Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Froma Harrop: Gilded Youth and Their Pain (Creators Syndicate)
A Hollywood-handsome Princeton grad recently shot his hedge-fund-founder father to death. The alleged reason: Thomas Gilbert Sr.'s plan to cut his allowance by $200 a month. You can imagine what the tabloids are doing with the story.
Froma Harrop: Playtime Is Over for Obamacare's Foes (Creators Syndicate)
Years of carpet-bombing assaults on Obamacare have left many Americans thinking that they don't like the Affordable Care Act. But close down the federal exchanges covering 6 million people (so far) in 36 states and they may think otherwise. With a vengeance.
Lenore Skenazy: Don't Let This Happen to YOU! (Creators Syndicate)
It always goes something like this: "Please Read! Your Safety Matters!" And it's an email or Facebook post about some horrible story that makes you want to run and hide under a rock (after you've forwarded the item to all your friends).
Luis Prada: 4 Things I Learned When I Tried to Sell a House on My Own (Cracked)
#4. Zillow Brings Human Spam to Your Door
HENRY ROLLINS: MY LIFE HAS BEEN A HUSTLE (LA Weekly)
Never once in high school did I ever have a thought as to what I was "going to be" when I went out into the world. It wasn't a problem of low ambition; I was just too spazzed out to think of a "career." To this day, that word seems strange to me. To have a profession, that means you have to be good at something. I respected that, but I knew I was going to have problems dealing with what it would take.
Zachary Frey: 6 Nobodies Who Turned Into Action Heroes Without Warning (Cracked)
We at Cracked get accused of taking the fun out of action movies, just because we spend all of our time talking about how laughably impossible they are. Still, we try to balance it out by finding real action hero shit that happens every day ... and the fact that it doesn't even take an action hero to pull it off.
Marilynne Robinson: On Edgar Allan Poe (NY Review of Books)
Edgar Allan Poe was and is a turbulence, an anomaly among the major American writers of his period, an anomaly to this day.
Dr. David Lipschitz: Can You Prevent Aging? (Creators Syndicate)
Aging is not a disease, as it affects everyone. Each day we age, and our risk of developing illnesses increases. By reducing illness, we may enable ourselves to live longer. However, beyond the age of 90, over 70 percent of us are dependent and often in nursing homes. Our goal should not be a longer but rather a better, more independent life.
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wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
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 seasonal.
Dear old dad turns 90 (!) next week. Wish I could be there.
Goes Black & White
MTV
MTV is taking the color out of its programming on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to encourage people to talk about what race means in their lives.
The youth-oriented TV network is airing its programming in black and white on Monday, a first in the channel's 34-year history.
The programming move is meant to promote #TheTalk initiative, encouraging viewers to discuss race with their friends and family.
The retro-look programs will air for 12 hours and will include personal reflections on race from entertainers and public officials, including Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean, Jordin Sparks, Pete Wentz, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. John Lewis, Sen. Cory Booker, "Selma" director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo.
MTV
GOP Is 'Living in the 1950s' on Climate Change
Robert Redford
Robert Redford, a guest on the latest edition of Variety's PopPolitics on SiriusXM, says that the Republican drive to pass a bill greenlighting the Keystone pipeline "makes no sense," attributing the GOP majority's prioritization of the project to the influence of the oil lobby and too many lawmakers "living in the 1950s."
"Somebody has got to start looking at the bigger picture here and telling what the real truth is, so you don't have people like Mitch McConnell giving you truth that is falsified," Redford said in an interview. "He represents the polluters' interest because he is living in the 1950s. So for me we are missing real leadership. Instead we have a guy who looks like he just slid out from under a rock trying to propose an idea that is simply not that truthful. Somebody has to get to the truth of what this is all about."
Redford, whose environmental activism extends back to the 1950s, has been particularly vocal about the Keystone pipeline, which would ship oil extracted from the tar sands in Canada through the Midwest to the Gulf coast.
"When you look at the economic viability of [Keystone], which is we are putting our environment at risk to ship dirty oil, the benefits would go to another country because it is all going to be exported. It makes no sense," says Redford, who thinks that Keystone would be transporting "the dirtiest oil on the planet that can't be cleaned up."
Robert Redford
Czech Silly Walkers Pay Tribute
Monty Python
Nicole Schickova adjusts her unruly fake moustache, as crucial to her outfit as her bowler hat, and takes two comical giant steps, thrusting her leg up as far as it will go, before dragging her rear foot over.
The 24-year-old's Austrian friend, also in moustache and hat, shuffles his feet while bending forward, then leans back for the next three steps -- all with great exaggeration.
The two are part of an 80-strong group doing the fourth annual Silly Walk March in the southern Czech city of Brno, inspired by a 1970 Monty Python sketch featuring John Cleese with a bowler hat, briefcase and goofy gait.
Walking at the head of the Brno march are Adam Jandora and Daniel Masek, both 22 and ardent fans of the British cult comedy troupe, who launched the walk in 2012.
Monty Python
Notes, Photos Auctioned
Jacqueline Onassis
A few dozen pieces of personal correspondence by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, along with photographs of the former first lady in Palm Beach, sold at a Florida auction Saturday for a total of $28,400.
The items up for bidding at Palm Beach Modern Auctions included Onassis' handwritten notes to interior designer Richard Keith Langham and Bill Hamilton, then the design director at Carolina Herrera.
Onassis corresponded with both men about clothes and furnishings she was buying from the mid-1980s through her death in 1994.
In one note Onassis wrote to Hamilton, along with her own sketch of a pant suit, she said: "I just love this suit & will wear it everywhere as I am SO sick of everyone constantly in black - like Mediterranean villages where everyone is in mourning for 20 years."
Jacqueline Onassis
House Torn Down
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury lived in his 1937 Cheviot Hills home for more than 50 years. After the author of "Fahrenheit 451" died in 2012, the house was readied for sale.
The home was filled with original details, such as built-in bookcases, that surrounded Bradbury for much of his life. The next owner could be proud to live with the echo of Bradbury, the beloved science fiction writer who advised both Walt Disney and NASA. Or not.
The home, which was purchased in June for $1.765 million, is being demolished. A permit for demolition was issued Dec. 30, Curbed LA reports, and a fan who visited the house over the weekend found it in the process of being torn down.
According to Curbed, Bradbury's house was purchased by "starchitect" Thom Mayne, of the firm Morphosis, and his wife, Blythe Alison-Mayne.
Mayne, who is on the faculty at UCLA, is a winner of the Pritzker Prize. Bradbury, who typed "Fahrenheit 451" on a pay-as-you-go typewriter at the UCLA library, was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 2004.
Ray Bradbury
We Attack Religion When It Becomes Political
Charlie Hebdo
The editor of Charlie Hebdo is defending the French satirical newspaper's skewering of religion, saying it targets faith only when it becomes "entangled" in politics.
"We do not attack religion, but we do when it gets involved in politics," Gerard Biard said in an interview with Chuck Todd (R-Tool) broadcast on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "We have a problem when faith and religion become political, then we become worried and we attack.
Biard was asked about the many news outlets that opted not to show Charlie Hebdo's controversial cartoons in their coverage of the killings and aftermath.
Those that blur the Muhammad cover, he said, "blur out democracy, secularism [and] freedom of religion."
"Secularism protects us against this, secularism guarantees democracy and assures peace," Biard said. "Secularism allows all believers and not-believers to live in peace, and that is what we defend."
Charlie Hebdo
Faces Lean Budget
Alaska
After years of being flush with oil money, Alaska now faces drastic budget cuts and having to dip into well-stocked savings to offset unprecedented deficits exacerbated by an unexpected plunge in oil prices.
When lawmakers left Juneau last April, the price of North Slope crude, Alaska's economic lifeblood, was $107 a barrel. On the eve of a new legislative session, starting Tuesday, the price had dropped by more than half.
Alaska heavily relies on oil revenue to fund the cost of state government, but the fall in prices has contributed to an estimated 80 percent decline in the state's share of production taxes from last year.
The new governor, Republican-turned-independent Bill Walker, is among those calling for a look at revenues along with budget cuts, but that could involve ideas that no one who dreams of re-election is eager to take up.
Alaska
Withdraws Elephant Hunt From Auction
Dallas Safari Club
A Texas hunting club has canceled plans to auction off a chance to kill an African elephant, the club's executive director said Saturday.
Ben Carter of the Dallas Safari Club told The Associated Press, that the donor of the hunt withdrew his donation.
The African elephant is the Earth's largest land animal. The World Wildlife Fund, the world's leading conservation group, regards it as "vulnerable," a step below "endangered" and defined as "facing a high risk of extinction in the wild."
The Dallas Safari Club faced international criticism last year for auctioning a permit to shoot an endangered black rhino. That hunt has been postponed until the winner receives permission to import the carcass from Namibia.
Dallas Safari Club
Farms Can Be Held Liable
Manure
A U.S. federal court has ruled for the first time that manure from livestock facilities can be regulated as solid waste, a decision hailed by environmentalists as opening the door to potential legal challenges against facilities across the country.
A large dairy in Washington state, Cow Palace Dairy, polluted ground water by over applying manure to soil, ruled Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington on Wednesday.
This is the first time the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which governs the disposal of solid and hazardous waste, has been applied to animal waste from a farm.
The district court ruling, if upheld, could affect any large livestock facility that produces more manure than it can responsibly manage, including poultry, beef and hog farms.
Manure
Utah College Returns Confederate Soldiers Statue
Dixie State University
A bronze statue of two Confederate soldiers removed from a southern Utah college campus two years ago has been returned to its creator.
Under a settlement announced this week, Dixie State University in St. George returned "The Rebels" statue to Leeds artist Jerry Anderson in exchange for Anderson's donation of other artwork for permanent display on campus.
At issue was his statue depicting a Confederate soldier on horseback helping an injured comrade, with a Confederate flag in hand.
The statue's fate had been in limbo since Dixie State College officials removed it in December 2012 in an effort to "rebrand" the school ahead of attaining university status.
Dixie State University
'Swedish Schindler'
Raoul Wallenberg
Seventy years on, mystery still surrounds the disappearance of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, though his family is certain the answer lies with Russia.
The young diplomat went missing on January 17, 1945 after being summoned to the Soviet headquarters in wartime Budapest.
Historians, experts and relatives have long questioned circumstances surrounding his disappearance as well as Soviet assertions that he died two years later in a prison beneath the secret service headquarters in Moscow.
But Wallenberg's 93-year-old half-sister Nina Lagergren is unequivocal.
"It is possible to find the truth," she told AFP, remembering her older sibling as "funny and warm".
Raoul Wallenberg
In Memory
Alan Hirschfield
Alan Hirschfield, a former entertainment executive who helped make the 1970s movies "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Taxi Driver," has died. He was 79.
Son Marc Hirschfield says the former chief executive of Columbia Pictures died Thursday at his home in Wilson, Wyoming, of natural causes.
Hirschfield held the post at Columbia from 1973 to 1978 and was chairman of Twentieth Century Fox from 1982 to 1986.
Hirschfield was ousted at Columbia after he opposed the reinstatement of studio boss David Begelman, who embezzled more than $61,000, on moral grounds.
Hirschfield was born in New York and raised in Oklahoma. He is survived by his wife, Berte, three children, six grandchildren, niece and grand-niece.
Alan Hirschfield
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