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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
John Mark Eberhart: Interview with Tom Vanderbilt, author of 'Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do' (McClatchy Newspapers)
It's not pleasant, but the irony is apt: L.A. traffic has made me late for my interview with Tom Vanderbilt, the author of "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)."
John Mark Eberhart: Some of the season's most promising new titles feature the arts (McClatchy Newspapers)
Literature is a wellspring for all the arts.
Frank Furedi: Spell it like it is (spiked-online.com)
The idea that we shuold except student's spelling misstakes as merely 'variant spellings' speaks to the denigration of Trooth in education.
Jackie Fuchs: Why Barack Obama Reminds Me of Joan Jett (huffingtonpost.com)
They are the only two people I've ever known who have affirmatively chosen to give themselves a larger-than-life persona and then grew to fill it.
Will Harris: A Chat with Matthew Sweet (bullz-eye.com)
"It's a weird kind of dichotomy: the business is getting so that it's just impossible to make money doing it, but at the same time, I feel great about doing music. So I don't exactly feel pessimisticbut I don't know how we'll live!"
Len Righi: Bluesman watermelon slim paints a different picture (The Morning Call)
Watermelon Slim is spending a day off in Lawrenceville, a small town in north-central Pennsylvania along the New York border with one traffic light and a population of fewer than 700.
Len Righi: "Stacked with soul: Soulmen were spreading the word about Memphis" (The Morning Call)
In the 1960s, three record labels were most responsible for soul music not only undermining and finally eradicating the racial barriers entrenched at AM radio but turning it into the sound of young America - Motown in Detroit, Atlantic in New York and Stax/Volt in Memphis.
Nathan Heller: Jacques Tati's Trafic (slate.com)
It just might make you love your car again.
DAVID GERMAIN: Kevin Smith, Porn Fan, Makes "Porno" (huffingtonpost.com)
A chance encounter with a gay porn actor (Justin Long) gives Zack the notion that they could make their own sex flick to pay off their debts. When he and Miri add up how much money they could clear from one dirty movie, they wonder why everyone isn't busy making porn. "Because other people have options and dignity," Zack concludes.
Hank Williams Jr. lyric from "The American Dream"
"Now there are some preachers on TV with a suit and a tie and a vest . . .
They want you to send your money to the Lord but they give you their address."
wrote:
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and breezy.
Rap isn't my favorite music genre (although it beats the hell out of Gregorian chants - I find them dark and threatening), so wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to Dave
last night when Nas came on. He finally got my attention about half-way through his performance, and then I wanted to at least read what I'd missed.
Here are the lyrics, and
you can watch it -
YouTube - Sly Fox
YouTube - Nas - Sly Fox
YouTube - Nas - Sly Fox
You might be pleasantly surprised.
Campaign Against Domestic Violence
Reese Witherspoon
One woman in three in the world is affected by domestic violence, US movie actress Reese Witherspoon said Thursday as she promoted a worldwide campaign against abuse of women.
"There isn't a woman in the world that doesn't have a friend or a partner who's actually experiencing some sort of violence against them, so I think although domestic violence hasn't happened to me personally, I certainly know women who are dealing with this struggle every day," she told a media conference in Sao Paulo.
Witherspoon, the 32-year-old star of the "Legally Blonde" films and an Oscar winner for her role in "Walk the Line," is the global ambassador of "Speak Out Against Domestic Violence," a joint campaign launched in 2004 by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Avon cosmetics company.
Reese Witherspoon
Pre-Recorded Orchestra
Sydney Olympics
Eight years after it hosted an Olympics that were famously hailed as the "best games ever," Sydney has had to confess that it faked one of the key musical performances at the opening ceremony in 2000.
The revelation came after it emerged that nine-year-old Lin Miaoke was just lip-synching when she "sang" a patriotic song before 91,000 people and a global television audience during the August 8 opening ceremony at the Beijing Games.
Orchestra bosses have admitted that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) mimed its entire performance at the ceremony, and that some of the real music was in fact recorded by rival musicians in Melbourne.
The respected orchestra gave the fake performance because Olympics organisers "wanted to leave nothing to chance" and a second orchestra was found to record the backing tape because of a "mountainous workload" in Sydney, Christie said.
Sydney Olympics
Golden Girl
Kate Moss
A solid gold sculpture of British supermodel Kate Moss worth 1.5 million pounds (2.8 million dollars, 1.9 million euros) was unveiled in London on Thursday
The 50 kilogramme (110-pound) work is by artist Marc Quinn, previously famous for a controversial sculpture installed in London's Trafalgar Square of a pregnant woman with no arms due to a medical condition.
"I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who's the ideal beauty of the moment. But even Kate Moss doesn't live up to the image," he said.
The golden sculpture, entitled "Siren," will go on display surrounded by other pieces including Crouching Venus, the goddess of love, at the Nereid Gallery of the British Museum on October 4. The show runs until January 25.
Kate Moss
Hospital News
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama's admission to a hospital in Mumbai came a day after the Tibetan spiritual leader's office said he was suffering from exhaustion and would travel to the city for a medical check-up.
His office said on Wednesday said the monk would now not lead a worldwide 12-hour fast on August 30 intended to ensure attention to the campaign for improved human rights in Tibet did not drop off in the wake of the Olympics.
Officials said the fast and prayer session planned for his followers around the world will take place without him.
Planned visits to Mexico and the Dominican Republic have been dropped, the statement added.
Dalai Lama
Hospital News
David Duchovny
"X-Files" star David Duchovny, who currently plays a womanizing writer on the cable television series "Californication," said on Thursday he has entered a facility for treatment of sex addiction.
He has been married since 1997 to actress Tea Leoni, with whom he has a 9-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son.
"I have voluntarily entered a facility for the treatment of sex addiction," he said in a statement released through his lawyer, Stanton "Larry" Stein. "I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family."
David Duchovny
Man Removed From Jury
Anthony Pellicano
A juror was removed Thursday in the federal wiretapping trial of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and a high-profile attorney, forcing deliberations to restart a day after the panel got the case.
U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer said the man was replaced with an alternate after lying about making remarks to other jurors about the severity of the charges against Pellicano and lawyer Terry Christensen.
The man allegedly said, "'What's the big deal? Nobody was killed,'" then denied to the judge that he had made the remark, Fischer told attorneys.
Fischer learned of the comments in notes sent to her by another juror.
Anthony Pellicano
German Studio Offers Extras Settlement
'Valkyrie'
A German film studio has offered to negotiate a settlement with a dozen extras who were injured on the set of the Tom Cruise film "Valkyrie," despite their demands that the actor and his production company, United Artists, pay them $11 million.
"We have offered a settlement," Charles Woebcken, president and chief executive of Studio Babelsberg AG, which co-produced the film with United Artists. "But they haven't even reacted."
Though United Artists did not hire them, the 12 extras sent the company a letter demanding $11 million for injuries when the door of a truck they were riding in during the film shoot in August 2007 fell open. At the time, reports said several suffered cuts, bruises and some broken bones.
The extras were hired by Achte Babelsberg Film GmbH, a sister company of Studio Babelsberg. Woebcken said there was a thorough investigation of the incident and, a week later, the legal department sent a letter to the extras' attorney to begin the negotiation process for settlement.
'Valkyrie'
Didn't Like Pickens' "Iran" Ad
NBC
NBC Universal approved an advertisement by T. Boone Pickens entitled "Iran" which questions U.S. dependence on foreign oil, after the oil tycoon complained that the network had rejected it.
Pickens said in a statement earlier on Wednesday that the video commercial has been cleared by every U.S. television network except for NBC Universal and called on the unit of General Electric Co to reconsider its rejection.
NBC Universal said it has now cleared all eight versions of the advertisement, and that Pickens released his statement prematurely.
Pickens, a frequent commentator on NBC Universal's cable business channel, CNBC, has said that the ad aimed to educate the public.
NBC
Guilty Plea
DMX
Rap star DMX pleaded guilty to trying to buy cocaine and marijuana in Miami and was awaiting extradition to Arizona on outstanding drug charges there, his lawyer said on Thursday.
The rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons, entered the plea on Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court and was sentenced to time served, said his lawyer Bradford Cohen.
He was jailed two or three days after his July arrest on a charge of trying to buy illegal drugs from an undercover police officer during a street corner sting, Cohen said.
Simmons was initially released on bond on the Florida charge, but was arrested two weeks ago on the outstanding warrant from Arizona during a traffic check outside a Wal-Mart store and then denied bond.
DMX
Greenland Massacre
Narwhals
Dozens of massacred narwhals, an Arctic whale with a single long tusk, have been discovered on the east coast of Greenland in what local police said Thursday could be a case of poaching.
A scientific expedition from New Zealand discovered the carcasses as they sailed along the coastline "about two weeks ago," Nielsen said.
People in Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, are authorised to hunt narwhals "but there are rules that say you can't shoot females and that you have to remove the body" after killing the animal, deputy chief of Greenland police Morten Nielsen said.
There were females and calves among the dead, Danish news agency Ritzau reported, adding that only the males' long tusks and some meat had been removed from the carcasses.
Narwhals
It's What's For Supper
Rat
The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.
With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel (69 pence) from 1,200 riel last year.
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.
Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat.
Rat
Roasted rat always reminds me of G. Gordon Liddy
Scientists Find Ancient Lost Settlements
Amazon
A vast region of the Amazon forest in Brazil was home to a complex of ancient towns in which about 50,000 people lived, according to scientists assisted by satellite images of the region.
The scientists, whose findings were published on Thursday in the journal Science, described clusters of towns and smaller villages connected by complex road networks and housing a society doomed by the arrival of Europeans five centuries ago.
European colonists and the diseases they brought with them probably killed most of the inhabitants, the researchers said. The settlements, consisting of networks of walled towns and smaller villages organized around a central plaza, are now almost entirely overgrown by the forest.
Helped by satellite imagery, the researchers spent more than a decade uncovering and mapping the lost communities.
Amazon
In Memory
Del Martin
Pioneering lesbian rights activist Del Martin, who married her longtime partner in June on the first day that California's same-sex couples gained that right, died Wednesday. She was 87.
Her wife, Phyllis Lyon, was with her.
Martin and Lyon were married at City Hall on June 16. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the wedding, singled them out to be the first gay couple to legally exchange vows in the city, in recognition of their long relationship and their status as gay-rights pioneers.
Along with six other women, they founded a San Francisco social club for lesbians in 1955 called the Daughters of Bilitis after a book of lesbian erotic poetry published in Paris. The group evolved into the nation's first lesbian advocacy organization.
Martin in 1970 wrote an influential article in the Advocate magazine that criticized what she saw as the gay rights movement's persistent chauvinism. She and Lyon together wrote "Lesbian/Woman," a 1972 book that argued lesbians should be seen for more than their sexuality and simultaneously offered a frank, no-nonsense account of lesbian relationships.
Martin was born in San Francisco and had a daughter from a four-year marriage to her college sweetheart.
She is survived by Lyon; her daughter, Kendra Mon, and two grandchildren.
Del Martin
In Memory
Abie Nathan
Abie Nathan, the peace activist who made a dramatic solo flight to Egypt in a rattletrap single-engine plane and later founded the groundbreaking "Voice of Peace" radio station, died Wednesday. He was 81.
He burst onto the world of Middle East diplomacy in 1966 with his solo flight more than a decade before Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty.
Although he failed in his initial bid to talk peace with the Egyptians, his daredevil escapade won the affection of many Israelis and launched a long and often eccentric one-man crusade to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Over time, he earned a reputation as a maverick peace activist who often took diplomacy into his own hands. He was called a crackpot and a prophet. But many admired the daring of the former Israeli air force fighter pilot as he pounded on Egypt's doors, sailed his pirate radio ship into hostile Middle East waters or risked his life on hunger strikes for peace.
Abraham Jacob Nathan was born April 29, 1927 in Iran, educated in India, and served in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot, before joining the Jewish immigrant influx into newborn Israel in 1948.
In 1967, he flew to Egypt again and was turned away without seeing Nasser. The Israelis jailed him for 40 days.
After two more fruitless flights on commercial airlines, Nathan changed his tactics, buying a 188-foot, 570-ton freighter that was partially funded by John Lennon. He anchored it off the coast of Tel Aviv and turned it into a pirate radio station, "The Voice of Peace," with a mix of pop songs and peace messages.
Over the next 20 years, "The Voice of Peace" became especially popular among youth. It was the only radio station in the Middle East that broadcast music from the world's "Top 40" charts and used English as its primary language, yet offered both Israeli and Arabic news.
Apart from his peace efforts, Nathan flew or shipped emergency supplies to victims of war, earthquakes and famine around the world, including to Biafra, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Lebanon and the former Zaire.
In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Nathan said that during one of his prison hunger strikes, he was certain he was going to die. He bought a grave and a tombstone. When asked what he would want written on the stone, he replied "Nissiti," the Hebrew word for "I tried."
Nathan was twice married and had one daughter, Sharona. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
Abie Nathan
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