Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Suzanne Moore: The bloodletting over Jeremy Corbyn is sad - the left is stuck in old binaries (The Guardian)
The referendum was, of course, the false binary that bust them all. But the party's public psychodrama is an agonising, backward-looking crisis.
David Bromwich: "Dr. Strangelove: The Darkest Room" (Criterion)
When Stanley Kubrick bought the motion picture rights to the 1958 thriller Red Alert, by the retired Royal Air Force navigator Peter George, he meant to direct an action film about a nuclear war triggered by a solitary madman. Some way into his work on the script, however, Kubrick realized the story was too appalling for serious treatment and decided to recast it as an out-and-out satire.
Farran Smith Nehme: Here Comes the Angel of Death (Criterion)
The much-loved Here Comes Mr. Jordan has spawned two direct remakes and a sequel, but the 1941 original retains a snap and a vigor-and a unique charm-that no other version has been able to duplicate. Why does it keep such a hold on our affections? Perhaps it's the way it mixes elements in a way unique to its era-screwball comedy, slapstick farce, boxing fable, supernatural romance.
Simon Romero: A Human Pulp-Fiction Factory Becomes a Cult Hero (NY Times)
SOME writers publish just one book in their lifetime. Others somehow churn out dozens in prolific feats of creativity. Then there is R. F. Lucchetti, Brazil's eminence of pulp fiction, who boasts of publishing no fewer than 1,547 books over a long career, employing an array of pseudonyms, including Vincent Lugosi, Brian Stockler and Isadora Highsmith.
The 18 Best Ways Humanity Ever Reacted To Tragedy (Cracked)
There's a lot of saddening, crazy shit happening on our planet. And with all that being paraded around by the media, it's easy to forget that there are amazing acts of kindness happening more often than we realize. Warning: It's about to get very, very dusty wherever you ar.
SILPA KOVVALI: Cheering the High Sparrow's death: Why the end of this "Game of Thrones" villain was so satisfying (Salon)
The Faith Militant were religious populists, yes - and also brutal thugs whose punishments were unjust.
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wrote:
took the day off.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
SATAN IN A BLACK ROBE!
A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR ABORTION.
HOW TO DESTROY GOVERNMENT BY: GOVERNOR SHITBACK.
"DEFENDING A SACRED TRUST!"
NO MORE TRADE AGREEMENTS!
NO COAL IN OAKLAND!
"LYING ABOUT SCIENCE FOR POLITICS IS EVIL"
"WHO IS GETTING RICH OFF THE STUDENT DEBT?"
THE LEADER OF THE CROOKS!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit cooler, still humid.
Al's Daughter Arrested In Pipeline Protest
Karenna Gore
Former Vice President Al Gore's daughter was among 23 people arrested during a protest of a pipeline under construction.
The arrests happened Wednesday at the site of Spectra Energy's West Roxbury Lateral pipeline in Boston.
Karenna Gore was among demonstrators who tried to block construction activity on the site by lying in a trench dug for the pipeline and refusing to move until firefighters removed them, said protest group Resist the Pipeline & Stop the West Roxbury Lateral.
The group opposes the pipeline because of safety and climate change concerns.
Gore, who serves as director of the Center for Earth Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, and others facing resisting arrest charges will be arraigned Friday.
Karenna Gore
12 Years Too Late
Nancy Grace
Nancy Grace, who parlayed her stint as a successful prosecutor into a two-decade career as one of cable's most recognizable and controversial figures, will depart HLN, her TV home for the past 12 years, when her current contract expires in October.
Grace, 56, broke the news ?Thursday morning to her staff of 18 - some of whom have been working with her since the late 1990s, when she got her start co-hosting on Court TV with the late Johnnie Cochran - at the network's CNN Center headquarters in Atlanta, where Grace shoots the majority of her shows. New York-based staffers learned of her departure simultaneously via video conference call.
A network spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporter that a new series - one that will "utilize the expertise of the current team" - will replace Nancy Grace in the ?8 p.m. slot following the airing of the final episode ?on Oct. 13. The decision was a difficult one, according to Grace, who in an emotional interview with THR admits to being "really mixed" about taking a step she's been "thinking a lot about" for the past three years.
While she won't share what factors specifically contributed to her decision, or where she plans on going, Grace says whatever she does next - and she has no plans for a hiatus - will involve "a very large digital component." Still, she is not ready to walk away from the medium that made her famous just yet.
Wherever she lands, however, will need to be comfortable with her trademark style of editorializing and the controversy it invites. Grace's critics, and there are many, say she is more intent on inciting mobs than providing a voice to violent crime victims. "Since her show began in 2005," the late New York Times media columnist David Carr wrote, "the presumption of innocence has found a willful enemy in the former prosecutor turned broadcast judge-and-jury."
Nancy Grace
All The Times Nancy Grace Was Terrible - The Daily Beast
Hollywood's Highest-Grossing Actress
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is queen of the box office.
The actress' movies, which include the "Avengers" franchise, have raked in a record-breaking $3.3 billion at the North American box office, according to Box Office Mojo.
The tracking site ranks Johansson 10th overall, beating out male stars like Robert De Niro, Matt Damon and action-movie favorites Bruce Willis and Liam Neeson.
At 31, she is the youngest actor appearing in the top 10, but she's also the only woman. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Johansson spoke about the Hollywood gender wage gap.
The next highest grossing actress is Cameron Diaz, who comes in at the 19th spot on the list. Her movies, which include the highly successful "Shrek" franchise, have grossed $3 billion, not far behind Johansson.
Scarlett Johansson
Romantically Involved?
'Morning Joe'
Are MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough (R-Cough, Cough) and Mika Brzezinski sharing more than a cup of "Morning Joe?"
According to Thursday's New York Post, the longtime hosts of Morning Joe are said to be romantically involved.
The report follows the revelation that Brzezinski, 49, recently had a very quiet divorce from her husband of 23 years, James Hoffer, a local ABC reporter. The couple has two daughters, Carlie, 18, and Emilie, 20.
Scarborough, 53, divorced his wife, Susan Waren, a former Jeb Bush aide, in 2013. The couple has two children
Scarborough also has two sons from a previous marriage.
'Morning Joe'
Oldest US Park Ranger Attacked
Betty Reid Soskin
A robber attacked the nation's oldest full-time park ranger in her San Francisco Bay Area home this week and made off with a coin she received from President Barack Obama, authorities said Thursday.
Betty Reid Soskin, 94, who works as an interpretive ranger at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, was awoken by an intruder who punched her several times in the face, police Lt. Felix Tan said.
She reached for her cellphone but he grabbed it from her, dragged her out of the bedroom and beat her again, Richmond police said. She was able to crawl away to the bathroom and locked herself inside until the robber left early Monday.
"I fully expected he was going to kill me," Soskin told Bay Area news station KTVU-TV. "He doubled up his fist and hit me a couple of times on the sides of my face with all his might."
Police say the thief stole her cellphone, iPad, laptop, camera, jewelry and the coin the president gave her to honor her achievements. Soskin introduced him at the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at the White House last December.
Betty Reid Soskin
Removes All References to Alligators and Crocodiles
Disney World
Disney World has made some subtle changes since an alligator at one of its resorts attacked and killed a toddler standing in less than six inches of water.
Gone is Tick Tock the Croc from "Peter Pan," a character in the park's Festival of Fantasy parade, according to the Miami Herald.
Also missing is Louis, the trumpet-playing alligator from "The Princess and the Frog," that was supposed to be part of the Friendship Faire castle show, an unnamed employee told the paper.
The Jungle Cruise tour guides no longer joke about crocodiles eating children as they narrate a boat tour through the world's rivers and the Kilimanjaro Safari ride has dropped references to a crocodile
Less-than-subtle changes include new signs and fences along resort beaches warning of alligators and snakes and advising against feeding the wildlife. Such notices were not posted when the remains of 2-year-old Lance Graves were pulled from the Seven Seas Lagoon on June 15, after an alligator snatched him and pulled him underwater.
Disney World
Attorneys Want Victims To Pay
Cinemark
Attorneys for Cinemark want victims of a 2012 shooting at a Colorado movie theater to pay nearly $700,000 in legal fees after they unsuccessfully sued the theater chain.
The company's lawyers told a judge they need the money to cover the costs of preserving evidence, retrieving and copying records, travel and other expenses, according to court documents filed this month.
A judge didn't immediately rule on the request. But Colorado courts allow the winning side of a court case to recover legal fees.
Jurors in May ruled in Cinemark's favor over 28 victims and their families who argued the nation's third-largest theater chain should have done more to prevent the attack that killed 12 people and left more than 70 others injured. They sued in state court, saying security lapses allowed for the July 20, 2012 attack at a midnight premiere of a Batman film.
A judge last week dismissed a similar lawsuit in federal court, saying Cinemark's lack of security was not a substantial factor in the deaths.
Cinemark
1% Support
T-rump
Republican nominee Donald Trump has 1% (yes, out of 100%) of support from black voters, finds a new Quinnipiac poll
By comparison, 91% of black voters backed presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The poll showed Clinton leading with 42 percentage points over Trump's 40 overall, and qualified that these returns were too close to call.
Trump had support of 47% of white voters polled over Clinton's 30%, while Clinton beat Trump with Hispanic voters by winning 50-33%. Republican nominees traditionally have not won
"You're not going to find a lot of black people who openly support Donald Trump," Trump supporter Pastor Mark Burns, an African-American preacher from South Carolina, told the New York Daily News
T-rump
By Job
Suicide
Farmers, lumberjacks and fishermen have the highest suicide rate in the U.S., while librarians and educators have the lowest, according to a large study that found enormous differences across occupations.
The study didn't explore the reasons behind the differences, but researchers found the highest suicide rates in manual laborers who work in isolation and face unsteady employment. High rates were also seen in carpenters, miners, electricians and people who work in construction. Mechanics were close behind.
Dentists, doctors and other health care professionals had an 80 percent lower suicide rate than the farmers, fishermen and lumberjacks.
Thursday's report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is perhaps the largest U.S. study to compare suicide rates among occupations. But it is not comprehensive. It only covers 17 states, looking at about 12,300 of the more than 40,000 suicide deaths reported in the entire nation in 2012.
Because of the limited data, they could only calculate suicide rates for broad occupation categories, but not for specific jobs. The categories, which sometimes seem to group professions that have little to do with each other, like athletes and artists, are based on federal classifications used for collecting jobs-related data.
Suicide
Court Overturns Pipeline Approval
Canada
Canada's federal court of appeal has overturned approval of the new Northern Gateway pipeline on grounds that builders failed to adequately consult with affected aboriginals, documents released Thursday revealed.
The oil conduit stretching nearly 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific coast received regulatory and government approval in 2014, with 209 conditions to mitigate environmental impacts.
But nine indigenous tribes with ancestral lands along the route asked for a judicial review of the decision, arguing that the process failed to meet a constitutional duty to engage aboriginal communities.
The federal appeals court agreed.
"Canada offered only a brief, hurried and inadequate opportunity... to exchange and discuss information and to dialogue," the court said in its decision, released by lawyers for the plaintiffs.
Canada
Judge To Unseal Documents
Prince
In a court order made public Thursday, the US judge deciding who should inherit the estate of late singer Prince ordered that many of the case documents be publically available.
Judge Kevin Eide, who is presiding over the proceedings in a Minneapolis-area court, reversed an earlier order that had sealed many of the submissions and affidavits from at least 23 claimants to the pop icon's multi-million-dollar estate.
Eide however made an exception for people claiming to be the children of Prince, whose full name was Prince Rogers Nelson.
"The Court declines to extend the same protection for documents filed by claimants who are claiming that they are a parent, a sibling, a half-sibling or other relative of Prince Rogers Nelson," Eide said in the order written on Wednesday.
The judge delayed the order until July 11, giving time for parties in the case to voice any objections.
Prince
Losing Habitat In Antarctica
Penguins
Penguins - easily the most known and beloved wild animal in Antarctica - could be decimated by man-made global warming over the coming decades, according to a new study.
Habitat loss caused from warmer water and loss of sea ice could bring a 60% decline in population of the Adélie penguin by 2099, said study lead author Megan Cimino.
For millions of years, Adélie penguins across Antarctica weathered natural climate change as glaciers expanded and melted. The penguins needed the warm periods as shrinking glaciers allowed them to return to their rocky breeding grounds.
But the study concludes that such helpful warming may have reached its tipping point. Longer warm periods may be shrinking the penguins' habitat, leading to the declining population.
Penguins
New Apple Patent Could Block Recording
iPhone
Taking videos at concerts is already annoying, but if a certain Apple patent ever makes its way into a product, it also could be impossible.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted Apple a patent - originally filed in 2011 - for a technology that would disable phones' cameras at certain public events by tracking and interpreting infrared signals.
The patent reads: "An infrared emitter can be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter can generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device can then receive the infrared signals, decode the data and temporarily disable the device's recording function based on the command."
There's no telling whether Apple has any plans to actually use this technology. It's entirely possible that the tech giant has no plans to develop the camera blocker at all, but rather obtained the patent as a way to prevent anyone else from developing it.
It's also an open question that, if Apple were to implement such a technology, what the guidelines and restrictions would be in using it. Could, say, private security or even law enforcement take advantage of it to shut down recording in a specific area? The tech would have obvious legal implications if so.
iPhone
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