Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Froma Harrop: Victims of Campus Rape Should Be Dialing 911 (Creators Syndicate)
If a 19-year-old high-school dropout raped by her ex-boyfriend wants justice, she calls the police. The same should apply to a 19-year-old college freshman similarly attacked by another student.
Henry Rollins: Remembering Manzanar (LA Weekly)
Several days ago, I attended the 45th annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and spent all day into the evening on the grounds where, from 1942 to 1945, thousands of people of Japanese descent were held as World War II ignited the planet.
Jim Vorel: The 100 Best "B Movies" of All Time (Paste)
Whenever possible, I tried to keep the list to more obscure titles. Although John Carpenter's Halloween is a great example of a superbly made "B movie" in terms of budget, any film fan has most likely seen it already. Gathered here is a collection of some of the most entertainingly cheap and endearingly bad movies ever made.
The Deadliest Animal in the World (Neatorama)
What is the deadliest animal in the world? Sharks are pretty scary, and snakes even more so. Ask anyone, and they'll probably tell you that humans are the deadliest animal. Humans do kill a lot of other humans, but the creature that kills the most humans on earth every year is the ….
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Meskel Square, Addis Abeba (YouTube)
Meskel Square. The nerve center of Addis Ababa [in Ethiopia], is often the site chosen by the Ethiopians for festivals and celebrations but also is a chaotic crossroads thousand vehicles cross daily.
33 First-World Anarchists Who Don't Care About Your Rules (Bored Panda)
The world relies on rules and regulations to run in an orderly fashion. But there's a few people out there who are rebels. They won't follow your rules - they're their own masters. This post is for the first-world anarchists - the revolutionaries who don't care about your rules.
Winston Rowntree: 4 Ways Pop Culture Critics Have Made Themselves Obsolete (Cracked)
This isn't going to be one of those "artist versus critic" things where I, the artist, impugn critics and equate them to trolls and demand they create something better than I can or shut up because art. Like it or not, artists can't dismiss critics for the simple reason that art IS in part criticism ...
Julianne Ross: What Tabloid Headlines Would Look Like if They Didn't Treat Women Like Sex Objects (PolicyMic)
Vagenda Magazine, a blog that describes itself as "a big 'we call bullshit' on the mainstream women's press," recently took it upon itself to flip the script on these sensational tabloid stories. Vagenda asked its Twitter followers to send "normalised" versions of snarky headlines, and the results are brilliantly subversive - and hilarious.
Vagenda Magazine
"Like King Lear, But for Girls"
Vagenda on Twitter
"Like King Lear on Twitter, But for Girls"
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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.
So - to let you know what's going on, the guestbook on bartcop.com is
still open for those who want to write something in memory of Bart.
I did an interview on Netroots Radio about Bart's passing
( www.stitcher.com/s?eid=32893545 )
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
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
Thanks, Marc!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Santa Ana winds are blowing a few months early.
Eurovision Song Contest Winner
Conchita Wurst
Austrian bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst won the 59th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday with a James Bond-inspired entry that had unleashed a wave of protests in eastern Europe before the competition.
The power ballad, "Rise Like a Phoenix," helped Wurst - the alter ego of 25-year-old Thomas Neuwirth - secure Austria's second victory in the competition with 290 points. The country also won in 1966.
Pushing the boundaries of gender identity is nothing new at Europe's annual song contest, an extravaganza known for its eclectic, sometimes unlistenable lineup of techno beats, love songs and pop tunes. The winner in 1998 was Israel's Dana International, who had male-to-female gender reassignment surgery several years before competing.
Still, Wurst had been faced with some protests before the competition, highlighting a rift between Europe's progressive liberal side and the traditional values and nationalist rhetoric of Russia and some other nations taking part.
Conchita Wurst
Donated To Kansas Museum
Fossils
A collection of 85 million-year-old fossils including a fish as big as a great white shark with a face like a bulldog has been donated to a new Kansas museum after an outcry from scientists helped scrap a San Diego museum's plans to sell them at auction.
The San Diego Natural History Museum last November reversed its plans to sell the fossils, which could have fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, after critics argued such valuable prehistoric material should stay in the public domain.
The donation was announced on Sunday by the San Diego museum and the Museum at Prairiefire in Overland Park outside Kansas City, Kansas, a $28 million institution set to open on Monday.
The decision coincides with a lively debate in the museum community over institutions selling off parts of their collections to raise funds.
The five items being donated were unearthed in Kansas in the early 20th century by famed fossil hunter Charles Sternberg.
Fossils
Gamma Waves
Lucid Dreaming
Nighttime dreams in which you show up at work naked, encounter an ax-wielding psychopath or experience other tribulations may become a thing of the past thanks to a discovery reported on Sunday.
Applying electrical current to the brain, according to a study published online in Nature Neuroscience, induces "lucid dreaming," in which the dreamer is aware that he is dreaming and can often gain control of the ongoing plot. The findings are the first to show that inducing brain waves of a specific frequency produces lucid dreaming.
For the study, scientists led by psychologist Ursula Voss of J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, built on lab studies in which research volunteers in the REM (rapid-eye movement) stage of sleep experienced a lucid dream, as they reported when they awoke. Electroencephalograms showed that those dreams were accompanied by telltale electrical activity called gamma waves.
Voss and her colleagues therefore asked, if gamma waves occur naturally during lucid dreaming, what would happen if they induced a current with the same frequency as gamma waves in dreaming brains?
When they did, via electrodes on the scalp in a technique called transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), the 27 volunteers reported that they were aware that they were dreaming. The volunteers were also able to control the dream plot by, say, throwing some clothes on their dream self before going to work. They also felt as if their dream self was a third party whom they were merely observing.
Lucid Dreaming
Britain's Billionaire Haven
London
A new study of the super-rich finds that London has become the capital of the world's wealthiest, with more billionaires than any other city.
The Sunday Times, which published the list, says London has 72 residents whose fortunes exceed 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion). That's well ahead of Moscow, at 48, New York, at 43, San Francisco at 42, Los Angeles at 38 or Hong Kong at 34.
The newspaper reports that Britain also has more billionaires per head than any other country, with one in billionaire for every 607,000 Britons versus one for every 1 million or so Americans.
The newspaper has long published an annual list of the Britain's richest people, but this was the first time it took the additional step of seeing how the country's overall standing compared to that of other countries.
London
Federal Agents Seek to Loosen Rules
Hacking Computers
A U.S. proposal to expand the U.S. Justice Department's ability to hack into computers during criminal investigations is furthering tension in the debate over how to balance privacy rights with the need to keep the country safe.
A committee of judges that sets national policy governing criminal investigations will try to sort through it all. It's weighing a proposal made public yesterday that would give federal agents greater leeway to secretly access suspected criminals' computers in bunches, not simply one at a time.
The underlying goal is to take rules written for searching property and modernize them for the Internet age. The proposal arrives at a precipitous time for a government still managing backlash to electronic spying by the National Security Agency that was exposed last year by contractor Edward Snowden.
"I don't think many Americans would be comfortable with the government sending code onto their computers without their knowledge or consent," Nathan Freed Wessler, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a telephone interview. "The power they're seeking is certainly a broad one."
Hacking Computers
Places Bet In Japan
Sheldon Adelson
Two U.S. billionaires are betting on rival cities, Tokyo and Osaka, to be the first in Japan to open casino resorts - once the government gives the go-ahead to legalize gambling.
Japan is one of the world's last untapped gaming markets and could become the third largest gambling destination after Macau and the United States, with annual revenue of over $40 billion, according to broker CLSA.
In a race for first-mover advantage, 76-year-old Chicago real estate mogul Neil Bluhm has set his sights on the southern commercial hub of Osaka, while Las Vegas gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson, four years his senior, is putting his weight behind a Tokyo flagship resort.
Bluhm, who owns casinos in Pennsylvania, Chicago and Niagara Falls, has a net worth of $2.6 billion, according to Forbes. The former lawyer and now head of Rush Gaming believes Osaka, one of Chicago's 'sister cities', has the kind of flexible local government that will help drive this project, and, crucially, has "shovel ready" casino sites.
While Adelson hasn't ruled out pitching for Osaka, too, he sees Tokyo as the main prize, given its highly affluent 13.2 million population. The CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp , who Forbes says is worth close to $39 billion, has pledged to spend $10 billion as Japan opens up to legal gambling - an offer he says his rivals can't match.
Sheldon Adelson
Lotto Winners Bankroll Campaign
Scottish Independence
A couple who won a record EuroMillions jackpot in 2011 are bankrolling the campaign for Scottish independence, contributing £2.5 million in the past year, the campaign said Sunday.
Colin and Christine Weir, from Largs near Glasgow, won 185 million euros (then $260 million) in July 2011, becoming Europe's biggest ever lottery winners.
New figures show that since April 1, 2013, the Weirs each contributed £1.25 million to the campaign for a "Yes" vote in September's referendum, in addition to their £1 million donation the previous year.
Their contribution makes up the vast majority of the £3.15 million received by the campaign in the past year. Another 11,000 people have made donations.
Scottish Independence
New Tokyo Restaurant
Japan
Bald is beautiful at a new Tokyo restaurant, where follicularly challenged customers are welcomed with open arms and offered discounts not available to their hairier brethren.
The Japanese-style pub in Tokyo's Akasaka district, not far from the central government offices, encourages customers to embrace their loss of hair, not hide it.
"Baldness is a very delicate issue in Japan, but in Hollywood there are a number of stars who completely ignore their hairless state and proudly carry out their work," said owner Yoshiko Toyoda.
Each bald customer gets a 500 yen ($4.92) discount, with the rewards increasing along with the number of bald customers in each group. If five go drinking together, one drinks for free.
Posters on the pub's walls feature bald trivia. (Which nation has the highest rate of baldness? Answer: The Czech Republic, with 43 percent, followed by Spain and Germany).
Japan
Weekend Box Office
'Neighbors'
Seth Rogen and Zac Efron have bested the web-slinger at the box office.
Rogen and Efron's family-versus-fraternity comedy "Neighbors," was the top draw for moviegoers this weekend, unseating last week's champ, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2."
The Universal release earned a "fresh" rating from review aggregator RottenTomatoes.com, with 74 percent of film critics responding favorably to the film. Conversely, Sony's "Amazing Spider-Man 2" earned a "rotten" rating of 54 percent.
Another comedy, the Cameron Diaz-Leslie Mann revenge romp "The Other Woman" held onto third place in its third week of release, adding $9 million to its take. "Heaven Is for Real" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" round out the top five.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.
1. "Neighbors," $51 million ($34.4 million international).
2. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," $37.2 million ($69.5 million international).
3. "The Other Woman," $9.25 million ($13.1 million international).
4. "Heaven Is for Real," $7 million.
5. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," $5.6 million ($3.5 million international).
6. "Rio 2," $5.1 million ($14.1 million international).
7. "Moms' Night Out," $4.2 million.
8. "Legends of Oz," $3.7 million.
9. "Divergent," $1.7 million ($3 million international).
10. "Brick Mansions," 1.3 million.
'Neighbors'
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