Recommended Reading
from Bruce
HENRY ROLLINS: I JUST HAD MY MIND BLOWN BY CHILEAN ROCK & ROLL (LA Weekly)
I'm glad that no matter what has become of humankind over the last few centuries - the advanced technology in weapon-delivery systems, the increased displacement of people from their native lands and other examples of humanity's sadistic ejaculations - that no matter how hard we try to snuff ourselves out, the music will not be stopped. To meet Juan Pablo, tour the environs of BYM Records and see how so much can be done with so little, if there is enough willpower and commitment, was not only an honor but another indicator that the highest road always has a great soundtrack.
Lucy Mangan: Whatever happened to the Great British Battleaxe? (The Guardian)
Alan Bennett is right to lament the disappearance of these indomitable matriarchs - they were a wonder of my childhood.
Jonathan Jones: "I've read Pratchett now: it's more entertainment than art" (The Guardian)
My dismissal of the literary merits of the late Terry Pratchett raised hackles among fans. Now I am better read, and can admire his clever wordplay. But I still believe the best prose lives in the real world.
Jonathan Jones: Oops, butter fingers! I live in ultimate fear of ruining a million-pound painting(The Guardian)
I feel for the Taiwanese klutz who slipped and punched a hole in a 17th-century painting. It's only a matter of time before my own slapstick moment.
Jacob Brogan: Unlearning to Write (Slate)
Ursula Le Guin's guide to the impossible craft of storytelling.
Jacob Brogan: What Ray Bradbury's FBI File Teaches Us About Science Fiction's Latest Controversies (Slate)
Still, in their oddities and banalities alike, all of these documents-and especially those that pertain to Bradbury-are important reminders that science fiction invites us to see and think in new ways. It's not always ideologically inclined, but it has rarely strayed far from the political.
Amy Wallace: Who Won Science Fiction's Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters (Wired)
Not a single Puppy-endorsed candidate took home a rocket. In the five categories that had only Puppy-provided nominees on the ballot-Best Novella, Best Short Story, Best Related Work, and Best Editor for Short and for Long Form-voters instead preferred "No Award."
Robert Evans, Calix Reneau, Doug Woodhams: 5 Things I Learned In The Middle Of An Ebola Outbreak (Cracked)
A long, long time ago (autumn of 2014), you may recall there was a worldwide panic over Ebola. While the threat of an outbreak in the USA was never more than an Internet meme, in West Africa, it looked like the fucking apocalypse.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit cooler.
Dig Uncovers 10,000-Year-Old Stone Tools
Redmond, Washington
An archaeological survey to clear the way for construction near a mall has unearthed thousands of stone tools crafted at least 10,000 years ago.
"We were pretty amazed," archaeologist Robert Kopperl, who led the field investigation, told The Seattle Times. "This is the oldest archaeological site in the Puget Sound lowland with stone tools."
The rare find is shedding light on a time when prehistoric bison and mammoths still roamed what is now western Washington. Only a handful of archaeological sites dating back 10,000 years or more have been discovered in the region.
Chemical analysis of one of the tools revealed traces of the food they were eating, including bison, deer, bear, sheep and salmon. The dig also uncovered a fragment of salmon bone, evidence that the fish made its way up local streams for at least 10,000 years. It also revealed other unusual tools, including the bottoms of two spear points that have concave bases.
The site near Redmond Town Center mall in Redmond, Washington, was initially surveyed in 2009, as the city embarked on a project to restore salmon habitat in Bear Creek, a tributary of the Sammamish River. The creek had been confined to a rock-lined channel decades before.
Redmond, Washington
School Districts See Shortages
Teachers
When a new school year began at the Sierra Sands Unified district 150 miles north of Los Angeles in August, students in four classes were greeted by a substitute.
The small district's human resources department had worked aggressively through the summer to attract new teachers. Staff members made out-of-state recruiting trips, highlighting their area's low cost of living and proximity to Los Angeles. The district revamped its website and asked residents to tap their families and friends for job candidates.
Still, when the bell rang on the first day of class, they fell four teachers short.
After years of recession-related layoffs and hiring freezes, school systems in pockets across the United States are in urgent need of more qualified teachers.
Teachers
Panties In A Bunch
Burning Man
Burning Man is considering legal action against sandwich chain Quiznos over a video ad that pokes fun at the festival, an event organizer said.
Spokesman Jim Graham said Friday that festival officials see the video as theft of Burning Man's intellectual property.
The YouTube video parodies the upcoming movie, "Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials," and portrays the characters frolicking and eating Quiznos at Burning Man in the northern Nevada desert. The video was posted Tuesday and has been viewed more than 760,000 times.
The San Francisco-based Burning Man has taken outside entities to task before over intellectual property rights, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. According to Graham, Burning Man won a lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild, which films and markets video of topless women.
Burning Man
Boston Sightings
Chinese Marsh Turtle
Two odd-looking Chinese soft-shelled marsh turtles raised for food in Asia have been seen south of Boston, and there's concern they could eventually threaten local ecosystems if they become established in the northeastern New England states.
New England Aquarium experts said Saturday it is possible someone decided to release the animals after buying them for cooking. They urge people not to release non-native animals into the wild, and to report any sightings of the soft-shelled turtle.
People on Wollaston Beach in Quincy saw a turtle digging in the sand this past week, and the aquarium's marine animal rescue team picked it up for identification. A second sighting was reported later in the week.
The turtles live in brackish marshes and ponds in eastern Asia. Hillgarth said they are considered endangered in the wild in China, but more than 300 million are raised annually on farms. The animals have become invasive in the Philippines, and have established themselves in Hawaii, California, and Virginia. They have been seen in New York and Maryland.
Chinese Marsh Turtle
Often Have Psychological Issues
Homophobes
Homophobic attitudes may say a lot about the person who holds them, new research suggests.
A new study of university students in Italy revealed that people who have strongly negative views of gay people also have higher levels of psychoticism and inappropriate coping mechanisms than those who are accepting of homosexuality.
This doesn't mean that homophobic people are psychotic; rather, psychoticism is a personality trait marked by hostility, anger and aggression toward others. But the study does suggest that people who cling to homophobic views have some psychological issues, said lead researcher Emmanuele Jannini, an endocrinologist and medical sexologist at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
Earlier research has found homophobia to be a complex subject, with some studies suggesting that people with visceral negative reactions to gays and lesbians often harbor same-sex desires themselves. Other studies, though,contest that idea, and suggest that homophobic people are truly averse to same-sex attraction. Other factors - such as religiosity, sensitivity to disgust, hypermasculinity and misogyny - seem to play a role in anti-gay beliefs, Jannini and his colleagues wrote in an article published Sept. 8 in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Homophobes
Faces Scrutiny
Fantasy Sports
Think wagering $20 to win $1 million by picking a winning combination of NFL players for a fantasy team this Sunday is gambling? The league says it isn't.
So do fast-growing daily fantasy sports companies like DraftKings and FanDuel that offer the games and advertise with the long gambling-adverse pro football organization.
But as the lucrative NFL betting season ramps up and advertisements from DraftKings and FanDuel are as hard to miss as an extra point, Las Vegas casinos and sports books are feeling like they're on the wrong end of a double-standard. Traditional sports betting is barred outside a handful of states, including Nevada, but daily fantasy sports is allowed in most of the United States.
Seizing on the disparity, traditional casino operators and sports books are calling for traditional sports betting to be given the same respect.
Fantasy Sports
Policing In US
Drones
Drones are increasingly making their mark in the arsenal of US police forces, operating in a legal gray area and sparking concerns of constant surveillance of civilians.
The specter of armed drones surfaced with a law passed in North Dakota last month that allows police to equip the aircraft with teargas.
Up to two dozen police forces are currently fully equipped with drones and trained to use them, including pioneers Grand Forks in North Dakota; Arlington, Texas; Mesa County, Colorado and the Utah Highway Patrol.
According to the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, at least 60 police forces across the country -- from Houston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama, North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Miami-Dade County -- have asked for drone certification.
Some cities, like San Jose, California, only have pilot programs. Others such as Seattle, Washington, bought drones and then gave up on the program in the face of public outcry.
Drones
Renaming Stirs Emotional Protests
Paul Smith's College
Paul Smith's College already has the Joan Weill Adirondack Library and the Joan Weill Student Center thanks to the largesse of the wife of a Wall Street billionaire. Now, for just $20 million, she can have her name on the whole place.
The agreement to rechristen the tiny school in the mountains of northern New York as Joan Weill-Paul Smith's College has drawn the ire of alumni - "Smitties," as they call themselves - who say the deal sets a bad precedent for charitable giving.
"It shows a complete lack of integrity," said Scott van Laer, a forest ranger and 1993 graduate who filed a brief opposing the school's legal bid to go against the will of the school's founder. "It's not a stadium where you can renegotiate naming rights."
Now, the opponents are awaiting a state Supreme Court judge's decision on the will of J. Phelps Smith, which decreed that the school shall "forever known as Paul Smith's College of Arts and Sciences" to honor his father, whose hotel had stood on the campus's lakeside site. The decision could come any day.
Paul Smith's College
Weekend Box Office
'The Perfect Guy'
"The Perfect Guy" and "The Visit" sailed past modest opening weekend expectations - and budgets - locking in debuts in the mid-$20 million range thanks in part to good timing and robust female turnout.
"The Perfect Guy," a PG-13 rated thriller starring Sanaa Lathan and Michael Ealy, secured the first place spot with $26.7 million, according to Rentrak estimates on Sunday. The Sony/Screen Gems film cost only $12 million to produce.
M. Night Shyamalan's nail-biter "The Visit," a $5 million production from micro-budget horror-makers Blumhouse, took a close second with an estimated $25.7 million for distributor Universal. With numbers this close, the places might shift when Monday actuals roll in, but both films are resounding successes on a weekend that often doesn't go noticed on the release calendar.
In third place, "War Room" continues to prove mightily powerful with $7.4 million in its third weekend in theaters, but the faith-based categorization isn't always a sure revelation. "90 Minutes in Heaven," a Christian film starring Kate Bosworth, opened in ninth place to only $2.2 million from 878 locations. It's a fine result for the film, but pales in comparison to "War Room" which now boasts a $39.2 million domestic total.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1."The Perfect Guy," $26.7 million.
2."The Visit," $25.7 million ($3.8 million international).
3."War Room," $7.4 million ($300,000 international).
4."A Walk in the Woods," $4.7 million ($300,000 international).
5."Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation," $4.2 million ($91.3 million international).
6."Straight Outta Compton," $4.1 million ($4.3 million international).
7."No Escape," $2.9 million ($1.5 million international).
8."Transporter Refueled," $2.7 million ($5.2 million international).
9."90 Minutes in Heaven," $2.2 million.
10."Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos," $1.9 million.
'The Perfect Guy'
In Memory
Frank D. Gilroy
Frank D. Gilroy, whose play about a veteran's fraught return home, "The Subject Was Roses," won him a Pulitzer Prize, died Saturday in Monroe, New York. He was 89.
Gilroy, who served in the Army from 1943 to 1946 in the European Theatre, also won a Tony Award for "The Subject Was Roses." It premiered on Broadway in May of 1964. He then wrote a screenplay for a 1968 film adaptation starring Jack Albertson and Patricia Neal, which would earn both supporting Oscar nominations and a win for Albertson.
The Bronx native attended Dartmouth and the Yale Drama School after serving in the Army and went on to work as a screenwriter for live television and film for years. Credits include shows "Studio One in Hollywood," and "Playhouse 90," and films "The Gallant Hours," and "The Fastest Gun Alive." Gilroy also directed movies for television and the big screen, including the 1971 Shirley MacLaine drama "Desperate Characters."
His three sons all currently work in the film industry. Both Tony Gilroy and Dan Gilroy followed directly in their father's footsteps as writer-directors. Tony Gilroy wrote the first three "Bourne" films and co-wrote (with Dan Gilroy) and directed "The Bourne Legacy," which starred Jeremy Renner.
Dan Gilroy, meanwhile, gained attention in the industry for the Los Angeles noir "Nightcrawler," starring Jake Gyllenhaal and his own wife, actress Rene Russo. John Gilroy, a seasoned film editor, also worked on "Nightcrawler."
In addition to his sons, he is survived by Ruth, his wife of 62 years, and five grandchildren.
Frank D. Gilroy
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