Rage

Phil Jackson never liked to compare Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan. Believe me, I tried everything. Sometimes I'd ask him after random Lakers practices or before games against Charlotte, the team Jordan owned. Or after games in Chicago, where nostalgia hopefully would add to the mix. There would be a little nugget here, a tiny nibble there, but nothing that mattered. It's coming out now, though, in Jackson's 339-page memoir co-written with Hugh Delehanty and available Tuesday: "Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.

Beverly Hills police are seeking the public's help in tracking down the driver of a BMW who is captured on video steering his car into a bicyclist, pinning him against a metal trash bin. Police said they consider the hit-and-run to be a road rage incident and are seeking the driver on suspicion of attempted murder. Since April 3, police have been looking for the driver of a newer model, white BMW 328i that was captured on video hitting a bicyclist in an alley in the 9000 block of Wilshire Boulevard.

That's a snotty headline--"Even O.J. Told Him to Simmer Down"--on the review of Chris Darden's book "In Contempt" (Book Review, March 31). Perhaps O.J. would be better advised to take his own advice. I, for one, hope Chris Darden continues to be angry at a society that permits such circuses. AURIEL DOUGLAS, SANTA MONICA

Somewhere in the galaxy, maybe Mars, there might be a crazier sport than NASCAR. These guys don't race cars, they play Russian roulette with lives. Each other's. There is courage, and then there are NASCAR drivers. They must do their training by wrestling crocodiles or sticking hands into the mouths of great whites. For kicks, they sneak up on rattlesnakes in high grass. Calling this a sport of daredevils is selling it short. Testosterone- fueled psychos comes closer, which will be taken in the garages as a compliment, except for Danica Patrick's.

Fred Durst was concentrating on sound, pacing slowly on stage and rapping a line or two into his microphone, but mostly just listening. In a few hours, the original, platinum-selling lineup of Limp Bizkit was set to perform its first U.S. show in eight years. That meant the Saturday afternoon sound check in the Palms hotel and casino's Pearl Concert Theater was not about bouncing or raging to the band's hip-hop beat, but getting the details right.

'See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody' Bob Mould with Michael Azerrad Little, Brown: 416 pp. $24.99

I do agree with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello's statement that "Saturday Night Live" "censored" the band outright, and that "SNL" more likely than not "sucked up to the billionaire" (Pop Eye, April 21). However, Morello referring to anyone, be they a singular person or corporate entity, as a "bootlicker" to a "corporate master" is contradictory, irresponsible and just plain idiotic. Perhaps Morello's dreams of becoming a "revolutionary" have clouded the reality of his surroundings--he is a member of a very popular band signed to a very corporate record label.

First New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was rebuffed by The Boss . Now another well-know liberal musician has spurned the advances of a right-wing politician-fan. In a brutal Rolling Stone editorial , Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello calls Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's recent vice presidential pick, the "embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. " The 42-year-old Ryan has touted his Rage fandom in the past, a curious choice given the band's ferocious advocacy for unions, immigrants and social justice.  Morello is clearly amused and perplexed at how deeply, in his opinion, Ryan has missed the point of his band.

Alma, the 15-year-old heroine of the Nordic import "Turn Me On, Dammit!," is introduced pleasuring herself on the floor of her kitchen to the chatter of a phone sex operator. Instead of setting up a single-minded comedy about teenage desire, however, this gently amusing film from writer-director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen delicately renders more than a few shades of a turbulent female adolescence. Soft-eyed, hangdog Alma (a wonderful Helene Bergsholm) is racked with horny/romantic fantasies and hates the backwater mountain village where she lives.

In Steve Hochman's review of the Rage Against the Machine concert at the Great Western Forum, he accuses the band of reducing "highly complex issues . . . to simple slogans" and painting "strokes so broad you can't see the faces in the picture" ("Raging Against the Machine, or Being a Mindless Part of It?," Dec. 21). It is Hochman's review that paints the broad strokes. He fails to delineate any of the slogans that are, in his estimation, "simple." Were Hochman more learned regarding the issues being addressed by Rage's lyrics, he would recognize the lyrics as among the most complex in modern music.

More information has emerged about the fatal shooting of Greg Rodriguez, a big-game hunting expert and host of TV's "A Rifleman's Journal. " Rodriguez, 43, of Sugar Land, Texas, was shot and killed about 10:30 p.m. Thursday at a house in rural Whitefish, Mont., which he was visiting for his show, according to a statement released by local police to the Los Angeles Times. "Rifleman's Journal" on the Sportsman Channel has focused on Rodriguez's specialty, big-game hunting in exotic locations all over the world, along with marksmanship tips to viewers.

The mayor's first order of business was to announce an exercise class and a St. Patrick's Day dance. Registration for youth soccer, he reminded everyone, was still open to anyone interested. And with that, the Bell City Council was in session. Under harsh overhead lights, about 50 people sat quietly on a Wednesday night on mauve plastic chairs as a representative from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office urged everyone to get out and vote. A woman upset about what she said was the Police Department harassing her family stood to speak, enlivening a few in the crowd.

BEIRUT - Intense fighting between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters continued Friday around Damascus, the capital, and U.N. officials said about 5,000 people were now fleeing the country daily. Activists reported heavy shelling by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad on opposition-held Ghouta to the east of the city and in neighborhoods to the south in response to an offensive this week by rebel groups trying to remove government checkpoints and seize strategic areas on the capital's outskirts.

Rage is Back A Novel Adam Mansbach Viking: 304 pp., $26.95 "I always had this sense that there was a great American graffiti novel waiting to be written," Adam Mansbach says. Best known as the author of the bestselling, foul-mouthed "children's book for adults" "Go the F - to Sleep," Mansbach has penned an ambitious new novel. "Rage is Back" is a loving homage to graffiti culture in New York City. Graffiti has been celebrated in art books and documentaries and canonized in recent shows like MOCA's "Art in the Streets" exhibition, but few long works of fiction exist.

PORT SAID, Egypt - This shipping city of factory men, with its whispers of colonial-era architecture, was once a crossroads for intellectuals, spies and wanderers who conspired in cafes while the Suez Canal was dug and Egypt's storied cotton was exported around the globe. Rising on a slender cusp in the Mediterranean Sea, the town exuded cosmopolitan allure amid the slap of fishing nets and the creak of trawlers. But its fading splendor has been upset by riots and bloodshed that have turned Port Said into a pivotal test of President Mohamed Morsi's ability to calm a nationwide rebellion against his rule.

In taking the reins of Warner Bros., one of Kevin Tsujihara's first tasks will be returning calm to a studio that has been racked by divisions and infighting. Although Warner was Hollywood's No. 1 supplier of television shows, No. 1 in the home video market and No. 2 at the box office last year, the rivalry between Tsujihara and two other executives for the top job created tensions on the studio's Burbank lot and uncertainty among its partners throughout the entertainment industry.

Regarding Thulani Davis' self-centered review of "Waking From the Dream: My Life in the Black Middle Class," by Sam Fulwood III (April 21), I guess I should not be surprised by her disappointment in Fulwood's relative lack of black rage. I've had African American friends who reported not feeling racism during their growing-up years. They, of course, would be subject to immediate suspicion, ridicule and scorn by the black-rage establishment. Davis advances a tired and increasingly irritating agenda--how dare any black not express rage!

Re "Keep on talking, Mr. Rove," editorial, July 15 Isn't it about time for Americans to stop screaming at each other in traffic and direct their anguish at the White House, where it might actually do some good? [Karl] Rove rage, that's what we need. Let 'em hear it! Jonathan Schwartz Marina del Rey Here's the issue I don't see anyone questioning: The Bush administration's smear attempt on former Ambassador Joe Wilson -- saying that his findings lacked credibility because his wife sent him to Niger -- doesn't make sense.

ZAATARI, Jordan - This sprawling tent city, by far the largest refugee camp for Syrians fleeing their war-ravaged nation, is becoming more crowded by the day, even as operating funds are running low. Winter storms, the most recent of which collapsed tents, turned roads into muddy quagmires and helped spark a riot during food distribution, have compounded the misery for more than 60,000 residents, a number that grows by an average of 1,200 daily....

Scores of fires continued to rage across southeastern Australia on Tuesday as the country sizzled under scorching heat. More than a dozen were still burning out of control late in the day, as firefighters battled to squelch flames sweeping through dry grasses and scrubland in New South Wales. No deaths were reported, but Australian officials warned that the threat had not yet passed. “The word catastrophic is being used for good reason … This is a very dangerous day,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard told Australian journalist David Koch.