Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: A Party Agrift (NY Times Column)
Why scammers rule on the right.
Andrew Tobias: It Won't be Trump
As a [Democratic] party officer, I remain neutral until there's only one candidate in the race. I didn't vote in the primary, haven't given to or attended events for either candidate, and will not commit my super duper delegate vote to either candidate until the Convention (and probably not even then if there are still two candidates).
Simon Hattenstone: "Vanessa Redgrave on why she was ready to die: 'Trying to live was getting too tiring'" (The Guardian)
The legendary actor, 79, on ageing, religion, human rights and the notorious Oscars speech that stalled her Hollywood career.
Willa Paskin: Friend-Zone TV (Slate)
Game of Thrones isn't very good anymore. But here's why we still stick by it.
Andy Grundberg: Annals of Human Oddity (American Scholar)
Casting an eye on "freaks" with sensitivity and compassion.
Eva Barlow: "Jeff Goldblum: 'I'm like one of those yogis who wanders the Earth with a diaper'" (The Guardian)
Eccentric, effusive, unknowable… Who is the real Jeff Goldblum? The Independence Day star on aliens, the Obamas - and being a first-time dad at 63.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Dogs
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
GET A JOB!
DUMP TRUMP!
"MAKE AMERICA MALE - AGAIN."
THE TRAITORS!
"THIS JUST HURTS."
"I WANT TO KILL! KILL! KILL!"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mighty grateful for the Kleenex bundle from CostCo.
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
Bill Murray
Bill Murray will be honored with the 19th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, it was announced Monday.
The actor-comedian will be awarded the prize at a Kennedy Center gala on Oct. 23, which will feature some of the biggest names in comedy and be taped for broadcast.
The prize recognizes people who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the 19th-century novelist, essayist, social commentator and satirist who was born Samuel Clemens.
Previous recipients of the prize include Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett, Jay Leno and Eddie Murphy.
Bill Murray
Calls For Ban On Assault Rifles
Conan O'Brien
"Sometimes events are so horrifying and bleak that to come out here and tell jokes, it's just not really possible," said Conan O'Brien Monday, during his first late-night show since the mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub that killed 49 people and injured 53.
Instead of the usual jokes, O'Brien used the opening monologue of his talk show Conan on TBS, to condemn the shooting and make a poignant and damming point on gun rights in America.
"I simply do not understand why anybody in this country is allowed to purchase and own a semiautomatic assault rifle," he said. "These are weapons of war and they have no place in civilian life."
"These mass shootings are happening so often now that lamenting them afterwards is becoming a national ritual." Conan said. "I wanted to take just a moment here tonight to agree with the rapidly growing sentiment in America that it's time to grow up, and figure this out."
Conan O'Brien
T-rump Bans From Campaign Events
Washington Post
White House hopeful Donald Trump (R-Grifter), in his latest attack on the media, said Monday he was rescinding The Washington Post's press credentials for covering his campaign events.
"Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record-setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," Trump wrote in a tweet.
Later, the campaign said in a statement that "we no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for 'clicks' above journalistic integrity."
The distinguished daily became the latest media outlet targeted by the Trump camp, which has reportedly banned several news organizations from attending his events and press conferences over the past year, including Buzzfeed, the Des Moines Register, the Huffington Post, Politico and Univision.
Washington Post
Microsoft To Buy
LinkedIn
Microsoft Corp will buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in its biggest-ever deal, a bold stroke by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in his efforts to make the venerable software company a major force in next-generation computing.
By connecting widely used software like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint with LinkedIn's network of 433 million professionals, the combination could enable Microsoft to add a suite of sales, marketing and recruiting services to its core business products and potentially challenge cloud software rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc. .
The $196-per-share price tag represented a premium of almost 50 percent over LinkedIn's stock market value as of Friday, but was still well below the social media company's all-time high of $270. Analysts said the price was rich, and Microsoft's stock closed down 2.7 percent at $50.14.
Still, there was cautious optimism that this could be one of the relatively few tech mega-mergers that works out well. "It's a massive growth play for Microsoft," said Forrester analyst Ted Schadler.
LinkedIn
Coal Company Has Been Bankrolling
Climate Denial
In a revelation that shouldn't surprise anybody, Peabody Energy, the United States' largest coal company, has been bankrolling think tanks, corporate lobbyists, trade associations, and individual scientists at the heart of the climate denial movement, a new Guardian investigation reveals.
Fossil fuel companies aren't exactly a progressive bunch when it comes to climate action, but few have manipulated the facts of global warming as consistently and egregiously as Peabody, which refers to carbon dioxide in glowing terms and asserts that by cranking up its concentration in our atmosphere, the company is fertilizing the planet for the benefit of mankind. Or, as a Peabody lobbyist once put it, doing "the Lord's work."
But Peabody hasn't been preaching alone. Rather, documents released last month after the company filed for bankruptcy protection reveal a network of beneficiaries that have been doing everything in their power to cast doubt on basic climate science and fight even modest environmental regulation, such as the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
The more than two dozen beneficiaries include: the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which calls carbon emissions an "elixir of life," the George C. Marshall Institute, which claims there is not "the slightest evidence that more CO2 has caused more extreme weather or accelerated sea level rise," and Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics who, it was revealed last year, has received over $1.2 million in funding from the fossil fuel industry.
Climate Denial
Convicts Dutch Tourist
Qatar
Qatar is to deport a Dutch woman who was convicted of adultery on Monday and given a one-year suspended sentence after she reported being raped while on holiday in Doha.
The 22-year-old, known only as Laura and who was not in court, was also fined 3,000 Qatari riyals ($800/710 euros) and will be deported once she pays the fine, court officials said.
The male defendant, said by a court official to be Syrian and named as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was sentenced to 100 lashes for having illicit sex and 40 lashes for drinking alcohol.
Hasan, who was also not present in court, will undergo a medical examination to see if he is fit enough to withstand his punishment.
He will not serve any time in jail but will also be deported from the Gulf state once he has been punished.
Qatar
What Rupert Wants
Brexit
Britain's "Leave" campaign opened up a 7-point lead over "Remain" ahead of a referendum on membership of the European Union an opinion poll showed late Monday, while the nation's biggest-selling newspaper urged readers to vote to quit the bloc.
The result of the June 23 referendum will have far-reaching consequences for politics, the economy, defense, migration and diplomacy in Britain and elsewhere.
Recent polls are suggesting that momentum has swung towards the "Leave" camp, or a so called Brexit, unsettling investors. "Leave" in recent days has focused its campaign on the issue of immigration.
According to the YouGov poll for The Times, "Leave" held 46 percent support compared with 39 percent support for "Remain." Undecided voters were 11 percent, while 4 percent won't vote.
In another, though not unexpected, boost for "Leave," media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper called on its readers to vote to quit the 28-member EU.
Brexit
Will Not Attend All-Orthodox Meeting
Russia
The Russian Orthodox Church said Monday it would not go to a historic meeting of all of the world's Orthodox churches because other churches have walked out.
The meeting on the Greek island of Crete due to start on Sunday would be the first in more than a millennium.
The Ecumenical patriarch, however, seemed to open the door for further talks that could prevent the meeting from falling through.
Orthodox church leaders haven't held such a meeting since the year 787, when the last of the seven councils recognized by both Orthodox and Catholics, was held. The "great schism" that divided the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox followed in 1054 amid disputes over the Vatican's power.
Hilarion, a bishop who heads the Moscow Patriarchate's department of external church relations, said in a televised statement that Russia would not take part if others are walking out, and suggested the meeting be postponed.
Russia
Ancient Urban Networks Discovered
Angkor Wat
An Australian archaeologist says he and colleagues have found evidence of previously undiscovered medieval urban and agricultural networks surrounding the ancient city of Angkor Wat.
Using high-tech lasers to scan the Cambodian jungle, Damian Evans and colleagues say they found traces of extensive networks surrounding the monumental stone temple complex at Angkor Wat. Evans said their findings could further our understanding of Khmer culture and throw into question traditional assumptions about the 15th-century decline of the empire.
Evans said a laser technology known as lidar was used to create precise maps of ancient networks that left only vague traces - invisible to the naked eye - in the landscape surrounding the temples.
"You could be standing in the middle of the forest looking at what appear to be some random lumps and bumps," Evans said. "But they might actually be evidence of old excavated ponds or built-up roadways," he explained. "All of these things left traces in the surface of the landscape that wouldn't make sense to you without a more detailed picture."
To obtain such details, Evans said his colleagues spent 90 hours in a helicopter directing laser scans into the jungle surrounding Angkor Wat. He said that the resulting images are so intricate "you can see objects lying next to a tiny anthill."
Angkor Wat
In Memory
Janet Waldo
Janet Waldo, who supplied the voice of the hip teenage daughter Judy Jetson on the space-age cartoon The Jetsons, died Sunday at her longtime home in Encino, her daughter told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 96.
Waldo's daughter Lucy Lee said that her mother had been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in 2011 and "had been bed-bound for many months."
Waldo voiced scores of cartoon characters during her long career, including guitar-playing frontwoman Josie McCoy on Josie and the Pussycats, the always-in-danger Penelope Pitstop on The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Wacky Races, Granny Sweet on the Precious Pupp segments of The Atom Ant Show, Morticia Addams on The Addams Family, the witch Hogatha on The Smurfs, Lana Lang on Superman and several characters on The Flintstones.
Waldo also voiced teenager Corliss Archer on the Meet Corliss Archer radio program that ran from 1943-56 and was Princess, one of the young members of G-Force, on Battle of the Planets, a U.S. adaptation of a Japanese anime series that aired in the late 1970s.
On a first-season episode of I Love Lucy, "The Young Fans," which premiered in January 1952, Waldo portrayed a teenager who is infatuated with Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz). She later appeared on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet and The Andy Griffith Show.
A native of Yakima, Wash., Waldo was discovered by Bing Crosby after she won a talent contest and appeared on the big screen in small roles starting in the late 1930s. She then starred opposite Tim Holt in the Westerns The Bandit Trail (1941) and Land of the Open Range (1942).
Waldo voiced Judy, the Orbit High School daughter of George (George O'Hanlon) and Jane Jetson (Penny Singleton) and the older sister of Elroy (Daws Butler), on Hanna-Barbera's The Jetsons, which played on ABC in primetime in 1962-63 and then returned for new syndicated episodes in 1985-87.
She also starred as the teenager in the 1988 TV movie Rockin' With Judy Jetson. For 1990's The Jetsons: The Movie, she voiced Judy again but was replaced by the pop singer Tiffany, which did not go over well with fans of the cartoon.
Waldo was married to the late playwright Robert Edwin Lee (Inherit the Wind, Auntie Mame).
Survivors also include her son Jonathan.
Janet Waldo
In Memory
Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros
Michu Meszaros, the 33-inch-tall actor and former circus performer who played the titular alien on the 1980s NBC sitcom ALF, died Monday, his manager confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 76.
Meszaros died at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., said manager Dennis Varga. A few days ago, the actor had been found unresponsive in the home in nearby Hawthorne that he shared with Varga.
Meszaros donned the furry, dog-like costume with the big snoot on ALF, which aired for four seasons (1986-90), on a handful of the show's 102 episodes. Most of the time, the extraterrestrial character ALF (an acronym for Alien Life Form) when seen on the series was a puppet piloted by the show's co-creator, Paul Fusco.
Born in a village near Budapest, Hungary, Meszaros started performing in the circus at age 14 and joined Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1973. "He instantly became a circus sensation and mesmerized audiences of all ages," according to his biography on a GoFundMe page that was set up to help pay for his medical expenses.
Michael Jackson saw him perform and they became close friends and appeared together in a Pepsi commercial.
Meszaros and his size 3 shoes also appeared in such films as Waxwork (1988), Big Top Pee-Wee (1988), Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) and Freaked (1993) and on the TV show Dear John.
He became an American citizen in 1990, and there's a very short street in Hawthorne named "Michu Lane" after him.
Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros
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