Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrew Tobias: How Republicans Could Win In 2016
By the time you read this, the Republicans will have again showcased their leaders in the race to run the country and the world. Here are five ways Republicans win: …
Tom Danehy: Tom is a public school man all the way, so it's no surprise that charter schools and their lack of support services doesn't earn love from this columnist (Tucson Weekly)
I said, "Hello," in a way that made it clear that I hate being at things like this but I don't want to be the sourest one in the place. After a noticeable pause, she said "Are you the one who makes his living writing those terrible things about charter schools (in the Tucson Weekly)?"
Tom Danehy: Tom reminds us that charter schools may not be the best investment our state can make in supporting public education (Tucson Weekly)
If a real public school tried to deny certain services that are mandated by the state or the federal government, people would lose their jobs and the lawsuits would start flying. However, if a charter school denies these same services, the claim is made that it is being done so in the interest of streamlining the operation. Thus, the discrepancy between spending on Student Support Services and the resultant misplaced reliance on the "money in the classroom" stat.
Lucy Mangan: I doubt even the House of Lords could save my local library now (The Guardian)
Cuts and the loss of trained staff mean that the notion of libraries as being special has been lost.
Jules Montague: This is what it feels like to die (The Guardian)
The American Chemical Society has released a video explaining how death feels - just in time for Halloween. But what if you're not attacked by an axe murderer?
Lucy Mangan: "Cable girl: Mythbusters" (The Guardian)
Boom! If it's explosions you're after, Mythbusters can't be beaten.
Bill Bailey: 'Who nicked my bus?' (The Guardian)
The comedian's tour bus was taken from outside his Liverpool gig. He explains how he and his crew were targeted by 'scrofulous nerks.'
Kathy Benjamin: 5 Destructive Sides Of Celebrity Culture No One Talks About (Cracked)
Fame, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Without famous actors we'd miss out on some great art. Famous scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson introduce us to new information. And famous people from all walks of life can use their celebrity to draw attention to charitable causes that need our help. (I personally use what little notoriety I have to petition Michael Fassbender to go bottomless in all of his movies.)
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took the day off.
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Reader Comment
Another Cursed Play
Another cursed play, I think
Is certainly Doctor Faustus by Marlowe.
Here's wiki on it, tho' Anthony Burgess talked much th same thing.
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the German story Faust.Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604, eleven years after Marlowe's death and at least 10 years after the first performance of the play. It is the most controversial Elizabethan play outside of Shakespeare, with few critics coming to any agreement as to the date or the nature of the text.
The Admiral's Men performed Doctor Faustus twenty-five times in the three years between October 1594 and October 1597. On 22 November 1602, the Diary of Philip Henslowerecorded a £4 payment to Samuel Rowley and William Bird for additions to the play, which suggests a revival soon after that date.
The powerful effect of the early productions is indicated by the legends that quickly accrued around them. In Histriomastix, his 1632 polemic against the drama, William Prynne records the tale that actual devils once appeared on the stage during a performance of Faustus, "to the great amazement of both the actors and spectators". Some people were allegedly driven mad, "distracted with that fearful sight". John Aubrey recorded a related legend, that Edward Alleyn, lead actor of The Admiral's Men, devoted his later years to charitable endeavours, like the founding of Dulwich College, in direct response to this incident.
Doctor Faustus
There's also the long incantation near the beginning which certainly soounds genuinely derived, if you go by The Red Dragon and other grimoires, also too, some written down by Aleister Crowley
Faustus, begin thine incantations,
And try if devils will obey thy hest,
Seeing thou hast pray'd and sacrific'd to them.
Within this circle is Jehovah's name,
Forward and backward anagrammatiz'd, 49
Th' abbreviated 50 names of holy saints,
Figures of every adjunct to the heavens,
And characters of signs and erring 51 stars,
By which the spirits are enforc'd to rise:
Then fear not, Faustus, but be resolute,
And try the uttermost magic can perform.-
Sint mihi dei Acherontis propitii! Valeat numen triplex Jehovoe!
Ignei, aerii, aquatani spiritus, salvete! Orientis princeps
Belzebub, inferni ardentis monarcha, et Demogorgon, propitiamus
vos, ut appareat et surgat Mephistophilis, quod tumeraris: 52
per Jehovam, Gehennam, et consecratam aquam quam nunc spargo,
signumque crucis quod nunc facio, et per vota nostra, ipse nunc
surgat nobis dicatus 53 Mephistophilis!
Enter MEPHISTOPHILIS.
I charge thee to return, and change thy shape;
Thou art too ugly to attend on me:
Go, and return an old Franciscan friar;
That holy shape becomes a devil best.
Exit MEPHISTOPHILIS.]
I see there's virtue in my heavenly words:
Who would not be proficient in this art?
How pliant is this Mephistophilis,
Full of obedience and humility!
Such is the force of magic and my spells:
No, Faustus, thou art conjuror laureat,
That canst command great Mephistophilis:
Quin regis Mephistophilis fratris imagine.
Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS like a Franciscan friar.
The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
2nu
Thanks, 2nu!
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Star Wars
David
Thanks, Dave!
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
EXXON KNEW!
STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
TO MEAT OR NOT TO MEAT.
LEK AND KABU.
GOING AWOL!
"HAIL SATAN."
THE MORAN!
"SYRIA IS A CLUSTERFUCK…"
"NOTORIOUS RBG"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Santa Ana winds are blowing, so it's dry, dusty and sneeze-inducing. Also means it's fire season.
Supporters Condemn Boycott
Quentin Tarantino
Protesters against police killings of black civilians rallied around movie director Quentin Tarantino on Thursday in the face of mounting calls by U.S. police unions to boycott his movies.
Public outrage over the deaths of black men at the hands of police in New York, Missouri, Baltimore, South Carolina and elsewhere has spurred protests and prosecutions of police nationwide for more than a year.
Carl Dix, one of the organizers of Saturday's rally, said the attacks on Tarantino were aimed at sending a message to "anyone whose voice carries great weight in society: if you speak out, we will come after you, threaten your livelihood and attempt to scare you back into silence."
Tarantino has not commented on the police backlash and the boycott calls are not expected to have a significant impact on the box office for his films, which are admired in Hollywood but not always big commercial draws.
Jazz musician Arturo O'Farrill, in a statement supporting Tarantino, said the United States is "a free nation in which an artist, or any citizen, (is) allowed to speak their mind without fear of retribution."
Quentin Tarantino
Batman Painting Sells For $173,000 At Auction
Mel Ramos
A painting depicting Batman that pop artist Mel Ramos traded for a stack of comic books more than a half-century ago has sold for $173,000 at auction.
The 1962 painting titled "A Sinister Figure Lurks in the Dark" was sold by Heritage Auctions Wednesday in New York City.
It was bought by a Dallas collector who wishes to remain anonymous.
Dallas-based Heritage says Bill Steinfelt of California offered the painting, which he's had ever since his 1962 trade with the then-undiscovered artist.
Mel Ramos
American Applies For Asylum
Canada
An American citizen has applied for asylum in Canada because he says he fears police in the United States will kill him because he is black, the refugee board said Thursday.
Kyle Lydell Canty, 30, filed a refugee claim soon after arriving in Vancouver in September.
According to public broadcaster CBC, he told an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing on October 23: "I'm in fear of my life because I'm black.
An IRB spokeswoman said Canty submitted a significant amount of evidence to the board including media reports, and videos of his interactions with police in six US states where he lived before coming to Canada, including one where he was arrested for trespass in Salem, Oregon after he spent two hours talking on the phone and using free Wi-Fi at a bus station.
Canty represented himself at the IRB hearing. Although he was reportedly commended by the board for presenting a strong case, Canty faces an uphill battle to stay in Canada as only a handful of US citizens are granted asylum in this country each year.
Canada
Gets Wider
Ozone Hole
The U.N.'s weather and climate agency said on Thursday there was no cause for alarm about a record-size hole this month in the ozone layer, that shields life on earth from the sun, as it should shrink again.
The ozone hole that appears over Antarctica fluctuates in size, normally reaching its widest in the polar spring as extreme cold temperatures in the stratosphere and the return of sunlight unleash chlorine radicals that destroy ozone.
Last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said it detected the first sign of ozone recovery, largely thanks to a 1987 ban on gases that cause ozone depletion, but said it could be a decade before the hole begins shrinking.
This year, a colder than usual stratosphere widened the hole to a peak of 28.2 million square km (10.9 million square miles) on Oct. 2, bigger than Canada and Russia put together.
It was a record for a hole recorded on Oct. 2 of any year, and the hole has remained at daily record levels on every day since then, the WMO said, citing data from NASA. Over the 30 days around the peak, the hole averaged 26.9 million square km, making it the third largest, after 2000 and 2006.
Ozone Hole
Water Too Warm For Cod
Gulf of Maine
A rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine off the eastern United States has made the water too hot for cod, pushing stocks toward collapse despite deep reductions in the number of fish caught, a U.S. study showed on Thursday.
The Gulf of Maine had warmed faster than 99 percent of the rest of the world's oceans in the past decade, influenced by shifts in the Atlantic Gulf Stream, changes in the Pacific Ocean and a wider trend of climate change, it said.
Scientists said the findings showed a need to take more account of changing water temperatures in managing global fish stocks usually based on historical data of catches.
Traditional calculations "consistently over-estimated the abundance of cod," said Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and lead author of the study in the journal Science.
Fisheries managers cut cod quotas in recent years but cod numbers kept falling because the rapidly warming waters were making the Gulf of Maine inhospitable for the fish.
Gulf of Maine
Cops Plea
Kim Richards
Former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Kim Richards has pleaded no contest to shoplifting from a Los Angeles Target store.
Court records show Richards was sentenced Tuesday to serve three years on probation, attend 52 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and perform 300 hours of community labor. She was also ordered to stay away from the Target store in Van Nuys where she was arrested in August.
Attorney Sara Caplan, who entered the plea on Richards' behalf, declined comment Wednesday.
The 51-year-old former child actor received a nearly identical sentence in September after pleading no contest to resisting arrest after she was kicked out of a posh Beverly Hills restaurant in April.
Kim Richards
"Days of Our Lives"
Casey Moss
An actor on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" was arrested in suburban Phoenix after trying to punch a bartender at a hotel bar, authorities said Wednesday.
Casey Moss, 21, is facing charges of assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, Scottsdale police spokesman Kevin Watts said.
The hotel called police around 12:30 a.m. Monday, reporting an intoxicated Moss tried to hit a bartender for refusing to serve him more alcohol and shoved another person. He then yelled and cursed at employees, police said.
An officer handcuffed Moss and tried to escort him outside. When asked for his name, Moss allegedly yelled "I'm Casey Moss, and I'm an actor on 'Days of Our Lives.' "
The actor was in town with several co-stars for a book signing at a Tempe bookstore celebrating the NBC show's 50th anniversary. Moss plays JJ Deveraux on the long-running soap. His biography on the program's website states he was raised in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler.
Casey Moss
Reports Loss After Arctic Exit
Shell
Royal Dutch Shell reported a third quarter loss of $7.4 billion Thursday as it re-organized and cancelled projects, including drilling in Alaska, to cope with the plunge in oil prices.
The net loss compares with a profit of $4.5 billion in the same period last year. Shell reported $7.9 billion in charges, including $2.6 billion for Alaska and $2 billion related to the decision to cancel the Carmon Creek project in Alberta, Canada.
Excluding one-time items and fluctuations in the value of inventories, the company said profit dropped to $1.8 billion, from $5.8 billion a year earlier, reflecting the plunge in oil prices.
Shell said it would still pay a dividend of 47 cents a share on third quarter earnings.
Shell
Republic of Texass
Texass
A woman who claims she's a representative of the sovereign nation of Texas was convicted of issuing fraudulent court papers ordering a judge and lawyer to appear before an "international common law court."
A jury northwest of San Antonio found Susan Cammack guilty Wednesday of simulating a legal process, the San Antonio Express-News reports. She was fined and placed on probation. A co-defendant pleaded guilty in August and testified against her.
Cammack and other members of a group called the Republic of Texas believe Texas never legally became part of the U.S. and remains a separate nation.
The papers she issued had ordered a state district judge and a lawyer involved in foreclosure proceedings against her to appear before the group's court, held at a VFW hall in Bryan.
Authorities representing the local sheriff's office, FBI and other agencies interrupted the group's proceedings in February and seized computers, phones and other material from about 20 people participating in the meeting at the VFW.
Texass
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