Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: OBAMA COVERS UP A DOZEN MY LAIS
Were 3,000 Afghans Murdered As U.S. Troops Stood By?
Paul Krugman: The Joy of Sachs (nytimes.com)
Goldman Sachs's record quarterly profits show us that the investment bank is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.
Mark Morford: Me and my 5,000 Facebook friends (sfgate.com)
What happens when you reach the ultimate in cool, pointless thresholds?
ARIANE CONRAD: Exquisite Corpses (therumpus.net)
'San Francisco Chronicle' columnist Mark Morford's Facebook status messages are queries for the world, not just for his friends. In a special Rumpus bricolage, we are pleased to present Ariane Conrad's take on the brilliant Slow Poetry of Morford's Wall.
STACY MUSZYNSKI: "Don't Be a Coward: The Rumpus Interview with Philipp Meyer" (therumpus.net)
Philipp Meyer's much-lauded novel, 'American Rust,' published in February by Spiegel & Grau, is impeccable in its subject matter and its timing. A character-driven drama about the collapse of American manufacturing and the devastating and violent changes that follow, American Rust is about a country, and a culture, glimpsing itself in the mirror.
Garrison Keillor: Beauty of ordinariness
A summer Sunday in an old Midwestern river town, walking down the avenue under the elms past yards burgeoning, with vinous and hedgy things and multicolored flowerage, the industry of each homeowner shown in the beauty offered to the passerby. The children of these homeowners may be telling their therapists harrowing tales of emotional deprivation suffered in this very home, and yet back in April and May, weekends were devoted to making this front yard splendid, and that is worth something. Much can be forgiven of those who make beautiful things.
Good Evening! I'm Al Franken
Good evening! I'm Al Franken. Thank you very much for inviting me back to host 'Saturday Night Live.'
Steven Rea: "Emma Watson: Graduating from Hogwarts, then from 'Harry Potter'" (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Life without Harry Potter?
Roger Ebert: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (3 stars)
The climactic scene in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" takes place in one of those underground caverns with a lake and an ominous gondola as the means of transportation, popularized by "The Phantom of the Opera."
Richard Roeper: Sickos in this plot dive to a new low (suntimes.com)
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of people in this land: those that regularly visit the grave sites of loved ones, and those that never, ever go.
Roger Moore: Documentary 'Food, Inc.' is out to change way we eat (The Orlando Sentinel)
Every food recall pushes "Food, Inc.," Robert Kenner's documentary about the state of our food supply, into the news.
Roger Ebert: Bless me Father, for I have sinned
I have no way of knowing Robert McNamara's thoughts in his final days. He might have reflected on his agreement to speak openly to Errol Morris in the extraordinary documentary "The Fog of War."
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'GLAAD says it's bad' Edition
Bruno is a hit! #1 at the Box Office! Rave Reviews!
However, GLAAD says it reinforces gay stereotypes - Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) - Media Release
Others seem to think Bruno is merely 'Camp' and good example of it, at that - New York Movies - Sacha Baron Cohen in Queerface for Brüno
What do you think?
Send your response to
noted:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Hot & humid.
Had an extra busy day that went into overtime, so I'm running really late.
Missing artwork will uploaded - eventually. Ack.
Statue Rededicated
Billie Holiday
A Baltimore statue of Billie Holiday now bears images evoking the anti-racism message of a song recorded by the jazz icon in the 1930s, just as the sculptor intended.
Two panels at the statue's base - one of a lynched man and another of a newborn baby - were part of the design, but weren't included when the piece was erected in 1985 in a West Baltimore neighborhood.
At a rededication ceremony Friday on the 50th anniversary of Holiday's death, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said people should view the statue and the panels as a depiction of "raw" history.
Holiday, who lived in Baltimore as a child, recorded "Strange Fruit," a jazz ballad condemning lynchings of blacks. It was considered one of the first anti-racism songs in American popular music.
Billie Holiday
Cancels Cartoonist
Treasury Department
The Treasury Department is scrapping plans to hire a cartoonist to lighten the mood of its employees who manage the nation's $1.2 trillion debt, after a senator questioned its merits.
The cartoonist would have been hired by Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt, which accounts for borrowed federal spending, at a time Congress is embroiled in a debate about increased government spending.
"Our training staff felt that at a time when employees are working extra hours, it might have been helpful," said Kim Treat, a spokesman for the bureau.
But the effort was canceled because it had become "more of a distraction than an opportunity," he said.
Treasury Department
Brussels, Belgium
Musee du Slip
It is a little known fact that Belgium's finance minister wears blue and white striped boxer shorts and the Brussels underpants museum has a pair to prove it.
Belgian artist Jan Bucquoy said that the framed underwear represents a utopian longing for an equal society.
"If I had portrayed Hitler in his underpants there would not have been a war. I think in this way you can contribute to a better world," Bucquoy told Reuters on Friday.
Bucquoy's "Musee du Slip" or underpants museum, which opened in Brussels earlier this month, features framed underwear donated by mostly Belgian artists, singers and politicians. Each pair comes with a certificate of authenticity and must have been worn at least once by the donor.
Musee du Slip
Motorcycle Accident
James Caviezel
The Washington State Patrol says James Caviezel suffered cuts and bruises when a man hurled a bicycle into the path of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Trooper Rich Magnussen says "The Passion of the Christ" actor was taken Thursday to Cascade Medical Center in Leavenworth.
Magnussen says the 40-year-old Caviezel, of Woodland Hills, Calif., was wearing a helmet, and that "it could have been a lot worse." The trooper says he doesn't know why the actor was in the area about 14 miles southeast of this city in north-central Washington.
Magnussen says mental issues may be involved in why the 42-year-old Wenatchee man tossed the bike.
James Caviezel
Iconic War Photo Staged
Robert Capa
A Spanish Civil War photo by Robert Capa that shows a Republican soldier at the apparent moment he was fatally hit in the back by a bullet was in fact staged, a Spanish newspaper claimed on Friday.
"Capa photographed his soldier at a location where there was no fighting," wrote Barcelona-based newspaper El Periodico which carried out a study of the photograph taken in September 1936, the third month of the war.
The so-called "falling soldier" photo was not taken near Cerro Muriano in the southern Andalusia region, as has long been claimed, but about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away near the town of Espejo, the newspaper said.
To back its claim it published Capa's photo and others taken at the same location as well as photos taken recently near Espejo which show that the landscape corresponds to that of the 1936 photo.
Robert Capa
Court Postponed
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland won't be in Manhattan court this week to answer allegations that he head-butted a fashion designer.
A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office says the actor's scheduled court appearance Friday on an assault charge has been postponed. A new date has not been set yet.
The star of the Fox TV show "24" was charged May 7 with misdemeanor assault after designer Jack McCollough said he head-butted him and broke his nose at a Manhattan nightclub.
Sutherland and McCollough issued a joint statement a few weeks later saying they had resolved their differences, clearing the way for charges to be dropped. Sutherland apologized to McCollough in the statement.
Kiefer Sutherland
New Copyright Legislation
Canada
The Canadian government, struggling to stay ahead of fast-moving technological developments, will launch consultations next week to help it craft new copyright legislation.
Its last legislative attempt was killed off by an election in October 2008, and the government said in a statement on Friday it would begin a new round of talks with interested parties, with a roundtable in Vancouver on Monday.
The bill the government introduced in June 2008 would have allowed Canadians to copy legally acquired music to their iPods and computers but would have banned them from getting around any digital locks that companies might apply.
The old legislation also would have reduced the penalties that companies could seek for most private infringements of copyright to a maximum total of C$500 ($445) from a previous C$20,000 per infringement.
Canada
NBC Gives Up On
'The Listener'
It seems NBC is no longer willing to listen to CTV's "The Listener."
Halfway into its inaugural season, the U.S. network is pulling the show from its summer lineup, going instead with reruns of "Law & Order" starting July 30.
Poor ratings are reportedly behind the decision, which will leave five episodes of the crime drama unaired in the United States.
Christina Jennings, the show's Canadian producer, expressed disappointment while lashing out at NBC for failing to adequately promote the series in a highly competitive time-slot dominated by CBS' "The Mentalist."
'The Listener'
King of Pop Creamed
Iowa State Fair
Jesus Christ and his apostles made the cut. So did John Wayne, Elvis and Tiger. But Michael Jackson will not have his buttery likeness displayed at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines this summer, after support for a creamy statue of the King of Pop melted in an online vote.
Butter sculptures have been popular part of the fair since 1911, and fairgoers jostle for position in front of the glass-enclosed displays to watch the artists at work. Besides a life-size Butter Cow, which always makes an appearance, sculptors usually whip up another display.
Past works have included statues of Elvis Presley and Tiger Woods, Harry Potter, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and even a slippery rendition of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper." And this year's display will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.
Sarah Pratt, the 155-year-old fair's fourth butter sculptor, is expected to begin her work later this month to be ready by the fair's Aug. 13 opening.
Iowa State Fair
In Memory
Beverly Roberts
A relative says Beverly Roberts, who co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in the 1936 film "Two Against the World," has died. She was 96.
A Warner Bros. contract player from 1935, Roberts made her first film with Al Jolson in "The Singing Kid."
She also appeared with Bogart and Pat O'Brien in "China Clipper" and with Errol Flynn and Joan Blondell in "The Perfect Specimen."
After leaving Warner Bros. in 1940, she toured the country as a singer with the Dorsey Brothers band.
In 1950, she became administrator of Theater Authority, a post she held for 25 years.
In her later years, she worked in watercolor painting.
She never married and had no children.
Beverly Roberts
In Memory
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the networks' golden age who reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called "the most trusted man in America," died Friday. He was 92.
Cronkite was the face of the "CBS Evening News" from 1962 to 1981, when stories ranged from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to racial and anti-war riots, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis.
It was Cronkite who read the bulletins coming from Dallas when Kennedy was shot Nov. 22, 1963, interrupting a live CBS-TV broadcast of the soap opera "As the World Turns."
He died just three days before the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, another earthshaking moment of history linked inexorably with his reporting.
Cronkite was the broadcaster to whom the title "anchorman" was first applied, and he came so identified in that role that eventually his own name became the term for the job in other languages. (Swedish anchors are known as Kronkiters; In Holland, they are Cronkiters.)
CBS has scheduled a prime-time special, "That's the Way it Was: Remembering Walter Cronkite," for 7 p.m. Sunday.
A former wire service reporter and war correspondent, he valued accuracy, objectivity and understated compassion. He expressed liberal views in more recent writings but said he had always aimed to be fair and professional in his judgments on the air.
Off camera, his stamina and admittedly demanding ways brought him the nickname "Old Ironpants." But to viewers, he was "Uncle Walter," with his jowls and grainy baritone, his warm, direct expression and his trim mustache.
Two polls pronounced Cronkite the "most trusted man in America": a 1972 "trust index" survey in which he finished No. 1, about 15 points higher than leading politicians, and a 1974 survey in which people chose him as the most trusted television newscaster.
As many as 18 million households tuned in to Cronkite's top-rated program each evening. Twice that number watched his final show, on March 6, 1981, compared with fewer than 10 million in 2005 for the departure of Dan Rather.
Cronkite joined CBS in 1950, after a decade with United Press, during which he covered World War II and the Nuremberg trials, and a brief stint with a regional radio group.
At CBS he found a respected radio-news organization dipping its toe into TV, and it put him in front of the camera. He was named anchor for CBS's coverage of the 1952 political conventions, the first year the presidential nominations got wide TV coverage. From there, he was assigned to such news-oriented programs as "You Are There" and "Twentieth Century." (He also briefly hosted a morning show, accompanied by a puppet named Charlemagne the Lion.)
On April 16, 1962, he replaced Douglas Edwards as anchor of the network's "Evening News."
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. was born Nov. 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Mo., the son and grandson of dentists. The family moved to Houston when he was 10. He joked years later that he was disappointed when he "didn't see a single damn cowboy."
In 1940, Cronkite married Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Maxwell, whom he had met when they both worked at KCMO. They had three children, Nancy, Mary Kathleen and Walter Leland III. Betsy Cronkite died in 2005.
Walter Cronkite
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