Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Estelle Tang: An open letter to all my male friends (Guardian)
I know you are not the guys catcalling women in the streets. I'm not trying to make you feel bad for being a man. But I want to tell you about what it's like to be a woman.
Paul Krugman: Cutting Back on Carbon (NY Times)
Saving the planet would be a lot cheaper than you'd think.
Nyameye Dwomo-Anokye: 6 Smart Movie Characters Who Do Incredibly Dumb Things (Cracked)
Movie characters are smarter than us because they have the important advantage of, you know, not having to exist in a real universe.
Ryan Gilbey: Angelina Jolie springs back to life from a career slumber in Maleficent (Guardian)
The UN Special Envoy and director makes a long-overdue return to stellar acting after a case of potential, interrupted.
The Company [2nd Place] | Vibe XIX 2014 [Front Row] (YouTube)
"This is the dance crew called The Company performing at the Vibe XIX 2014 dance contest in January. The routine may be different from what you're used to, but you gotta hand it to them, the precision and timing these dancers show is impressive! They came in second to this performance by Academy of Villains. However, the internet has embraced the more relatable second-place routine." - Neatorama
Beej Rudd: 23 Photos Of People Posing With Their Daily Food Intake. This Will Be The Most Insightful Thing You'll See Today (Dose)
Photographers Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, who also happen to be married, traveled around the world and met people from all walks of life. During their time with these people, they asked them to pose for photographs with their daily diets in front of them. The craziest part about the entire project is the caloric intake difference between people of different walks of life.
Eddie Deezen: Harpo Marx Naked (Neatorama)
Harpo never spoke in the Marx Brothers films, existing as a happy-go-lucky mute in a world of voices and sound. And while nakedness or the act of taking off one's clothes can often symbolize lasciviousness or sexuality, with Harpo, it would seem more of a childlike thing.
Zoe Harcombe: Diets make us fat. The solution is simple (Guardian)
We need to teach young people the difference between real food, provided by the planet, and fake food, provided by manufacturers. We have to ditch every public health document, diagram and web page and replace it with three words: eat real food. We should return to eating the meat, fish, eggs, milk, butter, vegetables and grains in granny's larder and shun the concoctions adorning the shelves today. We need children to know the nutritional content of food, so that they are aware steak is good but confectionery is bad. They should be eating for health and energy; not to fear the calories that they need to thrive.
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"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
wrote:
has retired.
took the day off.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
YouTube
Just Something To Brighten Your Day :)
A song I made that may make you laugh..
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.
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
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
Sunny, seasonal.
America's Best News Channel
Al Jazeera America
Cable news channels did not have a bad month in May. They had a dreadful month. The kind of ratings book that makes executives grim and staff jumpy. Here's the bad news about the key 25-54 demo:
"CNN had the least-watched 9 p.m. hour in the channel's history and finished fourth, behind Fox News, MSNBC, and even its sister channel HLN ... MSNBC had its lowest performance in prime time since July 2006 ... Fox News had its worst overall month since before the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
Oh, and the median age for Bill O'Reilly's audience? 72 years old.
Yes, May is typically a slow month for cable news. But with any luck this drop (along with the miserable demos) will be the new normal for pundit-laden yapping and tragedy telethons that pass for news programs.
Meanwhile, there is a 24/7 news network of outstanding, experienced journalists providing comprehensive US and world news coverage, excellent analysis of the big stories, and investigative journalism that would have made Murrow proud. There are also (unfortunately for them) far fewer commercial interruptions.
That channel is Al Jazeera America, owned by the Kingdom of Qatar and part of the worldwide Al Jazeera network. In August 2013, the network took over channels that had been airing Al Gore's Current TV.
Al Jazeera America
Canceled After 1 Season
'Arsenio Hall Show'
"The Arsenio Hall Show" has been canceled because of low ratings, ending Hall's late-night comeback bid after a single season.
Hall's bid to recreate the success he enjoyed 20 years ago failed to find a big enough audience in the ever-crowded TV market.
CBS Television Production had previously announced Hall's syndicated show would be back for a second season, but faced the prospect of stations moving it to lesser time slots as ratings fell.
The show is in reruns and won't resume production, a show spokesman said. The last original episode aired May 21.
'Arsenio Hall Show'
Crowdsources $2 Million for 'Reading Rainbow'
Levar Burton
Talk about warp drive. A "Star Trek: The Next Generation" star's quest to reboot his 1980s-era reading show exceeded a $1 million crowdsourcing goal in just 11 hours.
And with more than a month to go in the campaign, backers of "Reading Rainbow" pushed the pool of money on Kickstarter past $2.6 million.
"We just crossed the million-dollar threshold on the first day. I am overwhelmed," a teary LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge on "Star Trek: The Next Generation") said in a video message Wednesday (May 28). "Thank you so much. This will enable us to really, really, really do a lot of good."
Levar Burton
Daughter Granted Visitation
Casey Kasem
A daughter of ailing radio personality Casey Kasem was granted regular visits with him on Friday after raising concerns about his care.
The ruling by a judge in Washington state marked the latest twist in the ongoing dispute between Kasem's wife Jean and her stepdaughter, Kerri Kasem, who has said in court filings that her father suffers from a form of dementia.
Jean Kasem has been in control of his medical care and has controlled access to him, blocking three of his children from seeing him in recent months, according to court filings.
In court on Friday, Kerri Kasem said her father was suffering from bedsores along with lung and bladder infections. Casey Kasem was not in court.
Casey Kasem
Irwindale Drops Bill
Sriracha
Lawmakers in a Southern California city dismissed a bill on Wednesday that would have declared a popular hot sauce manufacturer a public nuisance due to smells that residents near the factory complained were sickening.
Lawmakers in the Los Angeles suburb of Irwindale had considered declaring Huy Fong Foods, maker of the fiery Sriracha sauce, a nuisance after residents near the factory complained that peppery fumes were giving them headaches and irritating their eyes and throats.
But at a city council hearing on Wednesday, three council members and Mayor Mark Breceda voted unanimously to dismiss the resolution.
Huy Fong Foods, in a statement that was read out at the meeting, said it had already upgraded the air filtration system ahead of this year's chili harvest. Declaring the factory a nuisance would have allowed Irwindale, 20 miles (32 km) east of Los Angeles, to act on its own to remedy the fumes, with the company assuming any abatement costs.
Sriracha
Little Tent
Texass
Two Republican gay rights groups said on Thursday they had been denied booths at the party's upcoming Texas convention after being told their sexuality runs counter to the party's views.
The Metroplex Republicans and the national Log Cabin Republicans said at a news conference in Fort Worth that state GOP leadership had denied them permission for the booths at the June 5-7 convention.
"It's time that the Texas GOP's hypocritical policies and procedures are replaced by new ones that match the general opinion of Texan Republican voters," Log Cabin Republicans of Texas Chairman Jeffrey Davis said.
Major urban areas in Texas have thriving homosexual gay and lesbian communities with voters in Houston electing as mayor an openly lesbian candidate and Dallas County voters electing a lesbian as sheriff.
Texass
Norway Tows Ship
Greenpeace
Norway's Coast Guard on Friday evening towed away a Greenpeace ship that tried to block Statoil's rig from drilling the world's most northerly oil well in the Barents Sea, the environment group said.
Oil drillers in Norway are moving further north as mature fields in the south are depleted and as the Arctic ice retreats, opening new areas that were previously unaccessible. U.S. estimates show the Arctic may hold 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its gas.
"The Norwegian Coast Guard tonight boarded the Greenpeace ship Esperanza outside of the country's territorial waters to end a high profile and perfectly legal protest against Arctic oil drilling," Greenpeace said in an emailed statement.
The group said two groups of officers boarded the ship and took controls at around 2250 CET (2050 GMT) after Greenpeace crew refused to leave.
Greenpeace
Police Must Name Officers In Shootings
California
The California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that police departments in the state must as a general rule disclose the names of officers involved in shootings, despite claims by a police union that doing so would endanger their safety.
The court, ruling 6-1 in a case brought by the union representing officers in the Los Angeles suburb of Long Beach, said that Californians' right to assess the actions of law enforcement outweighed the individual officer's right to privacy.
The case involved a December 2010 shooting by two Long Beach policemen who opened fire on an intoxicated man standing in his front yard after he pointed a garden hose spray nozzle at them. The man, 35-year-old Douglas Zerby, was struck multiple times and killed.
When a Los Angeles Times reporter sought the names of the officers involved, as well as those of all Long Beach officers connected to such shootings over the previous six years, the Long Beach Police Officers Association went to court. It sought to bar release of the names on the grounds that doing so could lead to threats against the officers.
California
$120M To CA Schools
Zuckerbergs
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are donating $120 million to public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The gift, which the couple discussed in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, will be spread over the next five years. It is the biggest allocation to date of the $1.1 billion in Facebook stock the couple pledged last year to the nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
The first $5 million of the $120 million will go to the San Francisco, Ravenswood and Redwood City school districts and will focus on principal training, classroom technology and helping students transition from the 8th to the 9th grade. The couple and their foundation, called Startup: Education, determined the issues of most urgent need based on discussions with school administrators and local leaders.
Chan, a pediatrician, has so far shunned the spotlight and this was her first significant step into the public view. The two met while studying at Harvard and married in their Palo Alto backyard on May 19, 2012 - the day after Facebook's stock began publicly trading in a rocky initial public offering that now seems a distant memory. In 2010, they joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett to get the country's richest people to donate most of their wealth.
Zuckerbergs
Teen Girls Made 'Scapegoats'
Labrador
A professor at Memorial University in St. John's says the teenage girls who were sent home from school for wearing clothing considered contrary to the dress code are scapegoats, and that the male students and teachers they apparently were distracting should be the ones under the microscope.
Patricia Dold, head of the department of gender studies, said there's a fine line in dictating what teenagers should and shouldn't wear.
On Thursday, CBC News reported on a group of students at Menihek High School in Labrador City who were sent home for violating the school's dress code. Some of the 28 girls sent home were wearing tank tops that revealed bra straps.
"The school seems to be saying these young women are presenting themselves in a way that's sexual, and also unacceptably sexual and yet ... [the students] said, 'No, it's just a warm day,'" said Dold.
Memorial University professor Patricia Dold "In punishing the female students, or restricting their dress, you are, I guess, kind of making them a scapegoat. If you're distracted, whose fault is that? Instead of addressing the people who are distracted, they're doing something to other people."
Labrador
Dropped In UK English
American Authors
Britain's education minister says he has not killed a mockingbird, but many literature-lovers don't believe him.
Michael Gove has outraged some readers and academics with his campaign to put the basics - and Britishness - back into schools.
Longtime American favourites including John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" are off the syllabus for a major high school English qualification under new guidelines that focus almost exclusively on writers from Britain and Ireland.
Gone are Lee, Steinbeck, Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" and the autobiography of Maya Angelou, who died this week. Gone, too, are African and Asian writers including Haruki Murakami, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche.
The purge of Americans and others is the product - though not, the government says, the goal - of an attempt to make the school curriculum more rigorous. New government rules say GCSE pupils must study "high quality, intellectually challenging, and substantial" works, including a 19th-century novel, a selection of poetry, a play by William Shakespeare and post-1914 fiction or drama "from the British Isles." (Previous rules mentioned "contemporary writers" without reference to nationality). A requirement to study authors from different cultures has been dropped.
American Authors
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