Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Reagan was a Keynesian (New York Times)
Reagan, not Obama, was the big spender. While there was a brief burst of government spending early in the Obama administration - mainly for emergency aid programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps - that burst is long past. Indeed, at this point, government spending is falling fast, with real per capita spending falling over the past year at a rate not seen since the demobilization that followed the Korean War.
Duane Elgin: Can Death Become Your Ally? (Huffington Post)
The knowledge that our bodies will inevitably die burns through our attachments to the dignified madness of our socially constructed existence. Death is a friend that helps us to release our clinging to social position and material possessions as a source of ultimate security and identity. An awareness of death forces us to confront the purpose and meaning of our existence, here and now.
Neil Gaiman: A man who won't forget Ray Bradbury (Guardian)
Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman remembers his friend Ray Bradbury who has died at the age of 91.
Richard Roeper: Bradbury's sci-fi fantasies transcend time (Chicago Sun-Times)
Ray Bradbury cost me at least one night of sleep.
John Plotz: Did Ray Bradbury Even Write Science Fiction? (Slate)
A dyed-in-the-wool sci-fi nerd, I came to Ray Bradbury in my early teens because of where he was shelved with the Big Three in our local library (after Isaac Asimov, before Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein). He never fit the company, however and that's probably what explains his staying power.
Sam Weller: The Education of a Young Magician (Slate)
Ray Bradbury recalls the visit to the circus that changed his life.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: "Future Tense: Mourning the Political Ray Bradbury" (Huffington Post)
But for all his gentleness and lyricism, Ray Bradbury could work up a righteous anger. He said once that he wrote 'Fahrenheit 451' to express his "hatred for people who burn books." His anger still burns, and it lights a way forward the way for people who still read that book today. But, as Bradbury also said, "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
Ray Bradbury, science fiction writer, was grounded in Los Angeles (LA Times)
Ray Bradbury was a beloved figure in Los Angeles. He was a regular at bookstore readings and an enthusiastic supporter of local theater.
David l. Ulin: 'Naked Lunch' author Burroughs, never was an uneasy interview (Los Angeles Times)
The latest issue of 'Sensitive Skin,' a magazine "by and for ne'er-do-wells, black sheep, blackguards, scoundrels and wastrels," features a long interview with William S. Burroughs, conducted by his friend and running mate Allen Ginsberg in the early 1990s, when both men had achieved an uneasy status as elder statesmen of the underground.
Interview by Laura Barrett: "Portrait of the artist: Abi Morgan, writer" (Guardian)
'My definition of success is not worrying if money will come out of the cash machine.'
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Jo, the (lucky) lizard molted.
Special Award For Actors Union
Tony Awards
One of the oldest-ever Tony Award winners will be honored Sunday - Actors' Equity Association, which has begun a yearlong celebration of its centennial.
Equity, the 50,000-strong union of stage actors and stage managers, will get a Special Tony in recognition of their work negotiating wages, working conditions and benefits for theatrical performers.
"We're very grateful to accept this and very excited about this, our anniversary of the 100th year of our founding," said Nick Wyman, president of the union and a longtime member of Equity's governing council.
"It's a very alarming situation in the country today that people seem to have forgotten that unions are the good guys. We are the people who are protecting folks. We have somehow been painted as suddenly we are the fat cats and are working to destroy state budgets and middle-class possibilities when it's just the opposite," Wyman said. "Unions create the possibility for a middle-class life."
Actors' Equity Association was founded in May 1913 by 112 actors who banded together to fight against being exploited. The first president was the comedian Francis Wilson. Equity dues in 1916 were $5 a year. (They're now $118, plus a small percentage of weekly gross earnings). By 1919, Equity became strong enough to organize a strike that crippled the theatrical scene and forced producers to finally negotiate.
Tony Awards
NPR Duo Retiring
'Car Talk'
The comic mechanics on NPR's "Car Talk" are pulling in to the garage.
Brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi said Friday they will stop making new episodes of their joke-filled auto advice show at the end of September, 25 years after "Car Talk" began in Boston. Repurposed versions of old shows will stay on National Public Radio indefinitely, however.
The show airs every Saturday morning and is NPR's most popular program.
The duo will continue writing their "Dear Tom and Ray" column twice a week, NPR said.
'Car Talk'
Celebration Under Way In Metropolis
Superman
The yearly festival honoring Superman has taken off in the southern Illinois city that enthusiastically claims the Man of Steel as its favorite son.
The Superman Celebration is under way in the 6,500-resident Ohio River community of Metropolis and runs through Sunday.
Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to attend the celebration that includes movies and music, along with appearances by John Glover and Cassidy Freeman from the Superman television series "Smallville."
Metropolis has no real connection to the fictional crime-fighter beyond the fact that Superman's co-creator, Jerry Siegel, happened to choose the name "Metropolis" when he first wrote the strip in the 1930s.
Superman
Kicks Off European Tour In Serbia
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Big Brother and the Holding Company the band once fronted by 1970s rock icon Janis Joplin, kicks off a European tour Friday with a concert at a festival in Uzice, Serbia, the festival website said.
The San Francisco blues-rock band, for shot singer Joplin to fame, will play at the In Wires Festival in Uzice, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of Belgrade.
"We started in 1965 and at the time took on a singer (Joplin) who was unknown but smart, talented and totally devoted to the music," guitarist Sam Andrew told Serbia's Blic daily.
The band cut two records with Joplin before she left to go solo in 1968. Their set at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival is considered a historic performance.
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Stands By Rigging Claim
Miss Pennsylvania
The Miss Universe Organization says it has filed an arbitration action against a former contestant who alleges the pageant was rigged.
Pageant officials also released a statement from Miss Florida USA denying the claims made by Sheena Monnin as the reason she resigned as Miss Pennsylvania USA.
Earlier Friday, Monnin told NBC's "Today" show she was standing by her claim that a fellow contestant told her she saw the list of finalists hours before the pageant.
Miss Universe officials say Monnin actually resigned because organizers decided to admit transgender contestants.
Miss Pennsylvania
Downplays Baldwin's Role
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner testified Friday he never saw actor Stephen Baldwin contribute anything to their company's efforts to sell oil cleanup devices to BP in the aftermath of the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Baldwin and friend Spyridon Contogouris sued Costner and business partner Patrick Smith, claiming they were duped into selling their shares of Ocean Therapy Solutions - the company that marketed the machines to BP - and cheated them out of millions of dollars.
Costner said he wondered what Baldwin was doing for their company before BP agreed to make an $18 million deposit on a $52 million order for 32 oil-separating centrifuges.
Costner said the company's CEO, John Houghtaling, begged Baldwin and Contogouris not to sell their shares shortly before BP committed to buying the devices. Only Smith and Houghtaling were putting up money to keep their company afloat in the days before BP ordered the machines, according to Costner.
Kevin Costner
Megachurch Pastor Arrested
Creflo Dollar
Megachurch pastor and televangelist Creflo Dollar was arrested early Friday after authorities say he slightly hurt his 15-year-old daughter in a fight at his metro Atlanta home.
Fayette County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call of domestic violence at the home in unincorporated Fayette County around 1 a.m., Investigator Brent Rowan said. The 50-year-old pastor and his daughter were arguing over whether she could go to a party when Dollar "got physical" with her, leaving her with "superficial injuries," Rowan said.
Dollar faces misdemeanor charges of simple battery and cruelty to children. He bonded out of Fayette County jail Friday morning. Dollar's lawyer Nikki Bonner said he's gathering information on the case and had no comment.
Dollar is the pastor for World Changers Church International in College Park, which serves nearly 30,000 members, according to the church's website. World Changers Church-New York hosts over 6,000 worshippers each week, the website says. There are also four satellite churches in Georgia and others in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Washington, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston.
He and his wife Taffi, a co-pastor at the church, have five children, according to the website.
Creflo Dollar
PCH Porsche Problem
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan emerged uninjured from a collision with a dump truck on a coastal highway near Los Angeles on Friday, returning to the set of her new movie hours after the accident left the sports car she was driving crumpled.
Santa Monica Police Sgt. Richard Lewis said there was no sign Lohan was driving while impaired and that his agency would continue to investigate who was at fault in the wreck. The truck's driver was uninjured and that driver also showed no signs of driving under the influence, Lewis said.
The accident at around 11:40 a.m. Friday on the Pacific Coast Highway occurred while Lohan was on her way to film scenes for the Lifetime movie "Liz and Dick," which chronicles the love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Lohan's publicist Steve Honig said the actress was released about two hours after the accident and was returned to the set to continue filming.
Lohan was driving with her assistant, who police said was not seriously injured.
Lindsay Lohan
Bit O' Back-Tracking
Grammys
A year after the Grammy Awards cut 31 categories, sparking protests and a lawsuit by Latin jazz musicians, the music organization has made more changes by adding three awards, including the reinstatement of best Latin jazz album.
The Recording Academy announced Friday in a statement to The Associated Press that the upcoming Grammys will feature 81 categories. It reduced the number from 109 to 78 last year.
New entries include awards for best urban contemporary album - to honor R&B albums that may include elements of pop and rock - and best classical compendium to highlight albums "involving a mixture of classical subgenres."
The Academy shook up the music industry when it announced in April 2011 that it would downsize its categories to make the awards more competitive. That meant eliminating categories by sex, so men and women compete in the same vocal categories.
Grammys
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