Recommended Reading
from Bruce
BENJY SARLIN: "Forget Nate Silver: Meet The Guy Who Called 2012 In 2002" (TPM)
Calling all 50 states the day before the election as Nate Silver did is one thing - predicting President Obama's winning majority 10 years in advance is hard to top. But that's what Ruy Teixeira did.
Paul Krugman: Let's Not Make a Deal (New York Times)
… President Obama has to make a decision, almost immediately, about how to deal with continuing Republican obstruction. How far should he go in accommodating the G.O.P.'s demands? My answer is, not far at all.
RYAN J. REILLY: Republicans 'Test' For Voting Fraud, Wind Up In Custody (TPM)
Two Republicans in separate states were taken into police custody during the past week for allegedly attempting to test how easy it would be to commit voter fraud.
BENJY SARLIN: Karl Rove Defends His $300 Million Disaster (TPM)
Karl Rove boasted on the eve of Tuesday's election that all signs pointed towards an electoral college landslide. He was right about the result, just wrong about the candidate. And now it's up to Rove to explain to donors why, after blowing through $300 million of their money, President Obama is still President Obama and Harry Reid still runs the Senate.
Michael Moran: The 5 People Who Won the Election for Obama (Slate)
Many, many people deserve to be singled out by President Obama for their role in his re-election. Dogged fundraisers, the legion who mobilized his voters on Election Day, countless brave souls who held their own in barroom debates, late night dorm room arguments and at the dinner tables all over America.
Annalee Newitz: A mysterious, giant hand rises from the Chilean desert (io9)
The Atacama is one of several gorgeous, seemingly lifeless deserts that make Chile look like another world. And that's why it's been popular with artists since before the days of the Inca. There's nothing like a blank landscape if you want to create a massive, haunting sculpture.
Rene Rodriguez: The New James Bond Film Ranks Among Best in the 007 Franchise (The Miami Herald)
Here's how movies get made sometimes: Actor Daniel Craig was at a party in New York City. He had knocked back a few drinks and was feeling a bit buzzed when he spotted his friend and fellow Brit Sam Mendes, who had directed him in 2002's "Road to Perdition."
Roger Ebert: Skyfall (PG-13; 4 stars)
I don't know what I expected in Bond No. 23, but certainly not an experience this invigorating.
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, clear and much colder than seasonal.
Headstone Placed
Norman "Chubby" Chaney
Fans of the "Little Rascals" film series were in Baltimore this weekend to place a headstone at the grave of child actor Norman "Chubby" Chaney.
Chaney's grave had been unmarked for 76 years since he died at age 21. Chaney was paid a weekly salary when he appeared in the films between 1929 and 1931. But he didn't receive any royalties or residual payments and returned to Baltimore when he grew out of the role. The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday (http://bitly.com/SEUYDk) that he struggled with his weight as a teenager. When he died, his mother couldn't afford a headstone for his grave.
The series was known as "Our Gang" when it was shown in theaters and later as the "Little Rascals" on television.
Norman "Chubby" Chaney
Joins Bartlett's Club
Obama
So much has changed since we last heard from "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations," a decade ago.
Barack Obama was a state legislator. Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla. Steve Jobs had just introduced a portable music player called the iPod.
The 18th edition of the venerable reference work has just been released, the first for the electronic age and a chance to take in some of the new faces, events and catchphrases of the past 10 years. General editor Geoffrey O'Brien says he has expanded upon the trend set by his predecessor, Justin Kaplan, of incorporating popular culture into an anthology once known for classical citations. Shakespeare and the Bible still reign, but room also has been made for Madonna and Michael Moore, Justin Timberlake and Jon Stewart.
Seven Obama quotations are listed, from his campaign slogan "Yes, we can!" to his announcement that U.S. special forces had killed Osama bin Laden. Palin's entry includes the quip from her speech at the 2008 Republican convention that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was "lipstick." Job's dying words, "Wow, oh wow," are among four citations for the late Apple CEO, including a 1987 comment that "It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy."
Others in Bartlett's for the first time: Christopher Hitchens ("Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake"); David Foster Wallace ("Make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us"), Stewart (his nightly signoff, "Here it is ... your moment of Zen"), Timberlake (his apology for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show).
Obama
'Water Lilies' Fetches Over $43M
Claude Monet
A work from Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" series has been sold for more than $43 million at a New York City auction.
The money will benefit the Hackley School in suburban Tarrytown, N.Y.
The work dates from 1905. That's the year Monet began a feverish phase of paintings depicting his garden's lily pond in Giverny, France. The work that was sold is considered among the best.
The painting is from the estate of Ethel Strong Allen, widow of Wall Street executive Herbert Allen Sr.
Claude Monet
NY Exhibit
Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was the quintessential tastemaker of the post-Civil War Gilded Age. He's famous for his iridescent leaded-glass windows and lamps. But most of his commissions were for America's houses of worship at a time of unprecedented church-building.
"Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion" is a new exhibit at The Museum of Biblical Art in New York City. It's the first major show to focus exclusively on Tiffany's religious output of altars, baptismal fonts, mosaics, windows and other liturgical ornamentation. It features 84 objects. Ten are stained-glass windows.
The exhibition runs through Jan. 20.
There's also a luminous window at New York's Temple Emanu-El of the Ten Commandments. The museum will lead tours to see it Dec. 6 and Jan. 9.
Tiffany
Genetically Different
Identical Twins
Identical twins may not be so identical after all. Even though identical twins supposedly share all of their DNA, they acquire hundreds of genetic changes early in development that could set them on different paths, according to new research.
The findings, presented Friday (Nov. 9) here at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting, may partly explain why one twin gets cancer while another stays healthy. The study also suggests that these genetic changes are surprisingly common.
"It's not as rare as people previously expected," said study presenter Rui Li, an epidemiologist at McGill University.
While past studies have looked at genetic changes, or mutations, in sperm and eggs, which can be passed on to offspring, very few studies have looked at somatic mutations. These mutations, also called copy errors, can occur early in fetal development, but because they aren't in the sex cells (the X or Y chromosomes) of the fetus, they can't be passed on.
Identical Twins
Linked to Ticks
Rare Allergy
Signs of a rare allergy to red meat, which can begin when a person is bitten by a certain tick species, are being detected in people beyond the southeastern U.S. where the ticks reside, according to new research.
The red meat allergy was first described in 2008, and it causes symptoms that can include hives, skin rashes, indigestion, and in extreme cases, anaphylaxis, a state of whole-body inflammation that is potentially deadly.
The results showed that people living in regions where lone star ticks are found were 32 percent more likely to have antibodies of a type called "alpha-gal IgE," which are involved in the allergy. These antibodies bind to a sugar found in meat, and their presence in the blood means the person has had some type of reaction to meat, with symptoms ranging from very mild to life-threatening.
But in regions free of lone star ticks, rates of positive test results were unexpectedly high, researchers found. Across the western coastal states, and in Idaho and Nevada, 23 percent of residents tested positive for the alpha-gal sugar, indicative of a meat allergy. Researchers found a similar percentage of people testing positive in the north-central part of the country, including the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, but only 4 percent of residents from Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexicotested positive.
Rare Allergy
National Constitution Center Exhibit
Prohibition
A hatchet used to bust up saloons, the verdict sheet from Al Capone's trial, and lawman Eliot Ness' sworn oath of office are among the more sobering artifacts in a new exhibit documenting the driest period in U.S. history.
But the items help tell a lively tale as part of "American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition." The installation now on view at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia also includes a re-created speakeasy, where visitors can learn the lingo and fashions of the Roaring '20s and even how to dance the Charleston.
Exhibit organizers describe the 18th Amendment, which essentially banned alcohol from 1920 to 1933, as the country's "most colorful and complex constitutional hiccup." Yet they say the lessons of Prohibition remain relevant in current debates over issues like legalizing marijuana and the role of government in private lives.
To that end, the exhibit aims to answer a simple question: "How did this happen?" And the first step, of course, was admitting the nation had a drinking problem.
In 1830, the average American downed 90 bottles of 80-proof liquor per year - three times current consumption. Women were among the imbibers, as evidenced by the exhibit's bottle of Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound: The remedy for "female complaints" was nearly 21 percent alcohol.
Prohibition
2 New Colonies Spied in Antarctica
Emperor Penguin
Researchers have finally found a long-sought colony of emperor penguins in eastern Antarctica, but they say it's been split in two due to a glacier break. Moreover, a tally of the 6,000 chicks among these two populations suggests there are more emperor penguin parents in this part of the frozen continent than previously thought.
French scientists spied the waddling, flightless birds on winter sea ice near the Mertz Glacier while on their way to Dumont d'Urville Station. (The documentary "March of the Penguins" was filmed near this research base.)
One population has about 2,000 baby penguins and the second, about 4,000 of the chicks. Since emperor penguin parents can only have one chick per year, the researchers say there are likely more than 8,500 breeding pairs in the region, about three times more than previously estimated.
Since 1999, French scientists had suspected they would find a big emperor penguin colony around the Mertz Glacier, but had been unable to pinpoint the population. Then, in 2009, a British survey found the likely location of the colony based on images from space.
The researchers believe the two groups of penguins belonged to the same colony that was detected in 2009, but became separated after the Mertz Glacier break and are now attempting to settle again on favorable surroundings.
Emperor Penguin
Weekend Box Office
'Skyfall'
James Bond's "Skyfall" has extended its worldwide box-office rule to North America, hauling in a franchise-record $87.8 million in its first weekend at U.S. theaters.
That lifts the worldwide total for "Skyfall" to $518.6 million since it began rolling out overseas in late October. Internationally, the 23rd Bond flick added $89 million this weekend to raise its overseas revenue to $428.6 million.
"Skyfall" was the weekend's only new wide release, but Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" had a huge start in a handful of theaters. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president, "Lincoln" took in $900,000 in 11 theaters for a whopping average of $81,818 a cinema. By comparison, "Skyfall" averaged $25,050 in 3,505 theaters.
"Lincoln" centers on the months leading up to the president's assassination in April 1865, as he maneuvers to pass the 13th amendment abolishing slavery and end the Civil War. Distributor Disney will expand "Lincoln" into nationwide release of about 1,600 theaters Friday and may widen the film further over Thanksgiving week.
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. "Skyfall," $87.8 million.
2. "Wreck-It Ralph," $33.1 million.
3. "Flight," $15.1 million.
4. "Argo," $6.7 million.
5. "Taken 2," $4 million.
6. "Here Comes the Boom," $2.6 million
7. "Cloud Atlas," $2.53 million.
8. "Pitch Perfect," $2.5 million.
9. "The Man with the Iron Fists," $2.49 million.
10. "Hotel Transylvania," $2.4 million.
'Skyfall'
In Memory
Valerie Eliot
Valerie Eliot, the widow of T.S. Eliot and zealous guardian of the poet's literary legacy for almost half a century, has died. She was 86.
Born Valerie Fletcher in Leeds, northern England, on Aug. 17, 1926, Eliot was the second wife of the U.S.-born Nobel literature laureate. She met him at London publisher Faber & Faber, where he was a director and she a star-struck secretary who had been a fan of his work since her teenage years.
The poet's first marriage, to the mercurial Vivienne Haigh-Wood, had been unhappy; she died in an asylum in 1947.
He and Valerie wed in 1957, and friends described the marriage as a happy one despite the almost 40-year gap in their ages.
Valerie Eliot later recalled that their routine included evenings at home eating cheese and playing Scrabble and trips to the theater.
"He obviously needed a happy marriage," she later said. "He wouldn't die until he'd had it."
After T.S. Eliot's death in 1965, Valerie became his executor, editing his poems and letters for publication and steadfastly refusing to cooperate with would-be biographers, in keeping with the poet's last wishes.
She did, however, welcome the unlikely idea of a stage musical based on a volume of Eliot's whimsical verses, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." It became the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats," a global hit that brought in huge sums for the Eliot estate.
Valerie Eliot used some of the windfall to set up a literary charity, Old Possum's Practical Trust. She also funded the T.S. Eliot Prize, an annual award for poetry.
She oversaw publication of a much-praised facsimile edition of T.S. Eliot's modernist masterpiece "The Waste Land" - whose bleakness was thought by some to have been influenced by his first marriage - and edited multiple volumes of letters that gave scholars new insights into the intensely private poet.
The latter was a long and unfinished project - the third volume of letters, published earlier this year, reaches only to 1927.
A death notice in the Daily Telegraph newspaper said there would be a private funeral at St. Stephen's Church, where the Eliots both had worshipped, near their home in west London.
Valerie Eliot
In Memory
Henry Colman
Television producer and executive Henry Colman - whose credits include "The Love Boat," ''Hawaii Five-O" and "Green Acres" - has died at age 89.
An announcement Sunday by the Archive of American Television says Colman died Wednesday.
His career dates to early commercial television, where he started as production coordinator on the musical show "Easy Does It." In 1951, Colman became assistant to the director for "Kraft Television Theatre" and later worked on such series as "Robert Montgomery Presents" and "Colgate Comedy Hour."
As a TV executive, Colman oversaw the pilot of "The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis" and worked on "Green Acres" and "Hawaii Five-O."
In the 1970s, he helped develop "The Love Boat," where he worked as line producer. Colman also produced the 1980s series "Hotel."
Henry Colman
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