Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: This week, Tom looks at the wacky world of language (Tucson Weekly)
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. [Then the Lord got all butt-hurt about the Tower they were building in Babel and said], "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth ... the Lord confused the language of the whole world. - Genesis 11. I'll tell ya, that God guy has a wicked sense of humor.
Derek Low: What It's like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class (Medium)
The world's best airline experience, from Singapore to New York.
I know students who buy essays online are being ripped off - I used to write them (Guardian)
A report this week has exposed online businesses who supply 'research guides' for students. Here, a writer explains what it's like to churn out essays on demand.
Lucy Mangan: How much money do you hide from your partner? (Guardian)
It's bad news for romantics - according to a new survey, one in seven couples above the age of 40 do. So is there a good way to divvy up money in a relationship?
Suzanne Moore: Single mothers are the real casualties in Cameron's class war (Guardian)
By making the poorest pay for tax cuts, the Tories are clearly happy to see lone parents - and their kids - eat toast for dinner.
Chris Johnston: Council removes Banksy artwork after complaints of racism (Guardian)
Mural had been painted overnight in Clacton-on-Sea, a week away from a parliamentary byelection.
kogonada: Eyes of Hitchcock (Vimeo)
"This supercut reminds us of how Sir Alfred Hitchcock would often have actors stare directly into the camera to engage us in their emotions (and often creep us completely out). How many films do you recognize just from one shot of a character's eyes? Kogonada produced this short for The Criterion Collection." - Neatorama
Diana Cook: 5 Unwritten Rules Hollywood Needs to Stop Following (Cracked)
Hollywood is notoriously resistant to change. You can blame at least some of that on the fact that every movie written for the last 20 years or so has followed the guidelines set forth in a single book.
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
is semi-retired.
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.
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 and way too effing hot.
U.S. Postage Stamp
Wilt Chamberlain
It's been a long time coming, and now the honor's here - the legendary Wilt Chamberlain will appear on a commemorative postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service, the first of its kind ever to feature an NBA player.
The movement to feature the Hall of Fame big man on a stamp began some six years ago. Donald Hunt of the Philadelphia Tribune started a campaign to earn the iconic Chamberlain, who died of congestive heart failure in October 1999, the same sort of recognition afforded baseball greats like Ted Williams, Larry Doby, Joe DiMaggio and Willie Stargell, as well as the pivotal African American figures included in the USPS' "Black Heritage" stamp collection, such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jackie Robinson, Oscar Micheaux and Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan. Now, three years after confirmation that the idea to put the "Big Dipper" on a stamp was "under consideration," the Wilt stamp became reality, appearing in the USPS' Philatelic Catalog released Wednesday.
The Chamberlain Forever stamps' official commemoration will come on Dec. 5 in Wilt's hometown of Philadelphia in a ceremony held during halftime of the Philadelphia 76ers' home game against Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder at Wells Fargo Center. The ceremony will feature "a special three-dimensional tribute video using the team's state-of-the-art court projection system," according to a Sixers statement shared by NBA.com's Steve Aschburner, and the team will "celebrate the life and legacy of the legendary Chamberlain with videos during breaks in play." They're going to need an awful lot of breaks in play to properly fete the 13-time All-Star, four-time Most Valuable Player and two-time champion, who still ranks fifth in NBA history in career points scored, sixth in total minutes played, and tops in total rebounds, more than four decades after his final game.
Wilt Chamberlain
Foes Plan To Match Spending
NRA
Gun control groups say this is the year they finally go toe-to-toe with the National Rifle Association and match their foe's imposing campaign spending for congressional candidates.
Their long-awaited financial parity with the gun lobby, however, underscores the importance of timing in politics. Firearms violence has faded as a top tier public concern, a turnabout from the issue's high profile immediately following the December 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six aides at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Virtually all NRA spending has been to help Republicans. As of Aug. 31 it reported having $18.5 million banked and was still raising money.
NRA expenditures include over $1 million in each of five states - North Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa, Colorado and Louisiana -to help GOP hopefuls capture Senate seats held by Democrats. All those races seem tight.
NRA
Amazon Warning
'Tom and Jerry'
Amazon Prime is warning its viewers that the 1940 cartoon "Tom and Jerry" has "ethnic and racial prejudices that…were wrong then and are wrong today."
This warning is the exact warning that appeared on the original Warner Brothers DVDs, so may not reflect a new Amazon policy. A screenshot circulating online shows the warning sentence before viewers of the online service purchase the complete second volume of the series.
The "Tom and Jerry" television cartoon, nearly 75 years old, has faced criticism for its use of blackface and its depiction of Mammy Two Shoes, a black maid whose face is never seen.
To Jason Sperb, a lecturer at Northwestern University's department of radio, television and film, Amazon's warning label makes sense - and represents progress. For decades, he says, re-releases of shows from the 1930s and 1940s removed or altered all racist content.
'Tom and Jerry'
Pilot Flies Underground
Hot Air Balloon
Aren't hot air balloons supposed to go up?
An Austrian hot air balloon pilot challenged himself to go down. Way down.
On September 18, 70-year-old Ivan Trifonov descended deep into Mamet Cave on Croatia's Velebit Mountain in a balloon designed specifically for the flight.
Instead of standing in a basket, Trifonov sat on a small steel frame positioned above two gas cylinders as he navigated the 675-foot-deep cave.
The underground flight took about 25 minutes to complete.
Hot Air Balloon
It's Legal, But...
Colorado
Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it.
Now, the state's highest court is considering whether workers' off-duty use of medical marijuana is protected under state law.
Colorado's Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case involving Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test in 2010.
Coats said he never got high at work. But pot's intoxicating chemical, THC, can stay in the system for weeks.
Coats says his pot smoking is allowed under a little-known state law intended to protect employees from being fired for legal activities off the clock. But the company argues that because pot remains illegal at the federal level, medical marijuana isn't covered by the state law.
Colorado
Protesters Pack Meeting
Denver
Students and teachers fighting a plan to promote patriotism and downplay civil disobedience in some suburban Denver U.S. history courses packed a school board meeting Thursday where the controversial changes could face a vote.
Turnout was so high that the teachers union streamed video from the meeting room - which holds a couple hundred people - onto a big screen in the parking lot outside.
About 300 students, parents and teachers opposed to the proposal rallied in the parking lot and marched along nearby streets before the meeting.
Students in a majority of the 17 high schools in Colorado's second-largest school district have left classes in droves over the past few weeks, waving signs and flags in protests organized by word of mouth and social media.
The protests started Sept. 19, the day after the Jefferson County school board proposed creating a committee to review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement history, to make sure materials "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights" and don't "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law."
Denver
Deaths Double
Heroin
The over-prescribing of painkillers is fuelling nearly 17,000 annual deaths from overdoses in the United States as well as a rise in heroin use, according to a study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.
The CDC reviewed 2010-2012 mortality data from 28 states to measure rising fatal heroin overdose rates and determine how the increases were tied to prescription painkillers.
The study found that the death rate from heroin overdoses doubled during that two-year span to from 1 to 2.1 deaths per 100,000 people, while deaths from prescription opioid drugs overdoses declined from 6 to 5.6 deaths per 100,000.
Despite the slight drop in prescription painkiller-related deaths, the Atlanta-based CDC said years of over-prescription of painkillers has led to the recent surge in heroin deaths.
In a sample of heroin users in treatment programs, 75 percent who started using heroin after 2000 said they first abused prescription opioids. They said heroin was easier to get, cheaper and more potent than prescription drugs.
Heroin
'Informal' Talks To Return To Tibet
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama indicated Thursday he was in informal talks with China to make a historic pilgrimage to his Tibetan homeland after more than half a century in exile.
In an interview with AFP at his base in northern India, the Tibetan spiritual leader also spoke of his optimism about the new leadership in Beijing and of his hopes for a peaceful end to the stand-off in Hong Kong.
Now aged 79, the Dalai Lama has been exiled from Tibet since he fled a failed uprising in 1959.
But he revealed that he had "made clear" his desire to undertake a pilgrimage to a sacred mountain in Tibet to contacts in China, including "retired officials".
"It's not finalised, not yet, but the idea is there," he said during celebrations to mark 25 years since he won the Nobel peace prize.
Dalai Lama
2nd US University Severs Ties
Confucius Institute
A second major U.S. university in a week is severing ties with China's government-funded Confucius Institute, which critics call a propaganda arm wrapped in culture and language education.
Pennsylvania State University said Wednesday it would end its five-year relationship with the institute at the end of this year, citing differences with the Chinese government agency that controls and funds them.
On September 25, the University of Chicago also severed ties with the institute, saying a high-ranking official with the Hanban agency had told a Chinese language newspaper that the agency would prevail in ongoing negotiations with the university.
The United States has nearly 500 Confucius Institutes which provide funds and offer programs to universities and public school systems, and there are hundreds more around the globe.
Confucius Institute
Category Sparks Backlash
'Jeopardy!'
A category on long-running TV quiz show "Jeopardy!" called "What Women Want" that appeared on Monday's show sparked a backlash among viewers who took issue with what they contend were sexist clues.
• "Some help around the house; Would it kill you to get out the Bissell bagless canister one of these every once in a while?" (Answer: A vacuum cleaner.?)
• "Time to exercise; perhaps a class in this discipline named for founder Joseph, who initially called it Contrology." (Answer: Pilates.)
Those clues didn't sit well with many women, who took to Twitter to express their outrage. Actress Sophia Bush was among them.
"It was like we were tuning into a replay of an episode from the 1950s," Mashable's Neha Prakash wrote.
'Jeopardy!'
RV Vandalized
'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation'
A dilapidated recreational vehicle that played a memorable role in a beloved Christmas movie has been vandalized at an Ohio museum.
The owner of the Castle Noel museum in Medina, just south of Cleveland, reports that Cousin Eddie's rusty camper from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" was damaged sometime last week.
The Northeast Ohio Media Group reports that a ladder was taken off the back of the vehicle, a tail light was smashed, an antenna was broken and a side panel was removed, according to a police report.
The RV brought Cousin Eddie, played by Randy Quaid, and family to the Griswold house for Christmas in the 1989 comedy starring Chevy Chase. The museum features other props and costumes from Christmas films.
'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation'
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