Karl THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB WAS DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA 60 years ago this Saturday. The act that ushered in the nuclear age, but also helped end World War II, still stokes controversy. Three men involved in the attack on Hiroshima shared their memories with the BBC. Film showing the effects of the attack was classified for decades, as was the complete (unredacted) “Magic” military intercepts, which tend to show Japan was not about to surrender. Those interested in a relatively neutral view of the events leading to the bombing could do worse than 1995's Hiroshima, a joint Canadian-Japanese production for Showtime.
FRIDAY TIMEWASTER: Penguin Arcade. It starts a little slow, but don't get cocky.
RICHARD THOMPSON: After noticing he's got a new album dropping on Tuesday, I poked arouind a bit and found that you can already listen to two tracks — “Let It Blow” and “For Whose Sake?” Chromewaves is killing music with Bob Mould's cover of “The Turning of the Tide” from Thompson's Amnesia.
DAVID BYRNE ON PAYOLA: At his non-blog, meaning you'll have to scroll down to find it, Byrne admits that “Burning Down The House” had some serious “indie” promotion money behind it. He has a lot more to say on the subject, so read the whle thing.
CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH is interviewed at *Sixeyes, with links to legal downloads.
ON THE PITCHFORK: Sean Fennessey previews Franz Ferdinand's sophomore album.
BOB DYLAN AND JACK WHITE: The Modern Age is killing music.
RICKIE LEE JONES: The Power Line blog excerpts a Wall Street Journal piece on her new three-disc retrospective, along with a note on Laura Nyro.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Who's your daddy? If you're Jolie's son Maddox, you think it's Pitt. Jennifer Aniston is being comforted by Pitt's mother. A day after the Vanity Fair interview put Aniston's joke about Pitt — “Billy Idol called. He wants his look back.” — on newsstands, Pitt is back in black. But give Pitt and Jolie credit for flying to Lake Havasu, AZ to make IHOP hip again.
ASHTON KUTCHER AND LINDSAY LOHAN top the power list of Young Hollywood, according to Teen People readers.
SELA WARD: “I coulda been a Desperate Housewife, a con-ten-dah…”
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: Actress Liz Smith, 80, decided to audition for the role of Grandma Georgina because she's the one that gets to kiss Johnny Depp in the movie.
JESSICA LANGE: Ouch!
MIKE TYSON, porn star? Insert your “Iron Mike” joke here. Insert your “insert” joke here. Or, given the subject, vice-versa.
TARA REID outdrank Tommy Lee. And she's still going, as chronicled at The Socialite Life.
IRAQ: Michael Yon has another gripping report from Mosul, with photos. For example, these two items. First, the ISF in Mosul may be getting too good — U.S. Army Captain Paul Carron recently reported that so many undercover police are operating in Mosul, that they have been arresting each other, sometimes accusing each other of possessing fake ID cards. Second, after U.S. troops shoot a taxi driver, it's good to see that they own up to it, including their commander: “Mike, you can write about the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think we made a mistake, but you were there. You saw what happened. We are still not certain that he is not a cell-member, but we have no proof that he was and my gut tells me he was innocent. I think it was a bad target.”
CUDDLING KILLING: A Florida man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex while he wanted to watch sports on TV was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer. The judge said, “Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant.” I try to avoid expressing legal opinions here, but I'm going to say that's spot on accurate.
DRINKING AND THINKING go together like a horse and carriage. A new study says moderate drinkers are better thinkers than teetotallers or those who overindulge. Fans of Cheers already knew this.
THE MAGIC NUMBERS: Despite having one of the highest ratings at Metacritic and a generally positive Pitchfork review, I haven't posted much about the self-titled debut from this band, mostly because it's only available as an import at the moment. But you can download samples at NotLame and stream a couple more at the band's website. It's good enough that I may not be able to wait until October for the domestic release.
THE FEELGOOD HIT OF THE SUMMER IS… Mariah Carey's “We Belong Together?” I knew there was a reason I wasn't listening to the radio…
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL fans in NYC got a pleasant surprise when Jeff Mangum, the band's reclusive former frontman, joined the band at the Bowery Ballroom. Spin has video in Quicktime.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer has been arrested following an alleged attack on a tabloid journalist (which was noted here earlier).
JACKO JUSTICE: Two jurors who acquitted Michael Jackson of child molestation charges now say they think the pop star was guilty – and they are penning tell-all books about the jury's deliberations.
THE SOURCE UPDATE: Two of the embattled hip-hop magazine's bigwigs were charged with attempted murder in connection with a shootout outside a Chelsea bar.
CNN SUSPENDS BOB NOVAK indefinitely after he swore and walked off the set Thursday during a debate with Democratic operative James Carville. The linked article seems to imply that Novak may have walked out to avoid questions about his role in the investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity.
SOURCES CLOSE TO THE WHITE HOUSE: The anonymous are profiled by Ryan Lizza in The New Republic.
CAMILLE PAGLIA is interviewed by The Morning News about Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World’s Best Poems. Of course, it's Camille Paglia, so the interview encompasses mucch, much more than that. For example, the impact of the internet: “Now I’m a champion of the web—I began writing for Salon in 1995 from the first issue on. But the style of the web, not only the surfing skimming style that you learn—dash, dash—you absorb information not by reading whole sentences. It’s flash, flash, flash. Email, blog, everything is going fast, fast, fast. So the quality of language has obviously degenerated. It’s obvious.”
IRAQ II: Gateway Pundit posts on Safia al-Suhail, the Iraqi Ambassador to, of all places, Egypt. She is also working in Iraq for women's rights under the new constitution.
IRAQ III: Most of the major media headlines this week have been about the enemy getting deadlier, though the linked article notes that the IED attack that killed 14 Marines on Wednesday hit a lightly armored amphibious assault vehicle. A look at the latest Iraq Index shows that casualties have escalated over time, as would be expected for reasons noted in one of yesterday's links. However, casualties from “multiple casualty bombings” peaked in May and have declined considerably from that peak; the trend on U.S. troops killed or wounded has been down even longer. The enemy probably knows this, which may explain the move to larger IEDs. Nevertheless, I expect the numbers in August to be worse because, imho, Wretchard of the Belmont Club has correctly read between the lines that a major operation has begun along the Euphrates River to the border of Syria. If true, the nature of the operation will force direct combat.
IRAN was the source for a large shipment of high explosives smuggled into northeastern Iraq last week. Intelligence officials told MSNBC that they believe the high-explosives were shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary guard or the terrorist group Hezbollah, but are convinced it could not have happened without the full consent of the Iranian government. Speaking of which, check out Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi on Iran’s nuclear activity.
THE EMERGING TERROR THREAT: Norwegian Grannies.
GIANT CATFISH: British fisherman Duncan Rooke and three others caught a 211-pound, 7-foot-7 female catfish on the River Ebro near Barcelona, Spain. But you should have seen the one that got away… Thank you very much, don't forget to tip your bartender!
BADGERS PREFER TO MATE IN THE DARK — a story in which the Science Correspondent for London's Telegraph tells us a bit too much about himself.
MONKEYS RESCUE COMPANION AFTER MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT: A monkey knocked down by a motorcyclist in Hong Kong was bravely rescued by fellow simians, press reports said on Thursday.
MONKEY AT DUKE uses its mind to move a robotic arm 600 miles away in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
DRUNKEN PIGEONS are getting drunk and endangering themselves in New Zealand.
LICKING YOUR WOUNDS is one thing; licking your students' wounds is another.
