Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: Watch This 30-Second Spot
To win, they need unemployment to be high and the economy stalled. And the rest of us are caught in the crossfire. Have a nice day.
Kristina Rizga: What's the Best Way to Grade Teachers? (Mother Jones)
Last year, battles over charter schools dominated much of education coverage. This year, the controversy over "teacher evaluations" is poised to be the biggest fight among people with competing visions for improving public schools.
Dana Goldstein: Is the U.S. doing teacher reform all wrong? (Washington Post)
There is good reason for education reform efforts to focus on teaching. We know that although about two-thirds of the achievement gap can be explained by family poverty, teachers are among the most important in-school factors that effect student learning, with some teachers being better than others at helping children progress.
Jim Hightower: THE UNANSWERED QUESTION IS, WHY?
The only reason we're given for being in Afghanistan is that we must keep al Qaeda terrorists from establishing bases there. But - like bin Laden - al Qaeda left this country years ago and now operates transnationally in Pakistan, Yemen, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere, including England and Germany.
Froma Harrop: What the Strauss-Kahn Case Is Not About (Creators Syndicate)
Apparently, the woman consorted with a known drug dealer, lied to immigration officials about having been gang-raped in Guinea, fibbed about her finances, cheated on her taxes and, after the arrest of Strauss-Kahn, apparently phoned her jailed boyfriend to say in her native language: "Don't worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I'm doing."
Susan Estrich: Nuts and Sluts (Creators Syndicate)
What I care about is all the other women: the women who really were raped, the women who are afraid to report, the women who will turn away from all of this coverage, who will tense up when men start talking about the poor Frenchman who thought he was doing it with a prostitute and not a woman with a right to consent. I know what these women will do next, or rather, what they won't. They will not tell anyone what really happened to them.
Deborah Orr: In a rape trial, all evidence is useful (Guardian)
It is important for women to report sexual attacks, even if they feel there is no chance of a prosecution.
I have just written you a long letter (Letters of Note)
Despite never being published in the paper, the following brief letter - sent to the offices of The Times in 1946 by the famously eccentric Lt. Col. Alfred Daniel Wintle - was so adored by staff, it has apparently been preserved ever since. It's easy to see why.
Kristi Harrison: 7 Pieces of Good News Nobody Is Reporting (Cracked)
#7. The Gulf of Mexico Is Almost at Its Pre-Spill Health Levels
Simon Reynolds: Is Björk the last great pop innovator? (Guardian)
No one else can match the Icelandic musician's three decades of artistic restlessness and invention.
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 Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit cooler, but not much.
Fighting US Horse Roundup
Sheryl Crow
Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow says she'll donate part of the profits from an upcoming concert to a wild horse protection group that is suing the government to try to stop a big mustang roundup in the state of Nevada.
Crow says the Colorado-based Cloud Foundation will get a share of the gate from her show with Kid Rock at Cheyenne Frontier Days on July 22 in the state of Wyoming.
The Grammy Award winner says she shares the foundation's dedication to the preservation of wild horses on public lands.
The group's lawyers are due in federal court in Reno on Thursday. They're trying to win an emergency injunction to block the Bureau of Land Management's roundup of 1,700 mustangs scheduled to begin next weekend along the Nevada-Utah line.
Sheryl Crow
Fake Fireworks Shots
CBS
You might think the British press holds a monopoly on media controversy this month, with the shuttering of a 168-year-old tabloid over a phone-hacking scandal. Still, at least one Yank media concern has won some recent unwelcome notoriety--fittingly enough, for airing misleading video footage on the national holiday commemorating American independence from the British crown.
CBS has been caught doctoring Fourth of July fireworks footage after Bostonians realized Thursday that the network's images of fireworks over various city landmarks were not only breathtaking, but also fake.
An area research scientist appears to have been among the first to point out the discrepancy on a Boston-based blog. Then the Boston Globe got wind of the scandal and blew the story up in its pages Friday, noting that "it would not have been geographically possible to see the fireworks above and behind the landmarks in question"--including the State House, Quincy Market, and home plate at Fenway Park--"since the display was launched from a barge in the Charles River and in directions away from those places."
But at least "the Boston-area businessman and philanthropist who has executive produced the show for nine years," David Mugar, is owning up to the manipulated imagery. The Globe reports:
Mugar said the added images were above board because the show was entertainment and not news. He said it was no different than TV drama producer David E. Kelley using scenes from his native Boston in his show "Boston Legal'' but shooting the bulk of each episode on a studio set in Hollywood.
CBS
Leaving CBS News For NBC
Harry Smith
CBS News veteran Harry Smith is leaving the network to join NBC, six months after CBS replaced his "Early Show" team.
NBC said a formal announcement of Smith's hiring will come Monday. Smith, who joined CBS in 1986, will head to a new primetime newsmagazine show with Brian Williams, according to media reports.
CBS announced in November that it would replace Smith, Maggie Rodriguez and Dave Price on the morning show, which lags behind "Today" and "Good Morning America." The new team of Erica Hill, Chris Wragge and Maggie Castro took over at the start of the year.
CBS News President David Rhodes announced Smith's departure in a memo to staff:
Harry Smith
TNT Offers Sneak Peak Monday
"Dallas"
TNT has greenlit its revamp of the iconic nighttime soap opera "Dallas" for a full season and will offer a preview of the series this coming Monday, the cable station announced on Friday.
The series, which has been picked up for 10 episodes, will star "Desperate Housewives" alumnus Jesse Metcalfe and Brenda Strong, "90210" star Josh Henderson, Jordana Brewster from "Fast & Furious" and "Veronica Mars" star Julie Gonzalo, as well as Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray reprising their roles from the original series.
The revamp, produced by Warner Horizon Television, will officially debut in summer 2012.
The sneak preview of the series will run on July 11, during the season premieres of "The Closer," which airs at 9 p.m., and "Rizzoli & Isles," airing the following hour.
"Dallas"
Ex-Royal Editor Arrested
News of the World
The former News of the World royal editor, jailed in 2007, was arrested over alleged payments to police, a police source said on Friday.
Clive Goodman was jailed for four months in January 2007 after royal staff members complained about voicemail messages having been intercepted relating to Prince William's knee injury.
The latest arrest was in connection with a police operation looking at alleged payments to police by journalists at the News of the World, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
News of the World
Quoting Sgt. Schultz, "He Knows Nothing"
Rupert
Rupert Murdoch flies to London on Saturday to deal with the escalating phone-hacking crisis engulfing his British newspapers business, according to two people familiar with his plans.
The arrival of the 80-year-old News Corp chief executive follows the shock announcement on Thursday that he is shutting down the News of the World, the 168-year-old best-selling Sunday tabloid newspaper at the center of the scandal.
After years of allegations about hacking the voicemail of celebrities and politicians in search of stories, the scandal reached a tipping point earlier this week when it was alleged that in 2002 the paper had listened to the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a missing schoolgirl who was later found murdered, and even deleted some of her messages to make way for more.
That claim, and allegations that a growing list of victims included Britain's war dead and the families of those killed in the 2005 London transport bombings, outraged readers and caused many brands to pull advertising from the title.
Murdoch, who had spent most of the week at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, has kept a low-profile since the scandal erupted. On Thursday, he refused to answer journalists' questions on the matter referring them to a Wednesday statement in support of News International chief Rebekah Brooks.
Rupert
Leaves China For Germany
Liao Yiwu
An outspoken Chinese writer and government critic has left his homeland for Germany after police repeatedly threatened him with imprisonment to prevent him from publishing any more of his controversial works overseas.
Liao Yiwu arrived in Berlin two days ago at the end of a secretive journey that included transfers in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and Warsaw, Poland, the writer said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
"I feel so much more relaxed now that I am in a place where I can speak freely and publish freely," Liao said. "I am in a very good mood now."
The writer said police in China had visited him often in recent months to deliver veiled threats that if he published any more works abroad, he would be jailed. The Sichuan-based writer was also banned from leaving China to attend a literary festival in Australia in March and removed from a plane in the southwestern city of Chengdu in February on his way to Germany for Europe's largest literary festival.
The police intimidation of Liao appeared to be part of one of the Chinese government's broadest campaigns of repression in years, which started in February as dozens of activists, lawyers and intellectuals were detained, arrested or disappeared in Beijing's bid to prevent the growth of an Arab-style protest movement.
Liao Yiwu
Selling Greenwich, Conn., House
Regis Philbin
Television host Regis Philbin and his wife are trying to sell one of the two homes they own in Greenwich.
The house on Meeting House Road has nearly 6,000 square feet of space, including four bedrooms and eight bathrooms. It sits on 6 acres near Mianus River State Park and also includes a pool, a tennis court and a gazebo.
It is listed for $3.8 million with Sotheby's International Realty, after being listed for $5.9 million back in 2008.
The Philbins own another home less than 2 miles away, and an apartment in Manhattan.
Regis Philbin
2 Hours Of Snark And Sleaze
The TMZ Tour
If your idea of Hollywood is Lindsay, Paris and Kim, TMZ has a tour for you.
Harvey Levin's internet and TV tabloid juggernaut has gotten into the bus-tour business, ferrying tourists and locals around Hollywood, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills three or four times a day on a snarky, gossipy two-hour tour that bites the hand that feeds it and bypasses a lot of the things you'd normally expect on a Hollywood tour.
It drives you through a historic West Hollywood intersection that was the location of Schwab's drugstore and the Garden of Allah apartments (home to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles and many others).
That same intersection is also the site of the Sunset Strip Riots and the inspiration for two classic rock songs, Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth."
This is a tour for people who think Hollywood is full of sleazy no-talents but who are nonetheless fascinated by every last one of 'em, and a tour from people who love simultaneously mocking and riding that sleaze all the way to the bank.
The TMZ Tour
In Memory
Betty Ford
Betty Ford, the wife of the late President Gerald Ford, who overcame alcohol and prescription drug addictions and helped found a rehabilitation clinic that bears her name, died on Friday at the age of 93.
Ford once was dubbed the "fighting first lady" by Time magazine because of her outspoken political views, which often differed from those of her husband's Republican Party.
She strongly supported women's rights while her husband was president from 1974 to 1977, working the phones in a vain attempt to get states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which sought to give women and men equality under law.
Ford's candor was surprising for the time. She took a tolerant stance on abortion and admitted without shame that some of her children had tried marijuana. Nor was she alarmed by the prospect of her daughter having premarital sex.
Ford also was an early campaigner against breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy in 1974, less than two months after her husband succeeded the disgraced Richard Nixon as president.
Her frank discussions about her disease helped raise awareness about breast cancer and she eventually took the same approach toward her alcoholism, which she battled even as first lady.
Ford's problems with chemical dependency may have begun in 1964, when doctors prescribed her painkillers for a pinched nerve. She developed an addiction to prescription drugs and also became dependent on alcohol during the 1960s.
The Betty Ford Center in California came into being in 1982 after Ford was treated for her addictions at the U.S. Naval Hospital at Long Beach, and saw the need for treatment that emphasized the special needs of women.
Ford remained an active chairman of the center's board of directors for decades and also worked to help handicapped children, the arts and the fights against AIDS and arthritis.
For most of her adult life, Ford was best known as the wife of Rep. Gerald Ford, a Michigan Republican, and the mother of four children. The couple had planned to retire from Congress in 1973 when Nixon, already under fire in the Watergate scandal, chose Ford to serve as vice president after the resignation of Spiro Agnew.
Ford became president after Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, but he was defeated when he ran for the presidency in 1976 by Democrat Jimmy Carter. Betty delivered her husband's concession speech because he had lost his voice on the campaign trail.
Born April 8, 1918, in Chicago, Elizabeth Bloomer was raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She wanted to be a dancer and studied under Martha Graham and modeled in New York before returning to Grand Rapids and marrying a furniture salesman. They divorced after five years and she married Ford in 1948.
In her later years, Betty Ford slipped from the public eye but returned when her husband of 58 years died in 2006. Her stately demeanor in time of grief brought her to the attention of a whole new generation that possibly knew her name only from the famous clinic.
Betty Ford
In Memory
Billy Blanco
Veteran Bossa Nova composer Billy Blanco has died in Brazil at age 87.
Hospital officials in Rio de Janeiro say he died Friday from complications of a stroke he suffered in October.
Blanco was at the heart of the Bossa Nova movement when it bloomed in the early 1960s.
He authored more than 300 songs and collaborated with the genre's biggest names, such as Tom Jobim, Joao Gilberto and Baden Powell.
Blanco was known as the "Diamond of Bossa Nova." He was born in 1924 in the Amazon jungle city of Belem, but migrated south to Sao Paulo as a young man to study architecture. He moved on to Rio and quickly launched his composing career.
Billy Blanco
In Memory
Manuel Galban
Manuel Galban, a Grammy-winning Cuban guitarist who rose to international fame as a member of the Buena Vista Social Club, has died of a heart attack in Havana. He was 80.
"It is a very sad day for Cuban music and fans of Cuban Music," said Daniel Florestano, longtime manager of both Galban and the Buena Vista Social Club, in a statement issued by Galban's publicist. "Galban's enormous impact worldwide with his unique guitar sound and warm smile will be missed by many."
Born in 1931 in Gibara, in the eastern province of Holguin, Galban made his professional debut in 1944, according to the statement. In 1963 he joined Los Zafiros, Spanish for "Sapphires," which fused styles as varied as bolero, calypso and rock with Cuban "filin" music, which comes from the word "feeling."
The group became one of the island's most popular until it disbanded in 1972.
Galban spent the next three years as head of Cuba's national music ensemble.
In the 1990s he became part of the Buena Vista Social Club project, a group of elderly, sometimes retired, musicians who were living quietly in Cuba before U.S. guitarist and producer Ry Cooder brought them together.
The album was an international smash hit and later the subject of a documentary by filmmaker Wim Wenders.
In 2003 Galban teamed up with Cooder to record Mambo Sinuendo. It won a Grammy the following year for best pop instrumental album.
Manuel Galban
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