Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Henry Rollins: Figuring It Out, All Over Again (LA Weekly)
For the last 30-plus years, I have been doing one long, uninterrupted improv. When I arrived in the adult world, I understood that, in order to eat, I would have to stay hungry, no irony intended. I mean I knew I would have to be relentless in order to hang in there. I would have to be fearless and be prepared for failure and setbacks.
Connie Schultz: Our President, the Writer (Creators Syndicate)
The longer Barack Obama is our president the more grateful I am that I first met him as a fellow writer. I may not always agree with him, but I never doubt that he's thought it through. He is, by nature, a reflective man.
President Obama's Handwritten Tribute to the Gettysburg Address
One hundred fifty years after President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, President Obama penned a handwritten tribute to President Lincoln's historic remarks. Read his essay below, then share it with others.
Froma Harrop: 'Wild Turkey on the Rocks?' (Creators Syndicate)
Much we believe about turkeys is not true. Myth No. 1: They were served at the "first Thanksgiving" feast in Plymouth, Mass. There's no evidence for that. The Plymouth Colony governor, an observer wrote, "sent foure men on fowling" for the dinner. Fowling is an Old English reference to waterfowl. So ducks and geese were probably on the menu, not turkey.
Yvonne Roberts: A third of young women feel they 'cannot cope' (Guardian)
Poll reveals a bleak picture of loneliness, low pay, unhappiness and bouts of mental illness as a generation feels it has no one to turn to.
Rosanna Greenstreet: "Q&A: Meg Rosoff" (Guardian)
My worst trait? I inspire road rage.
Eva Wiseman: I'm a celebrity agent… get me out of here! (Guardian)
The celebrities arriving in the jungle have already won the show's toughest challenge - selection. Here's a peek behind the scenes as their agents wait for the call.
Felix Clay: The 5 Parts of Sex Porn Doesn't Prepare You For (Cracked)
When I was in my teens, I assumed that, at some point in the hopefully near future, I would be elected sexual dynamo supreme of my county and take my rightful place as idolized cocksmith and humptastic thrustegenarian that all the ladies for several area codes would want, nay, need to get with.
Jessica Roake: So Long, Holden (Slate)
High schoolers need a new Catcher in the Rye. Luckily David Mitchell wrote one.
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to sunny and seasonal.
Least Influential List
GQ
Dennis Rodman is at the top of a list no one wants to be on. He's been named GQ's No. 1 least influential celebrity of 2013.
The 52-year-old former basketball player who has visited Kim Jong Un in North Korea was selected as the top pick in the magazine's third annual list of the least influential celebrities, which also includes twerking pop star Miley Cyrus, President Barack Obama, and celebrity chef Paula Deen. GQ called Rodman a "Q-list celebrity willing to commit borderline treason just to hang out with a dictator who himself aspires to be a Q-list celebrity."
Deen, whose cooking empire imploded this year after she admitted to having used the N-word to describe black employees, came in at No. 2 on the list behind Rodman, while former sexting U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner took the No. 3 spot.
Cyrus, who garnered attention at this year's MTV Video Music Awards for her provocative performance with a foam finger, won the No. 6 position for "basically trying every inane strategy she could think of to rile up America's few remaining pearl clutchers." The magazine noted "what's sad is that it totally worked."
Other celebrities deemed non-influential include Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith.
GQ
International Emmys To Honor
J.J. Abrams
J.J. Abrams may be immersed in a galaxy far, far away these days, but he's taking a break from preproduction work on the new "Star Wars" film to accept a special honor at the 41st International Emmy Awards Gala.
Zachary Quinto, who recently reprised his role of Spock in Abrams' successful reboot of the "Star Trek" franchise, will present the honorary International Emmy Founders Award to the director-producer at Monday night's awards ceremony at the Hilton New York.
Abrams is executive producer of three currently running TV shows - the science-fiction series "Revolution" and "Almost Human" and "Person of Interest," the crime drama revolving around an omnipresent government-sponsored surveillance network that premiered well before the recent revelations about the National Security Agency.
The presentation to Abrams will highlight the awards ceremony, hosted by British comedian John Oliver of "The Daily Show," in which 36 nominees from 19 countries will be competing for International Emmys in nine categories. The awards honor excellence in TV programming outside the U.S.
J.J. Abrams
Great-Grandfather
Mick Jagger
Don't bother calling Mick Jagger, grandpa!
The 70-year-old rocker's granddaughter, Assisi, 21, confirmed that she is set to give birth to her first child in 2014. According to the first-time mom, the legendary singer is thrilled about the news, so long as you don't call him grandpa.
"He said, 'Well done,'" Assisi shared in an interview with Hello! magazine. "I imagine it's nice to be a great-granddad, although I'm not sure he likes the idea of getting old, or being called one. I call him Mick - I wouldn't start calling him grandpa."
Assisi's mother, designer Jade Jagger, 42, followed up on her daughter's interview telling The Sunday Times that the "Gimme Shelter" singer has always been a family man.
"I think making Mick a grandfather obviously had a big impact whereas, now, making him a great-grandfather is no longer particularly fascinating," she said. "My dad has always been great at keeping the family together and having those important moments - Christmas parties, his birthday. We'll be spending New Year's Eve together, nearly all of us [in Mustique]."
Mick Jagger
Sells For $112K At Auction
Superman-JFK Comic Book
A 50-year-old comic book featuring Superman's alter-ego, Clark Kent, as President John F. Kennedy in disguise was sold at an auction for $112,015.
Curt Swan's original cover drawing for Action Comics #309 sold at auction last week in York County, the York Daily Record reports (http://bit.ly/1dufwxC).
On the cover is Superman shaking hands with Clark Kent and a word arrow asks the reader, "Who is the mystery masquerader?"
Alex Winter, general manager of Hake's Americana and Collectibles, says the comic book came out days after the president was shot to death Nov. 22, 1963. Winter says the coincidence has made the comic book almost legendary and the timing of the auction was planned to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's death.
Superman-JFK Comic Book
Captain Describes Fear
Greenpeace
The U.S. captain of the Greenpeace ship seized by the Russian coast guard described on Sunday the stress and fear he and the other 29 people on board felt when they were thrown into Russian jails, with no idea when they would get out.
Most of them were released on bail last week after spending two months behind bars, and all were expected to be free soon.
"The hardest thing was the uncertainty, the anxiety, the damn fear," Peter Willcox, a veteran Greenpeace activist who was the ship's captain, told The Associated Press. "Everybody lost weight during the first three weeks, and not because of food, but because of stress."
Investigators have since said they no longer consider the protest to have been piracy, but all 30 still face charges of hooliganism, which could send them to prison for up to seven years.
Greenpeace
Letter To Auction
Mercury 7
In October 1961, Gus Grissom glumly confided to his mother in a letter that is now up for auction that he and his fellow Mercury 7 astronauts resented John Glenn after he was picked to be the first American to orbit the Earth.
Within the famously competitive group, Glenn had emerged as the face of the space program, while Grissom was reluctant in front of the press. When he wrote to his mother, Grissom was still stinging from his Liberty Bell 7 flight on July 21, 1961, that ended with a blown hatch, a sunken space capsule and accusations that the former Air Force fighter pilot had panicked.
"The flight crew for the orbital mission has been picked and I'm not on it," he writes in slanting script, each line of blue ink climbing slightly from left to right on the Project Mercury letterhead. "Of course I've been feeling pretty low for the past few days. All of us are mad because Glenn was picked. But we expressed our views prior to the selection so there isn't much we can do about it but support the flight and the program."
The letter is being auctioned online by RR Auction of Amherst, N.H., which got it from Grissom's brother, Lowell.
Virgil "Gus" Grissom was the second American to make a suborbital flight. After splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean, his craft sank when the hatch blew open prematurely and it filled with water. Grissom narrowly escaped drowning and insisted until his death in a 1967 Apollo launch pad fire that he did nothing to cause the hatch to blow.
Mercury 7
Because We Say So
Vatican
The Vatican publicly unveiled a handful of bone fragments purportedly belonging to St. Peter on Sunday, reviving the scientific debate and tantalizing mystery over whether the relics found in a shoe box truly belong to the first pope.
The nine pieces of bone sat nestled like rings in a jewel box inside a bronze display case on the side of the altar during a Mass commemorating the end of the Vatican's yearlong celebration of the Christian faith. It was the first time they had ever been exhibited in public.
Pope Francis prayed before the fragments at the start of Sunday's service and then clutched the case in his arms for several minutes after his homily.
No pope has ever definitively declared the fragments to belong to the Apostle Peter, but Pope Paul VI in 1968 said fragments found in the necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica were "identified in a way that we can consider convincing."
In 1971, Paul VI was given an urn containing the relics, which were kept inside the private papal chapel inside the Apostolic Palace and exhibited for the pope's private veneration each June 29, for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. Sunday marked the first time they were shown in public.
Vatican
Surprisingly Calm
Solar Cycle
The surface of the sun has been surprisingly calm of late -- with fewer sunspots than anytime in in the last century -- prompting curious scientists to wonder just what it might mean here on Earth.
Sunspots have been observed for millennia -- first by Chinese astronomers and then, for the first time with a telescope, by Galileo in 1610.
The sunspots appear in roughly 11-year cycles -- increasing to a daily flurry and then subsiding drastically, before amping up again.
But this cycle -- dubbed cycle 24 -- has surprised scientists with its sluggishness.
The number of spots counted since it kicked off in December 2008 is well below the average observed over the last 250 years. In fact, it's less than half.
Solar Cycle
Weekend Box Office
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" opened with $161.1 million at the domestic weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.
It became the biggest November debut ever, as well asLionsgate's most lucrative opening.
The marketplace largely ceded the weekend to "Catching Fire." The only other new wide release was Disney's Vince Vaughn comedy "Delivery Man," which sputtered to an $8.2 million opening.
After two weeks atop the box office, "Thor: The Dark World," released by Disney, slid to second with $14.1 million. After an impressive opening, the romantic comedy "The Best Man Holiday" added $12.5 million for a two-week total of $50.4 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," $161.1 million ($146.6 million international).
2. "Thor: The Dark World," $14.1 million ($24.8 million international).
3. "The Best Man Holiday," $12.5 million.
4. "Delivery Man," $8.2 million ($1.2 million international).
5. "Free Birds," $5.3 million ($575,000 international).
6. "Last Vegas," $4.4 million ($2.4 million international).
7. "Bad Grandpa," $3.5 million ($2.4 million international).
8. "Gravity," $3.3 million ($46.6 million international).
9. "12 Years a Slave," $2.8 million.
10. "Dallas Buyers Club," $2.8 million.
"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"
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