting on Twitter just a week ago.
Winning election himself to the California state Assembly in 1982, and then the state Senate a decade later, Hayden went on to serve a total of 18 years.
Later he became director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center, a nonprofit left-wing think tank devoted mainly to analysis of continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, drug policy and global poverty.
Hayden was married to actress Jane Fonda from 1973 to 1990, with whom he had two children. Midway through their marriage, the couple graced the cover of People Magazine.
In later years his writings were published in national publications including The New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Denver Post. He served on the editorial board and was a columnist for The Nation magazine, and was the author of more than 20 books.
Tom Hayden
In Memory
Bobby Vee
Pop idol Bobby Vee, the boyish, grinning 1960s singer whose career was born when he took a Midwestern stage as a teenager to fill in after the 1959 plane crash that killed rock 'n' roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, has died. He was 73.
Vee, whose hits included the chart-topping "Take Good Care of My Baby" and who helped a young Bob Dylan get his start, died Monday of advanced Alzheimer's disease, said his son, Jeff Velline. Vee was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011, and performed his last show that year.
Born Robert Velline in Fargo, North Dakota, Vee was only 15 when he took the stage in Moorhead, Minnesota, after the Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash in Iowa that killed Holly, Valens and Richardson on their way to the concert. That dark day in rock history was commemorated by singer-songwriter Don McLean in his 1972 pop song "American Pie" as "The Day The Music Died."
The call went out for local acts to replace Holly at his scheduled show at the Moorhead National Guard Armory. Vee and his 2-week-old band volunteered, along with three or four other bands. The show's emcee, Charlie Boone, then a disc jockey at KFGO Radio, turned to Vee and asked him the name of his band. Vee looked at the shadows of his bandmates on the floor and answered: The Shadows.
Within months the young singer and The Shadows, which included his older brother Bill on lead guitar, recorded Vee's "Suzie Baby" for Soma Records in Minneapolis. It was a regional hit, and Vee soon signed with Liberty Records.
He went on to record 38 Top 100 hits from 1959 to 1970, hitting the top of the charts in 1961 with the Carole King-Gerry Goffin song "Take Good Care of My Baby," and reaching No. 2 with the follow-up, "Run to Him." Other Vee hits include "Rubber Ball," ''The Night Has A Thousand Eyes," ''Devil or Angel," ''Come Back When You Grow Up," ''Please Don't Ask About Barbara" and "Punish Her."
Besides his clear, ringing voice, Vee also was a skilled rhythm guitarist and occasional songwriter. He racked up six gold singles, but saw his hits diminish with the British Invasion of The Beatles and other English groups in the mid-1960s.
Vee kept recording into the 2000s, and maintained a steady touring schedule. But he began having trouble remembering lyrics during performances, and he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2011. He performed his last show that year, billed only as his retirement, during an annual community fundraiser that his family holds near their home in St. Joseph, Minnesota, about 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis. But he didn't announce his diagnosis until a year later on his website.
Vee still released a new album, "The Adobe Sessions," a loose jam session recorded with family members in Vee's adobe garage north of Tucson, Arizona. The 2014 album featured some of Vee's favorite songs from Townes Van Zandt, Gordon Lightfoot and Ricky Nelson. It was released on the 55th anniversary of the Holly plane crash.
The album also included Vee's cover of Bob Dylan's "The Man in Me," a nod to the folk-rock legend who got his start in Vee's band in Fargo.
Dylan grew up in Hibbing, a town on northern Minnesota's Iron Range, and briefly played with Vee's band. Although their time playing together was short, Dylan had a lasting effect on Vee's career: It was Dylan, himself going by the name Elston Gunn when he hammered on the piano at a couple of The Shadows' gigs, who suggested Vee change his last name from Velline to Vee.
In his "Chronicles: Volume One" memoir, Dylan recalled that Vee "had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell." When Dylan performed in St. Paul in 2013, he saluted Vee in the audience and performed "Suzie Baby."
Vee and his wife, Karen, were married for more than 50 years. She died of kidney failure in 2015 at age 71. The couple had four children, including sons who performed with Vee.
Bobby Vee
In Memory
Jack Chick
Jack T. Chick's most popular tract, published in 1964, is titled "This Was Your Life!" Riffing on the then-popular reality-TV series, it tells the story of a high-living atheist who drops dead of a heart attack and is whisked to the gates of heaven, forced to review his life's lowlights and, too late, plead for forgiveness.
Chick, who died Sunday at age 92 at home in San Dimas, would expect a better reception, the one given to the protagonist in the tract's second ending, in which the man has repented.
Chick Publications' Facebook page illustrated its announcement of its founder's death with the final panel of that alternate ending, in which a faceless man on a throne surrounded by light says: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant - enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"
Based in a low-profile office in Rancho Cucamonga since 1970, Chick Publications has sent out nearly 900 million tracts in 102 languages. The pocket-sized tracts, stapled on the side, with white-on-black titles and simple art, are instantly recognizable and much parodied.
He's said to be the world's most published living author, his books displayed at the Smithsonian Institution and praised by underground comic artists such as Robert Crumb. Some comics fans and creators, including "Ghost World" artist and scenarist Daniel Clowes, have been fascinated by his work even while finding it repellent.
His books have been banned in Canada, denounced by Christianity Today and the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and ejected from Christian bookstores.
He is survived by his second wife, Susy. Services will be private.
Chick was born in Boyle Heights in 1924, attended Alhambra High, won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse School of Theater and served in World War II. He married in 1948 and converted to Christianity while visiting his in-laws in Canada, where he heard a radio broadcast from the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium by Charles E. Fuller.
Chick worked as a technical illustrator for an aerospace company in El Monte and would draw at home at night, according to a 2003 profile by Robert Ito in Los Angeles magazine.
A shy man, he chose comics over the pulpit after hearing a radio missionary explain how the Chinese used comics as propaganda. His first tract was published in 1960.
Jack Chick
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