Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Danehy: Tom talks about what really makes America great (Tucson Weekly)
A few weeks back, I wrote something about why would anybody want to be a teacher in Arizona. Some guy e-mailed me and suggested that I'm a shill for public schools because my wife is a public-school teacher. He said that I should do that full-disclosure thing so that the readers can take what I write with a giant grain of salt. In truth, it really doesn't matter what my wife does for a living. I'm smart enough to know that, without great public schools, America wouldn't be America. … I'm a good American, and supporting public schools is the American thing to do.
Suzanne Moore: Russell Brand's revolution or a meaningless two-party system? Politics should be about more than this (Guardian)
The Scottish referendum and rise of Ukip has shown that engagement is high and small parties can thrive, but still the political class wants things to stay the same.
David Wong: 7 Creepy Ways Corporations Are Turning You Into an Addict (Cracked)
Raise your hand if you're an addict. About 20 percent of you are smokers, so I should see all of your yellow-stained fingers in the air right now. About 10 percent use some other illicit drug, about 10 percent are admitted alcoholics ...
Chris Fox, P. Chung: 5 Lives Saved by the Exact Right Person Randomly Showing Up (Cracked)
When the day needs saving in movies, the perfect hero for the job will swoop in at just the right moment to prevent tragedy while still preserving the maximum amount of thrilling suspense. However, this is generally not the case in real life -- if you get your shoelace stuck on a railroad track and just sit there waiting for Superman to appear at the last second to bend some iron and set you free, you're going to get hit by a train.
Will Mars One's volunteers get to live on the red planet? Yes, briefly (Guardian)
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology reckon settlers on Mars would all be dead within a few months.
16 Of The Most Magnificent Trees In The World (Bored Panda)
How do I love thee, tree? Let me count the ways; you change carbon dioxide into the oxygen we breathe, you sequester carbon, and you provide shelter for countless critters. There are many reasons for which we should all be tree-hugging hippies, but within the scope of this article, all we'll focus on is how amazing some of them look.
Some Of The Best Shots You'll Ever See (Rense)
Fauna.
Yardbird (Vimeo)
A young girl with a secret past comes out of hiding and is forced to take on the town bullies with the thing she fears most - herself. Neatorama saysd, "Yardbird, directed by Michael Spiccia of Brindle Path Films, http://bridlepathfilms.com/ is a beautiful and disturbing short film about a young girl who is kept away from civilization because of her superpowers. When Ruby's world is invaded by a gang of bullies, she has no choice but to do what she does. Yes, it's violent. It's been compared to Carrie, but not to the inderior recent remake."
Todd Van Lulling: 8 Things You Didn't Know About Zombie Movies (Huffington Post)
Brains. Brains. Put this trivia in your brains.
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
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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 cooler.
Finds Political Voice
Bob Seger
One of Bob Seger's most famous songs was an unabashedly old-fashioned celebration of music for music's sake: "That old time rock 'n' roll / That kind of music just soothes the soul."
On "Ride Out," his first album in eight years, the master of crowd-pleasing Midwestern guitar rock has stayed true to his musical roots but has found a new passion to sing about -- climate change.
"Let's talk about shorter growing seasons / Let's talk about what we're going to eat," Seger says on "It's Your World" to what is, essentially, an old-time rock 'n' roll sound.
"Let's talk about mining in Wisconsin / Let's talk about breathing in Beijing," he sings. He asks the listener to "say a prayer for the victims of extinction / Say another for the redwood trees."
The song culminates in a stern condemnation of the role of money in the political system: "The rich keep bitching and the rest keep wishing it away / All these children have to face our mess some day."
Bob Seger
Smithsonian Honors
'American Ingenuity Awards'
Singer Rosanne Cash and the founder of virtual reality firm Oculus are being honoured with American Ingenuity Awards at the Smithsonian Institution, along with 8 other scientists and scholars for their groundbreaking work.
Smithsonian magazine is awarding the prizes Thursday night to 10 innovators in art, science and culture. The magazine polls Smithsonian museum directors and curators to find innovators impacting their fields.
Cash will receive the performing arts award for her 2014 album "The River & The Thread" that was inspired by a series of trips to the Deep South, not to mention her 11 No. 1 country singles.
Oculus VR Inc. founder Palmer Luckey will receive the youth award. He was 16 when he began inventing the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset for consumers. Facebook acquired Irvine, California-based Oculus in March for $2 billion.
'American Ingenuity Awards'
Wedding Negatives Auctioned
JFK
One black-and-white photograph captures a dapper John F. Kennedy slicing into his wedding cake. Another shows the family dog peeking out playfully from the folds of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy's billowing white dress.
The images were among those imprinted on 13 original negatives from the Kennedys' fairytale wedding that sold for $34,073 Wednesday to a doctor in Las Vegas, who didn't want to be named, according to RR Auction in Boston.
The Kennedys were married on Sept. 12, 1953 at St. Mary's Church in the well-heeled resort town of Newport, Rhode Island, located about 60 miles south of Boston.
The images, which went up for auction Sept. 26 with a $200 opening bid, show the wedding party posing outside, the newlyweds leaving the church and the couple cutting the wedding cake.
RR Auction said the images are attributed to freelance photographer Frank Ataman and were found in the darkroom of another photographer and have likely never been published.
JFK
Andy Richter Emoji
Conan
It seems like people in their mid-20s and younger can no longer communicate using conventional methods such as… typing words. Instead, they string together surprisingly complex thoughts using only emoji, the tiny ideograms that first became popular in Japan and then spread across the globe like wildfire. There are already hundreds of tiny faces, people, animals, objects and more in the ever-growing emoji library, but what happens when you need to express more specific emotions with emoji?
As it turns out, Conan O'Brien has the perfect solution.
With the help of his shockingly expressive co-host Andy Richter, Conan took some time on a recent episode of his late-night TBS talk show to invent some new emoji for those times when you have a very specific thought or emotion that simply can't be easily conveyed through traditional emoji use. Of course, we all know that actually typing out words is no longer an option.
Things like "I'm happy" and "I'm surprised" are easy to convey with standard emoji, but what about "I think that's Bradley Cooper at the next table" or "I can't get enough of these Girl Scout cookies"? And so, Conan's new segment called "Andy, the Human Emoji" was born.
Conan
Liable For Unlicensed School
T-rump
Donald Trump is personally liable for operating a for-profit investment school without the required license, a New York judge ruled in a lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General against the real estate entrepreneur.
New York state Supreme Court Justice Cynthia S. Kern said he was notified by the state in 2005 that his Trump Entrepreneur Initiative - known as Trump University until 2010 - was in violation of state education law.
"It is undisputed that Mr. Trump never complied with the licensing requirements," Kern wrote in a decision made public on Wednesday.
Damages will be determined later.
T-rump
New Investigation Opened
Stephen Collins
Veteran television actor Stephen Collins is being investigated by Los Angeles sheriff's detectives after a woman reported the former "7th Heaven" star exposed himself to her in the early 1980s.
The department on Wednesday confirmed it opened an investigation on Oct. 9 after the woman reported the incident to authorities. The alleged victim was 13 years old when she claims Collins exposed himself to her in West Hollywood, California, in 1983.
Special Victims Unit detectives are investigating the actor for indecent exposure and whether he annoyed or molested a child, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said in a news release.
The woman reported the incident two days after New York police confirmed they had an open investigation into decades-old allegations that Collins molested a family acquaintance in Manhattan in the early 1970s. The revelation came after celebrity news site TMZ disclosed the investigation.
Stephen Collins
China Blocks Website
BBC
Chinese Communist Party censors have blocked the website of Britain's national broadcaster, the BBC said in a statement, as tensions rise in Hong Kong between pro-democracy protesters and police.
The broadcaster said that the move seemed to be "deliberate censorship". It did not say what may have prompted the move by Beijing, which also blocks the websites of the New York Times, newswire Bloomberg and the BBC's Chinese-language website.
"The BBC strongly condemns any attempts to restrict free access to news and information and we are protesting to the Chinese authorities. This appears to be deliberate censorship," said Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service Group.
The BBC's English-language website was still inaccessible in China on Thursday.
BBC
What Climate Change?
Twister Clusters
On Tuesday, 5 tornadoes touched down in the Atlanta, Georgia region, all part of the same storm system. If scientists are correct, terrifying clusters of twisters like this are becoming the norm.
In a new study published this week in the journal Science, researchers looked at 60 years worth of weather data across the United States, counting up all tornadoes and found that while in the 1970s there were about 150 days a year with at least one twister, that number has now dropped to about 100 days.
While on the surface this may appear to be great news for folks in tornado country, the study discovered that on the days when there is tornado activity, they appear to occur in clusters, making them potentially much more devastating.
According to NOAA, there have been 966 tornadoes across the U.S. in 2014 so far, ranking second lowest in number since 2005. In terms of absolute tornado counts, the U.S. has had the most by far with an average of over 1,000 twisters recorded annually, while Canada has only about one-tenth of that per year.
The study also found that F0 tornadoes, the weakest on the scale used to measure their intensity, appears to have increased from about 100 per year in the 1950s to about 800 a year in the 2000s. Brooks attributes this rise to a number of factors, including better awareness and better efforts to collect reports.
Twister Clusters
Abbey Searched For Remains
Harold II
A team that helped find the remains of late king Richard III in 2012 turned their attention to the presumed burial site of the last royal of the Anglo-Saxon era.
Stratascan, which uses ground-penetrating radar technology, said it was carrying out a scan at Waltham Abbey north of London where king Harold II is believed to have been laid to rest.
Harold is said to have been killed by an arrow in the eye in the Battle of Hastings against the Normans in 1066 -- the most famous date in English history.
The abbey traces its origins back to the 7th century and the site currently identified as the grave lies outside in the churchyard in what would have formerly been part of the building under the church's main altar.
Harold II
Longest-Concert Record
Las Vegas
An Irish pub on the Las Vegas Strip is expected to break a Guinness World Record after hosting more than two weeks of nearly nonstop live music.
The concert began Oct. 1 in the Ri Ra pub in The Shoppes at Mandalay Bay, and it is expected to surpass the previous record at 1 p.m. on Thursday.
The artists are playing nonstop with no more than a 25-second break between songs and a five-minute break between sets.
The current world record for longest concert by multiple artists is 15 days. Bands began playing at a Michigan cafe on March 19, 2011 and ended April 3, 2011.
Las Vegas
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Oct. 6-12. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football: N.Y. Giants at Philadelphia, NBC, 18.09 million.
2. "NCIS," CBS, 17.3 million.
3. "The Walking Dead," AMC, 17.29 million.
4. "The Big Bang Theory," (Monday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 15.94 million.
5. NFL Football: Indianapolis at Houston, CBS, 15.85 million.
6. "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 15.41 million.
7. "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 14.82 million.
8. "The OT," Fox, 14.56 million.
9. NFL Football: Seattle at Washington, ESPN, 17.29 million.
10. "The Voice," (Monday), NBC, 12.58 million.
11. "Dancing With the Stars," ABC, 12.32 million.
12. "Scorpion," CBS, 12.05 million.
13. "The Big Bang Theory," (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), CBS, 11.84 million.
14. "Madam Secretary," CBS, 11.45 million.
15. "Football Night in America, Part 3," NBC, 11.42 million.
16. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 11.09 million.
17. "How to Get Away with Murder," ABC, 10.81 million.
18. "Criminal Minds," CBS, 10.57 million.
19. "The Good Wife," CBS, 10.39 million.
20. "Modern Family," ABC, 10.3 million.
Ratings
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