Recommended Reading
from Bruce
HENRY ROLLINS: "I JUST SPENT A WEEK COVERED IN BLOOD" (Los Angeles Weekly)
Spending days covered in movie blood has had only had one upside that I am aware of, and it happened on this film. We were working in an industrial area in Glendale and I was taking the long walk to the men's room, in a suit and tie, covered head to toe in blood.
I passed a man driving a forklift. He looked at me and deadpanned, "Rough day?"
JESSIE SCHIEWE: I WORE PASTIES AT EDC AND IT WASN'T THAT BAD (LA Weekly)
Granted, there weren't as many women wearing pasties as I'd expected - I counted only a dozen the entire night - but already, I felt more comfortable. Was it just me, or were people, men especially, avoiding staring at my chest? Here I was, essentially walking around without a shirt or pants on, yet nobody seemed to blink an eye.
Jessie Schiewe: L.A.'S SMALLEST RADIO STATION, 97.5 KBU, BROADCASTS OUT OF A MALIBU BEDROOM (LA Weekly)
Even running the station out of his daughter's old bedroom, Laetz estimates that he has sunk about $70,000 of his own money into startup costs. "I'll never get that all back," he says, "but hey, I've got a radio station down the hall."
David Thorpe: 'Who Sounds Gay?' (NY Times)
As you watch, consider something that a linguist kept reminding me: There's no such thing as a fundamentally gay voice. Plenty of men may sound gay, but their voices aren't evidence that they are gay. What we call the "gay voice" belongs to us all.
Sophie Heawood: down with cute - nothing beats a pop star with principles (Guardian)
'Revolutionaries with an actual plan are thin on the ground, so I'm inspired to see that they might now be found in pop.'
Bim Adewunmi: "Crush of the week: Kerry Washington" (Guardian)
'There is a thrilling core of steel in Kerry Washington. She radiates capability alongside ethereal beauty.'
What I'm really thinking: the divorce lawyer (Guardian)
'Middle-aged divorced men warm to me. Sometimes I wish for their sake they would get back together - I can tell they are still in love with their ex.'
André Gregory and Wallace Shawn's Top 10 [Movie Recommendations] (Criterion)
Theater directors, filmmakers, writers, actors, and longtime friends André Gregory and Wallace Shawn have collaborated on three movies together: My Dinner with André (1981), Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), and A Master Builder (2014).
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
Night Witches
The Little-Known Story of the Night Witches, an All-Female Force in WWII | Vanity Fair
MAM
Thanks, Marianne!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Lois Of Oregon
Sunday Idiotorial
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot and way too humid. Ack.
Frontal Assault On Monsanto, Walmart
Neil Young
Far from mellowing at nearly 70, Neil Young has taken up his electric guitar for a frontal assault on the power of big corporations including Monsanto and Walmart.
While the Canadian folk rock giant has long been known for left-of-center politics, the new album is extraordinary in its directness by attacking specific companies, down to the title, "The Monsanto Years."
On the album, which comes out Monday, Young casts himself as the champion of family farmers, Mom-and-Pop shops and ordinary consumers who he believes are getting hoodwinked by powerful corporations.
He singles out retail behemoth Walmart -- a key target of activists for its proliferation in small towns, low-rung wages and hostility to labor unions.
But he reserves his most pointed criticism for Monsanto, the St. Louis-based leader in genetically modified seeds and herbicides.
Neil Young
Atomkraft? Nein, Danke
Germany
Germany's oldest remaining nuclear reactor has been shut down, part of a move initiated four years ago to switch off all its nuclear plants by the end of 2022.
The Grafenrheinfeld reactor in the southern state of Bavaria was taken offline as scheduled overnight, authorities and operator E.ON said Sunday.
Grafenrheinfeld went into service in 1981. It is the first reactor to close since Germany switched off the oldest eight of its 17 nuclear reactors in 2011, just after Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
The next to close will be one of two reactors at the Gundremmingen plant in Bavaria, which is set to shut by the end of 2017. The rest will be closed by the end of 2022.
Germany
Cat Stationmaster Mourned
Tama
Tama the stationmaster, Japan's feline star of a struggling local railway, was mourned by company officials and fans and elevated into a goddess at a funeral Sunday.
The calico cat was appointed stationmaster at the Kishi station in western Japan in 2007. Donning her custom-made stationmaster's cap, Tama quietly sat at the ticket gate welcoming and seeing off passengers. The cat quickly attracted tourists and became world-famous, contributing to the railway company and local economy.
Tama, who had turned 16 in April, died of a heart failure on June 22. During Sunday's Shinto-style funeral at the station where she served, Tama became a goddess. The Shinto religion, indigenous to Japan and practiced by many Japanese, has a variety of gods including animals.
In one of several portraits decorating the altar, Tama posed in a stationmaster's hat and a dark blue cape. Sake, as well as watermelon, apples, cabbage and other fruits and vegetables were presented to the cat. A stand outside the station was heaped with bouquets, canned tuna and other gifts left by thousands of Tama fans who came to pray from around the country.
Tama
New Rules
Oregon
Come Wednesday, the pot stashes in Oregon are legal - up to 8 ounces. So is the homegrown, up to four plants a household.
The legalization of recreational marijuana on July 1 makes the state the fourth to do so, following Colorado, Washington state and Alaska. The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., also allows possession of personal amounts, though not sales.
In populous parts of the state that have long been tolerant of marijuana, police don't generally bust people using it in private. Most important, though, is that under the new law it's still illegal to sell recreational marijuana. When Oregon voters approved Measure 91 last November, they left the job of writing rules for pot shops to the Legislature and the state liquor control agency, which so far haven't gotten it all figured out. As of now, it's likely that July 1 will pass and users won't have a legal way to buy what they can use legally.
Oregon was the first state to lower penalties for small amounts of pot, "decriminalizing" it. That came in 1973. Medical marijuana followed in 1998. In 2012, voters rejected a first attempt to legalize recreational marijuana. It was widely viewed as poorly crafted. In 2013, the state approved dispensaries to sell medical pot, replacing a system that allowed patients to grow their own or, more commonly, designate someone to grow it for them. All along, marijuana farmers in southwestern Oregon, were growing world-class weed. Some of it was for medicinal use. Authorities say some went to the black market. Elsewhere, there are plenty of cultural signs of pot emerging from the underground, such as the specialty indoor garden stores that sell irrigation fittings and other cultivation gear nobody thinks is for orchids. Then, in November, voters approved Measure 91 by 12 percentage points, 56-44.
Oregon
Feds Double Down
Burning Man
Federal Bureau of Land Management officials are defending their request for special housing accommodations during the annual Burning Man counterculture festival in Nevada, disputing comments by Sen. Harry Reid and others that the plans are unnecessary and extravagant.
Burning Man organizers have refused the request, saying amenities such as flush toilets, washers and dryers, showers, air conditioning and refrigerators at the bureau's on-site camp in the Black Rock Desert would cost $1 million and hike its permit fees to about $5 million.
After the Reno Gazette-Journal broke the story about the federal agency's demands last week, Reid weighed in with a letter to Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell. He called the requested accommodations unprecedented, extravagant and "outlandishly unnecessary."
"Part of Burning Man's philosophy is self-reliance and living with the elements is part of the experience. Flush toilets and laundry facilities can be found about ten miles away in Gerlach, Nevada, if BLM's employees need such amenities," the Nevada Democrat said.
Burning Man
Israel Navy Seizes Ship
Gaza
Israeli naval forces boarded and took over an activist vessel seeking to break the Gaza blockade, and were escorting it to an Israeli port early Monday, the military said, saying that the navy did not use force.
"In accordance with international law, the Israeli Navy advised the vessel several times to change course," it said in a statement. "Following their refusal the Navy visited and searched the vessel in international waters in order to prevent their intended breach of the maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip."
A military spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that the vessel was the Swedish-flagged Marianne of Gothenburg, part of the so-called Freedom Flotilla III -- a convoy of four ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists including Arab-Israeli lawmaker Basel Ghattas, Tunisia's former president Moncef Marzouki and at least one European lawmaker.
There was no immediate word on the other three ships, which a reporter on the Marianne had said on Sunday were sailing some way behind it.
Gaza
Coronation Festivities
Tonga
Tonga on Saturday began a week of celebrations to mark the upcoming coronation of the Pacific nation's monarch, King Tupou VI, with an ancient ceremony involving the mildly narcotic drink kava.
The build-up to the July 4 coronation started near the Royal Palace in Nuku'alofa, where chiefs from around the kingdom presented gifts of pigs and yams to the king.
Sitting in a circle wearing traditional ta'ovala mats around their waists, about 150 nobles drank kava from coconut shells in a ceremony dating back centuries.
Street parties, black-tie balls, fashion shows and choral recitals will be held over the next week before King Tupou VI is officially crowned in the capital's Free Wesleyan Church.
The king -- a 55-year-old former diplomat -- succeeds his brother Tupou V, who died in 2012 after a six-year reign of major reforms that expanded democracy in the nation of about 110,000 people.
Tonga
New Questions
Alzheimers
Nearly two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's disease are women, and now some scientists are questioning the long-held assumption that it's just because they tend to live longer than men.
"There are enough biological questions pointing to increased risk in women that we need to delve into that and find out why," said Maria Carrillo, chief science officer for the Alzheimer's Association.
Last month, the association brought 15 leading scientists together to ask what's known about women's risk. Later this summer, Carrillo said it plans to begin funding research to address some of the gaps.
A recent Alzheimer's Association report estimates that at age 65, women have about a 1 in 6 chance of developing Alzheimer's during the rest of their lives, compared with a 1 in 11 chance for men.
Alzheimers
Weekend Box Office
'Jurassic World'
Seth MacFarlane's "Ted 2" opened far under expectations with $32.9 million, according to Rentrak estimates Sunday, ceding the top two spots to holdovers "Jurassic World" and "Inside Out."
While $32.9 million is a solid opening for an R-rated comedy, bigger things were expected from "Ted 2," which cost a reported $68 million to produce.
The Universal Pictures sequel was expected to earn somewhere in the $50 million range going into its debut weekend, thanks to the record-setting precedent of the first film, which earned $54.4 million in 2012.
"Jurassic World," also a Universal film, narrowly held the top spot for the third weekend in a row with a mighty $54.2 million, pushing it past the $500 million mark domestically - only the fifth film to do so in history.
Disney and Pixar's "Inside Out," meanwhile, finished at a close No. 2, earning $52.1 million - only a 42 percent drop from its first weekend in theaters.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1."Jurassic World," $54.2 million ($82.5 million international).
2."Inside Out," $52.1 million ($26.4 million international).
3."Ted 2," $32.9 million ($20.3 million international).
4."Max," $12.2 million.
5."Spy," $7.8 million ($6.4 million international).
6."San Andreas," $5.3 million ($10.4 million international).
7."Dope," $2.9 million.
8."Insidious Chapter 3," $2 million ($4 million international).
9."Mad Max: Fury Road," $1.7 million ($3 million international).
10."Avengers: Age of Ultron," $1.6 million.
'Jurassic World'
In Memory
Chris Squire
Chris Squire, the bassist and co-founder of the progressive rock band Yes who recently announced he had leukemia, has died, according to a statement from his band members on Sunday. He was 67.
The band posted a statement on its Facebook page saying Squire "peacefully passed away" Saturday in Phoenix, where he lived. No more details about the death were provided.
Squire announced last month that he had acute erythroid leukemia, a rare form of acute myeloid leukemia. He was receiving treatment before he died.
Squire was born on March 4, 1948, in London. He co-founded the band with its former lead singer, Jon Anderson, and the group released its self-titled debut album in 1969. Squire was the only member to play on all of Yes' albums.
He released his solo debut, "Fish Out of Water," in 1975, and also played in the short-lived supergroup XYZ (eX-Yes-Zeppelin), which included Jimmy Page.
Yes released the album "Heaven & Earth" last year. The Grammy-winning band's hits include "Roundabout" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart," which became a No. 1 hit on the Billboard pop charts in the 1980s. The group will launch a U.S. tour with Toto in August, when Billy Sherwood will fill in for Squire.
Squire is survived by his wife, Scotland, and several children.
Chris Squire
In Memory
Chris Thompson
He was on the verge of closing a deal for a pilot at Amazon that he hoped would be the start of a career turnaround. Just a few days ago, he sent a text message to his daughter Lola asking where she wanted to go to celebrate her birthday.
But on Friday evening, veteran TV comedy writer Chris Thompson, known for his hard-partying lifestyle and professional highs and lows, was found dead at the Toluca Lake home of actor Tim Curry, his longtime friend. He was 63.
Thompson's death was confirmed by his ex-wife, director-producer Lyndall Hobbs. She said Thompson was discovered unconscious by a caregiver at Curry's home on Friday night. An autopsy is being performed to determine the cause of death, Hobbs said.
Thompson's career stretched from the mid-1970s, when he got a break from a producer who admired his improv comedy performance, through series and pilots ranging from "Bosom Buddies," which marked Tom Hanks' breakout vehicle, to the biting Fox showbiz satire "Action." But his fortunes had been at a low ebb in the five years since he launched the Disney Channel series "Shake It Up!"
But about two months ago, Thompson got a call from his one-time agent, WME chieftain Ari Emanuel, with an offer to write an edgy comedy pilot for Amazon. It was based on an Israeli property dubbed "Red Band" about a womanizing, drug-taking rock star played by a life-size puppet. Thompson was well-suited to handle the project, given his life experience.
Born in Detroit, Thompson moved to Los Angeles with his family around the age of 12. He attended Fairfax High School but never graduated. He had run-ins with the law as a juvenile but eventually became active as a comedy performer and writer. He was introduced to Garry Marshall, then riding high on the success of multiple sitcoms, who gave him a job on the short-lived series "Blansky's Beauties." That led him to a long stint on Marshall's ABC hit "Laverne & Shirley."
By 1980, Thompson created his first sitcom, ABC's "Bosom Buddies," which is notable for giving a young Hanks an important career boost. The series starred Hanks and Peter Scolari as friends who disguised themselves as women in order to secure an affordable apartment in New York City. It only lasted two seasons but remains a pop culture touchstone.
Through the 1990s Thompson's credits as a writer-producer included comedies "The Naked Truth," "Ladies Man" and HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show." The pilot for "Action," starring Jay Mohr as a venal producer of B-grade movies," was originally produced for HBO but wound up landing a series order at Fox in 1999. It generated a great deal of industry buzz for its many inside jokes, but lasted less than a season. Today, it's seen as a forerunner of inside-showbiz comedies such as HBO's "Entourage."
Thompson and Hobbs were married briefly in the late 1980s, around the time Hobbs directed the 1987 comedy "Back to the Beach," which Thompson wrote.
Thompson's other film credits included the screenplay for 1986's "Jumpin' Jack Flash."
Survivors include his current wife, Curran Sympson Thompson, daughter Lola and a son and a daughter from a previous marriage.
Chris Thompson
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