Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: What Greece Won? (NY Times)
Why all the negative analysis about the debt deal that has actually done the rest of Europe a favor?
Jacopo della Quercia: 6 Weirdly Specific Things That Screw All 2nd Term Presidents (Cracked)
Here's the truth about a two-term president: He or she is destined for disappointment the moment they're reelected. The first term is a weekend spa getaway compared to the pain in the ass that is the second four years. That's when all the shit that could possibly hit the fan does, and it doesn't happen by coincidence.
Gerard Jones: "Watership Down: 'Take Me with You, Stream, on Your Dark Journey'" (Criterion)
When the British Board of Film Classification gave Watership Down (1978) a U for Universal, it opined that, although it "may move children emotionally during the film's duration, it could not seriously trouble them once the spell of the story was broken." It's an opinion that has inspired a fair amount of derision over the years, and I understand why. This movie has troubled me ever since I first saw it-and I first saw it at twenty-one.
FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE: "Distraction techniques: Neil Gaiman's new book proves you can't read a short story online" (New Statesman)
Is any writer so joyously comfy in the digital age as Neil Gaiman?
Marina Hyde: "The Oscars: showcasing Hollywood's generous sense of global obligation" (Guardian)
What lessons can the Oscars of the travel industry or the Oscars of the golf service industry learn from Hollywood about making the world a better place?
Ben Beaumont-Thomas: "Halle Berry: 'If an Oscar winner tells you they can pick out hits, they're lying!'" (Guardian)
Still the only black woman to have won the best actress Oscar, Berry talks about frankly about the difficulty of finding great characters to play and her feelings about the state of the film industry.
Joe Queenan: The tyranny of Netflix: you must watch this movie. Now! (Netflix)
Thanks to video-on-demand, films never go away any more - so when I tell you to watch a weird Austrian cowboy movie, I expect you do it. This week.
Robert Evans, Anonymous: 4 Insane Life Lessons Learned Forging Documents for a Living (Cracked)
Our world is full of official documents: ID cards, licenses, certificates, checks -- paper stuff with words printed on it basically rules your entire life. But if you can fake those things, you can essentially manipulate the fabric of society simply by being really, really good at copying stuff. Cracked sat down with a career forger purely to learn about his life experiences, and not at all in a vain attempt to finally get our SCUBA certification.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has approximately 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
wrote:
took the day off.
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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
Pretty good storm blowing in.
Syfy to Pay Tribute
Leonard Nimoy
Syfy will air a five-hour programming block on March 1 to honor Leonard Nimoy, the cable channel announced Friday.
From 9AM-2PM (ET/PT), Syfy will air some of Nimoy's classic roles, such as his appearance on the original "Twilight Zone" and his guest role on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
It will also show "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," the 1991 feature that marked the final group appearance of the original "Star Trek" cast.
Leonard Nimoy
Moving Target
Bill O'Really
Following several stories questioning Bill O'Reilly's past reporting, a liberal media watchdog has ordered its researchers to comb through years of the Fox News Channel host's writings, radio and television shows and public appearances to find examples of inconsistencies.
O'Reilly is squarely in the crosshairs of Media Matters for America, an illustration of how the media is subject to the same political campaigns as politicians. Fox is standing behind O'Reilly, but the extent to which cable news' most popular personality is damaged may depend on how many more stories come out.
The effort began a week ago, after Mother Jones magazine reported that O'Reilly claimed to be in a "war zone" while reporting on the Falklands War in Argentina more than 30 years ago for CBS News, when instead he covered an anti-government demonstration more than 1,000 miles away from the front.
Media Matters, an organization formed 11 years ago by David Brock, has an $11.2 million operating budget and a mission devoted to combatting conservative media. It has 45 researchers on staff and, as first outlined in Politico, assigned most of them to O'Reilly's dossier after the Mother Jones article hit.
Bill O'Really
Childhood Home Sold
Paul McCartney
The childhood home of former Beatle Paul McCartney sold for £150,000 ($231,000, 206,000 euros) at an auction on Thursday in Liverpool, hometown of the legendary 1960s rock band.
The red brick terraced house in the south of the coastal city sold for £50,000 over its guide price to an anonymous bidder in Britain.
McCartney moved into the house aged four with his parents Jim and Mary in 1947, and the family was well known in the area of Speke due to his mother's job as a midwife.
The family lived in the three-bedroom house for six years.
Paul McCartney
Scripted Comedy Pilot
Craig Ferguson
"The Late Late Show" is being passed down to James Corden, who debuts on March 23, but former host Craig Ferguson is wasting no time returning to television - just a few hours earlier.
Ferguson has been cast to lead ABC's scripted comedy pilot "The King of 7B," Variety has confirmed.
The 30-minute laffer follows an agoraphobic recluse, Prentiss Porter, played by Ferguson, who ventures outside for the first time in 20 years, only to find his potential soulmate moving into the building across the street. The ensemble rounds out with the previously cast Carla Jiminez and Kirby Howell-Baptiste.
The project marks the return to primetime for the Scottish-born comedian, who starred in "The Drew Carey Show" for eight years before his latenight break. Since, he's appeared on "Web Therapy," "Hot in Cleveland," portrayed himself on "Family Guy" and lent his voice to "Futurama" and "Archer," among other animated series. Ferguson also hosts the syndicated game show "Celebrity Name Game."
Craig Ferguson
Environmental Group Sues EPA
Monarch Butterfly
An environmental group sued the U.S. government on Friday, accusing regulators of discounting the dangers that a widely used herbicide poses to the declining monarch butterfly population.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in U.S. District Court in New York. The suit claimed the agency has failed to heed warnings about the dangers to monarchs posed by glyphosate, the key ingredient in a widely used herbicide. Glyphosate is used in Monsanto Co's Roundup and other herbicides.
Federal law requires EPA to ensure that pesticides it approves will not cause "unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife," the lawsuit states. "However, the agency has never considered glyphosate's impacts on monarchs."
The NRDC and other environmental organizations have asked the EPA to review what they say is a large body of scientific evidence demonstrating glyphosate's "devastating" effects on monarchs, but the EPA has not acted, the suit claims.
Monarch Butterfly
St. Patrick's Parade
Boston
A Roman Catholic grammar school located near Boston has pulled out of the city's St. Patrick's Day parade in protest over organizers' decision to allow a gay veterans' group to march in next month's event.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary School, which traditionally sends its marching band to the South Boston route, said on Friday it would withdraw following a decision by the Allied War Veteran's Council, the parade's organizers, to admit a group of gay and lesbian veterans called OutVets to participate.
"We can't associate with that," Brother Thomas Dalton, principal of Immaculate Heart of Mary School, said in a phone interview. "It would appear we were condoning it."
Boston parade organizers said they would admit the OutVets group because its members were veterans. New York's parade this year opted to allow a group of gay and lesbian employees of NBC Universal, the unit of Comcast Corp that broadcasts the event, to participate.
Boston
Las Vegas
Measles
Three new cases of measles have been confirmed in Las Vegas, in people believed infected by a contagious worker at an upscale MGM Grand Hotel and Casino seafood restaurant, Nevada public health officials said on Friday.
The newly diagnosed patients, two staff members and a patron of Emeril's New Orleans Fish House at the MGM Grand, bring to nine the total number of measles cases reported in Clark County, Southern Nevada Health District spokeswoman Jennifer Sizemore said.
None of those cases are believed linked to an outbreak of measles that began at Disneyland in December, she said.
Nevada public health officials believe the Emeril's worker was infected by an infant who was too young to have been immunized against the highly contagious disease.
Measles
New Volcano Island
Nishinoshima
Famously crowded Japan is getting a bit more space as a newly-formed volcanic island just keeps on growing.
New footage of the remote Nishinoshima, some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) south of Tokyo, shows a volcano erupting up to six times a minute, spewing huge volumes of magma -- and scientists say there is plenty more still to come.
A tiny islet emerged in November 2013 right next to the original Nishinoshima, when molten rock cooled and began to poke its head just above the water.
That speck of land grew as the volcano kept going, and soon engulfed its once larger neighbour.
The new super-island is now a respectable 2.46 square kilometres (0.95 square miles), the Japan Coast Guard says -- roughly the size of 345 football pitches -- while the still-spewing volcano is now a healthy 100 metres (330 feet) tall.
Nishinoshima
In Memory
Leonard Nimoy
In 1975, Leonard Nimoy published an autobiography with the defiant title, "I Am Not Spock" - an attempt to show the world he had many more facets than the pointy-eared character that had come to define him.
Yet two decades later, after proving that with a career that became a rich blend of roles beyond "Star Trek" along with directing, writing and photography, he bowed to fate with "I Am Spock," a revisionist sequel.
Nimoy had come to appreciate Mr. Spock's enduring legacy and the inspiration the man of logic provided the actor and his fans alike.
Nimoy had skillfully turned what could have been a caricature into a dignified, inspiringly intellectual and even touching figure, a half-human, half-Vulcan who was a multicultural and multiethnic touchstone, well before it was hip.
Nimoy died Friday of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his Los Angeles home, with family at his side, said his son, Adam Nimoy. He was 83. His final public statement, last Sunday on Twitter, was thoughtful and bittersweet.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory," he wrote, followed by his customary "LLAP" signoff - shorthand for "Live long and prosper," Spock's catch phrase.
After "Star Trek" ended, the actor immediately joined the hit adventure series "Mission: Impossible" as Paris, the mission team's master of disguises. He also hosted the syndicated TV series "In Search of ... ," which attempted to probe such mysteries as the legend of the Loch Ness Monster.
Other notable roles included Israeli leader Golda Meir's husband opposite Ingrid Bergman in the TV drama "A Woman Called Golda; he continued to work well into his twilight years, playing wealthy genius William Bell in the Fox series "Fringe."
He also directed several films, including the hit comedy "3 Men and a Baby," and appeared in plays and published books of poems, children's stories and his own photographs.
But that work was always eclipsed by the role of the green-blooded space traveller that took him overnight from bit-part actor to TV star.
Embracing the role he'd once shunned, he even lampooned himself on such TV shows as "Futurama," ''Duckman" and "The Simpsons," and in commercials.
When the cast was reassembled for "Star Trek - The Motion Picture," in 1979, the film was a huge hit, and five sequels followed. Nimoy appeared in all of them and directed two. He also guest-starred as an older version of himself in some episodes of the spinoff TV series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Born in Boston to Jewish immigrants from Izyaslav, in what is now Ukraine, Nimoy was raised in an Italian section of the city where he said he felt the sting of anti-Semitism growing up.
At age 17, he was cast in a local production of Clifford Odets' "Awake and Sing" as the son in a Jewish family.
He won a drama scholarship to Boston College but eventually dropped out, moved to California and took acting lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse.
After service in the Army, Nimoy returned to Hollywood, working as taxi driver, vacuum cleaner salesman, movie theatre usher and other jobs while looking for acting work.
In 1954, he married Sandra Zober, whom he met at a Los Angeles theatre in the Hollywood area, and they had two children, Julie and Adam. They divorced, and in 1988 he married Susan Bay, a film production executive.
Last year, Nimoy used Twitter to announce he had pulmonary disease. He linked it to smoking, a habit he said he quit 30 years before. In January, he tweeted: "Don't smoke. I did. Wish I never had."
Besides his wife, son and daughter, Nimoy is survived by his stepson, Aaron Bay Schuck. Services will be private, Adam Nimoy said.
Leonard Nimoy
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