Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: This is what happens when Tom listens to talk radio while running errands (Tucson Weekly)
I had to run some errands the other day. I had a new CD from Bonnie Raitt-who can still bring it-but I thought I'd listen to the radio instead. Perhaps I could learn something.
Mark Morford: Eat This and Be Wildly Grateful (SF Gate)
Many, even most Americans will barely glance at their plates when they land in front of them. It's true. From casual café fare to the fanciest gourmet meal, most will simply take one glimpse to make sure everything appears tolerable and not moldy, and then plow right into it, devour it, perhaps barely chewing, not even noticing what they're doing.
Alan Collinge: What Congress Can do to Fix the Student Loan Crisis (Irascible Professor)
At long last, the nation is beginning to address the issue of bankruptcy for those who are being crushed by student loan debt.
Noam Chomsky: What next for Occupy? (Guardian)
The Occupy movement built a global sense of community and put unprecedented inequality on the agenda. In an exclusive extract, the eminent US thinker asks.
Froma Harrop: Wishing the Worst for John Edwards (Creators Syndicate)
John Edwards allegedly misused campaign money to cover a tawdry affair while posing lovey-dovey with his dying wife for the cameras. All this happened in 2008, as the former Democratic senator from North Carolina was running for president. Accused of six felony counts for violating federal election laws, Edwards faces up to 30 years behind bars. Let's go for the max.
Katy Waldman: Head Games (Slate)
Malcolm Gladwell: The factor that I think will be decisive is the head-injury issue. Colleges are going to get sued, and they will have to decide whether they can afford their legal exposure. That said, the issue ought to be how big-time college sports subverts the academic mission of university education.
Interviews by Leo Benedictus: "How we made: Don Hahn and Paige O'Hara on 'Beauty and the Beast'" (Guardian)
'When it got Oscar nominated, I went running around the garden in my underwear.'
Paul De Barros: Grammy-winning bassist Esperanza Spalding wants to hook listeners with her playing (The Seattle Times)
"It's really exciting, intense, nerve-wracking and wonderful - like it's supposed to be," says the infectiously enthusiastic bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding of her life since winning a Grammy last year.
Chris Riemenschneider: Canadian singer/ songwriter Kathleen Edwards' bon voyage (Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Even before she moved to west-central Wisconsin to be with her suddenly famous boyfriend last year, Kathleen Edwards knew enough about canoeing and French pioneers to get away with calling her new album "Voyageur."
David Bruce: Wise Up! Clothing (Athens News)
Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest in Grodno, had little money, as did other Catholic priests with whom he worked. In fact, at one time, he and another priest shared a coat and a pair of shoes - the only coat and shoes they had. Whoever had to go outside would wear the coat and shoes, while the other priest stayed inside.
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'
BadtotheboneBob
What's up in space!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Marine layer thinned enough for the sun to pop out in late afternoon.
ProPublica Editor Named To Board
Pulitzer Prize
The managing editor of the nonprofit news organization ProPublica has been named to the 19-member board that administers the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts.
Columbia University announced Thursday that Stephen Engelberg will join the board. Engelberg has been managing editor of ProPublica since it was started in 2008.
ProPublica was the first online news organization to win a Pulitzer. It won the investigative reporting prize in 2010 for chronicling life-and-death decisions by a hospital's exhausted doctors after Hurricane Katrina. A year later it won the national reporting prize for exposing Wall Street practices that contributed to the nation's economic meltdown.
Before joining ProPublica, Engelberg worked for The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times and The Oregonian of Portland, Ore.
Pulitzer Prize
Hunting Meteorites
Eureka
Peter Jenniskens, right, the NASA scientist in charge of a group of researchers searching for pieces of a meteorite, walk to the zeppelin, Eureka, at McClellan Air Park in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, May 3, 2012. Researchers from NASA and the SETI Institute are using the slow moving airship in hope of spotting sites where large fragments landed after a meteor exploded in the atmosphere over the Sierra Nevada in late April.
Photo by Rich Pedroncelli
A group of scientists took to the skies in a slow-moving airship Thursday in search of meteorites that rained over California's gold country last month.
Treasure hunters have swarmed the Sierra Nevada foothills over the past two weeks, snatching up pieces of meteorites. Most of the recovered space rocks have been tiny, with the largest weighing in at 19 grams, or the weight of one AA battery.
Researchers from NASA and the nonprofit SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., were on the lookout for larger fragments. After a brief weather delay, they took off from a Sacramento airfield aboard an airship outfitted with sensors and cameras.
From the air, scientists scoured the terrain for places where sizable meteorites might have scattered. The survey took them over the area where James W. Marshall first discovered gold in California in 1848. Once they pinpoint possible impact sites, they plan to follow up with a search party.
"Only small pieces have been found. There has to be big pieces out there," SETI Institute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens said before the trip. "We're just hoping to collect more meteorites for research."
Eureka
Chimp Haven
Bob Barker
Retired game-show host and animal rights advocate Bob Barker is opening a new area for five HIV-infected chimpanzees at a sanctuary in northwestern Louisiana.
The former host of "The Price Is Right" donated $380,000 to create space at the Chimp Haven near Shreveport.
The animals came from a sanctuary in Texas that closed because of overcrowding and a lack of money. Other sanctuaries took the rest, but none would take the five because of their illness. They are named Doc, JoJo, Murphy, Flick and Pierre.
Barker said he learned about the animals from his friend Nancy Burnet, president of United Activists for Animal Rights. They recently flew out together from California to see the new habitat.
Bob Barker
'Slap Shot' Town Getting New Hockey Team
Johnstown, PA
The gritty western Pennsylvania city whose rich minor league hockey history helped inspire the cult movie hit "Slap Shot" is getting another chance to support a hockey team.
A group of investors is relocating a junior league franchise from Alaska to Johnstown, where the comedy movie about a minor league hockey team that turns to violent play to gain interest in a failing factory town was filmed.
James Bouchard, the chairman and chief executive of private investment firm Esmark Inc., is heading the deal bringing the North American Hockey League's Alaska Avalanche to Johnstown, about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Bouchard's group, Johnstown Sports Partners LLC, announced the deal at a news conference Thursday in a ticket lobby packed with fans and local dignitaries at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena, where the yet-to-be-renamed team will play.
"Slap Shot" was based on the Johnstown Jets and released the year the team folded, 1977. The movie starred Paul Newman as player/coach of the fictional Charlestown Chiefs, and much of it was filmed in the city and the 4,000-seat War Memorial Arena.
Johnstown, PA
"Vampire Diaries," "Supernatural" and "90210" Renewed
The CW
The CW has given early pickups to its series "The Vampire Diaries," "Supernatural" and "90210," the network said Thursday.
The renewals aren't particularly surprising; "The Vampire Diaries" is the network's top-rated show, while "Supernatural" has a loyal fan base and "90210" has been a reliable hit for the network.
"The Vampire Diaries," based on the series of books by L.J. Smith, is returning for a fourth season, while "90210" - a revamp of the classic 1990s series "Beverly Hills, 90210" - is coming back for a fifth season. "Supernatural," meanwhile, will begin its eighth season for the network in the 2012-2013 season.
The CW
Proud To Be Honorary Sarajevo Citizen
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie says she is grateful and proud to have officially been named an honorary citizen of Sarajevo and that she will visit the city this summer to personally express her gratitude.
The city held a ceremony to bestow the honor upon Jolie on Thursday. In an audio message played during the event at the National Theater, Jolie said she was "proud to now be a part of such an extraordinary part of the world and fellow citizen to the people I deeply love and admire."
The city decided to honor the actress for her role in preserving the "truth about the war" in Bosnia through her directorial debut "In the Land of Blood and Honey."
Jolie was invited to attend the ceremony Thursday but said in her message she will be able to come in July.
Angelina Jolie
Missouri Republican Outs Self
Zachary Wyatt
A Missouri state lawmaker who is not running for reelection announced on Wednesday that he is gay, the first state-level Republican politician in the nation currently in office to do so, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.
Missouri state Representative Zachary Wyatt, 27, announced his sexual orientation in a news conference at the Missouri state Capitol in Jefferson City. Wyatt said later in an interview that he did so because he wanted to openly oppose a proposal to ban discussion of sexual orientation in Missouri public schools.
His decision to go public came on the heels of the resignation this week of an openly gay spokesman for the presidential campaign of presumed Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Richard Grenell resigned amid reports that conservatives opposed having him in such a high profile position.
The Missouri bill opposed by Wyatt is sponsored by several Republicans, and would prohibit any "instruction, material or extra-curricular activity" on sexual orientation from being part of public school teaching, except in studying human reproduction.
Supporters of the measure have said sexual orientation is best discussed in private. Wyatt said the bill is short-sighted and even dangerous. He said banning discussion of sexual orientation could lead to further bullying of gay students.
"Gay students are the ones who are bullied most and if we passed this it would be illegal to even talk about the issue and that's dangerous," Wyatt said. "This is hiding it under the rug."
Zachary Wyatt
States' Rights
Nancy Pelosi
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants President Barack Obama to lay off the weed.
Reacting to an ongoing crackdown on medical marijuana facilities in California, Pelosi said in a Wednesday statement, "I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California." The California Democrat said that medical marijuana is "both a medical and a states' rights issue."
California legalized the use of medical marijuana in a 1996 initiative vote. It's comically easy for many residents to acquire the necessary medical diagnosis to legally purchase the drug.
In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration would "effectively end the Bush administration's frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana."
In April, however, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service raided Oaksterdam University - a school that taught marijuana enthusiasts how to successfully cultivate plants.
The Oaksterdam raid brought to public attention the increasing anger and frustraion of marijuana activists, who point to a string of promises Obama made during the 2008 campaign, during which he often said he would relax enforcement of federal marijuana prohibition.
Nancy Pelosi
Crackdown Hits Upscale
Santa Barbara
A crackdown on California's medical marijuana supply chain by federal authorities targeting the state's illegal drug trade arrived this week in the affluent, coastal county of Santa Barbara.
The latest actions include three asset forfeiture lawsuits filed against properties housing marijuana operations and warning letters sent to people associated with 10 cannabis dispensaries deemed "illegal marijuana stores," federal officials said.
"All known marijuana stores in Santa Barbara County are now the subject of federal enforcement actions," a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said.
The moves on Santa Barbara storefronts and cultivation facilities mark the fourth such sweep in recent months in the seven-county California region that ranks as the largest federal law-enforcement district in the nation, U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek said.
He said authorities have gone after 150 pot stores in the district since October, when federal prosecutors announced a statewide crackdown on what they called a massive network of illegal cannabis suppliers established under the guise of California's medical marijuana law. Most of those stores have been closed, Mrozek said.
Santa Barbara
Child Support Duel
Linda Evangelista
She has one of the world's most famous faces. He's a billionaire fashion CEO. And their 5-year-old son is at the center of a bitter, big-money child support fight.
Supermodel Linda Evangelista and ex-boyfriend Francois-Henri Pinault, a French business tycoon now married to actress Salma Hayek, faced off Thursday in the utilitarian environs of a Manhattan family court.
The trial is offering a public glimpse into the lives of the boldface and beautiful, from the vagaries of a modeling career to the peripatetic lifestyle of a movie star's child. The first day of testimony included a detailed description of a $12 million mansion and Pinault discussing his brief breakup with Hayek before their 2009 marriage.
Although she willingly paid all the boy's expenses for most of his life, her roughly $1.8 million-a-year income took a major hit last year as a contract with L'Oreal ended, said her lawyer, William Beslow.
Evangelista didn't publicly identify Pinault as the father of the boy, Augustin, known as Augie, until last year, when she went to court against the businessman. In the meantime, he and Hayek had a daughter, Valentina, and later married.
Linda Evangelista
Postcard Found
World War I
A postcard sent by a young Adolf Hitler was uncovered as part of a World War I history project funded by the European Union.
The future German dictator, then 27, penned the note in December of 1916 while he was recovering from injuries sustained on the war front.
Hitler sent the postcard, which bears a picture of the German town of Nuremberg, to Karl Lanzhammer, a member of his regiment. "Dear Lanzhammer," he wrote in German. "I am now in Munich at the Ersatz Battalion. Currently I am under dental treatment. By the way I will report voluntarily for the field immediately. Kind regards, A. Hitler."
The bulk of Hitler's known correspondence during the war was to fellow soldiers, suggesting they were his "surrogate family," said Thomas Weber, a history professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and an expert on Hitler's life during World War I.
World War I
Sacred Surplus
Dutch Churches
When Christianity fades, it doesn't just leave empty pews behind. With each church that shuts, the statues, crucifixes, chalices, paintings or vestments that were part of regular Sunday services suddenly have no liturgical home.
In the Netherlands, where faith has faded more dramatically than in many other parts of Europe, two churches close down on average every week. The sacred art left over is piling up in cellars and storerooms around the country.
Some congregations elsewhere have the opposite problem. New Catholic and Protestant churches are springing up in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and pastors in eastern Europe are seeking to refurbish churches used for decades as warehouses or factories.
A pioneering network of Dutch religious art experts, concerned by the accumulation of objects with both artistic and spiritual significance, has been struggling to match some of their supply to this new demand.
Surplus sacred art is a bigger problem for the Catholics because specially blessed sacred objects play a larger part in Catholic liturgy and devotional practices than in the more austere Protestant churches.
Dutch Churches
Pepsi Corpse Schtupping
Michael Jackson
PepsiCo Inc. is going on a reunion tour with The King of Pop.
The Purchase, N.Y.-based company on Thursday announced its deal with the estate of Michael Jackson to use the late pop star's image for its new global marketing push. The nature of the promotion will vary by country, but will include special edition cans bearing Jackson's image, a TV ad in some markets and chances to download remixes of some of Jackson's most famous songs.
Pepsi, which first partnered with Jackson in 1983, did not disclose the terms of its deal with the singer's estate.
The promotion is part of a global marketing blitz planned for the year ahead by Pepsi, which is looking to revive its brand and win back market share from The Coca-Cola Co. Next week, Pepsi is also launching a TV ad featuring singer Nicki Minaj and announcing details of its partnership with Twitter to stream concerts online.
Pepsi has a lot riding on its new push. Although the company has a diverse portfolio of brands including Frito-Lay, Quaker Oats and Tropicana, it's often judged by the performance of its namesake cola. And in 2010, Pepsi was knocked out of the No. 2 spot among sodas in the U.S. by Diet Coke, with Coke remaining in the No. 1 position, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest.
Michael Jackson
In Memory
Ben Silver
Former CBS news correspondent and Arizona State University journalism professor Ben Silver has died. He was 85.
The university says he died Wednesday from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in St. Louis Park, Minn.
Silver was a CBS national correspondent in the 1960s and covered race riots, school integration and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's accident at Chappaquiddick.
Silver worked at WCKT-TV in Miami from 1957 to 1966, reporting from the Soviet Union and Latin America. He won a Peabody Award in 1960 for his coverage of Latin America.
He began teaching at ASU in 1972 and continued to file CBS reports for several years. He retired in 1990.
He is survived by his wife, six children and 11 grandchildren. Services will be held Sunday in Minneapolis.
Ben Silver
In Memory
Lloyd Brevett
Relatives say a founding member of the influential band The Skatalites has died in Jamaica at age 80.
Family spokeswoman Maxine Stowe says bassist Lloyd Brevett died Thursday at a Kingston hospital.
He had suffered a stroke in March, two weeks after his son was murdered by gunmen outside the family's home.
Brevett was an original member of The Skatalites, a hugely influential band begun in 1964. The group made its mark by transforming everything from jazz to movie themes into ska style.
Musicologist Bunny Goodison says Brevett and drummer Lloyd Knibb were the "driving force of ska." Knibb died in 2011.
Brevett is survived by his wife and five children.
Lloyd Brevett
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