Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Marc Dion: Rioting Muslims Have Real American Values (Creators Syndicate)
Take a good look at Afghanistan, because that's what your country looks like if you have one religion and everyone has to believe in that religion, with all their heart, or they get shot to death and their corpses are dragged through the streets so everyone can see what it means to love God. Right now, you've got a lot of people running for office on the "I'll protect Jesus from the unbelievers" ticket. If you elect one or two of those guys, you're not going to become Afghanistan right away. But if you elect enough of them for long enough, you will.
Lucy Mangan: Back to my old primary school (Guardian)
'The classroom chairs and tables look like they have come from a doll's house.'
Roger Sutton: Five questions for Jane Yolen (Horn Book)
… I believe that an owl in flight, a hawk in stoop, an otter rising out of the duckweed, a triple rainbow over the Isle of May, the New Jersey skyline as seen from the Highline in Manhattan on a night of the full moon, the small greenings of spring, honeybees on a blossom, and a newborn's finger curled around mine are small everyday miracles, another word for ordinary magic. And that I believe in.
Jon Stewart: Indecision 2012 - President Evil (YouTube)
Republicans claim that the 2012 election is all that stands between America and catastrophe -- same as they claimed in 2008.
All Dead Mormons are Now Gay
Sadly, many Mormons throughout history have died without having known the joys of homosexuality. With your help, these poor souls can be saved. Simply enter the name of your favorite dead Mormon* in the form below and click Convert! Presto, they're gay for eternity. There is no undo. Don't know any dead Mormons? Click the "Choose-a-Mormon" button and we'll find one for you. You're welcome!
Stephen Colbert Converts All Dead Mormons To Judaism
Colbert, as a television's "most famous and important Catholic" doesn't condone the posthumous baptisms. So he decided to balance everything out "by converting all the dead Mormons to Judaism."
Mark Shields: Republicans Must "Cowboy Up" on Saving U.S. Auto Industry (Creators Syndicate)
Face the truth, Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum, and just admit, reluctantly, that the American auto industry is once again robust. In the last 33 months, U.S. auto companies have hired an additional 207,000 workers. Be happy, fellows, that 47,500 GM autoworkers will begin in March to earn profit-sharing checks of up to $7,000 because the taxpayers of this country and the federal government in Washington, D.C., made the bold, risky and right decision to save the industry from dismemberment.
Bill Maher: Republican Debate Review (Huffington Post)
… they all -- with the sometime exception of Ron Paul -- nod along to insane statements just because they don't want to ever look like they're to the left of anybody, on anything, especially the evilness of Barack Obama. So Wednesday night when Newt said the president of the United States had a history of practicing infanticide... yep, yep, yessir, that's what he does all right. Clubs infants like baby seals in his spare time. Ike played golf, Kennedy liked boating...
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."
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"Shift Like the Wind"
wrote:
answered:
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bosko Suggests
Water Towns & Villages
Have a great day,
Bosko.
Thanks, Bosko!
Reader Suggestion
Pacman
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny day, overcast night.
Here's a Complete List of Winners - Oscars - 2012
Arrested In Oil-Ship Protest
Lucy Lawless
Police have arrested actress Lucy Lawless and five Greenpeace environmental activists after the group spent four days protesting aboard an oil-drilling ship docked in New Zealand.
Police on Monday removed the group from their perch atop a 174-foot (53-meter) drilling tower on the Noble Discoverer in Port Taranaki. Lawless and six activists climbed the tower early Friday in an attempt to raise awareness about oil drilling in the Arctic.
Chartered by oil company Shell, the ship had been due to leave over the weekend for the Arctic to drill five exploratory wells.
Lawless, 43, a native New Zealander, is best known for her title role in the TV series "Xena: Warrior Princess," and more recently for starring in the Starz cable television series "Spartacus."
Lucy Lawless
Publishes Think Tank Emails
WikiLeaks
The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks began publishing on Monday more than 5 million emails from a U.S.-based global security think tank, apparently obtained by hackers.
WikiLeaks did not say how it had acquired access to the vast haul of internal and external correspondence of Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) of Austin, Texas.
Stratfor describes itself as a subscription-based publisher of geopolitical analysis with an intelligence-based approach to gathering information.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Reuters: "Here we have a private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the U.S. government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations, and journalists."
"What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are, among others, activist organizations fighting for a just cause."
WikiLeaks
Undergoes Medical Check
Picasso's "Guernica"
Pablo Picasso's "Guernica," one of the world's most iconic paintings, is getting a full health check as it marks its 75th anniversary.
A giant robotic machine is taking tens of thousands of microscopic shots of the black-and-white anti-war masterpiece to allow experts to penetrate the work like never before and see its real condition after a hectic life traveling the globe.
Madrid's Reina Sofia museum - where "Guernica" is housed - has teamed up with Spanish telecommunication company Telefonica to develop the technology, which uses advanced infrared and ultraviolet photography.
The machine was built so that "Guernica" does not have to make the risky move to a conservation laboratory, where normally such investigative work would be done.
Every night after the museum shuts its doors - and on Tuesdays when the museum is closed - 'Pablito' as the robotic mechanism has been dubbed, is dragged out and placed roughly a meter from the 27-sq. meter (291-sq. foot) painting.
Picasso's "Guernica"
Discharged From Hospital
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela was discharged from a South African hospital on Sunday after a minor diagnostic procedure showed nothing "seriously wrong" with the 93-year-old anti-apartheid icon.
Mandela was admitted on Saturday for what President Jacob Zuma's office called "a long-standing abdominal complaint", putting the nation on edge over the former president's health.
"The doctors have decided to send him home as the diagnostic procedure he underwent did not indicate anything seriously wrong with him," Zuma's office said in a statement.
Mandela underwent a diagnostic laparoscopy, a procedure in which doctors probe the abdominal area using a tiny camera, to investigate ongoing discomfort.
Nelson Mandela
Federal Warning Ends Truce
Mendocino County
Residents of Mendocino County, the redwood and marijuana-rich territory in California's fabled Emerald Triangle, thought they had reached détente in the decades-old clash between pot growers and local law enforcement two years ago when the sheriff agreed to stop raiding medical cannabis producers who paid to have their crops inspected.
For a $1,500 fee and adherence to rules over water usage, odor control and distance from neighbors, marijuana farmers working for groups of patients could grow up to 99 plants on five acres of land. Numbered red zip ties had be affixed to each plant, confirming the county's seal of approval and giving a visiting deputy proof the pot was legally grown.
The one-of-a-kind program generated $663,230 for the sheriff's department - and prompted inquiries from other jurisdictions interested in creating their own.
But this month, the permitting system became the most striking casualty of the crackdown on medical marijuana cultivation and distribution by California's federal prosecutors. The board of supervisors ended the experiment after the U.S. attorney for Northern California threatened take the county to court for helping produce an illegal drug.
"We thought we had something that was working and was making our life easier so we could turn our attention to other pressing matters," Supervisor John McCowen said. "We were creating an above-ground regulatory framework that protected public safety and protected the environment. It was truly a landmark program."
Mendocino County
2nd State Judge Upholds Fracking Ban
New York
A New York state judge on Friday upheld an upstate community's ban on gas drilling, marking the second victory this week for opponents of the drilling method known as fracking.
The authority vested in towns and cities in New York to regulate use of their land extends to prohibitions on drilling, acting state Supreme Court Justice Donald Cerio ruled on Friday, dismissing arguments by a landowner who had already sold leases on almost 400 acres.
"Municipalities are not preempted ... from enacting local zoning ordinances which may prohibit oil, gas and solution drilling or mining," Cerio wrote. "The state maintains control over the 'how' of (drilling) procedures while the municipalities maintain control over the 'where.'"
Jennifer Huntington, a dairy farmer, argued the town of Middlefield's ban was pre-empted by a state law designed to create a uniform regulatory scheme for the oil and gas industry. Cerio disagreed, holding that nothing in the legislative history of the law and its numerous amendments suggested state lawmakers intended to stop towns from barring heavy industry.
Cerio's ruling was similar to a decision released on Tuesday that dismissed a bid by gas company Anschutz Exploration Corp to overturn a drilling ban in the Ithaca, New York, suburb of Dryden.
New York
Cardinal Shredded Abuse List
Philly
A Roman Catholic church official facing trial in a priest child abuse scandal created a list of problem priests in 1994, but Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua had it destroyed, according to a defense memo filed Friday.
Monsignor William Lynn, who's accused of keeping predator priests in ministry and transferring them from parish to parish, wants his child endangerment case dismissed because of new evidence turned over by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, including his list of 35 accused priests.
Lynn took it upon himself to review secret church files after becoming secretary for clergy in 1992, and he later gave a list of accused, still-active priests to his superior, Monsignor James E. Molloy.
Bevilacqua had Molloy shred four copies of the list, according to a memo signed by Molloy and a witness. But Molloy kept a copy in a locked safe at the archdiocese, where it was found in 2006, after Lynn had moved on, according to his motion.
"It is clear from the Molloy memo, and (its) belated production, that Monsignor Lynn has been 'hung out to dry,'" the defense motion says.
Philly
Sainthood Campaign Planned
Father Flanagan
The Omaha Archdiocese is launching a campaign for sainthood for Father Edward J. Flanagan, the Catholic priest who founded Boys Town and whose story was immortalized by an Academy Award-winning movie.
Flanagan dedicated much of his life to ministering to orphans and troubled youth, and is best remembered for establishing in 1917 the Omaha orphanage Father Flanagan's Boys Home.
The archdiocese will formally open the canonization process -- which is often lengthy -- with a March 17 prayer service at Boys Town's Immaculate Conception Church.
His story was told in the 1938 film, "Boys Town," starring Spencer Tracy, who won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Flanagan.
Father Flanagan
Puts Big Squeeze On Small Towns
Oil Shale Boom
The suspected kidnapping and murder of a Montana teacher by two men said to be seeking work in the oilfields of North Dakota underscores the darker side of a regional energy boom that has pumped jobs and money as well as newcomers and crime into rural towns.
Stepped-up oil and gas development in northwestern North Dakota and northeastern Montana is punctuating the landscape with drilling rigs, trucks and hastily erected barracks, known as "man camps," to house thousands of mostly male workers crowding into small communities where residents once greeted each other by name and left their homes and cars unlocked.
Even as oil and gas companies pour hundreds of millions of tax dollars into those states, leaders of boomtowns like Williston, North Dakota, and neighboring Sidney, Montana, say they are ill-equipped to cope with the rapid influx of people, traffic, construction, crime and soaring demand for housing.
Thousands of high-paying jobs have prompted the unemployed and under-employed from cash-strapped states across the nation to flock to the Williston area.
Senior citizens on fixed incomes and other residents unable to meet monthly rents that can skyrocket from $300 to $3,000 have been pushed out of the community even as some oilfield workers living in their cars - despite annual salaries that can top $100,000 - have joined a local health club to gain access to the facility's showers.
Oil Shale Boom
Culturally Insensitive
Place Names
Just east of Victorville in California's Mojave Desert two bluffs rise 3,000-feet from the valley floor. A 1949 map by the U.S. Geological Survey officially gave them the name locals had called them for as long as anyone could remember: Pickaninny Buttes.
The name, a pejorative term that represents a caricature of black children, was likely bestowed because African Americans attempted a settlement near the Lucerne Valley at the turn of the last century. Whatever the reason, it stuck - and still has the propensity to shock.
Pickaninny Buttes is one of thousands of places across the United States still saddled with names that are an insight into our divisive past, when demeaning names given to areas settled by ethnic or racial minorities were recorded on official government maps and often stuck. Some, like Wop Draw in Wyoming; Jewtown, Ga.; Beaner Lake, Wash.; Wetback Tank reservoir in New Mexico and Polack Lake in Michigan, can sound rudely impolitic to the ears of a more inclusive society.
Others, such as the former Olympic ski resort of Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe have become so ingrained in the vernacular that they're spoken without a second thought. And yet, nine states are on a mission to scrub "squaw" from their maps, a slang word first given to Native women that came to mean both a part of the female genitalia and a woman of ill repute. California is not among those states, to the continuing frustration of many regional Indian tribes.
"It's so disrespectful I'm not even going to say the name," said Chairman James Ramos of the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians in Southern California. "Every time I hear that I think of our women elders and my daughters and my wife, and I'm not going to degrade them that way by repeating the name. It's deplorable to all native people across the United States."
From Alaska to Florida and Maine to California there are 757 places with Negro in the name, according to an analysis of government records. Many of those place names were not spelled that way originally. There are also 20 places with "Dago" (and many more that have been changed to "Italian"), 1,100 Squaws, six "Polacks," 10 Cripples, 58 named Gypsy, 30 "Chinamans," eight "Injuns," 1 "Hebe Canyon," 35 "Spooks," 14 "Sambos" - including Black Sambo Mine in California - 30 "Spades," and too many "Coons" to count. There are also at least seven "Darkeys," another offensive name for black people.
Place Names
Weekend Box Office
'Act of Valor'
On Oscar weekend, the real-life action stars of "Act of Valor" bested Hollywood's pretend heroes.
The Relativity Media action flick, starring real, active-duty U.S. Navy SEALs, topped the weekend box office, earning $24.7 million according to studio estimates Sunday. That was a strong opening for a unique film made in collaboration with the Navy, which sought to demonstrate the skill and bravery of the SEALs without Hollywood imitation.
"Act of Valor" led another strong weekend at the box office, as it was up 24.4 percent over the corresponding weekend last year. Attendance this year is up 20.4 percent, a surge that hasn't been driven by Academy Awards contenders but by new films in a traditionally tepid movie-going season.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Act of Valor," $24.7 million.
2. "Tyler Perry's Good Deeds," $16 million.
3. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," $13.5 million.
4. "Safe House," $11.4 million.
5. "The Vow," $10 million.
6. "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance," $8.8 million.
7. "This Means War," $8.5 million.
8. "Wanderlust," $6.6 million.
9. "Gone," $5 million.
10. "The Secret World of Arrietty," $4.5 million.
'Act of Valor'
In Memory
Erland Josephson
Swedish actor Erland Josephson, who collaborated with legendary film director Ingmar Bergman in more than 40 films and plays, has died. He was 88.
The award-winning actor died at a Stockholm hospital on Saturday following a long battle against Parkinson's disease, said Royal Dramatic Theatre spokeswoman Christina Bjerkander.
Josephson was born into a family of artists and culture workers in Stockholm in 1923 and would become the actor who had the longest-running collaboration with Bergman. The two first met when Josephson was just 16 and participated as an amateur actor in the play "The Merchant of Venice," directed by Bergman.
Although he never had any formal acting education, Josephson continued to appear in several Bergman stage plays in the 1940s and 50s, and received a minor part in 1946 film "It Rains on Our Love." In the late 50s he played larger roles in Bergman's films "The Magician" and "Brink of Life," but first shot to international stardom with the role of Johan in "Scenes from a Marriage," in 1973.
After that, he received offers to appear in many international film productions and played Friedrich Nietzsche in Italian director Liliana Cavani's 1977 "Beyond Good and Evil." Josephson appeared in Philip Kaufman's 1988 "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and made memorable performances in Andrey Tarkovskiy's 1980s films "Nostalghia" and "The Sacrifice."
The actor won several Swedish film prizes and received an honorary award at the Rimini film festival in 1986. Two years later, he received the Off-Broadway Theater Award for best performance for his role as Gajev in Peter Brooks New York production of "Cherry Farm."
Josephson also published many novels and autobiographical books, two poetry collections and around 40 scripts for stage, radio and television. He served as head of Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre between 1966 and 1975, and was director of the Swedish Film Institute in the 1990s.
Josephson is survived by his wife Ulla Aberg and five children.
Erland Josephson
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
