Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Need A Hug, Check Out The Nicest Place On The Internet
"The Nicest Place On the Internet is a place where you can cheer up after a hard day. After all, it's hard not to feel good when random strangers keep giving you a virtual hug." -- Neatorama
The Pepper-Spraying Cop Who Made History (Mother Jones)
As he casually wielded that canister, Lt. John Pike of the UC-Davis police force had no idea how (in)famous he would become. -Samantha Oltman
Paul Krugman: Killing the Euro (New York Times)
Can the euro be saved? Not long ago we were told that the worst possible outcome was a Greek default. Now a much wider disaster seems all too likely.
Matt Miller: Europe Made Easy (Washington Post)
"Why are we having a depression, Daddy?"
Connie Schultz: Homeless Children and Millionaire Coaches (Creators Syndicate)
Question: How do we, as a country, justify paying one man more than $4 million a year to coach a public university's football team, while 18 million children like Austin and Arielle live in poverty? Answer: We can't.
Laurie Burkitt: China to Cancel College Majors That Don't Pay (Wall Street Journal)
China's Ministry of Education announced this week plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates, according to state-run media Xinhua. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which the employment rate for graduates falls below 60% for two consecutive years.
Forrest Wickman: For the First Time, Stephen King Makes NYT's 10 Best Books (Slate)
The New York Times' list of "The 10 Best Books of 2011," announced today, includes four first-time novelists and one fifty-first-time novelist.
Gavin Aronsen: "Henry Rollins: Photojournalism as a Blunt Object" (Mother Jones)
Writing in the voice of a tyrant, he mocks his subjects: "See that our clown is kept clean," he orders a female McDonald's employee in Thailand who sweeps the tiles by a Ronald McDonald statue. "Do you know how fucking stupid you look in that uniform? It's made from American spit."
David Bruce has 42 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $42 you can buy 10,500 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," "Maximum Cool," and "Resist Psychic Death."
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Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
Transportation
8 Unusual Modes of Transportation Around the Globe
Have a great day.
Bosko
Thanks, Bosko!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, cool, and dry.
Experts Re-Classify Painting As Real
Rembrandt
Experts have reclassified a painting of an old man long thought to have been made by one of Rembrandts' students as having come from the hand of the Dutch master himself, after X-ray analysis revealed outlines of a self-portrait of the artist as a young man underneath.
Ernst van de Wetering of the Rembrandt Research Project cited the new X-ray scans of the painting "Bearded Old Man," in addition to stylistic analysis and circumstantial evidence in support of the conclusion.
Van de Wetering dates the small (15 x 20 cm, 6 x 8 inch) but emotive painting to 1630, when Rembrandt van Rijn would have been 24 years old. His reputation as a portraitist was rapidly growing and he was preparing to leave Leiden for Amsterdam, which at that time was enjoying its golden age as a major naval power.
The scans revealed what is thought to be an uncompleted self-portrait by Rembrandt underneath, though the X-rays reveal only bare outlines.
Rembrandt
Internet & American Life Project
Pew Research
For anyone who needed official word, a new study confirms that many of us - and the majority of young adults - go online for no good reason at all.
The report from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that on any given day, 53 percent of 18 to 29 year-olds go online just to have fun or pass time.
The report finds that the amount of time people spend tooling around on the Web doing nothing corresponds with age. Only 12 percent of people over 65 say they went online the previous day for no particular reason. Of those aged 50 to 64, the study found 27 percent answered yes to the same question.
In all, 58 percent of all adults said that they use the Internet to pass time or have fun at least occasionally. Of adults who use the Internet, nearly three-quarters surf the Web for no reason.
Pew Research
400 Trees Blown Down
Griffith Park
Los Angeles city crews on Friday were working to clean up debris and some 400 downed trees in shuttered Griffith Park, many of which had fallen on Roosevelt Municipal Golf Course. They said the park would likely be open by sunrise Saturday.
Officials said two other parks in Northeast L.A. -- Ernest E. Debs and Elysian Park -- also had damage including hundreds of downed trees but were not closed. Other parks across the city were mostly spared, they said.
"If this kind of damage had occurred throughout every park in the city, we'd really be in trouble," said Kevin Regan of the parks department. "But fortunately it's manageable," he said.
In an interesting twist, Regan and other officials said native California trees fared better during the winds than foreign trees such as eucalyptus that are more susceptible to root fungus.
Griffith Park
Second Life As Automaton
Leonardo da Vinci
Don't let the retro look of the mechanical men built by Swiss artisan Francois Junod deceive you -- they fascinate tech fans from Silicon Valley to Asia and will no doubt gain broader popularity after this week's launch of Martin Scorsese's film "Hugo" about a secret hidden in an automaton
The latest of Junod's time-consuming projects is an 80 cm wind-up Leonardo da Vinci figure that will be able to do intricate drawings and write mirror-inverted texts in Latin.
"I have been working on the sculpture for ten years and on the mechanism for six years. I do not have a buyer yet so I can take my time," said Junod, surrounded by a mishmash of tools, machines and sketches in his workshop in the village of Sainte-Croix perched high up in the Swiss Jura mountains.
His most complicated creation so far, an Alexander Pushkin animated by a complex mechanism enabling it to write down 1,458 different poems, was bought last year by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur for a price kept secret.
Leonardo da Vinci
A Lesson In Tabloid Skullduggery
Rupert
Hacking into celebrity phones was just the tip of the iceberg.
Britain's media ethics inquiry, set up in response to illegal eavesdropping by a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, has turned out to be a masterclass in skullduggery that has exposed the murky practices of the U.K.'s muckraking press.
This week, witnesses described how Murdoch's company had wreaked havoc on their lives and those of their families, with reporters targeting critics for spying and negative coverage and sullying the name of an innocent man.
The judge-led inquiry was set up after it emerged that Murdoch's News of the World had for years illegally eavesdropped on the voicemail messages of celebrities, public figures and crime victims. The scandal forced Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old tabloid. A dozen Murdoch employees have been arrested in the case, which also cost the jobs of several of his top executives, two senior police officers and Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief.
The inquiry has put Murdoch's empire on trial, as witnesses described their treatment at the hands of an organization they viewed as unassailably powerful, ruthless and feared.
Rupert
Mocks Fox News
Newtie
At a town hall event in South Carolina on Tuesday, Newt Gingrich, the new GOP frontrunner mocked the network's analysts, suggesting that they don't know anything.
When asked a question about the HIV/AIDS vaccine, Gingrich said that he couldn't answer the question because he didn't know.
And then he added this: "One of the real changes comes when you start running for President -- as opposed to being an analyst on Fox -- is I have to actually know what I'm talking about."
How would Gingrich know this? Because he was an analyst for Fox News. The former Speaker of the House contributed to the network until March, when Fox suspended him because of his upcoming presidential run. It then canceled the contract in May.
Not only did Gingrich once get paid by Fox, but he has also appeared on the network 52 times since he announced his candidacy. Per a New York Times story on Thursday, he has appeared more on Fox than any candidate save Herman Cain.
Newtie
Heirs Sue Half-Brother
Bob Marley
A feud has erupted within the first family of reggae. The widow and nine children of Bob Marley are suing his half-brother in Florida to stop use of the Marley name to promote an annual Miami music festival and other businesses.
The lawsuit contends businessman Richard Booker and several affiliated companies are violating copyright and trademark laws by using Marley's name and other intellectual property.
That includes the annual Nine Mile Music Festival in Miami and a tour business at the Nine Mile area of Jamaica, where Marley grew up and is buried.
The federal lawsuit filed in Fort Lauderdale seeks unspecified damages and to stop unauthorized use of Marley's name.
Bob Marley
Debate Moderator
Donald T-rump
Donald T-rump wants back in the 2012 election circus.
Not as a candidate, but as a debate moderator.
The real estate mogul, reality TV star and hair piece is partnering with conservative magazine Newsmax to moderate a GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa December 27, as reported by the New York Times.
Whether people will watch is another story since the debate will air on Ion TV, a smaller cable network. Yet given the ratings the debates have gotten on every platform from CBS to CNBC, one can only imagine that people will find a way to watch.
Donald T-rump
Closing 'Jaws' Ride
Universal Studios Florida
Universal Studios Florida plans to close one of its oldest and most popular attractions next month to make way for a new attraction.
The theme park announced on Facebook on Friday that on Jan. 2 it will permanently shut down its "Jaws" ride, which is based on the blockbuster 1975 Steven Spielberg movie.
It was one of the original features at the park when it opened in 1990. The surrounding "Amity" area inspired by the island where the movie was set will also close down to make room for a new attraction.
Other original features that have been closed since the park began include the "King Kong" ride and a "Ghostbusters" themed stage show.
Universal Studios Florida
In Memory
Bill Tapia
Ukulele player Bill Tapia, believed to be the oldest performing musician in the world, died on Friday at the age of 103, his official website said.
Honolulu-born Tapia, who played with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby, died in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles, the website www.billtapia.com said.
Tapia died just six months after releasing his latest album -- a live version of his 100th birthday concert celebration -- and one month short of what would have been his 104th birthday in January 2012.
Tapia started his career entertaining troops from World War One and later worked on steamships between the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii. He became a teacher to Hollywood stars including Clark Gable and Shirley Temple when a ukulele craze hit the United States.
After World War Two, Tapia moved to San Francisco and worked for years as a guitar teacher until making a comeback in 2004, age of 96, with the release of a CD featuring jazz and Hawaiian standards.
Tapia was inducted into the Ukulele Hall of Fame in 2004 and continued to tour until 2010.
Bill Tapia
In Memory
Alan Sues
Alan Sues, a flamboyant and wacky member of the comic ensemble that made Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In a big hit for NBC in the late 1960s, died Thursday at his home in West Hollywood of an apparent heart attack. He was 85.
Sues was a regular on the comedy-variety show from 1968 until 1971, playing such characters as Uncle Al the Kiddies' Pal, a hung-over children's entertainer, and Big Al, an effeminate sportscaster. He left Laugh-In before its final season.
Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, Laugh-In offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson and Jo Anne Worley.
Presiding over it all were veteran nightclub comics Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, whose stand-up banter put their own distinct spin on the show.
A native of Ross, Calif., Sues did theater in Pasadena before making his Broadway debut in Elia Kazan's Tea and Sympathy in 1953. He appeared in such TV shows as The Wild, Wild West and The Twilight Zone - in the notable episode "The Masks," where a wealthy eccentric forces his greedy heirs to wear masks at a Mardi Gras party or else be cut off from their inheritance - and in the 1964 film The Americanization of Emily.
George Schlatter, who was producing Laugh-In, spotted Sues in the off- Broadway musical comedy revue The Mad Show with Worley and offered him a job.
After Laugh-In, Sues appeared in such TV series as The Brady Brides, Punky Brewster and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and played Professor Moriarty in a revival of William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes on Broadway in 1975. He also appeared a loopy commercial for Peter Pan peanut butter in the '70s.
Sues is survived by his sister-in-law, Yvonne.
Alan Sues
In Memory
Bill McKinney
Bill McKinney, the actor who played one of crazed mountain men in Deliverance and famously ordered one particularly unfortunate camper to "squeal like a pig," died Thursday at the age of 80.
A prolific artist up until his death, McKinney's career included dozens of film credits (including 7 Clint Eastwood titles) and appearances on television series such as In The Heat of the Night, Baywatch and Walker, Texas Ranger.
But McKinney was always associated with Deliverance. The 1972 film, starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty, followed a group of men on an ill-fated river trip into the Appalachian wilderness where they are hunted down by a group of sadistic locals.
McKninney, credited only as "Mountain Man," appeared in the movie's infamous rape scene. He seemed to relish the role, operating his official website under the domain www.squeallikeapig.com.
His death was confirmed Dec. 1 on his Facebook page.
"Our dear Bill McKinney passed away at Valley Presbyterian Hospice," reads the statement. "An avid smoker for 25 years of his younger life, he died of cancer of the esophagus. He was 80 and still strong enough to have filmed a Dorito's commercial 2 weeks prior to his passing, and he continued to work on his biography with his writing partner. Hopefully 2012 will bring a publisher for the wild ride his life was. He is survived by son Clinton, along with several ex-wives."
Today the angels play "Dueling Banjos".
Bill McKinney
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