Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Zachary Karabell: Americans' Outlook on the Economy Just Doesn't Square With the Facts (Slate)
Our sour mood is contradicted by almost every single economic indicator.
Alison Griswold: The Working Class Is Sinking and Dragging Walmart Down With It (Slate)
Business continues to disappoint at Walmart's U.S. locations.
Amanda Marcotte: Employers Now Making It Impossible to Be a Poor Working Mom (Slate)
Jodi Kantor published a devastating exposé in the New York Times this week, detailing the latest fresh hell visited upon low-wage workers by their corporate bosses: erratic work schedules created by "software that choreographs workers in precise, intricate ballets, using sales patterns and other data" to figure out how many hands are needed on deck at any hour of the day.
Luke McKinney: 6 Ways a Creationist Textbook Sabotaged Science (Cracked)
Not believing in science is like not being sexually attracted to the sun: It's not applicable, it doesn't care, and it still works to make your modern life possible, whether you like it or not.
Luke McKinney: The Greatest Self-Help Book Ever Written
Self-help books have a reputation for being terrible. Because they are. They're worse wastes of paper than a Toilet Paper Recycling License application form. The textual equivalent of someone patting your shoulder and saying "There, there," except you're paying a stranger to do it. Because it turns out prostitution is legal when it's tragic enough. Maybe the law feels sorry for you.
Deborah Orr: Lauren Bacall was the last of the Hollywood greats - but she also transcended them all (Guardian)
Hollywood created the expectation that women should be beautiful, young and vulnerable - to the loss of youth and beauty, if nothing else.
L.V. Anderson: Greek. Icelandic. French. Vietnamese. Why Are There So Many International Yogurts? (Slate)
Stepping into the dairy aisle of my local grocery store has begun to feel a little like entering Epcot Center: Every country in the world is represented there. OK, maybe not every country, but many countries.
David Rosenberg: This Woman Took a Self-Portrait Every Year in Just Her Birthday Suit (Slate)
A couple of decades ago, Lucy Hilmer found herself at J.C. Penney buying 60 pairs of lollipop underpants.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
has retired(?).
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
Corrected the TCM listings for today & tomorrow. Got a bit ahead of myself - the tribute to Lauren Bacall isn't until next month.
Creative Arts Winners
Emmys
Uzo Aduba is an Emmy winner for her breakout role as a prisoner known as "Crazy Eyes" in Netflix's "Orange is the New Black."
Aduba won as best guest actress in a comedy series for her portrayal of Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren, while Jimmy Fallon was honored as best guest comedy actor for NBC's "Saturday Night Live."
On the drama side, guest-acting honors went to Joe Morton for ABC's "Scandal" and Allison Janney for Showtime's "Masters of Sex."
Zach Galifianakis' interview with President Barack Obama last March on the actor-comedian's "Between Two Ferns" show on the Funny or Die website won the Emmy for best short-format, live-action entertainment program.
The biggest awards haul Saturday went to NBC's "Saturday Night Live," with five trophies. Fox's "Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey," a 21st-century edition of the 1980s series "Cosmos," earned four. Cable dramas "Game of Thrones" and "True Detective" and PBS' "Sherlock: His Last Vow" also picked up a quartet of honors each.
Emmys
Pro-Peace Protest
Israel
Thousands of Israeli supporters of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority to end the Gaza conflict demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
The pro-peace protest was the largest in Israel since it launched operation Protective Edge on July 8, an offensive that has seen at least 1,980 Palestinian deaths and 67 on the Israeli side.
It was organised by the opposition leftwing Meretz party and Peace Now, a group opposed to Jewish settlement building on occupied territory, and the communist Hadash party.
Police were deployed in force Saturday night in Tel Aviv's Yitzhak Rabin Square to prevent trouble with counter-demonstrators from the far right.
Israel
Stockholm Dedicates Film Festival
Lauren Bacall
The 2014 edition of the Stockholm International Film Festival will be dedicated to Lauren Bacall. The festival honored Bacall with the Stockholm Lifetime Achievement Award back in 2000.
At the time, Bacall came to the festival to receive her award, telling reporters at a press conference "If you want to be an actor, learn how to act then maybe you can be a star. If you want to be a star, that's your aim, then you will never be an actor. And you may also never be a star." She spent a week at the festival, leaving an undeniable impression on the many people that she met there.
The actress, who achieved notoriety after her 1944 film To Have and Have Not, rejected being called a legend, saying that she would rather focus on the present and on the future.
The 25th Stockholm International Film Festival will take place Nov. 5-16.
Lauren Bacall
Vintage Car Auctions
Pebble Beach
The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO that sold for $38.1 million last Thursday got the headlines. But there's another side to the week of automobile auctions that precede Sunday's 64th annual Concours d'Elegance classic-car show at the Pebble Beach golf resort.
Like the vintage 1959 Riley that sold for $5,500. Or the classic 1951 "bullet-nose" Studebaker that went for even less - just $4,000. By comparison, the 1962 Chrysler Imperial equipped with "triple cigarette lighters" cost a fortune: all of $9,500.
There's a pecking order to the Monterey Car Week auctions that culminate in the Concours. At the high end are the Bonhams auction at the posh Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley (aka "the Quail") and the Gooding auction at Pebble Beach, where the suggested bidding range for a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT Series 1 (a "poor" cousin of the $38 million prize) was $4.5 million to $6 million.
Then there's Mecum. You can spend a lot of money at auctions conducted by this Midwestern auction house with headquarters in southeast Wisconsin. A 1969 Corvette L88 coupe, with a 430-horsepower engine, sold this week for $450,000.
But you can also spend a whole lot less. The Mecum "DNA," as its auction hands proudly explain, is "something for everybody." Its Monterey auction is held at the Hyatt, not at the Quail. In the Gooding tent at Pebble Beach you see guys wearing shorts with blazers. In the Mecum tent they wear shorts and tee shirts. Untucked, of course.
Pebble Beach
Police Complain To BBC Over Search
Cliff Richard
South Yorkshire Police complained to the BBC over the broadcaster's coverage of the search carried out at pop star Cliff Richard's home on Thursday.
In a statement, the police force said it had been forced to cooperate with the BBC in its investigation over fears it would lose evidence.
Questions were raised about how the BBC was already at Richard's house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, when eight officers arrived to conduct the search.
The BBC says it followed "normal journalistic practice".
A committed Christian who shunned the sex, drugs and alcohol lifestyle, Richard in 1995 became the first British rock star to be knighted.
Cliff Richard
Imported Puppies
USDA
Foreign dog breeders have gone unregulated for years, shipping puppies so young and so sick that one in four died before reaching a U.S. airport, animal welfare workers say.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved a regulation Friday that, starting in 90 days, will require all puppies imported to the United States to be at least 6 months old, healthy, and up-to-date on vaccinations.
Census Bureau data show about 8,400 puppies a year were imported between 2009 and 2013. Because there were no regulations, however, the Humane Society of the United States believes the numbers were much higher, said Melanie Kahn, the society's director of puppy mill campaigns.
This is the second major USDA effort regarding puppy mills in the last 12 months. In September, the agency enacted what is called the "retail rule": Breeders having four or more female breeding dogs have to be licensed if they are selling to consumers sight unseen on websites, in flea markets or in classifieds.
USDA
Family Must Repay Benefits
Living Dead
The government wants to recoup benefits paid to the daughters of a man who was declared legally dead and then turned up alive years later.
Donald Miller Jr. disappeared in the 1980s, and a death ruling in 1994 allowed his family to get Social Security benefits. When the 62-year-old Miller resurfaced last August, saying he had lived in other states and then returned to Ohio, the government apparently took notice.
Miller has tried unsuccessfully to undo his death. Even as he stood in court last year providing evidence of his existence, a Hancock County judge turned down a request to bring him back to life, citing a three-year limit for changing a death ruling. The judge did acknowledge it was problematic.
Now the Social Security Administration wants his two daughters to return more than $47,000 to cover benefits they received as teenagers, plus interest, his ex-wife, Robin Miller, told The Courier in Findlay. Letters about the requested repayments were sent in April, and the family was stunned, she said.
Living Dead
Wildlife Officials Promote Sterilization
Tortoises
The federal government is taking the unusual step of beginning to sterilize an endangered species it is trying to save.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials say they have to curb the backyard breeding of desert tortoises because the growing population of unwanted pet tortoises diverts resources from efforts to preserve the species in the wild.
Mike Senn, assistant field supervisor for the Fish &Wildlife Service in Nevada, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that it can be "a really difficult issue" to explain to people. He said simply breeding more tortoises won't save the species if not enough is done to improve and protect natural habitat and address threats in the wild.
Captive tortoises threaten native populations because they can carry diseases with them when they escape or are released illegally in the desert.
The agency will hold a two-day clinic in Las Vegas later this month to teach veterinarians from Nevada, Arizona, California and Utah new sterilization techniques from the experts who pioneered them.
Tortoise
Weekend Box Office
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"
Moviegoers continued to shell out for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," while Sylvester Stallone's action ensemble "The Expendables 3" was easily out-gunned in its weekend debut.
Paramount Pictures' rebooted reptiles took in $28.4 million in the film's second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. That far surpassed the limp $16.2 million earned by Stallone's gang of aged but buff warriors.
The paltry, fourth-place total for "The Expendables 3" is well below previous debuts in the Lionsgate franchise. The last two "Expendables" opened with $34.8 million (in August 2010) and $28.6 million (in August 2012). The third film was the first to be rated PG-13 in the previously R-rated series, which potentially signaled watered-down explosiveness to an audience that was largely over 25, anyway.
Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" came in second with $24.7 million, bringing its three-week cumulative total to $222 million for distributor Walt Disney. Along with the Nickelodeon Movies-produced "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," the cosmic romp starring Chris Pratt has helped restore some strength to the summer box office. Sequels are already in the works for both films.
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. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," $28.4 million ($25.6 million international).
2. "Guardians of the Galaxy," $24.7 million ($33.1 million international).
3. "Let's Be Cops," $17.7 million ($650,000 international).
4. "The Expendables 3," $16.2 million ($15 million international).
5. "The Giver," $12.8 million.
6. "Into the Storm," $7.7 million (6.7 million international).
7. "The Hundred-Foot Journey," $7.1 million.
8. "Lucy," $5.3 million ($22 million international).
9. "Step Up All In," $2.7 million ($3 million international).
10. "Boyhood," $2.1 million.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"
In Memory
Rick Parashar
Veteran Seattle music producer Rick Parashar, who produced Peal Jam's seminal 1991 album Ten, died of natural causes on Aug. 14. He was 50.
Parashar passed away from natural causes stemming from a pulmonary embolism in his lower extremities at his home in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood, according to Northwest Music Scene.
Pearl Jam's 'Ten' Album Hits 10 Million in U.S. Sales
Parashar, who helped shape the Seattle music scene in the 1990s, co-founded the city's London Bridge Studio with his brother Raj in 1985. During his career, Parashar worked with numerous Seattle artists, including Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog, Brandi Carlile and My Goodness.
In addition to producing Pearl Jam's Ten, Parashar also played musical instruments on tracks "Black" and "Jeremy." Pearl Jam remembered Parashar by tweeting a photo of the producer and offering condolences to his friends and family.
Outside of Seattle artists, Parashar also worked on projects for Blind Melon, Dinosaur Jr., Melissa Etheridge, Bon Jovi and Unwritten Law. In 2001, he produced 3 Doors Down's "Away From The Sun" and was nominated for a Grammy for Nickelback's "Silver Side Up."
Rick Parashar
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