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from Bruce
AMAZING! Runner falls, gets back up and wins! (YouTube)
You go, girl! This 600 meter sprint was part of the 2008 Big Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships. Heather Dorniden of Minnesota went into the race as the favorite, but the odds changed along the way.
Paul Krugman's Column: The Hole in Europe's Bucket (New York Times)
If it weren't so tragic, the current European crisis would be funny, in a gallows-humor sort of way. For as one rescue plan after another falls flat, Europe's Very Serious People - who are, if such a thing is possible, even more pompous and self-regarding than their American counterparts - just keep looking more and more ridiculous.
Annie Lowrey: You Have To Admit It's Getting Better (Slate)
The economy seems to be recovering. Here's the evidence.
Scott Burns: How Much Can the 99% Squeeze Out of the 1%? (Assetbuilder)
Only $1 trillion is left because they're already paying $318 billion in taxes. Since the official federal deficit is estimated at $1,315 billion for the 2011 fiscal year, it should be clear that even if the top 1 percent paid 100 percent of their income in taxes, the federal budget would not be balanced.
Diane Dimond: Paying the Price - Twice (Creators Syndicate)
With the U.S. unemployment over 9 percent these days, nearly everyone knows someone who is out of work or underemployed. It's a tragic and desperate time for millions of Americans. But there is one sector of the population hit harder than any other - those Americans who carry the stigma of a past criminal conviction. An almost unbelievable 65 million people - one in every four U.S. adults - falls into this category.
Diane Dimond: The Halloween Sex Offender Hoax (Creators Syndicate)
The spookiest time of the year is fast approaching, and you have likely already heard about local law enforcement officers preparing to keep your area free of danger on Halloween night.
Marilyn Preston: 10-10-10: Fall Fitness Tips That Inform, Inspire, Irritate (Creators Syndicate)
When the season's change, so can we. Nature is us, and if you've been yearning to embrace a more active lifestyle that dances you down the path to better health, greater energy and looser jeans, fall is the perfect time to press "restart" and see how far your sap can rise.
Paul Constant: "Preachy and Puerile: Balagan's Stupid 'Peanuts' Play" (The Stranger)
Quick: You're writing a play about the characters from Peanuts as teenagers. How do you begin? If you answered, "With a monologue delivered by a shell-shocked Charlie Brown about the bloody death of a rabies-stricken Snoopy," you shouldn't be allowed to continue writing your script.
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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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer so thick we had less than an hour of sun.
9th Decade As An Activist
Pete Seeger
Tao Rodriguez-Seeger was halfway through Friday night's march down Broadway to support the Occupy Wall Street movement, a guitar strapped over his shoulder and his grandfather Pete Seeger at his side. Suddenly a New York City police officer stepped from the crowd and grabbed his elbow.
"Are you Tao Seeger?" the officer asked tersely. "Was this your idea? Did you think of this?"
Rodriguez-Seeger was certain arrest was imminent. The officer reached for his hand and he readied for the cuffs. Then something unexpected happened.
"He shook my hand and said, 'Thank you, thank you. This is beautiful,'" Rodriguez-Seeger said. "That really did it for me. The cops recognized what we were about."
That moment affirmed the message that his grandfather has preached tirelessly across nine decades. The causes and movements have changed from time to time over 75 years, but his message has always been the same: Song is the key to understanding and change.
Today, Pete Seeger is approaching the far end of a life lived walking hand in hand with American history, often at odds with the government that runs things. It failed to shut him up. The courts had no chance. Changing tastes and values? Never. Even time seems to have taken a step back in deference to the musical rabble-rouser's resolve and determination.
Pete Seeger
Honored As 'Greatest Act' In Last 25 Years
U2
Rock icons U2 have something new to brag about - winning Q Magazine's Greatest Act of the Last 25 Years award.
The annual music awards by Britain's best-selling music monthly took place Monday in London and the Irish quartet was among the music notables at the ceremony.
The U.K.'s artist of the moment, singer/songwriter Adele, won two awards, for Best Female and Best Track for her song "Rolling in the Deep." She didn't attend, since the event comes just two weeks after she was forced to cancel her U.S. tour due to throat problems.
Coldplay was voted Best Act in the World Today, although lead singer Chris Martin disagreed with the accolade.
U2
Wedding News
Schneider - Williams
Robin Williams married his girlfriend Susan Schneider over the weekend in Napa Valley, the section of northern California known for wine and romance, the actor's representative said on Monday.
The 60-year-old Oscar-winning comedian met Schneider in 2009, after she helped nurse him back to health following surgery to a faulty heart valve, the actor told British newspaper The Guardian in 2009. It is his third marriage.
The actor's daughter, Zelda, on Saturday posted on Twitter "Let the wedding madness begin!" with updates from the festivities throughout the day.
He was previously married to Valerie Velardi, with whom he has one child, and Marsha Garces, whom he divorced in 2008 after having two children.
Schneider - Williams
Studio Pulling Discs From Stores December 29
Harry Potter
Warner Brothers is taking a page from Disney.
The studio announced that it will pull all Harry Potter DVDs and Blu-rays from store shelves on December 29, 2011.
Move follows the November 11 home entertainment release of the final film in the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2," which should send disc sales into the stratosphere. The studio is also releasing a box-set of all eight Potter films on that date.
Disney has employed a similar strategy with animated hits like "Beauty and the Beast" and "Sleeping Beauty," re-releasing the movies in theaters and on tricked out versions for limited periods of time.
Warner Brothers says the new moratorium will not apply to digital copies or video-on-demand.
Harry Potter
Phoenix Hospital To Name Room
Bret Michaels
Poison frontman Bret Michaels plans to announce Thursday that he is donating TVs and sound systems for a waiting room at the St. Joseph's Barrow Neurological Institute, where he was treated in April 2010 for a brain hemorrhage. The equipment will allow families to relax and listen to music.
I
n return, the waiting room in the Phoenix, Arizona hospital will be named after Michaels.
He was also treated at the hospital earlier this year for a procedure to fix a hole in his heart. Doctors discovered the hole when they treated him for the brain hemorrhage.
Michaels says in a statement that the room will be "warm and hip."
Bret Michaels
Hospital News
Loretta Lynn
Country music legend Loretta Lynn was resting at home on Monday after spending part of a "scary" weekend in the hospital suffering from pneumonia, the singer said.
"It was one scary night ... But I am feeling better and just gonna take it easy for a couple of weeks," she said in a statement from her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
The 76-year-old music icon went to a Kentucky hospital early on Saturday after awakening on her tour bus complaining of difficulty breathing, her web site said.
Lynn canceled her two weekend performances in Kentucky and North Carolina, but the statement said she expected to return to the stage on November 3 in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Loretta Lynn
May Close
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks - whose spectacular publication of classified data shook world capitals and exposed the inner workings of international diplomacy - may be weeks away from collapse, the organization's leader said Monday.
Although its attention-grabbing leaks spread outrage and embarrassment across military and diplomatic circles, WikiLeaks' inability to overturn the block on donations imposed by American financial companies may prove its undoing.
"If WikiLeaks does not find a way to remove this blockade we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the new year," founder Julian Assange told journalists at London's Frontline Club. "If we don't knock down the blockade we simply will not be able to continue."
As an emergency measure, Assange said his group would cease what he called "publication operations" to focus its energy on fundraising. He added that WikiLeaks - which he said had about 20 employees - needs an additional $3.5 million to keep it going into 2013.
WikiLeaks
Re-Elected To News Corpse. Board
Rupert
News Corp. has filed the final tally of votes from last week's contentious annual stockholder meeting. As expected, the Murdoch family and Murdoch supporters, who control the vast majority of News Corp. voting shares, dominated the votes.
The stockholder proposal that the board require its chairman to be "truly" independent, and that the chairman and CEO roles--both held by Rupert Murdoch--be split was voted down. The final tally, in total shares, filed with the SEC on Monday:
The re-election of James Murdoch--closest among the Murdoch clan to the recent British phone-hacking scandal--received the most shareholder resistance of any current board member.
Rupert
NPR Host Steps Down
Michele Norris
NPR host Michele Norris is temporarily stepping down from the afternoon news show "All Things Considered" because her husband has taken a senior role in President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.
In a note sent to NPR staff Monday and posted on the network's website, Norris says her husband's new role could make it difficult to continue hosting the show. She says she is temporarily stepping away until after the 2012 elections.
Norris's husband, Broderick Johnson, is a senior adviser to the Obama campaign.
Norris says she will recuse herself from all election coverage but will continue reporting for NPR on other subjects. She steps down as host at the end of the week.
Michele Norris
Former Obama Speechwriter Sells Comedy
"1600 Penn"
NBC has given a put pilot commitment to a comedy about a dysfunctional presidential family that is co-created by a former speechwriter for President Obama, one of the stars of "The Book of Mormon," and a "Modern Family" writer.
Twentieth Century Fox Television's "1600 Penn" is also executive produced by Josh Gad ("Mormon"), Jon Lovett, the former speechwriter, and Jason Winer ("Modern Family" and the upcoming "Apartment 23").
Winer is directing. The single-camera comedy features a "dysfunctional family that just happens to live at the most famous address in America," according to the studio.
The put pilot commitment means NBC will have to pay substantial penalties if the pilot doesn't air, which greatly increases the odds that it will be picked up.
"1600 Penn"
Singer Among Occupy Cincinnati Arrests
Justin Jeffre
Former boy band singer Justin Jeffre has pleaded not guilty to trespassing after being arrested in the Occupy Cincinnati protest, part of the demonstrations over economic inequality that have spread nationwide.
Police say the member of 98 Degrees was one of 11 people arrested early Sunday at the city's Fountain Square after the 3 a.m. closing time. They also were charged with unlawful use of the square.
Jeffre tells The Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper he spent several hours in jail and it was "no fun." But he says it was the right place to be to stand up for free speech.
The 38-year-old Jeffre has been a Cincinnati political activist.
Justin Jeffre
NH Ex-Staffers
Mrs. Bachmann
Two days after the New Hampshire-based staff for Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign resigned en masse, the ex-aides released a statement affirming their departure and calling Bachmann's national campaign rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel."
"The manner in which some in the national team conducted themselves towards Team-NH was rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel," the letter reads. "But more concerning was how abrasive, discourteous, and dismissive some within the national team were towards many New Hampshire citizens."
The shakeup was first reported by New Hampshire's WMUR-TV. Bachmann, a Republican representative from Minnesota, initially denied it and suggested the story had been fed to the media by one of her opponents' campaigns
"That is a shocking story to me," Bachmann said on Radio Iowa last Friday. "I don't know where that came from. We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn't true, so I don't know if this is just a bad story that's being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we've made calls and it's certainly not true."
Mrs. Bachmann
Creators Targeted
"South Park"
Scientologists investigated "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after an episode of the Comedy Central series made fun of the group, a former member contends.
Mark "Marty" Rathbun, a former high-ranking member of the group who is now critical of the group and offers counseling to former members, said members of a Scientology "harassment agency" tried to get Parker and Stone to halt their mockery of the group in 2006.
He posted a document on his website that he describes as a report from the "Office of Special Affairs" that says Scientologists tried to find direct links to people who were friends of the "South Park" creators -- including John Stamos, a friend of Stone's.
In dense, jargon-filled language, the document describes various attempts at snooping: "Otherwise the special collections (covert information gathering such as trash collection, purchased phone records, hacked airline reservations, purchased bank records) will be debugged in order to get some viable strings that can be pulled," it says.
It concludes: "It is clear that this investigation is not going anywhere and DCOE (D/Commanding Officer External OSA) is getting it debugged."
"South Park"
Unhappy About Blasting Plans
NYC's Friars Club
It's known for shaking up celebrities at its comedy roasts. But the Friars Club says it's not laughing about plans to blast dynamite under its 102-year-old clubhouse in midtown Manhattan.
Club officials are worried about plans by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to build a ventilation shaft under the building, the club's lawyer, Sid Davidoff, said Monday. They fear the blasts may hurt the building, and that construction on the street and sidewalk will discourage customers from coming to the club's restaurant.
Club officials are hiring an engineering firm to go over the transportation authority's plans and are hoping they can persuade the agency to choose a different street, Davidoff said.
"You're going to be talking about blasting, noise, dust, traffic," Davidoff said. "We're really worried about the club."
NYC's Friars Club
House Rents For $2,500 A Night
'Jersey Shore'
Fans of MTV's "Jersey Shore" can get a firsthand look at the gym-tan-laundry lifestyle by renting the house where the reality series is taped.
Just bring $2,500 a night and your own drama.
Renters to the home in Seaside Heights have access to the duck phone and the double bed in the Smush Room. But they won't find the usual mess because the landlord cleaned the place.
Jennifer Bauer of Toms River says it's cool sleeping in the same bedrooms where the cast stayed. But Bauer says she brought her own sheets.
'Jersey Shore'
In Memory
Paul Leka
Paul Leka, a songwriter and producer who worked with many recording stars but who was best known for writing the chanting chorus of "Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)," a No. 1 hit in 1969 that was reborn in the 1970s as a sports-arena anthem, died Oct. 12 in a hospice near his home in Sharon, Conn. He was 68. The cause was lung cancer, said his brother, George.
Mr. Leka made his name in the Tin Pan Alley tradition, writing or arranging songs for other people. He wrote and produced "Green Tambourine," a No. 1 hit in 1967 for the psychedelic soft-rock band the Lemon Pipers and signed REO Speedwagon to its first record contract.
In 1969, Mr. Leka was helping a longtime friend from Bridgeport, Conn., Gary DeCarlo, fill the B-side of a single he was recording They started with a song they had written years before, a bluesy shuffle called "Kiss Him Goodbye."
But it filled only two minutes of playing time, and to make sure disc jockeys would not play it - instead of DeCarlo's A-side - they decided to add a chorus to stretch it to four minutes, beyond the time limit of most radio formats.
"I started writing while I was sitting at the piano, going 'na na na na, na na na na ... ' " Mr. Leka told Fred Bronson, author of "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits." "Everything was 'na-na' when you didn't have a lyric." DeCarlo added the "hey hey." The record company decided to release it nonetheless as the A-side of a 45 by Steam, a fictitious group name the two men invented for the record. The song reached No. 1 in late 1969
In 1977, the organist for the Chicago White Sox, Nancy Faust, began using the song to stoke the crowd into taunting the opposing team. Within a few years, the chant had become an anthem of sports conquest.
Paul Leka
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