Recommended Reading
from Bruce
HENRY ROLLINS: I GOT AN HONORARY DEGREE, WHICH IS HILARIOUS (LA Weekly)
Last year, I was given the Ray Bradbury Creativity Award by Woodbury University in Burbank. I went, accepted the award from the university's president, addressed faculty and staff, and shook a lot of hands. As I was about to leave, the president asked if I would deliver the commencement address to the graduating class of 2015. I said yes.
HENRY ROLLINS: WHY I'M NOT AN ATHEIST (LA Weekly)
I told him that I had no religious or spiritual beliefs but was too lazy for atheism. I was trying to be funny, but basically it's true. Many years ago, I concluded that people need leadership and rules to follow. Government, laws, the threat of incarceration, traffic lights. Freedom is great, but the freedom to drive over someone and go on your way isn't. I reckon that religion was an early method of keeping people from running amok.
Eddie Deezen: 30 Celebrity Mottos (Netorama)
I do think everyone, whether they realize it or not, has a philosophy of life and basic rules of how they conduct themselves. I guess if they had a motto, it would reflect these. And of course, a person's motto would reflect the person, him or her self. Let's take a look at the actual mottos of 30 well-known people.
2-year-old and garbage man's special bond is priceless (YouTube)
"When you are two years old, there's nothing more impressive than a big truck that comes to your house. And this one comes every week! Little Deacon Ross looked forward to seeing O.D. and his garbage truck every Friday. And the sanitation worker made friends with the toddler. But now the family is moving away, and USA Today showed up for O.D.'s last run by Deacon's house." - Neatorama
Know Your Meme: Atheist Arya
On November 2nd, 2013, Tumblr user halfprincesshalfgoddess posted an image macro featuring a photograph of actress Maisie Williams portraying the character Arya Stark in Game of Thrones with the caption "Did you just use your bible to warn me about hell? / May I quote from ASOIAF to warn you about Joffrey?"
Ivan Farkas, Alyssa Feller: The 5 Actual Happiest Places On Earth (Cracked)
Cynicism is easy to come by when literally any combination of words punched into a search engine reveals twisted pornography and creative racism. But optimism takes work. That's why we decided to go out of our way to find some of the greatest places on the planet; places that people created simply to try to make existence a bit more awesome for those around them.
Scott Burns: The Thinness of Wealth (AssetBuilder)
Are we heading toward a retirement crisis, or not? It's a simple question. But when a question has many answers, we should pause. Earlier this year three researchers examined the scope of the estimates. They found an astounding range. On the optimist side, economists William Gale, John Karl…
22 Inspiring Acts of Kindness That No One Ever Talks About (Cracked)
While we here at Cracked consider it our duty to shatter the illusions that hold your fragile life together, we also try to spread some good vibes to make up for it. Our readers have gathered a collection of inspirational acts of kindness that will make you feel just a little bit better about the world.
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, wrote:
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Greeting
Memorial Day 2015
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
Still sunny, still on the cool side.
Indy 500 Tribute
David Letterman
David Letterman has a new No. 1 on his personal Top Ten list of reasons he loves the Indianapolis 500.
The freshly retired Letterman was all grins early Sunday as his IndyCar team paid tribute to the former "Late Show" host by putting a gap-toothed, smiling caricature of his face and #thanksdave on driver Oriol Servia's yellow car for the big race.
"With everything that's happened, it's the highlight of my career," Letterman said. "It's crazy it's the Indianapolis 500. Regrettable my face, but also my name on that car. It's just delightful."
Letterman was dressed in a red shirt with a race sponsor "Steak 'n Shake" logo. He promised Servia he would buy the burgers with an Indy win, but he can save his cash for retirement: Servia was knocked out of the running with an accident just past the halfway point of the race.
David Letterman
Groups Plant Coconut Trees
Hawaii
Demonstrators spent Saturday planting coconut trees and waving signs in rallies across the Hawaiian Islands as part of an international day of protests against agriculture business Monsanto.
The protesters complained about the impacts that companies like Monsanto have on the community when they spray fields with chemical pesticides. They say they want agribusiness companies to stop using Hawaii as a testing ground for pesticides and genetically modified foods.
On Maui, a group spent the day sowing fields with crops to encourage local farming. An estimated 200 demonstrators planted 2 acres of sweet potatoes, banana starts and more than 100 coconut trees, said Courtney Bruch of GMO Free Maui.
The Maui group was joined by Neil Young, who performed a song from his upcoming album called "The Monsanto Years," Bruch said.
Hawaii
New Interview
Art Garfunkel
Art Garfunkel lashed out at his former Simon & Garfunkel partner Paul Simon in a scathing new interview where the singer accuses Simon of suffering from a Napoleonic complex and suppressing Garfunkel's creativity. Speaking to The Telegraph, Garfunkel also cites Simon as the reason why the duo aren't embarking on a reunion tour and even takes a mild jab at Paul McCartney.
"Will I do another tour with Paul? Well, that's quite doable. As far as this half is concerned, why not? But I've been in that same place for decades. This is where I was in 1971." Garfunkel said before pretending to address Simon. "How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul? What's going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?"
Regarding their post-Bridge Over Troubled Water breakup, Garfunkel said, "It was very strange. Not my choice. Nothing I would have done. I want to open up about this. I don't want to say any anti-Paul Simon things, and I love that the world still loves Simon & Garfunkel, but it seems very perverse to not enjoy the glory and walk away from it instead. Crazy. What I would have done is take a rest from Paul, because he was getting on my nerves. A rest was very much called for. The jokes had run dry. But a rest of a year was all I needed."
In the interview, Garfunkel relays an anecdote about meeting George Harrison and how the Beatles guitarist compared Paul Simon to Paul McCartney. "George came up to me at a party once and said 'my Paul is to me what your Paul is to you.' He meant that psychologically they had the same effect on us. The Pauls sidelined us," Garfunkel said. "I think George felt suppressed by Paul and I think that's what he saw with me and my Paul. Here's the truth: McCartney was a helluva music man who gave the band its energy, but he also ran away with a lot of the glory."
Art Garfunkel
Up For Sale
Chronomegaphone
As the Cannes Film Festival comes to a close, a more than century-old precursor to cinema's 'talkies', the Chronomegaphone, will soon be available in France to the highest bidder.
The device, an essential element in the birth of sound films, was Invented by Frenchman Leon Gaumont in 1902. Only 50 Chronomegaphones were manufactured and shipped around the world. Similar to the classic gramophone, it uses compressed air to amplify sound for large spaces.
Purchased in 1912 for 8,330 francs (the equivalent of two million euros or $2.2 million today), this Chronomegaphone is valued at more than one million euros by the auctioneer who will put it up for sale on June 7 at the Chateau d'Artigny near the city of Tours in central France.
Comprised of four trunks weighing in at around 450 kilos (992 pounds), the Chronomegaphone has remained in the family of its original buyer Charles Proust, who had ambitions to take it to Mexico to play "photoscenes".
Proust's first turn in Latin America proved faulty when he forgot to factor in the different electrical current in Mexico. His projection of the French song "La legende du roi Gambrinus" lasted under three minutes.
Chronomegaphone
Church Unnerved
Ireland
The once-dominant Catholic Church in Ireland was trying to come to terms Sunday with an overwhelming vote in favour of gay marriage, saying it needed a "new language" to connect to people.
As jubilant "Yes" supporters nursed their hangovers after partying late into the night following Saturday's referendum result, the faithful attended mass to hear their priests reflect on the new social landscape in Ireland.
The majority of Irish people still identify themselves as Catholic but the Church's influence has waned in recent years amid growing secularisation and after a wave of clerical child sex abuse scandals.
Final results showed 62 percent in favour and 38 percent against introducing gay marriage in a country where being homosexual was a crime until 1993.
Ireland
Reopens After Walk Out Over Pickpockets
Eiffel Tower
Paris's iconic Eiffel Tower was shut to tourists for several hours on Friday as staff walked off the job to protest a surge in gangs of pickpockets roaming around the monument.
The closure of one of the busiest tourist attractions in the French capital ahead of a long holiday weekend recalled a similar strike at the Louvre museum in 2013 as staff protested against the often violent pickpockets stalking the halls of the palace.
Workers at the 126-year-old iron lattice tower -- a glittering symbol of Paris -- finally went back to work at around 4:00 pm (1400 GMT), after hundreds of disappointed tourists were turned away throughout the day.
The statement from the workers said they want "formal guarantees from management that lasting and effective measures will be taken to end this scourge to which numerous tourists fall victim every day."
Eiffel Tower
Government Hunters To Thin Herd
Double Crested Cormorants
Government hunters have begun scouting an island at the mouth of the Columbia River as they prepare to shoot thousands of hungry seabirds to stop them from eating baby salmon.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Diana Fredlund said hunters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services agency went to a small uninhabited island off Ilwaco, Washington, on Thursday to survey the land before carrying out plans to reduce the population of double crested cormorants from about 14,000 breeding pairs to 5,600 pairs by 2018.
An environmental impact statement calls for them to shoot adult birds, spray eggs with oil so they won't hatch, and destroy nests. Carcasses of dead birds will be donated to educational and scientific institutions, or otherwise disposed of through burial or incineration.
The cormorant population on East Sand Island near Ilwaco, Washington, has grown from about 100 pairs in 1989 to some 14,000 pairs now, making it the largest cormorant nesting colony in the West. Soil dredged from the bottom of the Columbia to deepen shipping channels was dumped on the island over the years, expanding the area available for nesting.
Double Crested Cormorants
Popular Trail Closed
Yellowstone
Two of the most heavily used day-hiking routes in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in northwest Wyoming are closed for the time being because of weather damage and maintenance.
In Yellowstone, the iconic Brink of the Lower Falls trail is closed in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone because of a mud and rock slide that deposited a 7-by-8-foot boulder on the route, effectively blocking the path.
Work can't begin to remove the enormous rock on the Brink of the Lower Falls trail in Yellowstone because of wet weather, Yellowstone spokeswoman Traci Weaver said Thursday.
"It's closed until further notice," she said, "until we get a drying trend and are able to get in there and deal with it."
Yellowstone
Record Breaking Temperatures
Yukon
Yukon's hot, dry weather continues to shatters records across the territory as a heat wave enters its second week, keeping fire crews on high alert.
David Millar, a retired meteorologist based in Whitehorse, says temperatures broke records in seven communities Saturday and he expects further records to be set Sunday.
Millar says Whitehorse reached 27.4 C (81.3 F), eclipsing the old record 24.4 C (75.9 F) from 1960, Haines Junction 26.6 (79.8 F), old record 22.8 (73 F) from 1960
and Dawson 29.1 (84.3), old record 26.5 (79.7 F) from 2002
Yukon
In Memory
Anne Meara
Actress and comedian Anne Meara, whose comic work with husband Jerry Stiller helped launch a 60-year career in film and TV, has died. She was 85.
The Stiller family released a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday describing Jerry Stiller as Meara's "husband and partner in life."
The couple performed as Stiller & Meara on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other programs in the 1960s and won awards for the radio and TV commercials they made together. Meara also appeared in dozens of films and TV shows, including a longtime role on "All My Children" and recurring appearances on "Rhoda," ''Alf," ''Sex and the City" and "The King of Queens." She shared the screen with her son in 2006's "Night at the Museum."
Meara was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting role on "Archie Bunker's Place," along with two other Emmy nods, most recently in 1997 for her guest-starring role on "Homicide." She won a Writers Guild Award for co-writing the 1983 TV movie "The Other Woman."
Besides her husband and son, Ben, Meara is survived by her daughter, Amy, and several grandchildren.
Anne Meara
In Memory
John and Alicia Nash
John Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematical genius whose struggle with schizophrenia was chronicled in the 2001 movie "A Beautiful Mind," has died along with his wife in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was 86.
Nash and Alicia Nash, 82, of Princeton Township, were killed in a taxi crash Saturday, state police said. A colleague who had received an award with Nash in Norway earlier in the week said they had just flown home and the couple had taken a cab home from the airport.
Known as brilliant and eccentric, Nash was associated with Princeton University for many years, most recently serving as a senior research mathematician. He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1994 for his work in game theory, which offered insight into the dynamics of human rivalry. It is considered one of the most influential ideas of the 20th century.
In an autobiography written for The Nobel Foundation website, Nash said delusions caused him to resign as a faculty member at MIT. He also spent several months in New Jersey hospitals on an involuntary basis.
However, Nash's schizophrenia diminished through the 1970s and 1980s as he "gradually began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking," he wrote.
The 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind" won four Oscars, including best picture and best director, and generated interest in John Nash's life story. The movie was based on an unauthorized biography by Sylvia Nasar, who wrote that Nash's contemporaries found him "immensely strange" and "slightly cold, a bit superior, somewhat secretive."
Much of his demeanor likely stemmed from mental illness, which began emerging in 1959 when Alicia was pregnant with a son. The film, though, did not mention Nash older son or to the years that he and Alicia spent living together after divorcing. The couple split in 1963, then resumed living together several years later and finally remarried in 2001.
Born in Bluefield, W. Va., to an electrical engineer and a housewife, Nash had read the classic "Men of Mathematics" by E.T. Bell by the time he was in high school. He planned to follow in his father's footsteps and studied for three years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University), but instead developed a passion for mathematics.
He then went to Princeton, where he worked on his equilibrium theory and, in 1950, received his doctorate with a dissertation on non-cooperative games. The thesis contained the definition and properties of what would later be called the Nash equilibrium.
Nash then taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for several years and held a research post at Brandeis University before eventually returning to Princeton.
John and Alicia Nash
In Memory
Marcus Belgrave
Marcus Belgrave, a jazz trumpeter who graced stages and studios with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Cocker and Motown artists galore, died Sunday. He was 78.
Belgrave died at an Ann Arbor care facility and the cause of death was heart failure, said Hazelette Crosby-Robinson, a cousin of Belgrave's wife Joan.
Belgrave remained active on the Detroit and international jazz scenes up until his death. Born into a family of musicians in Chester, Pennsylvania, he started playing professionally at 12 and joined The Ray Charles Band in the late 1950s - what he once described as "the beginning of my musical life."
He came to Detroit in 1962 and became a studio musician for Motown Records, playing on hits including "My Girl," ''The Way You Do the Things You Do" and "Dancing in the Street." After Motown decamped to California in the early '70s, Belgrave stayed in Detroit and co-founded Tribe Records and recorded with a collective of jazz artists.
He became an original member of Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in 1988 at the request of Wynton Marsalis, and in 2006 was featured at Jazz at Lincoln Center's presentation, "Detroit: Motor City Jazz." He also was a prolific mentor and teacher, serving as a professor or visiting artist at numerous institutions, including Detroit-area schools, Michigan State University, Stanford University, University of California and Oberlin College.
In 2009, he received the Kresge Foundation's Eminent Artist award, honoring nationally acclaimed artists who have pursued careers in Detroit. In a special book the philanthropic foundation published at that time, Belgrave said, "After 65 years of letting the music live through you, it just comes to you."
Marcus Belgrave
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