Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Power and Paychecks (NY Times)
Maybe it's not that hard to give American workers a raise, after all.
Amy Sohn: How the Tax Code Hurts Artists (NY Times)
WITH tax day looming, you can practically hear the cries of creative professionals across the country. That's because the tax code hits many right where it hurts, by penalizing them for the distinctive way they make money.
Rebecca Schuman: The Hierarchy of Humanities Schadenfreude (Slate)
Scoffing at academic job-market losers comes from some unexpected places.
CARMEN MARIA MACHADO: O Adjunct! My Adjunct! (New Yorker)
I spent half of my undergraduate career figuring out what I didn't want to do. I started off in the journalism program, switched to literature, was undecided for a few panicked, free-floating months, and studied photography for a time. But the spring of my sophomore year, I enrolled in a fiction-writing workshop with an instructor named Harvey Grossinger.
Adam Gopnik: Why an Imperfect Version of Proust is a Classic in English (New Yorker)
The art of translation is usually a semi-invisible one, and is generally thought better for being so. A few translators' names are familiar to the amateur reader-we know about Chapman's Homer, through Keats, and Richard Wilbur's Molière is part of the modern American theatre-but mostly translators struggle with sentences for even less moment (and money) than other writers do.
#1 Song on Your Birthday
"You cannot fail to have fun with this site, which tells you the #1 hit song the day you were born - or, perhaps more tellingly, the night you were conceived . . . plays them for you . . . and (just because it was so easy for whoever programmed this to toss in), tells you the number of minutes you've been alive." - Andrew Tobias
little things mean a lot / kitty kallen (YouTube)
This song was number #1 the day I was born.
Sophie Heawood: "Beyoncé, Johnny Depp, David Beckham: the mums and dads passing on celebrity" (Guardian)
Once upon a time, people needed passion and hunger to achieve success and stardom. Now, they just need a famous parent.
Jarvis Cocker meets Iggy Pop: 'The more money a band has, the worse their records get' (Guardian)
As Iggy Pop starts his new Friday-night slot on BBC 6 Music, fellow DJ Cocker catches up with him to talk music, Miami and Marxism.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
, wrote:
said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
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
Hot - nearly 90° again.
Uses Birthday Money
Brandon Heyman
Last summer, Brandon Heyman, 9, vowed to save 17-year-old thoroughbred mare Karazan after learning that the former racehorse had been purchased by a meat buyer and was destined for the slaughterhouse.
The young redhead spotted the horse on a rescue website and immediately wanted to help her.
"I was looking at the NYNE (Need You Now Equine) website one night and Brandon asked about this one cute red horse on the screen," Brandon's mother, MJ Allen, told the Whig. "I told him the horse didn't have any place to go and what will probably happen to it."
"[That's] when he said, 'Mummy, my birthday's coming up. Just give my birthday money to them. I don't want the horse to die,'" Allen told Off Track Thoroughbreds.
"I did it because nobody else was going to buy her," Brandon said of asking that his birthday money be spent on the horse. "And I saw her hair was the same, exact colour as my hair. And I wanted to save her because I love horses."
Brandon Heyman
Cut Out Of Will
Candice Bergen
Candice Bergen has a new memoir to promote, which means it's time to spill some juice. That comes today in the form of the revelation that Bergen's father, renowned ventriloquist and radio performer Edgar Bergen, cut her out of his will.
Candice, 68, makes the revelation on an upcoming episode of CBS Sunday Morning where she says she's not sure why her father decided to cut her out, but that she suspects it had something to do with the wild behavior of her youth.
"I was acting out of adolescence in print at a very early age and I often embarrassed my parents," Candice confesses to Jane Pauley. "But I said something that was very hurtful to my father and I think he just slid the bolt."
Edgar Bergen died of kidney disease in 1978 at 75. The Muppet Movie, which came out one year later and was his final screen appearance, was dedicated to him. Candice was 32 years old at the time of his death. While she got nothing, Edgar's puppet Charlie McCarthy was mentioned in the will. Candice wrote in A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul that she grew up hating being called "Charlie's sister."
"Charlie McCarthy was not a puppet to my father," Bergen explains during her CBS Sunday Morning interview while discussing her father's puppet, which is now on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. "He was an alter ego and he was also a separate entity. And my father, I quoted that part of the will that - I can never get over because he said, 'To Charlie McCarthy, from whom I have never been separated even for a day.'"
Candice Bergen
Ferrell, Wiig Nix Movie
Lifetime
Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig say they are abandoning plans for a Lifetime TV movie after the secret project became public.
Lifetime had confirmed news reports Thursday that the former "Saturday Night Live" stars play a couple who befriend a pregnant woman in hopes of adopting her child. The film's ominous title was "A Deadly Adoption."
The actors quickly issued a statement that they were disappointed word got out. Ferrell and Wiig said they decided it's best to forego the project they labeled "top secret."
Earlier, Lifetime said the movie had already been taped and was being kept under wraps with plans to air it this summer. The network didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Ferrell and Wiig's statement.
Lifetime
Paintings To Auction
Claude Monet
Six paintings by French impressionist painter Claude Monet are among the stars heading for New York City's spring art auctions that could realize between $78 million and $110 million, Sotheby's announced Friday.
The works, which span five decades of the artist's career and represent his most indelible scenes, will appear at the auction house's impressionist and modern art sale on May 5. All have long been in private collections.
The group's crown jewel is a 1905 piece from the artist's "Water Lilies" series that is estimated to bring $30 million to $45 million. It was first owned by the Swiss collectors Emil and Alma Staub-Terlinden before being acquired in 1955 by the current owner.
The current record for a work by Monet is his 1919 "Water Lily Pond," which sold for $80.5 million at Christie's in 2008.
Claude Monet
Road To Giant Telescope Site Blocked
Mauna Kea
Scientists hoping to see 13 billion light years away, giving them a look into the early years of the universe, are facing opposition from Native Hawaiian groups who say the construction site of a new telescope is on sacred land.
Police arrested 12 protesters Thursday when they tried to block the road leading to the summit of Mauana Kea on Hawaii's Big Island. Officers with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources arrested 11 protesters at the construction site on the summit.
Native Hawaiians believe the site where the telescope is being assembled is sacred because it is where their creation story begins, said Kealoha Pisciotta, an opponent of the telescope project.
While the Native Hawaiian groups opposing the project do not oppose the telescope itself, they disagree with the location of the construction on Mauna Kea, the highest point in the state.
Scientists revere the site for another reason. They believe it's an ideal location for one of the world's largest telescopes because of the site's remote and sheltered position, nestled in the crater of a dormant volcano.
Mauna Kea
Another Poll
Loaded Question
Whites in the United States approve of police officers hitting people in far greater numbers than blacks and Hispanics do, at a time when the country is struggling to deal with police use of deadly force against men of color, according to a major American trend survey.
Seven of 10 whites polled, or 70 percent, said they can imagine a situation in which they would approve of a police officer striking an adult male citizen, according to the 2014 General Social Survey, a long-running measurement of trends in American opinions. When asked the same question - Are there any situations you can imagine in which you would approve of a policeman striking an adult male citizen? - 42 percent of blacks and 38 percent of Hispanics said they could.
The poll results don't surprise experts on American attitudes toward police, who say experiences and history with law enforcement shape opinions about the use of violence by officers.
"Whites are significantly more likely to give police officers the benefit of the doubt, either because they have never had an altercation with a police officer or because they tend to see the police as allies in the fight against crime," said Ronald Weitzer, a George Washington University sociology professor who has studied race and policing in the U.S. and internationally.
However, blacks and Hispanics "are more cautious on this issue because of their personal experiences and/or the historical treatment their groups have experienced at the hands of the police, which is only recapitulated in recent disputed killings," he said.
Loaded Question
Brits Spied On Argentina
Falklands
Documents leaked by fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show Britain spied on Argentina to monitor its efforts to win sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, Argentine media said Friday.
Britain, which defeated Argentina in a brief, bloody war over the South Atlantic islands in 1982, carried out "covert interception and intervention operations and other maneuvers" on Argentina from 2008 to 2011, reported news portal TN, citing documents obtained from Snowden.
The website said the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, a British agency, carried out a "long-term, far-reaching" espionage program dubbed Operation Quito that included attempts to spy on military and political leaders' communications and spreading pro-British propaganda online.
Tension over the Falklands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas, have been on the rise again since British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon last week announced plans to spend £180 million ($268 million) over 10 years to counter "continuous intimidation" from Argentina.
The 74-day Falklands War claimed the lives of 649 Argentine soldiers, 255 British soldiers and three islanders.
Falklands
Another Chump Change Fine
Duke Energy
U.S. power company Duke Energy Corp agreed to a $2.5 million settlement proposed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality relating to the 2014 coal ash spill into the Dan River in North Carolina, the DEQ said on Friday.
Duke, the largest in the United States by power generation capacity, will spend $2.25 million in carrying out environmental projects to benefit Virginia localities affected by the spill.
The remaining $250,000 will be placed in a DEQ fund to respond to environmental emergencies.
A pipe break at a retired Duke coal plant in February 2014 triggered the third-worst coal ash spill in U.S. history. The event prompted North Carolina's Senate to ask Duke to close 33 coal ash ponds in the state within 15 years.
The company said it had set aside $100 million in the fourth quarter in anticipation of the settlement.
Duke Energy
Not A Gateway To Hinduism
Yoga
Yoga taught in a San Diego County school system is not a gateway to Hinduism and doesn't violate the religious rights of students or their parents, a California appeals court ruled Friday.
The 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego upheld a lower court ruling that tossed out a family's lawsuit that tried to block Encinitas Union School District from teaching yoga as an alternative to traditional gym classes.
"While the practice of yoga may be religious in some contexts, yoga classes as taught in the district are, as the trial court determined, 'devoid of any religious, mystical, or spiritual trappings,'" the court wrote in a 3-0 opinion.
Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock and their two children had brought the lawsuit claiming yoga promoted Hinduism and inhibited Christianity. They were disappointed with the ruling and considering their options.
Yoga
In Memory
Sarah Kemp Brady
Sarah Kemp Brady, who became an activist for gun control after her husband was shot in the head in the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, died Friday.
Brady, 73, died in a retirement community in Alexandria, Virginia, after battling pneumonia, family members said in an email.
Brady's husband, former White House Press Secretary James Brady, died Aug. 4, also at the age of 73.
The 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. left James Brady partially paralyzed.
Four years later, Sarah Brady became involved in gun control. She chaired Handgun Control Inc., which was renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as a tribute to the Bradys. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was signed into law in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.
"Sarah courageously stepped up after Jim was shot to prevent others from enduring what our family has gone through, and her work has saved countless lives," the family's statement said. "Sarah was a voice of strength, love and encouragement, and she inspired others, showing that one person could make a difference and change the world - which she did."
Sarah Kemp Brady
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