Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Heart of the World (SF Gate)
There's heartsick, and then there's heartsick, you know?
Suzanne Moore: Endless nips and tucks, Botox and filler: is this what a woman's right to choose has mutated into? (Guardian)
The bloated faces of so many of our current stars do not speak to me of empowerment: instead, I see powerlessness and women masking age with an odd veneer.
Tom Danehy: Greg Wenneborg has taken Pima's track and field team to unexpected new heights (Tucson Weekly)
Sometime Thursday, May 15, coach Greg Wenneborg, his assistant coaches and more than 20 members of his Pima Community College Aztecs track and field team will board a bus for Mesa Community College, where, over the next three days, they will take their best shots at winning an individual and perhaps even a team national championship. The aforementioned shot will certainly be of the long variety, but the fact that Pima is even in the discussion is a testament to the man and his vision.
Stuart Heritage: The Simpsons is debasing itself with a Family Guy crossover episode (Guardian)
Latest attention-seeking gimmick has the Griffin family coming to Springfield - but aren't they just the poor relations?
Paula Cocozza: "The five-a-day disaster: why the numbers don't add up" (Guardian)
We all know the five-a-day mantra but we have no idea what counts as a portion. Are the supermarkets co-opting the message to flog us processed, calorie-packed fruit and veg?
Jim Casey: The Evolution Of Visual Effects (Guardian)
"This video is a compilation of clips that represent the history of special effects from the years 1874-2014. Pieced together by video editor Jim Casey, who set it to musical piece "Liberi Fatali" from Final Fantasy VIII, it has something to love for every film enthusiast." - Neatorama
Elephant calf river rescue © Sandy Gelderman (YouTube)
"The Ewaso Nyiro River was running high after heavy rain, as an elephant herd crossed it in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The force of the water was just too much for a baby elephant and it began to wash downstream. A juvenile caught it, and held the baby in place until its mother came, and the two bigger elephants helped the baby to the bank. Sandy Gelderman caught the sequence on video. Notice the elephants' habit is to stand on the upstream side of the youngsters in order to break the force of the river's flow. It doesn't always work, but with teamwork, they all got across." - Neatorama
My Cat Saved My Son (Neatorama)
"Warning: This video shows a child being injured, and at the end has closeup stills of the wounds. Roger Triantafilo's four-year-old son was playing in front of his home when a strange dog came up and attacked him. The first to come to his rescue was the family cat, Tara, followed closely by Erica Triantafilo. Tara is one brave cat! Erica tried to chase the dog off, and she was bitten, too. The boy was taken to a hospital where he received ten stitches. It could have been much worse. The dog has been quarantined. The video was reconstructed from several security cameras." - Neatorama
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wrote:
is under the weather.
took the day off.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
BartCop
Hello Bartcop fans,
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
So - to let you know what's going on, the guestbook on bartcop.com is
still open for those who want to write something in memory of Bart.
I did an interview on Netroots Radio about Bart's passing
( www.stitcher.com/s?eid=32893545 )
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
Marc Perkel
Thanks, Marc!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another day of record breaking heat.
Buh-Bye Net Neutrality
FCC
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to go forward with the proposal of new rules that could set standards for Internet providers who wish to create paid priority fast lanes on their networks.
The preliminary vote, in which three of agency's commissioners supported the measure and two dissented, moves the so-called "net neutrality" rules into a formal public comment period. After the 120-day period ends, the FCC will revise the proposal and vote on a final set of rules. FCC Chairman and former Comcast lobbyist Tom Wheeler has said he wants the rules in place by the end of this year.
"Today we take another step in what has been a decade-long effort to protect a free and open Internet," Wheeler, a Democrat (cough, cough), said before the vote.
FCC
Fight the NRA
Doctors
For the past three decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics-some 62,000 members strong-has been an outspoken voice on the issue of gun control, a position that has landed it on the NRA's (admittedly very long) list of enemies. In 1992, the AAP issued its first policy statement supporting a handgun and assault weapons ban, making it the first public health organization to do so, and it has long recommended that doctors talk about gun safety with parents. Since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, the AAP has stepped up attempts to educate parents about gun safety around children.
But as the fight over gun rights grows ever more virulent at the national level, the AAP and individual doctors have quietly begun to take a softer stance on the issue, turning their focus to peddling realistic policies rather than clinging to a hard-and-fast no-guns line.
On a recent Sunday in April, 70 doctors and scientists associated with the AAP filed into a convention center in Vancouver to discuss firearm injury prevention. Presenters clicked through PowerPoint slides highlighting topics such as risk factors for gun injuries, popular gun-safety myths, and stats on suicide and homicide due to guns in the home. "The issue of guns really follows directly from all the concerns we have about injuries in general. This is one kind of injury that endangers the health and life of kids," said Dr. Robert Sege, a Boston Medical Center pediatrician, who gave a presentation on how to talk about guns with parents.
The AAP's outgoing president, Thomas McInerny-who made the Sandyhook massacre a call to action for gun safety during his one-year post-sat in the audience. While the AAP has been advocating for an end to gun violence for some 30 years now, the shooting in Newtown shocked the nation and galvanized the AAP's doctors to redouble their efforts in support of new gun-control measures. Newtown pediatrician Laura Nowacki lost eight of her patients in the massacre at Sandyhook. "I've never spoken to the media until all of this happened. But I really believe I have to stand up. I have to use my voice," she told the AAP News in June.
Doctors
Found In Washington State
Casey Kasem
Authorities said ailing radio host Casey Kasem was on vacation - not in danger - when they found him in Washington state this week.
A Los Angeles judge on Monday expressed concerns about his whereabouts and safety amid a dispute between his wife and children from another marriage.
But the sheriff's office in Kitsap County, west of Seattle, tracked him down the next day. He was at a home where he and his wife, Jean, had been staying with longtime friends, Deputy Scott Wilson said.
"We know he has an affliction, but he was alert, upright, dressed, groomed and cognizant of what was going on," Wilson said. "We see a lot of at-risk adults and children. This wasn't anywhere close to being suspicious."
Casey Kasem
Deutsche Bank Sells Vegas Casino
The Cosmopolitan
Deutsche Bank AG is cutting itself free of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas resort and casino, saying it's selling the swanky but unprofitable high-rise complex on the Strip to Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII for $1.73 billion.
The German investment bank said in a statement Thursday that the cash deal remains subject to regulatory approvals. The bank had intended to sell the property from before it even opened in 2010 and had placed The Cosmopolitan in a separate bank division devoted to winding down or selling unwanted investments.
Blackstone, which owns $81 billion in real estate assets globally and describes itself as the largest opportunistic real estate investment manager in the world, is in the business of buying underperforming property and re-selling it after making improvements. It owns nearly 1,000 homes in Nevada and the upscale Hughes Center office complex in Las Vegas, as well as a small portion of casino company Caesars Entertainment Corp.
The last major Las Vegas resort approved before the Great Recession, the $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan, was built by Deutsche Bank AG after its original developer defaulted on a loan. Initially conceived as a condo complex, it retains large rooms and kitchenettes even though the project morphed into a hotel after the housing market crashed.
The Cosmopolitan
Air Force Prepares To Dismantle
HAARP
The U.S. Air Force gave official notice to Congress Wednesday that it intends to dismantle the $300 million High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona this summer.
The shutdown of HAARP, a project created by the late Sen. Ted Stevens when he wielded great control over the U.S. defense budget, will start after a final research experiment takes place in mid-June, the Air Force said in a letter to Congress Tuesday.
The University of Alaska has expressed interest in taking over the research site, which is off the Tok Cutoff in an area where black spruce was cleared a quarter-century ago for the Air Force backscatter radar project that was never completed. But the school has not volunteered to pay $5 million a year to run HAARP.
Responding to questions from Sen. Lisa Murkowski during a Senate hearing Wednesday, David Walker, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering, said this is "not an area that we have any need for in the future" and it would not be a good use of Air Force research funds to keep HAARP going. "We're moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do," he said. "To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed."
Built at a cost of more than $290 million, the site has 180 antennas on 30 acres that are used to direct energy into the ionosphere, which is 55 miles to 370 miles above the Earth, and monitor changes in the flow of charged particles. Stevens was the godfather of HAARP, which he helped start two decades ago with annual earmarks slipped into the defense budget.
HAARP
What Century Is This?
Wolfeboro, NH
Some residents of a predominantly white New Hampshire town are upset with racist remarks a police commissioner made about President Barack Obama.
Resident Jane O'Toole said she overheard Wolfeboro Police Commissioner Robert Copeland use a racial slur in describing Obama. And in an email to her, Copeland, who is white, acknowledged using the N-word in referring to the president and said he will not apologize.
"I believe I did use the 'N' word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse," Copeland said in an excerpt from an email he sent to his fellow police commissioners acknowledging his remark and then forwarded to O'Toole. "For this, I do not apologize - he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."
Copeland also wrote: "While I believe the problems associated with minorities in this country are momentous, I am not phobic."
Copeland has declined to be interviewed. Commission Chairman Joseph Balboni Jr. told the Concord Monitor he doesn't plan to ask Copeland to resign. He said, "He's (Copeland) worked with a lot of blacks in his life. ... He said some harsh words about Mr. Obama, and here we are. This woman, she's blowing it all out of proportion."
Wolfeboro, NH
Dolphin Killings
Japan
Environmental activists protesting Japan's killing of thousands of dolphins in a secluded cove said they hoped a lawsuit filed on Thursday will bring attention to the gory annual hunt.
Fishermen in the western Japanese town of Taiji corral the dolphins before killing many for meat in a hunt that has long been a source of controversy and was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove."
The lawsuit, which activists said is the first launched on behalf of the dolphins, said that the Taiji Whaling Museum prevents environmental activists and dolphin experts from entering, thereby violating the Japanese constitution, and demanding some 6.7 million yen ($65,800)in compensation.
The main reason experts want access to the museum is to check on the condition of a rare, one-year-old albino dolphin captured during the hunt in January and kept in an aquarium there with other dolphins, said Ric O'Barry, one of the stars of "The Cove", at a news conference in Tokyo.
He called for the dolphin, nicknamed Angel, to be moved outdoors, saying that her current indoor tank is dark and crowded with too many other dolphins, producing stress that could damage her health.
Japan
First Americans
Naia
Thousands of years ago, a teenage girl toppled into a deep hole in a Mexican cave and died. Now, her skeleton and her DNA are bolstering the long-held theory that humans arrived in the Americas by way of a land bridge from Asia, scientists say.
The girl's nearly complete skeleton was discovered by chance in 2007 by expert divers who were mapping water-filled caves north of the city of Tulum, in the eastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula. One day, they came across a huge chamber deep underground.
"The moment we entered inside, we knew it was an incredible place," one of the divers, Alberto Nava, told reporters. "The floor disappeared under us and we could not see across to the other side."
Months later, they returned and reached the floor of the 100-foot tall chamber, which was littered with animal bones. They came across the girl's skull on a ledge, lying upside down "with a perfect set of teeth and dark eye sockets looking back at us," Nava said.
The divers named the skeleton Naia, after a water nymph of Greek mythology, and joined up with a team of scientists to research the find.
Naia
Top 20
Concert Tours
The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
1. (1) Justin Timberlake; $2,115,081; $114.98.
2. (2) George Strait; $1,596,184; $91.20.
3. (3) Paul Simon/Sting; $1,467,002; $130.59.
4. (4) Elton John; $1,444,960; $112.87.
5. (5) Cher; $1,141,916; $93.31.
6. (6) Jason Aldean; $619,396; $52.31.
7. (7) Kings Of Leon; $538,383; $55.20.
8. (8) Imagine Dragons; $485,121; $38.41.
9. (9) Lady Antebellum; $436,999; $59.60.
10. (10) Demi Lovato; $408,186; $46.49.
11. (11) Jeff Dunham; $275,859; $44.62.
12. (12) Darius Rucker; $237,592; $42.92.
13. (13) Brantley Gilbert; $220,739; $30.84.
14. (14) Jim Gaffigan; $203,616; $46.28.
15. (15) The Moody Blues; $190,333; $78.53.
16. (16) The Band Perry; $170,821; $38.08.
17. (17) "Winter Jam"/Newsboys/Lecrae; $164,492; $13.59.
18. (18) Justin Moore; $143,680; $33.13.
19. (New) John Legend; $132,680; $65.80.
20. (19) Ron White; $127,832; $52.48.
Concert Tours
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