Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Franklin Delano Obama? (nytimes.com)
Barack Obama's chances of leading a new New Deal depend largely on whether his short-run economic plans are bold enough. Progressives can only hope that he has the necessary audacity.
Ceci Connolly and R. Jeffrey Smith: Obama Positioned to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions (washingtonpost.com)
Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.
FRANK RICH: It Still Felt Good the Morning After (nytimes.com)
Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. ... The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place - in cities all over America.
Jeffrey Hart: The Republicans Are Now the Stupid Party (thedailybeast.com)
In its embrace of the religious right under George W. Bush, the Republican party became the stupid party. And committing suicide along with it has been the conservative movement. The party united around god, guns and gays is finished.
Daniel Gross: The Fierce Urgency of Now (slate.com)
Why Obama has to take over economic policymaking-today.
Melissa Etheridge: You Can Forget My Taxes (thedailybeast.com)
Singer Melissa Etheridge rails against the passage of the gay-marriage ban in California-and she won't be paying the state a dime.
Theodore Dalyrmple: Of Bibliophilia and Biblioclasm (newenglishreview.org)
In 1936, George Orwell published a little essay entitled Bookshop Memories. In it, he recalled his time as an assistant in a second-hand bookshop, a time that was happy only when viewed through the soft-focus lens of nostalgia. Irony might be defined as disgust recalled in tranquillity, and Orwell's essay is nothing if not full of irony. He was glad to have had the experience, no doubt, but more glad that it was over.
"And the Hippos were Boiled in their Tanks" by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac: The Times review by Douglas Kennedy
Here are the basic facts: on the evening of August 14, 1944, a Columbia student named Lucien Carr used his Boy Scout knife (of all things) to stab his lover, Dave Kammerer, in the chest after a drunken tiff in Riverside Park. The stab wounds didn't kill Kammerer, but Carr's panicked decision to dump him unconscious in the Hudson River finally finished him off.
Rosanna Greenstreet: Q&A with Zoë Heller, novelist (guardian.co.uk)
Novelist Zoë Heller on peeing in a wastepaper basket, her pink fridge and eating bad sushi in Brazil.
Julia Keller: Studs Terkel and the sonnets of sweat (chicagotribune.com)
When I was a kid, my family moved a lot. My father was embarking upon graduate degrees in mathematics, and he deliberately selected schools far from our West Virginia home-the University of Arizona in Tucson, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign-so that we could see the country.
KATHLEEN WILKINSON: "Dorothy Allison: The Value of Redemption" (curvemag.com)
Dorothy Allison says it astonishes her when people pay attention to our stories-queer stories, working-class stories, stories of the abused, despised and disenfranchised. "The world don't wanna know...it's f**king America."
JON CARAMANICA: My Music, MySpace, My Life (nytimes.com)
Stressing young love and personal connections, Taylor Swift expands country music's audience.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
He Wears a Yellow Stripe
Still true after all these years!
The Weekly Poll
Results Delayed
Has there been a particular book or movie that you can say truly changed your life?
Results on hold. Bob's in the hospital.
Reader Contribution
Veteran's Day
I am so old that I remember when Veterans Day was Armistice Day, as it falls on November 11th, the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.)
A good cartoon . .
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and brisk for these parts.
4 More Years
Keith Olbermann
Barack Obama, the presidential candidate Keith Olbermann championed this fall, just won a four-year term. So, too, has Olbermann.
MSNBC announced Monday that Olbermann, its headlining prime-time star, has signed on to continue hosting "Countdown" each weeknight at 8 o'clock EST. MSNBC essentially tore up an existing contract Olbermann had, adding a year and a half and more money. (Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.)
Olbermann's fans made him a folk hero during the campaign for his sharp-tongued criticism of John McCain and resident Bush. The size of his audience has more than doubled, from an average of 776,000 in October 2007 to nearly 2.2 million this October, according to Nielsen Media Research. O'Reilly's audience hovered around 4 million a night in October 2008. (But the two were much more competitive among the 25-to-54 age demographic; Olbermann beat his rival seven nights in October in that category.)
MSNBC has built its prime time in Olbermann's image, hiring Rachel Maddow - a frequent Olbermann guest - for a successful 9 p.m. show. (Olbermann's telecast is repeated each weeknight at 10.)
Keith Olbermann
Honored For Work
Glenn Close
The Hollywood Reporter on Monday said it honoring actress Glenn Close for her contributions to entertainment when the industry newspaper unveils its widely-watched list of powerful women in showbusiness next month.
Close, 61, will be given the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award on December 5 when The Hollywood Reporter's annual issue, "Power 100: Women in Entertainment" is revealed.
In recent years, Close has won fans and earned an Emmy for playing a tough-as-nails attorney on cable TV show "Damages." She also earned an Emmy, U.S. television's top honor, for portraying a lesbian military officer in "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story," which ran on cable in 1995.
She gained a foothold on stardom in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s earned five Oscar nominations for work in a range of films including "The World According To Garp" and "The Big Chill."
Glenn Close
Playing Scrooge
Christopher Lloyd
Back To The Future star Christopher Lloyd is the latest star to play 'humbug' onstage as Ebenezer Scrooge in an all-star version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
The actor will play the Victorian miser in a production that will also feature Gene Wilder, John Goodman, Jane Seymour and former Frasier star Jane Leeves.
The beloved festive story will be acted out onstage at Los Angeles' home of the Oscars, the Kodak Theatre, for 14 performances, beginning 22 December.
Christopher Lloyd
Less Popular Than Nixon
Bush
With 71 days left in office, resident Bush is less popular than President Nixon was at the time of his resignation, according to data released Monday by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation.
The new poll, taken Thursday through Sunday, showed an approval rating of 24 percent and a disapproval rating of 76 percent.
CNN released a chart showing presidential "disapproval" ratings in CNN or Gallup polls for each president dating back to Harry Truman. This list shows the percentage of Americans who disapproved of the way each president was handling his job.
Bush
Hospital News
James Cromwell
James Cromwell was injured in a fall from his bicycle over the weekend and was expected to be released from a hospital Monday, his publicist said. Cromwell, 68, suffered a broken collarbone and a partially deflated lung, according to a statement released Monday by publicist Nancy Seltzer.
She said Cromwell is a serious cyclist who was training on a Los Angeles-area canyon road Sunday when he fell from the bike.
Cromwell starred in the "Babe" movies and recently portrayed the first President Bush in "W." Seltzer said Cromwell would be well enough to complete his work schedule on the new TV drama "My Own Worst Enemy."
James Cromwell
Hospital News
Merle Haggard
Country singer Merle Haggard, recently diagnosed with lung cancer, had part of a lung removed and is recovering at home, his spokeswoman said on Sunday.
The 71-year-old singer-songwriter underwent surgery on Monday in a Bakersfield, California, hospital.
"I'm feeling good ... better and better each day," Haggard was quoted as saying in a statement. "If not for the love and wisdom of my wife (Theresa), I might not be around today."
Doctors removed the upper lobe of Haggard's right lung after a biopsy revealed that he had non-small cell lung cancer, the statement said. Tests revealed that all the affected tissue was removed.
Merle Haggard
Lawyers Still Wrangling
James Brown
Lawyers pushing a long-awaited settlement over how to parcel out James Brown's estate and trust want the trustees removed, claiming they've done little to protect the singer's legacy and money.
Court-appointed trustees Adele Pope and Robert Buchanan, who are attorneys in South Carolina, should be replaced by someone with the legal and accounting expertise needed to deal with the complex estate, Louis Levensen, a lawyer for some of Brown's adult children, said Monday. Levensen and other lawyers involved in the dispute over Brown's estate claim it has taken too long to resolve, and want the current trustees out.
A proposed settlement of Brown's estate would give 50 per cent to his charitable trust to educate the singer's grandchildren and needy students in Georgia and South Carolina; 25 per cent to a woman who claims to be Brown's surviving spouse and the mother of his child; and 25 per cent to some of Brown's adult children. All parties with a stake in the settlement support the motion calling for the trustees' removal.
Lawyers had hoped to announce the settlement details last month. Instead, several debtors testified in court they are owed money from the estate.
James Brown
Tune Pops Up
Gary Glitter
A British exam board is recalling a high school music test that included convicted child molester Gary Glitter's music in its "suggested listening" section, board officials said Monday.
The test asked British students to compose an original song "that relies on changes of tempo or style," said Claire Ellis, spokeswoman for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance. Students were given a series of examples they could model their songs on, among them Glitter's 1970s hit "I'm The Leader Of The Gang."
Like many of Glitter's foot-stomping anthems, the song was once a chart-topper. But the glam rocker and his music have been shunned since the singer was convicted of abusing two young girls in Vietnam.
"We are asking schoolchildren to use his songs - and Gary Glitter - as a role model, as someone who has written a wonderful song," said Michele Elliott, head of anti-child-abuse group Kidscape. "The role model is morally decrepit. It's just inappropriate."
Gary Glitter
Blueprints Found
Auschwitz
The original construction plans believed used for a major expansion of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in 1941 have been found in a Berlin flat, Germany's Bild newspaper reported on Saturday.
The daily printed three architect's drawings on yellowing paper from the batch of 28 pages of blueprints it obtained. One has an 11.66 meter by 11.20 meter room marked "Gaskammer" (gas chamber) that was part of a "delousing facility."
No one from the federal government's archives was immediately available for comment on the authenticity or importance of the documents.
The plans, published ahead of the 70th anniversary of the "Kristallnacht" or the Nazi pogrom that was a harbinger of the Holocaust, also include a crematorium and a "L. Keller" -- an abbreviation for "Leichenkeller" or corpse cellar.
Auschwitz
Blaming The Cast
"Knight Rider"
KITT is getting a tune-up. NBC's struggling freshman drama "Knight Rider" is undergoing a major retooling, bringing it closer to the original 1980s series. Among the changes, the options of three regulars on the show -- Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Yancey Arias and Bruce Davison -- were not picked up beyond the initial 13-episode order.
"It's a reboot," "Knight" executive producer/showrunner Gary Scott Thompson said. "We're moving away from the terrorist-of-the-week formula and closer to the original, making it a show about a man and his car going out and helping more regular people, everymen."
Such a change would make "Knight" a better fit into NBC's newly rebranded crime drama Wednesday lineup alongside "Life" and "Law & Order."
"Knight Rider"
Bit Of A Bigot
Queen Mother
The Queen Mother once labelled some of Britain's EU colleagues as "Huns, wops and dagos", a BBC broadcaster has said.
Edward Stourton, who co-presents Radio 4's Today programme, said the comments were made to him by the royal in the early 1990s after he returned from covering a European summit.
The story is recounted in a book published this week by the journalist - It's A PC World.
"The nation's favourite grandmother was, I thought, in fact a ghastly old bigot, a prey to precisely the kind of prejudice which had driven the conflicts the European project had been designed to prevent... I thought that what she had said was nasty and ugly."
Queen Mother
In Memory
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba, the South African singer who wooed the world with her sultry voice but was banned from her own country for 30 years under apartheid, died early Monday after a concert in Italy. She was 76.
Makeba wrote in her 1987 memoirs that friends and relatives who first encouraged her to perform compared her voice to that of a nightingale. With her distinctive style combining jazz with folk with South African township rhythms, she was often called "The Empress of African Song."
She first started singing in Sophiatown, a cosmopolitan neighborhood of Johannesburg that was a cultural hotspot in the 1950s before its black residents were forcibly removed by the apartheid government.
She then teamed up with South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela - later her first husband - and her rise to international prominence started when she starred in the anti-apartheid documentary "Come Back, Africa" in 1959.
When she tried to fly home for her mother's funeral the following year, she discovered her passport had been revoked. It was 30 years before she was allowed to return.
In 1963, Makeba appeared before the U.N. Special Committee on Apartheid to call for an international boycott of South Africa. The South African government responded by banning her records, including hits like "Pata Pata," "The Click Song" ("Qongqothwane" in Xhosa), and "Malaika."
Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording in 1966 together with Harry Belafonte for "An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba." The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid.
Thanks to her close relationship with Belafonte, she received star status in the United States and performed for President John F. Kennedy at his birthday party in 1962. But she fell briefly out of favor when she married black power activist Stokely Carmichael and moved to Guinea in the late 1960s.
After three decades abroad, Makeba was invited back to South Africa by anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from prison in 1990 as white racist rule crumbled.
Makeba announced her retirement three years ago, but despite a series of farewell concerts she never stopped performing. When she turned 75 last year, she said she would sing for as long as possible.
Miriam Makeba
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