Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Suzanne Moore: Liking young girls is not a preference, it's a perversion (Guardian)
Whatever some men may say about Jimmy Savile's behaviour in the 70s, it was wrong then and it's still wrong now.
Froma Harrop: At the House of Kennedy, Arnold Shrugs (Creators Syndicate)
Leslie Stahl's face evinces shock as Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about cheating on his wife, Maria Kennedy Shriver, on a CBS "60 Minutes" interview. The former bodybuilder and California governor was sorry that "I inflicted tremendous pain on Maria" - but obviously not very. There was no show of like or dislike for the wife, but the most infuriating response of all - indifference.
Maria Popova: "Love Is Walking Hand In Hand: The Peanuts Gang Defines Love, 1965" (BrainPickings)
"Love is a Valentine with lace around the edges."
Christina H: 4 Ways High School Makes You Hate Reading (Cracked)
I can't be the only one who feels like the schools pulled a sort of bait-and-switch job on us when it came to reading.
Carolyn Kellogg: Reading about what to read: Finding that perfect book amid millions can be daunting (Los Angeles Times)
This summer Molly Ringwald said that she read "Fifty Shades of Grey" because "when a book becomes that big, I feel like it's culturally relevant."
Henry Rollins: Our America (LA Weekly)
In Austin last night after the show, there was a sad and very American moment. I was talking to people out by the bus and a man gave me a black rubber bracelet with his brother's name and the date he was killed in Afghanistan, 07-23-12. As he was telling me about his brother, a girl overheard and said she had lost her brother in Afghanistan as well. She started to cry. They hugged each other as the rest of us stood silently.
Roger Ebert: Taken 2 (PG-13; 3 stars)
Poor Kim Mills. She doesn't even have her driver's license yet, and she's been kidnapped by sex traffickers in Paris and terrorists in Istanbul. This despite her having a father so protective that he implants a GPS app in her iPhone and bursts in on her making out with her sweet, polite boyfriend.
Roger Ebert: Frankenweenie (PG; 3 stars)
The story takes place in a familiar Burtonesque world of characters with balloon heads, saucer eyes and pretzel limbs. Seeing them in b&w only underlines their grotesquerie, and indeed the whole story benefits from the absence of color, because this is a stark world without many soothing tones.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce's Blog
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."
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob
You REALLY Go, Girl!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Nebraska Ad
Steve Martin
Steve Martin has released an off-beat ad endorsing Bob Kerrey's candidacy in Nebraska's U.S. Senate race, in which the actor and comedian demonstrates how to build a wad of paper while cue cards offering praise for Kerrey are displayed on the screen.
Martin, playing the role of "home crafts expert," mangles a blank single sheet of white paper with paper clips, scissors, staples, chewing gum and a hammer, while a hand emerges from off screen offering typed messages in praise of Kerrey.
"He is a principled man whom I have known and respected for many years," reads one.
"But most of all... He is sane. And his ideas are workable," reads another.
Kerrey, a Democrat, represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2001, when he moved to New York City to lead The New School university. He returned to Omaha this year to seek the seat of retiring U.S. Senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat. Kerrey, who faces Republican State Senator Deb Fischer in the November 6 election, has trailed in polls.
Steve Martin
Livestream Fails
Stewart-O'Reilly Debate
On Saturday, Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart did it live, during a debate--dubbed "The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium"--at the Lisner Auditorium on the Washington, D.C., campus of George Washington University. But thousands of online viewers--who each paid $4.95 to see the ideological duel between the Fox News and "Daily Show" hosts--were unable to stream the event live.
Roger Ebert was apparently one of them.
"I promote Stewart vs. O'Reilly on Roku on [Facebook] and Twitter and can't log in myself," Ebert tweeted. "Bad image for Roku. #therumble2012"
The organizers of the debate eventually apologized, noting that the stream would be available on-demand.
Stewart-O'Reilly Debate
Freed On Bond
Daryl Hannah
Actress Daryl Hannah has been released from a Texas jail following her arrest as she protested an oil pipeline designed to bring crude from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The Tyler Morning Telegraph reported Saturday that Hannah was freed on $2,500 bond Thursday night, but faces criminal trespass charges. Her release came hours after being arrested in Winnsboro, about 100 miles east of Dallas.
Hannah and 78-year-old Eleanor Fairchild were arrested after blocking heavy equipment in an attempt to halt construction of the Keystone XL pipeline through Fairchild's land. Fairchild was released on a personal recognizance bond.
TransCanada said in a statement Thursday that it's "unfortunate Ms. Hannah and other out-of-state activists have chosen to break the law by illegally trespassing on private property."
Fairchild complained to the newspaper about the "pushy, bullying" tactics used by TransCanada to take her land by eminent domain. She said she never signed a land agreement with the company.
Daryl Hannah
Shuttle Boosters Get Screwed
South L.A.
Mayor Antonio "Photo Op" Villaraigosa (D-Horn Dog) touted it as "the mother of all parades" - a historic celebration in a part of Los Angeles that doesn't get much fanfare.
Over two days, on the major thoroughfares of Westchester, Inglewood and South Los Angeles, space shuttle Endeavour would slowly make its way from LAX to its new home at the California Science Center. Community activists planned events, residents said they would line the streets and local businesses organized viewing parties.
But that excitement has turned to anger as officials clamped down on security and significantly reduced public access to the shuttle route. The Los Angeles Police Department announced this week it would close off most sidewalks along the way, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the public to see the shuttle go by.
Some South L.A. residents feel double-crossed. To make way for the shuttle, hundreds of old-growth trees were cut down, some more than 60 years old, radically changing the look of some streets. Residents are also going to have to deal with serious traffic delays during the move, which is set for Oct. 12 and 13, as major streets such as Manchester, Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards are periodically shut down.
"It's disgusting that they won't allow the kids to line up along the street and they are cutting down 400 trees," said James Fugate, president of the Leimert Park Merchant Assn. and co-owner of Esowon Bookstore. "They have no respect for the neighborhood they are going through."
South L.A.
Mother Fights Boy Scouts
Karen Andresen
The mother of a gay California Boy Scout denied an Eagle award because of his sexual orientation is fighting to overturn the decision before he turns 18, the cut-off date for the organization's highest honor.
Ryan Andresen's mother, Karen, said the scoutmaster of his Troop 212 in Moraga, a San Francisco suburb, had refused to grant Eagle status to Ryan, who has been a scout since age 6, even though he met the requirements.
Andresen said her son was staying with friends to avoid publicity, but plans to appear next week on the TV show "Ellen," which is hosted by comedian Ellen DeGeneres and often discusses gay-rights issues.
Andresen said Ryan had been victim of bullying in his troop, and chose as his final Eagle project to create at a local school what he called the "tolerance wall" - a collection of 288 tiles painted by elementary school students depicting acts of kindness.
Ryan surprised even his parents when he came out publicly as gay in July in a mass letter to the troop in which he stood up for another scout who was bullied, Andresen said.
Karen Andresen
And He's A Doctor, Too
Georgia Rep. Paul Broun
Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" meant to convince people that they do not need a savior.
The Republican lawmaker made those comments during a speech Sept. 27 at a sportsman's banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell. Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats.
"God's word is true," Broun said, according to a video posted on the church's website. "I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior."
Broun also said that he believes the Earth is about 9,000 years old and that it was made in six days. Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible are literally true.
He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
Georgia Rep. Paul Broun
Offensive Candidates
Arkansas
Arkansas Republicans tried to distance themselves Saturday from a Republican state representative's assertion that slavery was a "blessing in disguise" and a Republican state House candidate who advocates deporting all Muslims.
The claims were made in books written, respectively, by Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro and House candidate Charlie Fuqua of Batesville. Those books received attention on Internet news sites Friday.
On Saturday, state GOP Chairman Doyle Webb called the books "highly offensive." And U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a Republican who represents northeast Arkansas, called the writings "divisive and racially inflammatory."
Hubbard wrote in his 2009 self-published book, "Letters To The Editor: Confessions Of A Frustrated Conservative," that "the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise." He also wrote that African-Americans were better off than they would have been had they not been captured and shipped to the United States.
Fuqua, who served in the Arkansas House from 1996 to 1998, wrote there is "no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States," in his 2012 book, titled "God's Law."
Arkansas
Fall Guy Gets 18 Months
Pope's Butler
The pope's butler was convicted Saturday of stealing the pontiff's private documents and leaking them to a journalist in the gravest Vatican security breach in recent memory. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but the Vatican said a papal pardon was likely.
Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre read the verdict aloud two hours after the three-judge Vatican panel began deliberating Paolo Gabriele's fate. Gabriele stood impassively as it was read out in the tiny wood-paneled tribunal tucked behind St. Peter's Basilica.
The sentence was reduced in half to 18 months from three years because of a series of mitigating circumstances, including that Gabriele had no previous record, had acknowledged that he had betrayed the pope and was convinced, "albeit erroneously" that he was doing the right thing, Dalla Torre said.
Gabriele has said he leaked the documents because he felt the pope wasn't being informed of the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican, and that exposing the problems publicly would put the church back on the right track.
In something of a novelty in jurisprudence, the pope was both victim and supreme judge in this case. As an absolute monarch of the tiny Vatican City state, Benedict wields full executive, legislative and judicial power. He delegates that power, though, and Lombardi said the trial showed the complete independence of the Vatican judiciary.
Pope's Butler
French Beekeepers See Red
Honey
Bees at a cluster of apiaries in northeastern France have been producing honey in mysterious shades of blue and green, alarming their keepers who now believe residue from containers of M&M's candy processed at a nearbybiogas plant is the cause.
Since August, beekeepers around the town of Ribeauville in the region of Alsace have seen bees returning to their hives carrying unidentified colorful substances that have turned their honey unnatural shades.
Mystified, the beekeepers embarked on an investigation and discovered that a biogas plant 4 km (2.5 miles) away has been processing waste from a Mars plant producing M&M's, bite-sized candies in bright red, blue, green, yellow and brown shells.
The unsellable honey is a new headache for around a dozen affected beekeepers already dealing with high bee mortality rates and dwindling honey supplies following a harsh winter, said Alain Frieh, president of the apiculturists' union.
Honey
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