Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Oy, Tom takes the 'graffiti is a crime' approach and questions Bedoya's take on how we need to fix the problem (Tucson Weekly)
In a recent op-ed in the morning paper, Mr. Bedoya, who is the head of the Tucson Pima Arts Council, briefly decried the vulgar vandalism that struck the historic Fox Theater downtown. Then he spent the rest of the piece whining the all-too-familiar lament, "Oh, poor babies, what has society done to make them lash out this way?" The only thing society has done wrong in this case is to give knuckleheads easy access to spray paint.
Natalie Haynes: "March of the megabooks: it's all Donna Tartt's fault" (Guardian)
The success of The Goldfinch means that this year's biggest novels are its biggest novels. What happened to the beauty of brevity?
Suzanne Moore: Prescribing the correct footwear is idiotic. You can't stop a cheap thrill (Guardian)
Red-carpet shoes, walking shoes, feminist shoes. Someone, somewhere has decided the rules, and it wasn't me.
Jonathan Jones: "Jay Z v Marina Abramovi?: they both used each other" (Guardian)
The rapper enveloped himself in the art world for credibility, the artist embraced pop culture and found global fame. So why is she so cross with him?
Deborah Orr: Alexander McQueen's work is a strange and wonderful gift to human culture (Guardian)
The late fashion designer's masks and armour concealed a tortured heart, and the V&A's new exhibition of his costumes is unsurpassable.
Adam Tod Brown: "4 People Who Died And Went To Hell (Then Came Back)" (Cracked)
Recently, a high school student in Fort Worth, Texas was running laps in gym class when he suddenly collapsed. His heart stopped for almost 20 minutes. During that time, he claims to have seen a figure with wavy hair and a beard, whom he immediately recognized as Jesus. That's cool, but it's also the exact same thing you hear anytime someone shows up on their local news to talk about their near-death experience.
Jonathan Jones: Should the public vote for the artist on the new £20 note? No way - they've got terrible taste (Guardian)
The Bank of England wants the public to pick an artist to appear on the new £20. Here's why it's a gamble that will never pay off.
I, Anonymous: I Love Paying Taxes (The Stranger)
As a good little progressive, I've always been pro-tax. Firefighters, schools, buses-you name it, I've voted yes for it. But there's nothing like breaking a leg alone on a hiking trail to make you realize how great taxes really are. There I was, lying in the dirt by the side of the trail, when a host of highly trained, publicly funded professionals showed up to stabilize my bones and transport me to safety. No pretreatment credit check, no confirmation of my ability to pay beforehand, just the fastest and safest way to get me out of the dirt and into a delightfully Terminator-esque walking boot. So thanks, first responders. And I'll be voting yes the next time you ask, too.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
, wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Get Social
David
Thanks, Dave!
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.
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
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but cool.
13.76 Million Viewers
Letterman
Comic celebrities turned out for David Letterman's late-night farewell - and so did his biggest audience in more than 21 years.
The Nielsen company said Thursday that 13.76 million viewers saw Letterman end his 33-year career as a late-night TV host with a final show Wednesday night. The last time Letterman had so many viewers was in February 1994, when his show aired after CBS' telecast of the Winter Olympics.
More people watched Letterman than anything else in prime time on Wednesday night. Letterman's final show started at 11:35 p.m. and lasted more than an hour as CBS let it run long.
Jay Leno's farewell last February was seen by 14.6 million viewers. Both exits couldn't come close to Johnny Carson's final show, which attracted 41.14 million viewers in 1992, a different television era.
Letterman
Secondhand Smoke
Pot
People who are exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke may feel a bit of the "high" that comes with using the drug, a new study finds. They may also feel unable to think clearly, and they may even have detectable levels of the drug in their urine or blood. But all of this happens only if they are exposed to marijuana smoke under severely unventilated conditions, the study found.
"If you're going to breathe in enough passive cannabis smoke to feel high and potentially be slightly impaired, you could fail a drug test," said Evan S. Herrmann, the study's lead author and postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "But this only happens under a very extreme situation."
Cannabis is the world's most commonly used illicit drug. It is often smoked in small, enclosed spaces with poor ventilation, according to the study.
Studies in the 1980s showed that such "social exposure" to pot smoke could trigger positive drug tests for cannabis' main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). But such studies had several limitations. They used marijuana that had much lower potency than the pot available today and they failed to account for normal levels of ventilation in rooms. They also did not examine how people may feel or behave after such exposures.
Pot
Ban Not Sustainable
Boy Scouts
The Boy Scouts of America must reverse its longstanding policy of excluding gay adult leaders or risk unfavorable legal decisions that could doom the historic organization, its president, Robert Gates, warned his group's national leadership Thursday.
"We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be," said Gates, a former Pentagon and CIA chief. "The status quo in our movement's membership standards cannot be sustained."
Gates's remarks came during the during the BSA's annual national meeting in Atlanta.
The 105-year-old organization took no immediate action on a formal policy change, but Gates said he would no longer seek to revoke the charters of chapters that want to defy the ban.
Boy Scouts
Bans Gay Pride March, Again
Moscow
Moscow's town hall announced Thursday that it would not allow a Gay Pride march in the Russian capital that activists wanted to hold later this month -- a ban that it repeats every year.
"We have warned the organisers that the demonstration will not be authorised," and told them of the risks should they ignore the ban, the Ria Novosti agency quoted mayoral spokesman Alexey Mayorov as saying.
No explanations for the ban were given but it would have come as no surprise to the Gay Pride organisers, who have attempted since 2006 to obtain permission to hold their event in Moscow.
Pro-gay protests are rare in Russia, where homosexuality was a crime until 1993 and then classed as a mental illness until 1999.
In 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed legislation banning the dissemination of "gay propaganda" to minors.
Moscow
Ex-Staffers Won't Sign On Again
Carly Fiorina
Politics has a well-known revolving door, with candidates often rehiring consultants, strategists and vendors as they move from one campaign to the next. But for Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina, that might not be so easy.
Twelve of about 30 people who worked on Fiorina's failed 2010 California Senate campaign, most speaking out for the first time, told Reuters they would not work for her again. Fiorina, once one of America's most powerful businesswomen, is now campaigning for the Republican nomination in 2016.
The reason: for more than four years, Fiorina - who has an estimated net worth of up to $120 million - didn't pay them, a review of Federal Election Commission records shows.
Federal campaign filings show that, until a few months before Fiorina announced her presidential bid on May 4, she still owed staffers, consultants, strategists, legal experts and vendors nearly half a million dollars.
"I'd rather go to Iraq than work for Carly Fiorina again," said one high-level former campaign staffer, who asked not to be identified, citing disclosure restrictions in his contract.
Carly Fiorina
Racist Search Terms
Google Maps
Google Maps apologized after it emerged that searches using racist language pinpointed the White House, home of President Barack Obama.
The offensive scenario was brought to light after it was noticed that searches combining a racial slur and the word "house" took people to the White House in Google's free online mapping service in some locations.
An AFP search on Google Maps late Wednesday using a variation on the racist phrase resulted in being shown the location of The White House with the description "iconic home of America's president."
It was unclear whether the outcome resulted from a search algorithm being duped or flawed, or was caused by a user taking advantage of crowd-sourced editing capabilities intended to improve maps with local knowledge.
Last month, the California-based Internet giant began re-evaluating its user-edited online map system after the latest embarrassing incident -- an image of an Android mascot urinating on an Apple logo.
Google Maps
Thawing Fast
Antarctic Glaciers
Glaciers in part of Antarctica have started to thaw fast, adding to sea level rise that threatens coasts and cities from New York to Shanghai, a team of scientists said in a study published on Thursday.
The glaciers along a stretch of coast about 750 km (470 miles) long in the southern Antarctic peninsula, which snakes up towards South America, began to thin suddenly from around 2009, the team which produced the study said.
"This area is starting to lose ice very rapidly ... an area where we didn't expect it to happen," lead author Bert Wouters, of the University of Bristol in England, told Reuters. The study was published in the journal Science.
The team estimated that water from the glaciers in the region were now adding 0.16 mm (0.006 inch) a year to global sea levels, which are rising at about 3 mm a year overall.
From 2002-10, satellite monitoring indicated that the glaciers were gaining snow and ice as fast as they were slipping into the sea. But something happened around 2009, speeding the slide.
Antarctic Glaciers
Internet Health Test
Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission surprised us all earlier this year when it put forth new net neutrality guidelines that were hugely pro-consumer. Yes, there may be a loophole or two. And yes, some internet service providers are already looking for different ways to hurt subscribers that don't violate net neutrality. In the current climate, however, we're not sure a more favorable set of rules could have been crafted by the FCC and its former cable lobbyist boss, Tom Wheeler (D-Comcast).
Of course, creating better net neutrality guidelines is one thing - but policing ISPs and ensuring they adhere to the new rules is an entirely different can of worms.
BattlefortheNet.com is a website supported by three well-known open internet groups: Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and the Free Press Action Fund. This week, the site announced the launch of its new "Internet Health Test," a free test it urges all users to perform regularly in order to help ensure that their ISPs are not violating net neutrality.
"After repeatedly watching Internet service providers slow down people's Internet connections we're not going to just sit back and trust Comcast, Verizon and AT&T to follow the new open Internet rules," Fight for the Future campaign manager Charlie Furman said. "The Internet Health Test is our way of sending a message to ISPs everywhere that we're watching and we won't let anyone throttle the Internet."
Performing the test is simple. Just visit battleforthenet.com/internethealthtest/ from your computer and click the "Start the test" link. A new window will open and perform a series of speed tests, searching for any signs of degradation in the process.
Net Neutrality
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
1. One Direction; $5,561,043; $103.25.
2. Fleetwood Mac; $1,668,546; $120.14.
3. Kenny Chesney; $1,474,133; $77.71.
4. Maroon 5; $1,456,267; $91.04.
5. Lionel Richie; $847,936; $86.85.
6. The Script; $784,131; $48.49.
7. Ricardo Arjona; $718,988; $106.04.
8. "X Factor Live"; $692,930; $59.21.
9. Charlie Wilson; $604,073; $73.11.
10. Ariana Grande; $584,567; $48.36.
11. Usher; $573,900; $69.40.
12. Jason Aldean; $560,676; $53.59.
13. Spandau Ballet; $541,677; $84.10.
14. Florida Georgia Line; $539,212; $53.89.
15. Eric Church; $522,550; $45.41.
16. Miranda Lambert; $506,502; $57.92.
17. Nickelback; $462,931; $56.69.
18. Paloma Faith; $425,153; $56.81.
19. Bryan Adams; $384,547; $58.29.
20. Andre Rieu; $261,586; $71.98.
Global Concert Tours
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