The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Call it as ya See it' Edition...
The 2010 Mid-term Elections. No media intro or links are needed, I'm thinkin'...
We all know what's at stake here... So, gaze into yer Crystal Ball, break out the Ouija board, shuffle the Tarot cards, read yer tea leaves or just take a wild-ass guess and make yer prediction on the outcome, if'n ya dare...
The Democrats will:
1.) Retain the majority in both the House and the Senate
2.) Lose the House, but retain the Senate
3.) Retain the House, but lose the Senate
4.) Worse case scenario... and you know what that is, dagnabbit!
Predictions will be posted the morning of November 2nd.
... and may The Force be with us!
Send your response to
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Falling Into the Economic Chasm (nytimes.com)
The real story of this election is that of an economic policy that was inadequate to the task.
Michael Moore: Juan Williams Is Right: Political Correctness About Terrorists Must End!
Dear Juan, Sorry to hear you got fired by National Public Radio for saying on Fox that you get nervous when you see Muslims on a plane with you.
Michael Moore: Burning Down the House: A Crime Beyond Denunciation
So how do the Wall Street boys feel after destroying the world economy while pocketing billions, and then getting bailed out by everyone else in America? I'm sure they're filled with remorse and desperately trying to make it up to us. Right?
Marc Dion: A Parakeet for President? (creators.com)
At the bottom of our garden, a foot from a chain-link fence painted silver, 8 inches to the right of an old rosebush, under a fragment of rock, is all that could die of "Tweet," the blue parakeet belonging to my in-laws, who live on the bottom floor of the three-decker vinyl-sided house my wife and I own.
Scott Burns: We're Not Repeating History (assetbuilder.com)
Anyone who thinks our economy has been totally trashed needs a reality test- try reserving a table at any popular restaurant at prime time on a Friday night. Unless you make the call early in the week, odds are you'll be eating at 5:30 or 9:00, if at all.
Terry Savage: Cash Crisis? Figure Out Exactly Where You Stand (creators.com)
I have recently received so many questions related to dealing with a personal financial crisis that I thought I would answer a few at once, giving you my best ideas for prioritizing your finances when you lose your job.
20 Questions: Patrick K. O'Donnell
Award-winning / Lady Gaga / Katy Perry / Top 40 listening author Patrick K. O'Donnell is an expert on WWII espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency on the modern battlefield -- and he's with us here at PopMatters 20 Questions.
20 Questions: Steven Johnson (popmatters.com)
Pop thought guru Steven Johnson taps into neurobiology and pop culture -- with a few stops in-between -- to explore what fuels those "Eureka!" moments in his new book, 'Where Good Ideas Come From.'
John Legend and the Roots: hearts, minds and soul (guardian.co.uk)
John Legend and the Roots' album of 60s and 70s protest songs is no mere history lesson - it's an open letter to a divided America, they tell Angus Batey.
George Varga: Maroon 5 Poised to Reclaim Prominent Position in Pop (creators.com)
With its first new studio album in three years having debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard national sales charts, Maroon 5 is poised to reclaim its position of prominence in pop music. Yet, while lead singer Adam Levine remains this Los Angeles band's focal point, on stage and on record, he is doing all he can to avoid being in the media spotlight when not performing on the band's current Palm Trees and Power Lines tour.
Duffy: 'People I've known for just 20 hours want to tell me how to dress' (guardian.co.uk)
Duffy tells Euan Ferguson about her new album Endlessly, eating scones as a child and whether white people can do soul.
Simone Felice: 'Soul music is something you put your heart into' (guardian.co.uk)
The ex-Felice Brother and now frontman for the Duke and the King tells Phil Hogan about kidnapped violinists, Indian spirits - and heart surgery.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"He Wears a Yellow Stripe"
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Misty morning, a bit of sun in the afternoon.
Today is the kid's birthday!
Skipping Honorary Oscar Ceremony
Jean-Luc Godard
Reclusive French-Swiss director film Jean-Luc Godard will skip a gala Hollywood dinner next month where he will be awarded an honorary Oscar, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Monday.
Godard, 79, was invited to the November 13 ceremony to accept an honorary Oscar marking his 50 years as "one of the seminal modernists of in history of cinema" through films like "Breathless" and "Sympathy for the Devil".
But the Academy said that after a "two month long, cordial exchange of correspondence", Godard notified Academy president Tom Sherak that he would not be able to attend the ceremony.
"He reiterated his thanks for the award," Sherak said in a statement, "and also sent his good wishes to the other individuals being honored the same night -- Kevin Brownlow, Francis Ford Coppola and Eli Wallach -- who he refers to as 'the three other musketeers.'"
Jean-Luc Godard
PR Disaster
NPR
NPR's chief executive says she's sorry for how analyst Juan Williams' dismissal was handled - but not for firing him. Vivian Schiller sent an apology to National Public Radio staff members on Sunday night and wrote to managers at NPR stations. Her dismissal of Williams for saying on Fox News Channel that he gets nervous when he sees people on a plane with clothing that identifies them as Muslim became a "public relations disaster," NPR's ombudsman said.
Williams, who was fired in a phone conversation, deserved a face-to-face meeting, Schiller wrote. She has also expressed regret for saying, after last Wednesday's firing, that whatever feelings Williams has about Muslims should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist - take your pick."
NPR, which had long been troubled by Williams' dual role as an analyst at Fox, said his remarks violated its standards of not having on-air personnel giving opinions.
NPR had previously asked Williams not to identify himself as an NPR analyst when he appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" or other Fox shows. The journalist said last week he believed his bosses were looking for an excuse to fire him. It looked to many on the outside as if Williams was losing his job for saying something that hardly seemed like a fireable offense.
Yet the decision also eliminated a distraction - NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard said Williams had long been the subject of the most listener complaints - and allowed NPR's leaders to portray themselves as defenders of old-school journalistic values.
NPR
Top-Earning Dead Celebrity
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's sudden death sparked an outpouring of grief around the world, but fans also opened their wallets to make him this year's top-earning dead celebrity with $275 million, Forbes said on Monday.
Jackson raked in more than the combined total of the other 12 celebrities on the list, Forbes magazine said. He was ranked third on last year's list with $90 million.
Elvis Presley came in second, earning $60 million from admissions to his former home, Graceland, which is now a museum and tourist attraction in Memphis, Tennessee, a Cirque de Soleil show and more than 200 licensing and merchandise deals.
"The Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien, whose trilogy of novels was made into films by director Peter Jackson, came in at No. 3 on the Forbes list with earnings of $50 million, while Charles Schulz, the creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, came in fourth with $33 million.
Former Beatle John Lennon, who would have turned 70 this year, was ranked No. 5 with an income of $17 million.
Michael Jackson
Costumes, Guitars, Lyrics Up For Auction
Johnny Cash
The man in black will be bringing in some green when Johnny Cash's guitars, costumes, handwritten lyrics and personal belongings go on the auction block.
The embroidered blue jumpsuit Cash wore to rehearse for his infamous performance at San Quentin State Prison is expected to fetch $3,000 to $5,000. Also up for sale are vintage guitars, a harmonica, Cash's passport and briefcase, and pages and pages of handwritten lyrics, notes and poems.
The items will be on view in Los Angeles before the Dec. 5 sale, administered by Julien's Auctions. A portion of the proceeds will benefit MusiCares, the Recording Academy's charity for musicians in need.
Johnny Cash
Cablevision Tells Of "Bad Faith" Fox TV
FCC
Cablevision Systems Corp said on Monday it has provided U.S. regulators with "clear evidence" that Fox Networks' parent News Corp had negotiated in bad faith, leaving more than 3 million homes blacked out to some of their favorite Fox shows and sports.
The Federal Communications Commission had asked both companies to provide evidence that the negotiations are being conducted in "good faith" even as Fox stations remained off the cable systems of the New York company for the tenth day. The two companies have not been in negotiating talks since Thursday, according to people close to the companies. If the FCC believes there is evidence of bad faith negotiations it could be forced to intervene.
"News Corp never engaged in real negotiations; they only made a "take it or leave it" proposal for Fox 5, and they timed the Fox blackout to leverage major national sporting events to force Cablevision to accept unreasonable demands," said Cablevision spokesman Charles Schueler in a statement.
Even if these customers switched there is no guarantee the same issue would not arise with these other pay-TV companies later down the road. For example, Fox is also in a dispute with Dish Network Corp over programing fees. Dish customers could very well lose Fox on November 1, just a month after they lost Fox's regional sports networks.
FCC
TV Losing Viewers
Thursday Nights
Thursday night, one of the most lucrative areas for broadcasters, is losing viewers, the Wall Street Journal reported in Monday's edition.
Fewer Americans are watching primetime TV on the night this fall as a result of changes in viewing habits, weaker shows and an increased variety of competition, especially from cable, according to the WSJ.
As a result, this season the night is trailing Sundays through Wednesdays in the key adults 18-49 demo, the one most sought after by advertisers. Overall, the broadcast networks have seen a 14% decline in viewership from the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen data cited by the WSJ.
The drop is significant because broadcasters have generally been able to charge more for commercials on Thursday nights from advertisers looking to make a big push for new movies, restaurants and other products heading into the weekend.
Thursday Nights
Taiwan-China Name Row Erupts
Tokyo International Film Festival
China's delegation to the Tokyo International Film Festival protested angrily over the name used by Japanese organisers for participants from Taiwan, event officials and Chinese state media said Monday.
Amid conflicting reports Chinese newspapers said that Beijing's delegation had pulled out of the event in protest after festival organisers refused to change the name of the island's contingent from "Taiwan" to "China's Taiwan" or "Chinese Taipei".
But the festival hosts said the Chinese had not withdrawn, saying representatives from China and Taiwan had pledged to stay in Tokyo for the whole festival, despite their absence from the opening carpet walk Saturday.
The incident comes amid a simmering dispute between China and Japan over a contested island chain in the East China Sea, sparked seven weeks ago when Tokyo arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain near the rocky islets.
Tokyo International Film Festival
Heated Hissy
Frank Caprio
The Democratic candidate for Rhode Island governor, widely seen as more conservative than the independent seeking to lead the heavily Democratic state, said Monday that President Barack Obama can "shove it" after learning Obama would not endorse him.
Frank Caprio's campaign said last week that he would welcome the president's endorsement. But on Monday, the same day Obama made his first visit to Rhode Island as president and a day after the White House said Obama would endorse no one, Caprio angrily told WPRO-AM that Obama can "take his endorsement and really shove it."
It was a surprising about-face for Caprio, the state's general treasurer, whose campaign had said as recently as Sunday night that he was looking forward to Obama's visit and that he would accompany the president to two appearances.
White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama decided not to endorse Caprio out of respect for independent candidate Lincoln Chafee, a onetime Republican who endorsed Obama in 2008. Obama did not address Caprio's remarks or take questions during a tour of a Woonsocket factory on Monday and subsequent speech to reporters.
Frank Caprio
Facelift Brings Treasures To Light
Morgan Library
A $4.5 million facelift of New York's Morgan Library and Museum has brought out of the shadows and drawn from storage rare Near Eastern, Biblical and early Americana items, some exhibited for the first time.
Based on a collection amassed by Pierpont Morgan, America's top financier of a century ago. the Morgan now houses over 500,000 objects. The core of the museum, the Madison Avenue library, reopens on Saturday after extensive renovation.
"This project is the first comprehensive restoration of the building since its construction at the beginning of the last century," said Morgan director William Griswold. "And it has transformed every room."-
Modeled on Italian Renaissance villa architecture, the historic library was hamstrung, museum officials say, by too little space, uneven lighting and century-old grime.
Morgan Library
In Memory
Joseph Stein
Playwright Joseph Stein, who turned a Yiddish short story into the classic Broadway musical "Fiddler on the Roof" and later wrote the screenplay for its successful movie adaptation, has died at age 98.
His wife, Elisa Stein, said he died at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan on Sunday from complications of a fall. He had been hospitalized for treatment for prostate cancer, his relatives said.
Stein, who won a Tony Award for his work on "Fiddler," also supplied the book, or story, for nearly a dozen other musicals, including "Zorba," "Mr. Wonderful" and "Plain and Fancy." He also wrote for radio and for television during its early golden age, working for such performers as Henry Morgan, Sid Caesar and Phil Silvers.
But it was "Fiddler," based on Sholom Aleichem's "Tevye and His Daughters," that proved to be his biggest hit. Featuring a score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick and direction and choreography by Jerome Robbins, the show opened on Broadway in September 1964 and ran for more than 3,200 performances.
It starred Zero Mostel as Tevye, the Jewish milkman forced to deal with a changing world - not to mention a changing family life - in early 20th-century Russia.
Stein's theater career was remarkable for its longevity - some six decades. Starting in 1948, when he and writing partner Will Glickman contributed sketches to the revue "Lend an Ear," featuring a young Carol Channing, he was still working 60 years later.
At age 96, he was on hand for the 2008 off-Broadway production of "Enter Laughing," a buoyant, retitled version of his flop 1976 musical "So Long, 174th Street," which, in turn, was based on a play Stein wrote, also called "Enter Laughing." The comedy about a young man determined to enter show business opened on Broadway in 1963 and showcased a rising new actor named Alan Arkin.
After "Lend an Ear," Stein and Glickman wrote the short-lived comedy "Mrs. Gibbons' Boys" (1949) and then contributed sketches to the musical revue "Alive and Kicking" (1950).
The two had their first big success with the book for "Plain and Fancy" (1955), a charming musical that found worldly wise New Yorkers confronting life in a Pennsylvania Amish community. That was followed by "Mr. Wonderful" (1956), the musical that introduced to Broadway Sammy Davis Jr., playing a nightclub performer vaguely similar to Davis himself.
Stein (along with Glickman) first collaborated with Bock and Harnick in 1958 on "The Body Beautiful," a musical about boxing, which lasted a scant 60 performances. The book writer is usually one of musical theater's unsung heroes, often getting the blame when a musical doesn't succeed and receiving little of the credit when a show is a hit.
Joseph Stein
In Memory
Alexander Anderson Jr.
Alexander Anderson Jr., recognized as the creator of the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoon, died Friday at a home in Carmel. He was 90.
Mr. Anderson, who attended UC Berkeley and the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, was a native of Berkeley. He moved to Pebble Beach in 1968.
Mr. Anderson came from a family of creative artists and in 1938 started working in animation with his uncle Paul Terry in New York at Terrytoons, the studio that created "Mighty Mouse." During World War II, Mr. Anderson was a U.S. Navy spy, his wife said, and in 1946, he returned to Terrytoons to work full time.
Two years later, he pitched to his uncle the idea to create cartoon characters for television. At the time, the movie studios that Terrytoons produced for dominated the entertainment market, and working with television wasn't in there plans. Mr. Anderson was told to branch out on his own, according to his son Terry.
Mr. Anderson returned to Berkeley where he and childhood friend Jay Ward began production.
Ward ran the business side and Mr. Anderson handled the artistic and creative work.
Mr. Anderson's work included "Crusader Rabbit," a cartoon series sold to NBC with a 195 episodes. It was the first created specifically for television.
Another cartoon of his was "Dudley-Do-Right," a Canadian Mountie inspired by Nelson Eddy's performance in the film "Rose Marie." Most notably, Mr. Anderson is credited with creating Rocky the Flying Squirrel and his pal Bullwinkle, a moose.
In 1996, Mr. Anderson reached an out-of-court settlement with Jay Ward Productions over rights to Bullwinkle, Rocky and Dudley-Do-Right. The terms recognized Mr. Anderson as the creator of the characters. He filed the lawsuit after discovering Ward was the sole holder of the copyrights.
His wife, Patricia, said the idea for Bullwinkle came to the cartoonist after he had a dream about a moose sitting in on a game of poker with him and friends. The moose adopted its name after a Berkeley car dealership with a slightly different spelling.
In addition to cartoons, Mr. Anderson worked for an ad agency, creating slogans for Berkeley Farms, Skippy Peanut Butter and Smucker's.
Alexander Anderson Jr.
In Memory
Gregory Isaacs
Gregory Isaacs, the Jamaican reggae singer whose smooth style earned him the nickname "Cool Ruler," has died. He was 59.
Isaacs' manager, Copeland Forbes, said the singer died Monday at his London home. Isaacs had been diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago, but continued performing until weeks before his death.
Born in a Kingston, Jamaica slum in 1951, Isaacs began recording in his teens, and went on to produce scores of albums .
With his sinuous baritone and romantic songs, Isaacs became a leading proponent of the mellow "Lovers Rock" style of reggae. He hit his stride in the mid-1970s with ballads like "Love is Overdue" and "All I Have Is Love."
Later that decade he teamed up with the Jamaican production duo of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare for several hit songs including "Soon Forward" and "What A Feeling."
Isaacs was best known internationally for the title song from his 1982 album "Night Nurse," a club favorite which later became a hit for Simply Red.
His career was stalled by a cocaine habit that landed him in jail on several occasions. Isaacs said ruefully in 2007 that he'd gone to "Cocaine High School ... the greatest college ever, but the most expensive school fee ever paid."
Gregory Isaacs
In Memory
Walkman
The Walkman, the Sony cassette device that forever changed music listening before becoming outdated by digital MP3 players and iPods, has died. It was 31 years old.
Sony announced Monday that it has ceased production of the classic, cassette tape Walkman in Japan, effectively sounding the death knell of the once iconic, now obsolete device.
The Walkman is survived by the Discman (still clinging to life) and ironic music listeners who think using a Walkman in this day-and-age is charmingly out-of-touch.
It was developed under the stewardship of Sony founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka. Morita insisted the device not be focused on recording but playback, a relatively odd notion at the time.
Originally called the "Soundabout" in the U.S., the Walkman was an immediate sensation and a revolution in music listening.
More than portability, it fostered a personalization to music, a theme the iPod would also highlight in those early dancing silhouette ads. A big reason there's so much nostalgia for the Walkman today is because it eliminated any separation from music. It felt like an appendage, which is perhaps why some (with questionable fashion instincts) clipped theirs to their belt.
The Walkman was also the father of the mixtape, an offspring that nearly trumps the progenitor. For the first time, music was something you could make yours by arranging it and swapping it.
For those young and unfamiliar with this process, making a mixtape typically entailed gathering songs by the Cure and Depeche Mode, labeling the tape with care and awkwardly giving it to a love interest in homeroom.
Walkman
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