Recommended Reading
from Bruce
I, Anonymous: Squirm, Bitches (The Stranger)
You've met me. I work as one of those "direct" fundraisers downtown. We're rewarded for getting in your space, forcing you to shake hands, and doing or saying whatever it takes to get you to give a complete stranger on the street your credit card or bank account number.
"What are your 'good samaritan' stories?" (Reddit)
One example of many: "I forgot my debit card in the ATM machine at the bank. I got a call from the bank telling me they had it. When I got there the girl told me a guy had walked up to the machine and had just gone ahead with what he was going to do and then noticed he wasn't on his account. He had taken my card and the $200 he had mistakenly gotten from my account inside and given it to one of the tellers."
Mark Hughes: "Sikh hero fought neo-Nazi Wisconsin gunman to lay down his own life for others" (Telegraph)
A Sikh hero sacrificed his own life by fighting off a neo-Nazi gunman with a blunt ceremonial knife to save dozens of women, children and other worshippers from being shot down.
Michelle Hanson: Rosemary has realised that a few years ago she had been 'bid-candy' (Guardian)
Her little charity once gave bereavement counselling to young women in prison. About 25% of them were queuing up for help and feeling better, when wham! In came a giant private company, "partnered" Rosemary's charity, ruined it, snaffled up a much bigger grant than Rosemary had, hired staff on the cheap with one weekend's training, and sacked Rosemary (a psychotherapist with decades of experience)…
Froma Harrop: The Grand Old Party's Breaking Up (Creators Syndicate)
When traditional Republicans tell their tea party wing that they have to negotiate with Democrats, the radicals' frequent response is: No, they don't. One side has to win. But before that fistfight at the edge of the falls can take place, one side has to win within the Republican Party. Civil wars are not pretty.
Meghan Daum: America's shortcut culture (LA Times)
New Yorker writer Jonah Lehrer's downfall is not his alone. What has also collapsed is our collective tolerance for complexity.
Emma Brockes: "David Hasselhoff: 'If we have to go with the Hoff to pay the rent, let's go with the Hoff'" (Guardian)
The 'Baywatch' and 'Knight Rider' star talks frankly about how he has come to terms with his new, semi-ironic fame.
Nicole Sperling: "Tommy Lee Jones: an actor who directs, lives on a cattle ranch, and chooses his words carefully" (Los Angeles Times)
Do they make men like Tommy Lee Jones anymore? Men who can rope a calf, direct a movie, and, you want to believe, write a love letter. Men who have no interest in opining about their work but care deeply about what they do. Men who can evoke both a danger and a comfort, depending on how they look at you.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce's Blog
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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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Day 33
Gulf Fritillary
Came across some Gulf Fritillary larva
on the back fence, so it looks like we'll have a third year of raising butterflies. : )
Click on any picture for a larger version.
Reader Comment
Swallowtail visitor
Hey Marty,
Love the fact that you help/breed butterflies whenever you can, I do the
same too.
That is definitely not an Anise Swallowtail that you had as a visitor.
/It's either a //*Thoas Swallowtail Heraclides thoas autocles
or a */*/Giant Swallowtail //Papilio cresphontes.
cheers
Paul of Seattle
/*
Thanks, Paul!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot. Still cranky.
Hosting MTV Video Music Awards
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart isn't just the host of next month's MTV Video Music Awards, he's also part of Hollywood's hottest new couple.
The comedian stars alongside Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in a video posted Wednesday on MTV's website. Hart tells the pair he's hosting the VMA show and that paparazzi are trying to get a look at "the new 'it' couple," even though they would actually be a trio. He says, "I'm talking about Kev-Ye-Kim."
The video shows a casually clad Kardashian and West, who is up for two Video Music Awards, lounging on the end of a bed. When West asks what Hart means, he offers other possible couple nicknames, including "Ye-Kev-Kim" and "Ye-Kim-Kev."
The MTV Video Music Awards will be presented Sept. 6 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Kevin Hart
#NoseHillGentlemen
Gunless in Calgary
An American police officer who complained in a letter to a Canadian newspaper about not being able to carry a gun during a trip to Calgary has become the target of another kind of weapon: the tweet.
Twitter users have let loose a barrage of jokes over Walt Wawra's August 7 letter to the Calgary Herald complaining that he could not pull a gun in Canada, a country that, unlike the United States, stringently restricts firearms.
Wawra, a veteran of the Kalamazoo, Michigan, police department, wrote that he felt threatened by two men who approached him and his wife at Nose Hill Park and asked, "in a very aggressive tone", if they had been to the Stampede yet, referring to the city's rodeo and Western heritage festival.
The letter sparked a frenzy on Twitter, where many ridiculed the reaction to what appeared to be a mild encounter, spawning the hashtag #NoseHillGentlemen.
Jenn Prosser tweeted: "Drove through Kalamazoo, MI., yesterday. Didn't stop to chat."
Gunless in Calgary
'Walking Into Clarksdale' Saturday
Robert Plant
Former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant is heading to Mississippi to headline a festival in the historic Delta blues town he recorded a song about in 1999.
Plant recorded "Walking Into Clarksdale" with former Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page and has visited the town numerous times. The rock star is returning to Clarksdale this weekend to headline the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival's 25th anniversary celebration with his new roots-music band, the Sensational Space Shifters.
On Saturday, Plant will take the stage with Grammy-winning vocalist Patty Griffin, West African virtuoso musician Juldeh Camara, guitarists Justin Adams and Bill Fuller, keyboardist John Baggott and drummer Dave Smith.
The performance is being hailed "one of the single biggest things to happen to Clarksdale," said resident and Cat Head music store owner Roger Stolle.
"Robert Plant can do anything in the world he wants to do but chooses to come here and pay homage to the land of the blues. It really means a lot that he wants to do this, to give back to this community in that way, and I hope he enjoys it," said Stolle, who added that Plant was in his store a few months ago and bought CDs by Mississippi bluesmen Slim Harpo and Skip James.
Robert Plant
2 NJ Towns Turn Down Spinoff
'Jersey Shore'
The Jersey shore town that tried to close its bars early and restricts overnight parking has said no to "Snooki & JWoww."
The Point Pleasant Beach Council unanimously voted against 495 Productions' request to tape the "Jersey Shore" spinoff featuring Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Jennifer "JWoww" Farley.
The request says the cast would be living outside the town.
Nearby Toms River also turned down the MTV reality series.
'Jersey Shore'
Pleads No Contest
Rick Springfield
Rick Springfield has pleaded no contest to reckless driving and will serve probation to end a drunken driving case filed after his arrest last year.
The rocker's attorney Philip Cohen entered the plea to a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving "with driving under the influence conditions" Thursday in Malibu. The singer initially faced drunken driving charges, but the revised charge doesn't include any allegation of alcohol impairment.
The "Jessie's Girl" singer was arrested in May 2011 after deputies spotted him speeding in his 1963 Corvette on Pacific Coast Highway.
District attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison says Springfield will be on informal probation for three years and is required to attend a three-month alcohol education program.
Rick Springfield
Scholar Completes Mission To 'Fix'
Bible
For the past 30 years, Israeli Judaic scholar Menachem Cohen has been on a mission of biblical proportions: Correcting all known textual errors in Jewish scripture to produce a truly definitive edition of the Old Testament.
His edits, focusing primarily on grammatical blemishes and an intricate set of biblical symbols, mark the first major overhaul of the Hebrew Bible in nearly 500 years.
Poring over thousands of medieval manuscripts, the 84-year-old Cohen identified 1,500 inaccuracies in the Hebrew language texts that have been corrected in his completed 21-volume set. The final chapter is set to be published next year.
The massive project highlights how Judaism venerates each tiny biblical calligraphic notation as a way of ensuring that communities around the world use precisely the same version of the holy book.
The last man to undertake the challenge was Jacob Ben-Hayim, who published the Mikraot Gedolot, or Great Scriptures, in Venice in 1525. His version, which unified the religion's varying texts and commentaries under a single umbrella, has remained the standard for generations, appearing to this day on bookshelves of observant Jews the world over.
Bible
Republican Knee-Slapper
Pennsylvania
A Pennsylvania Republican official suggested Tuesday that a man was "mentally retarded" because he was a supporter of President Barack Obama.
Jim Roddey, the Allegheny County GOP chair and former county executive, made the joke at a victory party for a candidate for state senate who was elected Tuesday in a special election, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
"There was a disappointment tonight. I was very embarrassed," Roddey said. "I was in this parking lot and there was a man looking for a space to park, and I found a space for him. And I felt badly - he looked like he was sort of in distress."
"And I said, 'Sir, here's a place,'" Roddey continued. "And he said, 'That's a handicapped space.'"
"I said, 'Oh I'm so sorry, I saw that Obama sticker and I thought you were mentally retarded."
The crowd was reportedly highly amused, and "hollered and clapped" at the joke.
Pennsylvania
Found In Canadian Arctic
Meteorite Crater
Researchers in Canada's western Arctic have found evidence of a crater that formed when a huge meteorite slammed into Earth millions of years ago.
Measuring about 15 miles (25 kilometers) across, the formation was named the Prince Albert impact crater after the peninsula where it was discovered. Researchers don't know exactly when it was created, but evidence suggests the crater is between 130 million and 350 million years old, according to a statement from the University of Saskatchewan.
A team of geologists spotted this newly identified meteorite crater while surveying the region for possible energy and mineral resources. They were initially intrigued by steeply tilted strata visible in river gorges and other features in the flat tundra of northwestern Victoria Island.
There are about 180 known impact craters on Earth. Geologists think they would find countless more if plate shifting, volcanic activity and erosion didn't hide the evidence of most ancient impacts.
Earlier this summer, researchers in Greenland documented possibly the oldest and largest meteorite crater ever found on Earth . The crater, estimated to be 3 billion years old, currently measures about 62 miles (100 km) across. But the researchers believe its width before erosion was likely more than 310 miles (500 km) - much bigger than the largest visible crater, the 2-billion-year-old Vredefort crater in South Africa, which measures 186 miles (300 km) across.
Meteorite Crater
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) Kenny Chesney / Tim McGraw; $4,094,356; $87.77.
2. (3) Coldplay; $2,082,709; $80.36.
3. (2) Roger Waters; $2,063,469; $107.51.
4. (4) Dave Matthews Band; $1,354,667; $54.40.
5. (5) Cirque du Soleil - "Michael Jackson: The Immortal"; $1,321,296; $111.18.
6. (6) Red Hot Chili Peppers; $824,446; $59.00.
7. (7) Drake; $783,513; $56.96.
8. (New) Jason Aldean; $729,232; $39.88.
9. (8) Nickelback; $705,544; $68.54.
10. (New) Iron Maiden; $606,296; $55.32.
11. (10) Blue Man Group; $524,188; $56.36.
12. (9) The Beach Boys; $521,562; $73.66.
13. (11) One Direction; $499,246; $43.06.
14. (12) Lady Antebellum; $488,036; $40.07.
15. (13) The Black Keys; $475,306; $46.90.
16. (14) "Vans Warped Tour"; $462,538; $32.41.
17. (15) Miranda Lambert; $420,514; $34.26.
18. (16) Il Divo; $348,987; $93.76.
19. (18) Eric Church; $337,839; $36.61.
20. (New) John Mellencamp; $337,398; $79.25.
Concert Tours
In Memory
Dale Olson
Veteran Hollywood publicist Dale Olson, who represented such Hollywood legends as Marilyn Monroe, Gene Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock, and such current A-listers as Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine and Steven Spielberg, is dead at age 78.
Spokesman Harlan Boll said Olson died early Thursday at a Burbank hospital after a long battle with cancer. Despite his struggle, Olson continued working until recently.
Perhaps Olson's most notable role was as the spokesman for Rock Hudson during the actor's widely publicized, ultimately fatal bout with AIDS in 1985. Olson is also credited with helping to launch the "Rocky," ''Rambo," ''Superman" and "Halloween" film franchises. He led numerous winning Oscar campaigns and was active in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and The Actors Fund.
Other Hollywood greats represented by Olson included Steve McQueen, Laurence Olivier, Tony Curtis and more.
Dale Olson
In Memory
Kavna
The beluga whale who inspired the popular children's song "Baby Beluga," died this week at the Vancouver Aquarium. At 46 years old, she spent her entire life at the aquarium, and lived much longer than the average beluga whale. She died Monday afternoon at the aquarium.
A preliminary autopsy shows Kavna likely died of cancer. Aquarium veterinarian Dr. Martin Haulena told reporters the lesions and tumors he found "are most consistent with cancer, and that is unfortunately a disease we associate with age," Citytv reports. Belugas typically live 25 to 30 years.
Since 1979, Kavna has been associated with the song "Baby Beluga," about a baby whale playing in the sea. Singer/songwriter Raffi Cavoukian visited the aquarium, and was inspired to write the song about a baby beluga like Kavna:
"Baby beluga in the deep blue sea, swim so wild and you swim so free. Heaven above and the sea below, and a little white whale on the go."
Cavoukian told Vancouver's News1130 he was inspired to write the song after the whale's trainer helped him play with Kavna.
The song is about a free whale living in the sea, although Kavna spent her entire life in captivity.
Kavna was the most famous of the beluga whales at the aquarium, largely due to that song. The aquarium estimates more than 30 million people have seen Kavna, the Vancouver Sun reports. She was even featured on a Canadian postages tamp in 2006 to mark the aquarium's 50 th anniversary.
Kavna
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