Recommended Reading
from Bruce
PAUL KRUGMAN: Costs and Compassion (nytimes.com)
The talking heads on cable TV panned President Obama's Wednesday press conference. You see, he didn't offer a lot of folksy anecdotes.
The great Brazilian moustache revolution (guardian.co.uk)
Voters angry at the scandals surrounding José Sarney, president of the Brazilian senate, are turning to a bizarre form of online protest - sporting their own versions of his trademark moustache, writes Tom Phillips.
Mark Morford: The evolution of hate mail (sfgate.com)
They had it in the '30s. They had it in the 1600s. They had it in caves.
David Kestenbaum: Hot Climates May Create Sluggish Economies (npr.org)
New research suggests that higher temperatures can have a damaging effect on the economies of poor countries. The study, by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that in years with higher temperatures, poor countries experienced significantly slower economic growth.
Jaime O'Neill: Yeah, times may be tough now-but times have been much tougher before (tucsonweekly.com)
At a yard sale, I bought several boxes containing nearly a half-century's worth of American Heritage magazines, that richly illustrated compendium of the nation's history through good times and bad, with special attention paid to the droughts, downturns and disasters that tried the souls of our forebears.
Arun Gupta: "Gonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction" (alternet.org)
The confluence of factory farming, the boom in fast food and manipulation of consumer taste created processed foods that can hook us like drugs.
Catherine O'Sullivan: Which is worse: heinous celebrities, or brown dog ticks? (tucsonweekly.com)
My last column, regarding Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant (July 9), seems to have offended some people.
Hannah Pool: Question Time: Elle Macpherson (guardian.co.uk)
The former supermodel on eating disorders, getting old and whether she'd rather be known as The Body - or the businesswoman.
Tom Danehy: After getting The Look, Tom heads to the Warehouse District for a poetry slam (tucsonweekly.com)
Do you remember the look your mom gave you when she knew you were lying-straight to her face-when she asked you whether you had brushed your back teeth? Or the one your girl gave you when you showed up to meet her parents wearing that shirt? No, wait, how about the look your football coach gave you while he yelled at (and spit on) you for running the wrong pass pattern?
Josh Levin: Double Stuffed (slate.com)
For LeBron James, getting dunked on was bad. Trying to suppress the tape was worse.
Patrick Radden Keefe and Sudhir Venkatesh: The Snakehead (slate.com)
Why it's so hard to prosecute a snakehead. (Snakeheads are Chinese gangs that smuggle people to other countries.)
20 QUESTIONS: Ridley Pearson (popmatters.com)
Ridley Pearson, New York Times bestselling author of killer crime fiction and award-winning author of young readers' books, rather fancies himself a bit like George Clooney and Harold, of 'Harold and His Purple Crayon' -- sans the blanket, of course.
What makes a great summer pop hit? (guardian.co.uk)
Throw open the windows, kick off your shoes and mix yourself an ice-cold cocktail . . . producers, pundits and pop stars reveals the secret to a great holiday single, writes Jude Rogers.
Interview by Jessica Lack: "Damien Hirst: 'Gordon Burn gave me hell'" (guardian.co.uk)
Damien Hirst pays tribute to the late Gordon Burn - his drinking buddy, toughest critic and fellow northerner.
Jennifer Sullivan: 'Dude' who inspired Coen film 'The Big Lebowski' has become a cult figure (The Seattle Times)
Jeff "The Dude" Dowd lumbered off the light rail train, sunglasses on, gray curly mop of hair nodding and his hands waving emphatically as he rattled on about politics, energy, transportation and the environment.
Luaine Lee: Simon ('The Mentalist') Baker snapped back just at the right time (McClatchy-Tribune News Service)
Australian actor Simon Baker tried all kinds of jobs before he mustered up the courage to be an actor. He was a brick laborer ("not even a brick-layer"), he sold time-shares, washed dishes, mowed lawns, worked in pubs for years.
Bill Gibron: review of "'Coraline' - 2 Disc Collector's Edition (2009): Blu-ray" (popmatters.com)
We critics are often accused of celebrating the theatrical experience to the detriment of those who can only afford (or socially tolerate) the home video version of same. There's no real difference, they argue, and point to DVD and its newest format cousin Blu-ray as a means of making their commercial point.
Roger Ebert: My Sister's Keeper (3 1/2 stars)
"My Sister's Keeper" is an immediate audience-grabber, as we learn that an 11-year-old girl was genetically designed as a source of spare parts for her dying 16-year-old sister. Yes, it's possible: in vitro fertilization assured a perfect match. And no, this isn't science fiction like Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' with its cloned human replacements. It's just a little girl subjected to major procedures almost from birth to help her sister live.
Roger Ebert: THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (R, 1974, 3 stars)
The notion sounds crazy to begin with. Four armed criminals hijack a subway train and hold 18 hostages. They're surrounded by dozens of cops, they're in a tunnel with no way out, and how do you hide a subway train? "They're gonna fly it to Cuba," one cop speculates. Walter Matthau has a better idea: "They're gonna get away by asking every man, woman and child in New York City to close their eyes and count to a hundred."
Roger Ebert: Nurse Betty (R; 3 stars; from 2000)
Neil LaBute's "Nurse Betty" is about two dreamers in love with their fantasies. One is a Kansas housewife. The other is a professional criminal. The housewife is in love with a doctor on a television soap opera. The criminal is in love with the housewife, whose husband he has killed. What is crucial is that both of these besotted romantics are invisible to the person they are in love with.
Joe Bageant
David Bruce: Wise Up Archive
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Disappearing Dailies' Edition
Newspapers are in major trouble. Some notable dailies such as The Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Post and Baltimore Examiner have folded completely. Others such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and my home town paper, The Bay City Times, among others, have adopted a hybrid on-line only and/or partial printing scheme trying to survive. All papers are losing money hand over fist, laying off workers and renegotiating labor contracts. (newspaperdeathwatch.com)
Everyone blames the Internet and 24/7 cable news availability.
Do you subscribe to or otherwise pay for and read hard copy newspapers?
What do you think?
Send your response to
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still a bit too toasty.
Huge Telescope Opens
Gran Telescopio Canarias
One of the world's most powerful telescopes opened its shutters for the first time Friday to begin exploring faint light from distant parts of the universe. The Gran Telescopio Canarias, a euro130 million ($185 million) telescope featuring a 34-foot (10.4-meter) reflecting mirror, sits atop an extinct volcano. Its location above cloud cover takes advantage of the pristine skies in the Atlantic Ocean.
Planning for the telescope began in 1987 and has involved more than 1,000 people from 100 companies. It was inaugurated Friday by King Juan Carlos.
The observatory is located at 2,400 meters (7,870 feet) above sea-level where prevailing winds keep the atmosphere stable and transparent, the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute said.
The telescope is composed of 36 separate mirrors that began slowly focusing in July 2007 to eventually act as a single large reflecting surface that directs light onto a central camera point.
Gran Telescopio Canarias
Nepal Gurkhas Plan Hero's Welcome
Joanna Lumley
Nepal's Gurkhas are planning a hero's welcome for British actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley when she makes her first-ever visit to the Himalayan nation on Sunday.
Thousands of the soldiers and their families are expected to turn out to greet the 63-year-old star of TV show "Absolutely Fabulous", who spearheaded a campaign for the British army veterans to be allowed to settle in Britain.
Although she has never been to Nepal, the actress's impassioned lobbying earned her the adoration of the Gurkhas, who are describing her visit as a "homecoming".
"We are proud and honoured to have her in our country. She is truly a daughter of Nepal," said Krishna Kumar Rai, vice-president of the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen's Organisation (GAESO).
"She has done us, the British army veterans, an unforgettable favour -- she has given us justice."
Joanna Lumley
Smaller Than Predicted
'Dead Zone'
The Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" - where there is too little oxygen in the water for anything to live - is less than half the size predicted earlier this year but also unusually severe, a scientist said Friday.
The hypoxic area forms every year in the Gulf, caused by bacteria feeding on algae blooms from the flow of farming runoff and other nutrients from the Mississippi River and others.
This year's area covers 3,000 square miles, but is also unusually thick, stretching from the bottom nearly to the surface, according to Nancy Rabalais, a researcher who specializes in the problem for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
The 3,000 square miles is one of the smallest measurements of the zone since measurements began in 1985, according to a graph in a news release sent from a research vessel in the Gulf. Only those in 1987, 1988 and 2000 were smaller.
'Dead Zone'
Charge For Online Content
Disney
Disney plans to offer a broad array of its content, including movies, TV shows and games, online to those willing to pay for it -- possibly at a single Web site that requires a subscription, president and CEO Robert Iger said Wednesday.
"The notion of going online at some point as a subscribe-to, robust entertainment experience is pretty attractive to us," Iger said. "We are developing such an experience."
The top Mouseketeer made the remarks Wednesday at Fortune magazine's Brainstorm: Tech conference. Pressed for details by Fortune editor-at-large Richard Siklos, Iger declined.
Disney already is bringing in revenue online. It has joined NBC Universal and News Corp. as a content provider and equity partner in Hulu, which sells advertising. Disney also sells content on iTunes and charges a subscription fee for its Club Penguin site.
Disney
But He's A Prophet
Tony Alamo
Tony Alamo, a one-time street preacher who built a multimillion-dollar ministry and became an outfitter of the stars, was convicted Friday of taking girls as young as 9 across state lines for sex.
Alamo stood silently as the verdict was read, a contrast to his occasional mutterings during testimony. His five victims sat looking forward in the gallery. One, a woman he "married" at age 8, wiped away a tear.
"I'm just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel," Alamo called to reporters afterward as he was escorted to a waiting U.S. marshal's vehicle.
Shouts of "Bye, bye, Bernie" - Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman - came from a crowd gathered on the Arkansas side of the courthouse. Some came from Fouke, the nearby town where Alamo's 15-acre compound sits. Others were former followers of his ministries in Arkansas, California and New York.
The jury of nine men and three women took about 11 hours to consider the charges against Alamo. The 10-count federal indictment accused him of taking his underage "wives" across state lines as early as 1994.
Tony Alamo
Cleared Of Assault
Amy Winehouse
British singer Amy Winehouse was found not guilty on Friday of assaulting a dancer at a charity ball last year. Winehouse, 25, had been accused of deliberately punching dancer Sherene Flash in the face backstage at the Prince's Trust Ball in Berkeley Square, central London, in September.
"Having heard the evidence from all the witnesses, I cannot be sure that this was not an accident," district judge Timothy Workman was quoted by the Press Association as telling the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.
"The charge is dismissed and the defendant discharged."
Winehouse, dressed in a knee-length black skirt, grey jacket and white shirt, initially looked confused as the verdict was read out. On her way out of the courtroom, she told reporters: "I'm relieved. I'm going home."
Amy Winehouse
Blaming The Victim
Phoenix
Lured by promises of chewing gum and raped in a shed by four boys barely older than her, an 8-year-old Liberian girl is now in foster care and living with strangers instead of the family that raised her and brought her to America.
The alleged sexual assault in Phoenix has sparked an international outcry, reaching all the way to the president of Liberia, the home country of the girl's family and the four young suspects.
Experts who study the developing world say the parents' reaction highlights the struggles of many women around the globe.
"They're always being blamed for everything," said Monica Westin, founder of World of Hope International, which promotes human rights. "It's always the girl's fault. There's no gender equality."
Phoenix
Archaeologists Find Graveyard
Roman Ships
A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a "graveyard" of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene.
The trading vessels, dating from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, lie more than 100 meters underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean in recent years, the researchers said on Thursday.
Part of an archipelago situated halfway between Rome and Naples on Italy's west coast, Ventotene historically served as a place of shelter during rough weather in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
In Roman times Ventotene, known as Pandataria, was used to exile disgraced Roman noblewomen. The Emperor Augustus sent his daughter Julia there because of her adultery. During the 20th century, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini used the remote island as a prison for political opponents.
Roman Ships
Fate In Limbo
"Marijuana Mine"
An abandoned mine in northern Canada may lose its role as the country's only government-sanctioned marijuana farm.
Production at the mine -- deep under the tundra at Flin Flon, Manitoba -- had to be moved because the facility was not big enough and a deal to expand it had not been worked out, operator Prairie Plant System said on Wednesday.
The mine had been producing legal marijuana for nearly a decade since Canada began allowing patients legal access to marijuana for medical reasons such as controlling pain.
The company, which raises plants for pharmaceutical uses, has other operations in the Trout Lake mine. Its contract to supply pot to Health Canada for sale to authorized medical users runs for another 2-1/2 years.
"Marijuana Mine"
In Memory
John "Marmaduke" Dawson
John "Marmaduke" Dawson, a longtime Grateful Dead collaborator who co-wrote "Friend of the Devil" and developed a devoted following with his psychedelic country group New Riders of the Purple Sage, has died. He was 64.
Dawson died Tuesday from stomach cancer in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he had retired several years ago, said Rob Bleetstein, archivist for the band.
With the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, Dawson co-founded New Riders in 1969 to showcase his songs along with Garcia's pedal-steel guitar playing.
Two other Dead members, bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Mickey Hart, also played in New Riders for a time, according to the band's Web site.
The band toured with the Dead starting in 1970 and released eight albums on Columbia Records from 1971 to 1976.
Dawson also contributed to a number of Grateful Dead songs, most notably co-writing "Friend of the Devil" with Garcia and Dead lyricist Robert Hunter.
The New Riders scored their first gold record in 1973 with the hit "The Adventures of Panama Red."
John "Marmaduke" Dawson
In Memory
E. Lynn Harris
E. Lynn Harris, a pioneer of gay black fiction and a literary entrepreneur who rose from self-publishing to best-selling status, has died, his publicist said Friday. He was 54.
Publicist Laura Gilmore said Harris died Thursday night after being stricken at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, and a cause of death had not been determined. She said Harris, who lived in Atlanta, fell ill on a train to Los Angeles a few days ago and blacked out for a few minutes, but seemed fine after that.
An improbable and inspirational success story, Harris worked for a decade as an IBM executive before taking up writing, selling the novel "Invisible Life" from his car as he visited salons and beauty parlors around Atlanta. He had unprecedented success for an openly gay black author and his strength as a romance writer led some to call him the "male Terry McMillan."
He went on to mainstream success with works such as the novel "Love of My Own" and the memoir "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted."
His writing fell into several genres, including gay and lesbian fiction, African American fiction and urban fiction. But he found success in showing readers a new side of African American life: the secret world of professional, bisexual black men living as heterosexuals.
Harris published 11 novels, 10 of which were on The New York Times best-seller list. There are over 4 million copies of his books in print, according to his publisher, Doubleday.
Harris was not living as an openly gay man when "Invisible Life" was published, and could not acknowledge the parallels between himself and the book.
Harris said that the courage readers got from the book empowered him to be honest about himself. He continued to tell stories dealing with similar issues, to tell black middle class readers about people they knew, but who were living secret lives.
E. Lynn Harris
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